 CHAPTER VII On the morning appointed for her departure, Jess 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 weekday 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 dine than that.' "'But I'm going to work,' said Tess.' "'Well, yes,' said Mrs. Derbyfield, and in a private tone, at first there may be a little pretensant, but I think it will be wiser-ivvy to put your best side outward,' she added. "'Very well. I suppose you know best,' replied Tess, with calm abandonment. "'And so, to please her parent, the girl put herself quite in Joan's hands, saying serenely, do what you like with me, mother.' Mrs. Derbyfield 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 fullness of which, supplementing her enlarged coiffure, imparted to her developing figure an amplitude which belied her age, and might cause her to be esteemed as a woman, when she was not much more than a child. "'I declared 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 have fell 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 see yourself,' she cried. "'It is much better than you was on to the day.' As the looking-glass was only large enough to reflect a very small portion of Tess's person at one time, Mrs. Derbyfield hung a black cloak outside the casement, and so made a larger reflector of the panes, as is the won't of bedecking cottages to do. After this she went downstairs to her husband, who was sitting in the lower room. "'I'll tell you what is, Derbyfield,' she said exultingly. "'You'll never have the heart not to love her. And whatever you do, don't say too much to Tess of his fancy-forer, and this chance she has got. She is such an odd maid, that it mid-zettler against him, or against going there even now. And if all goes well, I shall certainly be for making some return to that parson at Stagfoot Lane for telling us. Dear good man!' However, as the moment for the girls setting out drew nigh, when the first excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving found place in Joan Derbyfield's mind. It prompted the matron to say that she would walk a little way, as far as to the point where the eclivity from the valley began its first steeper scent to the outer world. At the top Tess was going to be met with the spring-cart sent by the Stoke Derbyfield's, 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 with Sissy. Now she's going to marry her gentleman cousin, and wear fine clothes.' "'Now,' said Tess, flushing and turning quickly, I'll hear no more of that. Mother, how could you ever put such stuff into their heads?' "'Go into work, my dear, for our rich relation, and help get enough money for a new horse,' said Mrs. Derbyfield, pacifically. "'Good-bye, father,' said Tess, with a lumpy throat. "'Good-bye, 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 him, Tess, that being quite sunk, quite from our former grandeur, I'll sell him the title, yes, sell it, and at no unreasonable figure.' "'Not for less than a thousand pound,' cried Lady Derbyfield. "'Tellin' I'll take a thousand pound. Well, I'll take less when I come to think of it. Hail adorn it better than a poor lamekin fiddle up myself can. Tellin' he shall have it for a hundred, but I won't stand upon trifles. Tellin' he shall hire it for a fifty, for twenty pound. Yes, twenty pound, that's the lowest. Damn me, 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 is 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 a simple sold vanity. They followed the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent, on the crest of which the vehicle from Tranchorage 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. Boyd here a bit, and the cart will soon come, no doubt, said Mrs. Durbefield. 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 further, and bidding them a hasty good-bye, 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 neck-cloth, 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. Derbyfield clapped her hands like a child. Then she looked down and stared again. Could she be deceived as to the meaning of this? Is that the young gentleman kinsman who makes sissy a lady? asked the youngest child. Meanwhile the muslin form of Tess could be seen standing still, undecided, beside this turnout, 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 young one's 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 Derbyfield'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 have been better if Tess had not gone. What knew to have thought of that before? Well, there's a chance for the maid. Still, if it were they doing again, I wouldn't let her go till I had found out whether the young gentleman is really a good-hearted young man, and choice over her as his kinswoman. Yes, you are perhaps to have done that, snored Sir John. Joan Derbyfield always managed to find consolation somewhere. Well, as one of the genuine stocks she ought to make her way within, if she plays her trump carder, right? And if he don't marry her afore, he will after. For that he's all a fire with love for her. Anyhow, he can see that. What's her trump card? Her Derbyville blood, you mean? No stupid. Her face, as was mine. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of Tests of the Derbyvilles by Thomas Hardy This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tests of the Derbyvilles by Thomas Hardy Read by Adrian Pretzellis Chapter 8 Having mounted beside her, Alec Derbyville rode rapidly along the crest of the first hill, chatting compliments to Tests as they went, the cart with her box being left far behind. Rising still, an immense landscape stretched around them on every side. Behind the green valley of her birth, before a grey country of which she knew nothing, except from her first brief visit to Trantridge. Thus they reached the verge of an incline down which the road stretched in a long, straight descent of nearly a mile. Ever since the accident with her father's horse, Tests Derbyfield, courageous as she naturally was, had been exceedingly timid on wheels. The least irregularity of motion startled her. She began to get uneasy at a certain recklessness in her conductor's driving. You will go down slow, sir, I suppose, she said, with an attempted unconcern. Derbyville looked round upon her, nipped his cigar with the tips of his large, white centre-teeth, and allowed his lips to smile slowly of themselves. Why, Tests, he answered, after another whiff or two. It isn't a brave, bouncing girl like you who asks that. Why, I always go down at full gallop. There's nothing like it for raising your spirits. But perhaps you need not now. Ah, he said, shaking his head, there are two to be reckoned with. It's not me alone. Tib has to be considered, and she has a very queer temper. Who? Why, this mare! I fancy she looked round at me in a very grim way just then. Didn't you notice it? Don't try to frighten me, sir, said Tests, stiffly. Well, I don't. If any living man can manage this horse, I can. I won't say any living man can do it. But if such has the power, I am he. Why do you have such a horse? Ah, well, may you ask it. It was my fate, I suppose. Tib has killed one chap, and just after I bought her, she nearly killed me. And then, take my word for it, I nearly killed her. But she's touchy still, very touchy, and one's life is hardly safe behind her sometimes. They were just beginning to descend, and it was evident that the horse, whether of her own will, or of his, the latter being the more likely, knew so well the reckless performance expected of her that she hardly required a hint from behind. Down, down they sped, the wheels humming like a top, the dog-cart rocking right and left, its axis acquiring a slightly oblique set in relation to the line of progress, the figure of the horse rising and falling in undulations before them. Sometimes a wheel was off the ground, it seemed, for many yards. Sometimes a stone was set spinning over the hedge, and flinty sparks from the horse's hooves outshone the daylight. The aspect of the straight road enlarged with their advance, the two banks dividing like a splitting stick, one rushing past at each shoulder. The wind blew through Tess's white muzzle into her very skin, and her washed hair flew out behind. She was determined to show no open fear, but she clutched at Durberville's rain-arm. Don't touch my arm, we shall be thrown out if you do. Hold on round my waist. She grabbed his waist, and so they reached the bottom. Safe, thank God, in spite of your fooling, said she, her face on fire. Tess, fire, that's temper, said Durberville, tis truth. Well, you need not let go your hold of me so thanklessly the moment you feel yourself out of danger. She had not considered what she had been doing, whether he were man or woman, stick or stone, in her involuntary hold on him. Recovering her reserve, she sat without replying, and thus they reached the summit of another declivity. Now, then, again, said Durberville. No, no, said Tess, show more sense, do please. But when people find themselves on one of these highest points of the county, they must get down again, he retorted. He loosed rain, and away they went a second time. Durberville turned his face to her as they rocked, and said, in playful railery, now then, put your arms round my waist again as you did before my beauty. Never, said Tess, independently, holding on as well as she could without touching him. Let me put one little kiss on those homebrew lips, Tess, or even on that warmed cheek, and I'll stop, on my honour, I will. Tess, surprised beyond measure, slid further back still on her seat, at which she urged the horse anew, and rocked her the more. Will nothing else do? she cried at length in desperation, her large eyes staring at him like those of a wild animal. This dressing her up so prettily by her mother