He was standing, as it might be, Mister Yeobright, in the middle of the path to Mistover, and your mother came up, looking as pale--""Yes, when was that?"
"Last summer, in my dream."
"Pooh! Who's the man?"
"Diggory, the reddleman.He called upon her and sat with her the evening before she set out to see you.
I hadn't gone home from work when he came up to the gate.""I must see Venn--I wish I had known it before,"said Clym anxiously."I wonder why he has not come to tell me?""He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not be likely to know you wanted him.""Christian," said Clym, "you must go and find Venn.
I am otherwise engaged, or I would go myself.Find him at once, and tell him I want to speak to him.""I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day," said Christian, looking dubiously round at the declining light;"but as to night-time, never is such a bad hand as I, Mister Yeobright.""Search the heath when you will, so that you bring him soon.
Bring him tomorrow, if you can."
Christian then departed.The morrow came, but no Venn.
In the evening Christian arrived, looking very weary.
He had been searching all day, and had heard nothing of the reddleman.
"Inquire as much as you can tomorrow without neglecting your work," said Yeobright."Don't come again till you have found him."The next day Yeobright set out for the old house at Blooms-End, which, with the garden, was now his own.
His severe illness had hindered all preparations for his removal thither; but it had become necessary that he should go and overlook its contents, as administrator to his mother's little property; for which purpose he decided to pass the next night on the premises.
He journeyed onward, not quickly or decisively, but in the slow walk of one who has been awakened from a stupefying sleep.
It was early afternoon when he reached the valley.
The expression of the place, the tone of the hour, were precisely those of many such occasions in days gone by;and these antecedent similarities fostered the illusion that she, who was there no longer, would come out to welcome him.
The garden gate was locked and the shutters were closed, just as he himself had left them on the evening after the funeral.He unlocked the gate, and found that a spider had already constructed a large web, tying the door to the lintel, on the supposition that it was never to be opened again.When he had entered the house and flung back the shutters he set about his task of overhauling the cupboards and closets, burning papers, and considering how best to arrange the place for Eustacia's reception, until such time as he might be in a position to carry out his long-delayed scheme, should that time ever arrive.
As he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined for the alterations which would have to be made in the time-honoured furnishing of his parents and grandparents, to suit Eustacia's modern ideas.The gaunt oak-cased clock, with the picture of the Ascension on the door panel and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes on the base;his grandmother's corner cupboard with the glass door, through which the spotted china was visible; the dumb-waiter;the wooden tea trays; the hanging fountain with the brass tap--whither would these venerable articles have to be banished?
He noticed that the flowers in the window had died for want of water, and he placed them out upon the ledge, that they might be taken away.While thus engaged he heard footsteps on the gravel without, and somebody knocked at the door.
Yeobright opened it, and Venn was standing before him.
"Good morning," said the reddleman."Is Mrs.Yeobright at home?"Yeobright looked upon the ground."Then you have not seen Christian or any of the Egdon folks?" he said.
"No.I have only just returned after a long stay away.
I called here the day before I left."
"And you have heard nothing?"
"Nothing."
"My mother is--dead."
"Dead!" said Venn mechanically.
"Her home now is where I shouldn't mind having mine."Venn regarded him, and then said, "If I didn't see your face I could never believe your words.Have you been ill?""I had an illness."
"Well, the change! When I parted from her a month ago everything seemed to say that she was going to begin a new life.""And what seemed came true."
"You say right, no doubt.Trouble has taught you a deeper vein of talk than mine.All I meant was regarding her life here.She has died too soon.""Perhaps through my living too long.I have had a bitter experience on that score this last month, Diggory.
But come in; I have been wanting to see you."He conducted the reddleman into the large room where the dancing had taken place the previous Christmas, and they sat down in the settle together."There's the cold fireplace, you see," said Clym."When that half-burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive!
Little has been changed here yet.I can do nothing.
My life creeps like a snail."
"How came she to die?" said Venn.
Yeobright gave him some particulars of her illness and death, and continued: "After this no kind of pain will ever seem more than an indisposition to me.
I began saying that I wanted to ask you something, but Istray from subjects like a drunken man.I am anxious to know what my mother said to you when she last saw you.
You talked with her a long time, I think?""I talked with her more than half an hour.""About me?"
"Yes.And it must have been on account of what we said that she was on the heath.Without question she was coming to see you.""But why should she come to see me if she felt so bitterly against me? There's the mystery.""Yet I know she quite forgave 'ee."
"But, Diggory--would a woman, who had quite forgiven her son, say, when she felt herself ill on the way to his house, that she was broken-hearted because of his ill-usage? Never!""What I know is that she didn't blame you at all.
She blamed herself for what had happened, and only herself.
I had it from her own lips."
