Part 43

“To get excitement and shake off depression,” she said in low tones.

“What depressed you?”

“Life.”

“That’s a cause of depression a good many have to put up with.”

“Yes.”

A long silence. “And do you find excitement?” asked Clym at last.

“At this moment, perhaps.”

“Then you are vexed at being discovered?”

“Yes; though I thought I might be.”

“I would gladly have asked you to our party had I known you wished to come. Have I ever been acquainted with you in my youth?”

“Never.”

“Won’t you come in again, and stay as long as you like?”

“No. I wish not to be further recognized.”

“Well, you are safe with me.” After remaining in thought a minute he added gently, “I will not intrude upon you longer. It is a strange way of meeting, and I will not ask why I find a cultivated woman playing such a part as this.”

She did not volunteer the reason which he seemed to hope for, and he wished her good night, going thence round to the back of the house, where he walked up and down by himself for some time before re-entering.

Eustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for her companions after this. She flung back the ribbons from her face, opened the gate, and at once struck into the heath. She did not hasten along. Her grandfather was in bed at this hour, for she so frequently walked upon the hills on moonlight nights that he took no notice of her comings and goings, and, enjoying himself in his own way, left her to do likewise. A more important subject than that of getting indoors now engrossed her. Yeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would infallibly discover her name. What then? She first felt a sort of exultation at the way in which the adventure had terminated, even though at moments between her exultations she was abashed and blushful. Then this consideration recurred to chill her: What was the use of her exploit? She was at present a total stranger to the Yeobright family. The unreasonable nimbus of romance with which she had encircled that man might be her misery. How could she allow herself to become so infatuated with a stranger? And to fill the cup of her sorrow there would be Thomasin, living day after day in inflammable proximity to him; for she had just learnt that, contrary to her first belief, he was going to stay at home some considerable time.

She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she turned and faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood above the hills, and the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was charged with silence and frost. The scene reminded Eustacia of a circumstance which till that moment she had totally forgotten. She had promised to meet Wildeve by the Barrow this very night at eight, to give a final answer to his pleading for an elopement.

She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come to the spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.

“Well, so much the better—it did not hurt him,” she said serenely. Wildeve had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked glass, and she could say such things as that with the greatest facility.

She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin’s winning manner towards her cousin arose again upon Eustacia’s mind.

“O that she had been married to Damon before this!” she said. “And she would if it hadn’t been for me! If I had only known—if I had only known!”

Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and, sighing that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder, entered the shadow of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the outhouse, rolled them up, and went indoors to her chamber.

VII. A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness

The old captain’s prevailing indifference to his granddaughter’s movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so happened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why she had walked out so late.

“Only in search of events, Grandfather,” she said, looking out of the window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much force behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.

“Search of events—one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at one-and-twenty.”

“It is lonely here.”

“So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been home when I returned from the Woman.”