had apparently been too lamentable purpose. Nothing, dear Tess, he replied. Oh, I don't know very well, I don't mind, she panted miserably. He drew rain, and as they slowed he was on the point of imprinting the desired salute, when, as if hardly aware of her own modesty, she dodged aside. His arms being occupied with the rains, there was left him no power to prevent her manoeuvre. Now, damn it, I'll break both our necks, swore her capriciously passionate companion, so you can go from your word like that, you young witch, can you? Very well, said Tess, I'll not move since you be so determined, but I thought you would be kind to me and protect me as my kinsmen. Kinsmen be hand, now! But I don't want anybody to kiss me, sir," she implored, a big tear beginning to roll down her face and the callers of her mouth trembling at her attempts not to cry, and I wouldn't have come if I had known. He was inexorable, and she sat still, and Durberville gave her the kiss of mastery. No sooner had he done so than she flushed with shame, took out her handkerchief, and wiped the spot on her cheek that had been touched by his lips. His ardour was nettle'd at the sight, for the act on her part had been unconsciously done. Your mighty sensitive for a cottage girl, said the young man. Tess made no reply to this remark, of which, indeed, she did not quite comprehend the drift, unheeding the snub she had administered by her instinctive rub upon her cheek. She had, in fact, undone the kiss, as far as such a thing was physically possible. With a dim sense that he was vexed, she looked steadily ahead as they trotted on, near Melbury Down and Windgreen, till she saw, to her consternation, that there was yet another dissent to be undergone. You shall be made sorry for that, he resumed, his injured tone still remaining, as he flourished the whip anew. Unless that is, you agree willingly to let me do it again, and no, handkerchief. She sighed. Very well, sir, she said. Oh, let me get my hat. At the moment of speaking, her hat had blown off into the road, their present speed on the upland being by no means slow. Durberville pulled up and said he would get it for her, but Tess was down on the other side. She turned back and picked up the article. You look prettier with it off upon my soul, if that's possible, he said, contemplating her over the back of the vehicle. Now, then, up again, what's the matter? The hat was in place and tied, but Tess had not stepped forward. No, sir, she said, revealing the red and ivory of her mouth as her eye lit in defiant triumph. Not again, if I know it. What, you won't get up beside me? No, I shall walk. It's five or six miles yet to Trenchridge. I don't care if Tess doesn't, besides, the cart is behind. You artful hussy! Now, tell me, didn't you make that hat blow off on purpose? I'll swear you did. Her strategic silence confirmed his suspicion. Then Durberville cursed and swore at her and called her everything he could think of for the trick. Turning the horse suddenly, he tried to drive back upon her and so to hem her in between the gig and the hedge, but he could not do this short of injuring her. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for using such wicked words, cried Tess with spirit from the top of the hedge into which she had scrambled. I don't like it at all. I hate and detest you. I'll go back to mother, I will. Durberville's bad temper cleared up at the sight of hers, and he laughed heartily. Well, I like you all the better, he said. Come, let there be peace. I'll never do it any more against your will. My life upon it now. Still, Tess could not be induced to remount. She did not, however, object to his keeping his gig alongside her, and in this manner, at a slow pace, they advanced towards the village of Trancheridge. From time to time Durberville exhibited a sort of fierce distress at the sight of the tramping he had driven her to undertake by his misdemeanor. She might, in truth, have safely trusted him now, but he had forfeited her confidence for the time, and she kept on the ground progressing thoughtfully as if wondering whether it would be wiser to return home. Her resolve, however, had been taken, and it seemed vacillating even to childishness to abandon it now unless for graver reasons. How could she face her parents, get back her box, and disconsert the whole scheme for the rehabilitation of her family on such sentimental grounds? A few minutes later the chimneys of the slopes appeared in view, and in a snug nook to the right, the poultry farm and cottage of Tess's destination. CHAPTER IX The community of fowls to which Tess had been appointed a supervisor, purveyor, nurse, surgeon, and friend, made its headquarters in an old, thatched cottage, standing at an enclosure that had once been a garden, but there was now a trampled and sanded square. The house was overrun with ivy, its chimney being enlarged by the boughs of the parasite to the aspect of a ruined tower. The lower rooms were entirely given over to the birds, who walked about them with a proprietary air as though the place had been built by themselves, and not by certain dusty copy-holders who now lay east and west in the churchyard. The descendants of these bygone owners felt it almost as a slight to their family when the house, which had so much of their affection, had cost so much of their forefather's money and had been in their possession for several generations before the Durbervilles came and built here, was indefinitely turned into a fowl-house by Mrs. Stoke Durberville as soon as the property fell into hand according to law. It was good enough for Christians in grandfather's time, they said. The rooms wherein dozens of infants had wailed at their nursing now resounded with the tapping of nascent chicks. Distracted hens in coops occupied spots where formerly stood chairs supporting sedate agriculturalists. The chimney-corner, and once blazing hearth, was now filled with inverted beehives in which the hens laid their eggs, while out of doors the plots that each succeeding householder had carefully shaped with his spade were torn by the cocks in wildest fashion. The garden in which the cottage stood was surrounded by a wall, and could only be entered through a door. When Tess had occupied herself about an hour the next morning in altering and improving the arrangements according to her skilled ideas as the daughter of a professed polterer the door in the wall opened and a servant in white cap and apron entered. She had come from the manor-house. Mrs. Durberville once the fowl is as usual, she said, but perceiving that Tess did not quite understand, she explained, Mrs. is an old lady and blind. Blind? said Tess. Almost before her misgiving at the news could find time to shape itself, she took, under her companion's direction, two of the most beautiful of the hamburgs in her arms, and followed the servant, who had likewise taken two, to the adjacent mansion, which, though ornate and imposing, showed traces everywhere on this side that some occupant of its chambers could bend to the love of dumb creatures, feathers floating within view of the front, and hencoops standing on the grass. In a sitting-room on the ground floor, ensconced in an arm-chair with her back to the light, was the owner and mistress of the estate, a white-haired woman of not more than sixty, or even less, wearing a large cap. She had the mobile face frequent in those whose sight has decayed by stages, has been laboriously striven after, and reluctantly let go, rather than the stagnant mean apparent in person's long, sightless or born blind. Tess walked up to this lady with her feathered charges, one sitting on each arm. Ah! are you the young woman come to look after my birds?" asked Mrs. Durberville, recognizing a new footstep. I hope you will be kind to them. My bailiff tells me you're quite the proper person. Well, where are they? Ah! this is Strutt. But he is hardly so lively today, is he? He is alarmed at being handled by a stranger, I suppose. And Fenner too, yes, they are a little frightened, aren't you, dears? But they will soon get used to you. While the old lady had been speaking, Tess and the other maid, in obedience to her gestures, had placed the foul severally in her lap, and she had felt them over, from head to tail, examining their beaks, their combs, the mains of the cocks, their wings, and their claws. Her touch enabled her to recognize them in a moment, and to discover if a single feather were crippled or draggled. She handled their crops and knew what they had eaten, and if too little or too much, her face enacting a vivid pantomime of the criticisms passing in her mind. The birds that the two girls had brought in would duly return to the yard, and the process was repeated till all the pet cocks and hens had been submitted to the old woman. Hamburgs, bantams, cockens, brahmas, dorkens, and other such sorts as were in fashion just then. Her perception of each visitor being seldom at fault when she received the bird upon her knees. It reminded Tess of a confirmation in which Mrs. Durberville was the bishop, the fowls the young people presented, and herself and the maid-servant, the parson and curate of the parish bringing them up. At the end of the ceremony Mrs. Durberville abruptly asked Tess, wrinkling and twitching her face into undulations, Can you whistle? Whistle, ma'am? Yes, whistle tunes. Tess could whistle, like most country girls, though the accomplishment was one which she did not care to profess in gentile company. However she blandly admitted that such was the fact. Then you will have to practice it every day. I had a lad who did it very well, but he is left. I want you to whistle to my bullfinches, as I cannot see them. I like to hear them, and we teach him heirs that way. Tell her