 CHAPTER 37 MIDNIGHT CAME AND PASSED SILENTLY Not long after one o'clock there was a slight creak in the darkened farmhouse once the mansion of the Durbervilles. Tess, who used the upper chamber, heard it and awoke. It had come from the corner-step of the staircase, which, as usual, was loosely nailed. She saw the door of her bedroom open, and the figure of her husband across the stream of moonlight with a curiously careful tread. He was in his shirt and trousers only, and her first flash of joy died, when she perceived that his eyes were fixed in an unnatural stare on vacancy. When he reached the middle of the room he stood still and murmured, in tones of indescribable sadness. Dead, dead, dead. Under the influence of any strong disturbing force Claire would occasionally walk in his sleep, and even perform strange acts, such as he had done on the night of their return from market, just before their marriage, when he re-enacted in his bedroom his combat with the man who had insulted her. Tess saw that continued mental distress had wrought him into that sonambulistic state now. Her loyal confidence in him lay so deep down in her heart that, awake or asleep, he inspired her with no sort of personal fear. If he had entered with a pistol in his hand he would have scarcely disturbed her trust in his protectiveness. Claire came close and bent over her. Dead, dead, dead. He murmured. After fixidly regarding her for some moments with the same gaze of unmeasurable woe, he bent lower, enclosed her in his arms, and rolled her on the sheet as in a shroud. Then, lifting her up from the bed with as much respect as one would show to a dead body, he carried her across the room murmuring, My poor Tess, my dearest darling Tess, so sweet, so good, so true. The words of endearment withheld so severely in his waking hours were inexpressibly sweet to her forlorn and hungry heart. If it had been to save her weary life she would not, by moving or struggling, have put an end to the position she found herself in. Thus she lay in absolute stillness, scarcely venturing to breathe and, wondering what he was going to do with her, suffered herself to be born out upon the landing. My wife, dead, dead, he said. He paused in his labours for a moment to lean with her against the banister. Was he going to throw her down? Self-solicitude was near extinction in her heart, and in the knowledge that he had planned to depart on the morrow, possibly for all ways, she lay in his arms in this precarious position with a sense rather of luxury than of terror. If they could only fall together, and both be dashed to pieces, how fit, how desirable. However, he did not let her fall, but took advantage of the support of the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips, lips in the daytime scorned. Yet he clasped her with a renewed firmness of hold, and descended the staircase. The creak of the loose stair did not awaken him, and they reached the ground floor safely. Freeing one of his hands from his grasp of her for a moment, he slid back the door-bar, and passed out, slightly striking his stocking toe against the edge of the door. But this he seemed not to mind, and having room for extension in the open air, he lifted her against his shoulder that he could carry her with ease. The absence of clothes taking much from his burden. Thus he bore her off the premises in the direction of the river a few yards distant. His ultimate intention, if he had any, she had not yet divined, and she found herself conjecturing on the matter as a third person might have done. So easefully had she delivered her whole being up to him, that it pleased her to think he was regarding her as his absolute possession, to dispose of as he should choose. It was consoling, under the hovering terror of tomorrow's separation, to feel that he really recognized her now as his wife Tess, and did not cast her off, even if in that recognition he went so far as to aggregate to himself the right of harming her. Ah, now she knew what he was dreaming of. That Sunday morning, when he had brawn her along through the water with the other dairy-maids who had loved him nearly as much as she, if that were possible, which Tess could hardly admit. Claire did not cross the bridge with her, but preceding several paces on the same side towards the adjoining mill, at length stood still on the brink of the river. Its rivers, in creeping down these miles of meadowland, frequently divided, serpentining in purposeless curves, looping themselves around little islands that had no name, returning and re-embodying themselves as a broad mainstream further on. Opposite the spot to which he had brought her was such a general confluence, and the river was proportionately voluminous and deep. Across it was a narrow footbridge, but now the autumn flood had washed the handrail away, leaving the bare plank only, which, lying a few inches above the speeding current, formed a giddy pathway for even steady heads. And Tess had noticed from the window of the house in the daytime young men walking across it as a feat imbalancing. Her husband had possibly observed the same performance. Anyhow, he now mounted the plank and, sliding one foot forward, advanced along it. Was he going to drown her? Probably he was. The spot was lonely, the river deep and wide enough to make such a purpose easy of accomplishment. He might drown her if he would. It would be better than parting tomorrow to lead severed lives. The swift stream raced and gyrated under them, tossing, distorting, and splitting the moon's reflected face. Spots of froth travelled past and intercepted weeds waved behind the piles. If they could both fall together into the current now, their arms would be so tightly clasped together that they could not be saved. They would go out of the world almost painlessly, and there would be no more approach for her, or to him for marrying her. His last half-hour with her would have been a loving one, while if they lived till he awoke his daytime aversion with return, and this hour would remain to be contemplated only as a transient dream. The impulse stirred in her, yet she dared not indulge it, to make a movement that would have precipitated them both into the gulf. How she valued her own life had been proved, but his she had no right to tamper with it. He reached the other side with her in safety. Here they were within a plantation which formed the abbey grounds, and, taking a new hold of her, he went onwards a few steps, till they had reached the ruined choir of the abbey church. Against the north wall was the empty stone coffin of an abbot, in which every tourist with a turn for grim humour was accustomed to stretch himself. In this, Claire carefully laid tests. Having kissed her lips a second time, he breathed deeply as if a greatly desired end were attained. Claire then lay down on the ground alongside, when he immediately fell into a deep dead slumber of exhaustion and remained motionless as a log. The spur to mental excitement which had produced the effort was now over. Tess sat up in the coffin. The night, though dry and mild for the season, was more than sufficiently cold to make it dangerous for him to remain here long in his half-clothed state. If he were left to himself, he would in all probability stay there till the morning and be chilled to certain death. She had heard of such deaths after sleepwalking. But how could she dare to awaken him and let him know what he had been doing, when it would mortify him to discover his folly in respect of her? Tess, however, stepping out of her stone confine, shook him slightly, and was unable to arouse him without being violent. It was indispensable to do something, for she was beginning to shiver, the sheet being but a poor protection. Her excitement had in a measure kept her warm during the few minutes' adventure, but that beatific interval was over. It suddenly occurred to her to try persuasion, and accordingly she whispered in his ear with as much firmness and decision as she could summon, let us walk on, darling, at the same time taking him suggestively by the arm. To her relief he unresistingly acquiesced. Her words had apparently thrown him back into his dream, which, henceforward, seemed to enter into a new phase wherein he fancied she had risen as a spirit, and was leading him to heaven. Thus she conducted him by the arm to the stone bridge in front of their residence, crossing which they stood at the manor house door. Tess's feet were quite bare, and the stones hurt her and chilled her to the bone. But Clare was in his woolen stockings, and appeared to feel no discomfort. There was no further difficulty. She induced him to lie down on his own sofa bed, and covered him up warmly, lighting a temporary fire of wood to dry any dampness out of him. The noise of these attentions she thought might awaken him, and secretly wished that they might. But the exhaustion of his mind and his body was such that he remained undisturbed. As soon as they met the next morning, Tess divined that Angel knew little or nothing of how far she had been concerned in the night's excursion, though, as regarded himself, he may have been aware that he had not lain still. In truth he had awakened that morning from a sleep deep as annihilation, and during those first few moments in which the brain, like a Sampson shaking himself, is trying its strength, he had some dim notion of an unusual nocturnal proceeding. But the realities of his situation soon displace conjecture on the other subject. He waited in expectancy to discern some mental pointing. He knew that if any intention of his concluded overnight did not vanish in the light of morning, it stood on a basis approximating to one of pure reason, even if initiated by impulse of feeling, that it was so far, therefore, to be trusted. He thus beheld in the pale morning light the resolve to separate from her, not as a heart and indignant instinct, but denuded of the passionateness