The Return of the Native

  IX

  Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together

  Having seen Eustacia's signal from the hill at eight o'clock, Wildeveimmediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,accompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informingThomasin that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient torouse her suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the fewarticles he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest,whence he took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes, which had beenadvanced to him on the property he was so soon to have in possession,to defray expenses incidental to the removal.

  He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that thehorse, gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive.Nearly half an hour was spent thus, and on returning to the houseWildeve had no thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He hadtold the stable-lad not to stay up, leading the boy to understand thathis departure would be at three or four in the morning; for this,though an exceptional hour, was less strange than midnight, the timeactually agreed on, the packet from Budmouth sailing between one andtwo.

  At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. By noeffort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he hadexperienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hopedthere was that in his situation which money could cure. He hadpersuaded himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentlewife by settling on her the half of his property, and with chivalrousdevotion towards another and greater woman by sharing her fate, waspossible. And though he meant to adhere to Eustacia's instructions tothe letter, to deposit her where she wished and to leave her, shouldthat be her will, the spell that she had cast over him intensified,and his heart was beating fast in the anticipated futility of suchcommands in the face of a mutual wish that they should throw in theirlot together.

  He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures,maxims, and hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he again wentsoftly to the stable, harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence,taking the horse by the head, he led him with the covered car out ofthe yard to a spot by the roadside some quarter of a mile below theinn.

  Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by ahigh bank that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface ofthe road where lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stonesscudded and clicked together before the wind, which, leaving themin heaps, plunged into the heath and boomed across the bushes intodarkness. Only one sound rose above this din of weather, and that wasthe roaring of a ten-hatch weir to the southward, from a river in themeads which formed the boundary of the heath in this direction.

  He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that themidnight hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen in hismind if Eustacia would venture down the hill in such weather; yetknowing her nature he felt that she might. "Poor thing! 'tis like herill-luck," he murmured.

  At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To hissurprise it was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that hehad driven up the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adoptedbecause of the enormous length of the route in proportion to thatof the pedestrian's path down the open hillside, and the consequentincrease of labour for the horse.

  At this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps beingin a different direction the comer was not visible. The step paused,then came on again.

  "Eustacia?" said Wildeve.

  The person came forward, and the light fell upon the form of Clym,glistening with wet, whom Wildeve immediately recognized; but Wildeve,who stood behind the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.

  He stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could haveanything to do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight ofYeobright at once banished Wildeve's sober feelings, who saw him againas the deadly rival from whom Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards.Hence Wildeve did not speak, in the hope that Clym would pass bywithout particular inquiry.

  While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audibleabove the storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable--it was thefall of a body into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently ata point near the weir.

  Both started. "Good God! can it be she?" said Clym.

  "Why should it be she?" said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that hehad hitherto screened himself.

  "Ah!--that's you, you traitor, is it?" cried Yeobright. "Why shouldit be she? Because last week she would have put an end to her life ifshe had been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of thelamps and come with me."

  Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on; Wildeve didnot wait to unfasten the other, but followed at once along themeadow-track to the weir, a little in the rear of Clym.

  Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet indiameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raisedand lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides ofthe pool were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away thebank; but the force of the stream in winter was sometimes such asto undermine the retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole.Clym reached the hatches, the framework of which was shaken to itsfoundations by the velocity of the current. Nothing but the froth ofthe waves could be discerned in the pool below. He got upon the plankbridge over the race, and holding to the rail, that the wind might notblow him off, crossed to the other side of the river. There he leantover the wall and lowered the lamp, only to behold the vortex formedat the curl of the returning current.

  Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light fromYeobright's lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across theweir pool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of thecurrents from the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckeredmirror a dark body was slowly borne by one of the backward currents.

  "O, my darling!" exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and, withoutshowing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat,he leaped into the boiling caldron.

  Yeobright could now also discern the floating body, though butindistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve's plunge that there was lifeto be saved he was about to leap after. Bethinking himself of a wiserplan he placed the lamp against a post to make it stand upright, andrunning round to the lower part of the pool, where there was no wall,he sprang in and boldly waded upwards towards the deeper portion.Here he was taken off his legs, and in swimming was carried round intothe centre of the basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling.

  While these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin hadbeen toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the directionof the light. They had not been near enough to the river to hear theplunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage-lamp, and watched itsmotion into the mead. As soon as they reached the car and horse Vennguessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in thecourse of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, andcame to the weir alone.

  The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the water,and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Beingencumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.

  "Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve," he said hastily. "Run homewith her, call the stable-lad, and make him send down to me any menwho may be living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir."

  Thomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car thehorse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, asif conscious of misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was.She nearly fainted, and would have been unable to proceed another stepbut that the necessity of preserving the little girl from harm nervedher to an amazing self-control. In this agony of suspense she enteredthe house, put the baby in a place of safety, woke the lad and thefemale domestic, and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage.

  Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that thesmall upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. H
e found one of theselying upon the grass, and taking it under one arm, and with hislantern in his hand, entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym haddone. As soon as he began to be in deep water he flung himself acrossthe hatch; thus supported he was able to keep afloat as long as hechose, holding the lantern aloft with his disengaged hand. Propelledby his feet he steered round and round the pool, ascending eachtime by one of the back streams and descending in the middle of thecurrent.

  At first he could see nothing. Then amidst the glistening of thewhirlpools and the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman'sbonnet floating alone. His search was now under the left wall, whensomething came to the surface almost close beside him. It was not, ashe had expected, a woman, but a man. The reddleman put the ring ofthe lantern between his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar,and, holding on to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out intothe strongest race, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, andhimself were carried down the stream. As soon as Venn found his feetdragging over the pebbles of the shallower part below he secured hisfooting and waded towards the brink. There, where the water stood atabout the height of his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attemptedto drag forth the man. This was a matter of great difficulty, and hefound as the reason that the legs of the unfortunate stranger weretightly embraced by the arms of another man, who had hitherto beenentirely beneath the surface.

  At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towardshim, and two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above.They ran to where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out theapparently drowned persons, separating them, and laying them out uponthe grass. Venn turned the light upon their faces. The one who hadbeen uppermost was Yeobright; he who had been completely submerged wasWildeve.

  "Now we must search the hole again," said Venn. "A woman is in theresomewhere. Get a pole."

  One of the men went to the foot-bridge and tore off the handrail. Thereddleman and the two others then entered the water together frombelow as before, and with their united force probed the pool forwardsto where it sloped down to its central depth. Venn was not mistakenin supposing that any person who had sunk for the last time wouldbe washed down to this point, for when they had examined to abouthalf-way across something impeded their thrust.

  "Pull it forward," said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole tillit was close to their feet.

  Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wetdrapery enclosing a woman's cold form, which was all that remained ofthe desperate Eustacia.

  When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief,bending over the two unconscious ones who already lay there. Thehorse and cart were brought to the nearest point in the road, and itwas the work of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle.Venn led on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm, and the twomen followed, till they reached the inn.

  The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastilydressed herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left tosnore on in peace at the back of the house. The insensible forms ofEustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on thecarpet, with their feet to the fire, when such restorative processesas could be thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being inthe meantime sent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a whiffof life left in either of the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor ofgrief had been thrust off awhile by frantic action, applied a bottleof hartshorn to Clym's nostrils, having tried it in vain upon theothertwo. He sighed.

  "Clym's alive!" she exclaimed.

  He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt torevive her husband by the same means; but Wildeve gave no sign. Therewas too much reason to think that he and Eustacia both were for everbeyond the reach of stimulating perfumes. Their exertions did notrelax till the doctor arrived, when one by one, the senseless threewere taken upstairs and put into warm beds.

  Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and wentto the door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophethat had befallen the family in which he took so great an interest.Thomasin surely would be broken down by the sudden and overwhelmingnature of this event. No firm and sensible Mrs. Yeobright lived nowto support the gentle girl through the ordeal; and, whatever anunimpassioned spectator might think of her loss of such a husbandas Wildeve, there could be no doubt that for the moment she wasdistracted and horrified by the blow. As for himself, not beingprivileged to go to her and comfort her, he saw no reason for waitinglonger in a house where he remained only as a stranger.

  He returned across the heath to his van. The fire was not yet out,and everything remained as he had left it. Venn now bethought himselfof his clothes, which were saturated with water to the weight of lead.He changed them, spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep.But it was more than he could do to rest here while excited by a vividimagination of the turmoil they were in at the house he had quitted,and, blaming himself for coming away, he dressed in another suit,locked up the door, and again hastened across to the inn. Rain wasstill falling heavily when he entered the kitchen. A bright fire wasshining from the hearth, and two women were bustling about, one ofwhom was Olly Dowden.

  "Well, how is it going on now?" said Venn in a whisper.

  "Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright and Mr. Wildeve are deadand cold. The doctor says they were quite gone before they were outof the water."

  "Ah! I thought as much when I hauled 'em up. And Mrs. Wildeve?"

  "She is as well as can be expected. The doctor had her put betweenblankets, for she was almost as wet as they that had been in theriver, poor young thing. You don't seem very dry, reddleman."

  "Oh, 'tis not much. I have changed my things. This is only a littledampness I've got coming through the rain again."

  "Stand by the fire. Mis'ess says you be to have whatever you want,and she was sorry when she was told that you'd gone away."