where the cages are, Elizabeth. You must begin to-morrow, or they will go back in their piping. They have been neglected these several days. Mr. Durberville whistled term this morning, ma'am, said Elizabeth. He, poo! the old lady's face creased into furrows of repugnance, and she made no further reply. Thus the reception of Tess by her fancied kinswoman terminated, and the birds were taken back to their quarters. The girl's surprise at Mrs. Durberville's manner was not great, for since seeing the size of the house she had expected no more. But she was far from being aware that the old lady had never heard a word of the so-called kinship. She gathered that no great affection flowed between the blind woman and her son. But in that, too, she was mistaken. Mrs. Durberville was not the first mother compelled to love her offspring resentfully, and to be bitterly fond. In spite of the unpleasant irritation of the day before, Tess inclined to the freedom and novelty of her new position in the morning when the sun shone, now that she was once installed there, and she was curious to test her powers in the unexpected direction asked of her, so as to ascertain her chance of retaining her post. As soon as she was alone within the walled garden, she sat herself down on a coop, and seriously screwed up her mouth for the long neglected practice. She found her former ability to have degenerated to the production of a hollow rush of wind through the lips, and no clear note at all. She remained fruitlessly blowing and blowing, wondering how she could have so grown out of the art which came by nature till she became aware of a movement among the ivy-bowls which cloaked the garden wall no less than the cottage. Looking that way, she beheld a form springing from the coping to the plot. It was Alec Durberville, whom she had not set eyes on since she had conducted her the day before to the door of the gardener's cottage where she had lodgings. Upon my word, cried he, there never was before such a beautiful thing in nature or art as you. Look, cousin Tess! Cousin had a faint ring of mockery. I have been watching you from over the wall, sitting like impatience on a monument, and pouting out that pretty red mouth to whistling shape, and wooing and wooing and privately swearing, and never being able to produce a note. Why, you are quite cross because you can't do it. I may be cross, but I didn't swear. Ah! I understand why you're trying. Those bullies. My mother wants you to carry on their musical education, how selfish of her, as if attending to these cursed cocks and hens were not enough work for any girl. I would flatly refuse if I were you. But she wants me particularly to do it, and to be ready by to-morrow morning. Does she? Well, then, I'll give you a lesson or two. Oh, no you won't, said Tess, withdrawing towards the door. Nonsense, I don't want to touch you. See, I'll stand on this side of the wire netting, and you can keep on the other side, so you may feel quite safe. Now, look here. You screw up your lips too harshly. There, tis so. He suited the action to the word, and whistled a line of, take o take those lips away. But the illusion was lost upon Tess. Now try, said Durberville. She attempted to look reserved. Her face put on a sculptural severity. But he persisted in his demand, and at last, to get rid of him, she did put up her lips as directed for producing a clear note. Laughing distressfully, however, and then blushing with vexation, that she had laughed. He encouraged her with, try again. Tess was quite serious, painfully serious by this time, and she tried, ultimately and unexpectedly, admitting a real round sound. The momentary pleasure of success got the better of her. Her eyes enlarged, and she involuntarily smiled in his face. That's it. Now I have started you. You all go on beautifully. There, I said I would not come near you. And in spite of such temptation as never before felt a mortal man, I'll keep my word. Tess, do you think my mother a queer old soul? I don't know much of her yet, sir. You'll find her so. She must be to make you learn to whistle to her bullfinches. I'm rather out of her books just now, but you will be quite in favour if you treat her livestock well. Good morning. If you meet with any difficulties and want help here, don't go to the bailiff. Come to me. It was in the economy of this regime that Tess Durbefield had undertaken to fill a place. Her first days' experiences were fairly typical of those which followed through many succeeding days. A familiarity with Alec Durbeville's presence, which that young man carefully cultivated in her by playful dialogue and by jestingly calling her his cousin when they were alone, removed much of her original shyness of him without, however, implanting any feeling which could engender shyness of a new and tenderer kind. But she was more pliable under his hands than a mere companion's ship would have made her owing to her unavoidable dependence upon his mother, and through that lady's comparative helplessness upon him. She soon found that whistling to the bullfinches in Mrs. Durbeville's room was no such onerous business when she had regained the art, for she had caught from her musical mother numerous heirs that suited those songsters admirably. A far more satisfactory time than when she practiced in the garden was this whistling by the cages each morning. Unrestrained by the young man's presence, she threw up her mouth, put her lips near the bars, and piped away in easeful grace to the attentive listeners. Mrs. Durbeville slept in a large four-post bedstead, hung with heavy damask curtains, and the bullfinches occupied the same apartment, where they flitted about freely at certain hours, and made little white spots on the furniture and upholstery. Once, while Tess was at the window when the cages were ranged, giving her lessen as usual, she thought she heard a rustling behind the bed. The old lady was not present, and turning round the girl had an impression that the toes of a pair of boots were visible below the fringe of the curtains. Thereupon her whistling became so disjointed that the listener, if such there were, must have discovered her suspicion of his presence. She searched the curtains every morning after that, but never found anybody within them. Alec Durbeville had evidently thought better of his freak to terrify her by an ambush of that kind. Chapter 10 OF Tests of the Durbevilles by Thomas Hardy This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tests of the Durbevilles by Thomas Hardy Read by Adrian Pretzelis Chapter 10 Every village has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, often its own code of morality. The levity of some of the younger women in and about trench-ridge was marked, and was perhaps symptomatic of the choice spirit who ruled the slopes in that vicinity. The place had also a more abiding defect. It drank hard. The staple conversation on the farms around was on the uselessness of saving money, and smock-fronted arithmeticians leaning on their plows or hoes would enter into calculations of great nicety to prove that parish relief was a fuller proposition for a man in his old age than any which could result from savings out of their wages during a whole lifetime. The chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every Saturday night when work was done to Chaseborough, a decayed market-town two or three miles distant, and returning in the small hours of the next morning to spend Sunday in sleeping off the dyspepsic effects of the curious compounds sold to them as beer by the monopolizers of the once-independent inns. For a long time Tess did not join in the weekly pilgrimages, but under pressure from matrons not much older than herself, for a fieldman's wages being as high at twenty-one as at forty, marriage was early here, Tess at length consented to go. Her first experience of the journey afforded her more enjoyment than she had expected, the hilariousness of the others being quite contagious after her monotonous attention to the poultry farm all week. She went again and again, being graceful and interesting, standing more over on the momentary threshold of womanhood, her appearance drew down upon her some sly regards from lounges in the streets of Chaseborough. Hence, though sometimes her journey to the town was made independently, she always searched for her fellows at nightfall to have the protection of their companionship homeward. This had gone on for a month or two when there came a Saturday in September on which a fair and a market coincided, and the pilgrims from Trantridge sought double delights at the inns on that account. Tess's occupations made her late in setting out so that her companions reached the town long before her. It was a fine September evening, just before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hair-like lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without aid from more solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects that dance in it. Through this low-lit mistiness Tess walked leisurely along. She did not discover the coincidence of the market with the fair till she had reached the place by which time it was close upon dusk. Her limited marketing was soon completed, and then as usual she began to look about for some of the Trantridge cottages. At first she could not find them, and she was informed that most of them had gone on to what they called a private little jig at the house of a hay trusser and peat-dealer who had transactions with their farm. He lived in an out-of-the-way nook of the townlet, and in trying to find her coarse thither her eyes fell upon Mr. Durberville standing at a street-corner. What my beauty! You hear so late, he said. She told him that she was simply waiting for Company