The Return of the Native

by Thomas Hardy

  V

  Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues

  When Yeobright was not with Eustacia he was sitting slavishly overhis books; when he was not reading he was meeting her. These meetingswere carried on with the greatest secrecy.

  One afternoon his mother came home from a morning visit to Thomasin.He could see from a disturbance in the lines of her face thatsomething had happened.

  "I have been told an incomprehensible thing," she said mournfully."The captain has let out at the Woman that you and Eustacia Vye areengaged to be married."

  "We are," said Yeobright. "But it may not be yet for a very longtime."

  "I should hardly think it WOULD be yet for a very long time! You willtake her to Paris, I suppose?" She spoke with weary hopelessness.

  "I am not going back to Paris."

  "What will you do with a wife, then?"

  "Keep a school in Budmouth, as I have told you."

  "That's incredible! The place is overrun with schoolmasters. You haveno special qualifications. What possible chance is there for such asyou?"

  "There is no chance of getting rich. But with my system of education,which is as new as it is true, I shall do a great deal of good to myfellow-creatures."

  "Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be invented theywould have found it out at the universities long before this time."

  "Never, mother. They cannot find it out, because their teachers don'tcome in contact with the class which demands such a system--thatis, those who have had no preliminary training. My plan is one forinstilling high knowledge into empty minds without first cramming themwith what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins."

  "I might have believed you if you had kept yourself free fromentanglements; but this woman--if she had been a good girl it wouldhave been bad enough; but being--"

  "She is a good girl."

  "So you think. A Corfu bandmaster's daughter! What has her life been?Her surname even is not her true one."

  "She is Captain Vye's granddaughter, and her father merely took hermother's name. And she is a lady by instinct."

  "They call him 'captain,' but anybody is captain."

  "He was in the Royal Navy!"

  "No doubt he has been to sea in some tub or other. Why doesn't helook after her? No lady would rove about the heath at all hours ofthe day and night as she does. But that's not all of it. There wassomething queer between her and Thomasin's husband at one time--I amas sure of it as that I stand here."

  "Eustacia has told me. He did pay her a little attention a year ago;but there's no harm in that. I like her all the better."

  "Clym," said his mother with firmness, "I have no proofs against her,unfortunately. But if she makes you a good wife, there has never beena bad one."

  "Believe me, you are almost exasperating," said Yeobright vehemently."And this very day I had intended to arrange a meeting between you.But you give me no peace; you try to thwart my wishes in everything."

  "I hate the thought of any son of mine marrying badly! I wish I hadnever lived to see this; it is too much for me--it is more than Idreamt!" She turned to the window. Her breath was coming quickly, andher lips were pale, parted, and trembling.

  "Mother," said Clym, "whatever you do, you will always be dear tome--that you know. But one thing I have a right to say, which is,that at my age I am old enough to know what is best for me."

  Mrs. Yeobright remained for some time silent and shaken, as if shecould say no more. Then she replied, "Best? Is it best for you toinjure your prospects for such a voluptuous, idle woman as that?Don't you see that by the very fact of your choosing her you provethat you do not know what is best for you? You give up your wholethought--you set your whole soul--to please a woman."

  "I do. And that woman is you."

  "How can you treat me so flippantly!" said his mother, turning againto him with a tearful look. "You are unnatural, Clym, and I did notexpect it."

  "Very likely," said he cheerlessly. "You did not know the measure youwere going to mete me, and therefore did not know the measure thatwould be returned to you again."

  "You answer me; you think only of her. You stick to her in allthings."

  "That proves her to be worthy. I have never yet supported what isbad. And I do not care only for her. I care for you and for myself,and for anything that is good. When a woman once dislikes another sheis merciless!"

  "O Clym! please don't go setting down as my fault what is yourobstinate wrong-headedness. If you wished to connect yourself with anunworthy person why did you come home here to do it? Why didn't youdo it in Paris?--it is more the fashion there. You have come only todistress me, a lonely woman, and shorten my days! I wish that youwould bestow your presence where you bestow your love!"

  Clym said huskily, "You are my mother. I will say no more--beyondthis, that I beg your pardon for having thought this my home. I willno longer inflict myself upon you; I'll go." And he went out withtears in his eyes.

  It was a sunny afternoon at the beginning of summer, and the moisthollows of the heath had passed from their brown to their green stage.Yeobright walked to the edge of the basin which extended down fromMistover and Rainbarrow. By this time he was calm, and he lookedover the landscape. In the minor valleys, between the hillocks whichdiversified the contour of the vale, the fresh young ferns wereluxuriantly growing up, ultimately to reach a height of five or sixfeet. He descended a little way, flung himself down in a spot where apath emerged from one of the small hollows, and waited. Hither it wasthat he had promised Eustacia to bring his mother this afternoon, thatthey might meet and be friends. His attempt had utterly failed.

  He was in a nest of vivid green. The ferny vegetation round him,though so abundant, was quite uniform: it was a grove of machine-madefoliage, a world of green triangles with saw-edges, and not a singleflower. The air was warm with a vaporous warmth, and the stillnesswas unbroken. Lizards, grasshoppers, and ants were the only livingthings to be beheld. The scene seemed to belong to the ancient worldof the carboniferous period, when the forms of plants were few, and ofthe fern kind; when there was neither bud nor blossom, nothing but amonotonous extent of leafage, amid which no bird sang.

  When he had reclined for some considerable time, gloomily pondering,he discerned above the ferns a drawn bonnet of white silk approachingfrom the left, and Yeobright knew directly that it covered the head ofher he loved. His heart awoke from its apathy to a warm excitement,and, jumping to his feet, he said aloud, "I knew she was sure tocome."