  Venn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames in anabsent mood. The steam came from his leggings and ascended thechimney with the smoke, while he thought of those who were upstairs.Two were corpses, one had barely escaped the jaws of death, anotherwas sick and a widow. The last occasion on which he had lingered bythat fireplace was when the raffle was in progress; when Wildevewas alive and well; Thomasin active and smiling in the next room;Yeobright and Eustacia just made husband and wife, and Mrs. Yeobrightliving at Blooms-End. It had seemed at that time that the thenposition of affairs was good for at least twenty years to come. Yet,of all the circle, he himself was the only one whose situation had notmaterially changed.

  While he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. It was the nurse,who brought in her hand a rolled mass of wet paper. The woman wasso engrossed with her occupation that she hardly saw Venn. She tookfrom a cupboard some pieces of twine, which she strained across thefireplace, tying the end of each piece to the firedog, previouslypulled forward for the purpose, and, unrolling the wet papers, shebegan pinning them one by one to the strings in a manner of clotheson a line.

  "What be they?" said Venn.

  "Poor master's bank-notes," she answered. "They were found in hispocket when they undressed him."

  "Then he was not coming back again for some time?" said Venn.

  "That we shall never know," said she.

  Venn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested him layunder this roof. As nobody in the house had any more sleep thatnight, except the two who slept for ever, there was no reason whyhe should not remain. So he retired into the niche of the fireplacewhere he had used to sit, and there he continued, watching the steamfrom the double row of bank-notes as they waved backwards and forwardsin the draught of the chimney till their flaccidity was changed todry crispness throughout. Then the woman came and unpinned them, and,folding them together, carried the handful upstairs. Presently thedoctor appeared from above with the look of a man who could do nomore, and, pulling on his gloves, went out of the house, the trottingof his horse soon dy
ing away upon the road.

  At four o'clock there was a gentle knock at the door. It was fromCharley, who had been sent by Captain Vye to inquire if anything hadbeen heard of Eustacia. The girl who admitted him looked in his faceas if she did not know what answer to return, and showed him in towhere Venn was seated, saying to the reddleman, "Will you tell him,please?"

  Venn told. Charley's only utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound.He stood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, "I shall seeher once more?"

  "I dare say you may see her," said Diggory gravely. "But hadn't youbetter run and tell Captain Vye?"

  "Yes, yes. Only I do hope I shall see her just once again."

  "You shall," said a low voice behind; and starting round they beheldby the dim light a thin, pallid, almost spectral form, wrapped in ablanket, and looking like Lazarus coming from the tomb.

  It was Yeobright. Neither Venn nor Charley spoke, and Clym continued,"You shall see her. There will be time enough to tell the captainwhen it gets daylight. You would like to see her too--would you not,Diggory? She looks very beautiful now."

  Venn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley he followed Clymto the foot of the staircase, where he took off his boots; Charleydid the same. They followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, wherethere was a candle burning, which Yeobright took in his hand, and withit led the way into an adjoining room. Here he went to the bedsideand folded back the sheet.

  They stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay there stillin death, eclipsed all her living phases. Pallor did not include allthe quality of her complexion, which seemed more than whiteness;it was almost light. The expression of her finely carved mouth waspleasant, as if a sense of dignity had just compelled her to leaveoff speaking. Eternal rigidity had seized upon it in a momentarytransition between fervour and resignation. Her black hair was loosernow than either of them had ever seen it before, and surrounded herbrow like a forest. The stateliness of look which had been almosttoo marked for a dweller in a country domicile had at last found anartistically happy background.

  Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. "Nowcome here," he said.

  They went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed,lay another figure--Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face thanin Eustacia's, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, andthe least sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him nowthat he was born for a higher destiny than this. The only sign uponhim of his recent struggle for life was in his finger-tips, which wereworn and sacrificed in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on theface of the weir-wall.

  Yeobright's manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllablessince his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was onlywhen they had left the room and stood upon the landing that the truestate of his mind was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile,inclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay, "She isthe second woman I have killed this year. I was a great cause of mymother's death, and I am the chief cause of hers."

  "How?" said Venn.

  "I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not inviteher back till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drownedmyself. It would have been a charity to the living had the riveroverwhelmed me and borne her up. But I cannot die. Those who oughtto have lived lie dead; and here am I alive!"

  "But you can't charge yourself with crimes in that way," said Venn."You may as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by thechild, for without the parents the child would never have been begot."

  "Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don't know all thecircumstances. If it had pleased God to put an end to me it wouldhave been a good thing for all. But I am getting used to the horrorof my existence. They say that a time comes when men laugh at miserythrough long acquaintance with it. Surely that time will soon cometo me!"

  "Your aim has always been good," said Venn. "Why should you say suchdesperate things?"

  "No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my greatregret is that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!"