“Well, wait till he is better, and trust to
chance. And when you tell, you must only tell
part—for his own sake.”
“Which part should I keep back?”
Wildeve paused. “That I was in the house
at the time,” he said in a low tone.
“Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has
been whispered. How much easier are hasty actions
than speeches that will excuse them!”
“If he were only to die—” Wildeve
murmured.
“Do not think of it! I would not buy hope
of immunity by so cowardly a desire even if I hated
him. Now I am going up to him again. Thomasin
bade me tell you she would be down in a few minutes.
Good-bye.”
She returned, and Thomasin soon appeared. When
she was seated in the gig with her husband, and the
horse was turning to go off, Wildeve lifted his eyes
to the bedroom windows. Looking from one of them
he could discern a pale, tragic face watching him
drive away. It was Eustacia’s.
A Lurid Light Breaks In upon a Darkened Understanding
Clym’s grief became mitigated by wearing itself
out. His strength returned, and a month after
the visit of Thomasin he might have been seen walking
about the garden. Endurance and despair, equanimity
and gloom, the tints of health and the pallor of death,
mingled weirdly in his face. He was now unnaturally
silent upon all of the past that related to his mother;
and though Eustacia knew that he was thinking of it
none the less, she was only too glad to escape the
topic ever to bring it up anew. When his mind
had been weaker his heart had led him to speak out;
but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he
sank into taciturnity.
One evening when he was thus standing in the garden,
abstractedly spudding up a weed with his stick, a
bony figure turned the corner of the house and came
up to him.
“Christian, isn’t it?” said Clym.
“I am glad you have found me out. I shall
soon want you to go to Blooms-End and assist me in
putting the house in order. I suppose it is all
locked up as I left it?”
“Yes, Mister Clym.”
“Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?”
“Yes, without a drop o’ rain, thank God.
But I was coming to tell ’ee of something else
which is quite different from what we have lately
had in the family. I am sent by the rich gentleman
at the Woman, that we used to call the landlord, to
tell ’ee that Mrs. Wildeve is doing well of
a girl, which was born punctually at one o’clock
at noon, or a few minutes more or less; and ’tis
said that expecting of this increase is what have
kept ’em there since they came into their money.”
“And she is getting on well, you say?”
“Yes, sir. Only Mr. Wildeve is twanky because
’tisn’t a boy—that’s
what they say in the kitchen, but I was not supposed
to notice that.”
“Christian, now listen to me.”
“Yes, sure, Mr. Yeobright.”
