At the top of the pole were crossed hoops decked with small flowers; beneath these came a milk-white zone of Maybloom; then a zone of bluebells, then of cowslips, then of lilacs, then of ragged-robins, daffodils, and so on, till the lowest stage was reached.Thomasin noticed all these, and was delighted that the May revel was to be so near.
When afternoon came people began to gather on the green, and Yeobright was interested enough to look out upon them from the open window of his room.Soon after this Thomasin walked out from the door immediately below and turned her eyes up to her cousin's face.She was dressed more gaily than Yeobright had ever seen her dressed since the time of Wildeve's death, eighteen months before;since the day of her marriage even she had not exhibited herself to such advantage.
"How pretty you look today, Thomasin!" he said.
"Is it because of the Maypole?"
"Not altogether." And then she blushed and dropped her eyes, which he did not specially observe, though her manner seemed to him to be rather peculiar, considering that she was only addressing himself.Could it be possible that she had put on her summer clothes to please him?
He recalled her conduct towards him throughout the last few weeks, when they had often been working together in the garden, just as they had formerly done when they were boy and girl under his mother's eye.
What if her interest in him were not so entirely that of a relative as it had formerly been? To Yeobright any possibility of this sort was a serious matter; and he almost felt troubled at the thought of it.Every pulse of loverlike feeling which had not been stilled during Eustacia's lifetime had gone into the grave with her.
His passion for her had occurred too far on in his manhood to leave fuel enough on hand for another fire of that sort, as may happen with more boyish loves.
Even supposing him capable of loving again, that love would be a plant of slow and laboured growth, and in the end only small and sickly, like an autumn-hatched bird.
He was so distressed by this new complexity that when the enthusiastic brass band arrived and struck up, which it did about five o'clock, with apparently wind enough among its members to blow down his house, he withdrew from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden, through the gate in the hedge, and away out of sight.
He could not bear to remain in the presence of enjoyment today, though he had tried hard.
Nothing was seen of him for four hours.When he came back by the same path it was dusk, and the dews were coating every green thing.The boisterous music had ceased;but, entering the premises as he did from behind, he could not see if the May party had all gone till he had passed through Thomasin's division of the house to the front door.
Thomasin was standing within the porch alone.
She looked at him reproachfully."You went away just when it began, Clym," she said.
"Yes.I felt I could not join in.You went out with them, of course?""No, I did not."
"You appeared to be dressed on purpose."
"Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there.One is there now."Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy figure, sauntering idly up and down.
"Who is it?" he said.
"Mr.Venn," said Thomasin.
"You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie.
He has been very kind to you first and last.""I will now," she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through the wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.
"It is Mr.Venn, I think?" she inquired.
Venn started as if he had not seen her--artful man that he was--and said, "Yes.""Will you come in?"
"I am afraid that I--"
"I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had the very best of the girls for your partners.Is it that you won't come in because you wish to stand here, and think over the past hours of enjoyment?""Well, that's partly it," said Mr.Venn, with ostentatious sentiment."But the main reason why I am biding here like this is that I want to wait till the moon rises.""To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?""No.To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens."Thomasin was speechless with surprise.That a man who had to walk some four or five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason pointed to only one conclusion--the man must be amazingly interested in that glove's owner.
"Were you dancing with her, Diggory?" she asked, in a voice which revealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her by this disclosure.
"No," he sighed.
"And you will not come in, then?"
"Not tonight, thank you, ma'am."
"Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person's glove, Mr.Venn?""O no; it is not necessary, Mrs.Wildeve, thank you.
The moon will rise in a few minutes."
Thomasin went back to the porch."Is he coming in?"said Clym, who had been waiting where she had left him.
"He would rather not tonight," she said, and then passed by him into the house; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms.
When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just listening by the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she went to the window, gently lifted the corner of the white curtain, and looked out.Venn was still there.
She watched the growth of the faint radiance appearing in the sky by the eastern hill, till presently the edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley with light.
Diggory's form was now distinct on the green; he was moving about in a bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the precious missing article, walking in zigzags right and left till he should have passed over every foot of the ground.