Homewood. I'll see you again, said he over her shoulder as she went down the back lane. Approaching the hay-trusses she could hear the fiddled notes of a reel proceeding from some building in the rear, but no sound of dancing was audible, an exceptional state of things for these parts, where as a rule the stamping drowned the music. The front door being open she could see straight through the house into the garden at the back as far as the shades of night would allow, and nobody appearing to her knock she traversed the dwelling and went up the path to the out-house whence the sound had attracted her. It was a windowless erection used for storage, and from the open door there floated into the obscurity a mist of yellow radiance, which at first Tess thought to be illuminated smoke, but on drawing nearer she perceived that it was a cloud of dust, lit by candles within the out-house, whose beams upon the haze carried forward the outline of the doorway into the wide night of the garden. When she came close and looked in she beheld indistinct forms racing up and down to the figure of the dance. The silence of their footfalls arising from there being overshoe in scruff, that is to say the powdery residuum from the storage of peat and other products, the stirring of which by their turbulent feet created the nebulosity that involved the scene. Through this floating, dusty debris of peat and hay, mixed with the perspirations and warmth of the dancers, and forming together a sort of vegeto-human pollen, the muted fiddles feebly pushed their notes, in marked contrast to the spirit with which the measure was trodden out. They coughed as they danced, and laughed as they coughed. Of the more rushing couples there could barely be discerned more than the highlights, the indistinctness shaping them to satyr's clasping nymphs, a multiplicity of pans whirling a multiplicity of syrinxes, lotus attempting to elude Priapus, and all was failing. At intervals a couple would approach the doorway for air, and the haze no longer veiling their features, the demigods resolved themselves into the homely personalities of her own next-door neighbours. Could Trantridge in two or three hours have metamorphosed itself thus madly? Some salenti of the throng sat on benches and hay-trusses by the wall, and one of them recognised her. The maids don't think it respectable to dance at the Flau de Luce, he explained. They don't like to see everybody see which be their fancy men. Besides, the house sometimes gets shut up just when their jints begin to get greased, so we come here and send out for liquor. —And when be any of you going home? asked Tess with some anxiety. Now, almost directly, this is all but the last jig. She waited. The reel drew to a close, and some of the party were in the mind for starting, but others would not, and another dance was formed. This would surely end it, thought Tess. But it merged into yet another. She became restless and uneasy, yet having waited so long it was necessary to wait longer. On account of the fair the roads were dotted with roving characters of possibly ill intent, and, though not fearful of measurable dangers, she feared the unknown. Had she been near Marlott she would have had less dread. Don't be nervous, my dear good soul! expostulated between his coughs, a young man with a wet face, and his straw hat so far back upon his head that the brim encircled it like the nimbus of a saint. Watch your hurry! Tomorrow is Sunday, thank God, and we can sleep it off in church-time. Now, have a turn with me. She did not have whore dancing, but she was not going to dance here. The movement grew more passionate. The fiddlers behind the luminous piddler of cloud now and then varied the air by playing on the wrong side of the bridge or with the back of the bow. But it did not matter. The panting shapes spun onwards. They did not vary their partners if their inclination were to stick to previous ones. Changing partners simply meant that a satisfactory choice had not as yet been arrived at by one or other of the pair, and by this time every couple had been suitably matched. It was then that the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter barter and adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin. Suddenly there was a dull thump on the ground. A couple had fallen and lay in a mixed heap. The next couple, unable to check its progress, came toppling over the obstacle, and in a cloud of dust rose around the prostrate figures amid the general one of the room in which a twitching entanglement of arms and legs was discernible. You shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home, burst in female accents from the human heap, those of the unhappy partner of the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap. She happened also to be his recently married wife, in which assortment there was nothing unusual at Trantridge, as long as any affection remained between wedded couples. Indeed, it was not uncustomary in their later lives to avoid making odd lots of the single people between whom there might be a warm understanding. A loud laugh from behind Tess's back in the shade of the garden united with the titter within the room. She looked round and saw the red coal of a cigar. Alec Derbeville was standing there alone. He beckoned to her, and she reluctantly retreated toward him. Well, my beauty, what are you doing here? She was so tired after her long day and her walk that she confided her trouble to him, that she had been waiting ever since he saw her to have their company home, because the road at night was strange to her. But it seems they will never leave off, and I really think I will wait no longer. Certainly do not. I have only a saddle-horse here to-day, but come to the flower to-loose, and I'll hire a trap and drive you home with me. Tess, though flattered, had never quite got over her original mistrust of him, and despite their tardiness, she preferred to walk home with the workfolk. So she answered that she was much obliged to him, but would not trouble him. I have said that I will wait for them, and they will expect me to now. Very well, Miss Independence, please yourself. Then I shall not hurry. My good Lord, what a kick-up they're having there! He had not put himself forward into the light, but some of them had perceived him, and his presence led to a slight pause, and a consideration of how the time was flying. As soon as he had relet a cigar and walked away, the tranterage people began to collect themselves from amid those who had come in from other farms, and prepared to leave in a body. Their bundles and baskets were gathered up, and half an hour later, when the clock-chime sounded a quarter-past eleven, they were straggling along the lane which led up the hill towards their homes. It was a three-mile walk along a dry white road, made whiter tonight by the light of the moon. Tess soon perceived, as she walked in the flock—sometimes with this one, sometimes with that—that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had been taken too freely. Some of the more careless women also were wandering in their gate, to wit a dark varigo, car dutch, dubbed the Queen of Spades, till lately a favourite of Durberville's. Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds, and the young married woman who had already tumbled down. Yet, however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the mean, unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was different. They followed the road with a sensation that they were soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and profound thoughts, themselves and surrounding nature forming an organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously interpenetrated each other. They were as sublime as the moon stars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they. Tess, however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in her father's house that the discovery of their conditions spoke the pleasure she was beginning to feel in the moonlight journey. Yet she stuck to the party for reasons above given. In the open highway they had progressed in a scattered order, and now their route was through a field gate, and the foremost finding a difficulty in opening it, they closed up together. This leading pedestrian was Carr, the Queen of Spades, who carried a wicker basket containing her mother's groceries, her own draperies and other purchases for the week. The basket being large and heavy, Carr had placed it for convenience of porterage on the top of her head, where it rose in jeopardised balance as she walked with arms akimbo. Well, whatever is that, a creeping down the back, Carr dutch, said one of the group suddenly. All looked at Carr. Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the back of her head a kind of rope could be seen descending to some distance below her waist, like a Chinaman's cue. "'Tis her hair falling down,' said another. No, it was not her hair. It was a black stream of something oozing from her basket, and it glistened like a slimy snake in the cold, still rays of the moon. "'Tis treacle,' said an observant matron. Treacle it was. Carr's poor old grandmother had a weakness for the sweet stuff. Honey, she had in plenty at her own hives, but treacle was what her soul desired, and Carr had been about to give her a treat of surprise. Hastily lowering the basket, the dark girl found that the vessel containing the syrup had been smashed within. By this time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the extraordinary appearance of Carr's back, which irritated the dark queen into getting rid of the disfigurement by the first sudden means available and independently of the help of the scoffers. She rushed excitedly into the field they were about to cross, and, flinging herself flat on her back upon the grass, began to wipe her gown as well as she could by spinning horizontally on the herbage and gathering herself over it upon her elbows. The laughter rang louder. They clung to the gate, to the posts, rested on their staves in the weakness engendered by their convulsions at the spectacle of Carr. Our heroine, who had hitherto held her peace, at this wild moment could not help joining in with the rest. It was a misfortune, in more ways than one. No sooner did the dark queen hear the soberer richer tone of tess among those of the other work-people than a long smouldering sense of rivalry inflamed her to madness. She sprang to her feet and closely faced the object of her dislike. How dares their laugh at me, hussy! she cried. I couldn't really help it when Tothers did, apologized Tess, still tittering. Ah, thus think the best everybody does, because the best first favourite were he just now. But stop a bit, my lady, stop a bit. I'm as good as two of such. Look here, here's at thee. To Tess's horror the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of her gown, which for the added reason of its ridiculed condition she was only too glad to be free of, till she had bared her plump neck, shoulders, and arms to the moonshine, under which they looked as luminous and beautiful as some praxitilly in creation, in their possession of the faultless rotundities of a lusty country girl. She closed her fists and squared up at Tess. Indeed, then, I shall not fight, said the latter, majestically. And if I had known you was of that sort, I wouldn't have let myself down as to come with such a horridge as this is. The rather too inclusive speech brought down a torrent of vituperation from other quarters upon fair Tess's unlucky head, particularly from the Queen of Diamonds, who, having stood in the relations to Durbaville that Carr had also been suspected of, united with the latter against the common enemy. Several other women also chimed in, with an animus that none of them would have been so fatuous as to show, but for the rollicking evening they had passed. Thereupon, finding Tess unfairly browbeaten, the husbands and lovers tried to make peace by defending her. But the result of that attempt was directly to increase the war. Tess was indignant and shamed. She no longer minded the loneliness of the way and the lateness of the hour. Her one object was to get away from the whole crew as soon as possible. She knew well enough that the better among them would repent of their passion the next day. They were all now inside the field, and she was edging back to rush off alone, when a horseman emerged almost silently from the corner of the hedge that screened the road, and Alex Durbaville looked round upon them. What the devil is all this row about, workfolk, he asked. The explanation was not readily forthcoming, and in truth he did not require any. Having heard their voices while yet some way off, he had ridden creepingly forward and learnt enough to satisfy himself. Tess was standing apart from the rest near the gate. He bent over toward her. Jump up behind me, he whispered, and will get shot of the screaming cats in a jiffy. She felt almost ready to faint, so vivid was her sense of the crisis. At almost any other moment of her life she would have refused such proffered aid and company as she had refused them several times before. And now the loneliness would not of itself have forced her to do otherwise. But coming, as the invitation did, at the particular juncture when fear and indignation at these adversaries could be transformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over them, she abandoned herself to her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon his instep, and scrambled into the saddle behind him. The pair were speeding away into the distant grey by the time that the contentious revelers became aware of what had happened. The Queen of Spades forgot the stain on her bodice, and stood beside the Queen of Diamonds and the newly married, staggering young woman, all with a gaze of fixity in the direction in which the horse's tramp was diminishing into silence on the road. What be ye lookin' at? asked a man who had not observed the incident. Ho, ho, ho! laughed a dark car. He, he, he! laughed the tippling bride as she steadied herself on the arm of her fond husband. He, he, he! laughed a dark car's mother, stroking her moustache as she explained leconically, out of the frying pan into the fire. Then these children of the open air, whom ever excessive alcohol could scarcely endure permanently, betook themselves to the field path, and as they went there moved onward with them around the shadow of one's head a circle of opalised light, formed by the moon's rays upon the glistening sheet of dew. Each pedestrian could see no halo but his or her own, which never deserted the head-shadow whatever its vulgar unsteadiness might be, but adhered to it, and persistently beautified it, till the erratic motions seemed an inherent part of the irradiation and the fumes of their breathing a component of the night's mist, and the spirit of the scene, and of the moonlight, and of nature, seemed harmoniously to mingle with the spirit of the wine. CHAPTER XI The twain cantered along for some time without speech. Tess, as she clung to him, still panting in her triumph, yet, in other respects, dubious. She had perceived that the horse was not the spirited one he sometimes rode, and felt no alarm on that score, though her seat was precarious enough despite her tight hold of him. She begged him to slow the animal to a walk, which Alec accordingly did. Neatly done, was it not, did Tess? He said by and by. Yes, said she. I'm sure I ought to be much obliged to you. And are you? She did not reply. Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you? I suppose because I don't love you. Are you quite sure? I am angry with you sometimes. Ah, I half feared as much. Nevertheless Alec did not object to that confession. He knew that anything was better than fragility. Why haven't you told me when I have made you angry? You know very well why, because I cannot help myself here. I haven't offended you often by love-making. You have sometimes. How many times? I don't know as well as I—too many times. Every time I have tried? She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable distance, till a faint, luminous fog which had hung in the hollows all the evening became general and enveloped them. It seemed to hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in clear air. Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway, and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track. She was inexpressibly weary. She had risen at five o'clock every morning of that week, and had been on foot the whole of each day, and on this evening had, in addition, walked the three miles to Chaseborough, waited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking, her impatience to start them preventing either. She had then walked a mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the quarrel till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now nearly one o'clock. Only once, however, was she overcome by actual drowsiness. At that moment of oblivion her head sank gently against him. Durbeville stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups, turned sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to support her. This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable, she gave him a little push from her. In his ticklish position he nearly lost his balance, and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse, though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode. That is devilishly unkind, he said. I mean no harm, only to keep you from falling. She pondered suspiciously, till thinking that this might after all be true, she relented, and said quite humbly, I beg your pardon, sir. I won't pardon you until you show some confidence in me. Good God! he burst out. What am I to be repulsed so by a mere chit like you? For near three mortal months you have trifled with my feelings, eluded me, and snubbed me, and I won't stand it. I'll leave you to-morrow, sir. No, you will not leave me to-morrow. Will you, I ask you once more, show your belief in me by letting me clasp you with my arm? Come, between us two and no one else now. We know each other well, and you know that I love you and think you are the prettiest girl in the world which you are. May I treat you as a lover? She grew a quick, petish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on her seat, looked far ahead and murmured, I don't know, I wish—how can I say yes or no when? He settled the matter by clasping his arm round her as he desired, and Tess expressed no further negative. Thus they sidled slowly onward till it struck her they had been advancing for an unconscionable time, far longer than was usually occupied by the shortest journey from Chaseborough, even at this walking pace, and that they were no longer on hard road, but in a mere trackway. Why, where be we? she exclaimed, passing by a wood. A wood? what wood? Surely we are quite out of the road. A bit of the Chase, the oldest wood in England, it is a lovely night, and why should we not prolong our ride a little? How could you be so treacherous? said Tess, between archness and real dismay, and getting rid of his arm by pulling open his fingers one by one, though at the risk of slipping off herself. Just when I'd been put in such trust in you, and obliging you to please you, because I thought I had wronged you by that push, please set me down, and let me walk home. You cannot walk home, darling, even if the air were clear. We are miles away from Trantridge. If I must tell you, and in this growing fog, you might wander for hours among these trees. Never mind that, she coaxed. Put me down, I beg you. I don't mind where it is. Only let me get down, sir, please. Very well, then I will, on one condition. Having brought you here to this out-of-the-way place, I feel myself responsible for your safe conduct home, whatever you may yourself feel about it. As to your getting to Trantridge without assistance, it is quite impossible. For, to tell the truth, dear, owing to this fog which so disguises everything, I don't quite know where we are myself. If you will promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through the bushes till I come to some road or house, and ascertain exactly our whereabouts, I'll deposit you here willingly. When I come back I'll give you full directions, and if you insist on walking you may, or you may ride, at your pleasure. She accepted these terms and slid off on the near side, though not till he had stolen a cursory kiss. He sprang down on the other side. I suppose I must hold the horse, said she. Oh no, it's not necessary," replied Alec, patting the panting creature. He's had enough of it for tonight. He turned the horse's head into the bushes, hitched him onto a bow, and made a sort of couch or nest for her in the deep mass of dead leaves. Now you sit here," he said. The leaves have not got damp as yet. Just give an eye to the horse. It will be quite sufficient. He took a few steps away from her, but returning said, By the by, Tess, your father has a new cob today. Somebody gave it to him. Somebody? You! Derberville nodded. Oh, how very good of you that is! She exclaimed, with a painful sense of the awkwardness of having to thank him just then. And the children have some toys. I didn't know you ever sent them anything. She murmured, much moved. I almost wish you would not. Yes, I almost wish it. Why, dear? It humpers me so. Tessie, don't you love me ever so little now? I'm grateful," she reluctantly admitted, but I fear I do not. The sudden vision of his passion for her as a factor in this result so distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear, and then following with another, she wept outright. Don't cry, dear, dear one. Now sit down here and wait till I come. She passively sat down amid the leaves he had heaped, and shivered slightly. Are you cold? he asked. Not very, a little. He touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as into down. You have only that puffy, muslin dress on. How's that? It's my best summer one, towards very warm when I started, and I didn't know it was going to ride, and that it would be night. Nights grow chilly in September. Let me see. He pulled off a light overcoat that he had worn, and put it round her tenderly. That's it. Now you'll feel warmer. He continued. Now, my pretty, rest there. I shall soon be back again. Having buttoned the overcoat round her shoulders, he plunged into the webs of vapor, which by this time formed veils between the trees. She could hear the rustling of the branches as he ascended the adjoining slope, till his movements were no louder than the hopping of a bird, and finally died away. With the setting of the moon the pale light lessened, and Tess became invisible as she fell into reverie upon the leaves where he had left her. In the meantime, Alec Durberville had pushed on up the slope to clear his genuine doubt as to the quarter of the chase they were in. He had, in fact, ridden quite at random for over an hour, taking any turning that had come to hand, in order to prolong companionship with her, and giving far more attention to Tess's moonlit person than to any wayside object. A little rest for the jaded animal being desirable, he did not hasten his search for landmarks. A clamber over the hill into the adjoining veil brought him to the fence of a highway whose contours he recognized, which settled the question of their whereabouts. Durberville, thereupon, turned back, but by this time the moon had quite gone down, and partly on account of the fog, the chase was wrapped in thick darkness, though morning was not far off. He was obliged to advance with outstretched hands to avoid contact with the bowels, and discovered that to hit the exact spot from which he had started was at first entirely beyond him. Roaming up and down, round and round, he at length heard a slight movement of the horse close at hand, and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly caught his foot. Tess? said Durberville. There was no answer. The obscurity was now so great that he could see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which represented the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves. Everything else was blackness alike. Durberville stooped, and heard a gentle regular breathing. He knelt and bent lower till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears. Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around. Above them rose the primeval ewes and oaks of the chase, in which were poised gentle roosting birds in their last nap, and about them stole the hopping rabbits and hares. But might some say, where was Tess's guardian angel? Where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping, and not to be awakened. Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive. Why so often the course appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man. Many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may indeed admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess Durberville's mailed ancestors, rollicking home from a fray, had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature, and it therefore does not mend the matter. As Tess's own people down in these retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way, it was to be. There lay the pity of it. An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our heroine's personality thereafter from that previous self of hers who stepped from her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge Poultry Farm. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tess of the Durbervilles by Thomas Hardy, read by Adrian Pretzellus. The basket was heavy and the bundle was large, but she lugged them along like a person who did not find her a special burden in material things. Occasionally she stopped to rest in a mechanical way by some gate or post, and then giving the baggage another hitch upon her full round arm went steadily on again. It was a Sunday morning in late October, about four months after Tess Durbervilles, arrival at Trantridge, and some weeks subsequent to the night ride on the chase. The time had not long passed daybreak, and the yellow luminosity upon the horizon behind her back lighted the ridge towards which her face was set, the barrier of the veil wherein she had, of late, been a stranger, which she would have to climb over to reach her birthplace. The ascent was gradual on this side, and the soil and scenery differed much from those within Blakemore Vale. Even the character and accent of the two peoples had shades of difference, despite the amalgamating effects of a roundabout railway, so that, though less than twenty miles from the place of her sojourn at Trantridge, her native village had seemed a far away spot. The fieldfolk shut in there, traded northward and westward, travelled, courted, and married northward and westward, thought northward and westward. Those on this side mainly directed their energies and attention to the east and south. The incline was the same down which Durbervilles had driven her so wildly on that day in June. Tess went up the remainder of its length without stopping, and on reaching the edge of the escarpment, gazed over the familiar green world beyond, now half-veiled in mist. It was always beautiful from here. It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it, she had learnt that the serpent hisses were the sweet birds seeing, and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson. Verily another girl than the simple one she had been at home was she who, bowed by thought, stood still here and turned to look behind her. She could not bear to look forward into the veil. Ascending by the long white row that Tess herself had just laboured up, she saw a two-wheeled vehicle beside which walked a man who held up his hand to attract her attention. She obeyed the signal to wait for him with unspeculative repose, and in a few minutes man and horse stopped beside her. Why do you slip away by stealth like this? said Durbervilles, with upbraiding breathlessness, on a Sunday morning, too, when people are all in bed. I only discovered it by accident, and I've been driving like the deuce to overtake you. Just look at the mare. Why go off like this? You know that nobody wished a hindi you're going? And how unnecessary it has been for you to toil along on foot, and encumber yourself with this heavy load? I have followed like a madman, simply to drive you the rest of the distance, if you won't come back. I shan't come back, said she. I thought you wouldn't. I said so. Well, then, put up your baskets, and let me help you on. She listlessly paced her basket and bundle within the dog-cart, and stepped up, and they sat side by side. She had no fear of him now, and in the cause of her confidence her sorrow lay. Durbervilles mechanically let a cigar, and the journey was continued with broken, unemotional conversation on the common-place objects by the wayside. He had quite forgotten his struggle to kiss her, when, in the early summer, they had driven in the opposite direction along the same road. But she had not, and she sat now like a puppet, replying to his remarks in mono-syllables. After some miles they came in view of the clump of trees, beyond which the village of Marlott stood. It was only then that her still face showed the least emotion, a tear or two beginning to trickle down. What are you crying for? he coldly asked. I was only thinking that I was born over there, murmured Tess. Well, we must all be born somewhere. I wish I had never been born there or anywhere else. Poo! Well, if you didn't wish to come to Trenchridge, why did you come? She did not reply. You didn't come for love of me, that I'll swear. It is quite true, if I had gone for a lover you, if I had ever sincerely loved you, if I loved you still, I should not so loathe and hate myself for my weakness as I do now. My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all. He shrugged his shoulders. She resumed, I didn't understand your meaning till it was too late. That's what every woman says. Who can you dare to use such words? She cried, turning impetuously upon him, her eyes flashing as the latent spirit, of which he was to see more some day, awoken her. My God! I could knock you out of the gig. Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel? Very well! he said, laughing. I am sorry to wound you. I did wrong. I admit it. He dropped into some little bitterness as he continued. Only you needn't be so everlastingly flinging it in my face. I am ready to pay to the uttermost farthing. You know you need not work in the fields or the dairies again. You know you may clothe yourself with the best, instead of in the bald plain way that you have lately affected, as if you couldn't get a ribbon more than you earn. Her lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn as a rule in her large and impulsive nature. I have said, and I will not take anything more from you, and I will not. I cannot. I should be your creature to go on doing that, and I won't. One would think you were a princess from your manor, in addition to a true and original Durberville. Well, test my dear, I can say no more. I suppose I am a bad fellow, a damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability. But upon my lost soul I won't be bad towards you again, test. And if certain circumstances should arise, or you understand, in which you are in the least need, the least difficulty, send me one line, and you shall have by return whatever you require. I may not be at Trantridge. I am going to London for a time. I can't stand the old woman, but all letters will be forwarded. She said that she did not wish him to drive her further, and they stopped just under the clump of trees. Durberville alighted and lifted her down bodily in his arms, afterwards placing her articles on the ground beside her. She bowed to him slightly, her eye just lingering in his, and then she turned to take the parcels for departure. Alec Durberville removed his cigar, bent towards her, and said, You are not going to turn away like that, dear, come! If you wish, she answered indifferently. See how you have mastered me. She thereupon turned round and lifted her face to his, and remained like a marble term while he imprinted a kiss upon her cheek, half prefuncturally, half as if zest had not quite died out. Her eyes vaguely rested upon the remotest trees in the lane, while the kiss was given, though she were nearly unconscious of what he did. On the other side, for old acquaintance's sake. She turned her head in the same passive way, as one might turn at the request of a sketcher or hairdresser, and he kissed the other side, his lips touching cheeks that were damp and smoothly chill as the skin of mushrooms in the field around. You don't give me your mouth and kiss me back. You never willingly do that. You'll never love me, I fear. I have said so often. It is true. I have never really and truly loved you. And I think I never can, she added mournfully. Perhaps of all things a lie on this thing would do the most good to me now, but I have honour enough left, little does tears, not to tell that lie. If I did love you, I may have the best of causes for letting you know it, but I don't. He emitted a laboured breath, as if the scene were getting rather oppressive to his heart, or to his conscience, or to his gentility. Well, you are absurdly melancholy, Tess. I have no reason for flattering you now, and I can say plainly that you need not be so sad. You can hold your own for beauty against any woman of these parts, gentle or simple. I say it to you as a practical man and well-wisher. If you are wise, you will show it to the world more than you do before it fades. And yet, Tess, will you come back to me upon my soul? I don't like to let you go like this. Never, never! I made my mind as soon as I saw what I ought to have seen sooner, and I won't come. Then good-morning, my four-months cousin! Good-bye! He leapt up lightly, arranged the reins, and was gone between the tall red-buried hedges. Tess did not look after him, but slowly wound along the crooked lane. It was still early, and though the sun's lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet. There was not a human soul near. Sad October and her sadder self seemed the only two existences haunting that lane. As she walked, however, some footsteps approached behind her, the footsteps of a man, and owing to the briskness of his advance he was close at her heels, and had said, good-morning, before she had been long aware of his propinquity. He appeared to be an artisan of some sort, and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand. He asked, in a business-like manner, if he should take her basket, which she permitted him to do, walking beside him. It is only to be a stir this Sabbath morn, he said cheerfully. Yes, said Tess, when most people are at rest from their week's work. She also assented to this, though I do more real work today than all the week besides. Do you? All the week I work for the glory of man, and on Sunday for the glory of God. That's more real than the other, eh? I have a little to do here at this style. The man turned as he spoke to an opening at the roadside leading into a pasture. If you'll wait a moment, he added, I shall not be long. As he had her basket she could not well do otherwise, and she waited, observing him. He sat down her basket and the tin pot, and, stirring the paint with the brush that was in it, began painting large square letters in the middle board of the three composing the style, placing a comma after each word, as if to give pause, while that word was driven well home to the reader's heart. Thy damnation, slumbereth not. 2 Peter, chapter 2, verse 3 Against the peaceful landscape the pale decaying tints of the copses, the blue air of the horizon, and the lichened style boards, these staring vermilion words shone forth. They seemed to shout themselves out and make the atmosphere ring. Some people might have cried, Alas, poor theology! At the hideous defacement the most grotesque phrase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time. But the words entered tess with accusatory horror. It was as if this man had known her recent history, yet he was a total stranger. Having finished his text he picked up her basket, and she mechanically resumed her walk beside him. Do you believe what you paint? she asked in low tones. Believe that text? Do I believe in my own existence? But, she said tremulously, suppose your sin was not of your own seeking? He shook his head. I cannot split hairs on that burning query, he said. I have walked hundreds of miles this past summer, painting these texes on every walled gate and style in the length and breadth of this district. I leave their application to the hearts of the people who read them. I think they are horrible, said tess, crushing, killing. That's what they are meant to be, he replied in a trade voice. But you should read my hottest ones. They're my kips for slums and seaports. They'd make you wriggle. But not what this is a very good text for rural districts. There's a nice bit of blank wool up by that barn standing to waste. I must put one up there. One that will be good for dangerous young females like yourself to heed. Will you wait, Missy? No, said she, and taking her basket, tess, trudged on. A little way forward she turned her head. The old grey wall began to advertise a similar fiery lettering to the first, with a strange and wanted mean, as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon to perform. It was with a sudden flush that she read and realised what was to be the inscription he was now halfway through. Thou shalt not commit. Her cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, and shouted, If you want to ask for edification on these things of a moment, there's a very good man going to preach a charity sermon today in the parish you are going to, Mr. Clare of Eminster. I'm not of his persuasion now, but he's a good man, and he'll expound as well as any parson, I know. T'was he began the work in me. But Tess did not answer. She throbbingly resumed her walk, her eyes fixed on the ground. Poo! I don't believe God said such things! She murmured contemptuously when her flush had died away. A plume of smoke soared up suddenly from her father's chimney, the sight of which made her heart ache. The aspect of the interior when she reached it made her heart ache more. Her mother, who had just come downstairs, turned to greet her from the fireplace where she was kindling barked oak twigs under the breakfast kettle. The young children were still above, as was also her father it being Sunday morning, when he felt justified in lying an additional half hour. "'Where, my dear Tess?' exclaimed her surprised mother, jumping up and kissing the girl. "'How be ye! I didn't see ye till you was in upon me. Have you come home to be married?' "'No, I have not come home for that, mother.' "'Then for a holiday?' "'Yes, for a holiday. For a long holiday,' said Tess. "'Why, isn't your cousin going to do the handsome thing?' "'He's not my cousin, and he's not going to marry me.' Her mother eyed her narrowly. "'Come, you have not told me all,' she said. Then Tess went up to her mother, put her face upon Joan's neck, and told. "'And yet, thus not got him to marry?' reiterated her mother. "'Any woman would have done it, but you after that!' "'Perhaps any woman would except me.' "'It would have been something like a story to come back with, if you had,' continued Mrs. Durberfield, ready to burst into tears of excation. "'After all the talk about you and him which has reached us here, who would have expected it to end like this?' "'Why, didn't you think of doing something good for your family, instead of thinking only of yourself?' "'See how I've got to teave and slave, and your poor weak father with his heart clog like a dripping pan. I did hope for something to come out of this, to see what a pretty pair you and he made that day when you drove away together four months ago.' "'See what he has given us? All, as we thought, because we were his kin. But if he's not, it must have been done because of his love for him. And yet you've not got him to marry.' "'Get, Alec Durberfield, in the mind to marry her.' "'He, marry her. On matrimony he had never once said a word.' "'And what if he had? How a convulsive snatching at social salvation might have impelled her to answer him,' she could not say. But her poor, foolish mother little knew her present feeling towards this man. Perhaps it was unusual in the circumstances, unlucky, unaccountable. But there it was, and this, as she had said, was what made her detest herself. She had never wholly cared for him. She did not care at all for him now. She had dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advances he took of her helplessness. Then, temporary blinded by his ardent manners, had been stirred to confuse surrender a while. Had suddenly despised and disliked him, and had run away. That was all. Hate him, she did not quite. But he was dust and ashes to her, and even for her namesake she scarcely wished to marry him. "'You ought to be more careful if you didn't mean to get him to make you his wife.' "'Oh, mother, my mother!' cried the agonized girl, turning passionately upon her parent, as if her poor heart would break. How could I be expected to know? I was a child when I left this house for a month ago. Why didn't you tell me there was danger in menfolk? Why didn't you warn me? Ladies know what to fend hands against, because they read novels that tell of them of these tricks. But I never had the chance alone in that way, and you did not help me.' Her mother was subdued. "'I thought if I spoke of his fond feelings, and what they might lead to, you would be huntin'ch with him, and lose your chance,' she murmured, wiping her eyes upon her apron. "'Well, we must make the best of it, I suppose.' "'Tis not her, after all, and what do please God?' End of CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. The event of Tess Durberfield's return from the manner of her bogus kinfolk was rumoured abroad, if rumour be not too large a word for a space of a square mile. In the afternoon several young girls of Marlott, former schoolfellows and acquaintances of Tess, called to see her, arriving dressed in their best, starched, and ironed, as became visitors to a person who had made a transcendent conquest, as they supposed, and sat round the room looking at her with great curiosity. For the fact that it was this said thirty-first cousin, Mr. Durberfield, who had fallen in love with her, a gentleman not altogether local, whose reputation as a reckless gallant and heartbreaker was beginning to spread beyond the immediate boundaries of tranterage, Lent Tess's supposed position, by its fearsomeness, a far higher fascination than it would have exercised if unhazardous. Their interest was so deep that the younger ones whispered when her back was turned, how pretty she is, and how that best frock do set her off! I believe it cast an immense deal, and that it was a gift from him. Tess, who was reaching up to get the tea-things from the corner cupboard, did not hear these commentaries. If she had heard them, she might soon have set her friends right on the matter, but her mother heard, and Joan's simple vanity, having been denied the hope of a dashing marriage, fed itself as well as it could, upon the sensation of a dashing flirtation. Upon the whole she felt gratified, even though such a limited and effervescent triumph should involve her daughter's reputation. It might end up in marriage yet, and in the warmth of her responsiveness to their admiration she invited her visitors to stay to tea. Their chatter, their laughter, their good-humoured innuendos, above all their flashes and flickerings of envy, revived Tess's spirits also, and as the evening wore on she caught the infection of their excitement, and grew almost gay. The marble hardness left her face, she moved with something of her old bounding step, and flushed in all her young beauty. At moments in spite of thought she would reply to their inquiries with a manner of superiority, as if recognising that her experiences in the field of courtship had, indeed, been slightly enviable. But so far was she from being, in the words of Robert South, in love with her own ruin, that the illusion was transient as lightning. Cold reason came back to mock her spasmodic weakness. The ghastliness of her momentary pride would convict her and recall her to reserved listlessness again, and the despondency of the next morning's dawn, when it was no longer Sunday, but Monday, and no best clothes, and the laughing visitors were gone, and she awoke alone in her old bed the innocent younger children breathing softly around her. In place of the excitement of her return, and the interest it had inspired, she saw before her a long and stony highway which she had to tread without aid and with little sympathy. Her depression was then terrible, and she could have hidden herself in a tomb. In the course of a few weeks Tess revived sufficiently to show herself so far as was necessary to get to church one Sunday morning. She liked to hear the chanting, such as it was, and the old psalms, and to join in the morning hymn. That innate love of melody which she had inherited from her ballad singing-mother gave the simplest music a power over her which could well nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times. To be as much out of observation as possible for reasons of her own, and to escape the gallantries of the young men, she set out before the chiming began, and took a back seat under the gallery, close to the lumber, where only old men and women came, and where the beer stood on end among the churchyard tools. Peritioners dropped in by twos and threes, deposited themselves in rows before her, rested three-quarters of a minute on their foreheads, as if they were praying, though they were not, then sat up and looked around. When the chance came on, one of her favourites happened to be chosen among the rest, the double-chant Langdon. But she did not know what it was called, though she would have much liked to know. She thought, without exactly wording the thought, how strange and godlike was a composer's power who, from the grave, could lead through the sequences of emotion, which he alone had felt at first, a girl like her who had never heard of his name and never would have a clue to his personality. The people who had turned their heads turned them again as the service proceeded, and at last observing her they whispered to each other. She knew what their whispers were about, grew sick at heart, and felt that she could come to church no more. The bedroom which she had shared with some of the children formed her retreat more continually than ever. Here, under her few square yards of thatch, she watched winds and snows and rains, gorgeous sunsets, and successive moons at their full. So close kept she that at length almost everybody thought she had gone away. The only exercise that Tess took at this time was after dark. It was then, when out in the woods, that she seemed least solitary. She knew how to hit to a hair's breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralise each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows. Her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind, or rather that cold accretion called the world which so terrible in the mass is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units. On these lonely hills and dales her cohescent glide was of a piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her, till they seemed a part of her own story. Rather, they became a part of it. For the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were. The midnight airs and gusts moaning amongst the tightly-wrapped buds and bark of the winter twigs were formulae of bitter reproach. A wet day was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely as the god of her childhood and could not comprehend as any other. But this encompassment of her own characterisation, based on shreds of convention peopled by phantoms and voices apathetic to her, was a sorry and mistaken creation of Tess's fancy, a cloud of moral hobgoblins by which she was terrified without reason. It was they that were out of harmony with the actual world, not she. Walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching the skipping rabbits on a moonlit warren, or standing under a pheasant laden bow, she looked upon herself as a figure of guilt intruding into the haunts of innocence. But all the while she was making a distinction where there was no difference. Feeling herself in antagonism, she was quite in accord. She had been made to break an accepted social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly.