Chapter: <CHAPTER>
3--The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin


Throughout this period Yeobright had more or less pondered on his duty
to his cousin Thomasin. He could not help feeling that it would be a
pitiful waste of sweet material if the tender-natured thing should be
doomed from this early stage of her life onwards to dribble away her
winsome qualities on lonely gorse and fern. But he felt this as an
economist merely, and not as a lover. His passion for Eustacia had been
a sort of conserve of his whole life, and he had nothing more of that
supreme quality left to bestow. So far the obvious thing was not to
entertain any idea of marriage with Thomasin, even to oblige her.

But this was not all. Years ago there had been in his mother's mind a
great fancy about Thomasin and himself. It had not positively amounted
to a desire, but it had always been a favourite dream. That they
should be man and wife in good time, if the happiness of neither were
endangered thereby, was the fancy in question. So that what course save
one was there now left for any son who reverenced his mother's memory
as Yeobright did? It is an unfortunate fact that any particular whim of
parents, which might have been dispersed by half an hour's conversation
during their lives, becomes sublimated by their deaths into a fiat the
most absolute, with such results to conscientious children as those
parents, had they lived, would have been the first to decry.

Had only Yeobright's own future been involved he would have proposed to
Thomasin with a ready heart. He had nothing to lose by carrying out a
dead mother's hope. But he dreaded to contemplate Thomasin wedded to the
mere corpse of a lover that he now felt himself to be. He had but three
activities alive in him. One was his almost daily walk to the little
graveyard wherein his mother lay, another, his just as frequent visits
by night to the more distant enclosure which numbered his Eustacia among
its dead; the third was self-preparation for a vocation which alone
seemed likely to satisfy his cravings--that of an itinerant preacher
of the eleventh commandment. It was difficult to believe that Thomasin
would be cheered by a husband with such tendencies as these.

Yet he resolved to ask her, and let her decide for herself. It was even
with a pleasant sense of doing his duty that he went downstairs to her
one evening for this purpose, when the sun was printing on the valley
the same long shadow of the housetop that he had seen lying there times
out of number while his mother lived.

Thomasin was not in her room, and he found her in the front garden. "I
have long been wanting, Thomasin," he began, "to say something about a
matter that concerns both our futures."

"And you are going to say it now?" she remarked quickly, colouring as
she met his gaze. "Do stop a minute, Clym, and let me speak first, for
oddly enough, I have been wanting to say something to you."

"By all means say on, Tamsie."

"I suppose nobody can overhear us?" she went on, casting her eyes around
and lowering her voice. "Well, first you will promise me this--that you
won't be angry and call me anything harsh if you disagree with what I
propose?"

Yeobright promised, and she continued: "What I want is your advice,
for you are my relation--I mean, a sort of guardian to me--aren't you,
Clym?"

"Well, yes, I suppose I am; a sort of guardian. In fact, I am, of
course," he said, altogether perplexed as to her drift.

"I am thinking of marrying," she then observed blandly. "But I shall not
marry unless you assure me that you approve of such a step. Why don't
you speak?"

"I was taken rather by surprise. But, nevertheless, I am very glad to
hear such news. I shall approve, of course, dear Tamsie. Who can it be?
I am quite at a loss to guess. No I am not--'tis the old doctor!--not
that I mean to call him old, for he is not very old after all. Ah--I
noticed when he attended you last time!"

"No, no," she said hastily. "'Tis Mr. Venn."

Clym's face suddenly became grave.

"There, now, you don't like him, and I wish I hadn't mentioned him!" she
exclaimed almost petulantly. "And I shouldn't have done it, either, only
he keeps on bothering me so till I don't know what to do!"

Clym looked at the heath. "I like Venn well enough," he answered at
last. "He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is clever
too, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But really,
Thomasin, he is not quite--"

"Gentleman enough for me? That is just what I feel. I am sorry now that
I asked you, and I won't think any more of him. At the same time I must
marry him if I marry anybody--that I WILL say!"

"I don't see that," said Clym, carefully concealing every clue to his
own interrupted intention, which she plainly had not guessed. "You might
marry a professional man, or somebody of that sort, by going into the
town to live and forming acquaintances there."

"I am not fit for town life--so very rural and silly as I always have
been. Do not you yourself notice my countrified ways?"

"Well, when I came home from Paris I did, a little; but I don't now."

"That's because you have got countrified too. O, I couldn't live in a
street for the world! Egdon is a ridiculous old place; but I have got
used to it, and I couldn't be happy anywhere else at all."

"Neither could I," said Clym.

"Then 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."*

     * 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>

 Clym continues to worry about his relationship with Thomasin and convinces himself that she has a crush on him. Clym decides he's too busy for such nonsense - he has to prepare for his new job as an itinerant preacher. Thomasin comes in one day and tells Clym that Diggory has proposed and she is considering accepting. Clym worries that Diggory isn't rich enough, but Thomasin says she's happy in Egdon and he makes enough money for her. Clym finally comes around and says he doesn't mind if she gets married, so Thomasin accepts Diggory's offer.

