Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (248 page)
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Authors: Thomas Hardy
‘I suppose she often comes to see you?’
‘Four or five times a year,’ said Picotee.
‘She cannot come quite so often as she would,’ said Mrs. Chickerel, ‘because of her lofty position, which has its juties. Well, as I always say, Berta doesn’t take after me. I couldn’t have married the man even though he did bring a coronet with him.’
‘I shouldn’t have cared to let him ask ye,’ said Chickerel. ‘However, that’s neither here nor there — all ended better than I expected. He’s fond of her.’
‘And it is wonderful what can be done with an old man when you are his darling,’ said Mrs. Chickerel.
‘If I were Berta I should go to London oftener,’ said Picotee, to turn the conversation. ‘But she lives mostly in the library. And, O, what do you think? She is writing an epic poem, and employs Emmeline as her reader.’
‘Dear me. And how are Sol and Dan? You mentioned them once in your letters,’ said Christopher.
‘Berta has set them up as builders in London.’
‘She bought a business for them,’ said Chickerel. ‘But Sol wouldn’t accept her help for a long time, and now he has only agreed to it on condition of paying her back the money with interest, which he is doing. They have just signed a contract to build a hospital for twenty thousand pounds.’
Picotee broke in — ’You knew that both Gwendoline and Cornelia married two years ago, and went to Queensland? They married two brothers, who were farmers, and left England the following week. Georgie and Myrtle are at school.’
‘And Joey?’
‘We are thinking of making Joseph a parson,’ said Mrs. Chickerel.
‘Indeed! a parson.’
‘Yes; ‘tis a genteel living for the boy. And he’s talents that way. Since he has been under masters he knows all the strange sounds the old Romans and Greeks used to make by way of talking, and the love stories of the ancient women as if they were his own. I assure you, Mr. Julian, if you could hear how beautiful the boy tells about little Cupid with his bow and arrows, and the rows between that pagan apostle Jupiter and his wife because of another woman, and the handsome young gods who kissed Venus, you’d say he deserved to be made a bishop at once!’
The evening advanced, and they walked in the garden. Here, by some means, Picotee and Christopher found themselves alone.
‘Your letters to my sister have been charming,’ said Christopher. ‘And so regular, too. It was as good as a birthday every time one arrived.’
Picotee blushed and said nothing.
Christopher had full assurance that her heart was where it always had been. A suspicion of the fact had been the reason of his visit here to-day.
‘Other letters were once written from England to Italy, and they acquired great celebrity. Do you know whose?’
‘Walpole’s?’ said Picotee timidly.
‘Yes; but they never charmed me half as much as yours. You may rest assured that one person in the world thinks Walpole your second.’
‘You should not have read them; they were not written to you. But I suppose you wished to hear of Ethelberta?’
‘At first I did,’ said Christopher. ‘But, oddly enough, I got more interested in the writer than in her news. I don’t know if ever before there has been an instance of loving by means of letters. If not, it is because there have never been such sweet ones written. At last I looked for them more anxiously than Faith.’
‘You see, you knew me before.’ Picotee would have withdrawn this remark if she could, fearing that it seemed like a suggestion of her love long ago.
‘Then, on my return, I thought I would just call and see you, and go away and think what would be best for me to do with a view to the future. But since I have been here I have felt that I could not go away to think without first asking you what you think on one point — whether you could ever marry me?’
‘I thought you would ask that when I first saw you.’
‘Did you. Why?’
‘You looked at me as if you would.’
‘Well,’ continued Christopher, ‘the worst of it is I am as poor as Job. Faith and I have three hundred a year between us, but only half is mine. So that before I get your promise I must let your father know how poor I am. Besides what I mention, I have only my earnings by music. But I am to be installed as chief organist at Melchester soon, instead of deputy, as I used to be; which is something.’
‘I am to have five hundred pounds when I marry. That was Lord Mountclere’s arrangement with Ethelberta. He is extremely anxious that I should marry well.’
‘That’s unfortunate. A marriage with me will hardly be considered well.’
‘O yes, it will,’ said Picotee quickly, and then looked frightened.
Christopher drew her towards him, and imprinted a kiss upon her cheek, at which Picotee was not so wretched as she had been some years before when he mistook her for another in that performance.
‘Berta will never let us come to want,’ she said, with vivacity, when she had recovered. ‘She always gives me what is necessary.’
‘We will endeavour not to trouble her,’ said Christopher, amused by Picotee’s utter dependence now as ever upon her sister, as upon an eternal Providence. ‘However, it is well to be kin to a coach though you never ride in it. Now, shall we go indoors to your father? You think he will not object?’
‘I think he will be very glad,’ replied Picotee. ‘Berta will, I know.’
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
This is Hardy’s sixth published novel, which first appeared in the magazine
Belgravia
, a publication known for sensationalism, and the novel was presented in twelve monthly installments from January to December 1878. Due to the novel’s controversial themes, Hardy had some difficulty finding a publisher. In the twentieth century, The
Return of the Native
became one of Hardy’s most admired novels.
Hardy, 1908
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
CONTENTS
PREFACE
The date at which the following events are assumed to have occurred may be set down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old watering place herein called “Budmouth” still retained sufficient afterglow from its Georgian gaiety and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to the romantic and imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland.
Under the general name of “Egdon Heath,” which has been given to the sombre scene of the story, are united or typified heaths of various real names, to the number of at least a dozen; these being virtually one in character and aspect, though their original unity, or partial unity, is now somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and slices brought under the plough with varying degrees of success, or planted to woodland.
It is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract whose southwestern quarter is here described, may be the heath of that traditionary King of Wessex — Lear.
July, 1895.
“To sorrow
I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind.
I would deceive her,
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.”
BOOK ONE
THE THREE WOMEN
CHAPTER 1
A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression
A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.
The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work; looking down, he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home. The distant rims of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in matter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an hour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon, anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.
In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true tale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could be perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it. And so the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed together in a black fraternization towards which each advanced halfway.
The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank blooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last crisis — the final overthrow.
It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who loved it with an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity. Smiling champaigns of flowers and fruit hardly do this, for they are permanently harmonious only with an existence of better reputation as to its issues than the present. Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a thing majestic without severity, impressive without showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity. The qualifications which frequently invest the facade of a prison with far more dignity than is found in the facade of a palace double its size lent to this heath a sublimity in which spots renowned for beauty of the accepted kind are utterly wanting. Fair prospects wed happily with fair times; but alas, if times be not fair! Men have oftener suffered from, the mockery of a place too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of surroundings oversadly tinged. Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler and scarcer instinct, to a more recently learnt emotion, than that which responds to the sort of beauty called charming and fair.