IV
The Halt on the Turnpike Road
Down, downward they went, and yet further down--their descent at eachstep seeming to outmeasure their advance. Their skirts were scratchednoisily by the furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which,though dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winterweather having as yet arrived to beat them down. Their Tartareansituation might by some have been called an imprudent one for twounattended women. But these shaggy recesses were at all seasons afamiliar surrounding to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the addition ofdarkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.
"And so Tamsin has married him at last," said Olly, when the inclinehad become so much less steep that their footsteps no longer requiredundivided attention.
Mrs. Yeobright answered slowly, "Yes: at last."
"How you will miss her--living with 'ee as a daughter, as she alwayshave."
"I do miss her."
Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely,was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive.Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask withimpunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright's acquiescence in therevival of an evidently sore subject.
"I was quite strook to hear you'd agreed to it, ma'am, that I was,"continued the besom-maker.
"You were not more struck by it than I should have been last year thistime, Olly. There are a good many sides to that wedding. I could nottell you all of them, even if I tried."
"I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with yourfamily. Keeping an inn--what is it? But 'a's clever, that's true, andthey say he was an engineering gentleman once, but has come down bybeing too outwardly given."
"I saw that, upon the whole, it would be better she should marry whereshe wished."
"Poor little thing, her feelings got the better of her, no doubt.'Tis nature. Well, they may call him what they will--he've severalacres of heth-ground broke up here, besides the public house, and theheth-croppers, and his manners be quite like a gentleman's. And what'sdone cannot be undone."
"It cannot," said Mrs. Yeobright. "See, here's the waggon-track atlast. Now we shall get along better."
The wedding subject was no further dwelt upon; and soon a faintdiverging path was reached, where they parted company, Olly firstbegging her companion to remind Mr. Wildeve that he had not senther sick husband the bottle of wine promised on the occasion of hismarriage. The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house,behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright followed the straighttrack, which further on joined the highway by the Quiet Woman Inn,whither she supposed her niece to have returned with Wildeve fromtheir wedding at Anglebury that day.
She first reached Wildeve's Patch, as it was called, a plot of landredeemed from the heath, and after long and laborious years broughtinto cultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilleddied of the labour; the man who succeeded him in possession ruinedhimself in fertilizing it. Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, andreceived the honours due to those who had gone before.
When Mrs. Yeobright had drawn near to the inn, and was about to enter,she saw a horse and vehicle some two hundred yards beyond it, comingtowards her, a man walking alongside with a lantern in his hand. Itwas soon evident that this was the reddleman who had inquired for her.Instead of entering the inn at once, she walked by it and towards thevan.
The conveyance came close, and the man was about to pass her withlittle notice, when she turned to him and said, "I think you have beeninquiring for me? I am Mrs. Yeobright of Blooms-End."
The reddleman started, and held up his finger. He stopped the horses,and beckoned to her to withdraw with him a few yards aside, which shedid, wondering.
"You don't know me, ma'am, I suppose?" he said.
"I do not," said she. "Why, yes, I do! You are young Venn--yourfather was a dairyman somewhere here?"
"Yes; and I knew your niece, Miss Tamsin, a little. I have somethingbad to tell you."
"About her--no! She has just come home, I believe, with her husband.They arranged to return this afternoon--to the inn beyond here."
"She's not there."
"How do you know?"
"Because she's here. She's in my van," he added slowly.
"What new trouble has come?" murmured Mrs. Yeobright, putting her handover her eyes.
"I can't explain much, ma'am. All I know is that, as I was goingalong the road this morning, about a mile out of Anglebury, I heardsomething trotting after me like a doe, and looking round there shewas, white as death itself. 'Oh, Diggory Venn!' she said, 'I thought'twas you: will you help me? I am in trouble.'"
"How did she know your Christian name?" said Mrs. Yeobrightdoubtingly.
