The Return of the Native

Clym goes home to Blooms-End and tells his mother he is not going back to Paris. She, too, like the locals, was surprised by the boxes he brought home with him. He tells her he wants to be a schoolmaster and that he hated his flashy business in Paris. She tells him he could have been a gentleman, but like his father, he is “getting weary of doing well” (173).

Christian Cantle comes to the door in his Sunday clothes with a story about the witch, Eustacia. She attended church, very unusual for her, and Susan Nunsuch stabbed her with a long needle to stop her from bewitching her children. Eustacia fainted. Humphrey and Sam stop by, and as they describe Eustacia as an eccentric, remote beauty on the hill, she becomes interesting to Clym. Sam’s defense of her leads Clym to ask if she might like to teach children. Sam doubts it, but we see where Clym’s mind is going. Sam has come to borrow a long rope to salvage the captain’s water bucket, which dropped to the bottom of the well. Sam tells Clym that if he wants to join the group at the well that night, he is sure Eustacia will be there.

Clym walks with his mother that afternoon. She goes to the Quiet Woman to visit Thomasin, but he branches off for Mistover to help with the bucket. The men succeed in getting the bucket up, but then it drops again. As Fairway is too exhausted to continue, Clym offers to take his place. As he leans over the well, a soft voice from the window tells them to tie a rope around him. They look up and see Eustacia. The bucket is saved, but it now has no bottom. They tell Eustacia she can’t get water.

Eustacia leads Clym to the pond next to the ashes from the bonfire that attracted Wildeve. Clym says he thinks he can get water from the well and asks Eustacia to hold the rope. It skins her hand and draws blood. He says she has been wounded twice that day, and she shows him the place on her arm where Susan stabbed her. Eustacia tells him she may never go to church again. She hates people. Clym says he has a scheme to lift the people and asks if she would like to help him with “high class teaching” (183). He tells her she should hate what produced the people rather than hating them. She says she will listen to his plan.

Clym begins a course of study to be a schoolmaster and takes daily walks toward Mistover. His mother observes he meets Eustacia. She can’t believe a man accustomed to Parisian women could be attracted to a girl on the heath. Eustacia has created a wedge between mother and son. Mrs. Yeobright imagines a life for Clym in the great world that she never experienced, but he rejects it. Christian tells Mrs. Yeobright about an archeological dig on a barrow and a pot of bones Clym retrieved that he gave to Eustacia. His mother accuses him of giving the urn meant for her to Eustacia. They stop speaking to each other at meals. Eventually, Clym reveals he has been seeing Eustacia regularly and thinks she could be a teacher in his boarding school. His mother asks about marriage. He doesn’t deny it as a possibility. His mother knows how blind he is.

Clym tells his mother he is going out to view an eclipse of the moon. He has planned an assignation with Eustacia at the pond. When they meet, he embraces and kisses her and confesses his love for her. She says his mother will not like it that he meets her. He says she already knows. He asks her to marry him. She says she must think about it and asks him to tell her about Paris. He describes the Louvre, Versailles, Fontainebleau, St. Cloud, and the Bois. She says if he will go back to Paris, then she will agree to the marriage. He says he has vowed not to go back. He prefers a hermitage to Paris. She finally accepts his proposal, telling him she “would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be yours at all” (196). The narrator tells us, however, that he couldn’t help but perceive that she loves him “as a visitant from a gay world to which she rightly belonged than as a man with a purpose opposed to that recent past of his which so interested her” (197).

In spring, three months after Clym’s arrival, Mrs. Yeobright returns home from the Quiet Woman and confronts Clym with news she has heard that he and Eustacia are engaged to be married. Clym admits it is true. His mother says he will probably take her to Paris. He replies, no, he will open a school in Budmouth. Clym says that he had intended to take his mother to meet with Eustacia that very day. She says he will marry badly. He says he knows what is best, and she says the “best” is not “such a voluptuous idle woman” (199).

