“And I could not bear to leave them in your way. There was meaning in your look at them.”
“Where are they now?”
“Locked up.”
“Where?”
“In the stable.”
“Give them to me.”
“No, ma’am.”
“You refuse?”
“I do. I care too much for you to give ’em up.”
She turned aside, her face for the first time softening from the stony immobility of the earlier day, and the corners of her mouth resuming something of that delicacy of cut which was always lost in her moments of despair. At last she confronted him again.
“Why should I not die if I wish?” she said tremulously. “I have made a bad bargain with life, and I am weary of it — weary. And now you have hindered my escape. O, why did you, Charley! What makes death painful except the thought of others’ grief? — and that is absent in my case, for not a sigh would follow me!”
“Ah, it is trouble that has done this! I wish in my very soul that he who brought it about might die and rot, even if ’tis transportation to say it!”
“Charley, no more of that. What do you mean to do about this you have seen?”
“Keep it close as night, if you promise not to think of it again.”
“You need not fear. The moment has passed. I promise.” She then went away, entered the house, and lay down.
Later in the afternoon her grandfather returned. He was about to question her categorically, but on looking at her he withheld his words.
“Yes, it is too bad to talk of,” she slowly returned in answer to his glance. “Can my old room be got ready for me tonight, Grandfather? I shall want to occupy it again.”
He did not ask what it all meant, or why she had left her husband, but ordered the room to be prepared.
Chapter 5
An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
Charley’s attentions to his former mistress were unbounded. The only solace to his own trouble lay in his attempts to relieve hers. Hour after hour he considered her wants; he thought of her presence there with a sort of gratitude, and, while uttering imprecations on the cause of her unhappiness, in some measure blessed the result. Perhaps she would always remain there, he thought, and then he would be as happy as he had been before. His dread was lest she should think fit to return to Alderworth, and in that dread his eyes, with all the inquisitiveness of affection, frequently sought her face when she was not observing him, as he would have watched the head of a stockdove to learn if it contemplated flight. Having once really succoured her, and possibly preserved her from the rashest of acts, he mentally assumed in addition a guardian’s responsibility for her welfare.
For this reason he busily endeavoured to provide her with pleasant distractions, bringing home curious objects which he found in the heath, such as white trumpet-shaped mosses, redheaded lichens, stone arrowheads used by the old tribes on Egdon, and faceted crystals from the hollows of flints. These he deposited on the premises in such positions that she should see them as if by accident.
A week passed, Eustacia never going out of the house. Then she walked into the enclosed plot and looked through her grandfather’s spyglass, as she had been in the habit of doing before her marriage. One day she saw, at a place where the highroad crossed the distant valley, a heavily laden wagon passing along. It was piled with household furniture. She looked again and again, and recognized it to be her own. In the evening her grandfather came indoors with a rumour that Yeobright had removed that day from Alderworth to the old house at Blooms-End.
On another occasion when reconnoitring thus she beheld two female figures walking in the vale. The day was fine and clear; and the persons not being more than half a mile off she could see their every detail with the telescope. The woman walking in front carried a white bundle in her arms, from one end of which hung a long appendage of drapery; and when the walkers turned, so that the sun fell more directly upon them, Eustacia could see that the object was a baby. She called Charley, and asked him if he knew who they were, though she well guessed.
“Mrs. Wildeve and the nurse-girl,” said Charley.
“The nurse is carrying the baby?” said Eustacia.
“No, ’tis Mrs. Wildeve carrying that,” he answered, “and the nurse walks behind carrying nothing.”
The lad was in good spirits that day, for the Fifth of November had again come round, and he was planning yet another scheme to divert her from her too absorbing thoughts. For two successive years his mistress had seemed to take pleasure in lighting a bonfire on the bank overlooking the valley; but this year she had apparently quite forgotten the day and the customary deed. He was careful not to remind her, and went on with his secret preparations for a cheerful surprise, the more zealously that he had been absent last time and unable to assist. At every vacant minute he hastened to gather furze-stumps, thorn-tree roots, and other solid materials from the adjacent slopes, hiding them from cursory view.
The evening came, and Eustacia was still seemingly unconscious of the anniversary. She had gone indoors after her survey through the glass, and had not been visible since. As soon as it was quite dark Charley began to build the bonfire, choosing precisely that spot on the bank which Eustacia had chosen at previous times.
When all the surrounding bonfires had burst into existence Charley kindled his, and arranged its fuel so that it should not require tending for some time. He then went back to the house, and lingered round the door and windows till she should by some means or other learn of his achievement and come out to witness it. But the shutters were closed, the door remained shut, and no heed whatever seemed to be taken of his performance. Not liking to call her he went back and replenished the fire, continuing to do this for more than half an hour. It was not till his stock of fuel had greatly diminished that he went to the back door and sent in to beg that Mrs. Yeobright would open the window-shutters and see the sight outside.
Eustacia, who had been sitting listlessly in the parlour, started up at the intelligence and flung open the shutters. Facing her on the bank blazed the fire, which at once sent a ruddy glare into the room where she was, and overpowered the candles.
“Well done, Charley!” said Captain Vye from the chimney-corner. “But I hope it is not my wood that he’s burning. . . . Ah, it was this time last year that I met with that man Venn, bringing home Thomasin Yeobright — to be sure it was! Well, who would have thought that girl’s troubles would have ended so well? What a snipe you were in that matter, Eustacia! Has your husband written to you yet?”
“No,” said Eustacia, looking vaguely through the window at the fire, which just then so much engaged her mind that she did not resent her grandfather’s blunt opinion. She could see Charley’s form on the bank, shovelling and stirring the fire; and there flashed upon her imagination some other form which that fire might call up.
She left the room, put on her garden bonnet and cloak, and went out. Reaching the bank, she looked
