VII. A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
The old captain’s prevailing indifference to his granddaughter’s movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so happened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why she had walked out so late.
“Only in search of events, Grandfather,” she said, looking out of the window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much force behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.
“Search of events—one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at one-and-twenty.”
“It is lonely here.”
“So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been home when I returned from the Woman.”
“I won’t conceal what I did. I wanted an adventure, and I went with the mummers. I played the part of the Turkish Knight.”
“No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn’t expect it of you, Eustacia.”
“It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last. Now I have told you—and remember it is a secret.”
“Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did—ha! ha! Dammy, how ’twould have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl. You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you don’t bother me; but no figuring in breeches again.”
“You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa.”
Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia’s moral training never exceeding in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became profitable to good works, would be a result not dear at the price. But her thoughts soon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a passionate and indescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not even a name, she went forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around her, restless as Ahasuerus the Jew. She was about half a mile from her residence when she beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a little way in advance—dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight and she guessed it to signify Diggory Venn.
When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle during the last month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people replied, “On Egdon Heath.” Day after day the answer was the same. Now, since Egdon was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather than with sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most of the latter were to be found lay some to the north, some to the west of Egdon, his reason for camping about there like Israel in Zin was not apparent. The position was central and occasionally desirable. But the sale of reddle was not Diggory’s primary object in remaining on the heath, particularly at so late a period of the year, when most travellers of his class had gone into winter quarters.
Eustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at their last meeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright as one ready and anxious to take his place as Thomasin’s betrothed. His figure was perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eye bright, his intelligence keen, and his position one which he could readily better if he chose. But in spite of possibilities it was not likely that Thomasin would accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she had a cousin like Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time not absolutely indifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor Mrs. Yeobright, in her anxiety for her niece’s future, had mentioned this lover to stimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the side of the Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt’s desire.
“Good morning, miss,” said the reddleman, taking off his cap of hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of their last meeting.
“Good morning, reddleman,” she said, hardly troubling to lift her heavily shaded eyes to his. “I did not know you were so near. Is your van here too?”
Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to form a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their leaves.
The roof and chimney of Venn’s caravan showed behind the tracery and tangles of the brake.
“You remain near this part?” she asked with more interest.
“Yes, I have business here.”
“Not altogether the selling of reddle?”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
“It has to do with Miss Yeobright?”
Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said frankly, “Yes, miss; it is on account of her.”
“On account of your approaching marriage with her?”
Venn flushed through his stain. “Don’t make sport of me, Miss Vye,” he said.
“It isn’t true?”
“Certainly not.”
She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere pis aller in Mrs. Yeobright’s mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his promotion to that lowly standing. “It was a mere notion of mine,” she said quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech, when, looking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure serpentining upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top where she stood. Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back was at present towards them. She glanced quickly round; to escape that man there was only one way. Turning to Venn, she said, “Would you allow me to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp for sitting on.”
“Certainly, miss; I’ll make a place for you.”
She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the door.
“That is the best I can do for you,” he said, stepping down and retiring to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he walked up and down.
Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from view on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of other feet than the reddleman’s, a not very friendly “Good day” uttered by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the foot-fall of one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her neck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders; and she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why. It was the sickening feeling which, if the changed heart has any generosity at all in its composition, accompanies the sudden sight of a once-loved one who is beloved no more.
When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near. “That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss,” he said slowly, and expressed by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting unseen.
“Yes, I saw him coming up the hill,” replied Eustacia. “Why should you tell me that?” It was a bold question, considering the reddleman’s knowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner had power to repress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.
“I am glad to hear that you can ask it,” said the reddleman bluntly. “And, now I think of it, it agrees with what I saw last night.”
“Ah—what was that?” Eustacia wished to leave him, but wished to know.
“Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting for a lady who didn’t come.”
“You waited too, it seems?”
“Yes, I always do. I was glad to see him disappointed. He will be there again tonight.”
“To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady, so far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin’s marriage with Mr. Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it.”
Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it clearly; that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from expectation, but it is usually withheld in complicated cases of two removes and upwards. “Indeed, miss,” he replied.
“How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again tonight?” she asked.
“I heard him say to himself that he would. He’s in a regular temper.”
Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting her deep dark eyes anxiously to his, “I wish I knew what to do. I don’t want to be uncivil to him; but I don’t wish to see him again; and I have some few little things to return to him.”
“If you choose to send ’em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that you wish to say no more to him, I’ll take it for you quite privately. That would be the most straightforward way of letting him know your mind.”
“Very well,” said Eustacia. “Come towards my house, and I will bring it out to you.”
She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the shaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her trail. She saw from a distance that the captain was on the bank sweeping the horizon with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he stood she entered the house alone.
In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in placing them in his hand, “Why are you so ready to take these for me?”
“Can you ask that?”
“I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as anxious as ever to help on her marriage?”
Venn was a little moved. “I would sooner have married her myself,” he said in a low voice. “But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy without him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man ought.”
Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What a strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion, and sometimes its only one! The reddleman’s disinterestedness was so well deserving of respect that it overshot respect by being barely comprehended; and she almost thought it absurd.
“Then we are both of one mind at last,” she said.
“Yes,” replied Venn gloomily. “But if you would tell me, miss, why you take such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden and strange.”
