One day just before this time Wildeve was standing
at the door of the Quiet Woman. In addition to
the upward path through the heath to Rainbarrow and
Mistover, there was a road which branched from the
highway a short distance below the inn, and ascended
to Mistover by a circuitous and easy incline.
This was the only route on that side for vehicles
to the captain’s retreat. A light cart from
the nearest town descended the road, and the lad who
was driving pulled up in front of the inn for something
to drink.
“You come from Mistover?” said Wildeve.
“Yes. They are taking in good things up
there. Going to be a wedding.” And
the driver buried his face in his mug.
Wildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before,
and a sudden expression of pain overspread his face.
He turned for a moment into the passage to hide it.
Then he came back again.
“Do you mean Miss Vye?” he said.
“How is it—that she can be married
so soon?”
“By the will of God and a ready young man, I
suppose.”
“You don’t mean Mr. Yeobright?”
“Yes. He has been creeping about with her
all the spring.”
“I suppose—she was immensely taken
with him?”
“She is crazy about him, so their general servant
of all work tells me. And that lad Charley that
looks after the horse is all in a daze about it.
The stun-poll has got fondlike of her.”
“Is she lively—is she glad?
Going to be married so soon—well!”
“It isn’t so very soon.”
“No; not so very soon.”
Wildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious
heartache within him. He rested his elbow upon
the mantelpiece and his face upon his hand. When
Thomasin entered the room he did not tell her of what
he had heard. The old longing for Eustacia had
reappeared in his soul; and it was mainly because
he had discovered that it was another man’s
intention to possess her.
To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that
offered; to care for the remote, to dislike the near;
it was Wildeve’s nature always. This is
the true mark of the man of sentiment. Though
Wildeve’s fevered feeling had not been elaborated
to real poetical compass, it was of the standard sort.
He might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon.
The Morning and the Evening of a Day
The wedding morning came. Nobody would have imagined
from appearances that Blooms-End had any interest
in Mistover that day. A solemn stillness prevailed
around the house of Clym’s mother, and there
was no more animation indoors. Mrs. Yeobright,
who had declined to attend the ceremony, sat by the
breakfast table in the old room which communicated
immediately with the porch, her eyes listlessly directed
towards the open door. It was the room in which,
six months earlier, the merry Christmas party had
met, to which Eustacia came secretly and as a stranger.