which had made its scorch and burn, standing in its bones, nothing but a skeleton, but nonetheless there, Claire no longer hesitated. At breakfast, and while they were packing the few remaining articles, he showed his weariness from the night's effort, so unmistakably that Tess was on the point of revealing all that had happened. But the reflection that it would anger him, grieve him, stultify him, to know that he had instinctively manifested a fondness for her, of which his common sense did not approve, that his inclination had compromised his dignity when reason slept, again deterred her. It was too much like laughing at a man when sober for his erratic deeds during intoxication. It just crossed her mind, too, that he might have a faint recollection of his tender vagary, and was disinclined to allude to it from a conviction that she would take amatory advantage of the opportunity it gave her of appealing to him and knew not to go. He had ordered by letter a vehicle from the nearest town, and soon after breakfast it arrived. She saw in it the beginning of the end, the temporary end, at least, for the revelation of his tenderness by the incident of the night, raised dreams of a possible future with him. The luggage was put on the top, and the man drove off, the miller and the old waiting woman expressing some surprise at their precipitate departure, which Clare attributed to his discovery that the millwork was not of the modern kind, which he wished to investigate, a statement that was true so far as it went. Beyond this there was nothing in the manner of their leaving to suggest a fiasco, or that they were not going together to visit friends. Their route lay near the dairy farm from which they had started with such solemn joy in each other a few days back, and, as Clare wished to wind up his business with Mr Crick, Tess could hardly avoid paying Mrs Crick a call at the same time, unless she would excite suspicion in their unhappy state. To make the call as unobtrusive as possible, they left the cottage by the wicket leading down from the high road to the dairy house, and descended the track on foot side by side. The witty bed had been cut, and they could see over the stumps the spot to which Clare had followed her when he pressed her to be his wife, to the left the enclosure in which she had been fascinated by his harp, and far away, behind the cowstalls, the mead which had been the scene of their first embrace. The gold of the summer picture was now grey, the colours mean the rich soil mud and the river cold. Over the Barton Gate the dairyman saw them, and came forward, throwing into his face the kind of jocularity deemed appropriate in Talbthe's and its vicinity on the appearance of the newly married. Then Mrs Crick emerged from the house, and several others of their old acquaintance, though Marion and Reti did not seem to be there. Tess valiantly bore their sly attacks and friendly humours, which affected her far otherwise than they supposed. In the tacit agreement of husband and wife to keep their estrangement a secret, they behaved as would have been ordinary, and then, although she would rather there had been no words spoken on the subject, Tess had to hear in detail the story of Marion and Reti. The latter had gone home to her fathers, and Marion was left to look for employment elsewhere. They feared that she would come to no good. To dissipate the sadness of this recital, Tess went and battled her favourite cows goodbye, touching each of them with her hand, and she and Clare stood side by side at leaving, as if united body and soul. There would have been something peculiarly sorry in their aspect to one who should have seen it truly. Two limbs of one life as they outwardly were, his arm touching hers, her skirts touching him, facing one way as against all the dairy facing the other, speaking their adieu as we, and yet sundered like the poles. Perhaps something unusually stiff and embarrassed in their attitude, some awkwardness in acting up to their profession of unity, different from the natural shyness in young couples, may have been apparent. For when they were gone, Mrs Crick said to her husband, how unnatural the brightness of her eyes did seem, and how they stood like waxen images and talked as if they were in a dream. Didn't it strike as to as so? Tess at all was somewhat strange in her, and she's not now quite the proud young broide of a well-be-doing man. They re-entered the vehicle, and were driven along the roads towards Weatherbury and Stagford Lane, till they reached the Lane Inn, where Clare dismissed the fly and the man. They rested here a while, and entering the Vale were next driven onward towards her home by a stranger who did not know their relations. At a midway point, when Nuttlebury had been passed, and where there were crossroads, Clare stopped the conveyance, and said to Tess that if she meant to return to her mother's house it was here that he would leave her. As they could not talk with freedom in the driver's presence, he asked her to accompany him for a few steps on foot along one of the branch roads. She assented, and directing the man to wait a few minutes, they strolled away. Now let us understand each other, he said gently. There is no anger between us, though there is that which I cannot endure at present. I will try to bring myself to endure it. I will let you know where I go as soon as I know myself, and if I can bring myself to bear it, if it is desirable, possible, I will come to you. But until I come to you it would be better that you would not try to come to me. The severity of the decree seemed deadly to Tess. She saw his view of her clearly enough. He could regard her in no other light than that of one who had practiced gross deceit upon him. Yet could a woman who had done even what she had done deserve all this? But she could contest the point with him no further. She simply repeated after him his own words. Until you come to me I must not try to come to you. You? Just so. May I write to you? Oh yes, if you are ill or want anything at all, I hope that it will not be the case, so that it may happen that I write to you first. I agree to the conditions, Angel, because you know best what my punishment ought to be. Only, only, don't make it more than I can bear. This was all she said on the matter. If Tess had been artful, as she made a scene, fainted, wept hysterically in that lonely lane, notwithstanding the fury of fastidiousness with which she was possessed, he would have probably not have withstood her. But her mood of long suffering made his way easy for him, and she herself was his best advocate. Pride, so entered into her submission, which perhaps was a symptom of that reckless acquiescence in chance so apparent in the whole Durberville family, and the many effective cords which she could have stirred by an appeal were left untouched. The remainder of their discourse was on practical matters only. He now handed her a packet containing a fairly good sum of money which he had obtained from his bankers on the purpose. The brilliance, the interest in which seemed to be Tess's for her life only, if he understood the wording of the will, he advised her to let him send to a bank for safety, and to this, she readily agreed. These things arranged. He walked with Tess back to the carriage and handed her in. The coachman was paid and told where to drive her. Taking next his own bag and umbrella, the sole articles he had brought with him hitherwards, he bade her goodbye, and they parted there and then. The flyer moved creepingly up a hill, and Claire watched it go with an unpremeditated hope that Tess would look out of the window for one moment. But that, she never thought of doing, would not have ventured to do, lying in a half-dead faint inside. Thus he beheld her recede, and in the anguish of his heart quoted a line from a poet with particular emanations of his own. God's not in his heaven, all's wrong with the world. When Tess had passed over the crest of the hill, he turned to go his own way, and hardly knew that he loved her still. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tess of the Derbervilles by Thomas Hardy, read by Adrian Pretzelis. Chapter 38 As she drove on through Blackmore Vale, and the landscape of her youth began to open around her, Tess aroused herself from her stupa. Her first thought was, how would she be able to face her parents? She reached a turnpike gate, which stood upon the highway to the village. It was thrown open by a stranger, not by the old man who had kept it for many years, and to whom she had been known. He had probably left on New Year's Day, the date when such changes were made. Having received no intelligence lately from her home, she asked the turnpike keeper for news. Oh, nothing, miss, he answered. Marlott is Marlott still. Folks have died and that. John Derbyfield, too, of a daughter married this week to a gentleman farmer. Not from John's own house, you know. They was married elsewhere. The gentleman being of that high standard that John's own folk was not considered well be doing enough to have any part on it. The bridegroom seeming not to know how to have been discovered that John is an old and ancient nobleman himself by blood, with family skillentons in their own vaults to this day, but done out of his property in the time of the Romans. However, Sir John, as we call now, kept up the wedding day as well as he could, and stood treat to everybody in the parish, and John's wife sung songs at the pure dew drop till past eleven at night. Hearing this, Tess felt so sick at heart that she could not decide to go home publicly in the fly with her luggage and belongings. She asked the turnpike keeper if she might deposit her things at his house for a while, and on his offering no objection, she dismissed her carriage and went on to the village alone by a back lane. At sight of her father's chimney, she asked herself how she could possibly enter the