VII
Queen of Night
Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she wouldhave done well with a little preparation. She had the passions andinstincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make notquite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankindto be entirely in her grasp for a while, had she handled the distaff,the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the worldwould have noticed the change of government. There would have beenthe same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here,of contumely there, the same generosity before justice, the sameperpetual dilemmas, the same captious alteration of caresses and blowsthat we endure now.
She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness,as without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hairwas to fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enoughto form its shadow: it closed over her forehead like nightfallextinguishing the western glow.
Her nerves extended into those tresses, and her temper could alwaysbe softened by stroking them down. When her hair was brushed shewould instantly sink into stillness and look like the Sphinx. If, inpassing under one of the Egdon banks, any of its thick skeins werecaught, as they sometimes were, by a prickly tuft of the large _UlexEuropaeus_--which will act as a sort of hairbrush--she would go backa few steps, and pass against it a second time.
She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light, asit came and went, and came again, was partially hampered by theiroppressive lids and lashes; and of these the under lid was much fullerthan it usually is with English women. This enabled her to indulge inreverie without seeming to do so: she might have been believed capableof sleeping without closing them up. Assuming that the souls ofmen and women were visible essences, you could fancy the colour ofEustacia's soul to be flame-like. The sparks from it that rose intoher dark pupils gave the same impression.
The mouth seemed formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiverthan to kiss. Some might have added, less to kiss than to curl.Viewed sideways, the closing-line of her lips formed, with almostgeometric precision, the curve so well known in the arts of design asthe cima-recta, or ogee. The sight of such a flexible bend as thaton grim Egdon was quite an apparition. It was felt at once that themouth did not come over from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirateswhose lips met like the two halves of a muffin. One had fancied thatsuch lip-curves were mostly lurking underground in the South asfragments of forgotten marbles. So fine were the lines of her lipsthat, though full, each corner of her mouth was as clearly cut as thepoint of a spear. This keenness of corner was only blunted when shewas given over to sudden fits of gloom, one of the phases of thenight-side of sentiment which she knew too well for her years.
Her presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon roses, rubies,and tropical midnights; her moods recalled lotus-eaters and the marchin "Athalie"; her motions, the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, theviola. In a dim light, and with a slight rearrangement of her hair,her general figure might have stood for that of either of the higherfemale deities. The new moon behind her head, an old helmet uponit, a diadem of accidental dewdrops round her brow, would have beenadjuncts sufficient to strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or Herarespectively, with as close an approximation to the antique as thatwhich passes muster on many respected canvases.
But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to besomewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, andthe consciousness of this limitation had biassed her development.Egdon was her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much ofwhat was dark in its tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciledthereto. Her appearance accorded well with this smoulderingrebelliousness, and the shady splendour of her beauty was the realsurface of the sad and stifled warmth within her. A true Tartareandignity sat upon her brow, and not factitiously or with marks ofconstraint, for it had grown in her with years.
Across the upper part of her head she wore a thin fillet of blackvelvet, restraining the luxuriance of her shady hair, in a way whichadded much to this class of majesty by irregularly clouding herforehead. "Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than a narrowband drawn over the brow," says Richter. Some of the neighbouringgirls wore coloured ribbon for the same purpose, and sported metallicornaments elsewhere; but if anyone suggested coloured ribbon andmetallic ornaments to Eustacia Vye she laughed and went on.
Why did a woman of this sort live on Egdon Heath? Budmouth was hernative place, a fashionable seaside resort at that date. She was thedaughter of the bandmaster of a regiment which had been quarteredthere--a Corfiote by birth, and a fine musician--who met his futurewife during her trip thither with her father the captain, a man ofgood family. The marriage was scarcely in accord with the old man'swishes, for the bandmaster's pockets were as light as his occupation.But the musician did his best; adopted his wife's name, made Englandpermanently his home, took great trouble with his child's education,the expenses of which were defrayed by the grandfather, and throve asthe chief local musician till her mother's death, when he left offthriving, drank, and died also. The girl was left to the care ofher grandfather, who, since three of his ribs became broken in ashipwreck, had lived in this airy perch on Egdon, a spot which hadtaken his fancy because the house was to be had for next to nothing,and because a remote blue tinge on the horizon between the hills,visible from the cottage door, was traditionally believed to be theEnglish Channel. She hated the change; she felt like one banished;but here she was forced to abide.
Thus it happened that in Eustacia's brain were juxtaposed thestrangest assortment of ideas, from old time and from new. There wasno middle distance in her perspective: romantic recollections ofsunny afternoons on an esplanade, with military bands, officers, andgallants around, stood like gilded letters upon the dark tablet ofsurrounding Egdon. Every bizarre effect that could result from therandom intertwining of watering-place glitter with the grand solemnityof a heath, was to be found in her. Seeing nothing of human life now,she imagined all the more of what she had seen.
