Chapter: <CHAPTER>
</CHAPTER>
8--Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil


In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth,
had become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The
consequences which might result from Clym's discovery that his mother
had been turned from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable,
and this was a quality in events which she hated as much as the
dreadful.

To be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome to her at any
time, and this evening it was more irksome than usual by reason of
the excitements of the past hours. The two visits had stirred her into
restlessness. She was not wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness by
the probability of appearing in an ill light in the discussion between
Clym and his mother, but she was wrought to vexation, and her slumbering
activities were quickened to the extent of wishing that she had opened
the door. She had certainly believed that Clym was awake, and the excuse
would be an honest one as far as it went; but nothing could save her
from censure in refusing to answer at the first knock. Yet, instead of
blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders
of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who had framed her
situation and ruled her lot.

At this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by night than by day,
and when Clym had been absent about an hour she suddenly resolved to go
out in the direction of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting him on his
return. When she reached the garden gate she heard wheels approaching,
and looking round beheld her grandfather coming up in his car.

"I can't stay a minute, thank ye," he answered to her greeting. "I am
driving to East Egdon; but I came round here just to tell you the news.
Perhaps you have heard--about Mr. Wildeve's fortune?"

"No," said Eustacia blankly.

"Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand pounds--uncle died
in Canada, just after hearing that all his family, whom he was sending
home, had gone to the bottom in the Cassiopeia; so Wildeve has come into
everything, without in the least expecting it."

Eustacia stood motionless awhile. "How long has he known of this?" she
asked.

"Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew it at ten
o'clock, when Charley came back. Now, he is what I call a lucky man.
What a fool you were, Eustacia!"

"In what way?" she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness.

"Why, in not sticking to him when you had him."

"Had him, indeed!"

"I did not know there had ever been anything between you till lately;
and, faith, I should have been hot and strong against it if I had known;
but since it seems that there was some sniffing between ye, why the
deuce didn't you stick to him?"

Eustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could say as much upon
that subject as he if she chose.

"And how is your poor purblind husband?" continued the old man. "Not a
bad fellow either, as far as he goes."

"He is quite well."

"It is a good thing for his cousin what-d'ye-call-her? By George, you
ought to have been in that galley, my girl! Now I must drive on. Do you
want any assistance? What's mine is yours, you know."

"Thank you, Grandfather, we are not in want at present," she said
coldly. "Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly as a useful pastime,
because he can do nothing else."

"He is paid for his pastime, isn't he? Three shillings a hundred, I
heard."

"Clym has money," she said, colouring, "but he likes to earn a little."

"Very well; good night." And the captain drove on.

When her grandfather was gone Eustacia went on her way mechanically;
but her thoughts were no longer concerning her mother-in-law and Clym.
Wildeve, notwithstanding his complaints against his fate, had been
seized upon by destiny and placed in the sunshine once more. Eleven
thousand pounds! From every Egdon point of view he was a rich man. In
Eustacia's eyes, too, it was an ample sum--one sufficient to supply
those wants of hers which had been stigmatized by Clym in his more
austere moods as vain and luxurious. Though she was no lover of money
she loved what money could bring; and the new accessories she
imagined around him clothed Wildeve with a great deal of interest. She
recollected now how quietly well-dressed he had been that morning--he
had probably put on his newest suit, regardless of damage by briars and
thorns. And then she thought of his manner towards herself.

"O I see it, I see it," she said. "How much he wishes he had me now,
that he might give me all I desire!"

In recalling the details of his glances and words--at the time scarcely
regarded--it became plain to her how greatly they had been dictated
by his knowledge of this new event. "Had he been a man to bear a jilt
ill-will he would have told me of his good fortune in crowing tones;
instead of doing that he mentioned not a word, in deference to my
misfortunes, and merely implied that he loved me still, as one superior
to him."

Wildeve's silence that day on what had happened to him was just the kind
of behaviour calculated to make an impression on such a woman. Those
delicate touches of good taste were, in fact, one of the strong points
in his demeanour towards the other sex. The peculiarity of Wildeve was
that, while at one time passionate, upbraiding, and resentful towards a
woman, at another he would treat her with such unparalleled grace as
to make previous neglect appear as no discourtesy, injury as no insult,
interference as a delicate attention, and the ruin of her honour as
excess of chivalry. This man, whose admiration today Eustacia had
disregarded, whose good wishes she had scarcely taken the trouble to
accept, whom she had shown out of the house by the back door, was
the possessor of eleven thousand pounds--a man of fair professional
education, and one who had served his articles with a civil engineer.