house. Inside that cottage her relations were calmly supposing her far away on a wedding tour with a comparatively rich man who was to conduct her to bouncing prosperity. While here she was, friendless, creeping up to the old door quite by herself, with no better place to go to in the world, she did not reach the house unobserved. Just by the garden hedge she was met by a girl who knew her, one of the two or three with whom she had been intimate at school. After making a few inquiries as to how Tess came there, her friend, unheeding her tragic look, interrupted with, ''But where's the gentleman, Tess?'' Tess hastily explained that he had been called away on business, and leaving her interlocutor clambered over the garden hedge, and thus made her way to the house. As she went up the garden path she heard her mother singing by the back door, coming in sight of which she perceived Mrs. Derby Field on the doorstep in the act of ringing a sheet. Having performed this without observing Tess, she went indoors, and her daughter followed her. The washing-tub stood in the same old place on the same old quarter hog's head, and her mother, having thrown the sheet aside, was about to plunge her arms in anew. ''Why, Tess, my child, I thought you was married, married really and truly by this time. We sent the cider.'' ''Yes, mother, so I am.'' ''Going to be?'' ''No, I am married.'' ''Married?'' ''Then where's thy husband?'' ''Oh, he's gone away for a time.'' ''Gone away?'' ''When was you married, then, the day you said?'' ''Yes, Tuesday, mother. And now it is only Saturday, and he's gone away?'' ''Yes, he's gone.'' ''What's the meaning on that?'' ''Nations see such husbands as you seem to get, say I.'' ''Mother!'' Tess went across to Joan Derby Field, laid her face upon the matron's bosom, and burst into sobs. ''I don't know how to tell thee, mother. You said to me, and wrote to me, that I was not to tell him. But I did tell him, I couldn't help it. And he went away.'' ''Oh, you little fool, you little fool!'' burst out Mrs. Derby Field, splashing Tess and herself in her agitation. ''My good God, that ever I should have lived to say it. But I say it again, you little fool!'' Tess was convulsed with weeping, the tension of so many days having relaxed at last. ''I know it. I know, I know,'' she gasped through her sobs. ''But, oh, my mother, I could not help it. He was so good, and I felt the wickedness of trying to blind him as to what had happened. If it were to be done again, I should do the same. I could not, I dared not, so sin against him.'' ''But you sinned enough to marry him first?'' ''Yes, yes. That's where my misery do lie. But I thought he could get rid of me by law, if it were determined not to overlook it. And, oh, if you knew, if you could only have know how I loved him, how anxious I was to have him, and how wrong I was between caring so much for him, and my wish to be fair to him.'' Tess was so shaken that she could get no further, and sank a helpless thing into a chair. ''Well, well, what's done cannot be undone. I'm sure I don't know why children of my bringings should all be bigger simpletons than other peoples, not to know better than to blab such a thing as that, when he couldn't have found out till too late.'' Here Mrs. Derbyfield began shedding tears on her own account as a mother to be pitted. ''What your father will say, I don't know.'' She continued, and he's been talking about the wedding up at Rulliver's and the Pure Drop every day since, and about his family getting back to their rightful position through you, poor silly man, and now you've made this mess of it, the Lord of Lord. And as if to bring matters to a focus, Tess's father was heard approaching at that moment. He did not, however, enter immediately, and Mrs. Derbyfield said that she would break the bad news to him herself, Tess keeping out of sight for the present. After her first burst of disappointment, Joan began to take the mishap as she had taken Tess's original trouble, as she would have taken a wet holiday, or failure in the potato crop, as a thing which had come upon them irrespective of dessert or folly, a chance external impingement to be born with, not a lesson. Tess retreated upstairs and beheld casually that the beds had been shifted and new arrangements made. Her old bed had been adapted for two younger children. There was no place here for her now. The room below being unsealinged, she could hear most of what went on there. Presently, her father entered, apparently carrying a live hen. He was a foot haggler now, having been obliged to sell his second horse, and he travelled with his basket on his arm. The hen had been carried about this morning, as it was often carried, to show people that he was in his work, though it had lain with its legs tied under the table at Rollavers for more than an hour. We've just dead up a story about… Derbyfield began, and thereupon related in detail to his wife a discussion which had arisen at the inn about the clergy, originated by the fact of his daughter having married into a clerical family. They was formally styled, sir, like my own ancestry. He said, though nowadays their true style strictly speak in his clark only. As Tess had wished that no great publicity should be given to the event, he had mentioned no particulars. He hoped she would remove that prohibition soon. He proposed that the couple should take Tess's own name Derbyfield as uncorrupted. It was better than her husband's. He asked if any letter had come from her that day. Then Mrs. Derbyfield informed him that no letter had come, but Tess, unfortunately, had come herself. When at length the collapse was explained to him, a sullen mortification, not unusual with Derbyfield, overpowered the influence of the cheering glass. Yet the intrinsic quality of the event moved his touchy sensitiveness less than its conjectured effect upon the minds of others. To think now that this was to be the end, aunt, said Sir John, and I with a family vault under that their Church of Kings beer as big as Gwoyer Jollan's ale cellar, and my folk lie in there in sixes and sevens, as genuine county bones and marrow as any recorded in history. And now to be sure what they fellers at Roliver's and the pure draught will say to me, hell, they'll squint and glane and say, this is your mighty match, is it? This is your getting back to the true level of your fur files in King Norman's time. I feel this is too much, Joan. I shall put an end to myself, title and all. I can bear it no longer. But can she make him keep her if he's married her? Why, yes, but she won't think of doing that. Do you think he really married her, or is it like the first? Poor Tess, who had heard as far as this, could not bear to hear any more. The perception that her word could be doubted even here in her own parental house set her mind against the spot as nothing else could have done. How unexpected were the attacks of destiny, and if her father doubted her a little, would not neighbours and acquaintance doubt her much? Oh, she could not live long at home. A few days accordingly were all that she allowed herself here, at the end of which time she received a short note from Clare informing her that he had gone to the north of England to look at a farm. In her craving for the lustre of her true position as his wife, and to hide from her parents the vast extent of the division between them, she made use of this letter as her reason for again departing, leaving them under the impression that she was setting out to join him. Still further to screen her husband from any imputation of unkindness to her, she took twenty-five of the fifty pounds Clare had given her, and handed the sum over to her mother, as if the wife of a man like Angel Clare could well afford it, saying that it was a slight return for the trouble and humiliation she brought upon them in years past. With this assertion of her dignity she bade them farewell, and after that there were lively doings in the Derby-filled household, for some time on the strength of Tess's bounty. Her mother saying, and indeed believing, at the rupture which had arisen between the young husband and wife, had adjusted itself under their strong feeling that they could not live apart from each other. Chapter 39 It was three weeks after the marriage that Clare found himself descending the hill which led to the well-known passage of his father. With his downward course the tower of the church rose into the evening sky in a manner of inquiry as to why he had come, and no living person in the twilighted town seemed to notice him still less to expect him. He was arriving like a ghost, and the sound of his own footsteps was almost an encumbrance to be got rid of. The picture of life had changed for him. Before this time he had known it, but speculatively. Now he thought he knew it as a practical man, though perhaps he did not even yet. Nevertheless humanity stood before him no longer in the pensive sweetness of Italian art, but in the staring and ghastly attitudes of a viet's museum and with the leer of a study by Van Beers. His conduct during these first weeks had been desultory beyond description. After mechanically attempting to pursue his agricultural plans as though nothing unusual had happened, in the manner recommended by the great and wise men of all ages, he concluded that very few of those great and wise men had ever gone so far outside themselves as to test the feasibility of their counsel. This is the chief thing. Be not perturbed, said the pagan moralist. That was just Clare's own opinion, but he was perturbed. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, said the Nazarene. Clare chimed in cordially, but his heart was troubled all the same. How he would have liked to confront these two great thinkers and earnestly appeal to them as fellow men to fellow men and ask them to tell him their method. His mood transmuted itself into a dogged indifference, till at length he fancied he was looking on his own existence with the passive interest of an outsider. He was embittered by the conviction that all this desolation had been brought about by the accident of her being a Durberville. When he found that Tess came of that exhausted ancient line and was not of the new tribes from below, as he had fondly dreamed, why had he not stoically abandoned her in fidelity to his principles? This was what he had got by apostasy, and his punishment was deserved. Then he became weary and anxious, and his anxiety increased. He wondered if he had treated her unfairly. He ate without knowing that he ate, and drank without tasting. As the hours dropped past, as the motive of each act in the long series of bygone days presented itself to his view, he perceived how intimately the notion of having Tess as a dear possession was mixed up with all his schemes and words and ways. In going hither and thither he observed in the outskirts of a small town a red and blue placard setting forth the great advances of the Empire of Brazil as a field for the emigrating agriculturalist. Land was offered there at exceptionally advantageous terms. Brazil somewhat attracted him a new idea. Tess could eventually join him there, and perhaps in that country of contrasting scenes and notions and habits, the conventions would not be so operative which made life with her seem impractical to him here. In brief he was strongly inclined to try Brazil, especially as the season for going hither was just at hand. With this view he was returning to Emynster to disclose his plan to his parents, and to make the best explanation he could make of arriving without Tess, short of revealing what had actually separated them. As he reached the door the new moon shone upon his face, just as the old one had done in the small hours of that morning when he had carried his wife in his arms across the river to the graveyard of the monks, but his face was thinner now. Claire had given his parents no warning of his visit, and his arrival stirred the atmosphere of the vicarage as the dive of a kingfisher stirs a quiet pool. His father and mother were both in the drawing-room, but neither of his brothers was now at home. Angel entered and closed the door quietly behind him. But where's your wife, dear Angel? cried his mother. How you surprise us! She is at her mother's temporarily. I have come home rather in a hurry, because I've decided to go to Brazil. Brazil? Why, they are all Roman Catholics there, surely. Are they? I hadn't thought of that. But even the novelty and painfulness of his going into a papistical land could not displace for long Mr. and Mrs. Claire's natural interest in their son's marriage. We had your brief note three weeks ago, announcing that it had taken place, said Mrs. Claire, and your father sent your godmother's gift to her, as you know. Of course, it was best that none of us should be present, especially as you preferred to marry her from the dairy and not at her home, wherever that may be. It would have embarrassed you and given us no pleasure. Your brothers felt that very strongly. Now it's done, we do not complain, particularly if she suits you for the business you have chosen to follow, instead of the ministry of the gospel. Yet I wish I could have seen her first, Angel, or have known a little more about her. We sent her no present of her own, not knowing what would be best to give her pleasure. But you must suppose it only delayed. Angel, there is no irritation in my mind or your father's against you for this marriage, but we have thought it much better to reserve our liking for your wife till we could see her, and now you have not brought her. It seems strange. What has happened? He replied that it had been thought best by them that she should go to her parents' home for the present, whilst he came there. I don't mind telling you, dear mother, he said, that I always meant to keep her away from this house till I should feel she could come with credit to you. But this idea of Brazil is quite a recent one. If I do go, it will be unadvisable for me to take her on this, my first journey, as she will remain at her mother's till I come back. And I shall not see her before you start? He was afraid they would not. His original plan had been, as he had said, to refrain from bringing her there for some little while, not to wound their prejudices or feelings in any way, and for other reasons he had adhered to it. He would have to visit home in the course of a year if he went out at once, and it would be possible for them to see her before he started a second time with her. A hastily prepared supper was brought in, and Clare made further exposition of his plans. His mother's disappointment at not seeing the bride still remained with her. Clare's late enthusiasm for Tess had infected her through her maternal sympathies, till she had almost fancied that a good thing could come out of Nazareth. A charming woman out of Talbothe's dairy. She watched her son as he ate. Can't you describe her? I'm sure she's very pretty, Angel. Of that there can be no question, he said, with a zest that covered its bitterness, and that she is pure and virtuous goes without question. Pure and virtuous, of course, she is. I can see her quite distinctly. You said the other day she was fine in figure, roundly built, and had deep red lips like Cupid's bow, dark eyelashes and brows, an immense rope of hair like a ship's cable, and large eyes, violety bluey blackish. I did, mother. I quite see her, and living in such seclusion she naturally had scarce ever seen any young man from the world without till she saw you. Scarcely. You were her first love? Of course. There are worse wives than these simple, rosy-mouthed, robust girls of the farm. Certainly I could have wished. Well, since my son is to be an agriculturalist, it is perhaps but proper that his wife should have been accustomed to an outdoor life. His father was less inquisitive, but when the time came for the chapter from the Bible, which was always read before evening prayers, the vicar observed to Mrs. Clare, I think, since Angel has come, that it will be more appropriate to read the 31st of Proverbs than the chapter we should have had in the usual course of our reading. Yes, certainly, said Mrs. Clare, the words of King Lemuel. She could cite chapter and verse as well as her husband. My dear son, your father has decided to read us the chapter in Proverbs in praise of a virtuous wife. We shall not need to be reminded to apply the words to the absent one. May heaven shield her in all her ways. A lump rose in Clare's throat. The portable lectern was taken out from the corner and set in the middle of the fireplace. The two old servants came in, and Angel's father began to read at the 10th verse of the aforesaid chapter. Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. She writheth while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good. Her candle goeth not out by night. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou exceleth them all. When prayers were over, his mother said, I could not help thinking how very aptly that chapter, your dear father read, applied in some of its particulars to the woman you have chosen. The perfect woman you see was a working woman, not an idler, not a fine lady, but one who used her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others. Her children arise up, and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but she exceleth them all. Well, I wish I could have seen her angel. Since she is pure and chaste, she would have been refined enough for me. Claire could bear this no longer. His eyes were full of tears, which seemed like drops of molten lead. He bade a quick good night to the sincere and simple souls whom he loved so well, who knew neither the world, the flesh, nor the devil in their own hearts, only as something vague and external to themselves. He went to his own chamber. His mother followed him and tapped at his door. Claire opened it to discover her standing without, with anxious eyes. Angel, she asked, is there something wrong that you go away so soon? I'm sure you're not yourself. I am not quite mother, said he. About her? Now, my son, I know it is that. I know it is about her. Have you quarrelled in these three weeks? We have not exactly quarrelled, he said, but we have had a difference. Angel, is she a young woman whose history will bear investigation? With a mother's instinct Mrs. Claire had put her finger on the kind of trouble that would cause such a disquiet as seemed to agitate her son. She is spotless, he replied, and felt that if it had sent him to eternal hell there and then he would have told that lie. Then never mind the rest. After all, there are few purer things in nature than an unsullied country made. Any crudeness of manner which may offend your more educated sense at first will, I am sure, disappear under the influence of your companionship and tuition. Such terrible sarcasm of blind magnanimity brought home to Claire the secondary perception that he had utterly wrecked his career by this marriage, which had not been among his early thoughts after the disclosure. True, on his own account he cared very little about his career, but he had wished to make it at least a respectable one on account of his parents and brothers. And now, as he looked into the candle, its flame dumbly expressed to him that it was made to shine on sensible people, and that it abhorred lighting the face of a dupe and a failure. When his agitation had cooled he would be at moments incensed with his poor wife for causing a situation in which he was obliged to practice deception on his parents. He almost talked to her in his anger as if she had been in the room, and then her cooing voice, plaintive in expostulation, disturbed the darkness. The velvet touch of her lips passed over his brow, and he could distinguish in the air the warmth of her breath. This night the woman of his belittling deprecations was thinking how great and good her husband was, but over them both there hung a deeper shade than the shade which Angel Clair perceived, namely the shade of his own limitations. With all his attempted independence of judgment, this advanced and well-meaning young man, a sample product of the last five and twenty years, was yet the slave to custom and conventionality when surprised back into his early teachings. No prophet had told him, and he was not prophet enough to tell himself, that essentially this young wife of his was as deserving of the praise of King Lemuel as any other woman endowed with the same dislike of evil, her moral value having to be reckoned not by achievement, but by tendency. Moreover, the figure near at hand suffers on such occasions because it shows up its soreness without shade, while vague figures afar off are honoured in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire. End of Chapter 39 Chapter 40 of Tess of the Durbovilles This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tess of the Durbovilles by Thomas Hardy, read by Adrian Pretzellis. Chapter 40 At breakfast, Brazil was the topic, and all endeavoured to take a hopeful view of Claire's proposed experiment with that country's soil, notwithstanding the discouraging reports of some farm labourers who had immigrated there and returned home within the twelve months. After breakfast, Claire went into the little town to wind up such trifling matters as he was concerned with there, and to get from the local bank all the money he possessed. On his way back, he encountered Miss Mercy Chant by the church, from whose walls she seemed to be a sort of emanation. She was carrying an armful of bibles for her class, and such was her view of life that events which produced heartaches in others, brought beatific smiles upon her. An enviable result, although in the opinion of Angel, it was obtained by a curiously unnatural sacrifice of humanity to mysticism. She had learnt that he was about to leave England, and observed what an excellent and promising scheme it seemed to be. Yes, it is a likely scheme enough in a commercial sense, no doubt, he replied. But, my dear Mercy, it snaps the continuity of existence. Perhaps a cloister would be preferable. A cloister? Oh, Angel Claire! Well, why, you wicked man, a cloister implies a monk, and a monk Roman Catholicism. And Roman Catholicism, sin and sin damnation, thou art in a parlous state, Angel Claire. I glory in my Protestantism, she said severely. Then Claire, thrown by a sheer misery into one of the demonical moods, in which a man does, despite to his true principles, called her close to him, and fiendishly whispered in her ear the most heterodox ideas he could think of. His momentary laughter at the horror, which appeared on her fair face, ceased when it merged in pain and anxiety for his welfare. Dear Mercy, he said, you must forgive me, I think I am going crazy. She thought that he was, and thus the interview ended, and Claire re-entered the vicarage. With the local banker he deposited the jewels till happier days should arise. He also paid into the bank thirty pounds, to be sent to Tess in a few months, as she might require, and wrote to her at her parents' home in Blackmore Vale to inform her of what he had done. This amount, with the sum he had already placed in her hands, about fifty pounds, he hoped would be amply sufficient for her once just at present, particularly as in an emergency she had been directed to apply to his father. He deemed it best not to put his parents into communication with her by informing them of her address, and, being unaware of what had really happened to estrange the two, neither his father nor his mother suggested he should do so. During the day he left the parsonage, for what he had to complete, he wished to get done quickly. As the last duty before leaving this part of England, it was necessary for him to call at the Wellbridge Farmhouse, in which he had spent with Tess the first three days of their marriage, the trifle of rent having to be paid, the key given up of the rooms they had occupied, and two or three small articles freched away that they had left behind. It was under this roof that the deepest shadow ever thrown upon his life has stretched its gloom over him. Yet when he unlocked the door of the sitting room and looked into it, the memory which returned first upon him was that of their happy arrival on a similar afternoon, the fresh sense of sharing a habitation co-jointly, the first meal together, the chatting by the fire with joined hands. The farmer and his wife were in the fields at the moment of his visit, and Clare was in the rooms alone for some time. Inwardly swollen with a renewal of sentiments that he had not quite reckoned with, he went upstairs to her chamber which had never been his. The bed was smooth as she had made it with her own hands on the morning of leaving. The mistletoe hung under the tester just as he had placed it. Having been there three or four weeks it was turning colour. The leaves and berries were wrinkled. Angel took it down and crushed it into the grate. Standing there he for the first time doubted whether his course in this conjuncture had been a wise, much less a generous one. But had he not been cruelly blinded? In the incoherent multitude of his emotions he knelt down at the bedside, wet-eyed. O Tess, if you had only told me sooner, I would have forgiven you, he mourned. Hearing a footstep below he rose and went to the top of the stairs. At the bottom of the flight he saw a woman standing, and on her turning up her face, recognized the pale, dark-eyed, is Hewitt. Mr. Clare, she said, I've called to see you, Mrs. Clare, and to inquire if you be well. I thought you might be back here again. This was a girl whose secret he had guessed, but who had not yet guessed his. An honest girl who loved him, one who would have made as good or nearly as good a practical farmer's wife as Tess. I'm here alone, he said. We are not living here now. Explaining why he had come, he asked. Which way are you going home is? I've no home at Talbothe's Dairy now, sir, she said. Why's that? His looked down. It was so dismal there that I left. I'm staying out this way. She pointed in a contrary direction, the direction in which he was journeying. Well, are you going there now? I can take you if you wish for a lift. Her olive complexion grew richer in Hew. Thank you, Mr. Clare, she said. He soon found the farmer, and settled the account for his rent and the few other items which had to be considered by reason of the sudden abandonment of the lodging. On Clare's return to his horse and gig is jumped up beside him. I'm going to leave England is, he said, as they drove on, going to Brazil. And do Mrs. Clare like the notion of such a journey? she asked. She is not going at present. Say for a year or so, I'm going out to Reconoiter to see what life there is like. They sped along eastward for some considerable distance, is making no observation. How are the others, he inquired. How is Reti? She was in a sort of nervous state when Oezidar last, and so thin and hollow-cheeked that I do seem in decline. Nobody will ever fall in love with her any more, said is, absently. And Marion? is lowered her voice. Marion drinks. Indeed! Yes, the dairyman has got rid of her. And you? I don't drink, and I bane in a decline, but I am no great things at singing a far breakfast now. How is that? Do you remember how neatly he used to turn towards down in Cupid's gardens and the tailor's breeches at morning milking? Ah, yes. When you first came, sir, that was. Not when you had been there a bit. Why was that falling off? Her black eyes flashed up to his face for one moment by way of answer. Is how weak of you for such as I, he said, and fell into reverie. Then, suppose I had asked you to marry me? If you had, I should have said yes, and you would have married a woman who loved thee. Really? Down to the ground, she whispered vehemently. Oh, my God! Did you never guess it till now? By and by they reached a branch road to a village. I must get down. I live out there. I live out there, said he as abruptly, having never spoken since her avowal. Claire slowed the horse. He was incensed against his fate, bitterly disposed towards social ordinances, for they had cooped him up in a corner out of which there was no legitimate pathway. Why not be revenged on society by shaping his future domesticities loosely, instead of kissing the pedagogic rod of convention in this ensnaring manner? I'm going to Brazil alone, is, said he. I have separated from my wife for personal, not voyaging reasons. I may never live with her again. I may not be able to love you, but will you go with me instead of her? You truly wish me to go? I do. I have been badly used enough to wish for relief, and you at least love me disinterestedly. Yes, I will go, said is after a pause. You will? You know what it means is? It means that I shall live with you for the time you're over there. That's good enough for me. Remember, you are not to trust me in morals now, but I ought to remind you that it will be wrong doing in the eyes of civilization. Western civilization, that is to say. I don't mind that. No woman do when it comes to agony point, and there's no other way. Then don't get down, but sit where you are. He drove past the crossroads, one mile, two miles, without showing any signs of affection. You love me very, very much, is? he suddenly asked. I do. I've said I do. I loved you all the time we was at the dairy together. More than Tess? She shook her head. No. She murmured. Not more than she. How's that? Because nobody could love you more than Tess did. She would have laid down her life for me. I could do no more. Like the prophet on top of Peore, his Hewitt would feign have spoken beversely at such a moment, but the fascination exercised over her rougher nature by Tess's character compelled her to grace. Claire was silent. His heart had risen at these straightforward words from such an unexpected, unimpeachable quarter. In his throat was something as if a sob had solidified there. His ears repeated. She would have laid down her life for me. I could do no more. Forget our idle talk, is? he said, turning the horse's head suddenly. I don't know what I've been saying. I will drive you back to where your lane branches off. So much for honesty towards thee. Oh, how can I bear it? How can I? How can I? Is Hewitt burst into tears and beat her forehead as she saw what she had done? Do you regret that poor little act of justice to an absent one? Oh, is? Don't spoil it by regret. She stilt herself by degrees. Very well, sir. Perhaps I didn't know what I was saying either. What, when I agreed to go, I wish what cannot be. Because I have a loving wife already. Yes, yes, you have. They reached the corner of the lane which they had passed half an hour earlier, and she hopped down. Is? Please, please forgive my momentary levity, he cried. It was so ill-considered, so ill-advised. Forget it? Never, never. Oh, it was no levity to me. He felt how richly he deserved the reproach that the wounded cry conveyed, and in a sorrow that was inexpressible, leapt down and took her hand. Well, but is? We'll part friends anyhow. You don't know what I've had to bear. She was a really generous girl, and allowed no further bitterness to mar their adieu. I forgive thee, sir, she said. Now is, he said, while she stood beside him there, forcing himself to the mentor's part he was far from feeling. I want you to tell Marion when you see her that she is to be a good woman, and not to give way to folly. Promise that. Until Reti that there are more worthy men than I in the world, that for my sake, she is to act wisely and well. Remember the words, wisely and well, for my sake. I send this message to them as a dying man to the dying, for I shall never see them again. And you, Izzy, you have saved me by your honest words about my wife from an incredible impulse towards folly and treachery. Women may be bad, but they are not so bad as men in these things. On that one account I can never forget you. Be always the good and sincere girl you've hitherto been, and think of me as a worthless lover, but a faithful friend. Promise. She gave the promise. Heaven bless and keep you, sir. Goodbye. He drove on, and no sooner had Iz turned into the lane and Claire was out of sight than she flung herself down on the bank in a fit of raking anguish, and it was with a strained unnatural face that she entered her mother's cottage late that night. No one ever was told how Iz spent the dark hours that intervened between Angel Claire's parting from her and her arrival home. Claire, too, after bidding the girl farewell, was wrought to aching thoughts and quivering lips, but his sorrow was not for Iz. That evening he was within a featherweight's turn of abandoning his road to the nearest station and driving across that elevated dorsal line of south Wessex, which divided him from Tess's home. It was neither a contempt for her nature, nor the probable state of her heart which deterred him. No. It was a scent that, despite her love, as corroborated by Iz's admission, the facts had not changed. If he was right at first, he was right now, and the momentum of the course on which he had embarked tended to keep him going in it, unless diverted by a stronger, more sustained force than had played upon him this afternoon, he could soon come back to her. He took the train that night for London, and five days after shook hands in farewell of his brothers at the port of embarkation. End of Chapter 40 Chapter 41 of Tess of the Durbervilles This is a LibriVox recording. 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 Pretzellis Chapter 41 From the foregoing events of the wintertime let us press on to an October day, more than eight months subsequent to the parting of Clare and Tess. We discover the latter in changed condition. Instead of a bride with boxes and trunks which others bore, we see her a lonely woman with a basket and a bundle in her own porterage, as in an earlier time when she was no bride. Instead of the ample means that were projected by her husband for her comfort through this probationary period, she can produce only a flattened purse. After again leaving Marlott her home, she had got through the spring and summer without any great stress upon her physical powers, the time being mainly spent in rendering light irregular service at Derry work near Port Breedy to the west of the Blackmore Valley, equally remote from her native place and from Talberthays. She preferred this to living on his allowance. Mentally she remained in utter stagnation, a condition which the mechanical occupation rather fostered than checked. Her consciousness was at that other Derry, at that other season, in the presence of the tender lover who had confronted her there. He, who the moment she had grasped him to keep for her own, had disappeared like a shape in a vision. The Derry work lasted only till the milk began to lessen, for she had not met with the second regular engagement as at Talberthays, but had done duty as a supernumerary only. However, as Harvest was now beginning, she had simply to remove from the pasture to the stubble to find plenty of further occupation, and this continued till Harvest was done. Of the five and twenty pounds which remained to her of Claire's allowance, after deducting the other half of the fifty as a contribution to her parents for the trouble and expense to which she had put them, she had as yet spent but little. But there now followed an unfortunate interval of wet weather, during which she was obliged to fall back upon her sovereigns. She could not bear to let them go. Angel had put them into her hand, had obtained them bright and new from his bank for her. His touch had consecrated them to souvenirs of himself. They appeared to have had as yet no other history than such as was created by his and her own experiences, and to disperse them was like giving away relics. But she had to do it, and one by one they left her hands. She had been compelled to send her mother her address from time to time, but she concealed her circumstances. When her money had almost gone, a letter from her mother reached her. Joan stated they were in terrible difficulty. The autumn rains had gone through the thatch of the house which required entire renewal. But this could not be done because the previous thatching had never been paid for. New rafters and a new ceiling upstairs also were required, which with the previous bill would amount to the sum of twenty pounds. At her husband was a man of means, and had doubtless return by this time, could she not send them the money? Tess had thirty pounds coming to her almost immediately from Angel's bankers, and the case being so deplorable, as soon as the sum was received she sent the twenty as requested. Part of the remainder she was obliged to expend in winter clothing, leaving only a nominal sum for the whole inclement season at hand. When the last pound had gone, a remark of Angel's that whenever she required further resources, she was to apply to his father, remained to be considered. But the more Tess thought of the step, the more reluctant was she to take it. The same delicacy, pride, false shame, whatever it may be called, on Claire's account, which had led her to hide from her own parents the prolongation of the estrangement, hindered her in owning to his that she was in want after the fair allowance he had left her. They probably despised already how much more they would despise her in the character of a mendicant. The consequence was that by no effort could the parson's daughter-in-law bring herself to let him know her state. Her reluctance to communicate with her husband's parents might, she thought, lessen with the lapse of time. But with her own, the reverse obtained. On her leaving her house after the short visit subsequent to her marriage, they were under the impression that she was ultimately going to join her husband. And from that time to the present she had done nothing to disturb their belief that she was awaiting his return in comfort, hoping against hope that his journey to Brazil would result in a short stay only, after which he would come to fetch her, or that he would write for her to join him, in any case that they would soon present a united front to their families and the world. This hope she still fostered. To let her parents know that she was a deserted wife, dependent now that she had relieved their necessities on her own hands for a living after the eclat of a marriage, which was to nullify the collapse of the first attempt, would be too much indeed. The set of brilliance returned to her mind. Where Claire had deposited them, she did not know, and it mattered little if it were true that she could only use them and not sell them. Even were they absolutely hers, it would be passing mean to enrich herself by a legal title to them, which was not essentially hers at all. Meanwhile her husband's days had been by no means free from trial. At this moment he was lying ill of fever in the claylands near Curitiba in Brazil, having been drenched with thunderstorms and persecuted by other hardships, in common with all the English farmers and farm labourers who, just at this time, were deluded into going thither by the promises of the Brazilian government, and by the baseless assumption that those frames which, plowing and sowing on English uplands, had resisted all the weathers to whose moods they had been born, could resist equally well all the weathers by which they were surprised on Brazilian plains. To return. Thus it happened, that when the last of Tess's sovereigns had been spent, she was unprovided with to take their place, while on account of the season, she found it increasingly difficult to get employment. Not being aware of the rarity