Where did her dignity come from? By a latent vein from Alcinous'line, her father hailing from Phaeacia's isle?--or from Fitzalan andDe Vere, her maternal grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage?Perhaps it was the gift of Heaven--a happy convergence of naturallaws. Among other things opportunity had of late years been deniedher of learning to be undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation ona heath renders vulgarity well-nigh impossible. It would have been aseasy for the heath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her.A narrow life in Budmouth might have completely demeaned her.
The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen itover is to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to atriumph. In the captain's cottage she could suggest mansions she hadnever seen. Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansionthan any of them, the open hills. Like the summer condition of theplace around her, she was an embodiment of the phrase "a populoussolitude"--apparently so listless, void, and quiet, she was reallybusy and full.
To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her theone cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love morethan for any particular lover.
She could show a most reproachful look at times, but it was directedless against human beings than against certain creatures of her mind,the chief of these being Destiny, through whose interference shedimly fancied it arose that love alighted only on gliding youth--thatany love she might win would sink simultaneously with the sand inthe glass. She thought of it with an ever-growing consciousness ofcruelty, which tended to breed actions of reckless unconventionality,framed to snatch a year's, a week's, even an hour's passion fromanywhere while it could be won. Through want of it she had sungwithout being merry, possessed without enjoying, outshone withouttriumphing. Her loneliness deepened her desire. On Egdon, coldestand meanest kisses were at famine prices; and where was a mout
hmatching hers to be found?
Fidelity in love for fidelity's sake had less attraction for her thanfor most women: fidelity because of love's grip had much. A blaze oflove, and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the samewhich should last long years. On this head she knew by prevision whatmost women learn only by experience: she had mentally walked roundlove, told the towers thereof, considered its palaces, and concludedthat love was but a doleful joy. Yet she desired it, as one in adesert would be thankful for brackish water.
She often repeated her prayers; not at particular times, but, like theunaffectedly devout, when she desired to pray. Her prayer was alwaysspontaneous, and often ran thus, "O deliver my heart from this fearfulgloom and loneliness; send me great love from somewhere, else I shalldie."
Her high gods were William the Conqueror, Strafford, and NapoleonBuonaparte, as they had appeared in the Lady's History used at theestablishment in which she was educated. Had she been a mother shewould have christened her boys such names as Saul or Sisera inpreference to Jacob or David, neither of whom she admired. At schoolshe had used to side with the Philistines in several battles, and hadwondered if Pontius Pilate were as handsome as he was frank and fair.
Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed, weighed inrelation to her situation among the very rearward of thinkers, veryoriginal. Her instincts towards social non-comformity were at theroot of this. In the matter of holidays, her mood was that of horseswho, when turned out to grass, enjoy looking upon their kind at workon the highway. She only valued rest to herself when it came in themidst of other people's labour. Hence she hated Sundays when all wasat rest, and often said they would be the death of her. To see theheathmen in their Sunday condition, that is, with their hands in theirpockets, their boots newly oiled, and not laced up (a particularlySunday sign), walking leisurely among the turves and furze-faggotsthey had cut during the week, and kicking them critically as iftheir use were unknown, was a fearful heaviness to her. To relievethe tedium of this untimely day she would overhaul the cupboardscontaining her grandfather's old charts and other rubbish, hummingSaturday-night ballads of the country people the while. But onSaturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm, and it was alwayson a week-day that she read the Bible, that she might be unoppressedwith a sense of doing her duty.
Such views of life were to some extent the natural begettings of hersituation upon her nature. To dwell on a heath without studying itsmeanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue.The subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she onlycaught its vapours. An environment which would have made a contentedwoman a poet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist,even a giddy woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.
Eustacia had got beyond the vision of some marriage of inexpressibleglory; yet, though her emotions were in full vigour, she cared forno meaner union. Thus we see her in a strange state of isolation. Tohave lost the godlike conceit that we may do what we will, and not tohave acquired a homely zest for doing what we can, shows a grandeurof temper which cannot be objected to in the abstract, for itdenotes a mind that, though disappointed, forswears compromise.But, if congenial to philosophy, it is apt to be dangerous tothe commonwealth. In a world where doing means marrying, and thecommonwealth is one of hearts and hands, the same peril attends thecondition.
And so we see our Eustacia--for at times she was not altogetherunlovable--arriving at that stage of enlightenment which feelsthat nothing is worth while, and filling up the spare hours of herexistence by idealizing Wildeve for want of a better object. This wasthe sole reason of his ascendency: she knew it herself. At momentsher pride rebelled against her passion for him, and she even hadlonged to be free. But there was only one circumstance which coulddislodge him, and that was the advent of a greater man.
For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits, and tookslow walks to recover them, in which she carried her grandfather'stelescope and her grandmother's hourglass--the latter because of apeculiar pleasure she derived from watching a material representationof time's gradual glide away. She seldom schemed, but when she didscheme, her plans showed rather the comprehensive strategy of ageneral than the small arts called womanish, though she could utteroracles of Delphian ambiguity when she did not choose to be direct.In heaven she will probably sit between the Heloises and theCleopatras.