 CHAPTER I On an evening in the latter part of May, a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott in the adjoining vale of Blakemore or Blackmore. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim, where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a grey mare who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune. Good-night, E! said the man with the basket. Good-night, Sir John! said the parson. The pedestrian, after other pace or two, halted and turned round. Now, sir, begging your pardon, we met last market-day on this road about this time, and I said, Good-night! and you made reply, Good-night, Sir John! as now. I did, said the parson, and once before that, near a month ago, I may have. Then what might your meaning be in calling me, so John these different times when I'd be plain Jack Derbyfield the Haggler? The parson strode a step or two nearer. It was only my whim, he said. And after a moment's hesitation, it was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary of Stagfoot Lane. Don't you really know Derbyfield that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and nightly family of the Derbyfields, who derive their dissent from Sir Pagan Derbyfield? That renowned knight who came from Normandy with William Leconcra, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll? Never earned it before, sir. Well, it's true. Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better. Yes, that's the Derbyfield nose and chin, a little debased. Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavela in Normandy, in his conquest of Glamorganshire. Branches of your family held manners all over all this part of England. Their names appear in the pipe-rolls in the time of King Stephen, in the reign of King John. One of them was rich enough to give a manner to the knight's hospitalers. And in Edward II's time, your forefather, Brian, was summoned to Westminster to attend the Great Council there. You declined a little in all of a Cromwell's time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles II's reign you were made knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty. Ah, there have been generations of Sir John's among you. And if knighthood were hereditary like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times when men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now. You don't say so. In short, concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his switch, there's hardly such an other family in England. Daze my eyes, and isn't there? said Durberfield, and here I have been knocking about year after year from pillar to post, and if I was no more than the commonest feller in the parish, and how long have this news about me been known past Stringham? The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite died out of knowledge and could hardly be said to be known at all. His own investigation had begun on a day in the preceding spring, when, having been engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the Durberfield family, he had observed Durberfield's name on his wagon, and had thereby been led to make inquiries about his father and grandfather, till he had no doubt on the subject. At first I resale not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information, said he. However, our impulses are too strong for our judgment sometimes. I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the while. Well, I have heard once or twice, tis true, that my family had seen better days before they came to Blackmore, but I took no notice on it, thinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses, where now we keep only one. I've got a wold silver spoon and a wold graven seal at home, too, but Lord, what's a spoon and a seal, and to think that I and these noble Durberveals were one flesh all the time. Tuas said that my great-grandfather had secrets, and don't care to talk of where he came from. And where do we raise our smoke now, Parson, if I may make so bold? I mean, where do we Durberveals live? You don't live anywhere. You are extinct as a county family. That's bad. Yes, what the mendicacious family chronicles call extinct in the male line that is gone down, gone under. Then where do we lie? At Kingsbeer sub-Greenhill, rose and rose of you in your vaults with your effigies under perfect marble canopies. And where be our family mansions and estates? You haven't any. Oh, no lands, neither. None, though you once had them in abundance, as I said, for your family consisted of numerous branches. In this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbeer, and another at Sheerton, and another at Milpond, and another at Lulstead, and another at Wellbridge. And shall we ever come into our own again? Ah, that I can't tell. And what a do I do about it, sir, asked Derby Field after a pause. Oh, nothing, nothing, except chasing yourself with the thought of how are the mighty fallen. It is a fact of some interest to the local historian and genealogist, nothing more. There are several families among the cottages of this county of almost equal lustre. Good night. But you're turned back and have a quart of beer with me on the strength-aunt-parson. There's a very pretty brew-on tap at the pure drop, though to be sure, not so good as at Roliver's. No, thank you, not this evening, Derby Field, you've had enough already. Having thus the parson rode on his way, with doubts as to his discretion in retelling this curious bit of law. When he was gone, Derby Field walked a few steps in a profound reverie, and then sat down upon the grassy bank by the roadside, depositing his basket before him. In a few minutes a youth appeared in the distance, walking in the same direction as that which had been pursued by Derby Field. The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand, and the lad quickened his pace and came nearer. Boy, take up that basket! I want you to go on an errand for me! The laugh-light-stripling frowned. Who be you then, John Derby Field, to order me about and call me boy? You know my name as well as I know yours. Do you, do you, that's the secret, that's the secret. Now obey my orders and take the message, I am going to charge, ye we. Well, Fred, I don't mind telling you that the secret is that I am one of a noble race. It has just been found out by me this present afternoon P.M. And as he made the announcement, Derby Field, declining from his sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank among the daisies. The lad stood before Derby Field, and contemplated his length from crown to toe. So John Derby Field, that's who I am, continued the prostrate man, that is, if no it's were baronettes, which they be. It is recorded in history all about me. Does no such a place lad as Kingsbeer's sub-Greenhill? Yes, I've been there to Greenhill Fair. Well, under the church in that city there lie. It isn't a city, the place I meanly swiss, twadden when I were there. It was a little one-eyed blinking sort of place. Were you mine the place, boy? That's not the question before us. Under the church of that there perish lie my ancestors, hundreds of them in coats of mail and jewels, in great-led coffin weighing tons and tons. There's not a man in the county of south Wessex that's got grander and nobler skillentons in this family than I. Oh, now take up that basket and go on to Marlott, and when you've come to the Pure Drop Inn tell them to send a horse and carriage to me immediately to carry me home. And on the bottom of the carriage they to be put a nogginer rum in a small bottle and chalk it up to my account. And when you've done that go on to my house with the basket and tell my wife to put away that washin' because she needn't finish it, and wait till I come home as I've got news to tell her. As the lad stood in a dubrious attitude, Durberfield put his hand in his pocket and produced a shilling, one of the chronically few that he possessed. Here's for your labour, lad. This made a difference in the young man's estimate of the position. Yes, Sir John, thank ye. Anything else I can do for you, Sir John? Tell him at home that I should like for supper, well, lambsfroy if they can get it, and if they can't, blackpot, and if they can't get that, well, chitolins will do. Yes, Sir John. The boy took up the basket, and, as he set out, the notes of a brass band were heard from the direction of the village. What's that? said Durberfield. Not an account of I. It is the woman's walk-in-club, Sir John, why your daughter is one of the members. To be sure, I quite forgot it in my thoughts of greater things. Well, vamp on to Marlott, will you, and honour that carriage, and maybe I'll drive round and inspect the club. The lad departed, and Durberfield lay waiting on the grass and daisies in the evening sun. Not a soul passed that way for a long while, and the faint notes of the bands were the only human sounds audible within the rim of blue hills. CHAPTER II The village of Marlott lay amid the north-eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmore, aforesaid, and in girdled and secluded region, for the most part unfrolden as yet by tourist or landscape painter, though within a four-hour's journey from London. It is a Vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summits of the hills that surround it, except perhaps during the droughts of summer. An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, torturous, and mirey ways. This fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the fields are never brown, and the springs never dry, is bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces the prominences of Hamildon Hill, Bulbarrow, Nettlecombe Tout, Dogbury, Highstoy, and Bubdown. The traveller from the coast, who, after prodding northward for a score of miles over calcareous towns and cornlands, suddenly reaches the verge of one of these escarpments, is surprised and delighted to behold, extended like a map beneath him, a country differing absolutely from that which he has passed through. Behind him the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give an unenclosed character to the landscape. The lanes are white, the hedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colourless. Here in the valley the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale. The fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads, overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorious, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine. Arable lands are few and limited, with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad, rich mass of grass and trees mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the veil of Blackmore. The district is of historic no less than topographic interest. The veil was known in former times as the Forest of White Heart, from a curious legend of King Henry III's reign in which the killing by a certain Thomas de la Linde of a beautiful white heart which the king had run down and spared was made the occasion of a heavy fine. In those days and till comparatively recent times the country was densely wooded. Even now traces of its earlier condition are to be found in the old oak copses and irregular belts of timber that yet survive on its slopes and the hollow trunked trees that shade so many of its pastures. The forests have departed, but some old customs of their shades remain. Many however linger only in a metamorphosed or disguised form. The May Day dance, for instance, was to be discerned on the afternoon under notice in the guise of the club revel or club walking, as it was there called. It was an interesting event to the younger inhabitants of Marlott, though its real interest was not observed by the participators in the ceremony. Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of walking in procession and dancing on each anniversary than in the members being solely women. In men's clubs such celebrations were, though less expiring, less uncommon. But either the natural shyness of the softer sex or a sarcastic attitude on the part of male relatives had denuded such women's clubs as remained, if any other did, of this their glory and consummation. The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local serilia. It had walked for hundreds of years, if not as benefit club as votive sisterhood of some sort, and it still walked. The banded ones were all dressed in white gowns, a gay survival from old-style days, when cheerfulness and maytime were synonyms, days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average. Their first exhibition of themselves was in a processional march of two and two round the parish. All-in-real clashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green hedges and creeper-laced house fronts. For though the whole troupe were white garments, no two whites were alike among them. Some approached pure blanching, some had a bluish pallor, some worn by the older characters, which had possibly laid by folded for many a year, inclined to a cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian style. In addition to the distinction of a white frock, every woman and girl carried in her right hand a peeled willow wand, and in her left a bunch of white flowers. The peeling of the former and the selection of the latter had been an operation of personal care. There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in the train, their silver wiry hair and wrinkled faces scourged by time and trouble, having almost a grotesque, certainly a pathetic appearance in such a jaunty situation. In a true view, perhaps, there was more to be gathered and told of each anxious and experienced one to whom the years were drawing nigh when she should say, I have no pleasure in them, than of her juvenile comrades, but let the elder be passed over here for those under whose bodices the life throbbed quick and warm. The young girls formed indeed the majority of the band, and their heads of luxuriant hair reflected in the sunshine every tone of gold and black and brown. Some had beautiful eyes, others a beautiful nose, others a beautiful mouth and figure, few, if any, had all. A difficulty of arranging their lips in this crude exposure to public scrutiny and inability to balance their heads and to disassociate self-consciousness from their features was apparent in them, and showed that they were genuine country girls, unaccustomed to many eyes. And as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each had a private little sun for her own soul to bask in, some to ream, some affection, some hobby, at least some remote and distant hope which, though perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on as hopes will, thus they were all cheerful and many of them merry. They came round by the pure drop-in, and they were turning out of the high road to pass through a wicket-gate into the meadows, when one of the women said, "'The Lord and Lord, why test do be filled, if there isn't thy father riding home in a carriage?' A young member of the band turned her head at the exclamation. She was a fine and handsome girl, not handsomer than some of the others possibly, but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment. As she looked round Derbyfield was seen moving along the road in a sheaths belonging to the pure drop, driven by a frizzle-headed brawny damsel with her gown sleeves rolled above her elbows. This was the cheerful servant of that establishment, who, in her part of factotum, turned groom and osla at times. Derbyfield, leaning back, and with his eyes closed luxuriously, was waving his hand above his head and singing in a slow recitative. I got a great family vault at Kingsbeer, and knighted for fathers in lead coffins there. The clubbists twittered, except the girl called Tess, in whom a slow heat seemed to rise at the sense that her father was making himself foolish in their eyes. He's tired, that's all," she said hastily, and he has got to lift home because our own horse has to rest to-day. "'Bless thy simplicity, Tess,' said her companions, "'he's got his market-nitcher!' "'Look here, I won't walk another inch with you if you say any jokes upon him,' Tess cried, and the colour upon her cheeks spread over her face and neck. In a moment her eyes grew moist, and her glance drooped to the ground. Perceiving that they had really pained her, they said no more, and order again prevailed. Tess's pride would not allow her to turn her head again to learn what her father's meaning was, if he had any, and thus she moved on with the whole body to the enclosure where there was to be dancing on the green. By the time the spot was reached she had recovered her equanimity and tapped her neighbour with her wand, and talked as usual. Tess Derbyfield, at this time of her life, was a mere vessel of emotion, untinctured by experience. The dialect was on her tongue to some extent, despite the village school. The characteristic intonation of that dialect for this district being the voicing approximately rendered by the symbol Ur, probably as rich an utterance as any can be found in human speech. The pouted up deep red mouth to which this syllable was native had hardly as yet settled into its definitive shape, and her lower lip had a way of thrusting the middle of her top one outwards when they closed together after a word. Yet of her childhood looked in her aspect still. As she walked along to-day, for all her bouncing, handsome womanliness, you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling from her eyes, or even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth, now and then. Yet few knew, and still fewer considered this. A small minority, mainly strangers, would look long at her in casually passing by and grow momentarily fascinated by her freshness, and wondering if they would ever see her again. But to almost everybody she was a fine and picturesque country girl, and no more. Nothing was seen or heard further of Derby Field in his triumphal chariot under the conduct of the Osloress, and the club having entered the allotted space dancing began. As there were no men in the company the girls danced at first with each other, but when the hour for the close of labour drew on the masculine inhabitants of the village, together with other idlers and pedestrians, gathered round the spot and appeared inclined to negotiate for a partner. Among these onlookers were three young men of a superior class carrying small knack-tacks strapped to their shoulders and stout sticks in their hands. Their general likeness to each other, and their consecutive ages, would almost have suggested that they might be, what in fact they were, brothers. The eldest wore the white tie, high waistcoat, and thin brimmed hat of the regulation curate. The second was the normal undergraduate. The appearance of the third and youngest would hardly have been sufficient to characterise him. There was an uncribbed, un-cabineted aspect in his eyes and attire, implying that he had hardly as yet found the entrance to his professional groove, that he was a desultory, tentative student of something and everything, might only have been predicted of him. These three brethren told casual acquaintance that they were spending their wits and holidays in a walking tour through the Vale of Blackmore, their course being south-westerly, from the town of Shaston on the northeast. They lent over the gate by the highway, and inquired as to the meaning of the dance and the white-frocked maids. The two elder of the brothers were plainly not intending to linger more than a moment, but the spectacle of a bevy of girls dancing without male partners seemed to amuse the third and make him in no hurry to move on. He unstrapped his knapsack, put it with his stick on the hedge-bank, and opened the gate. "'What are you going to do, angel?' asked the eldest. "'I'm inclined to go and have a fling with them. Why not all of us, just for a minute or two, if we'll not detain us long?' "'No, no, nonsense,' said the first, dancing in public with a troupe of country-hoidons. "'Suppose we should be seen. Come along, or it will be dark before we get to Stourcastle, and there's no place we can sleep at nearer than that. Besides, we must get through another chapter of a counter-blast to agnosticism before we turn in. Now I have taken the trouble to bring the book.' "'All right. I'll overtake you and Cuthbert in five minutes. Don't stop. That's my word that I will, Felix.' The two elder reluctantly left him and walked on, taking their brother's knapsack to relieve him in following, and the youngest entered the field. "'This is a thousand pitties,' he said gallantly to two or three of the girls nearest him, as soon as there was a pause in the dance. Where are your partners, my dears?' "'They're not left off work yet,' answered one of the boldest, "'they'll be here by and by. Till then, will you be one, sir?' "'Certainly. But what's one among so many?' "'Better than none, it is melancholy work facing and footing to one of your own sort, and no clisping and culling and all. Now, pick and choose.' "'Shush, don't be so farred,' said a shire-girl.' The young man, thus invited, glanced them over and attempted some discrimination, but, as the group were all new to him, he could not very well exercise it. He took almost the first that came to hand, which was not the speaker, as she had expected, nor did it happen to be Tess Derbyfield. The pedigree, ancestral skeletons, monumental record, and the Derbyfield lineaments did not help Tess in her life's battle as yet, even to the extent of attracting to her a dancing partner over the heads of the Communist peasantry. So much for Norman Blood, unaided by Victorian Luca. The name of the eclipsing girl, whatever it was, has not been handed down, but she was envied by all as the first who enjoyed the luxury of a masculine partner that evening. Yet such was the force of example that the village young men, who had not hastened to enter the gate while no intruder was in the way, now dropped in quickly, and soon the couples became leavened with rustic youth to a marked extent, till at length the plainest woman in the club was no longer compelled to foot it on the masculine side of the figure. The church clocks struck, when suddenly the student said that he must leave. He had been forgetting himself. He had to join his companions. As he fell out of the dance, his eyes lighting on Tess Derbyfield, whose own large orbs wore to tell the truth the faintest aspect of reproach that he had not chosen her. He too was sorry then that, owing to her backwardness, he had not observed her, and with that in his mind he left the pasture. On account of his long delay he started in a flying run down the lane westward, and had soon passed the hollow and mounted the next rise. He had not yet overtaken his brother, but he paused to get breath and looked back. He could see the white figures of the girls in the green enclosure whirling about as they had whirled when he was among them. They seemed to have quite forgotten him already. All of them except, perhaps, one. This white shape stood apart by the hedge alone. From her position he knew it to be the pretty maiden with whom he had not danced. Feeling as the matter was, he yet instinctively felt that she was hurt by his oversight. He wished that he had asked her. He wished that he had inquired her name. She was so modest, so expressive. She had looked so soft in her thin white gown that he felt he had acted stupidly. However, it could not be helped, and turning and bending himself to a rapid walk he dismissed the subject from his mind. As for Tess Derbyfield, she did not so easily dislodge the incident from her consideration. She had no spirit to dance again for a long time, though she might have had plenty of partners, but, ah, they did not speak so nicely as the strange young man had done. It was not till the rays of the sun had absorbed the young stranger's retreating figure on the hill that she shook off her temporary sadness and answered her would-be partner in the affirmative. She remained with her comrades until dusk, and participated with a certain zest in the dancing, though being heart- whole as yet she enjoyed treading a measure purely for its own sake. Little divining when she saw the soft torments, the bitter sweets, the pleasing pains and the agreeable stresses of those girls who had been wooed and won what she herself was capable of in that kind. The struggles and wrangles of the lads for her hand in a jig were an amusement to her no more, and when they became fierce she rebuked them. She might have stayed even later, but the incident of her father's odd appearance and manner returned upon the girl's mind to make her anxious, and, wondering what had become of him, she dropped away from the dancers and bent her steps toward the end of the village, at which the parental cottage lay. While yet many score yards off, other rhythmic sounds than those she had quitted became audible to her, sounds that she knew well so well. They were a series of thumpings from the interior of the house, occasioned by the violent rocking of a cradle upon a stone floor, to which movement a feminine voice kept time by singing in a vigorous gallopard the favourite ditty of the spotted cow. I saw her lie down in yonder green grove, Come, love, and I'll tell you where. The cradle-rocking and the song would cease simultaneously for a moment, and an exclamation at highest vocal pitch would take the place of the melody. God bless thy dimmet eyes, and thy waxen cheeks, and thy cheery mouth, and thy cubit's thighs, and every bit of thy blessed body. After this invocation the rocking and the singing would recommence, and the spotted cow proceed as before. No matters stood when Tess opened the door, and paused upon the mat, within it surveying the scene. The interior, in spite of the melody, struck upon the girl's senses with an unspeakable dreariness. From the holiday gaites of the field, the white gowns, the nosegays, the willow ones, the whirling movements on the green, the flash of gentle sentiment toward the stranger, to the yellow melancholy of this one-candled spectacle, what a step! Besides the jar of contrast there came to her a chill of self-reproach that she had not returned sooner to help her mother in these domesticities, instead of indulging herself out of doors. There stood her mother amid the group of children, as Tess had left her, hanging over the Monday-washing-tub, which had now, as always, lingered on to the end of the week. Out of that tub had come the day before, Tess felt it, with a dreadful sting of remorse, the very white frock upon her back, which she had so carelessly greened about the skirt on the dampening grass, which had been wrung up and ironed by her mother's own hands. As usual, Mrs. Derbyfield was balanced on one foot beside the tub, the other being engaged in the foresaid business of rocking her youngest child. The cradle-rockers had done hard duty for so many years, under the weight of so many children, on that flag-stone floor that they were worn nearly flat, in consequence of which a huge jerk accompanied each swing of the cot, flinging the baby from side to side like a weaver's shuttle, as Mrs. Derbyfield, excited by her song, trod the rocker with all the spring that was left in her after a long day's seething in the suds. Nick-knock, Nick-knock went the cradle, the candle-flame stretched itself tall, and began jigging up and down. The water dribbled from the matron's elbows, and the song galloped on to the end of the verse, Mrs. Derbyfield regarding her daughter the while. Even now, when burdened with a young family, Joan Derbyfield was a passionate lover of tune. No ditty floated into Blackmore Vale from the outer world, but Tess's mother caught up its notation in a week. They're still faintly beamed from the woman's features something of the freshness, and even the prettiness of her youth, rendering it probable that the personal charms which Tess could boast were of in the main part her mother's gift, and therefore, unnightly, unhistorical. I'll rock the cradle-forry mother," said the daughter gently, or I'll take off my best frock and help you ring up. I thought you had finished long ago. A mother bore Tess no ill will for leaving the housework to her single-handed efforts for so long. Indeed Joan seldom up-braided her thereupon at any time, feeling but slightly the lack of Tess's assistance whilst her instructive plan for relieving herself of her labours lay in postponing them. Tonight, however, she was even in a blither mood than usual. There was a dreaminess, a preoccupation, and exultation in the maternal look which the girl could not understand. Well, I'm glad you've come," her mother said as soon as the last note had passed out of her. I want to go and fetch your father, and what's more than that, I want to tell you what have happened. You'll be fess enough, my puppet. Once, no." Mrs. Derbyfield habitually spoke the dialect. Her daughter, who had passed the sixth standard in the national school, under a London-trained mistress, spoke two languages. The dialect at home, more or less, ordinary English abroad, two persons of quality. "'Since I've been away,' Tess asked, "'Aye.' Had it anything to do with fathers making such a mummer of himself in thick carriage this afternoon? Why did her? I felt inclined to sink into the ground with shame. That were all part of the lary. We've been found to be the greatest gentle folk in all the country, reaching all back long a four Oliver grumbles to him, to the days of the pagan Turks, with monuments and vaults and crests, and scutians, and the Lord knows what all. In St. Charles's day we was made knights of the royal oak, a real name being Derbyfield. Don't that make your bosom plim? To us an account of that, your father rode home in the villa, not because he'd been drinking as people supposed. "'I'm glad of that. Will it do us any good, mother?' "'Oh, yes, his thought the great things may come on't. No doubt a manpus evoke of her own rank will be down here in their carriages as soon as it is known. Your father learnt it on his way home, from Shastan, and he's been telling me the whole pedigree of the matter. "'Where is father now?' asked Tess, suddenly. Her mother gave irrelevant information by way of answer. He called to see the doctor today in Shastan. It is not consumption at all, it seems. It is fat round his heart, says. There it is like this. In Derbyfield, as she spoke, curved a sodden, thumb and forefinger to the shape of the letter C, and used the other forefinger as a pointer. "'At the present moment,' he says to your father, your heart is enclosed all round here and all round there. This space is still open,' says. "'As soon as it do meet so,' misses Derbyfield closed her fingers into a circle complete, "'off you will go like a shatter, Mr. Derbyfield,' father says. "'You meet last ten years, you meet go off in ten months, or ten days.' Tess looked alarmed. Her father possibly could go behind the eternal cloud so soon, not withstanding this sudden greatness. "'But where is father?' she asked again. Her mother put on a depreciating look. "'Now don't you be burst now angry. The poor man,' he felt so rafted after his upbringing by the parson's news, that he went up to Roliver's half an hour ago. He do want to get up his strength through his journey to-morrow, with that load of beehives which must be delivered family or no. He'll have to start shortly after twelve to-night, as the distance is so long. "'Get up his strength,' said Tess impetuously, the tears welling to her eyes. "'Oh, my God, go to a public house to get up his strength, and you as well as agreed as he, mother?' Her rebuke and her mood seemed to fill the whole room, and to impart a cow'd look to the furniture and candle, and the children playing about it, and to her mother's face. "'No,' said the latter touchily, "'I be not agreed. I have been waiting for you to buy and keep house while I go fetch him. I'll go.' "'Oh, no, Tess. You see, it wouldn't be no use.' Tess did not expostulate. She knew what her mother's objection meant. Mrs. Derbyfield's jacket and bonnet were already hanging slyly on the chair by her side in readiness of this contemplated jaunt, the reason for which the matron deplored more than its necessity. And take the complete fortune-teller to the out-house.' Tess continued, rapidly wiping her hands and donning her garments. The complete fortune-teller was an old, thick volume which lay on a table at her elbow so worn by pocketing that the margins had reached the edge of the type. Tess took it up, and her mother started. This going to hunt up her shiftless husband at the inn was one of Mrs. Derbyfield's still-extant enjoyments in the muck and muddle of rearing children. To discover him at Roliver's, to sit there for an hour or two by his side and dismiss all thought and care of the children during the interval made her happy. A sort of halo, an occidental glow came over life then. Troubles and other realities took on themselves a metaphysical impalpability, sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as pressing concretions which shaped body and soul. The youngsters, not immediately within sight, seemed rather bright and desirable appurtenances than otherwise. The incidents of daily life were not without humorousness and jollity in their aspect there. She felt a little as she used to feel when she sat by her now wedded husband in the same spot during his wooing, shutting her eyes to his defects of character and regarding him only in his ideal presentation as lover. Tess being left alone with the younger children went first to the out-house with the fortune-telling book and stuffed it into the thatch. A curious fetishistic fear of this grimy volume on the part of her mother prevented her ever allowing it to stay in the house all night, and wither it was brought back whenever it had been consulted. Between the mother with her fast-perishing lumber of superstitions, folklore, dialect and orally transmitted ballads, and the daughter with her trained national teachings and standard knowledge under an infinitely revised code, there was a gap of two hundred years as ordinarily understood. When they were together the Jacobean and the Victorian ages were juxtaposed. Returning along the garden-path, Tess mused on what her mother would have wished to ascertain from that book on this particular day. She guessed the recent ancestral discovery to bear upon it, but did not define that it solely concerned herself. During this, however, she busied herself with sprinkling the linen dried during the day in company with her nine-year-old brother, Abraham, and her sister, Eliza Louisa, of twelve-and-a-half, called Lisa Lou, the youngest one being put to bed. There was an interval of four years and more between Tess and the next of the family, the two who had filled the gap having died in their infancy, and this lent her a deputy maternal attitude when she was alone with her juniors. Next in juvenality to Abraham came two more girls, Hope and Modesty, then a boy of three, and then the baby, who had just completed his first year. All these young souls were passengers in the Derbyfield ship, entirely dependent on the judgment of the two Derbyfield adults for their pleasures, their necessities, their health, even their existence. If the heads of the Derbyfield household chose to stale into difficulty, disaster, starvation, disease, degradation, death, thither were these half-dozen little captives under hatches compelled to sail with them. Six helpless creatures who had never been asked if they wished for life on any terms, much less if they wished for it on such hard conditions as were involved in being of the shiftless house of Derbyfield. Some people would like to know whence the poet, whose philosophy is in these days deemed as profound and trustworthy as his song is breezy and pure, gets his authority for speaking of nature's holy plan. It grew later, and neither father nor mother reappeared. Tess looked out of the door and took a mental journey through Marlott. The village was shutting its eyes. Candles and lamps were being put out everywhere, and she could inwardly behold the extinguisher and the extended hand. Her mother's fetching simply meant one more to fetch. Tess began to perceive that a man in indifferent health who proposed to start on a journey before one in the morning ought not to be at an inn at this late hour celebrating his ancient blood. "'Abraham,' she said to her little brother, do you put on your hat? You bane afraid, and go up to Rulliver's, and see what has gone with father and mother.' The boy jumped promptly from his seat and opened the door, and the night swallowed him up. Half an hour passed yet again. The man, woman, nor child return. Abraham, like his parent, seemed to have been limed and caught by the ensnaring inn. "'I must go myself,' she said. Lisa Lou then went to bed, and Tess, locking them all in, started on her way up the dark and crooked lane, or street not made for hasty progress. A street laid out before inches of land had value, and when one handed clocks sufficiently subdivided the day. CHAPTER IV Rulliver's inn, the single ale-house at this end of the long and broken village, could only boast of an off-licence. Hence as nobody could legally drink on the premises, the amount of overt accommodation for consumers was strictly limited to a little board about six inches wide and two yards long, fixed to the garden palings by pieces of wire so as to form a ledge. On this board thirsty strangers deposited their cups as they stood in the road and drank, and threw the dregs on the dusty ground to the pattern of Polynesia, and wished they could have a restful seat inside. Thus the strangers. But there were also local customers who felt the same wish, and where there's a will there's a way. In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly curtoned with a great woollen shawl, lately discarded by the landlady, Mrs. Rulliver, were gathered on this evening nearly a dozen persons, all seeking the attitude. All old inhabitants of the nearer end of Marlott, and frequenters of this retreat. Not only did the distance to the pure drop, the fully licensed tavern at the further part of the dispersed village, render its accommodation practically unavailable for dwellers at this end, but the far more serious question, the quality of the liquor, confirmed the prevalent opinion that it was better to drink with Rulliver in a corner of the house-top rather than with the other landlord in a wide house. A gaunt for post-bedstead which stood in the room afforded sitting place for several persons gathered around three of its sides. A couple more men had elevated themselves on the chest of drawers, another rested on the oak-carved quaffer, two on the wash-stand, another on the stool, and thus all were somehow seated at their ease. The stage of mental comfort to which they had arrived by this hour was one wherein their souls expanded beyond their skins, and spread their personalities warm through the room. In this process the chamber and its furniture grew more and more dignified and luxurious. The shawl hanging at the window took upon itself the richness of tapestry. The brass handles of the chest of drawers were as golden knockers, and the carved bed-posts seemed to have some kinship with the magnificent pillars of Solomon's Temple. Mrs. Derbyfield, having quickly walked hitherward after parting from Tess, opened the front door, crossed the downstairs room which was in deep gloom, and then unfastened the stair-door like one whose fingers knew the tricks of the latches well. Her assent of the crooked staircase was a slower process, and her face as it rose into the light above the last stair encountered the gaze of all the party assembled in the bedroom. In a few private friends I have asked to keep up club-walking at my own expense. The landlady exclaimed at the sound of footsteps, as glibly as a child repeating the catechism, whilst she peered over the stairs. Oh, tis you, Mrs. Derbyfield, lard, how you frightened me! I thought it might be some gaffer sent by government. Mrs. Derbyfield was welcomed with glances and nods by the remainder of the conclave, and turned to where her husband sat. He was humming absently to himself in a low tone. I be as good as some folks here and there. I've got a great family vault at Kingsbeer sub-Greenhill, and finer skeletons than any man in Wessex. I've something to tell you that's come into my head about that. A grand project!" whispered his cheerful wife. Here, John, don't you see me? She nudged him, while he, looking through her as though through a window-pane, went on with his recitative. Hush! Don't you sing so loud, my good man? said the landlady, in case any member of the government should be passing, and take away my license. He's told you what's happened to us, I suppose," asked Mrs. Derbyfield. Yes, in a way. Do you think there's any money hanging by it? Ah, that's the secret," said Joan Derbyfield sagely. However, it is well to be kind to a coach, even if you don't ride in an. She dropped her public voice, and continued in a low tone to her husband. I've been thinking, since you brought the news, that there's a great rich lady out by Trantridge on the edge of the chase of the name of Derbyfield. Eh? What's that? said Sir John. She repeated the information. That lady must be our relation," she said, and my project is to send tests to claim kin. There is a lady of that name. Now you mention it," said Derbyfield. Pass and Tringham didn't think of that. But she's nothing beside we, a junior branch of us, no doubt, hailing long since King Norman's day. While this question was being discussed, neither of the pair noticed, in their preoccupation, that little Abraham had crept into the room, and was awaiting an opportunity of asking them to return. She's rich, and she'd be sure to take notice of the maid," continued Mrs. Derbyfield, and will be a very good thing. I don't see why two branches of one family should not be on visiting terms. Yes, and we'll all claim kin," said Abraham, brightly from under the bedstead, and we'll all go to see her when Tess has gone to live with her, and we'll ride in her coach, and wear black clothes. How do you come here, child? What nonsense be ye talking! Go away and play on the stairs till father and mother be ready. Well, Tess ought to go to this other member of our family. She'd be sure to win the lady Tess would, and, likely enough, would lead to some noble gentleman marrying her. In short, I know it. How? I tried her fate in the fortune-teller, and it brought out that very thing. You should have seen how pretty she looked to-day. Her skin was as simple as a duchess's. What says the maid herself to go in? I've not asked her. She don't know there is any such lady relation yet, and it would certainly put her in the way of a grand marriage, and she won't say neither go in. Tess is queer. But she's tracked a bullet-buttlem, leave her to me. Though this conversation had been private, sufficient of its import reached the understandings of those around to suggest to them that the Derby-fields had weightier concerns of talk now than common folks had, and that Tess, their pretty eldest daughter, had fine prospects in store. Tess is a fine figure of fun, as I said to myself to-day, when I zeed her vamping round parish with the rest. Observed one of the elderly boozers in an undertone. But Joan Derby-field must mind that she don't get green malt in floor. It was a local phrase which had a peculiar meaning, and there was no reply. The conversation became inclusive, and presently other footsteps were heard crossing the room below. Being a few private friends, I asked in to-night to keep up club-walking at my own expense. The landlady had rapidly reused the formula she kept on hand for intruders before she recognized that the newcomer was Tess. Even to her mother's gaze the girl's young features looked sadly out of place amid the alcoholic vapors which floated here as no unsuitable medium for wrinkled middle-age, and hardly was a reproachful flash from Tess's dark eyes needed to make her father and mother rise from their seats hastily finish their ale and ascend the stairs behind her. Mrs. Rollover's caution followed their footsteps. No noise, please, if ye be so good, my dears, or I may lose my license, and be summoned, and I don't know what are. Night to ye!" They went home together, Tess holding one arm of her father and Mrs. Derby-field the other. He had, in truth, drunk very little, not a fourth of the quantity which a systematic tipler could carry to church on a Sunday afternoon without a hitch in his eastings or genuflections. But the weakness of Sir John's constitution made mountains of his petty sins in this kind. On reaching the fresh air he was sufficiently unsteady to incline the row of three at one moment, as if they were marching to London, and at another as if they were marching to Bath, which produced a comical effect, frequent enough in families on nocturnal homegoings, and, like most comical effects, not so comical after all. The two women valiantly disguised these forced excursions and counter-marches as well as they could from Derby-field their cause, and from Abraham and from themselves, and so they approached by degrees their own door, the head of the family bursting suddenly into his former refrain as he drew near, as if to fortify his soul at sight of the smallness of his present residence. I got a family vault at Kingsbeer. Hush! Don't be so silly, Jackie," said his wife. Yours is not the only family that was of count in old days. Look at the anktels and the horsies and the tringums themselves. Gunt the seed almost as much as you. Though you was bigger folks than they, that's true. Thank God I was never of no family, and have nothing to be ashamed of in that way. Don't you be so sure of that? From your nature it is my belief you've disgraced yourselves more than any of us, and was Kings and Queens outright at one time?" Tess turned the subject by saying, what was far more prominent in her own mind at the moment than thoughts of her ancestry? I'm afraid Father won't be able to take the journey with the Beehives to-morrow so early. I—I shall be all right an hour or two," said Derby Field. It was eleven o'clock before the family were all in bed, and two o'clock next morning was the latest hour for starting with the Beehives, if they were to be delivered to the retailers of Casterbridge before the Saturday market began, the way thither lying by bad roads over a distance of between twenty and thirty miles, and the horse and wagon being of the slowest. At half-past one Mrs. Derby Field came into the large bedroom where Tess and all her little brothers and sisters slept. The poor man can't go, she said to her eldest daughter, whose great eyes had opened the moment her mother's hand touched the door. Tess sat up in bed, lost in a vague interspace between a dream and this information. "'But somebody must go," she replied. "'It is late for the Hives already. Swarming will soon be over for the year, and if we put off taking them till next week's market, the call for them will be passed, and they'll be thrown on our hands.' Mrs. Derby Field looked unequal to the emergency. Some young fellow, perhaps, would go. One of them, who was so much after dancing with her yesterday," she presently suggested. "'Oh, no! I wouldn't have it for the world,' declared Tess proudly, and letting everybody know the reason why such a thing to be shamed of. I think I could go if Abraham would go with me to Ketme Company.' Her mother at length agreed to this arrangement. Little Abraham was aroused from his deep sleep in a corner of the same apartment, and made to put on his clothes while still mentally in the other world. Meanwhile, Tess had hastily dressed herself, and the twain, lighting a lantern, went out to the stable. The rickety little wagon was already laden, and the girl led out the horse, Prince, only a degree less rickety than the vehicle. The poor creature looked wonderingly round at the night, at the lantern, at their two figures, as if he could not believe that at that hour, when every living thing was intended to be in shelter and at rest, he was called upon to go out and labour. They put a stock of candle-ends into the lantern, hung the latter to the offside of the load, and directed the horse onward, walking at his shoulder at first during the uphill parts of the way, in order not to overload an animal of so little vigor. To cheer themselves as well as they could, they made an artificial morning with the lantern, some bread and butter, and their own conversation, the real morning being far from calm. Abraham, as he more fully awoke, for he had moved in a sort of trance so far, began to talk of the strange shapes assumed by the various dark objects against the sky, of this tree that looked like a raging tiger springing from a lair, of that which resembled a giant's head. When they had passed the little town of Stourcastle, dumbly somulant under its thick brown thatch, they reached higher ground, still higher on their left the elevation called Bullbarrow or Bealbarrow, well nigh the highest in south Wessex, swelled into the sky, engirdled by its earthen trenches. From here about the long road was fairly level for some distance onward. They mounted in front of the wagon, and Abraham grew reflective. "'Tess,' he said, in a preparatory tone, after a silence. "'Yes, Abraham?' "'Bank you glad that we become gentle folk?' "'Not particularly glad. "'But you be glad that you'll go and marry a gentleman?' "'What?' said Tess, lifting her face, that our great relation will help you to marry a gentleman. "'I, our great relation, we have no such relations, was put that into your head. "'I heard him talking about it up at Rulliver's when I went to find father. "'There's a rich lady of our family out at Train Tridge, and mother said that if you claim kin with the lady, she'd put me in the way of marrying a gentleman.' His sister became abruptly still, and lapsed into a pondering silence. "'Abraham talked on, rather for the pleasure of utterance than for audition, so that his sister's abstraction was of no account. He lent back against the hives, and with upturned face made observations on the stars, whose cold pulses were beating amid the black hollows above, in serene disassociation from these two wisps of human life. He asked how far away those twinklers were, and whether God was on the other side of them. Whatever and on his childish prattle recurred to what impressed his imagination even more deeply than the wonders of creation. If tests were made rich by marrying a gentleman, would she have money enough to buy a spy-glass so large that it would draw the stars as near to her as nettle-combed out? The renewed subject, which seemed to have impregnated the whole family, filled tests with impatience. Never mind that now, she exclaimed. "'Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?' "'Yes.' "'All like ours?' "'I don't know. But I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our studded tree. Most of them splendid and sound—a few blighted.' "'Which do we live on? A splendid one or a blighted one?' "'A blighted one.' "'It is very unlucky that we don't pitch on a sound one when there were so many more of them.' "'Yes.' "'Is it like that really, Tess?' said Abraham, turning to her much impressed on reconsideration of this rare information. "'How would it have been if we had pitched on a sound one?' "'Well, father wouldn't have coughed and creeped about as he does, and wouldn't have got too tipsy to go on this journey. A mother wouldn't have been always washing and never getting finished. "'And would you have been a rich lady ready-made, and not have been made rich by marrying a gentleman?' "'Oh, Abie, don't—don't talk of that any more.'" Left to his reflections, Abraham soon grew drowsy. Tess was not skillful in the management of a horse, but she thought that she could take upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the present, and allow Abraham to go to sleep if he wished to do so. She made him a sort of nest in front of the hives, in such a manner that he could not fall, and taking the reins into her own hands jogged on as before. Prince required but slight attention, lacking energy for superfluous movements of any sort. With no longer a companion to distract her, Tess fell more deeply into reverie than ever, her back leaning against the hives. The mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to the fantastic scenes outside reality, and the occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense, sad soul contaminous with the universe in space, and with history in time. Then examining the mesh of events in her own life, she seemed to see the vanity of her father's pride, the gentlemanly suitor awaiting her in her mother's fancy, to see him as a grimacing personage, laughing at her poverty, and her shrouded, nightly ancestry. Everything grew more and more extravagant, and she no longer knew how time passed. A sudden jerk shook her in her seat, and Tess awoke from the sleep into which she too had fallen. They were a long way further down than when she had lost consciousness, and the wagon had stopped. A hollow groan, unlike anything she had ever heard in her life, came from the front, followed by a shout of, "'Hoy there!" The lantern hanging at her wagon had gone out, but another was shining in her face much brighter than her own had been. Something terrible had happened. The harness was entangled with an object which blocked the way. In consternation Tess jumped down and discovered the dreadful truth. The groan had proceeded from her father's poor horse-prince. The morning mail-cart, with its two noiseless wheels speeding along these lanes like an arrow, as it all was did, had driven into her slow and unlighted equipage. The pointed shaft of the cart had entered the breast of the unhappy prince like a sword, and from the wound his life's blood was spouting in a stream and falling with a hiss onto the road. In her despair Tess sprang forward and put her hand upon the hole with the only result that she became splashed from face to skirt in the crimson drops. Then she stood helplessly looking on. Prince also stood firm and motionless as long as he could, till he suddenly sank down in a heap. By this time the mail-cart man had joined her, and began dragging and unharnessing the hot form of prince. But he was already dead, and seeing that nothing more could be done immediately the mail-cart man returned to his own animal which was uninjured. "'You was on the wrong side,' he said. "'I am bound to go with the mail-bags, so that the best thing for you to do is to bide here with your load. I only send someone to help you as soon as I can. It is getting daylight, and you have nothing to fear.' He mounted and spared on his way, while Tess stood and waited. The atmosphere turned pale. The birds shook themselves in the hedges, arose and twitted. The lane showed all its white features, and Tess showed hers still whiter. The huge pool of blood in front of her was already assuming the iridescence of coagulation, and when the sun rose a hundred prismatic hues were reflected from it. Prince lay alongside still and stark, his eyes half open, the hole in his chest looking scarcely large enough to have let out all that had animated him. "'Tis all my doing, all mine!' The girl cried, gazing at the spectacle. "'No excuse for me, none. What will mother and father live on now? A-B, A-B!' She shook the child, who had slept soundly through the whole disaster. "'We can't go on with our load, Prince is killed!' When Abraham realised all, the furrows of fifty years were extemporised on his young face. "'Why, I danced and laughed only yesterday!' She went on to herself, to think that I was such a fool. "'Tis because we'd be on a blighted star and not a sound one, isn't it, Tess?' murmured Abraham through his tears. In silence they waited through an interval which seemed endless. At length the sound and an approaching object proved to them that the driver of the mail-cart had been as good as his word. A farmer's man from near Stowcastle came up, leading a strong cob. He was harnessed to the wagon of beehives in the place of Prince, and the load taken on towards Casterbridge. The evening of the same day saw the empty wagon reach again the spot of the accident. Prince had lain there in the ditch since the morning, but the place of the blood-pool was still visible in the middle of the road, though scratched and scraped over by passing vehicles. All that was left of Prince was now hoisted into the wagon he had formerly hauled, and with his hoofs in the air and his shoes shining in the setting sunlight he retraced the eight on nine miles back to Marlott. Tess had gone back earlier. How to break the news was more than she could think. It was a relief to her tongue to find from the faces of her parents that they already knew of their loss, though this did not lessen the self-reproach which she continued to heap upon herself for her negligence. At the very shifthlessness of the household rendered the misfortune a less terrifying one to them than it would have been to a striving family, though in the present case it meant ruin, and in the other it would only have meant inconvenience. In the Derbyfield countenances there was nothing of the red wrath that would have been burnt upon the girl from parents more ambitious for her welfare. Nobody blamed Tess as she blamed herself. When it was discovered that the knacker and Tanner would give only a very few shillings for Prince's carcass because of his decrepitude Derbyfield rose to the occasion. No, said he stoically, I won't sell his old buddy. Not when we Derbavilles was knights in the land we didn't sell our charges for cat's meat. Let them keep their shillings. He served me well in his lifetime, and I won't part from him now. He worked harder the next day in digging a grave for Prince in the garden than he had worked for months to grow a crop for his family. When the hole was ready Derbyfield and his wife tied a rope round the horse and dragged him up the path towards it, the children following in a funeral train. Abraham and Liza Lou sobbed, hope and modesty discharged their griefs in loud blares which echoed from the walls. And when Prince was tumbled in they gathered round the grave. The breadwinner had been taken away from them. What would they do? Is he gone to heaven? asked Abraham between the sobs. Then Derbyfield began to shovel in the earth and the children cried anew, all except Tess. Her face was dry and pale, though she regarded herself in the light of a murderess. Chapter 5 of Tests of the Derbervilles 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 Derbervilles by Thomas Hardy read by Adrian Pretzellus. Chapter 5 The haggling business which had mainly depended on the horse became disorganised forthwith. Distress if not penury loomed in the distance. Derbyfield was what was locally called a slack-twisted fellow. He had good strength to work at times, but the times could not be relied on to coincide with the hours of requirement, and having been unaccustomed to the regular toil of the day labourer he was not particularly persistent when they did so coincide. Tess, meanwhile, as one who had dragged her parents into this quagmire, was silently wondering what she could do to help them out of it, and then her mother broached her scheme. We must take the ups with the downs, Tess," said she, and nevermore could your high blood have been found out at a more call-for moment. You must try your friends. Do ye know that there is a very rich Mrs. Derbervilles living on the outskirts of the Chase who must be our relation? You must go to her and claim kin, and ask for some help in our trouble. I shouldn't care to do that," says Tess. If there is such a lady, it would be enough for us if she were friendly, not to expect her to give us help. You could win her round to do anythin' my dear. Besides, perhaps, there's more in it than you know of. I've heard what I've heard good now." The oppressive sense of the harm she had done led Tess to be more deferential than she might otherwise have been to the maternal wish, but she could not understand why her mother should find such satisfaction in contemplating an enterprise of, to her, such doubtful profit. Her mother might have made inquiries and have discovered that this Mrs. Derbervilles was a lady of unequalled virtues and charity, but Tess's pride made the part of poor relation one of particular distaste to her. I'd rather try to get work," she murmured. Derbervilles, you can settle it," said his wife, turning to where he sat in the background. If you say she ought to go, she will go. I don't let my children go in and make themself beholden to strange kin, murmured he. I'm the head of the noblest branch of the family, and I ought to live up to it. His reasons for staying away were worse to Tess than her own objection to going. Well, as I killed the horse-mother," she said mournfully, I suppose I ought to do something. I don't mind going and seeing her, but you must leave it to me about asking for help, and don't go thinking about her making a match for me. It is silly. Very well said Tess. Observed her father sententiously. "'Who said I had such a thought?' asked Joan. "'I fancy it is in your mind, mother, but I'll go.' Rising early next day she walked to the hill-town called Chaston, and there took advantage of a van which, twice in the week, ran from Chaston Eastwood to Chaseborough, passing near Trantridge, the parish in which the vague and mysterious Mrs. Durberville had her residence. Tess Durberville's route in this memorable morning lay amid the northeastern undulations of the Vale in which she had been born, and in which her life had unfolded. The Vale of Blackmore was to her the world, and its inhabitants the races thereof. From the gates and styles of Marlott she had looked down its length in the wandering days of infancy, and what had been mystery to her then was not much less than mystery to her now. She had seen daily from her chamber window towers, villages, faint white mansions. Above all the town of Chaston, standing majestically on its height, its windows shining like lamps in the evening sun. She had hardly ever visited the place, only a small tract even of the Vale and its environs being known to her by close inspection, much less had she been far outside the valley. Every contour of the surrounding hills was as personal to her as that of her relatives' faces, but for what lay beyond, her judgment was dependent on the teaching of the village school, where she had held a leading place at the time of her leaving, a year or two before this date. In those early days she had been much loved by others of her own sex and age, and used to be seen about the village as one of three, all nearly of the same year walking home from school side by side. Test the middle one in a pink print pinafore of a finely reticulated pattern worn over a stuffed frock that had lost its original colour for a nondescript tertiary, marching on long storky legs in tight stockings which had little ladder-like holes of the knees torn by kneeling in the roads and banks in search of vegetable and mineral treasures, her then earth-coloured hair hanging like pot-hooks, the arms of the two outside girls resting round the waist of Tess, her arms on the shoulders of the two supporters. As Tess grew older and began to see how matters stood, she felt quite a mouthusian towards her mother for thoughtlessly giving her so many little sisters and brothers, when it was such a trouble to nurse and provide for them. Her mother's intelligence was that of a happy child. Joan Derbyfield was simply an additional one, and that not the eldest, to her own long family of waiters on providence. However, Tess became humanely beneficent towards the little ones and to help them as much as possible she used as soon as she left school to lend a hand at hay-making or harvesting on neighbouring farms, or by preference at milking or butter-making processes which she had learned when her father had owned cows, and being deft-fingered it was a kind of work in which she excelled. Every day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders more of the family burdens, and that Tess should be the representative of the Derbyfields at the Derbyville mansion came as a thing of course. In this instance it must be admitted that the Derbyfields were putting their ferris side outward. She alighted from the van at Trantridge Cross, and ascended on foot a hill in the direction of the district known as the Chase, on the borders of which, as she had been informed, misses Derbyville's seat, the slopes would be found. It was not a menorial home in the ordinary sense, with fields and pastures and a grumbling farmer out of whom the owners had to squeeze an income for himself and his family by hook or by crook. It was more, far more, a country house built for enjoyment, pure and simple, with not an acre of troublesome land attached to it beyond that which was required for residential purposes, and for a little fancy farm kept in hand by the owner and tended by a bailiff. The crimson brick lodge came first in sight, up to its eaves in dense evergreens. Tess thought this was the mansion itself, till, passing through the side wicket with some trepidation, and onward to a point at which the drive took a turn, the house proper stood in full view. It was of recent direction, indeed almost new, and of the same rich red colour that formed such a contrast with the evergreens of the lodge. Far behind the corner of the house, which rose like a geranium bloom against the subdued colours around, stretched the soft azure landscape of the Chase, a truly venerable tract of forest land, one of the few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primeval date, wherein druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and where enormous yew-trees, not planted by the hand of man, grew as they had grown when they were pollarded for bows. All this silver antiquity, however, though visible from the slopes, was outside the immediate boundaries of the estate. Everything on this snug property was bright, thriving, and well kept. Acres of glass houses stretched down the inclines to the copses at their feet. Everything looked like money, like the last coin issued from the mint. The stables, partly screened by Austrian pines and evergreen oaks, and fitted with every late appliance, were as dignified as chapels of ease. On the extensive lawn stood an ornamental tent, its door being towards her. Little test-derby field stood at gaze, in a half-alarm'd attitude, on the edge of the gravel sweep. Her feet had brought her unto this point before she had quite realised where she was, and now all was contrary to her expectation. "'I thought we were an old family, but this is all new,' she said in her artlessness. She wished that she had not fallen in so readily with her mother's plans for claiming kin, and had endeavoured to arrange assistance nearer home. The Durbervilles, or Stoke Durbervilles, as they at first called themselves, who owned all this, were a somewhat unusual family to find in such an old-fashioned part of the country. Parsontringham had spoken truly when he said that our shambling John Durbyfield was the only really linear representative the old Durberville family existing in the county or near it. He might have added that he knew very well that the Stoke Durbervilles were no more Durbervilles of the true tree than he was himself, yet it must be admitted that this family formed a very good stock whereupon to regraft a name which sadly wanted such renovation. An old Mr. Simon Stoke, latterly deceased, had made his fortune as an honest merchant, some said money-lender, in the north. He decided to settle as a countryman in the south of England, and in doing this he felt the necessity of recommencing with a name that would not too readily identify him with the smart tradesmen of the past, and that would be less commonplace than the original bald Stark words. Conning for an hour in the British Museum the pages of works devoted to extinct, half-extinct, obscured and ruined families appertaining to the quarter of England in which he proposed to settle, he considered that Durberville looked and sounded as well as any of them, and Durberville accordingly was annexed to his own name for himself and his heirs eternally. And he was not an extravagant-minded man in this, and in constructing his family tree on the new basis was duly reasonable in framing his intermarriages and aristocratic links, never inserting a single title above a rank of strict moderation. Of this work of imagination poor Tess and her parents were naturally in ignorance, much to their discomforture. Indeed the very possibility of such annexations were unknown to them, who suppose that, though to be well-favoured might be the gift of fortune, a family name came by nature. Tess still stood hesitating like a bather about to make his plunge, hardly knowing whether to retreat or to persevere, when a figure came forth from the dark triangular door of the tent. It was that of a tall young man, smoking. He had an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, badly moulded, though red and smooth, above which was a well-groomed black moustache with curled points, though his age could not be more than three or four and twenty. Despite the touches of barbarism in his contours, there was a singular force in the gentleman's face, and in his bold, rolling eye. "'Well, my beauty, what can I do for you?' said he, coming forward, and perceiving that she stood quite confounded. Never mind me. I'm Mr. Durberville. Have you come to see me or my mother?' This embodiment of a Durberville and a namesake differed even more from what Tess had expected than the house and grounds had differed. She had dreamed of an aged and dignified face, the sublimation of all the Durberville lineaments, furrowed with incarnate memories representing, in a hieroglyphic, the centuries of her families and England's history. But she screwed herself up to the work in hand, since she could not get out of it, and answered, "'I came to see your mother, sir.' "'I'm afraid you cannot see her. She is an invalid,' replied the present representative of the Asperius house, for this was Mr. Alec, the only son of the lately deceased gentleman. Cannot I answer your purpose? What is the business you wish to see her about?' "'It isn't business. It is—I can hardly say what.' "'Pleasure?' "'Oh, no! Why, sir, if I tell you it will seem.' Tess's sense of a certain ludicrousness in her errand was now so strong that, notwithstanding her awe of him, and her general discomfort at being there, her rosy lips curved towards a smile, much to the attraction of the swallowy Alexander. "'It is so very foolish,' she stammered. "'I fear I cannot tell you. Never mind. I like foolish things. Try again, my dear,' said he kindly. "'Mother asked me to come,' Tess continued, and indeed I was in the mind to do so myself likewise, but I did not think it would be like this. I came, sir, to tell you that we are of the same family as you.' "'Oh! Poor relations?' "'Yes. Stokes?' "'No. Derbavilles.' "'I—I—I mean Derbavilles.' "'Our names are worn away to Derbyfield, but we have several proofs that we're Derbavilles. Antiquarian's home we are, and—and we have an old seal marked with a ramping lion on a shield and a castle over him, and we have a very old silver spoon round in the bowl like a little ladle and marked with the same castle. It is so worn that my mother uses it to stir the pea soup. A castle argent is certainly my crest,' said he blandly, and my arms are lion-drempant, and so mother said we ought to make ourselves be known to you as we've lost their horse by a bad accident and are the oldest branch of the family. Very kind of your mother, I'm sure, and I, for one, don't regret her step.' Alec looked at Tess as he spoke in a way that made her blush a little. And so, my pretty girl, you've come on a friendly visit to us as relations. I suppose I have," faltered Tess, looking uncomfortable again. "'Well, there's no harm in it. Where do you live? What are you?' She gave him brief particulars, and, responding to further inquiries, told him that she was intending to go back by the same carrier who had brought her. It is a long while before he returns past Tranchridge Cross, supposing we walk round the grounds to pass the time, my pretty cars.' Tess wished to abridge her visit as much as possible, but the young man was pressing, and she consented to accompany him. He conducted her about the lawns, the flower beds, and the conservatories, and thence to the fruit garden and the greenhouses, where he asked her if she liked strawberries. "'Yes," said Tess, when they come. "'They are already here.' Durbeville began gathering specimens of the fruit for her, handing them back to her as he stooped, and presently selecting a specially fine product of the British queen variety. He stood up and held it by the stem to her mouth. "'No, no,' she said quickly, putting her fingers between his hand and her lips. I would rather take it by my own hand.' "'Nonsense,' he insisted, and in a slight distress she parted her lips, and took it in. They had spent some time wandering desultrally thus, Tess eating in a half-pleased, half-reluctant state whatever Durbeville offered her. When she could consume no more of the strawberries he filled her little basket with them, and then the two passed round to the rose-trees, whence he gathered blossoms and gave her to put in her bosom. She obeyed like one in a dream, and when she could affix no more he himself tucked a bud or two into her hat, and heaped her basket with others in the prodigality of his bounty. At last, looking at his watch, he said, "'Now, by the time you have had something to eat, it will be time for you to leave, if you want to catch the carrier to Shaston. Come here, and I'll see what grub I can find.' Stoke Durbeville took her back to the lawn and into the tent, where he left her, soon reappearing with a basket of light luncheon, which he put before her himself. It was evidently the gentleman's wish not to be disturbed in this pleasant tate-à-tate by the servantry. "'Do you mind my smoking?' he asked. "'Oh, not at all, sir.' He watched her pretty and unconsciousness munching through the skeins of smoke that pervaded the tent, and Tess Durbeville did not divine, as she innocently looked down at the roses in her bosom, that there behind the blue narcotic haze was potentially the tragic mischief of her drama, one who stood fair to be the blood-red ray in the spectrum of her young life. She had an attribute which amounted to a disadvantage just now, and it was this that caused Alec Durbeville's eyes to rivet themselves upon her. It was a luxurience of aspect, a fullness of growth which made her appear more of a woman than she really was. She inherited the feature from her mother without the quality it denoted. It had troubled her mind occasionally, till her companions had said it was a fault which time would cure. She soon had finished her lunch. "'Now I'm going home, sir,' she said, rising. "'And what do they call you?' he asked, as he accompanied her along the drive till they were out of sight of the house. Tess Durbeville, down at Marlott. "'And you say your people have lost their horse?' "'I killed him,' she answered, her eyes filling with tears as she gave particulars of Prince's death. "'And I don't know what to do for father and account of it. I must think if I cannot do something, my mother must find a birth for you. But Tess, no nonsense about Durbeville, Durbefield, only you know quite another name.' "'I wish for no better, sir,' said she, with something of dignity. For a moment, only for a moment, when they were in the rising of the drive between the tall Rhododendrons and conifers, before the lodge became visible, he inclined his face towards her as if—but no, he thought better of it, and let her go. Thus the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting's import, she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired one in all respects, as nearly as humanity can supply the right and desired. Yet to him who amongst her acquaintance might have approximated to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half forgotten. In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comeer. The man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not often say, see, to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing, or reply, here, to a body's cry of where, till the hide-and-seek has become an irksome outworn game. We may wonder whether at the acme and summits of the human progress these anachronisms will be corrected by a finer intuition, a closer interaction of the social machinery than that which now jolts us round and along. But such completeness is not to be prophesied, or even conceived as possible. Enough that in the present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a perfect whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment. A missing counterpart wandered independently about the earth, waiting in crass obtuseness till the late time came, out of which maledrock delay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks, catastrophes, and passing strange destinies. When Durberville got back to the tent, he sat down astride on a chair reflecting, with a pleased gleam in his face. Then he broke into a loud laugh. Well, I am damned! What a funny thing! Ha ha ha! And what a crummy girl! CHAPTER VI Tests of the Durbervilles 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 Durbervilles by Thomas Hardy Read by Adrian Pretzelis CHAPTER VI Tests went down the hill to Trantridge Cross, and inattentively waited to take her seat in the van, returning from Chaseborough to Shaston. She did not know what the other occupants said to her as she entered, though she answered them. And when they had started anew, she rode along with an inward and not an outward eye. One among her fellow-travellers addressed her more pointedly than any had spoken before. Why, you be quite a posy, and such roses in early June! Then she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their surprised vision. Roses at her breast? Roses in her hat? Roses and strawberries in her basket to the brim? She blushed, and said confusedly that the flowers had been given to her. When the passengers were not looking, she stealthily removed the more prominent blooms from her hat, and placed them in the basket where she covered them with her handkerchief. Then she fell to reflecting again, and in looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining in her breast accidentally pricked her chin. Like all the cottages of Blackmore Vale, Tess was steeped in fancies and prefigurative superstitions. She thought this an ill omen. The first she had noticed that day. The van travelled only so far as Shastan, and there were several miles of pedestrian descent from that mountain-town into the Vale to Marlott. Her mother had advised her to stay here for the night at the house of a cottage-woman they knew if she should feel too tired to come on, and this Tess did not descending to her home till the following afternoon. When she entered the house, she perceived in a moment from her mother's triumphant manner that something had occurred in the interim. "'Oh, yes, I know all about it. I told you it would be all right, and now it is proved. Yes, I've been away. What has?' said Tess, rather wearily. Her mother surveyed the girl up and down with arch-approval, and went on banteringly. So you've brought them round. How do you know, mother? I've had a letter.' Tess then remembered that there would have been time for this. They say, Mrs. Durbeville says, that she wants you to look after a little fowl-farm, which is her hobby. But this is only her artful way of getting thee there without raising your hopes. She's going to own thee as kin. That's the meaning, aunt. But I didn't see her. You zeed somebody, I suppose. I saw her son. And did he own thee? Well, he called me Cuz, and I knew it. Jackie called her Cuz, cried Joan to her husband. Well, he spoke to his mother, of course, and she do want thee there. But I don't know that I am apt to tending fowls,' said the dubious Tess. Then I don't know who is apt. You've been born in the business and brought up in it. They that be born in a business always know more about it than any prentice. Besides, that's only just a show of something for you to do that you didn't feel beholden. I don't altogether think I ought to go,' said Tess thoughtfully. Who wrote the letter? Would you let me look at it? Mrs. Durbeville wrote it. Here it is. The letter was in the third person, and briefly informed Mrs. Durbefield that her daughter's services would be useful to that lady in the management of her poultry farm, that a comfortable room would be provided for her if she could come, and that the wages would be on a liberal scale if they liked her. Oh, that's all, said Tess. You couldn't expect her to throw her arms round ear and kiss and culley all at once. Tess looked out of the window. I would rather stay here with Father and you,' she said. But why? I'd rather not tell you why, Mother. Indeed, I don't quite know why. A week afterwards she came in one evening from an unavailing search for some light occupation in the immediate neighborhood. Her idea had been to get together sufficient money during the summer to purchase another horse. Hardly had she crossed the threshold before one of the children danced across the room, saying, the gentleman's been here. Her mother hastened to explain. Smile was breaking from every inch of her person. Mrs. Durbeville's son had called on horseback, having been riding by chance in the direction of Marlott. He had wished to know, finally, in the name of his mother, if Tess could really come to manage the old lady's foul farm or not, the lad who hitherto superintended the birds having proved untrustworthy. Mr. Durbeville says you must be a good girl if you are at all as you appear. He knows you must be worth your weight in gold. He is very much interested in he, truth to tell. Tess seemed for the moment really pleased to hear that she had won such high opinion from a stranger when, in her own esteem, she had sunk so low. It is very good of him to think that, she murmured, and if I was quite sure how it would be living there, I would go any when. He is a mighty handsome man. I don't think so, said Tess coldly. Well, there's your chance, whether or no, and I'm sure he wears a beautiful diamond ring. Yes, said little Abraham, brightly from the window-bench. And I see'd it, and it did twinker when he put his hand up to his moustaches. Mother, why did our grand relation keep putting his hand up to his moustaches? Hark at that child! cried Mrs. Durbefield with parenthetic admiration. Perhaps to show his diamond ring! murmured Sir John Dreamily from his chair. I'll think it over, said Tess, leaving the room. Well, she's made a conquest of the younger branch of us straight off, continued the matron to her husband. And she's a fool if she don't follow it up. I don't quite like my children going away from home, said the haggler, as the head of the family the rest ought to come to me. But do let her go, Jackie! coached his poor witless wife. He's struck with her. You can see that. He called her Coz. He'll marry her most likely and make a lady of her, and then she'll be what her forefathers was. John Durbefield had more conceit than energy or health, and this supposition was pleasant to him. Well, perhaps that's what yo' Mr. Durbeville means, he admitted. And sure enough he mid-aff serious thoughts about improving his blood by linking on to the old line. Tess, the little rogue! And have she really paid him a visit to such an end as this? Meanwhile Tess was walking thoughtfully among the gooseberry bushes in the garden and over Prince's grave. When she came in her mother pursued her advantage. Well, what be you going to do? She asked. I wish I had seen Mrs. Durbeville, said Tess. I think you mid-as well settle it. Then you'll see her soon enough. Her father coughed in his chair. I don't know what to say, answered the girl, restlessly. It is for you to decide. I kill the old horse, and I suppose I ought to do something to get you a new one. But I don't quite like Mr. Durbeville being there. The children who had made use of this idea of Tess being shaken up by their wealthy kinfolk, which they imagined the other family to be, as a species of Dolora fuge after the death of the horse, began to cry at Tess's reluctance, and teased and reproached her for hesitating. Tess won't go and be made a lady of. No, she says she won't. They wailed with square mouths. And we shan't have a nice new horse and lots of golden money to buy fairlings, and Tess won't look pretty in her best clothes no more. Her mother chimed into the same tune. A certain way she had of making her labours in the house seemed heavier than they were by prolonging them indefinitely also weighed in the argument. Her father alone preserved an attitude of neutrality. I will go, said Tess at last. Her mother could not repress her consciousness of the natural vision conjured up by the girl's consent. That's right. For such a pretty maze as Tess, this is a fine chance. Tess smiled crossly. I hope it is a chance for earning money. It is no other kind of chance. You would better say nothing of that silly sort about the parish. Mrs. Derbyfield did not promise. She was not quite sure that she did not feel proud enough after the visitor's remarks to say a good deal. Thus it was arranged, and the young girl wrote, agreeing to be ready to set out on any day on which she might be required. She was duly informed that Mrs. Derbyfield was glad of her decision, and that a spring cart should be sent to meet her in her luggage at the top of the veil on the day after the tomorrow, when she must hold herself prepared to start. Mrs. Derbyfield's handwriting seemed rather masculine. A cart, murmured Joan Derbyfield, doubtingly. It might have been a carriage for her old kin. Having at last taken her course, Tess was less restless and abstracted, going about her business with some self-assurance in the thought of acquiring another horse for her father by an occupation which would not be onerous. She had hoped to be a teacher at the school, but the fates seemed to decide otherwise. Being mentally older than her mother, she did not regard Mrs. Derbyfield's matrimonial hopes for her in a serious aspect for a moment. The light-minded woman had been discovering good matches for her daughter almost from the year of her birth.