of intelligence, energy, health and willingness in any sphere of life, she refrained from seeking an indoor occupation, fearing towns, large houses, people of means and social sophistication, and of manners other than rural. From that direction of gentility black care had come. Society might be better than she supposed from her slight experience of it, but she had no proof of this, and her instinct in this circumstances was to avoid its perleuse. The small dairies to the west, beyond Port Breedy, in which she had served as supernumerary milkmaid, during the spring and summer, required no further aid. Room would probably have been made for her at Talbothays, if only out of sheer compassion, but comfortable as her life had been there, she could not go back. The anti-climax would be too intolerable, and her return might bring reproach upon her idolised husband. She could not have borne their pity, and there whispered remarks to one another upon her strange situation, though she would almost have faced a knowledge of her circumstance by every individual there, so long as her story had remained isolated in the mind of each. It was the interchange of ideas about her that made her sensitiveness wince. Tess could not account for this distinction. She simply knew that she felt it. She was now on her way to an upland farm in the centre of the county, to which she had been recommended by a wandering letter which had reached her from Marion. Marion had somehow heard that Tess was separated from her husband, probably through Iz Hewitt. And the good-natured and now tippling girl, deeming Tess in trouble, had hastened to notify to her former friend that she herself had gone to this upland spot after leaving the dairy, and would like to see her there, where there was room for other hands, if it were really true that she worked again as of old. With the shortening of the days, all hope of obtaining her husband's forgiveness began to leave her, and there was something of the habitude of the wild animal in the unreflecting instinct with which she rambled on, disconnecting her by little from her eventful past at every step, obliterating her identity, giving no thought to accidents or contingencies which might make a quick discovery of her whereabouts by others of importance to her own happiness, if not to theirs. Among the difficulties of her lonely position, not the least was the attention she excited by her appearance, a certain bearing of distinction which she had caught from Claire being super-added to her natural attractiveness. Whilst the clothes lasted which had been prepared for her marriage, these casual glances of interest caused her no inconvenience, but as soon as she was compelled to don the wrapper of a field woman, rude words were addressed to her more than once, but nothing occurred to cause her bodily fear till a particular November afternoon. She had preferred the country west of the River Brit to the upland farm for which she was now bound, because, for one thing, it was nearer to the home of her husband's father, and to hover about that region unrecognized with the notion that she might decide to call at the vicarage someday gave her pleasure. But having once decided to try the higher and drier levels, she pressed back eastward, marching a foot toward the village of Chalk Newton, where she meant to pass the night. The lane was long and unvaried, and owing to the rapid shortening of the days, dusk came upon her before she was aware. She had reached the top of a hill down which the lane stretched its serpentine length in glimpses, when she heard footsteps behind her back, and in a moment she was overtaken by a man. He stepped up alongside Tess and said, Good night, my pretty maid, to which she civilly replied. The light still remaining in the sky lit up her face, though the landscape was nearly dark. The man turned round and stared hard at her. Why, surely, it is the young wench who was at Trantridge a while, young Squire Durbeville's friend. I was there at that time, though I don't live there now. She recognized in him the well-to-do boar whom Angel had knocked down at the end for addressing her coarsely. A spasm of anguish shot through her, and she returned him no answer. Be honest enough to own it, that what I said in the town was true, though your fancy man was so up about it, hey, my sly one, you ought to beg my pardon for that blow of his, considering? Still no answer came from Tess. There seemed only one escape for her hunted soul. She suddenly took to her heels with the speed of the wind, and without looking behind her, ran along the road till she came to a gate which opened directly into a plantation. Into this she plunged, and did not pause till she was deep enough in its shade to be safe against any possibility of discovery. Underfoot the leaves were dry, and the foliage of some hollybushes, which grew among the deciduous trees, was dense enough to keep off draughts. She scraped together the dead leaves till she had formed them into a large heap, making a sort of nest in the middle. Into this Tess crept. Such sleep as she got was naturally fitful. She fancied she heard strange noises, but persuaded herself that they were caused by the breeze. She thought of her husband in some vague warm climb on the other side of the globe, whilst she was here in the cold. Was there another such wretched being as she in the world? Tess asked herself, and thinking of her wasted life said, Always vanity. She repeated the words mechanically till she reflected that this was a most inadequate thought for modern days. Solomon had thought as far as that more than two thousand years ago. She herself, though not in the van of thinkers, had gotten much further. If all were only vanity, who would mind it? All was alas worse than vanity. Injustice, punishment, exaction, death. The wife of Angel Clare put her hand to her brow and felt its curve, and the edge of her eye sockets perceptible under the soft skin, and thought, as she did so, that a time would come when that bone would be bare. I wish it were now, she said. In the midst of these whimsical fancies she heard a new, strange sound among the leaves. It might be the wind, yet there was scarcely any wind. Sometimes it was a palpitation, sometimes a flutter, sometimes it was a sort of gasp or gurgle. Soon she was certain that the noises came from wild creatures of some kind, the more so when, originating in the boughs overhead, they were followed by the fall of a heavy body upon the ground. Had she been ensconced here under other and more pleasant conditions, she would have become alarmed, but, outside humanity, she had at present no fear. Day at length broke in the sky. When it had been day aloft for some little while, it became day in the wood. Directly the assuring and prosaic life of the world's active hours had grown strong. She crept from under her hillock of leaves, and looked around boldly. Then she perceived what had been going on to disturb her. The plantation wherein she had taken shelter ran down at this spot into a peak, which ended at Hitherwood, outside the hedge being arable ground. Under the trees several pheasants lay about. Their rich plumage dabbled with blood. Some were dead. Some feverly twitching a wing. Some staring up at the sky. Some pulsating quickly. Some contorted. Some stretched out. All of them writhing in agony, except the fortunate ones, whose tortures had ended during the night by the inability of nature to bear more. Tess gasped at once the meaning of this. The birds had been driven down into this corner the day before by some shooting party, and while those that had dropped dead under the shot, or had died before nightfall, had been searched for and carried off, many badly wounded birds had escaped, and hidden themselves away, or risen among the thick boughs, where they had maintained their position till they grew weaker with loss of blood in the night time, when they had fallen one by one, as she had heard them. She had occasionally caught glimpses of these men in girlhood, looking over hedges or peering through bushes, and pointing their guns, strangely accoutred, a bloodthirsty light in their eyes. She had been told that rough and brutal as they seemed just then, they were not like this all year round, but were in fact quite civil persons, saved during certain weeks of autumn and winter, when, like the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, they ran amok, and made it their purpose to destroy life. In this case, harmless feathered creatures, brought into being by artificial means, solely to gratify these propensities. At once so unmanly and so unshivalrous toward their weaker fellows, in nature's teeming family. With the impulse of a soul who could not feel for kindred sufferers as much as for herself, Tess's first thought was to put the still living birds out of their torture, and to this end, with her own hands, she broke the neck so as many as she could find, leaving them to lie where she had found them till the gamekeepers should come, as they probably would come, to look for them a second time. Poor darlings! To suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight of such misery as yours, she exclaimed, her tears running down as she killed the birds tenderly, and not a twinge of bodily pain about me. I be not mangled, and I be not bleeding, and I have two hands to feed and clothe me. She was ashamed of herself for her gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society which had no foundation in nature. Chapter 42 It was now broad day, and she started again, emerging cautiously upon the highway. But there was no need for caution, not a soul was at hand, and Tess went onward with fortitude, her recollection of the birds' silent endurance of their night of agony, impressing upon her the relativity of sorrows and the tolerable nation of her own, if she could once rise high enough to despise opinion, but that she could not do so long as it was held by Claire. She reached Chalk Newton, and breakfast stood as an inn, where several young men were troublesomely complementary to her good looks. Somehow she felt hopeful, for was it not possible that her husband also might say these same things to her even yet? She was bound to take care of herself on the chance of it, and to keep off these casual lovers. To this end, Tess resolved to run no further risks from her appearance. As soon as she got out of the village, she entered a thicket, and took from her basket one of the oldest field gowns, which she had never put on even at the dairy, never since she had worked among the stubble at Marlott. She also, by a felicitous thought, took a handkerchief from her bundle, and tied it round her face under her bonnet, covering her chin and half her cheeks and temples, as if she was suffering from toothache. Then, with her little scissors by the aid of a pocket-looking glass, she mercilessly nipped her eyebrows off, and thus ensured against aggressive admiration, she went on her uneven way. What a muppet of a maid, said the next man who met her to a companion. Tears came into her eyes, for very pity of herself as she had heard him. But I don't care, she said. Oh, no, I don't care. I'll always be ugly now, because Angel is not here, and I have nobody to take care of me. My husband that was has gone away, and never will love me any more. But I love him just the same, and hate all other men, and like to make him think scornfully of me. Thus Tess walks on, a figure which is part of the landscape, a field-woman, pure and simple, in winter-guys, a grey surge-cap, a red woolen cravat, a stuffed skirt covered by a whitey-brown rough wrapper, and buff leather gloves. Every thread of that old attire has become fainted and thin under the stroke of raindrops, the burn of sunbeams, and the stress of winds. There is no sign of young passion in her now. The maiden's mouth is cold, fold over simple fold, binding her head. Inside this exterior, over which the eye might have roved, as over a thing scarcely precipitant, almost inorganic, there was the record of a pulsating life which had learned too well for its years of the dust and ashes of things, of the cruelty of lust, and the fragility of love. Next day the weather was bad, but she trudged on, the honesty, directness, and impartiality of elemental enmity, disconcerting her but a little. Her object being a winter's occupation and a winter's home, there was no time to lose. Her experience of short hirings had been such that she was determined to accept no more. Thus she went forward from farm to farm in the direction of the place whence Marion had written to her, which she determined to make use of as a last shift only, its rumoured stringences being the reverse of tempting. First she inquired for the lighter kinds of employment, and as acceptance of any variety of those grew hopeless, applied for the less light, till, beginning with the dairy and poultry tendons that she liked best, she ended with the heavy and coarse pursuits which she liked least, work on arable land, work of such roughness indeed as she would never have deliberately volunteered for. Towards the second evening she reached the irregular chalk table land or plateau, bosomed with semi-globular tumuli, as if cybil the many breasted was supinely extended there, which stretched between the valley of her birth and the valley of her love. Here the air was dry and cold, and the long cart roads were blown white and dusty within a few hours after rain. There were few trees, or none, those that would have grown in the hedges being mercilessly plashed down with the quickset by the tenant farmers, the natural enemies of tree, brush, and brake. In the middle distance ahead of her she could see the summits of Bulbarrow and Nettlecomb Tout, and they seemed friendly. They had a low and unassuming aspect from this upland, though as approached on the other side from Blackmore in her childhood they were as lofty bastions against the sky. Sotherly, at many miles distance, and over the hills and ridges coastward, she could discern a surface like polished steel. It was the English Channel at a point far out towards France. Before her, in a slight depression, were the remains of a village. She had, in fact, reached Flintcomb Ash, the place of Marian Sojourn. There seemed to be no help for it, hither she was doomed to come. The stubborn soil around her showed plainly enough that the kind of labour in demand here was of the roughest kind, but it was time to rest from searching, and she resolved to stay, particularly as it began to rain. At the entrance to the village was a cottage whose gable jutted into the road, and before applying for a lodging she stood under its shelter and watched the evening close in. Who would think I was Mrs. Angel Clare, she said. The wall felt warm to her back and shoulders, and she found that immediately within the gable was the cottage fireplace, the heat of which came through the bricks. She warmed her hands upon them, and also put her cheek, red and moist with the drizzle, against their comforting surface. The wall seemed to be the only friend she had. She had so little wish to leave it, that she could have stayed there all night. Tess could hear the occupants of the cottage, gathered together after their day's labour, talking to each other within, and the rattle of their supper-plates was also audible. But in the village street she had seen no soul as yet. The solitude was at last broken by the approach of one feminine figure, who, though the evening was cold, wore the print gown and the tilt bonnet of summertime. Tess instinctively thought it might be Marion, and when she came near enough to be distinguishable in the gloom, surely enough it was she. Marion was even stouter and redder in the face than formally, and decidedly shabbier in attire. At any previous period of her existence, Tess would hardly have cared to renew the acquaintance in such conditions, but her loneliness was aggressive, and she responded readily to Marion's greeting. Marion was quite respectful in her inquiries, but seemed much moved by the fact that Tess should still continue in no better condition than at first, though she had dimly heard of the separation. Tess! Mrs. Clare! The dear wife of dear he! And is it really so bad as this, my child? Why is your crumbly face tied up in such a way? Anybody been beating me? Not he! No, no, no! I merely did it not to be clipped or called, Marion. She pulled off in disgust a bandage which could suggest such wild thoughts. And you've got no collar on! Tess had been accustomed to her little white collar at the dairy. I know it, Marion. You've lost it travelling. I've not lost it. The truth is I don't care anything about my looks, so I didn't put it on. And you don't wear your wedding ring? Yes, I do, but not in public. I wear it round my neck on a ribbon. I don't wish people to think who I am by marriage, or that I am married at all. It would be so awkward while I lead my present life. Marion paused. But you be a gentleman's wife, and it seems hardly fair that you should live like this. Oh yes it is, quite fair, though I am very unhappy. Well, well, he married you, and you can be unhappy. Wives are unhappy sometimes, from no fault of their husbands, from their own. You've got no faults, dearie, that I'm sure of, and he's none, so it must be something outside you both. Marion, dear Marion, will you do me a good turn without asking questions? My husband has gone abroad, and somehow I have overrun my allowance, so that I have had to fall back upon my own work for a time. Do not call me Mrs. Clare, but Tess, as before. Do they want a hand there? Oh yes, they'll take one always, because few care to come. It is a starvaker place, corn and Swedes are all they grow. Though I be here myself, I fear it is a pity for us such as you to come. But you used to be as good a dearie woman as I. Yes, but I've got out of that since I took to drink. Lord, that's the only comfort I've got now, but if you engage, you'll be set sweet hacking. That's what I be doing, and you won't like it. Oh anything, will you speak for me? You will do better by speaking for yourself. Very well. No, Marion, remember nothing about him if I get the place. I don't wish to bring his name down to the dirt. Marion, who was really a trustworthy girl, though of course a grain than Tess, promised anything she asked. This is pay night, she said, and if you were to come with me you would know at once. I'd be real sorry that you are not happy, but tis because he's away I know. You couldn't be unhappy if he was here, even if he giddy no money, even if he used you like a drudge. That's true, I could not. They walked on together, and soon reached the farmhouse, which was almost sublime in its dreariness. There was not a tree within sight, there was not at this season a green pasture, nothing but fallow and turnips everywhere, in large fields divided by hedges, plashed to unreleaved levels. Tess waited outside the door of the farmhouse till the group of work folk had received their wages, and then Marion introduced her. The farmer himself it appeared was not at home, but his wife, who represented him this evening, made no objection to hiring Tess on her agreeing to remain till old lady day. Female field labour was seldom offered now, and its cheapness made it profitable for tasks which women could perform as readily as men. Having signed the agreement there was nothing more for Tess to do at present than to get a lodging, and she found one in the house at whose gable wall she had warmed herself. It was a poor subsistence that she had ensured, but it would afford a shelter for the winter at any rate. That night she wrote to inform her parents of her new address, in case a letter should arrive at Marlott from her husband. But she did not tell them of the soreness of her situation. It might have brought reproach upon him.