Clym leaves and goes to his meeting with Eustacia. She observes his mother didn’t come. They walk together, a handsome couple, his Paris pallor replaced by health. He says they must be married at once and that they can take a small cottage for six months while he finishes his study. They will live in seclusion, not an outwardly married couple, until they move to a house in Budmouth. Eustacia asks for a promise it won’t be more than six months. He replies, “if no misfortune happens” (203). The wedding will be in a fortnight. He departs wishing he had not been so hasty, but he will abide by the promise.

Clym heads out the next morning to visit a cottage five miles away. He noticed it a month ago and, to reach it, he passes through a fir and beech plantation broken and shattered severely from the last winter storms. He walks a mile to a village and makes arrangement with the owner. One room will be ready for him the next day. He walks back home through a drizzle, damp and tired. The next day he sends the goods he has packed, tells his mother he is leaving, and announces his wedding day. He asks her to come and visit them, but she says it is unlikely. He leaves, and she weeps. Thomasin comes to visit, looking radiant. When Mrs. Yeobright asks about her husband, she says he is not unkind, but he does not give her any spending money. Mrs. Yeobright says she has money set aside, and perhaps now is the time to divide it between Thomasin and Clym.

They speak of Clym’s upcoming marriage and Mrs. Yeobright’s disappointment. Thomasin attempts to allay her fears. Mrs. Yeobright brings up Wildeve and Eustacia, and Thomasin says that was a “mere flirtation” (209). Mrs. Yeobright laments having only one son and that his upbringing has turned out this way. Thomasin notes her pain and says she will come every day. The day before the wedding, Wildeve stands outside the Quiet Woman and observes a cart going to Mistover. He is told there will be a wedding between Miss Vye and Mr. Yeobright. Wildeve’s longing for Eustacia reappears.

Mrs. Yeobright, alone in her house on the day of the wedding, six months after the party there, expects Thomasin to come to get the money. Wildeve arrives instead, says Thomasin was invited to the wedding by the captain, and he will fetch the article. Mrs. Yeobright thinks it unlikely Thomasin asked him to come to get the money when he has already withheld money from her. Wildeve leaves, and she goes upstairs. Since Clym has married, she decides to divide the money and give it away, 100 guineas. She asks Christian to make the delivery, telling him they are money bags. As a precaution, Christian puts the guineas in his shoes.

On his way to Mistover, Christian meets people from Egdon going to a raffle at the Quiet Woman, the prize being a gown for their wives or girlfriends. Having neither, Christian nevertheless comes along, rolls the dice, and wins the raffle. Fairway tells him to take the prize, for it might attract a woman. Christian fondles the dice, feeling its magic power to multiply money. He taps a boot full of money on the floor. Wildeve, indignant Mrs. Yeobright trusted Christian but not himself, tells Christian he is going to Mistover to fetch his wife. He will walk with him. He carries a lantern into the darkness. Christian and Wildeve stop along the way and begin to gamble with the dice. Wildeve tempts Christian with tales of winning. Christian wins three times, but the fourth time, Wildeve wins it all. Christian, who has gambled the guineas away, reveals that half of the money was for Clym. Then Venn appears from behind a bush.

Venn, who watched the gaming, sits and lays a sovereign on the stone. Wildeve lays down a guinea. Venn says it isn’t his own, but Wildeve says if it belongs to his wife, it is his. Venn wins, and Wildeve throws the dice into the darkness in a fit of rage. They search for the dice and find one. They agree to play on with just one. Eerily, 40 or 50 heath croppers surround them then gallop away, and a moth flies into the candle and puts it out. They are in darkness. Wildeve looks out, sees glowworms, gathers up 13 of them, and the game continues by their light. Venn wins it all, gathers up the money, and leaves.

A hired carriage passes by carrying Clym and Eustacia, and Wildeve immediately forgets the lost money in misery over his lost love. Venn, further up the road, stops the carriage and asks after Mrs. Wildeve. Told she will be coming soon, he waits. Thomasin approaches in a wagon driven by Charley. Venn has wrapped the guineas in a packet of paper. He gives it to Thomasin, the full 100 guineas he won from Wildeve, not knowing 50 were meant for Clym.