  She vanished in a hollow for a few moments, and then her whole formunfolded itself from the brake.

  "Only you here?" she exclaimed, with a disappointed air, whosehollowness was proved by her rising redness and her half-guilty lowlaugh. "Where is Mrs. Yeobright?"

  "She has not come," he replied in a subdued tone.

  "I wish I had known that you would be here alone," she said seriously,"and that we were going to have such an idle, pleasant time as this.Pleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is todouble it. I have not thought once today of having you all to myselfthis afternoon, and the actual moment of a thing is so soon gone."

  "It is indeed."

  "Poor Clym!" she continued, looking tenderly into his face. "You aresad. Something has happened at your home. Never mind what is--let usonly look at what seems."

  "But, darling, what shall we do?" said he.

  "Still go on as we do now--just live on from meeting to meeting,never minding about another day. You, I know, are always thinking ofthat--I can see you are. But you must not--will you, dear Clym?"

  "You are just like all women. They are ever content to build theirlives on any incidental position that offers itself; whilst men wouldfain make a globe to suit them. Listen to this, Eustacia. There is asubject I have determined to put off no longer. Your sentiment on thewisdom of _Carpe diem_ does not impress me today. Our present mode oflife must shortly be brought to an end."

  "It is your mother!"
/>   "It is. I love you none the less in telling you; it is only right youshould know."

  "I have feared my bliss," she said, with the merest motion of herlips. "It has been too intense and consuming."

  "There is hope yet. There are forty years of work in me yet, and whyshould you despair? I am only at an awkward turning. I wish peoplewouldn't be so ready to think that there is no progress withoutuniformity."

  "Ah--your mind runs off to the philosophical side of it. Well, thesesad and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enableus to look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate lovesto indulge in. I have heard of people, who, upon coming suddenly intohappiness, have died from anxiety lest they should not live to enjoyit. I felt myself in that whimsical state of uneasiness lately; but Ishall be spared it now. Let us walk on."

  Clym took the hand which was already bared for him--it was a favouriteway with them to walk bare hand in bare hand--and led her through theferns. They formed a very comely picture of love at full flush, asthey walked along the valley that late afternoon, the sun sloping downon their right, and throwing their thin spectral shadows, tall aspoplar trees, far out across the furze and fern. Eustacia went withher head thrown back fancifully, a certain glad and voluptuous air oftriumph pervading her eyes at having won by her own unaided self a manwho was her perfect complement in attainment, appearance, and age. Onthe young man's part, the paleness of face which he had brought withhim from Paris, and the incipient marks of time and thought, wereless perceptible than when he returned, the healthful and energeticsturdiness which was his by nature having partially recovered itsoriginal proportions. They wandered onward till they reached thenether margin of the heath, where it became marshy and merged inmoorland.

  "I must part from you here, Clym," said Eustacia.

  They stood still and prepared to bid each other farewell. Everythingbefore them was on a perfect level. The sun, resting on the horizonline, streamed across the ground from between copper-coloured andlilac clouds, stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green.All dark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun were overspreadby a purple haze, against which groups of wailing gnats shone out,rising upwards and dancing about like sparks of fire.

  "O! this leaving you is too hard to bear!" exclaimed Eustacia in asudden whisper of anguish. "Your mother will influence you too much;I shall not be judged fairly, it will get afloat that I am not a goodgirl, and the witch story will be added to make me blacker!"

  "They cannot. Nobody dares to speak disrespectfully of you or of me."

  "Oh how I wish I was sure of never losing you--that you could not beable to desert me anyhow!"

  Clym stood silent a moment. His feelings were high, the moment waspassionate, and he cut the knot.

  "You shall be sure of me, darling," he said, folding her in his arms."We will be married at once."

  "O Clym!"

  "Do you agree to it?"

  "If--if we can."

  "We certainly can, both being of full age. And I have not followed myoccupation all these years without having accumulated money; and ifyou will agree to live in a tiny cottage somewhere on the heath, untilI take a house in Budmouth for the school, we can do it at a verylittle expense."

  "How long shall we have to live in the tiny cottage, Clym?"

  "About six months. At the end of that time I shall have finished myreading--yes, we will do it, and this heartaching will be over. Weshall, of course, live in absolute seclusion, and our married lifewill only begin to outward view when we take the house in Budmouth,where I have already addressed a letter on the matter. Would yourgrandfather allow you?"

  "I think he would--on the understanding that it should not last longerthan six months."

  "I will guarantee that, if no misfortune happens."

  "If no misfortune happens," she repeated slowly.

  "Which is not likely. Dearest, fix the exact day."

  And then they consulted on the question, and the day was chosen. Itwas to be a fortnight from that time.

  This was the end of their talk, and Eustacia left him. Clym watchedher as she retired towards the sun. The luminous rays wrapped her upwith her increasing distance, and the rustle of her dress over thesprouting sedge and grass died away. As he watched, the dead flatof the scenery overpowered him, though he was fully alive to thebeauty of that untarnished early summer green which was worn for thenonce by the poorest blade. There was something in its oppressivehorizontality which too much reminded him of the arena of life; itgave him a sense of bare equality with, and no superiority to, asingle living thing under the sun.

  Eustacia was now no longer the goddess but the woman to him, a beingto fight for, support, help, be maligned for. Now that he had reacheda cooler moment he would have preferred a less hasty marriage; butthe card was laid, and he determined to abide by the game. WhetherEustacia was to add one other to the list of those who love too hotlyto love long and well, the forthcoming event was certainly a ready wayof proving.