第39节

better thing.”

“Don’t say that and dishearten me.”

“You are right—I will not.”

“I do not plead for him, Aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a blind woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don’t now. But I know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for the best.”

“And so do I, and we will both continue to,” said Mrs. Yeobright, rising and kissing her. “Then the wedding, if it comes off, will be on the morning of the very day Clym comes home?”

“Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. After that you can look him in the face, and so can I. Our concealments will matter nothing.”

Mrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent, and presently said, “Do you wish me to give you away? I am willing to undertake that, you know, if you wish, as I was last time. After once forbidding the banns I think I can do no less.”

“I don’t think I will ask you to come,” said Thomasin reluctantly, but with decision. “It would be unpleasant, I am almost sure. Better let there be only strangers present, and none of my relations at all. I would rather have it so. I do not wish to do anything which may touch your credit, and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were there, after what has passed. I am only your niece, and there is no necessity why you should concern yourself more about me.”

“Well, he has beaten us,” her aunt said. “It really seems as if he had been playing with you in this way in revenge for my humbling him as I did by standing up against him at first.”

“O no, Aunt,” murmured Thomasin.

They said no more on the subject then. Diggory Venn’s knock came soon after; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from her interview with him in the porch, carelessly observed, “Another lover has come to ask for you.”

“No?”

“Yes, that queer young man Venn.”

“Asks to pay his addresses to me?”

“Yes; and I told him he was too late.”

Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. “Poor Diggory!” she said, and then aroused herself to other things.

The next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation, both the women being anxious to immerse themselves in these to escape the emotional aspect of the situation. Some wearing apparel and other articles were collected anew for Thomasin, and remarks on domestic details were frequently made, so as to obscure any inner misgivings about her future as Wildeve’s wife.

The appointed morning came. The arrangement with Wildeve was that he should meet her at the church to guard against any unpleasant curiosity which might have affected them had they been seen walking off together in the usual country way.

Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride was dressing. The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of Thomasin’s hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided according to a calendar system—the more important the day the more numerous the strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she braided it in threes; on ordinary Sundays in fours; at Maypolings, gipsyings, and the like, she braided it in fives. Years ago she had said that when she married she would braid it in sevens. She had braided it in sevens today.

“I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all,” she said. “It is my wedding day, even though there may be something sad about the time. I mean,” she added, anxious to correct any wrong impression, “not sad in itself, but in its having had great disappointment and trouble before it.”

Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh. “I almost wish Clym had been at home,” she said. “Of course you chose the time because of his absence.”

“Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him all; but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry out the plan to its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was clear.”

“You are a practical little woman,” said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling. “I wish you and he—no, I don’t wish anything. There, it is nine o’clock,” she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging downstairs.

“I told Damon I would leave at nine,” said Thomasin, hastening out of the room.