"I am a warning to others, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are," she said in a low voice."What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them? 'Tis absurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me think that I do, by the way they behave towards me? Why don't people judge me by my acts? Now, look at me as Ikneel here, picking up these apples--do I look like a lost woman?...I wish all good women were as good as I!"she added vehemently.
"Strangers don't see you as I do," said Mrs.Yeobright;"they judge from false report.Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to blame.""How quickly a rash thing can be done!" replied the girl.
Her lips were quivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that she could hardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued industriously searching to hide her weakness.
"As soon as you have finished getting the apples,"her aunt said, descending the ladder, "come down, and we'll go for the holly.There is nobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear being stared at.
We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in our preparations."Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together they went through the white palings to the heath beyond.The open hills were airy and clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often appears on a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination independently toned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts of landscape streaming visibly across those further off;a stratum of ensaffroned light was imposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind these lay still remoter scenes wrapped in frigid grey.
They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conical pit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general level of the ground.
Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes, as she had done under happier circumstances on many similar occasions, and with a small chopper that they had brought she began to lop off the heavily berried boughs.
"Don't scratch your face," said her aunt, who stood at the edge of the pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green and scarlet masses of the tree.
"Will you walk with me to meet him this evening?""I should like to.Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him," said Thomasin, tossing out a bough.
"Not that that would matter much; I belong to one man;nothing can alter that.And that man I must marry, for my pride's sake.""I am afraid--" began Mrs.Yeobright.
"Ah, you think, 'That weak girl--how is she going to get a man to marry her when she chooses?' But let me tell you one thing, Aunt: Mr.Wildeve is not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman.He has an unfortunate manner, and doesn't try to make people like him if they don't wish to do it of their own accord.""Thomasin," said Mrs.Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her niece, "do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr.Wildeve?""How do you mean?"
"I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed its colour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him, and that you act a part to me.""He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him.""Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment agree to be his wife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?"Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed.
"Aunt," she said presently, "I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer that question.""Yes, you have."
"You may think what you choose.I have never implied to you by word or deed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will.And I shall marry him.""Well, wait till he repeats his offer.I think he may do it, now that he knows--something I told him.
I don't for a moment dispute that it is the most proper thing for you to marry him.Much as I have objected to him in bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure.
It is the only way out of a false position, and a very galling one.""What did you tell him?"
"That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours.""Aunt," said Thomasin, with round eyes, "what DO you mean?""Don't be alarmed; it was my duty.I can say no more about it now, but when it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I said it."Thomasin was perforce content.
"And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for the present?" she next asked.
"I have given my word to.But what is the use of it?
He must soon know what has happened.A mere look at your face will show him that something is wrong."Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree.
"Now, hearken to me," she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a force which was other than physical.
"Tell him nothing.If he finds out that I am not worthy to be his cousin, let him.But, since he loved me once, we will not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon.
The air is full of the story, I know; but gossips will not dare to speak of it to him for the first few days.
His closeness to me is the very thing that will hinder the tale from reaching him early.If I am not made safe from sneers in a week or two I will tell him myself."The earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented further objections.Her aunt simply said, "Very well.
He should by rights have been told at the time that the wedding was going to be.He will never forgive you for your secrecy.""Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished to spare him, and that I did not expect him home so soon.
And you must not let me stand in the way of your Christmas party.Putting it off would only make matters worse.""Of course I shall not.I do not wish to show myself beaten before all Egdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve.
