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  • CHAPTER I

  • On an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from

  • Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor.

  • The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait

  • which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line.

  • He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was

  • not thinking of anything in particular.

  • An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch

  • being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off.

  • Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare, who, as he rode,

  • hummed a wandering tune. "Good night t'ee," said the man with the

  • basket.

  • "Good night, Sir John," said the parson. The pedestrian, after another pace or two,

  • halted, and turned round.

  • "Now, sir, begging your pardon; we met last market-day on this road about this time,

  • and I said 'Good night,' and you made reply 'Good night, Sir John,' as now."

  • "I did," said the parson.

  • "And once before that--near a month ago." "I may have."

  • "Then what might your meaning be in calling me 'Sir John' these different times, when I

  • be plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler?"

  • The parson rode a step or two nearer.

  • "It was only my whim," he said; and, after a moment's hesitation: "It was on account

  • of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the

  • new county history.

  • I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane.

  • Don't you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the

  • ancient and knightly family of the d'Urbervilles, who derive their descent

  • from Sir Pagan d'Urberville, that renowned

  • knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey

  • Roll?" "Never heard it before, sir!"

  • "Well it's true.

  • Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better.

  • Yes, that's the d'Urberville nose and chin- -a little debased.

  • Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in

  • Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire.

  • Branches of your family held manors over all this part of England; their names

  • appear in the Pipe Rolls in the time of King Stephen.

  • In the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights

  • Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second's time your forefather Brian was summoned to

  • Westminster to attend the great Council there.

  • You declined a little in Oliver Cromwell's time, but to no serious extent, and in

  • Charles the Second's reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty.

  • Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among you, and if knighthood were

  • hereditary, like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when men were

  • knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now."

  • "Ye don't say so!"

  • "In short," concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his

  • switch, "there's hardly such another family in England."

  • "Daze my eyes, and isn't there?" said Durbeyfield.

  • "And here have I been knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I

  • was no more than the commonest feller in the parish...

  • And how long hev this news about me been knowed, Pa'son Tringham?"

  • The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite died out of

  • knowledge, and could hardly be said to be known at all.

  • His own investigations had begun on a day in the preceding spring when, having been

  • engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the d'Urberville family, he had observed

  • Durbeyfield's name on his waggon, and had

  • thereupon been led to make inquiries about his father and grandfather till he had no

  • doubt on the subject.

  • "At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information,"

  • said he. "However, our impulses are too strong for

  • our judgement sometimes.

  • I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the while."

  • "Well, I have heard once or twice, 'tis true, that my family had seen better days

  • afore they came to Blackmoor.

  • But I took no notice o't, thinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses where

  • we now keep only one.

  • I've got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what's

  • a spoon and seal?... And to think that I and these noble

  • d'Urbervilles were one flesh all the time.

  • 'Twas said that my gr't-granfer had secrets, and didn't care to talk of where

  • he came from...

  • And where do we raise our smoke, now, parson, if I may make so bold; I mean,

  • where do we d'Urbervilles live?" "You don't live anywhere.

  • You are extinct--as a county family."

  • "That's bad." "Yes--what the mendacious family chronicles

  • call extinct in the male line--that is, gone down--gone under."

  • "Then where do we lie?"

  • "At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill: rows and rows of you in your vaults, with your effigies

  • under Purbeck-marble canopies." "And where be our family mansions and

  • estates?"

  • "You haven't any." "Oh?

  • No lands neither?"

  • "None; though you once had 'em in abundance, as I said, for you family

  • consisted of numerous branches.

  • In this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbere, and another at Sherton, and

  • another in Millpond, and another at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge."

  • "And shall we ever come into our own again?"

  • "Ah--that I can't tell!" "And what had I better do about it, sir?"

  • asked Durbeyfield, after a pause.

  • "Oh--nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself with the thought of 'how are the

  • mighty fallen.' It is a fact of some interest to the local

  • historian and genealogist, nothing more.

  • There are several families among the cottagers of this county of almost equal

  • lustre. Good night."

  • "But you'll turn back and have a quart of beer wi' me on the strength o't, Pa'son

  • Tringham?

  • There's a very pretty brew in tap at The Pure Drop--though, to be sure, not so good

  • as at Rolliver's." "No, thank you--not this evening,

  • Durbeyfield.

  • You've had enough already." Concluding thus, the parson rode on his

  • way, with doubts as to his discretion in retailing this curious bit of lore.

  • When he was gone, Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a profound reverie, and then sat

  • down upon the grassy bank by the roadside, depositing his basket before him.

  • In a few minutes a youth appeared in the distance, walking in the same direction as

  • that which had been pursued by Durbeyfield.

  • The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand, and the lad quickened his pace and

  • came near. "Boy, take up that basket!

  • I want 'ee to go on an errand for me."

  • The lath-like stripling frowned. "Who be you, then, John Durbeyfield, to

  • order me about and call me 'boy'? You know my name as well as I know yours!"

  • "Do you, do you?

  • That's the secret--that's the secret! Now obey my orders, and take the message

  • I'm going to charge 'ee wi'...

  • Well, Fred, I don't mind telling you that the secret is that I'm one of a noble race-

  • -it has been just found out by me this present afternoon, P.M."

  • And as he made the announcement, Durbeyfield, declining from his sitting

  • position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank among the daisies.

  • The lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from crown to toe.

  • "Sir John d'Urberville--that's who I am," continued the prostrate man.

  • "That is if knights were baronets--which they be.

  • 'Tis recorded in history all about me. Dost know of such a place, lad, as

  • Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill?"

  • "Ees. I've been there to Greenhill Fair."

  • "Well, under the church of that city there lie--"

  • "'Tisn't a city, the place I mean; leastwise 'twaddn' when I was there--'twas

  • a little one-eyed, blinking sort o' place." "Never you mind the place, boy, that's not

  • the question before us.

  • Under the church of that there parish lie my ancestors--hundreds of 'em--in coats of

  • mail and jewels, in gr't lead coffins weighing tons and tons.

  • There's not a man in the county o' South- Wessex that's got grander and nobler

  • skillentons in his family than I." "Oh?"

  • "Now take up that basket, and goo on to Marlott, and when you've come to The Pure

  • Drop Inn, tell 'em to send a horse and carriage to me immed'ately, to carry me

  • hwome.

  • And in the bottom o' the carriage they be to put a noggin o' rum in a small bottle,

  • and chalk it up to my account.

  • And when you've done that goo on to my house with the basket, and tell my wife to

  • put away that washing, because she needn't finish it, and wait till I come hwome, as

  • I've news to tell her."

  • As the lad stood in a dubious attitude, Durbeyfield put his hand in his pocket, and

  • produced a shilling, one of the chronically few that he possessed.

  • "Here's for your labour, lad."

  • This made a difference in the young man's estimate of the position.

  • "Yes, Sir John. Thank 'ee.

  • Anything else I can do for 'ee, Sir John?"

  • "Tell 'em at hwome that I should like for supper,--well, lamb's fry if they can get

  • it; and if they can't, black-pot; and if they can't get that, well chitterlings will

  • do."

  • "Yes, Sir John." The boy took up the basket, and as he set

  • out the notes of a brass band were heard from the direction of the village.

  • "What's that?" said Durbeyfield.

  • "Not on account o' I?" "'Tis the women's club-walking, Sir John.

  • Why, your da'ter is one o' the members." "To be sure--I'd quite forgot it in my

  • thoughts of greater things!

  • Well, vamp on to Marlott, will ye, and order that carriage, and maybe I'll drive

  • round and inspect the club."

  • The lad departed, and Durbeyfield lay waiting on the grass and daisies in the

  • evening sun.

  • Not a soul passed that way for a long while, and the faint notes of the band were

  • the only human sounds audible within the rim of blue hills.

  • >

  • CHAPTER II

  • The village of Marlott lay amid the north- eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale

  • of Blakemore, or Blackmoor, aforesaid, an engirdled and secluded region, for the most

  • part untrodden as yet by tourist or

  • landscape-painter, though within a four hours' journey from London.

  • It is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summits of the

  • hills that surround it--except perhaps during the droughts of summer.

  • An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender dissatisfaction

  • with its narrow, tortuous, and miry ways.

  • This fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the fields are never

  • brown and the springs never dry, is bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that

  • embraces the prominences of Hambledon Hill,

  • Bulbarrow, Nettlecombe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb Down.

  • The traveller from the coast, who, after plodding northward for a score of miles

  • over calcareous downs and corn-lands, suddenly reaches the verge of one of these

  • escarpments, is surprised and delighted to

  • behold, extended like a map beneath him, a country differing absolutely from that

  • which he has passed through.

  • Behind him the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give

  • an unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges low and

  • plashed, the atmosphere colourless.

  • Here, in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more

  • delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height

  • their hedgerows appear a network of dark

  • green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass.

  • The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists

  • call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of

  • the deepest ultramarine.

  • Arable lands are few and limited; with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad

  • rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major.

  • Such is the Vale of Blackmoor.

  • The district is of historic, no less than of topographical interest.

  • The Vale was known in former times as the Forest of White Hart, from a curious legend

  • of King Henry III's reign, in which the killing by a certain Thomas de la Lynd of a

  • beautiful white hart which the king had run

  • down and spared, was made the occasion of a heavy fine.

  • In those days, and till comparatively recent times, the country was densely

  • wooded.

  • Even now, traces of its earlier condition are to be found in the old oak copses and

  • irregular belts of timber that yet survive upon its slopes, and the hollow-trunked

  • trees that shade so many of its pastures.

  • The forests have departed, but some old customs of their shades remain.

  • Many, however, linger only in a metamorphosed or disguised form.

  • The May-Day dance, for instance, was to be discerned on the afternoon under notice, in

  • the guise of the club revel, or "club- walking," as it was there called.

  • It was an interesting event to the younger inhabitants of Marlott, though its real

  • interest was not observed by the participators in the ceremony.

  • Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of walking in procession and

  • dancing on each anniversary than in the members being solely women.

  • In men's clubs such celebrations were, though expiring, less uncommon; but either

  • the natural shyness of the softer sex, or a sarcastic attitude on the part of male

  • relatives, had denuded such women's clubs

  • as remained (if any other did) or this their glory and consummation.

  • The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local Cerealia.

  • It had walked for hundreds of years, if not as benefit-club, as votive sisterhood of

  • some sort; and it walked still.

  • The banded ones were all dressed in white gowns--a gay survival from Old Style days,

  • when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms--days before the habit of taking

  • long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average.

  • Their first exhibition of themselves was in a processional march of two and two round

  • the parish.

  • Ideal and real clashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green

  • hedges and creeper-laced house-fronts; for, though the whole troop wore white garments,

  • no two whites were alike among them.

  • Some approached pure blanching; some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the older

  • characters (which had possibly lain by folded for many a year) inclined to a

  • cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian style.

  • In addition to the distinction of a white frock, every woman and girl carried in her

  • right hand a peeled willow wand, and in her left a bunch of white flowers.

  • The peeling of the former, and the selection of the latter, had been an

  • operation of personal care.

  • There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in the train, their silver-

  • wiry hair and wrinkled faces, scourged by time and trouble, having almost a

  • grotesque, certainly a pathetic, appearance in such a jaunty situation.

  • In a true view, perhaps, there was more to be gathered and told of each anxious and

  • experienced one, to whom the years were drawing nigh when she should say, "I have

  • no pleasure in them," than of her juvenile comrades.

  • But let the elder be passed over here for those under whose bodices the life throbbed

  • quick and warm.

  • The young girls formed, indeed, the majority of the band, and their heads of

  • luxuriant hair reflected in the sunshine every tone of gold, and black, and brown.

  • Some had beautiful eyes, others a beautiful nose, others a beautiful mouth and figure:

  • few, if any, had all.

  • A difficulty of arranging their lips in this crude exposure to public scrutiny, an

  • inability to balance their heads, and to dissociate self-consciousness from their

  • features, was apparent in them, and showed

  • that they were genuine country girls, unaccustomed to many eyes.

  • And as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each had a private

  • little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, at least

  • some remote and distant hope which, though

  • perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on, as hopes will.

  • They were all cheerful, and many of them merry.

  • They came round by The Pure Drop Inn, and were turning out of the high road to pass

  • through a wicket-gate into the meadows, when one of the women said--

  • "The Load-a-Lord!

  • Why, Tess Durbeyfield, if there isn't thy father riding hwome in a carriage!"

  • A young member of the band turned her head at the exclamation.

  • She was a fine and handsome girl--not handsomer than some others, possibly--but

  • her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape.

  • She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could

  • boast of such a pronounced adornment.

  • As she looked round Durbeyfield was seen moving along the road in a chaise belonging

  • to The Pure Drop, driven by a frizzle- headed brawny damsel with her gown-sleeves

  • rolled above her elbows.

  • This was the cheerful servant of that establishment, who, in her part of

  • factotum, turned groom and ostler at times.

  • Durbeyfield, leaning back, and with his eyes closed luxuriously, was waving his

  • hand above his head, and singing in a slow recitative--

  • "I've-got-a-gr't-family-vault-at-Kingsbere- -and knighted-forefathers-in-lead-coffins-

  • there!"

  • The clubbists tittered, except the girl called Tess--in whom a slow heat seemed to

  • rise at the sense that her father was making himself foolish in their eyes.

  • "He's tired, that's all," she said hastily, "and he has got a lift home, because our

  • own horse has to rest to-day." "Bless thy simplicity, Tess," said her

  • companions.

  • "He's got his market-nitch. Haw-haw!"

  • "Look here; I won't walk another inch with you, if you say any jokes about him!"

  • Tess cried, and the colour upon her cheeks spread over her face and neck.

  • In a moment her eyes grew moist, and her glance drooped to the ground.

  • Perceiving that they had really pained her they said no more, and order again

  • prevailed.

  • Tess's pride would not allow her to turn her head again, to learn what her father's

  • meaning was, if he had any; and thus she moved on with the whole body to the

  • enclosure where there was to be dancing on the green.

  • By the time the spot was reached she has recovered her equanimity, and tapped her

  • neighbour with her wand and talked as usual.

  • Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by

  • experience.

  • The dialect was on her tongue to some extent, despite the village school: the

  • characteristic intonation of that dialect for this district being the voicing

  • approximately rendered by the syllable UR,

  • probably as rich an utterance as any to be found in human speech.

  • The pouted-up deep red mouth to which this syllable was native had hardly as yet

  • settled into its definite shape, and her lower lip had a way of thrusting the middle

  • of her top one upward, when they closed together after a word.

  • Phases of her childhood lurked in her aspect still.

  • As she walked along to-day, for all her bouncing handsome womanliness, you could

  • sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling from her

  • eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now and then.

  • Yet few knew, and still fewer considered this.

  • A small minority, mainly strangers, would look long at her in casually passing by,

  • and grow momentarily fascinated by her freshness, and wonder if they would ever

  • see her again: but to almost everybody she

  • was a fine and picturesque country girl, and no more.

  • Nothing was seen or heard further of Durbeyfield in his triumphal chariot under

  • the conduct of the ostleress, and the club having entered the allotted space, dancing

  • began.

  • As there were no men in the company, the girls danced at first with each other, but

  • when the hour for the close of labour drew on, the masculine inhabitants of the

  • village, together with other idlers and

  • pedestrians, gathered round the spot, and appeared inclined to negotiate for a

  • partner.

  • Among these on-lookers were three young men of a superior class, carrying small

  • knapsacks strapped to their shoulders, and stout sticks in their hands.

  • Their general likeness to each other, and their consecutive ages, would almost have

  • suggested that they might be, what in fact they were, brothers.

  • The eldest wore the white tie, high waistcoat, and thin-brimmed hat of the

  • regulation curate; the second was the normal undergraduate; the appearance of the

  • third and youngest would hardly have been

  • sufficient to characterize him; there was an uncribbed, uncabined aspect in his eyes

  • and attire, implying that he had hardly as yet found the entrance to his professional

  • groove.

  • That he was a desultory tentative student of something and everything might only have

  • been predicted of him.

  • These three brethren told casual acquaintance that they were spending their

  • Whitsun holidays in a walking tour through the Vale of Blackmoor, their course being

  • south-westerly from the town of Shaston on the north-east.

  • They leant over the gate by the highway, and inquired as to the meaning of the dance

  • and the white-frocked maids.

  • The two elder of the brothers were plainly not intending to linger more than a moment,

  • but the spectacle of a bevy of girls dancing without male partners seemed to

  • amuse the third, and make him in no hurry to move on.

  • He unstrapped his knapsack, put it, with his stick, on the hedge-bank, and opened

  • the gate.

  • "What are you going to do, Angel?" asked the eldest.

  • "I am inclined to go and have a fling with them.

  • Why not all of us--just for a minute or two--it will not detain us long?"

  • "No--no; nonsense!" said the first. "Dancing in public with a troop of country

  • hoydens--suppose we should be seen!

  • Come along, or it will be dark before we get to Stourcastle, and there's no place we

  • can sleep at nearer than that; besides, we must get through another chapter of A

  • Counterblast to Agnosticism before we turn

  • in, now I have taken the trouble to bring the book."

  • "All right--I'll overtake you and Cuthbert in five minutes; don't stop; I give my word

  • that I will, Felix."

  • The two elder reluctantly left him and walked on, taking their brother's knapsack

  • to relieve him in following, and the youngest entered the field.

  • "This is a thousand pities," he said gallantly, to two or three of the girls

  • nearest him, as soon as there was a pause in the dance.

  • "Where are your partners, my dears?"

  • "They've not left off work yet," answered one of the boldest.

  • "They'll be here by and by. Till then, will you be one, sir?"

  • "Certainly.

  • But what's one among so many!" "Better than none.

  • 'Tis melancholy work facing and footing it to one of your own sort, and no clipsing

  • and colling at all.

  • Now, pick and choose." "'Ssh--don't be so for'ard!" said a shyer

  • girl.

  • The young man, thus invited, glanced them over, and attempted some discrimination;

  • but, as the group were all so new to him, he could not very well exercise it.

  • He took almost the first that came to hand, which was not the speaker, as she had

  • expected; nor did it happen to be Tess Durbeyfield.

  • Pedigree, ancestral skeletons, monumental record, the d'Urberville lineaments, did

  • not help Tess in her life's battle as yet, even to the extent of attracting to her a

  • dancing-partner over the heads of the commonest peasantry.

  • So much for Norman blood unaided by Victorian lucre.

  • The name of the eclipsing girl, whatever it was, has not been handed down; but she was

  • envied by all as the first who enjoyed the luxury of a masculine partner that evening.

  • Yet such was the force of example that the village young men, who had not hastened to

  • enter the gate while no intruder was in the way, now dropped in quickly, and soon the

  • couples became leavened with rustic youth

  • to a marked extent, till at length the plainest woman in the club was no longer

  • compelled to foot it on the masculine side of the figure.

  • The church clock struck, when suddenly the student said that he must leave--he had

  • been forgetting himself--he had to join his companions.

  • As he fell out of the dance his eyes lighted on Tess Durbeyfield, whose own

  • large orbs wore, to tell the truth, the faintest aspect of reproach that he had not

  • chosen her.

  • He, too, was sorry then that, owing to her backwardness, he had not observed her; and

  • with that in his mind he left the pasture.

  • On account of his long delay he started in a flying-run down the lane westward, and

  • had soon passed the hollow and mounted the next rise.

  • He had not yet overtaken his brothers, but he paused to get breath, and looked back.

  • He could see the white figures of the girls in the green enclosure whirling about as

  • they had whirled when he was among them.

  • They seemed to have quite forgotten him already.

  • All of them, except, perhaps, one. This white shape stood apart by the hedge

  • alone.

  • From her position he knew it to be the pretty maiden with whom he had not danced.

  • Trifling as the matter was, he yet instinctively felt that she was hurt by his

  • oversight.

  • He wished that he had asked her; he wished that he had inquired her name.

  • She was so modest, so expressive, she had looked so soft in her thin white gown that

  • he felt he had acted stupidly.

  • However, it could not be helped, and turning, and bending himself to a rapid

  • walk, he dismissed the subject from his mind.

  • >

  • CHAPTER III

  • As for Tess Durbeyfield, she did not so easily dislodge the incident from her

  • consideration.

  • She had no spirit to dance again for a long time, though she might have had plenty of

  • partners; but ah! they did not speak so nicely as the strange young man had done.

  • It was not till the rays of the sun had absorbed the young stranger's retreating

  • figure on the hill that she shook off her temporary sadness and answered her would-be

  • partner in the affirmative.

  • She remained with her comrades till dusk, and participated with a certain zest in the

  • dancing; though, being heart-whole as yet, she enjoyed treading a measure purely for

  • its own sake; little divining when she saw

  • "the soft torments, the bitter sweets, the pleasing pains, and the agreeable

  • distresses" of those girls who had been wooed and won, what she herself was capable

  • of in that kind.

  • The struggles and wrangles of the lads for her hand in a jig were an amusement to her-

  • -no more; and when they became fierce she rebuked them.

  • She might have stayed even later, but the incident of her father's odd appearance and

  • manner returned upon the girl's mind to make her anxious, and wondering what had

  • become of him she dropped away from the

  • dancers and bent her steps towards the end of the village at which the parental

  • cottage lay.

  • While yet many score yards off, other rhythmic sounds than those she had quitted

  • became audible to her; sounds that she knew well--so well.

  • They were a regular series of thumpings from the interior of the house, occasioned

  • by the violent rocking of a cradle upon a stone floor, to which movement a feminine

  • voice kept time by singing, in a vigorous

  • gallopade, the favourite ditty of "The Spotted Cow"--

  • I saw her lie do'-own in yon'-der green gro'-ove; Come, love!' and I'll tell' you

  • where!'

  • The cradle-rocking and the song would cease simultaneously for a moment, and an

  • exclamation at highest vocal pitch would take the place of the melody.

  • "God bless thy diment eyes!

  • And thy waxen cheeks! And thy cherry mouth!

  • And thy Cubit's thighs! And every bit o' thy blessed body!"

  • After this invocation the rocking and the singing would recommence, and the "Spotted

  • Cow" proceed as before.

  • So matters stood when Tess opened the door and paused upon the mat within it,

  • surveying the scene.

  • The interior, in spite of the melody, struck upon the girl's senses with an

  • unspeakable dreariness.

  • From the holiday gaieties of the field--the white gowns, the nosegays, the willow-

  • wands, the whirling movements on the green, the flash of gentle sentiment towards the

  • stranger--to the yellow melancholy of this one-candled spectacle, what a step!

  • Besides the jar of contrast there came to her a chill self-reproach that she had not

  • returned sooner, to help her mother in these domesticities, instead of indulging

  • herself out-of-doors.

  • There stood her mother amid the group of children, as Tess had left her, hanging

  • over the Monday washing-tub, which had now, as always, lingered on to the end of the

  • week.

  • Out of that tub had come the day before-- Tess felt it with a dreadful sting of

  • remorse--the very white frock upon her back which she had so carelessly greened about

  • the skirt on the damping grass--which had

  • been wrung up and ironed by her mother's own hands.

  • As usual, Mrs Durbeyfield was balanced on one foot beside the tub, the other being

  • engaged in the aforesaid business of rocking her youngest child.

  • The cradle-rockers had done hard duty for so many years, under the weight of so many

  • children, on that flagstone floor, that they were worn nearly flat, in consequence

  • of which a huge jerk accompanied each swing

  • of the cot, flinging the baby from side to side like a weaver's shuttle, as Mrs

  • Durbeyfield, excited by her song, trod the rocker with all the spring that was left in

  • her after a long day's seething in the suds.

  • Nick-knock, nick-knock, went the cradle; the candle-flame stretched itself tall, and

  • began jigging up and down; the water dribbled from the matron's elbows, and the

  • song galloped on to the end of the verse,

  • Mrs Durbeyfield regarding her daughter the while.

  • Even now, when burdened with a young family, Joan Durbeyfield was a passionate

  • lover of tune.

  • No ditty floated into Blackmoor Vale from the outer world but Tess's mother caught up

  • its notation in a week.

  • There still faintly beamed from the woman's features something of the freshness, and

  • even the prettiness, of her youth; rendering it probable that the personal

  • charms which Tess could boast of were in

  • main part her mother's gift, and therefore unknightly, unhistorical.

  • "I'll rock the cradle for 'ee, mother," said the daughter gently.

  • "Or I'll take off my best frock and help you wring up?

  • I thought you had finished long ago."

  • Her mother bore Tess no ill-will for leaving the housework to her single-handed

  • efforts for so long; indeed, Joan seldom upbraided her thereon at any time, feeling

  • but slightly the lack of Tess's assistance

  • whilst her instinctive plan for relieving herself of her labours lay in postponing

  • them. To-night, however, she was even in a

  • blither mood than usual.

  • There was a dreaminess, a pre-occupation, an exaltation, in the maternal look which

  • the girl could not understand.

  • "Well, I'm glad you've come," her mother said, as soon as the last note had passed

  • out of her.

  • "I want to go and fetch your father; but what's more'n that, I want to tell 'ee what

  • have happened. Y'll be fess enough, my poppet, when th'st

  • know!"

  • (Mrs Durbeyfield habitually spoke the dialect; her daughter, who had passed the

  • Sixth Standard in the National School under a London-trained mistress, spoke two

  • languages: the dialect at home, more or

  • less; ordinary English abroad and to persons of quality.)

  • "Since I've been away?" Tess asked.

  • "Ay!"

  • "Had it anything to do with father's making such a mommet of himself in thik carriage

  • this afternoon? Why did 'er?

  • I felt inclined to sink into the ground with shame!"

  • "That wer all a part of the larry!

  • We've been found to be the greatest gentlefolk in the whole county--reaching

  • all back long before Oliver Grumble's time- -to the days of the Pagan Turks--with

  • monuments, and vaults, and crests, and 'scutcheons, and the Lord knows what all.

  • In Saint Charles's days we was made Knights o' the Royal Oak, our real name being

  • d'Urberville!...

  • Don't that make your bosom plim? 'Twas on this account that your father rode

  • home in the vlee; not because he'd been drinking, as people supposed."

  • "I'm glad of that.

  • Will it do us any good, mother?" "O yes!

  • 'Tis thoughted that great things may come o't.

  • No doubt a mampus of volk of our own rank will be down here in their carriages as

  • soon as 'tis known.

  • Your father learnt it on his way hwome from Shaston, and he has been telling me the

  • whole pedigree of the matter." "Where is father now?" asked Tess suddenly.

  • Her mother gave irrelevant information by way of answer: "He called to see the doctor

  • to-day in Shaston. It is not consumption at all, it seems.

  • It is fat round his heart, 'a says.

  • There, it is like this." Joan Durbeyfield, as she spoke, curved a

  • sodden thumb and forefinger to the shape of the letter C, and used the other forefinger

  • as a pointer.

  • "'At the present moment,' he says to your father, 'your heart is enclosed all round

  • there, and all round there; this space is still open,' 'a says.

  • 'As soon as it do meet, so,'"--Mrs Durbeyfield closed her fingers into a

  • circle complete--"'off you will go like a shadder, Mr Durbeyfield,' 'a says.

  • 'You mid last ten years; you mid go off in ten months, or ten days.'"

  • Tess looked alarmed.

  • Her father possibly to go behind the eternal cloud so soon, notwithstanding this

  • sudden greatness! "But where IS father?" she asked again.

  • Her mother put on a deprecating look.

  • "Now don't you be bursting out angry! The poor man--he felt so rafted after his

  • uplifting by the pa'son's news--that he went up to Rolliver's half an hour ago.

  • He do want to get up his strength for his journey to-morrow with that load of

  • beehives, which must be delivered, family or no.

  • He'll have to start shortly after twelve to-night, as the distance is so long."

  • "Get up his strength!" said Tess impetuously, the tears welling to her eyes.

  • "O my God!

  • Go to a public-house to get up his strength!

  • And you as well agreed as he, mother!"

  • Her rebuke and her mood seemed to fill the whole room, and to impart a cowed look to

  • the furniture, and candle, and children playing about, and to her mother's face.

  • "No," said the latter touchily, "I be not agreed.

  • I have been waiting for 'ee to bide and keep house while I go fetch him."

  • "I'll go."

  • "O no, Tess. You see, it would be no use."

  • Tess did not expostulate. She knew what her mother's objection meant.

  • Mrs Durbeyfield's jacket and bonnet were already hanging slily upon a chair by her

  • side, in readiness for this contemplated jaunt, the reason for which the matron

  • deplored more than its necessity.

  • "And take the Compleat Fortune-Teller to the outhouse," Joan continued, rapidly

  • wiping her hands, and donning the garments.

  • The Compleat Fortune-Teller was an old thick volume, which lay on a table at her

  • elbow, so worn by pocketing that the margins had reached the edge of the type.

  • Tess took it up, and her mother started.

  • This going to hunt up her shiftless husband at the inn was one of Mrs Durbeyfield's

  • still extant enjoyments in the muck and muddle of rearing children.

  • To discover him at Rolliver's, to sit there for an hour or two by his side and dismiss

  • all thought and care of the children during the interval, made her happy.

  • A sort of halo, an occidental glow, came over life then.

  • Troubles and other realities took on themselves a metaphysical impalpability,

  • sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as

  • pressing concretions which chafed body and soul.

  • The youngsters, not immediately within sight, seemed rather bright and desirable

  • appurtenances than otherwise; the incidents of daily life were not without humorousness

  • and jollity in their aspect there.

  • She felt a little as she had used to feel when she sat by her now wedded husband in

  • the same spot during his wooing, shutting her eyes to his defects of character, and

  • regarding him only in his ideal presentation as lover.

  • Tess, being left alone with the younger children, went first to the outhouse with

  • the fortune-telling book, and stuffed it into the thatch.

  • A curious fetishistic fear of this grimy volume on the part of her mother prevented

  • her ever allowing it to stay in the house all night, and hither it was brought back

  • whenever it had been consulted.

  • Between the mother, with her fast-perishing lumber of superstitions, folk-lore,

  • dialect, and orally transmitted ballads, and the daughter, with her trained National

  • teachings and Standard knowledge under an

  • infinitely Revised Code, there was a gap of two hundred years as ordinarily understood.

  • When they were together the Jacobean and the Victorian ages were juxtaposed.

  • Returning along the garden path Tess mused on what the mother could have wished to

  • ascertain from the book on this particular day.

  • She guessed the recent ancestral discovery to bear upon it, but did not divine that it

  • solely concerned herself.

  • Dismissing this, however, she busied herself with sprinkling the linen dried

  • during the day-time, in company with her nine-year-old brother Abraham, and her

  • sister Eliza-Louisa of twelve and a half,

  • called "'Liza-Lu," the youngest ones being put to bed.

  • There was an interval of four years and more between Tess and the next of the

  • family, the two who had filled the gap having died in their infancy, and this lent

  • her a deputy-maternal attitude when she was alone with her juniors.

  • Next in juvenility to Abraham came two more girls, Hope and Modesty; then a boy of

  • three, and then the baby, who had just completed his first year.

  • All these young souls were passengers in the Durbeyfield ship--entirely dependent on

  • the judgement of the two Durbeyfield adults for their pleasures, their necessities,

  • their health, even their existence.

  • If the heads of the Durbeyfield household chose to sail into difficulty, disaster,

  • starvation, disease, degradation, death, thither were these half-dozen little

  • captives under hatches compelled to sail

  • with them--six helpless creatures, who had never been asked if they wished for life on

  • any terms, much less if they wished for it on such hard conditions as were involved in

  • being of the shiftless house of Durbeyfield.

  • Some people would like to know whence the poet whose philosophy is in these days

  • deemed as profound and trustworthy as his song is breezy and pure, gets his authority

  • for speaking of "Nature's holy plan."

  • It grew later, and neither father nor mother reappeared.

  • Tess looked out of the door, and took a mental journey through Marlott.

  • The village was shutting its eyes.

  • Candles and lamps were being put out everywhere: she could inwardly behold the

  • extinguisher and the extended hand. Her mother's fetching simply meant one more

  • to fetch.

  • Tess began to perceive that a man in indifferent health, who proposed to start

  • on a journey before one in the morning, ought not to be at an inn at this late hour

  • celebrating his ancient blood.

  • "Abraham," she said to her little brother, "do you put on your hat--you bain't

  • afraid?--and go up to Rolliver's, and see what has gone wi' father and mother."

  • The boy jumped promptly from his seat, and opened the door, and the night swallowed

  • him up. Half an hour passed yet again; neither man,

  • woman, nor child returned.

  • Abraham, like his parents, seemed to have been limed and caught by the ensnaring inn.

  • "I must go myself," she said.

  • 'Liza-Lu then went to bed, and Tess, locking them all in, started on her way up

  • the dark and crooked lane or street not made for hasty progress; a street laid out

  • before inches of land had value, and when

  • one-handed clocks sufficiently subdivided the day.

  • >

  • CHAPTER IV

  • Rolliver's inn, the single alehouse at this end of the long and broken village, could

  • only boast of an off-licence; hence, as nobody could legally drink on the premises,

  • the amount of overt accommodation for

  • consumers was strictly limited to a little board about six inches wide and two yards

  • long, fixed to the garden palings by pieces of wire, so as to form a ledge.

  • On this board thirsty strangers deposited their cups as they stood in the road and

  • drank, and threw the dregs on the dusty ground to the pattern of Polynesia, and

  • wished they could have a restful seat inside.

  • Thus the strangers.

  • But there were also local customers who felt the same wish; and where there's a

  • will there's a way.

  • In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly curtained with a great

  • woollen shawl lately discarded by the landlady, Mrs Rolliver, were gathered on

  • this evening nearly a dozen persons, all

  • seeking beatitude; all old inhabitants of the nearer end of Marlott, and frequenters

  • of this retreat.

  • Not only did the distance to the The Pure Drop, the fully-licensed tavern at the

  • further part of the dispersed village, render its accommodation practically

  • unavailable for dwellers at this end; but

  • the far more serious question, the quality of the liquor, confirmed the prevalent

  • opinion that it was better to drink with Rolliver in a corner of the housetop than

  • with the other landlord in a wide house.

  • A gaunt four-post bedstead which stood in the room afforded sitting-space for several

  • persons gathered round three of its sides; a couple more men had elevated themselves

  • on a chest of drawers; another rested on

  • the oak-carved "cwoffer"; two on the wash- stand; another on the stool; and thus all

  • were, somehow, seated at their ease.

  • The stage of mental comfort to which they had arrived at this hour was one wherein

  • their souls expanded beyond their skins, and spread their personalities warmly

  • through the room.

  • In this process the chamber and its furniture grew more and more dignified and

  • luxurious; the shawl hanging at the window took upon itself the richness of tapestry;

  • the brass handles of the chest of drawers

  • were as golden knockers; and the carved bedposts seemed to have some kinship with

  • the magnificent pillars of Solomon's temple.

  • Mrs Durbeyfield, having quickly walked hitherward after parting from Tess, opened

  • the front door, crossed the downstairs room, which was in deep gloom, and then

  • unfastened the stair-door like one whose

  • fingers knew the tricks of the latches well.

  • Her ascent of the crooked staircase was a slower process, and her face, as it rose

  • into the light above the last stair, encountered the gaze of all the party

  • assembled in the bedroom.

  • "--Being a few private friends I've asked in to keep up club-walking at my own

  • expense," the landlady exclaimed at the sound of footsteps, as glibly as a child

  • repeating the Catechism, while she peered over the stairs.

  • "Oh, 'tis you, Mrs Durbeyfield--Lard--how you frightened me!--I thought it might be

  • some gaffer sent by Gover'ment."

  • Mrs Durbeyfield was welcomed with glances and nods by the remainder of the conclave,

  • and turned to where her husband sat.

  • He was humming absently to himself, in a low tone: "I be as good as some folks here

  • and there!

  • I've got a great family vault at Kingsbere- sub-Greenhill, and finer skillentons than

  • any man in Wessex!"

  • "I've something to tell 'ee that's come into my head about that--a grand projick!"

  • whispered his cheerful wife. "Here, John, don't 'ee see me?"

  • She nudged him, while he, looking through her as through a window-pane, went on with

  • his recitative. "Hush!

  • Don't 'ee sing so loud, my good man," said the landlady; "in case any member of the

  • Gover'ment should be passing, and take away my licends."

  • "He's told 'ee what's happened to us, I suppose?" asked Mrs Durbeyfield.

  • "Yes--in a way. D'ye think there's any money hanging by

  • it?"

  • "Ah, that's the secret," said Joan Durbeyfield sagely.

  • "However, 'tis well to be kin to a coach, even if you don't ride in 'en."

  • She dropped her public voice, and continued in a low tone to her husband: "I've been

  • thinking since you brought the news that there's a great rich lady out by

  • Trantridge, on the edge o' The Chase, of the name of d'Urberville."

  • "Hey--what's that?" said Sir John. She repeated the information.

  • "That lady must be our relation," she said.

  • "And my projick is to send Tess to claim kin."

  • "There IS a lady of the name, now you mention it," said Durbeyfield.

  • "Pa'son Tringham didn't think of that.

  • But she's nothing beside we--a junior branch of us, no doubt, hailing long since

  • King Norman's day."

  • While this question was being discussed neither of the pair noticed, in their

  • preoccupation, that little Abraham had crept into the room, and was awaiting an

  • opportunity of asking them to return.

  • "She is rich, and she'd be sure to take notice o' the maid," continued Mrs

  • Durbeyfield; "and 'twill be a very good thing.

  • I don't see why two branches o' one family should not be on visiting terms."

  • "Yes; and we'll all claim kin!" said Abraham brightly from under the bedstead.

  • "And we'll all go and see her when Tess has gone to live with her; and we'll ride in

  • her coach and wear black clothes!" "How do you come here, child?

  • What nonsense be ye talking!

  • Go away, and play on the stairs till father and mother be ready!...

  • Well, Tess ought to go to this other member of our family.

  • She'd be sure to win the lady--Tess would; and likely enough 'twould lead to some

  • noble gentleman marrying her. In short, I know it."

  • "How?"

  • "I tried her fate in the Fortune-Teller, and it brought out that very thing!...

  • You should ha' seen how pretty she looked to-day; her skin is as sumple as a

  • duchess'."

  • "What says the maid herself to going?" "I've not asked her.

  • She don't know there is any such lady- relation yet.

  • But it would certainly put her in the way of a grand marriage, and she won't say nay

  • to going." "Tess is queer."

  • "But she's tractable at bottom.

  • Leave her to me."

  • Though this conversation had been private, sufficient of its import reached the

  • understandings of those around to suggest to them that the Durbeyfields had weightier

  • concerns to talk of now than common folks

  • had, and that Tess, their pretty eldest daughter, had fine prospects in store.

  • "Tess is a fine figure o' fun, as I said to myself to-day when I zeed her vamping round

  • parish with the rest," observed one of the elderly boozers in an undertone.

  • "But Joan Durbeyfield must mind that she don't get green malt in floor."

  • It was a local phrase which had a peculiar meaning, and there was no reply.

  • The conversation became inclusive, and presently other footsteps were heard

  • crossing the room below.

  • "--Being a few private friends asked in to- night to keep up club-walking at my own

  • expense."

  • The landlady had rapidly re-used the formula she kept on hand for intruders

  • before she recognized that the newcomer was Tess.

  • Even to her mother's gaze the girl's young features looked sadly out of place amid the

  • alcoholic vapours which floated here as no unsuitable medium for wrinkled middle-age;

  • and hardly was a reproachful flash from

  • Tess's dark eyes needed to make her father and mother rise from their seats, hastily

  • finish their ale, and descend the stairs behind her, Mrs Rolliver's caution

  • following their footsteps.

  • "No noise, please, if ye'll be so good, my dears; or I mid lose my licends, and be

  • summons'd, and I don't know what all! 'Night t'ye!"

  • They went home together, Tess holding one arm of her father, and Mrs Durbeyfield the

  • other.

  • He had, in truth, drunk very little--not a fourth of the quantity which a systematic

  • tippler could carry to church on a Sunday afternoon without a hitch in his eastings

  • or genuflections; but the weakness of Sir

  • John's constitution made mountains of his petty sins in this kind.

  • On reaching the fresh air he was sufficiently unsteady to incline the row of

  • three at one moment as if they were marching to London, and at another as if

  • they were marching to Bath--which produced

  • a comical effect, frequent enough in families on nocturnal homegoings; and, like

  • most comical effects, not quite so comic after all.

  • The two women valiantly disguised these forced excursions and countermarches as

  • well as they could from Durbeyfield, their cause, and from Abraham, and from

  • themselves; and so they approached by

  • degrees their own door, the head of the family bursting suddenly into his former

  • refrain as he drew near, as if to fortify his soul at sight of the smallness of his

  • present residence--

  • "I've got a fam--ily vault at Kingsbere!" "Hush--don't be so silly, Jacky," said his

  • wife. "Yours is not the only family that was of

  • 'count in wold days.

  • Look at the Anktells, and Horseys, and the Tringhams themselves--gone to seed a'most

  • as much as you--though you was bigger folks than they, that's true.

  • Thank God, I was never of no family, and have nothing to be ashamed of in that way!"

  • "Don't you be so sure o' that.

  • From you nater 'tis my belief you've disgraced yourselves more than any o' us,

  • and was kings and queens outright at one time."

  • Tess turned the subject by saying what was far more prominent in her own mind at the

  • moment than thoughts of her ancestry--"I am afraid father won't be able to take the

  • journey with the beehives to-morrow so early."

  • "I? I shall be all right in an hour or two,"

  • said Durbeyfield.

  • It was eleven o'clock before the family were all in bed, and two o'clock next

  • morning was the latest hour for starting with the beehives if they were to be

  • delivered to the retailers in Casterbridge

  • before the Saturday market began, the way thither lying by bad roads over a distance

  • of between twenty and thirty miles, and the horse and waggon being of the slowest.

  • At half-past one Mrs Durbeyfield came into the large bedroom where Tess and all her

  • little brothers and sisters slept.

  • "The poor man can't go," she said to her eldest daughter, whose great eyes had

  • opened the moment her mother's hand touched the door.

  • Tess sat up in bed, lost in a vague interspace between a dream and this

  • information. "But somebody must go," she replied.

  • "It is late for the hives already.

  • Swarming will soon be over for the year; and it we put off taking 'em till next

  • week's market the call for 'em will be past, and they'll be thrown on our hands."

  • Mrs Durbeyfield looked unequal to the emergency.

  • "Some young feller, perhaps, would go?

  • One of them who were so much after dancing with 'ee yesterday," she presently

  • suggested. "O no--I wouldn't have it for the world!"

  • declared Tess proudly.

  • "And letting everybody know the reason-- such a thing to be ashamed of!

  • I think I could go if Abraham could go with me to kip me company."

  • Her mother at length agreed to this arrangement.

  • Little Abraham was aroused from his deep sleep in a corner of the same apartment,

  • and made to put on his clothes while still mentally in the other world.

  • Meanwhile Tess had hastily dressed herself; and the twain, lighting a lantern, went out

  • to the stable.

  • The rickety little waggon was already laden, and the girl led out the horse,

  • Prince, only a degree less rickety than the vehicle.

  • The poor creature looked wonderingly round at the night, at the lantern, at their two

  • figures, as if he could not believe that at that hour, when every living thing was

  • intended to be in shelter and at rest, he was called upon to go out and labour.

  • They put a stock of candle-ends into the lantern, hung the latter to the off-side of

  • the load, and directed the horse onward, walking at his shoulder at first during the

  • uphill parts of the way, in order not to overload an animal of so little vigour.

  • To cheer themselves as well as they could, they made an artificial morning with the

  • lantern, some bread and butter, and their own conversation, the real morning being

  • far from come.

  • Abraham, as he more fully awoke (for he had moved in a sort of trance so far), began to

  • talk of the strange shapes assumed by the various dark objects against the sky; of

  • this tree that looked like a raging tiger

  • springing from a lair; of that which resembled a giant's head.

  • When they had passed the little town of Stourcastle, dumbly somnolent under its

  • thick brown thatch, they reached higher ground.

  • Still higher, on their left, the elevation called Bulbarrow, or Bealbarrow, well-nigh

  • the highest in South Wessex, swelled into the sky, engirdled by its earthen trenches.

  • From hereabout the long road was fairly level for some distance onward.

  • They mounted in front of the waggon, and Abraham grew reflective.

  • "Tess!" he said in a preparatory tone, after a silence.

  • "Yes, Abraham." "Bain't you glad that we've become

  • gentlefolk?"

  • "Not particular glad." "But you be glad that you 'm going to marry

  • a gentleman?" "What?" said Tess, lifting her face.

  • "That our great relation will help 'ee to marry a gentleman."

  • "I? Our great relation?

  • We have no such relation.

  • What has put that into your head?" "I heard 'em talking about it up at

  • Rolliver's when I went to find father.

  • There's a rich lady of our family out at Trantridge, and mother said that if you

  • claimed kin with the lady, she'd put 'ee in the way of marrying a gentleman."

  • His sister became abruptly still, and lapsed into a pondering silence.

  • Abraham talked on, rather for the pleasure of utterance than for audition, so that his

  • sister's abstraction was of no account.

  • He leant back against the hives, and with upturned face made observations on the

  • stars, whose cold pulses were beating amid the black hollows above, in serene

  • dissociation from these two wisps of human life.

  • He asked how far away those twinklers were, and whether God was on the other side of

  • them.

  • But ever and anon his childish prattle recurred to what impressed his imagination

  • even more deeply than the wonders of creation.

  • If Tess were made rich by marrying a gentleman, would she have money enough to

  • buy a spyglass so large that it would draw the stars as near to her as Nettlecombe-

  • Tout?

  • The renewed subject, which seemed to have impregnated the whole family, filled Tess

  • with impatience. "Never mind that now!" she exclaimed.

  • "Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"

  • "Yes." "All like ours?"

  • "I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples

  • on our stubbard-tree.

  • Most of them splendid and sound--a few blighted."

  • "Which do we live on--a splendid one or a blighted one?"

  • "A blighted one."

  • "'Tis very unlucky that we didn't pitch on a sound one, when there were so many more

  • of 'em!" "Yes."

  • "Is it like that REALLY, Tess?" said Abraham, turning to her much impressed, on

  • reconsideration of this rare information. "How would it have been if we had pitched

  • on a sound one?"

  • "Well, father wouldn't have coughed and creeped about as he does, and wouldn't have

  • got too tipsy to go on this journey; and mother wouldn't have been always washing,

  • and never getting finished."

  • "And you would have been a rich lady ready- made, and not have had to be made rich by

  • marrying a gentleman?" "O Aby, don't--don't talk of that any

  • more!"

  • Left to his reflections Abraham soon grew drowsy.

  • Tess was not skilful in the management of a horse, but she thought that she could take

  • upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the present and allow Abraham to go to

  • sleep if he wished to do so.

  • She made him a sort of nest in front of the hives, in such a manner that he could not

  • fall, and, taking the reins into her own hands, jogged on as before.

  • Prince required but slight attention, lacking energy for superfluous movements of

  • any sort.

  • With no longer a companion to distract her, Tess fell more deeply into reverie than

  • ever, her back leaning against the hives.

  • The mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to

  • fantastic scenes outside reality, and the occasional heave of the wind became the

  • sigh of some immense sad soul, conterminous

  • with the universe in space, and with history in time.

  • Then, examining the mesh of events in her own life, she seemed to see the vanity of

  • her father's pride; the gentlemanly suitor awaiting herself in her mother's fancy; to

  • see him as a grimacing personage, laughing

  • at her poverty and her shrouded knightly ancestry.

  • Everything grew more and more extravagant, and she no longer knew how time passed.

  • A sudden jerk shook her in her seat, and Tess awoke from the sleep into which she,

  • too, had fallen.

  • They were a long way further on than when she had lost consciousness, and the waggon

  • had stopped.

  • A hollow groan, unlike anything she had ever heard in her life, came from the

  • front, followed by a shout of "Hoi there!"

  • The lantern hanging at her waggon had gone out, but another was shining in her face--

  • much brighter than her own had been. Something terrible had happened.

  • The harness was entangled with an object which blocked the way.

  • In consternation Tess jumped down, and discovered the dreadful truth.

  • The groan had proceeded from her father's poor horse Prince.

  • The morning mail-cart, with its two noiseless wheels, speeding along these

  • lanes like an arrow, as it always did, had driven into her slow and unlighted

  • equipage.

  • The pointed shaft of the cart had entered the breast of the unhappy Prince like a

  • sword, and from the wound his life's blood was spouting in a stream, and falling with

  • a hiss into the road.

  • In her despair Tess sprang forward and put her hand upon the hole, with the only

  • result that she became splashed from face to skirt with the crimson drops.

  • Then she stood helplessly looking on.

  • Prince also stood firm and motionless as long as he could; till he suddenly sank

  • down in a heap.

  • By this time the mail-cart man had joined her, and began dragging and unharnessing

  • the hot form of Prince.

  • But he was already dead, and, seeing that nothing more could be done immediately, the

  • mail-cart man returned to his own animal, which was uninjured.

  • "You was on the wrong side," he said.

  • "I am bound to go on with the mail-bags, so that the best thing for you to do is bide

  • here with your load. I'll send somebody to help you as soon as I

  • can.

  • It is getting daylight, and you have nothing to fear."

  • He mounted and sped on his way; while Tess stood and waited.

  • The atmosphere turned pale, the birds shook themselves in the hedges, arose, and

  • twittered; the lane showed all its white features, and Tess showed hers, still

  • whiter.

  • The huge pool of blood in front of her was already assuming the iridescence of

  • coagulation; and when the sun rose a hundred prismatic hues were reflected from

  • it.

  • Prince lay alongside, still and stark; his eyes half open, the hole in his chest

  • looking scarcely large enough to have let out all that had animated him.

  • "'Tis all my doing--all mine!" the girl cried, gazing at the spectacle.

  • "No excuse for me--none. What will mother and father live on now?

  • Aby, Aby!"

  • She shook the child, who had slept soundly through the whole disaster.

  • "We can't go on with our load--Prince is killed!"

  • When Abraham realized all, the furrows of fifty years were extemporized on his young

  • face. "Why, I danced and laughed only yesterday!"

  • she went on to herself.

  • "To think that I was such a fool!" "'Tis because we be on a blighted star, and

  • not a sound one, isn't it, Tess?" murmured Abraham through his tears.

  • In silence they waited through an interval which seemed endless.

  • At length a sound, and an approaching object, proved to them that the driver of

  • the mail-car had been as good as his word.

  • A farmer's man from near Stourcastle came up, leading a strong cob.

  • He was harnessed to the waggon of beehives in the place of Prince, and the load taken

  • on towards Casterbridge.

  • The evening of the same day saw the empty waggon reach again the spot of the

  • accident.

  • Prince had lain there in the ditch since the morning; but the place of the blood-

  • pool was still visible in the middle of the road, though scratched and scraped over by

  • passing vehicles.

  • All that was left of Prince was now hoisted into the waggon he had formerly hauled, and

  • with his hoofs in the air, and his shoes shining in the setting sunlight, he

  • retraced the eight or nine miles to Marlott.

  • Tess had gone back earlier. How to break the news was more than she

  • could think.

  • It was a relief to her tongue to find from the faces of her parents that they already

  • knew of their loss, though this did not lessen the self-reproach which she

  • continued to heap upon herself for her negligence.

  • But the very shiftlessness of the household rendered the misfortune a less terrifying

  • one to them than it would have been to a thriving family, though in the present case

  • it meant ruin, and in the other it would only have meant inconvenience.

  • In the Durbeyfield countenances there was nothing of the red wrath that would have

  • burnt upon the girl from parents more ambitious for her welfare.

  • Nobody blamed Tess as she blamed herself.

  • When it was discovered that the knacker and tanner would give only a very few shillings

  • for Prince's carcase because of his decrepitude, Durbeyfield rose to the

  • occasion.

  • "No," said he stoically, "I won't sell his old body.

  • When we d'Urbervilles was knights in the land, we didn't sell our chargers for cat's

  • meat.

  • Let 'em keep their shillings! He've served me well in his lifetime, and I

  • won't part from him now."

  • He worked harder the next day in digging a grave for Prince in the garden than he had

  • worked for months to grow a crop for his family.

  • When the hole was ready, Durbeyfield and his wife tied a rope round the horse and

  • dragged him up the path towards it, the children following in funeral train.

  • Abraham and 'Liza-Lu sobbed, Hope and Modesty discharged their griefs in loud

  • blares which echoed from the walls; and when Prince was tumbled in they gathered

  • round the grave.

  • The bread-winner had been taken away from them; what would they do?

  • "Is he gone to heaven?" asked Abraham, between the sobs.

  • Then Durbeyfield began to shovel in the earth, and the children cried anew.

  • All except Tess.

  • Her face was dry and pale, as though she regarded herself in the light of a

  • murderess.

  • >

  • CHAPTER V

  • The haggling business, which had mainly depended on the horse, became disorganized

  • forthwith. Distress, if not penury, loomed in the

  • distance.

  • Durbeyfield was what was locally called a slack-twisted fellow; he had good strength

  • to work at times; but the times could not be relied on to coincide with the hours of

  • requirement; and, having been unaccustomed

  • to the regular toil of the day-labourer, he was not particularly persistent when they

  • did so coincide.

  • Tess, meanwhile, as the one who had dragged her parents into this quagmire, was

  • silently wondering what she could do to help them out of it; and then her mother

  • broached her scheme.

  • "We must take the ups wi' the downs, Tess," said she; "and never could your high blood

  • have been found out at a more called-for moment.

  • You must try your friends.

  • Do ye know that there is a very rich Mrs d'Urberville living on the outskirts o' The

  • Chase, who must be our relation? You must go to her and claim kin, and ask

  • for some help in our trouble."

  • "I shouldn't care to do that," says Tess. "If there is such a lady, 'twould be enough

  • for us if she were friendly--not to expect her to give us help."

  • "You could win her round to do anything, my dear.

  • Besides, perhaps there's more in it than you know of.

  • I've heard what I've heard, good-now."

  • The oppressive sense of the harm she had done led Tess to be more deferential than

  • she might otherwise have been to the maternal wish; but she could not understand

  • why her mother should find such

  • satisfaction in contemplating an enterprise of, to her, such doubtful profit.

  • Her mother might have made inquiries, and have discovered that this Mrs d'Urberville

  • was a lady of unequalled virtues and charity.

  • But Tess's pride made the part of poor relation one of particular distaste to her.

  • "I'd rather try to get work," she murmured.

  • "Durbeyfield, you can settle it," said his wife, turning to where he sat in the

  • background. "If you say she ought to go, she will go."

  • "I don't like my children going and making themselves beholden to strange kin,"

  • murmured he. "I'm the head of the noblest branch o' the

  • family, and I ought to live up to it."

  • His reasons for staying away were worse to Tess than her own objections to going.

  • "Well, as I killed the horse, mother," she said mournfully, "I suppose I ought to do

  • something.

  • I don't mind going and seeing her, but you must leave it to me about asking for help.

  • And don't go thinking about her making a match for me--it is silly."

  • "Very well said, Tess!" observed her father sententiously.

  • "Who said I had such a thought?" asked Joan.

  • "I fancy it is in your mind, mother.

  • But I'll go."

  • Rising early next day she walked to the hill-town called Shaston, and there took

  • advantage of a van which twice in the week ran from Shaston eastward to Chaseborough,

  • passing near Trantridge, the parish in

  • which the vague and mysterious Mrs d'Urberville had her residence.

  • Tess Durbeyfield's route on this memorable morning lay amid the north-eastern

  • undulations of the Vale in which she had been born, and in which her life had

  • unfolded.

  • The Vale of Blackmoor was to her the world, and its inhabitants the races thereof.

  • From the gates and stiles of Marlott she had looked down its length in the wondering

  • days of infancy, and what had been mystery to her then was not much less than mystery

  • to her now.

  • She had seen daily from her chamber-window towers, villages, faint white mansions;

  • above all, the town of Shaston standing majestically on its height; its windows

  • shining like lamps in the evening sun.

  • She had hardly ever visited the place, only a small tract even of the Vale and its

  • environs being known to her by close inspection.

  • Much less had she been far outside the valley.

  • Every contour of the surrounding hills was as personal to her as that of her

  • relatives' faces; but for what lay beyond, her judgment was dependent on the teaching

  • of the village school, where she had held a

  • leading place at the time of her leaving, a year or two before this date.

  • In those early days she had been much loved by others of her own sex and age, and had

  • used to be seen about the village as one of three--all nearly of the same year--walking

  • home from school side by side; Tess the

  • middle one--in a pink print pinafore, of a finely reticulated pattern, worn over a

  • stuff frock that had lost its original colour for a nondescript tertiary--marching

  • on upon long stalky legs, in tight

  • stockings which had little ladder-like holes at the knees, torn by kneeling in the

  • roads and banks in search of vegetable and mineral treasures; her then earth-coloured

  • hair hanging like pot-hooks; the arms of

  • the two outside girls resting round the waist of Tess; her arms on the shoulders of

  • the two supporters.

  • As Tess grew older, and began to see how matters stood, she felt quite a Malthusian

  • towards her mother for thoughtlessly giving her so many little sisters and brothers,

  • when it was such a trouble to nurse and provide for them.

  • Her mother's intelligence was that of a happy child: Joan Durbeyfield was simply an

  • additional one, and that not the eldest, to her own long family of waiters on

  • Providence.

  • However, Tess became humanely beneficent towards the small ones, and to help them as

  • much as possible she used, as soon as she left school, to lend a hand at haymaking or

  • harvesting on neighbouring farms; or, by

  • preference, at milking or butter-making processes, which she had learnt when her

  • father had owned cows; and being deft- fingered it was a kind of work in which she

  • excelled.

  • Every day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders more of the family burdens, and

  • that Tess should be the representative of the Durbeyfields at the d'Urberville

  • mansion came as a thing of course.

  • In this instance it must be admitted that the Durbeyfields were putting their fairest

  • side outward.

  • She alighted from the van at Trantridge Cross, and ascended on foot a hill in the

  • direction of the district known as The Chase, on the borders of which, as she had

  • been informed, Mrs d'Urberville's seat, The Slopes, would be found.

  • It was not a manorial home in the ordinary sense, with fields, and pastures, and a

  • grumbling farmer, out of whom the owner had to squeeze an income for himself and his

  • family by hook or by crook.

  • It was more, far more; a country-house built for enjoyment pure and simple, with

  • not an acre of troublesome land attached to it beyond what was required for residential

  • purposes, and for a little fancy farm kept

  • in hand by the owner, and tended by a bailiff.

  • The crimson brick lodge came first in sight, up to its eaves in dense evergreens.

  • Tess thought this was the mansion itself till, passing through the side wicket with

  • some trepidation, and onward to a point at which the drive took a turn, the house

  • proper stood in full view.

  • It was of recent erection--indeed almost new--and of the same rich red colour that

  • formed such a contrast with the evergreens of the lodge.

  • Far behind the corner of the house--which rose like a geranium bloom against the

  • subdued colours around--stretched the soft azure landscape of The Chase--a truly

  • venerable tract of forest land, one of the

  • few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primaeval date, wherein Druidical

  • mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and where enormous yew-trees, not planted by

  • the hand of man grew as they had grown when they were pollarded for bows.

  • All this sylvan antiquity, however, though visible from The Slopes, was outside the

  • immediate boundaries of the estate.

  • Everything on this snug property was bright, thriving, and well kept; acres of

  • glass-houses stretched down the inclines to the copses at their feet.

  • Everything looked like money--like the last coin issued from the Mint.

  • The stables, partly screened by Austrian pines and evergreen oaks, and fitted with

  • every late appliance, were as dignified as Chapels-of-Ease.

  • On the extensive lawn stood an ornamental tent, its door being towards her.

  • Simple Tess Durbeyfield stood at gaze, in a half-alarmed attitude, on the edge of the

  • gravel sweep.

  • Her feet had brought her onward to this point before she had quite realized where

  • she was; and now all was contrary to her expectation.

  • "I thought we were an old family; but this is all new!" she said, in her artlessness.

  • She wished that she had not fallen in so readily with her mother's plans for

  • "claiming kin," and had endeavoured to gain assistance nearer home.

  • The d'Urbervilles--or Stoke-d'Urbervilles, as they at first called themselves--who

  • owned all this, were a somewhat unusual family to find in such an old-fashioned

  • part of the country.

  • Parson Tringham had spoken truly when he said that our shambling John Durbeyfield

  • was the only really lineal representative of the old d'Urberville family existing in

  • the county, or near it; he might have

  • added, what he knew very well, that the Stoke-d'Urbervilles were no more

  • d'Urbervilles of the true tree then he was himself.

  • Yet it must be admitted that this family formed a very good stock whereon to regraft

  • a name which sadly wanted such renovation.

  • When old Mr Simon Stoke, latterly deceased, had made his fortune as an honest merchant

  • (some said money-lender) in the North, he decided to settle as a county man in the

  • South of England, out of hail of his

  • business district; and in doing this he felt the necessity of recommencing with a

  • name that would not too readily identify him with the smart tradesman of the past,

  • and that would be less commonplace than the original bald, stark words.

  • Conning for an hour in the British Museum the pages of works devoted to extinct,

  • half-extinct, obscured, and ruined families appertaining to the quarter of England in

  • which he proposed to settle, he considered

  • that d'Urberville looked and sounded as well as any of them: and d'Urberville

  • accordingly was annexed to his own name for himself and his heirs eternally.

  • Yet he was not an extravagant-minded man in this, and in constructing his family tree

  • on the new basis was duly reasonable in framing his inter-marriages and

  • aristocratic links, never inserting a

  • single title above a rank of strict moderation.

  • Of this work of imagination poor Tess and her parents were naturally in ignorance--

  • much to their discomfiture; indeed, the very possibility of such annexations was

  • unknown to them; who supposed that, though

  • to be well-favoured might be the gift of fortune, a family name came by nature.

  • Tess still stood hesitating like a bather about to make his plunge, hardly knowing

  • whether to retreat or to persevere, when a figure came forth from the dark triangular

  • door of the tent.

  • It was that of a tall young man, smoking.

  • He had an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, badly moulded, though red and

  • smooth, above which was a well-groomed black moustache with curled points, though

  • his age could not be more than three- or four-and-twenty.

  • Despite the touches of barbarism in his contours, there was a singular force in the

  • gentleman's face, and in his bold rolling eye.

  • "Well, my Beauty, what can I do for you?" said he, coming forward.

  • And perceiving that she stood quite confounded: "Never mind me.

  • I am Mr d'Urberville.

  • Have you come to see me or my mother?" This embodiment of a d'Urberville and a

  • namesake differed even more from what Tess had expected than the house and grounds had

  • differed.

  • She had dreamed of an aged and dignified face, the sublimation of all the

  • d'Urberville lineaments, furrowed with incarnate memories representing in

  • hieroglyphic the centuries of her family's and England's history.

  • But she screwed herself up to the work in hand, since she could not get out of it,

  • and answered--

  • "I came to see your mother, sir."

  • "I am afraid you cannot see her--she is an invalid," replied the present

  • representative of the spurious house; for this was Mr Alec, the only son of the

  • lately deceased gentleman.

  • "Cannot I answer your purpose? What is the business you wish to see her

  • about?" "It isn't business--it is--I can hardly say

  • what!"

  • "Pleasure?" "Oh no.

  • Why, sir, if I tell you, it will seem--"

  • Tess's sense of a certain ludicrousness in her errand was now so strong that,

  • notwithstanding her awe of him, and her general discomfort at being here, her rosy

  • lips curved towards a smile, much to the attraction of the swarthy Alexander.

  • "It is so very foolish," she stammered; "I fear can't tell you!"

  • "Never mind; I like foolish things.

  • Try again, my dear," said he kindly. "Mother asked me to come," Tess continued;

  • "and, indeed, I was in the mind to do so myself likewise.

  • But I did not think it would be like this.

  • I came, sir, to tell you that we are of the same family as you."

  • "Ho! Poor relations?"

  • "Yes."

  • "Stokes?" "No; d'Urbervilles."

  • "Ay, ay; I mean d'Urbervilles."

  • "Our names are worn away to Durbeyfield; but we have several proofs that we are

  • d'Urbervilles.

  • Antiquarians hold we are,--and--and we have an old seal, marked with a ramping lion on

  • a shield, and a castle over him.

  • And we have a very old silver spoon, round in the bowl like a little ladle, and marked

  • with the same castle. But it is so worn that mother uses it to

  • stir the pea-soup."

  • "A castle argent is certainly my crest," said he blandly.

  • "And my arms a lion rampant."

  • "And so mother said we ought to make ourselves beknown to you--as we've lost our

  • horse by a bad accident, and are the oldest branch o' the family."

  • "Very kind of your mother, I'm sure.

  • And I, for one, don't regret her step." Alec looked at Tess as he spoke, in a way

  • that made her blush a little. "And so, my pretty girl, you've come on a

  • friendly visit to us, as relations?"

  • "I suppose I have," faltered Tess, looking uncomfortable again.

  • "Well--there's no harm in it. Where do you live?

  • What are you?"

  • She gave him brief particulars; and responding to further inquiries told him

  • that she was intending to go back by the same carrier who had brought her.

  • "It is a long while before he returns past Trantridge Cross.

  • Supposing we walk round the grounds to pass the time, my pretty Coz?"

