"No; not so very soon."
Wildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious heartache within him.He rested his elbow upon the mantelpiece and his face upon his hand.When Thomasin entered the room he did not tell her of what he had heard.
The old longing for Eustacia had reappeared in his soul--and it was mainly because he had discovered that it was another man's intention to possess her.
To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered;to care for the remote, to dislike the near; it was Wildeve's nature always.This is the true mark of the man of sentiment.
Though Wildeve's fevered feeling had not been elaborated to real poetical compass, it was of the standard sort.
His might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon.
7 - The Morning and the Evening of a Day The wedding morning came.Nobody would have imagined from appearances that Blooms-End had any interest in Mistover that day.A solemn stillness prevailed around the house of Clym's mother, and there was no more animation indoors.
Mrs.Yeobright, who had declined to attend the ceremony, sat by the breakfast table in the old room which communicated immediately with the porch, her eyes listlessly directed towards the open door.It was the room in which, six months earlier, the merry Christmas party had met, to which Eustacia came secretly and as a stranger.
The only living thing that entered now was a sparrow;and seeing no movements to cause alarm, he hopped boldly round the room, endeavoured to go out by the window, and fluttered among the pot-flowers.This roused the lonely sitter, who got up, released the bird, and went to the door.
She was expecting Thomasin, who had written the night before to state that the time had come when she would wish to have the money and that she would if possible call this day.
Yet Thomasin occupied Mrs.Yeobright's thoughts but slightly as she looked up the valley of the heath, alive with butterflies, and with grasshoppers whose husky noises on every side formed a whispered chorus.
A domestic drama, for which the preparations were now being made a mile or two off, was but little less vividly present to her eyes than if enacted before her.She tried to dismiss the vision, and walked about the garden plot;but her eyes ever and anon sought out the direction of the parish church to which Mistover belonged, and her excited fancy clove the hills which divided the building from her eyes.
The morning wore away.Eleven o'clock struck--could it be that the wedding was then in progress? It must be so.She went on imagining the scene at the church, which he had by this time approached with his bride.
She pictured the little group of children by the gate as the pony carriage drove up in which, as Thomasin had learnt, they were going to perform the short journey.
Then she saw them enter and proceed to the chancel and kneel;and the service seemed to go on.
She covered her face with her hands."O, it is a mistake!"she groaned."And he will rue it some day, and think of me!"While she remained thus, overcome by her forebodings, the old clock indoors whizzed forth twelve strokes.
Soon after, faint sounds floated to her ear from afar over the hills.The breeze came from that quarter, and it had brought with it the notes of distant bells, gaily starting off in a peal: one, two, three, four, five.
The ringers at East Egdon were announcing the nuptials of Eustacia and her son.
"Then it is over," she murmured."Well, well! and life too will be over soon.And why should I go on scalding my face like this? Cry about one thing in life, cry about all;one thread runs through the whole piece.And yet we say, 'a time to laugh!'"Towards evening Wildeve came.Since Thomasin's marriage Mrs.Yeobright had shown him that grim friendliness which at last arises in all such cases of undesired affinity.
The vision of what ought to have been is thrown aside in sheer weariness, and browbeaten human endeavour listlessly makes the best of the fact that is.Wildeve, to do him justice, had behaved very courteously to his wife's aunt;and it was with no surprise that she saw him enter now.
"Thomasin has not been able to come, as she promised to do,"he replied to her inquiry, which had been anxious, for she knew that her niece was badly in want of money.
"The captain came down last night and personally pressed her to join them today.So, not to be unpleasant, she determined to go.They fetched her in the pony-chaise, and are going to bring her back.""Then it is done," said Mrs.Yeobright."Have they gone to their new home?""I don't know.I have had no news from Mistover since Thomasin left to go.""You did not go with her?" said she, as if there might be good reasons why.
"I could not," said Wildeve, reddening slightly.
"We could not both leave the house; it was rather a busy morning, on account of Anglebury Great Market.
I believe you have something to give to Thomasin? If you like, I will take it."Mrs.Yeobright hesitated, and wondered if Wildeve knew what the something was."Did she tell you of this?"she inquired.
"Not particularly.She casually dropped a remark about having arranged to fetch some article or other.""It is hardly necessary to send it.She can have it whenever she chooses to come.""That won't be yet.In the present state of her health she must not go on walking so much as she has done."He added, with a faint twang of sarcasm, "What wonderful thing is it that I cannot be trusted to take?""Nothing worth troubling you with."
"One would think you doubted my honesty," he said, with a laugh, though his colour rose in a quick resentfulness frequent with him.
"You need think no such thing," said she drily.
"It is simply that I, in common with the rest of the world, feel that there are certain things which had better be done by certain people than by others.""As you like, as you like," said Wildeve laconically.