So intent was Eustacia upon Wildeve's fortunes that she forgot how much
closer to her own course were those of Clym; and instead of walking on
to meet him at once she sat down upon a stone. She was disturbed in her
reverie by a voice behind, and turning her head beheld the old lover and
fortunate inheritor of wealth immediately beside her.

She remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look might have told
any man who knew her so well as Wildeve that she was thinking of him.

"How did you come here?" she said in her clear low tone. "I thought you
were at home."

"I went on to the village after leaving your garden; and now I have come
back again--that's all. Which way are you walking, may I ask?"

She waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. "I am going to meet
my husband. I think I may possibly have got into trouble whilst you were
with me today."

"How could that be?"

"By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright."

"I hope that visit of mine did you no harm."

"None. It was not your fault," she said quietly.

By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on
together, without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia
broke silence by saying, "I assume I must congratulate you."

"On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since I
didn't get something else, I must be content with getting that."

"You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn't you tell me today when
you came?" she said in the tone of a neglected person. "I heard of it
quite by accident."

"I did mean to tell you," said Wildeve. "But I--well, I will speak
frankly--I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your
star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work,
as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you
would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I
could not help feeling too that in many respects he was a richer man
than I."

At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, "What, would you
exchange with him--your fortune for me?"

"I certainly would," said Wildeve.

"As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change
the subject?"

"Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you care
to hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds, keep one
thousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand travel for a
year or so."

"Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?"

"From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then I
shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot weather
comes on. In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a plan not
yet settled, I shall go to Australia and round to India. By that time
I shall have begun to have had enough of it. Then I shall probably come
back to Paris again, and there I shall stay as long as I can afford to."

"Back to Paris again," she murmured in a voice that was nearly a sigh.
She had never once told Wildeve of the Parisian desires which Clym's
description had sown in her; yet here was he involuntarily in a position
to gratify them. "You think a good deal of Paris?" she added.

"Yes. In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot of the world."

"And in mine! And Thomasin will go with you?"

"Yes, if she cares to. She may prefer to stay at home."

"So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!"

"I suppose you will. But we know whose fault that is."

"I am not blaming you," she said quickly.

"Oh, I thought you were. If ever you SHOULD be inclined to blame me,
think of a certain evening by Rainbarrow, when you promised to meet me
and did not. You sent me a letter; and my heart ached to read that as
I hope yours never will. That was one point of divergence. I then did
something in haste.... But she is a good woman, and I will say no more."

"I know that the blame was on my side that time," said Eustacia. "But it
had not always been so. However, it is my misfortune to be too sudden in
feeling. O, Damon, don't reproach me any more--I can't bear that."

They went on silently for a distance of two or three miles, when
Eustacia said suddenly, "Haven't you come out of your way, Mr. Wildeve?"

"My way is anywhere tonight. I will go with you as far as the hill on
which we can see Blooms-End, as it is getting late for you to be alone."

"Don't trouble. I am not obliged to be out at all. I think I would
rather you did not accompany me further. This sort of thing would have
an odd look if known."

"Very well, I will leave you." He took her hand unexpectedly, and kissed
it--for the first time since her marriage. "What light is that on the
hill?" he added, as it were to hide the caress.

She looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding from the open side
of a hovel a little way before them. The hovel, which she had hitherto
always found empty, seemed to be inhabited now.

"Since you have come so far," said Eustacia, "will you see me safely
past that hut? I thought I should have met Clym somewhere about here,
but as he doesn't appear I will hasten on and get to Blooms-End before
he leaves."

They advanced to the turf-shed, and when they got near it the firelight
and the lantern inside showed distinctly enough the form of a woman
reclining on a bed of fern, a group of heath men and women standing
around her. Eustacia did not recognize Mrs. Yeobright in the reclining
figure, nor Clym as one of the standers-by till she came close. Then
she quickly pressed her hand up on Wildeve's arm and signified to him to
come back from the open side of the shed into the shadow.

"It is my husband and his mother," she whispered in an agitated voice.
"What can it mean? Will you step forward and tell me?"

Wildeve left her side and went to the back wall of the hut. Presently
Eustacia perceived that he was beckoning to her, and she advanced and
joined him.

"It is a serious case," said Wildeve.

From their position they could hear what was proceeding inside.

"I cannot think where she could have been going," said Clym to someone.
"She had evidently walked a long way, but even when she was able to
speak just now she would not tell me where. What do you really think of
her?"

"There is a great deal to fear," was gravely answered, in a voice which
Eustacia recognized as that of the only surgeon in the district. "She
has suffered somewhat from the bite of the adder; but it is exhaustion
which has overpowered her. My impression is that her walk must have been
exceptionally long."

"I used to tell her not to overwalk herself this weather," said Clym,
with distress. "Do you think we did well in using the adder's fat?"

"Well, it is a very ancient remedy--the old remedy of the
viper-catchers, I believe," replied the doctor. "It is mentioned as
an infallible ointment by Hoffman, Mead, and I think the Abbe Fontana.
Undoubtedly it was as good a thing as you could do; though I question if
some other oils would not have been equally efficacious."

"Come here, come here!" was then rapidly said in anxious female tones,
and Clym and the doctor could be heard rushing forward from the back
part of the shed to where Mrs. Yeobright lay.

"Oh, what is it?" whispered Eustacia.

"'Twas Thomasin who spoke," said Wildeve. "Then they have fetched her. I
wonder if I had better go in--yet it might do harm."

For a long time there was utter silence among the group within; and it
was broken at last by Clym saying, in an agonized voice, "O Doctor, what
does it mean?"

The doctor did not reply at once; ultimately he said, "She is sinking
fast. Her heart was previously affected, and physical exhaustion has
dealt the finishing blow."

Then there was a weeping of women, then waiting, then hushed
exclamations, then a strange gasping sound, then a painful stillness.

"It is all over," said the doctor.

Further back in the hut the cotters whispered, "Mrs. Yeobright is dead."

Almost at the same moment the two watchers observed the form of a
small old-fashioned child entering at the open side of the shed. Susan
Nunsuch, whose boy it was, went forward to the opening and silently
beckoned to him to go back.

"I've got something to tell 'ee, Mother," he cried in a shrill tone.
"That woman asleep there walked along with me today; and she said I was
to say that I had seed her, and she was a broken-hearted woman and cast
off by her son, and then I came on home."

A confused sob as from a man was heard within, upon which Eustacia
gasped faintly, "That's Clym--I must go to him--yet dare I do it?
No--come away!"

When they had withdrawn from the neighbourhood of the shed she said
huskily, "I am to blame for this. There is evil in store for me."

"Was she not admitted to your house after all?" Wildeve inquired.

"No, and that's where it all lies! Oh, what shall I do! I shall not
intrude upon them--I shall go straight home. Damon, good-bye! I cannot
speak to you any more now."

They parted company; and when Eustacia had reached the next hill she
looked back. A melancholy procession was wending its way by the light of
the lantern from the hut towards Blooms-End. Wildeve was nowhere to be
seen.





</CHAPTER>

 Eustacia is alone and is getting increasingly anxious about Clym. OK, she's getting anxious about herself really. Eustacia's grandpa stops by to gossip on his way home. He tells her that Damon has recently inherited a ton of money and points out that Eustacia probably wishes she married Damon now instead. Eustacia refuses her grandfather's offer of money and sends him on his way. Eustacia obsesses over Wildeve now and is convinced that the guy's still in love with her. She's deep in thought and wanders subconsciously towards Mrs. Yeobright's house to meet Clym. Suddenly, Wildeve appears. The man needs to get a hobby, other than stalking Eustacia. The two chat about Wildeve's money and he tells Eustacia about his travel plans. He wants to visit Paris. He doesn't care if Thomasin comes with him or not. The two see a light coming from a shed and head over to investigate. They overhear the surgeon speaking to Clym and learn that Mrs. Yeobright is near death. Mrs. Yeobright then dies and the townsfolk begin to cry. But then Johnny Nunsuch comes up and, with the world's worst timing, tells his mother what Mrs. Yeobright said to him before he left her. The thing about her son hating her. Clym starts crying loudly and Eustacia sends Damon away. She heads off to see Clym, but she first looks back to watch Wildeve leave.

