Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
Having seen Eustacia’s signal from the hill
at eight o’clock, Wildeve immediately prepared
to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped, accompany
her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner
of informing Thomasin that he was going on a journey
was in itself sufficient to rouse her suspicions.
When she had gone to bed he collected the few articles
he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest,
whence he took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes,
which had been advanced to him on the property he
was so soon to have in possession, to defray expenses
incidental to the removal.
He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure
himself that the horse, gig, and harness were in a
fit condition for a long drive. Nearly half an
hour was spent thus, and on returning to the house
Wildeve had no thought of Thomasin being anywhere but
in bed. He had told the stable-lad not to stay
up, leading the boy to understand that his departure
would be at three or four in the morning; for this,
though an exceptional hour, was less strange than midnight,
the time actually agreed on, the packet from Budmouth
sailing between one and two.
At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but
to wait. By no effort could he shake off the
oppression of spirits which he had experienced ever
since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hoped
there was that in his situation which money could cure.
He had persuaded himself that to act not ungenerously
towards his gentle wife by settling on her the half
of his property, and with chivalrous devotion towards
another and greater woman by sharing her fate, was
possible. And though he meant to adhere to Eustacia’s
instructions to the letter, to deposit her where she
wished and to leave her, should that be her will,
the spell that she had cast over him intensified,
and his heart was beating fast in the anticipated futility
of such commands in the face of a mutual wish that
they should throw in their lot together.
He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these
conjectures, maxims, and hopes, and at twenty minutes
to twelve he again went softly to the stable, harnessed
the horse, and lit the lamps; whence, taking the horse
by the head, he led him with the covered car out of
the yard to a spot by the roadside some quarter of
a mile below the inn.
Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving
rain by a high bank that had been cast up at this
place. Along the surface of the road where lit
by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones
scudded and clicked together before the wind, which,
leaving them in heaps, plunged into the heath and
boomed across the bushes into darkness. Only
one sound rose above this din of weather, and that
was the roaring of a ten-hatch weir to the southward,
from a river in the meads which formed the boundary
of the heath in this direction.
