第63章 THE ARRIVAL(4)

We have enough berries now, I think, and we had better take them home.By the time we have decked the house with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must think of starting to meet him."Thomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair and dress the loose berries which had fallen thereon, and went down the hill with her aunt, each woman bearing half the gathered boughs.It was now nearly four o'clock, and the sunlight was leaving the vales.

When the west grew red the two relatives came again from the house and plunged into the heath in a different direction from the first, towards a point in the distant highway along which the expected man was to return.

3 - How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream Eustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes in the direction of Mrs.Yeobright's house and premises.

No light, sound, or movement was perceptible there.

The evening was chilly; the spot was dark and lonely.

She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and after lingering ten or fifteen minutes she turned again towards home.

She had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front of her betokened the approach of persons in conversation along the same path.Soon their heads became visible against the sky.They were walking slowly; and though it was too dark for much discovery of character from aspect, the gait of them showed that they were not workers on the heath.Eustacia stepped a little out of the foot-track to let them pass.They were two women and a man;and the voices of the women were those of Mrs.Yeobright and Thomasin.

They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared to discern her dusky form.There came to her ears in a masculine voice, "Good night!"She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round.

She could not, for a moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had brought into her presence the soul of the house she had gone to inspect, the man without whom her inspection would not have been thought of.

She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable.

Such was her intentness, however, that it seemed as if her ears were performing the functions of seeing as well as hearing.This extension of power can almost be believed in at such moments.The deaf Dr.Kitto was probably under the influence of a parallel fancy when he described his body as having become, by long endeavour, so sensitive to vibrations that he had gained the power of perceiving by it as by ears.

She could follow every word that the ramblers uttered.

They were talking no secrets.They were merely indulging in the ordinary vivacious chat of relatives who have long been parted in person though not in soul.But it was not to the words that Eustacia listened; she could not even have recalled, a few minutes later, what the words were.

It was to the alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth of them--the voice that had wished her good night.

Sometimes this throat uttered Yes, sometimes it uttered No;sometimes it made inquiries about a time worn denizen of the place.Once it surprised her notions by remarking upon the friendliness and geniality written in the faces of the hills around.

The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear.

Thus much had been granted her; and all besides withheld.

No event could have been more exciting.During the greater part of the afternoon she had been entrancing herself by imagining the fascination which must attend a man come direct from beautiful Paris--laden with its atmosphere, familiar with its charms.And this man had greeted her.

With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of the women wasted away from her memory; but the accents of the other stayed on.Was there anything in the voice of Mrs.Yeobright's son--for Clym it was--startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive.All emotional things were possible to the speaker of that "good night."Eustacia's imagination supplied the rest--except the solution to one riddle.What COULD the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and geniality in these shaggy hills?

On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly charged woman's head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but the changes, though actual, are minute.

Eustacia's features went through a rhythmical succession of them.She glowed; remembering the mendacity of the imagination, she flagged; then she freshened;then she fired; then she cooled again.It was a cycle of aspects, produced by a cycle of visions.

Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited.

Her grandfather was enjoying himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing the red-hot surface of the turves, so that their lurid glare irradiated the chimney-corner with the hues of a furnace.

"Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?"she said, coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth."I wish we were.They seem to be very nice people.""Be hanged if I know why," said the captain."I liked the old man well enough, though he was as rough as a hedge.

But you would never have cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure.""Why shouldn't I?"

"Your town tastes would find them far too countrified.

They sit in the kitchen, drink mead and elder-wine, and sand the floor to keep it clean.A sensible way of life;but how would you like it?"

"I thought Mrs.Yeobright was a ladylike woman?

A curate's daughter, was she not?"

"Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did;and I suppose she has taken kindly to it by this time.

Ah, I recollect that I once accidentally offended her, and I have never seen her since."That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she hardly ever forgot.She dreamt a dream;and few human beings, from Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable one.