by Thomas Hardy
CHAPTER 4
The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One
Eustacia’s journey was at first as vague in direction as that of thistledown on the wind. She did not know what to do. She wished it had been night instead of morning, that she might at least have borne her misery without the possibility of being seen. Tracing mile after mile along between the dying ferns and the wet white spiders’ webs, she at length turned her steps towards her grandfather’s house. She found the front door closed and locked. Mechanically she went round to the end where the stable was, and on looking in at the stable door she saw Charley standing within.
“Captain Vye is not at home?” she said.
“No, ma’am,” said the lad in a flutter of feeling; “he’s gone to Weatherbury, and won’t be home till night. And the servant is gone home for a holiday. So the house is locked up.”
Eustacia’s face was not visible to Charley as she stood at the doorway, her back being to the sky, and the stable but indifferently lighted; but the wildness of her manner arrested his attention. She turned and walked away across the enclosure to the gate, and was hidden by the bank.
When she had disappeared Charley, with misgiving in his eyes, slowly came from the stable door, and going to another point in the bank he looked over. Eustacia was leaning against it on the outside, her face covered with her hands, and her head pressing the dewy heather which bearded the bank’s outer side. She appeared to be utterly indifferent to the circumstance that her bonnet, hair, and garments were becoming wet and disarranged by the moisture of her cold, harsh pillow. Clearly something was wrong.
Charley had always regarded Eustacia as Eustacia had regarded Clym when she first beheld him — as a romantic and sweet vision, scarcely incarnate. He had been so shut off from her by the dignity of her look and the pride of her speech, except at that one blissful interval when he was allowed to hold her hand, that he had hardly deemed her a woman, wingless and earthly, subject to household conditions and domestic jars. The inner details of her life he had only conjectured. She had been a lovely wonder, predestined to an orbit in which the whole of his own was but a point; and this sight of her leaning like a helpless, despairing creature against a wild wet bank filled him with an amazed horror. He could no longer remain where he was. Leaping over, he came up, touched her with his finger, and said tenderly, “You are poorly, ma’am. What can I do?”
Eustacia started up, and said, “Ah, Charley — you have followed me. You did not think when I left home in the summer that I should come back like this!”
“I did not, dear ma’am. Can I help you now?”
“I am afraid not. I wish I could get into the house. I feel giddy — that’s all.”
“Lean on my arm, ma’am, till we get to the porch, and I will try to open the door.”
He supported her to the porch, and there depositing her on a seat hastened to the back, climbed to a window by the help of a ladder, and descending inside opened the door. Next he assisted her into the room, where there was an old-fashioned horsehair settee as large as a donkey wagon. She lay down here, and Charley covered her with a cloak he found in the hall.
“Shall I get you something to eat and drink?” he said.
“If you please, Charley. But I suppose there is no fire?”
“I can light it, ma’am.”
He vanished, and she heard a splitting of wood and a blowing of bellows; and presently he returned, saying, “I have lighted a fire in the kitchen, and now I’ll light one here.”
He lit the fire, Eustacia dreamily observing him from her couch. When it was blazing up he said, “Shall I wheel you round in front of it, ma’am, as the morning is chilly?”
“Yes, if you like.”
“Shall I go and bring the victuals now?”
“Yes, do,” she murmured languidly.
When he had gone, and the dull sounds occasionally reached her ears of his movements in the kitchen, she forgot where she was, and had for a moment to consider by an effort what the sounds meant. After an interval which seemed short to her whose thoughts were elsewhere, he came in with a tray on which steamed tea and toast, though it was nearly lunch-time.
“Place it on the table,” she said. “I shall be ready soon.”
He did so, and retired to the door; when, however, he perceived that she did not move he came back a few steps.
“Let me hold it to you, if you don’t wish to get up,” said Charley. He brought the tray to the front of the couch, where he knelt down, adding, “I will hold it for you.”
Eustacia sat up and poured out a cup of tea. “You are very kind to me, Charley,” she murmured as she sipped.
“Well, I ought to be,” said he diffidently, taking great trouble not to rest his eyes upon her, though this was their only natural position, Eustacia being immediately before him. “You have been kind to me.”
“How have I?” said Eustacia.
“You let me hold your hand when you were a maiden at home.”
“Ah, so I did. Why did I do that? My mind is lost — it had to do with the mumming, had it not?”
“Yes, you wanted to go in my place.”
“I remember. I do indeed remember — too well!”
She again became utterly downcast; and Charley, seeing that she was not going to eat or drink any more, took away the tray.
Afterwards he occasionally came in to see if the fire was burning, to ask her if she wanted anything, to tell her that the wind had shifted from south to west, to ask her if she would like him to gather her some blackberries; to all which inquiries she replied in the negative or with indifference.
She remained on the settee some time longer, when she aroused herself and went upstairs. The room in which she had formerly slept still remained much as she had left it, and the recollection that this forced upon her of her own greatly changed and infinitely worsened situation again set on her face the undetermined and formless misery which it had worn on her first arrival. She peeped into her grandfather’s room, through which the fresh autumn air was blowing from the open window. Her eye was arrested by what was a familiar sight enough, though it broke upon her now with a new significance.
It was a brace of pistols, hanging near the head of her grandfather’s bed, which he always kept there loaded, as a precaution against possible burglars, the house being very lonely. Eustacia regarded them long, as if they were the page of a book in which she read a new and a strange matter. Quickly, like one afraid of herself, she returned downstairs and stood in deep thought.
“If I could only do it!” she said. “It would be doing much good to myself and all connected with me, and no harm to a single one.”
The idea seemed to gather force within her, and she remained in a fixed attitude nearly ten minutes, when a certain finality was expressed in her gaze, and no longer the blankness of indecision.
She turned and went up the second time — softly and stealthily now — and entered her grandfather’s room, her eyes at once seeking the head of the bed. The pistols were gone.
The instant quashing of her purpose by their absence affected her brain as a sudden vacuum affects the body — she nearly fainted. Who had done this? There was only one person on the premises besides herself. Eustacia involuntarily turned to the open window which overlooked the garden as far as the bank that bounded it. On the summit of the latter stood Charley, sufficiently elevated by its height to see into the room. His gaze was directed eagerly and solicitously upon her.
She went downstairs to the door and beckoned to him.
“You have taken them away?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I saw you looking at them too long.”
“What has that to do with it?”
“You have been heart-broken all the morning, as if you did not want to live.”
“Well?”
“And I could not bear to leave them in your way. There was meaning in your look at them.”
“Where are they now?”
“Locked up.”
“Where?”
“In the stable.”
“Give them to me.”
“No, ma’am.”
“You refuse?”
“I do. I care too much for you to give ‘em up.”
She turned aside, her face for the first time softening from the stony immobility of the earlier day, and the corners of her mouth resuming something of that delicacy of cut which was always lost in her moments of despair. At last she confronted him again.
“Why should I not die if I wish?” she said tremulously. “I have made a bad bargain with life, and I am weary of it — weary. And now you have hindered my escape. O, why did you, Charley! What makes death painful except the thought of others’ grief? — and that is absent in my case, for not a sigh would follow me!”
“Ah, it is trouble that has done this! I wish in my very soul that he who brought it about might die and rot, even if ‘tis transportation to say it!”
“Charley, no more of that. What do you mean to do about this you have seen?”
“Keep it close as night, if you promise not to think of it again.”
“You need not fear. The moment has passed. I promise.” She then went away, entered the house, and lay down.
Later in the afternoon her grandfather returned. He was about to question her categorically, but on looking at her he withheld his words.
“Yes, it is too bad to talk of,” she slowly returned in answer to his glance. “Can my old room be got ready for me tonight, Grandfather? I shall want to occupy it again.”
He did not ask what it all meant, or why she had left her husband, but ordered the room to be prepared.
CHAPTER 5
An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
Charley’s attentions to his former mistress were unbounded. The only solace to his own trouble lay in his attempts to relieve hers. Hour after hour he considered her wants; he thought of her presence there with a sort of gratitude, and, while uttering imprecations on the cause of her unhappiness, in some measure blessed the result. Perhaps she would always remain there, he thought, and then he would be as happy as he had been before. His dread was lest she should think fit to return to Alderworth, and in that dread his eyes, with all the inquisitiveness of affection, frequently sought her face when she was not observing him, as he would have watched the head of a stockdove to learn if it contemplated flight. Having once really succoured her, and possibly preserved her from the rashest of acts, he mentally assumed in addition a guardian’s responsibility for her welfare.
For this reason he busily endeavoured to provide her with pleasant distractions, bringing home curious objects which he found in the heath, such as white trumpet-shaped mosses, redheaded lichens, stone arrowheads used by the old tribes on Egdon, and faceted crystals from the hollows of flints. These he deposited on the premises in such positions that she should see them as if by accident.
A week passed, Eustacia never going out of the house. Then she walked into the enclosed plot and looked through her grandfather’s spyglass, as she had been in the habit of doing before her marriage. One day she saw, at a place where the highroad crossed the distant valley, a heavily laden wagon passing along. It was piled with household furniture. She looked again and again, and recognized it to be her own. In the evening her grandfather came indoors with a rumour that Yeobright had removed that day from Alderworth to the old house at Blooms-End.
On another occasion when reconnoitring thus she beheld two female figures walking in the vale. The day was fine and clear; and the persons not being more than half a mile off she could see their every detail with the telescope. The woman walking in front carried a white bundle in her arms, from one end of which hung a long appendage of drapery; and when the walkers turned, so that the sun fell more directly upon them, Eustacia could see that the object was a baby. She called Charley, and asked him if he knew who they were, though she well guessed.
“Mrs. Wildeve and the nurse-girl,” said Charley.
“The nurse is carrying the baby?” said Eustacia.
“No, ‘tis Mrs. Wildeve carrying that,” he answered, “and the nurse walks behind carrying nothing.”
