The Return of the Native

Thomasin is perplexed about Venn and the glove. A few days after the maypole, she asks her servant, Rachel, where one of her gloves has gone. Rachel confesses she wore the gloves to the maypole and lost one. Venn gave Rachel money to buy replacements, but Rachel hasn’t made the purchase yet. Thomasin learns that Venn knew it was her glove. The next day she takes her usual walk on the heath with little Eustacia and encounters Venn on horseback. She asks for her glove, and he gives it to her. She says she is surprised that he took care of it. He replies she wouldn’t be if she remembered “what I was once” (374). She says he covers up his feelings. Venn says all he cares about is money and says Thomasin is now much richer. She calls him wicked and says she has set aside most of her money for the child. Venn says that makes it easier for them to be friends and admits that “what a man has once been he may be again” (375). Thomasin blushes. After that, she walks the same way every day, but Venn abstains.

Clym has been wondering about his obligation to his cousin and remembers his mother’s desire that they be husband and wife. Only three activities occupy him now: visiting his mother’s grave, visiting Eustacia’s grave, and preparing for his vocation as an itinerant preacher. Even though he considers himself a “mere corpse of a lover” (376), he decides he must propose to Thomasin. When he approaches her about it, she asks to speak first. She tells him she regards him as her guardian, and she wishes for his advice. She is thinking of marrying Venn. Clym is taken aback since he was about to propose. He implies Venn is not enough of a gentleman and says Thomasin should marry a professional man. She says if she marries at all, it must be Venn—she has no desire for city life and is content on the heath. Clym, relieved his proposal is “shelved,” assures her that Venn, no longer a reddleman, is more respectable. She asks if marriage to Venn would slight his mother’s memory, and he tells her he will be content with her choice. Humphrey encounters Clym and tells him he suspects something is up between Thomasin and Venn, although he always thought “your cousin ought to have married you” (379). Clym asks how he could marry in good conscience after driving two women to death. Thomasin tells him she and Venn have set a date.

The wedding day arrives for Thomasin and Venn. The same locals who gathered to sing to Thomasin and Wildeve at the Quiet Woman on their wedding night gather at Fairway’s cottage to fill a feather mattress for them. Granfer Cantel tells his son, Christian, still unmarried, that every man ought to marry or be a soldier. Christian has no interest in guns and has failed at marriage. A carriage from Budmouth passes by, carrying the bride, groom, Clym and a Venn relative. The carriage driver looks down on everyone, even the wedding couple, for living in such a place as Egdon. Clym excuses himself from the feasting and dancing, saying he would be “the skull at the banquet” (385). He goes up to his rooms to work on his sermons, then escapes down the back stairs to walk on the heath. He heads to Mistover and encounters Charley, who asks if he could have something that belonged to Eustacia. Clym invites him to walk home with him and gives him a lock of Eustacia’s raven hair.

Clym walks out with Charley, and they look at the wedding party. No one notices Clym isn’t there. Clym returns and sees Thomasin, Venn, the nurse, and little Eustacia in Venn’s dog cart ready to depart for Shadwater. Thomasin tells Clym he now has his home all to himself, and Clym goes in and thinks of his mother, her judgment about his marriage to Eustacia, and her devotion to him. The Sunday after the wedding a sight appears on Blackbarrow, Eustacia’s old haunt. Clym has gathered his followers for his first sermon, the site chosen for its predominance over the cottages and its view to signal stragglers. His text is that of the king who answers the petition of his mother. He has found his vocation.