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how could you say that I should marry some town man? I am sure, say what you will, that I must marry Diggory, if I marry at all. He has been kinder to me than anybody else, and has helped me in many ways that I don’t know of!” Thomasin almost pouted now.
“Yes, he has,” said Clym in a neutral tone. “Well, I wish with all my heart that I could say, marry him. But I cannot forget what my mother thought on that matter, and it goes rather against me not to respect her opinion. There is too much reason why we should do the little we can to respect it now.”
“Very well, then,” sighed Thomasin. “I will say no more.”
“But you are not bound to obey my wishes. I merely say what I think.”
“O no — I don’t want to be rebellious in that way,” she said sadly. “I had no business to think of him — I ought to have thought of my family. What dreadfully bad impulses there are in me!” Her lips trembled, and she turned away to hide a tear.
Clym, though vexed at what seemed her unaccountable taste, was in a measure relieved to find that at any rate the marriage question in relation to himself was shelved. Through several succeeding days he saw her at different times from the window of his room moping disconsolately about the garden. He was half angry with her for choosing Venn; then he was grieved at having put himself in the way of Venn’s happiness, who was, after all, as honest and persevering a young fellow as any on Egdon, since he had turned over a new leaf. In short, Clym did not know what to do.
When next they met she said abruptly, “He is much more respectable now than he was then!”
“Who? O yes — Diggory Venn.”
“Aunt only objected because he was a reddleman.”
“Well, Thomasin, perhaps I don’t know all the particulars of my mother’s wish. So you had better use your own discretion.”
“You will always feel that I slighted your mother’s memory.”
“No, I will not. I shall think you are convinced that, had she seen Diggory in his present position, she would have considered him a fitting husband for you. Now, that’s my real feeling. Don’t consult me any more, but do as you like, Thomasin. I shall be content.”
It is to be supposed that Thomasin was convinced; for a few days after this, when Clym strayed into a part of the heath that he had not lately visited, Humphrey, who was at work there, said to him, “I am glad to see that Mrs. Wildeve and Venn have made it up again, seemingly.”
“Have they?” said Clym abstractedly.
“Yes; and he do contrive to stumble upon her whenever she walks out on fine days with the chiel. But, Mr. Yeobright, I can’t help feeling that your cousin ought to have married you. ’Tis a pity to make two chimleycorners where there need be only one. You could get her away from him now, ’tis my belief, if you were only to set about it.”
“How can I have the conscience to marry after having driven two women to their deaths? Don’t think such a thing, Humphrey. After my experience I should consider it too much of a burlesque to go to church and take a wife. In the words of Job, ‘I have made a covenant with mine eyes; when then should I think upon a maid?’”
“No, Mr. Clym, don’t fancy that about driving two women to their deaths. You shouldn’t say it.”
“Well, we’ll leave that out,” said Yeobright. “But anyhow God has set a mark upon me which wouldn’t look well in a love-making scene. I have two ideas in my head, and no others. I am going to keep a night-school; and I am going to turn preacher. What have you got to say to that, Humphrey?”
“I’ll come and hear ‘ee with all my heart.”
“Thanks. ’Tis all I wish.”
As Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came down by the other path, and met him at the gate. “What do you think I have to tell you, Clym?” she said, looking archly over her shoulder at him.
“I can guess,” he replied.
She scrutinized his face. “Yes, you guess right. It is going to be after all. He thinks I may as well make up my mind, and I have got to think so too. It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you don’t object.”
“Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you see your way clear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the treatment you received in days gone by.”1
1. The writer may state here that the original conception of the story did not design a marriage between Thomasin and Venn. He was to have retained his isolated and weird character to the last, and to have disappeared mysteriously from the heath, nobody knowing whither — Thomasin remaining a widow. But certain circumstances of serial publication led to a change of intent. Readers can therefore choose between the endings, and those with an austere artistic code can assume the more consistent conclusion to be the true one.
Chapter 4
Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His Vocation
Anybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven o’clock on the morning fixed for the wedding would have found that, while Yeobright’s house was comparatively quiet, sounds denoting great activity came from the dwelling of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway. It was chiefly a noise of feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over the sanded floor within. One man only was visible outside, and he seemed to be later at an appointment than he had intended to be, for he hastened up to the door, lifted the latch, and walked in without ceremony.
The scene within was not quite the customary one. Standing about the room was the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the Egdon coterie, there being present Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle, Humphrey, Christian, and one or two turf-cutters. It was a warm day, and the men were as a matter of course in their shirtsleeves, except Christian, who had always a nervous fear of parting with a scrap of his clothing when in anybody’s house but his own. Across the stout oak table in the middle of the room was thrown a mass of striped linen, which Grandfer Cantle held down on one side, and Humphrey on the other, while Fairway rubbed its surface with a yellow lump, his face being damp and creased with the effort of the labour.
“Waxing a bed-tick, souls?” said the newcomer.
“Yes, Sam,” said Grandfer Cantle, as a man too busy to waste words. “Shall I stretch this corner a shade tighter, Timothy?”
Fairway replied, and the waxing went on with unabated vigour. “’Tis going to be a good bed, by the look o’t,” continued Sam, after an interval of silence. “Who may it be for?”
“’Tis a present for the new folks that’s going to set up housekeeping,” said Christian, who stood helpless and overcome by the majesty of the proceedings.
“Ah, to be sure; and a valuable one, ‘a b’lieve.”
“Beds be dear to fokes that don’t keep geese, bain’t they, Mister Fairway?” said Christian, as to an omniscient being.
“Yes,” said the furze-dealer, standing up, giving his forehead a thorough mopping, and handing the beeswax to Humphrey, who succeeded at the rubbing forthwith. “Not that this couple be in want of one, but ’twas well to show ’em a bit of friendliness at this great racketing vagary of their lives. I set up both my own daughters in one when they was married, and there have been feathers enough for another in the house the last twelve months. Now then, neighbours, I think we have laid on enough wax. Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right way outwards, and then I’ll begin to shake in the feathers.”
When the bed was in