The lad was in good spirits that day, for the Fifth of November had again come round, and he was planning yet another scheme to divert her from her too absorbing thoughts. For two successive years his mistress had seemed to take pleasure in lighting a bonfire on the bank overlooking the valley; but this year she had apparently quite forgotten the day and the customary deed. He was careful not to remind her, and went on with his secret preparations for a cheerful surprise, the more zealously that he had been absent last time and unable to assist. At every vacant minute he hastened to gather furze-stumps, thorn-tree roots, and other solid materials from the adjacent slopes, hiding them from cursory view.
The evening came, and Eustacia was still seemingly unconscious of the anniversary. She had gone indoors after her survey through the glass, and had not been visible since. As soon as it was quite dark Charley began to build the bonfire, choosing precisely that spot on the bank which Eustacia had chosen at previous times.
When all the surrounding bonfires had burst into existence Charley kindled his, and arranged its fuel so that it should not require tending for some time. He then went back to the house, and lingered round the door and windows till she should by some means or other learn of his achievement and come out to witness it. But the shutters were closed, the door remained shut, and no heed whatever seemed to be taken of his performance. Not liking to call her he went back and replenished the fire, continuing to do this for more than half an hour. It was not till his stock of fuel had greatly diminished that he went to the back door and sent in to beg that Mrs. Yeobright would open the window-shutters and see the sight outside.
Eustacia, who had been sitting listlessly in the parlour, started up at the intelligence and flung open the shutters. Facing her on the bank blazed the fire, which at once sent a ruddy glare into the room where she was, and overpowered the candles.
“Well done, Charley!” said Captain Vye from the chimney-corner. “But I hope it is not my wood that he’s burning....Ah, it was this time last year that I met with that man Venn, bringing home Thomasin Yeobright — to be sure it was! Well, who would have thought that girl’s troubles would have ended so well? What a snipe you were in that matter, Eustacia! Has your husband written to you yet?”
“No,” said Eustacia, looking vaguely through the window at the fire, which just then so much engaged her mind that she did not resent her grandfather’s blunt opinion. She could see Charley’s form on the bank, shovelling and stirring the fire; and there flashed upon her imagination some other form which that fire might call up.
She left the room, put on her garden bonnet and cloak, and went out. Reaching the bank, she looked over with a wild curiosity and misgiving, when Charley said to her, with a pleased sense of himself, “I made it o’ purpose for you, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” she said hastily. “But I wish you to put it out now.”
“It will soon burn down,” said Charley, rather disappointed. “Is it not a pity to knock it out?”
“I don’t know,” she musingly answered.
They stood in silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames, till Charley, perceiving that she did not want to talk to him, moved reluctantly away.
Eustacia remained within the bank looking at the fire, intending to go indoors, yet lingering still. Had she not by her situation been inclined to hold in indifference all things honoured of the gods and of men she would probably have come away. But her state was so hopeless that she could play with it. To have lost is less disturbing than to wonder if we may possibly have won; and Eustacia could now, like other people at such a stage, take a standing-point outside herself, observe herself as a disinterested spectator, and think what a sport for Heaven this woman Eustacia was.
While she stood she heard a sound. It was the s
plash of a stone in the pond.
Had Eustacia received the stone full in the bosom her heart could not have given a more decided thump. She had thought of the possibility of such a signal in answer to that which had been unwittingly given by Charley; but she had not expected it yet. How prompt Wildeve was! Yet how could he think her capable of deliberately wishing to renew their assignations now? An impulse to leave the spot, a desire to stay, struggled within her; and the desire held its own. More than that it did not do, for she refrained even from ascending the bank and looking over. She remained motionless, not disturbing a muscle of her face or raising her eyes; for were she to turn up her face the fire on the bank would shine upon it, and Wildeve might be looking down.
There was a second splash into the pond.
Why did he stay so long without advancing and looking over? Curiosity had its way — she ascended one or two of the earth-steps in the bank and glanced out.
Wildeve was before her. He had come forward after throwing the last pebble, and the fire now shone into each of their faces from the bank stretching breast-high between them.
“I did not light it!” cried Eustacia quickly. “It was lit without my knowledge. Don’t, don’t come over to me!”
“Why have you been living here all these days without telling me? You have left your home. I fear I am something to blame in this?”
“I did not let in his mother; that’s how it is!”
“You do not deserve what you have got, Eustacia; you are in great misery; I see it in your eyes, your mouth, and all over you. My poor, poor girl!” He stepped over the bank. “You are beyond everything unhappy!”
“No, no; not exactly — ”
“It has been pushed too far — it is killing you — I do think it!”
Her usually quiet breathing had grown quicker with his words. “I — I — ” she began, and then burst into quivering sobs, shaken to the very heart by the unexpected voice of pity — a sentiment whose existence in relation to herself she had almost forgotten.
This outbreak of weeping took Eustacia herself so much by surprise that she could not leave off, and she turned aside from him in some shame, though turning hid nothing from him. She sobbed on desperately; then the outpour lessened, and she became quieter. Wildeve had resisted the impulse to clasp her, and stood without speaking.