  • Tess wished to abridge her visit as much as possible; but the young man was pressing,

  • and she consented to accompany him.

  • He conducted her about the lawns, and flower-beds, and conservatories; and thence

  • to the fruit-garden and greenhouses, where he asked her if she liked strawberries.

  • "Yes," said Tess, "when they come."

  • "They are already here."

  • D'Urberville began gathering specimens of the fruit for her, handing them back to her

  • as he stooped; and, presently, selecting a specially fine product of the "British

  • Queen" variety, he stood up and held it by the stem to her mouth.

  • "No--no!" she said quickly, putting her fingers between his hand and her lips.

  • "I would rather take it in my own hand."

  • "Nonsense!" he insisted; and in a slight distress she parted her lips and took it

  • in.

  • They had spent some time wandering desultorily thus, Tess eating in a half-

  • pleased, half-reluctant state whatever d'Urberville offered her.

  • When she could consume no more of the strawberries he filled her little basket

  • with them; and then the two passed round to the rose-trees, whence he gathered blossoms

  • and gave her to put in her bosom.

  • She obeyed like one in a dream, and when she could affix no more he himself tucked a

  • bud or two into her hat, and heaped her basket with others in the prodigality of

  • his bounty.

  • At last, looking at his watch, he said, "Now, by the time you have had something to

  • eat, it will be time for you to leave, if you want to catch the carrier to Shaston.

  • Come here, and I'll see what grub I can find."

  • Stoke d'Urberville took her back to the lawn and into the tent, where he left her,

  • soon reappearing with a basket of light luncheon, which he put before her himself.

  • It was evidently the gentleman's wish not to be disturbed in this pleasant tete-a-

  • tete by the servantry. "Do you mind my smoking?" he asked.

  • "Oh, not at all, sir."

  • He watched her pretty and unconscious munching through the skeins of smoke that

  • pervaded the tent, and Tess Durbeyfield did not divine, as she innocently looked down

  • at the roses in her bosom, that there

  • behind the blue narcotic haze was potentially the "tragic mischief" of her

  • drama--one who stood fair to be the blood- red ray in the spectrum of her young life.

  • She had an attribute which amounted to a disadvantage just now; and it was this that

  • caused Alec d'Urberville's eyes to rivet themselves upon her.

  • It was a luxuriance of aspect, a fulness of growth, which made her appear more of a

  • woman than she really was. She had inherited the feature from her

  • mother without the quality it denoted.

  • It had troubled her mind occasionally, till her companions had said that it was a fault

  • which time would cure. She soon had finished her lunch.

  • "Now I am going home, sir," she said, rising.

  • "And what do they call you?" he asked, as he accompanied her along the drive till

  • they were out of sight of the house.

  • "Tess Durbeyfield, down at Marlott." "And you say your people have lost their

  • horse?"

  • "I--killed him!" she answered, her eyes filling with tears as she gave particulars

  • of Prince's death. "And I don't know what to do for father on

  • account of it!"

  • "I must think if I cannot do something. My mother must find a berth for you.

  • But, Tess, no nonsense about 'd'Urberville';--'Durbeyfield' only, you

  • know--quite another name."

  • "I wish for no better, sir," said she with something of dignity.

  • For a moment--only for a moment--when they were in the turning of the drive, between

  • the tall rhododendrons and conifers, before the lodge became visible, he inclined his

  • face towards her as if--but, no: he thought better of it, and let her go.

  • Thus the thing began.

  • Had she perceived this meeting's import she might have asked why she was doomed to be

  • seen and coveted that day by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and

  • desired one in all respects--as nearly as

  • humanity can supply the right and desired; yet to him who amongst her acquaintance

  • might have approximated to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half

  • forgotten.

  • In the ill-judged execution of the well- judged plan of things the call seldom

  • produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving.

  • Nature does not often say "See!" to her poor creature at a time when seeing can

  • lead to happy doing; or reply "Here!" to a body's cry of "Where?" till the hide-and-

  • seek has become an irksome, outworn game.

  • We may wonder whether at the acme and summit of the human progress these

  • anachronisms will be corrected by a finer intuition, a closer interaction of the

  • social machinery than that which now jolts

  • us round and along; but such completeness is not to be prophesied, or even conceived

  • as possible.

  • Enough that in the present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a

  • perfect whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment; a missing counterpart

  • wandered independently about the earth

  • waiting in crass obtuseness till the late time came.

  • Out of which maladroit delay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks,

  • catastrophes, and passing-strange destinies.

  • When d'Urberville got back to the tent he sat down astride on a chair, reflecting,

  • with a pleased gleam in his face. Then he broke into a loud laugh.

  • "Well, I'm damned!

  • What a funny thing! Ha-ha-ha!

  • And what a crumby girl!"

  • >

  • CHAPTER VI

  • Tess went down the hill to Trantridge Cross, and inattentively waited to take her

  • seat in the van returning from Chaseborough to Shaston.

  • She did not know what the other occupants said to her as she entered, though she

  • answered them; and when they had started anew she rode along with an inward and not

  • an outward eye.

  • One among her fellow-travellers addressed her more pointedly than any had spoken

  • before: "Why, you be quite a posy! And such roses in early June!"

  • Then she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their surprised vision: roses

  • at her breasts; roses in her hat; roses and strawberries in her basket to the brim.

  • She blushed, and said confusedly that the flowers had been given to her.

  • When the passengers were not looking she stealthily removed the more prominent

  • blooms from her hat and placed them in the basket, where she covered them with her

  • handkerchief.

  • Then she fell to reflecting again, and in looking downwards a thorn of the rose

  • remaining in her breast accidentally pricked her chin.

  • Like all the cottagers in Blackmoor Vale, Tess was steeped in fancies and

  • prefigurative superstitions; she thought this an ill omen--the first she had noticed

  • that day.

  • The van travelled only so far as Shaston, and there were several miles of pedestrian

  • descent from that mountain-town into the vale to Marlott.

  • Her mother had advised her to stay here for the night, at the house of a cottage-woman

  • they knew, if she should feel too tired to come on; and this Tess did, not descending

  • to her home till the following afternoon.

  • When she entered the house she perceived in a moment from her mother's triumphant

  • manner that something had occurred in the interim.

  • "Oh yes; I know all about it!

  • I told 'ee it would be all right, and now 'tis proved!"

  • "Since I've been away? What has?" said Tess rather wearily.

  • Her mother surveyed the girl up and down with arch approval, and went on

  • banteringly: "So you've brought 'em round!" "How do you know, mother?"

  • "I've had a letter."

  • Tess then remembered that there would have been time for this.

  • "They say--Mrs d'Urberville says--that she wants you to look after a little fowl-farm

  • which is her hobby.

  • But this is only her artful way of getting 'ee there without raising your hopes.

  • She's going to own 'ee as kin--that's the meaning o't."

  • "But I didn't see her."

  • "You zid somebody, I suppose?" "I saw her son."

  • "And did he own 'ee?" "Well--he called me Coz."

  • "An' I knew it!

  • Jacky--he called her Coz!" cried Joan to her husband.

  • "Well, he spoke to his mother, of course, and she do want 'ee there."

  • "But I don't know that I am apt at tending fowls," said the dubious Tess.

  • "Then I don't know who is apt. You've be'n born in the business, and

  • brought up in it.

  • They that be born in a business always know more about it than any 'prentice.

  • Besides, that's only just a show of something for you to do, that you midn't

  • feel beholden."

  • "I don't altogether think I ought to go," said Tess thoughtfully.

  • "Who wrote the letter? Will you let me look at it?"

  • "Mrs d'Urberville wrote it.

  • Here it is."

  • The letter was in the third person, and briefly informed Mrs Durbeyfield that her

  • daughter's services would be useful to that lady in the management of her poultry-farm,

  • that a comfortable room would be provided

  • for her if she could come, and that the wages would be on a liberal scale if they

  • liked her. "Oh--that's all!" said Tess.

  • "You couldn't expect her to throw her arms round 'ee, an' to kiss and to coll 'ee all

  • at once." Tess looked out of the window.

  • "I would rather stay here with father and you," she said.

  • "But why?" "I'd rather not tell you why, mother;

  • indeed, I don't quite know why."

  • A week afterwards she came in one evening from an unavailing search for some light

  • occupation in the immediate neighbourhood.

  • Her idea had been to get together sufficient money during the summer to

  • purchase another horse.

  • Hardly had she crossed the threshold before one of the children danced across the room,

  • saying, "The gentleman's been here!" Her mother hastened to explain, smiles

  • breaking from every inch of her person.

  • Mrs d'Urberville's son had called on horseback, having been riding by chance in

  • the direction of Marlott.

  • He had wished to know, finally, in the name of his mother, if Tess could really come to

  • manage the old lady's fowl-farm or not; the lad who had hitherto superintended the

  • birds having proved untrustworthy.

  • "Mr d'Urberville says you must be a good girl if you are at all as you appear; he

  • knows you must be worth your weight in gold.

  • He is very much interested in 'ee--truth to tell."

  • Tess seemed for the moment really pleased to hear that she had won such high opinion

  • from a stranger when, in her own esteem, she had sunk so low.

  • "It is very good of him to think that," she murmured; "and if I was quite sure how it

  • would be living there, I would go any- when."

  • "He is a mighty handsome man!"

  • "I don't think so," said Tess coldly. "Well, there's your chance, whether or no;

  • and I'm sure he wears a beautiful diamond ring!"

  • "Yes," said little Abraham, brightly, from the window-bench; "and I seed it! and it

  • did twinkle when he put his hand up to his mistarshers.

  • Mother, why did our grand relation keep on putting his hand up to his mistarshers?"

  • "Hark at that child!" cried Mrs Durbeyfield, with parenthetic admiration.

  • "Perhaps to show his diamond ring," murmured Sir John, dreamily, from his

  • chair. "I'll think it over," said Tess, leaving

  • the room.

  • "Well, she's made a conquest o' the younger branch of us, straight off," continued the

  • matron to her husband, "and she's a fool if she don't follow it up."

  • "I don't quite like my children going away from home," said the haggler.

  • "As the head of the family, the rest ought to come to me."

  • "But do let her go, Jacky," coaxed his poor witless wife.

  • "He's struck wi' her--you can see that. He called her Coz!

  • He'll marry her, most likely, and make a lady of her; and then she'll be what her

  • forefathers was."

  • John Durbeyfield had more conceit than energy or health, and this supposition was

  • pleasant to him.

  • "Well, perhaps that's what young Mr d'Urberville means," he admitted; "and sure

  • enough he mid have serious thoughts about improving his blood by linking on to the

  • old line.

  • Tess, the little rogue! And have she really paid 'em a visit to

  • such an end as this?"

  • Meanwhile Tess was walking thoughtfully among the gooseberry-bushes in the garden,

  • and over Prince's grave. When she came in her mother pursued her

  • advantage.

  • "Well, what be you going to do?" she asked. "I wish I had seen Mrs d'Urberville," said

  • Tess. "I think you mid as well settle it.

  • Then you'll see her soon enough."

  • Her father coughed in his chair. "I don't know what to say!" answered the

  • girl restlessly. "It is for you to decide.

  • I killed the old horse, and I suppose I ought to do something to get ye a new one.

  • But--but--I don't quite like Mr d'Urberville being there!"

  • The children, who had made use of this idea of Tess being taken up by their wealthy

  • kinsfolk (which they imagined the other family to be) as a species of dolorifuge

  • after the death of the horse, began to cry

  • at Tess's reluctance, and teased and reproached her for hesitating.

  • "Tess won't go-o-o and be made a la-a-dy of!--no, she says she wo-o-on't!" they

  • wailed, with square mouths.

  • "And we shan't have a nice new horse, and lots o' golden money to buy fairlings!

  • And Tess won't look pretty in her best cloze no mo-o-ore!"

  • Her mother chimed in to the same tune: a certain way she had of making her labours

  • in the house seem heavier than they were by prolonging them indefinitely, also weighed

  • in the argument.

  • Her father alone preserved an attitude of neutrality.

  • "I will go," said Tess at last.

  • Her mother could not repress her consciousness of the nuptial vision

  • conjured up by the girl's consent. "That's right!

  • For such a pretty maid as 'tis, this is a fine chance!"

  • Tess smiled crossly. "I hope it is a chance for earning money.

  • It is no other kind of chance.

  • You had better say nothing of that silly sort about parish."

  • Mrs Durbeyfield did not promise.

  • She was not quite sure that she did not feel proud enough, after the visitor's

  • remarks, to say a good deal.

  • Thus it was arranged; and the young girl wrote, agreeing to be ready to set out on

  • any day on which she might be required.

  • She was duly informed that Mrs d'Urberville was glad of her decision, and that a

  • spring-cart should be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top of the Vale on the

  • day after the morrow, when she must hold herself prepared to start.

  • Mrs d'Urberville's handwriting seemed rather masculine.

  • "A cart?" murmured Joan Durbeyfield doubtingly.

  • "It might have been a carriage for her own kin!"

  • Having at last taken her course Tess was less restless and abstracted, going about

  • her business with some self-assurance in the thought of acquiring another horse for

  • her father by an occupation which would not be onerous.

  • She had hoped to be a teacher at the school, but the fates seemed to decide

  • otherwise.

  • Being mentally older than her mother she did not regard Mrs Durbeyfield's

  • matrimonial hopes for her in a serious aspect for a moment.

  • The light-minded woman had been discovering good matches for her daughter almost from

  • the year of her birth.

  • >

  • CHAPTER VII

  • On the morning appointed for her departure Tess was awake before dawn--at the marginal

  • minute of the dark when the grove is still mute, save for one prophetic bird who sings

  • with a clear-voiced conviction that he at

  • least knows the correct time of day, the rest preserving silence as if equally

  • convinced that he is mistaken.

  • She remained upstairs packing till breakfast-time, and then came down in her

  • ordinary week-day clothes, her Sunday apparel being carefully folded in her box.

  • Her mother expostulated.

  • "You will never set out to see your folks without dressing up more the dand than

  • that?" "But I am going to work!" said Tess.

  • "Well, yes," said Mrs Durbeyfield; and in a private tone, "at first there mid be a

  • little pretence o't ... But I think it will be wiser of 'ee to put

  • your best side outward," she added.

  • "Very well; I suppose you know best," replied Tess with calm abandonment.

  • And to please her parent the girl put herself quite in Joan's hands, saying

  • serenely--"Do what you like with me, mother."

  • Mrs Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tractability.

  • First she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess's hair with such thoroughness that

  • when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as at other times.

  • She tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual.

  • Then she put upon her the white frock that Tess had worn at the club-walking, the airy

  • fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged coiffure, imparted to her

  • developing figure an amplitude which belied

  • her age, and might cause her to be estimated as a woman when she was not much

  • more than a child. "I declare there's a hole in my stocking-

  • heel!" said Tess.

  • "Never mind holes in your stockings--they don't speak!

  • When I was a maid, so long as I had a pretty bonnet the devil might ha' found me

  • in heels."

  • Her mother's pride in the girl's appearance led her to step back, like a painter from

  • his easel, and survey her work as a whole. "You must zee yourself!" she cried.

  • "It is much better than you was t'other day."

  • As the looking-glass was only large enough to reflect a very small portion of Tess's

  • person at one time, Mrs Durbeyfield hung a black cloak outside the casement, and so

  • made a large reflector of the panes, as it is the wont of bedecking cottagers to do.

  • After this she went downstairs to her husband, who was sitting in the lower room.

  • "I'll tell 'ee what 'tis, Durbeyfield," said she exultingly; "he'll never have the

  • heart not to love her.

  • But whatever you do, don't zay too much to Tess of his fancy for her, and this chance

  • she has got.

  • She is such an odd maid that it mid zet her against him, or against going there, even

  • now.

  • If all goes well, I shall certainly be for making some return to pa'son at Stagfoot

  • Lane for telling us--dear, good man!"

  • However, as the moment for the girl's setting out drew nigh, when the first

  • excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving found place in Joan

  • Durbeyfield's mind.

  • It prompted the matron to say that she would walk a little way--as far as to the

  • point where the acclivity from the valley began its first steep ascent to the outer

  • world.

  • At the top Tess was going to be met with the spring-cart sent by the Stoke-

  • d'Urbervilles, and her box had already been wheeled ahead towards this summit by a lad

  • with trucks, to be in readiness.

  • Seeing their mother put on her bonnet, the younger children clamoured to go with her.

  • "I do want to walk a little-ways wi' Sissy, now she's going to marry our gentleman-

  • cousin, and wear fine cloze!"

  • "Now," said Tess, flushing and turning quickly, "I'll hear no more o' that!

  • Mother, how could you ever put such stuff into their heads?"

  • "Going to work, my dears, for our rich relation, and help get enough money for a

  • new horse," said Mrs Durbeyfield pacifically.

  • "Goodbye, father," said Tess, with a lumpy throat.

  • "Goodbye, my maid," said Sir John, raising his head from his breast as he suspended

  • his nap, induced by a slight excess this morning in honour of the occasion.

  • "Well, I hope my young friend will like such a comely sample of his own blood.

  • And tell'n, Tess, that being sunk, quite, from our former grandeur, I'll sell him the

  • title--yes, sell it--and at no onreasonable figure."

  • "Not for less than a thousand pound!" cried Lady Durbeyfield.

  • "Tell'n--I'll take a thousand pound. Well, I'll take less, when I come to think

  • o't.

  • He'll adorn it better than a poor lammicken feller like myself can.

  • Tell'n he shall hae it for a hundred. But I won't stand upon trifles--tell'n he

  • shall hae it for fifty--for twenty pound!

  • Yes, twenty pound--that's the lowest. Dammy, family honour is family honour, and

  • I won't take a penny less!"

  • Tess's eyes were too full and her voice too choked to utter the sentiments that were in

  • her. She turned quickly, and went out.

  • So the girls and their mother all walked together, a child on each side of Tess,

  • holding her hand and looking at her meditatively from time to time, as at one

  • who was about to do great things; her

  • mother just behind with the smallest; the group forming a picture of honest beauty

  • flanked by innocence, and backed by simple- souled vanity.

  • They followed the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent, on the crest of

  • which the vehicle from Trantridge was to receive her, this limit having been fixed

  • to save the horse the labour of the last slope.

  • Far away behind the first hills the cliff- like dwellings of Shaston broke the line of

  • the ridge.

  • Nobody was visible in the elevated road which skirted the ascent save the lad whom

  • they had sent on before them, sitting on the handle of the barrow that contained all

  • Tess's worldly possessions.

  • "Bide here a bit, and the cart will soon come, no doubt," said Mrs Durbeyfield.

  • "Yes, I see it yonder!"

  • It had come--appearing suddenly from behind the forehead of the nearest upland, and

  • stopping beside the boy with the barrow.

  • Her mother and the children thereupon decided to go no farther, and bidding them

  • a hasty goodbye, Tess bent her steps up the hill.

  • They saw her white shape draw near to the spring-cart, on which her box was already

  • placed.

  • But before she had quite reached it another vehicle shot out from a clump of trees on

  • the summit, came round the bend of the road there, passed the luggage-cart, and halted

  • beside Tess, who looked up as if in great surprise.

  • Her mother perceived, for the first time, that the second vehicle was not a humble

  • conveyance like the first, but a spick-and- span gig or dog-cart, highly varnished and

  • equipped.

  • The driver was a young man of three- or four-and-twenty, with a cigar between his

  • teeth; wearing a dandy cap, drab jacket, breeches of the same hue, white neckcloth,

  • stick-up collar, and brown driving-gloves--

  • in short, he was the handsome, horsey young buck who had visited Joan a week or two

  • before to get her answer about Tess. Mrs Durbeyfield clapped her hands like a

  • child.

  • Then she looked down, then stared again. Could she be deceived as to the meaning of

  • this? "Is dat the gentleman-kinsman who'll make

  • Sissy a lady?" asked the youngest child.

  • Meanwhile the muslined form of Tess could be seen standing still, undecided, beside

  • this turn-out, whose owner was talking to her.

  • Her seeming indecision was, in fact, more than indecision: it was misgiving.

  • She would have preferred the humble cart. The young man dismounted, and appeared to

  • urge her to ascend.

  • She turned her face down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group.

  • Something seemed to quicken her to a determination; possibly the thought that

  • she had killed Prince.

  • She suddenly stepped up; he mounted beside her, and immediately whipped on the horse.

  • In a moment they had passed the slow cart with the box, and disappeared behind the

  • shoulder of the hill.

  • Directly Tess was out of sight, and the interest of the matter as a drama was at an

  • end, the little ones' eyes filled with tears.

  • The youngest child said, "I wish poor, poor Tess wasn't gone away to be a lady!" and,

  • lowering the corners of his lips, burst out crying.

  • The new point of view was infectious, and the next child did likewise, and then the

  • next, till the whole three of them wailed loud.

  • There were tears also in Joan Durbeyfield's eyes as she turned to go home.

  • But by the time she had got back to the village she was passively trusting to the

  • favour of accident.

  • However, in bed that night she sighed, and her husband asked her what was the matter.

  • "Oh, I don't know exactly," she said. "I was thinking that perhaps it would ha'

  • been better if Tess had not gone."

  • "Oughtn't ye to have thought of that before?"

  • "Well, 'tis a chance for the maid--Still, if 'twere the doing again, I wouldn't let

  • her go till I had found out whether the gentleman is really a good-hearted young

  • man and choice over her as his kinswoman."

  • "Yes, you ought, perhaps, to ha' done that," snored Sir John.

  • Joan Durbeyfield always managed to find consolation somewhere: "Well, as one of the

  • genuine stock, she ought to make her way with 'en, if she plays her trump card

  • aright.

  • And if he don't marry her afore he will after.

  • For that he's all afire wi' love for her any eye can see."

  • "What's her trump card?

  • Her d'Urberville blood, you mean?" "No, stupid; her face--as 'twas mine."

  • >

CHAPTER I

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