by Thomas Hardy
IX
Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. Since theintroduction of railways Wessex farmers have managed to do withoutthese Mephistophelian visitants, and the bright pigment so largelyused by shepherds in preparing sheep for the fair is obtained by otherroutes. Even those who yet survive are losing the poetry of existencewhich characterized them when the pursuit of the trade meantperiodical journeys to the pit whence the material was dug, a regularcamping out from month to month, except in the depth of winter, aperegrination among farms which could be counted by the hundred,and in spite of this Arab existence the preservation of thatrespectability which is insured by the never-failing production of awell-lined purse.
Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on, andstamps unmistakably, as with the mark of Cain, any person who hashandled it half an hour.
A child's first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in his life. Thatblood-coloured figure was a sublimation of all the horrid dreamswhich had afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began. "Thereddleman is coming for you!" had been the formulated threat of Wessexmothers for many generations. He was successfully supplanted for awhile, at the beginning of the present century, by Buonaparte; but asprocess of time rendered the latter personage stale and ineffectivethe older phrase resumed its early prominence. And now the reddlemanhas in his turn followed Buonaparte to the land of worn-out bogeys,and his place is filled by modern inventions.
The reddleman lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. He wasabout as thriving as travelling basket and mat makers; but he hadnothing to do with them. He was more decently born and brought upthan the cattle-drovers who passed and repassed him in his wanderings;but they merely nodded to him. His stock was more valuable than thatof pedlars; but they did not think so, and passed his cart with eyesstraight ahead. He was such an unnatural colour to look at that themen of round-abouts and wax-work shows seemed gentlemen beside him;but he considered them low company, and remained aloof. Among allthese squatters and folks of the road the reddleman continually foundhimself; yet he was not of them. His occupation tended to isolatehim, and isolated he was mostly seen to be.
It was sometimes suggested that reddlemen were criminals for whosemisdeeds other men had wrongfully suffered: that in escaping the lawthey had not escaped their own consciences, and had taken to the tradeas a lifelong penance. Else why should they have chosen it? In thepresent case such a question would have been particularly apposite.The reddleman who had entered Egdon that afternoon was an instance ofthe pleasing being wasted to form the ground-work of the singular,when an ugly foundation would have done just as well for that purpose.The one point that was forbidding about this reddleman was his colour.Freed from that he would have been as agreeable a specimen of rusticmanhood as one would often see. A keen observer might have beeninclined to think--which was, indeed, partly the truth--that he hadrelinquished his proper station in life for want of interest in it.Moreover, after looking at him one would have hazarded the guessthat good-nature, and an acuteness as extreme as it could be withoutverging on craft, formed the frame-work of his character.
While he darned the stocking his face became rigid with thought.Softer expressions followed this, and then again recurred the tendersadness which had sat upon him during his drive along the highway thatafternoon. Presently his needle stopped. He laid down the stocking,arose from his seat, and took a leather pouch from a hook in thecorner of the van. This contained among other articles a brown-paperpacket, which, to judge from the hinge-like character of its wornfolds, seemed to have been carefully opened and closed a good manytimes. He sat down on a three-legged milking stool that formed theonly seat in the van, and, examining his packet by the light of acandle, took thence an old letter and spread it open. The writing hadoriginally been traced on white paper, but the letter had now assumeda pale red tinge from the accident of its situation; and the blackstrokes of writing thereon looked like the twigs of a winter hedgeagainst a vermilion sunset. The letter bore a date some two yearsprevious to that time, and was signed "Thomasin Yeobright." It ran asfollows:--
DEAR DIGGORY VENN,--The question you put when you overtook me coming home from Pond-close gave me such a surprise that I am afraid I did not make you exactly understand what I meant. Of course, if my aunt had not met me I could have explained all then at once, but as it was there was no chance. I have been quite uneasy since, as you know I do not wish to pain you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in contradicting what I seemed to say then. I cannot, Diggory, marry you, or think of letting you call me your sweetheart. I could not, indeed, Diggory. I hope you will not much mind my saying this, and feel in a great pain. It makes me very sad when I think it may, for I like you very much, and I always put you next to my cousin Clym in my mind. There are so many reasons why we cannot be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter. I did not in the least expect that you were going to speak on such a thing when you followed me, because I had never thought of you in the sense of a lover at all. You must not becall me for laughing when you spoke; you mistook when you thought I laughed at you as a foolish man. I laughed because the idea was so odd, and not at you at all. The great reason with my own personal self for not letting you court me is, that I do not feel the things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you with the meaning of being your wife. It is not as you think, that I have another in my mind, for I do not encourage anybody, and never have in my life. Another reason is my aunt. She would not, I know, agree to it, even if I wished to have you. She likes you very well, but she will want me to look a little higher than a small dairy-farmer, and marry a professional man. I hope you will not set your heart against me for writing plainly, but I felt you might try to see me again, and it is better that we should not meet. I shall always think of you as a good man, and be anxious for your well-doing. I send this by Jane Orchard's little maid, --And remain Diggory, your faithful friend,
THOMASIN YEOBRIGHT
To MR. VENN, Dairy-farmer
Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning longago, the reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today. During theinterval he had shifted his position even further from hers than ithad originally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he wasreally in very good circumstances still. Indeed, seeing that hisexpenditure was only one-fourth of his income, he might have beencalled a prosperous man.
Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; andthe business to which he had cynically devoted himself was in manyways congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of oldemotions, had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he neverintruded upon her who attracted him thither. To be in Thomasin'sheath, and near her, yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasureleft to him.
Then came the incident of that day, and the reddleman, still lovingher well, was excited by this accidental service to her at a criticaljuncture to vow an active devotion to her cause, instead of, ashitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had happened, itwas impossible that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve'sintentions. But her hope was apparently centred upon him; anddismissing his regrets Venn determined to aid her to be happy inher own chosen way. That this way was, of all others, the mostdistressing to himself, was awkward enough; but the reddleman's lovewas generous.
His first active step in watching over Thomasin's interests was takenabout seven o'clock the next evening, and was dictated by the newswhich he had learnt from the sad boy. That Eustacia was somehow thecause of Wildeve's carelessness in relation to the marriage had atonce been Venn's conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting betweenthem. It did not occur to his mind that Eustacia's love-signalto Wildeve was the tender effect upon the deserted beauty of theintelligence which her grandfather had brought home. His instinct wasto regard her as a conspirator against rather than as an antecedentobstacle to Thomasin's happiness.
During the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the conditionof Thomasin; but he did not venture to intrude upon a threshold towhich he was a stranger, particularly at such an unpleasant moment asthis. He had occupied his time in moving with his ponies and load toa new point in the heath, eastward to his previous station; and herehe selected a nook with a careful eye to shelter from wind and rain,which seemed to mean that his stay there was to be a comparativelyextended one. After this he returned on foot some part of the waythat he had come; and, it being now dark, he diverged to the left tillhe stood behind a holly-bush on the edge of a pit not twenty yardsfrom Rainbarrow.
He watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. Nobody excepthimself came near the spot that night.
But the loss of his labour produced little effect upon the reddleman.He had stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upona certain mass of disappointment as the natural preface to allrealizations, without which preface they would give cause for alarm.
The same hour the next evening found him again at the same place; butEustacia and Wildeve, the expected trysters, did not appear.
He pursued precisely the same course yet four nights longer, andwithout success. But on the next, being the day-week of theirprevious meeting, he saw a female shape floating along the ridge andthe outline of a young man ascending from the valley. They met in thelittle ditch encircling the tumulus--the original excavation fromwhich it had been thrown up by the ancient British people.
The reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin, was arousedto strategy in a moment. He instantly left the bush and crept forwardon his hands and knees. When he had got as close as he might safelyventure without discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind, theconversation of the trysting pair could not be overheard.
Near him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas strewn withlarge turves, which lay edgeways and upside down awaiting removal byTimothy Fairway, previous to the winter weather. He took two of theseas he lay, and dragged them over him till one covered his head andshoulders, the other his back and legs. The reddleman would now havebeen quite invisible, even by daylight; the turves, standing upon himwith the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they were growing.He crept along again, and the turves upon his back crept with him.Had he approached without any covering the chances are that he wouldnot have been perceived in the dusk; approaching thus, it was asthough he burrowed underground. In this manner he came quite close towhere the two were standing.
"Wish to consult me on the matter?" reached his ears in the rich,impetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. "Consult me? It is an indignityto me to talk so: I won't bear it any longer!" She began weeping."I have loved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to myregret; and yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you wishto consult with me whether it would not be better to marry Thomasin.Better--of course it would be. Marry her: she is nearer to your ownposition in life than I am!"
"Yes, yes; that's very well," said Wildeve peremptorily. "But wemust look at things as they are. Whatever blame may attach to me forhaving brought it about, Thomasin's position is at present much worsethan yours. I simply tell you that I am in a strait."
"But you shall not tell me! You must see that it is only harassing me.Damon, you have not acted well; you have sunk in my opinion. You havenot valued my courtesy--the courtesy of a lady in loving you--who usedto think of far more ambitious things. But it was Thomasin's fault.She won you away from me, and she deserves to suffer for it. Whereis she staying now? Not that I care, nor where I am myself. Ah, if Iwere dead and gone how glad she would be! Where is she, I ask?"
"Thomasin is now staying at her aunt's shut up in a bedroom, andkeeping out of everybody's sight," he said indifferently.
"I don't think you care much about her even now," said Eustacia withsudden joyousness: "for if you did you wouldn't talk so coolly abouther. Do you talk so coolly to her about me? Ah, I expect you do! Whydid you originally go away from me? I don't think I can ever forgiveyou, except on one condition, that whenever you desert me, you comeback again, sorry that you served me so."
"I never wish to desert you."
"I do not thank you for that. I should hate it to be all smooth.Indeed, I think I like you to desert me a little once now and then.Love is the dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, itis a shame to say so; but it is true!" She indulged in a little laugh."My low spirits begin at the very idea. Don't you offer me tame love,or away you go!"
"I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman," saidWildeve, "so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthyperson. It is I who am the sinner after all; I am not worth thelittle finger of either of you."
"But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from any sense ofjustice," replied Eustacia quickly. "If you do not love her it is themost merciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That'salways the best way. There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose.When you have left me I am always angry with myself for things that Ihave said to you."
Wildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. Thepause was filled up by the intonation of a pollard thorn a little wayto windward, the breezes filtering through its unyielding twigs asthrough a strainer. It was as if the night sang dirges with clenchedteeth.
She continued, half sorrowfully, "Since meeting you last, it hasoccurred to me once or twice that perhaps it was not for love of meyou did not marry her. Tell me, Damon: I'll try to bear it. Had Inothing whatever to do with the matter?"
"Do you press me to tell?"
"Yes, I must know. I see I have been too ready to believe in my ownpower."
"Well, the immediate reason was that the license would not do for theplace, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that pointyou had nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to mein a tone which I don't at all like."
"Yes, yes! I am nothing in it--I am nothing in it. You only triflewith me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think somuch of you!"
"Nonsense; do not be so passionate... Eustacia, how we roved amongthese bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shadesof the hills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!"
She remained in moody silence till she said, "Yes; and how I used tolaugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made mesuffer for that since."
"Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found someone fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia."
"Do you still think you found somebody fairer?"
"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced so nicelythat a feather would turn them."
"But don't you really care whether I meet you or whether I don't?" shesaid slowly.
"I care a little, but not enough to break my rest," replied the youngman languidly. "No, all that's past. I find there are two flowerswhere I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four,or any number as good as the first... Mine is a curious fate. Whowould have thought that all this could happen to me?"
She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or angerseemed an equally possible issue, "Do you love me now?"
"Who can say?"
"Tell me; I will know it!"
"I do, and I do not," said he mischievously. "That is, I have mytimes and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment youare too do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, anotherI don't know what, except--that you are not the whole world to me thatyou used to be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know, and niceto meet, and I dare say as sweet as ever--almost."
Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in avoice of suspended mightiness, "I am for a walk, and this is my way."
"Well, I can do worse than follow you."
"You know you can't do otherwise, for all your moods and changes!"she answered defiantly. "Say what you will; try as you may; keep awayfrom me all that you can--you will never
forget me. You will love meall your life long. You would jump to marry me!"
"So I would!" said Wildeve. "Such strange thoughts as I've had fromtime to time, Eustacia; and they come to me this moment. You hate theheath as much as ever; that I know."
"I do," she murmured deeply. "'Tis my cross, my shame, and will be mydeath!"
"I abhor it too," said he. "How mournfully the wind blows round usnow!"
She did not answer. Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive.Compound utterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it waspossible to view by ear the features of the neighbourhood. Acousticpictures were returned from the darkened scenery; they could hearwhere the tracts of heather began and ended; where the furze wasgrowing stalky and tall; where it had been recently cut; in whatdirection the fir-clump lay, and how near was the pit in which thehollies grew; for these differing features had their voices no lessthan their shapes and colours.
"God, how lonely it is!" resumed Wildeve. "What are picturesqueravines and mists to us who see nothing else? Why should we stayhere? Will you go with me to America? I have kindred in Wisconsin."
"That wants consideration."
"It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were a wild bird or alandscape-painter. Well?"
"Give me time," she softly said, taking his hand. "America is so faraway. Are you going to walk with me a little way?"
As Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from the base of thebarrow, and Wildeve followed her, so that the reddleman could hear nomore.
He lifted the turves and arose. Their black figures sank anddisappeared from against the sky. They were as two horns which thesluggish heath had put forth from its crown, like a mollusc, and hadnow again drawn in.
The reddleman's walk across the vale, and over into the next where hiscart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four.His spirit was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around hismouth in that walk carried off upon them the accents of a commination.
He entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. Withoutlighting his candle he sat down at once on the three-legged stool, andpondered on what he had seen and heard touching that still loved-oneof his. He uttered a sound which was neither sigh nor sob, but waseven more indicative than either of a troubled mind.
"My Tamsie," he whispered heavily. "What can be done? Yes, I will seethat Eustacia Vye."