Eustacia appeared at a loss. “I cannot tell you that, reddleman,” she said coldly.
Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia, went away.
Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended the long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia’s emissary. He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young inn-keeper and ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of Ithuriel’s spear.
“The meeting is always at eight o’clock, at this place,” said Venn, “and here we are—we three.”
“We three?” said Wildeve, looking quickly round.
“Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she.” He held up the letter and parcel.
Wildeve took them wonderingly. “I don’t quite see what this means,” he said. “How do you come here? There must be some mistake.”
“It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter. Lanterns for one.” The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of tallow-candle which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.
“Who are you?” said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-light an obscure rubicundity of person in his companion. “You are the reddleman I saw on the hill this morning—why, you are the man who——”
“Please read the letter.”
“If you had come from the other one I shouldn’t have been surprised,” murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face grew serious.
“To Mr. WILDEVE.
“After some thought I have decided once and for all that we must hold no further communication. The more I consider the matter the more I am convinced that there must be an end to our acquaintance. Had you been uniformly faithful to me throughout these two years you might now have some ground for accusing me of heartlessness; but if you calmly consider what I bore during the period of your desertion, and how I passively put up with your courtship of another without once interfering, you will, I think, own that I have a right to consult my own feelings when you come back to me again. That these are not what they were towards you may, perhaps, be a fault in me, but it is one which you can scarcely reproach me for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin. The little articles you gave me in the early part of our friendship are returned by the bearer of this letter. They should rightly have been sent back when I first heard of your engagement to her.
“EUSTACIA.”
By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which he had read the first half of the letter intensified to mortification. “I am made a great fool of, one way and another,” he said pettishly. “Do you know what is in this letter?”
The reddleman hummed a tune.
“Can’t you answer me?” asked Wildeve warmly.
“Ru-um-tum-tum,” sang the reddleman.
Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn’s feet, till he allowed his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory’s form, as illuminated by the candle, to his head and face. “Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I deserve it, considering how I have played with them both,” he said at last, as much to himself as to Venn. “But of all the odd things that ever I knew, the oddest is that you should so run counter to your own interests as to bring this to me.”
“My interests?”
“Certainly. ’Twas your interest not to do anything which would send me courting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you—or something like it. Mrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. ’Tisn’t true, then?”
“Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn’t believe it. When did she say so?”
Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.
“I don’t believe it now,” cried Venn.
“Ru-um-tum-tum,” sang Wildeve.
“O Lord—how we can imitate!” said Venn contemptuously. “I’ll have this out. I’ll go straight to her.”
Diggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve’s eye passing over his form in withering derision, as if he were no more than a heath-cropper. When the reddleman’s figure could no longer be seen, Wildeve himself descended and plunged into the rayless hollow of the vale.
To lose the two women—he who had been the well-beloved of both—was too ironical an issue to be endured. He could only decently save himself by Thomasin; and once he became her husband, Eustacia’s repentance, he thought, would set in for a long and bitter term. It was no wonder that Wildeve, ignorant of the new man at the back of the scene, should have supposed Eustacia to be playing a part. To believe that the letter was not the result of some momentary pique, to infer that she really gave him up to Thomasin, would have required previous knowledge of her transfiguration by that man’s influence. Who was to know that she had grown generous in the greediness of a new passion, that in coveting one cousin she was dealing liberally with another, that in her eagerness to appropriate she gave way?
Full of this resolve to marry in haste, and wring the heart of the proud girl, Wildeve went his way.
Meanwhile Diggory Venn had returned to his van, where he stood looking thoughtfully into the stove. A new vista was opened up to him. But, however promising Mrs. Yeobright’s views of him might be as a candidate for her niece’s hand, one condition was indispensable to the favour of Thomasin herself, and that was a renunciation of his present wild mode of life. In this he saw little difficulty.
He could not afford to wait till the next day before seeing Thomasin and detailing his plan. He speedily plunged himself into toilet operations, pulled a suit of cloth clothes from a box, and in about twenty minutes stood before the van-lantern as a reddleman in nothing but his face, the vermilion shades of which were not to be removed in a day. Closing the door and fastening it with a padlock, Venn set off towards Blooms-End.
He had reached the white palings and laid his hand upon the gate when the door of the house opened, and quickly closed again. A female form had glided in. At the same time a man, who had seemingly been standing with the woman in the porch, came forward from the house till he was face to face with Venn. It was Wildeve again.
“Man alive, you’ve been quick at it,” said Diggory sarcastically.
“And you slow, as you will find,” said Wildeve. “And,” lowering his voice, “you may as well go back again now. I’ve claimed her, and got her. Good night, reddleman!” Thereupon Wildeve walked away.
Venn’s heart sank within him, though it had not risen unduly high. He stood leaning over the palings in an indecisive mood for nearly a quarter of an hour. Then he went up the garden path, knocked, and asked for Mrs. Yeobright.
Instead of requesting him to enter she came to the porch. A discourse was carried on between them in low measured tones for the space of ten minutes or more. At the end of the time Mrs. Yeobright went in, and Venn sadly retraced his steps into the heath. When he had again regained his van he lit the lantern, and with an apathetic face at once began to pull off his best clothes, till in the course of a few minutes he reappeared as the confirmed and irretrievable reddleman that he had seemed before.