"I had met her as a lad before I went away in this trade. She askedthen if she might ride, and then down she fell in a faint. I pickedher up and put her in, and there she has been ever since. She hascried a good deal, but she has hardly spoke; all she has told me beingthat she was to have been married this morning. I tried to get her toeat something, but she couldn't; and at last she fell asleep."
"Let me see her at once," said Mrs. Yeobright, hastening towards thevan.
The reddleman followed with the lantern, and, stepping up first,assisted Mrs. Yeobright to mount beside him. On the door beingopened she perceived at the end of the van an extemporized couch,around which was hung apparently all the drapery that the reddlemanpossessed, to keep the occupant of the little couch from contact withthe red materials of his trade. A young girl lay thereon, coveredwith a cloak. She was asleep, and the light of the lantern fell uponher features.
A fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed, reposing in anest of wavy chestnut hair. It was between pretty and beautiful.Though her eyes were closed, one could easily imagine the lightnecessarily shining in them as the culmination of the luminousworkmanship around. The groundwork of the face was hopefulness; butover it now lay like a foreign substance a film of anxiety and grief.The grief had been there so shortly as to have abstracted nothingof the bloom, and had as yet but given a dignity to what it mighteventually undermine. The scarlet of her lips had not had time toabate, and just now it appeared still more intense by the absence ofthe neighbouring and more transient colour of her cheek. The lipsfrequently parted, with a murmur of words. She seemed to belongrightly to a madrigal--to require viewing through rhyme and harmony.
One thing at least was obvious: she was not made to be looked at thus.The reddleman had appeared conscious of as much, and, while Mrs.Yeobright looked in upon her, he cast his eyes aside with a delicacywhich well became him. The sleeper apparently thought so too, for thenext moment she opened her own.
The lips then parted with something of anticipation, something moreof doubt; and her several thoughts and fractions of thoughts, assignalled by the changes on her face, were exhibited by the light tothe utmost nicety. An ingenuous, transparent life was disclosed, asif the flow of her existence could be seen passing within her. Sheunderstood the scene in a moment.
"O yes, it is I, aunt," she cried. "I know how frightened you are,and how you cannot believe it; but all the same, it is I who have comehome like this!"
"Tamsin, Tamsin!" said Mrs. Yeobright, stooping over the young womanand kissing her. "O my dear girl!"
Thomasin was now on the verge of a sob, but by an unexpectedself-command she uttered no sound. With a gentle panting breath shesat upright.
"I did not expect to see you in this state, any more than you me," shewent on quickly. "Where am I, aunt?"
"Nearly home, my dear. In Egdon Bottom. What dreadful thing is it?"
"I'll tell you in a moment. So near, are we? Then I will get out andwalk. I want to go home by the path."
"But this kind man who has done so much will, I am sure, take youright on to my house?" said the aunt, turning to the reddleman, whohad withdrawn from the front of the van on the awakening of the girl,and stood in the road.
"Why should you think it n
ecessary to ask me? I will, of course,"said he.
"He is indeed kind," murmured Thomasin. "I was once acquainted withhim, aunt, and when I saw him today I thought I should prefer his vanto any conveyance of a stranger. But I'll walk now. Reddleman, stopthe horses, please."
The man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped them.
Aunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright saying toits owner, "I quite recognize you now. What made you change from thenice business your father left you?"
"Well, I did," he said, and looked at Thomasin, who blushed a little."Then you'll not be wanting me any more to-night, ma'am?"
Mrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills, at theperishing bonfires, and at the lighted window of the inn they hadneared. "I think not," she said, "since Thomasin wishes to walk. Wecan soon run up the path and reach home: we know it well."
And after a few further words they parted, the reddleman movingonwards with his van, and the two women remaining standing in theroad. As soon as the vehicle and its driver had withdrawn so far asto be beyond all possible reach of her voice, Mrs. Yeobright turnedto her niece.
"Now, Thomasin," she said sternly, "what's the meaning of thisdisgraceful performance?"