第134章 AFTERCOURSES(9)

The window, being screened from general observation by the bushes, had been left unblinded, so that a person in this private nook could see all that was going on within the room which contained the wedding guests, except in so far as vision was hindered by the green antiquity of the panes.

"Charley, what are they doing?" said Clym."My sight is weaker again tonight, and the glass of this window is not good."Charley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred with moisture, and stepped closer to the casement.

"Mr.Venn is asking Christian Cantle to sing," he replied, "and Christian is moving about in his chair as if he were much frightened at the question, and his father has struck up a stave instead of him.""Yes, I can hear the old man's voice," said Clym.

"So there's to be no dancing, I suppose.And is Thomasin in the room? I see something moving in front of the candles that resembles her shape, I think.""Yes.She do seem happy.She is red in the face, and laughing at something Fairway has said to her.

O my!"

"What noise was that?" said Clym.

"Mr.Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against the beam in gieing a skip as he passed under.Mrs.Venn has run up quite frightened and now she's put her hand to his head to feel if there's a lump.And now they be all laughing again as if nothing had happened.""Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?"Clym asked.

"No, not a bit in the world.Now they are all holding up their glasses and drinking somebody's health.""I wonder if it is mine?"

"No, 'tis Mr.and Mrs.Venn's, because he is making a hearty sort of speech.There--now Mrs.Venn has got up, and is going away to put on her things, I think.""Well, they haven't concerned themselves about me, and it is quite right they should not.It is all as it should be, and Thomasin at least is happy.We will not stay any longer now, as they will soon be coming out to go home."He accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home, and, returning alone to the house a quarter of an hour later, found Venn and Thomasin ready to start, all the guests having departed in his absence.

The wedded pair took their seats in the four-wheeled dogcart which Venn's head milker and handy man had driven from Stickleford to fetch them in; little Eustacia and the nurse were packed securely upon the open flap behind;and the milker, on an ancient overstepping pony, whose shoes clashed like cymbals at every tread, rode in the rear, in the manner of a body-servant of the last century.

"Now we leave you in absolute possession of your own house again," said Thomasin as she bent down to wish her cousin good night."It will be rather lonely for you, Clym, after the hubbub we have been making.""O, that's no inconvenience," said Clym, smiling rather sadly.

And then the party drove off and vanished in the night shades, and Yeobright entered the house.The ticking of the clock was the only sound that greeted him, for not a soul remained; Christian, who acted as cook, valet, and gardener to Clym, sleeping at his father's house.

Yeobright sat down in one of the vacant chairs, and remained in thought a long time.His mother's old chair was opposite; it had been sat in that evening by those who had scarcely remembered that it ever was hers.

But to Clym she was almost a presence there, now as always.

Whatever she was in other people's memories, in his she was the sublime saint whose radiance even his tenderness for Eustacia could not obscure.But his heart was heavy, that Mother had NOT crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart.