Tess of the D’Urbervilles

CHAPTER 6

Tess went down the hill to Trantridge Cross, and inattentively waited to take her seat in the van returning from Chaseborough to Shaston. She did not know what the other occupants said to her as she entered, though she answered them; and when they had started anew she rode along with an inward and not an outward eye.

One among her fellow-travellers addressed her more pointedly than any had spoken before: ‘Why, you be quite a posy! And such roses in early June!’

Then she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their surprised vision: roses at her 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 cottagers in Blackmoor Vale, Tess was steeped in fancies and prefigurative superstitions; she thought this an ill omen—the first she had noticed that day.

The van travelled only so far as Shaston, and there were several miles of pedestrian descent from that mountain-town into the vale to Marlott. Her mother had advised her to stay here for the night, at the house of a cottage-woman they knew, if she should feel too tired to come on; and this Tess did, not descending to her home till the following afternoon.

When she entered the house she perceived in a moment from her mother’s triumphant manner that something had occurred in the interim.

‘Oh yes; I know all about it! I told ’ee it would be all right, and now ’tis proved!’

‘Since I’ve been away? What has?’ said Tess rather wearily.

Her mother surveyed the girl up and down with arch approval, and went on banteringly: ‘So you’ve brought ’em round!’

‘How do you know, mother?’

‘I’ve had a letter.’

Tess then remembered that there would have been time for this.

‘They say—Mrs. d’Urberville says—that she wants you to look after a little fowl-farm which is her hobby. But this is only her artful way of getting ’ee there without raising your hopes. She’s going to own ’ee as kin—that’s the meaning o’t.’

‘But I didn’t see her.’

‘You zid somebody, I suppose?’

‘I saw her son.’

‘And did he own ’ee?’

‘Well—he called me Coz.’

‘An’ I knew it! Jacky—he called her Coz!’ cried Joan to her husband. ‘Well, he spoke to his mother, of course, and she do want ’ee there.’

‘But I don’t know that I am apt at tending fowls,’ said the dubious Tess.

‘Then I don’t know who is apt. You’ve be’n born in the business, and brought up in it. They that be born in a business always know more about it than any ‘printice. Besides, that’s only just a show of something for you to do, that you midn’t feel beholden.’

‘I don’t altogether think I ought to go,’ said Tess thoughtfully. ‘Who wrote the letter? Will you let me look at it?’

‘Mrs. d’Urberville wrote it. Here it is.’

The letter was in the third person, and briefly informed Mrs. Durbeyfield that her daughter’s services would be useful to that lady in the management of her poultry-farm, that a comfortable room would be provided for her if she could come, and that the wages would be on a liberal scale if they liked her.

‘Oh—that’s all!’ said Tess.

‘You couldn’t expect her to throw her arms round ’ee, an to kiss and to coll ’ee all at once.’

Tess looked out of the window.

‘I would rather stay here with father and you,’ she said.

‘But why?’

‘I’d rather not tell you why, mother; indeed, I don’t quite know why.’

A week afterwards she came in one evening from an unavailing search for some light occupation in the immediate neighbourhood. Her idea had been to get together sufficient money during the summer to purchase another horse. Hardly had she crossed the threshold before one of the children danced across the room, saying, ‘The gentleman’s been here!’

Her mother hastened to explain, smiles breaking from every inch of her person. Mrs. d’Urberville’s son had called on horseback, having been riding by chance in the direction of Marlott. He had wished to know, finally, in the name of his mother, if Tess could really come to manage the old lady’s fowl-farm or not; the lad who had hitherto superintended the birds having proved untrustworthy. ‘Mr. d’Urberville says you must be a good girl if you are at all as you appear; he knows you must be worth your weight in gold. He is very much interested in ’ee—truth to tell.’

Tess seemed for the moment really pleased to hear that she had won such high opinion from a stranger when, in her own esteem, she had sunk so low.

‘It is very good of him to think that,’ she murmured; ‘and if I was quite sure how it would be living there, I would go any-when.’

‘He is a mighty handsome man!’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Tess coldly.

‘Well, there’s your chance, whether or no; and I’m sure he wears a beautiful diamond ring!’

‘Yes,’ said little Abraham, brightly, from the window-bench; ‘and I seed it! and it did twinkle when he put his hand up to his mistarshers. Mother, why did our grand relation keep on putting his hand up to his mistarshers?’

‘Hark at that child!’ cried Mrs. Durbeyfield, with parenthetic admiration.

‘Perhaps to show his diamond ring,’ murmured Sir John, dreamily, from his chair.

‘I’ll think it over,’ said Tess, leaving the room.

‘Well, she’s made a conquest o’ the younger branch of us, straight off,’ continued the matron to her husband, ‘and she’s a fool if she don’t follow it up.’

‘I don’t quite like my children going away from home,’ said the haggler. ‘As the head of the family, the rest ought to come to me.’

‘But do let her go, Jacky,’ coaxed his poor witless wife. ‘He’s struck wi’ her—you can see that. He called her Coz! He’ll marry her, most likely, and make a lady of her; and then she’ll be what her forefathers was.’

John Durbeyfield had more conceit than energy or health, and this supposition was pleasant to him.

‘Well, perhaps, that’s what young Mr. d’Urberville means,’ he admitted; ‘and sure enough he mid have serious thoughts about improving his blood by linking on to the old line. Tess, the little rogue! And have she really paid ’em a visit to such an end as this?’

Meanwhile Tess was walking thoughtfully among the gooseberry-bushes in the garden, and over Prince’s grave. When she came in her mother pursued her advantage.

‘Well, what be you going to do?’ she asked.

‘I wish I had seen Mrs. d’Urberville,’ said Tess.

‘I think you mid as well settle it. Then you’ll see her soon enough.’

Her father coughed in his chair.

‘I don’t know what to say!’ answered the girl restlessly. ‘It is for you to decide. I killed the old horse, and I suppose I ought to do something to get ye a new one. But—but—I don’t quite like Mr. d’Urberville being there!’

The children, who had made use of this idea of Tess being taken up by their wealthy kinsfolk (which they imagined the other family to be) as a species of dolorifuge after the death of the horse, began to cry at Tess’s reluctance, and teased and reproached her for hesitating.

‘Tess won’t go—o—o and be made a la—a—dy of!—no, she says she wo—o—on’t!’ they wailed, with square mouths. ‘And we shan’t have a nice new horse, and lots o’ golden money to buy fairlings! And Tess won’t look pretty in her best cloze no mo—o—ore!’

Her mother chimed in to the same tune: a certain way she had of making her labours in the house seem heavier than they were by prolonging them indefinitely, also weighed in the argument. Her father alone preserved an attitude of neutrality.

‘I will go,’ said Tess at last.

Her mother could not repress her consciousness of the nuptial Vision conjured up by the girl’s consent.

‘That’s right! For such a pretty maid as ’tis, this is a fine chance!’

Tess smiled crossly.

‘I hope it is a chance for earning money. It is no other kind of chance. You had better say nothing of that silly sort about parish.’

Mrs. Durbeyfield did not promise. She was not quite sure that she did not feel proud enough, after the visitor’s remarks, to say a good deal.

Thus it was arranged; and the young girl wrote, agreeing to be ready to set out on any day on which she might be required. She was duly informed that Mrs. d’Urberville was glad of her decision, and that a spring-cart should be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top of the Vale on the day after the morrow, when she must hold herself prepared to start. Mrs. d’Urberville’s handwriting seemed rather masculine.

‘A cart?’ murmured Joan Durbeyfield doubtingly. ‘It might have been a carriage for her own kin!’

Having at last taken her course Tess was less restless and abstracted, going about her business with some self-assurance in the thought of acquiring another horse for her father by an occupation which would not be onerous. She had hoped to be a teacher at the school, but the fates seemed to decide otherwise. Being mentally older than her mother she did not regard Mrs. Durbey-field’s matrimonial hopes for her in a serious aspect for a moment. The light-minded woman had been discovering good matches for her daughter almost from the year of her birth.

CHAPTER 7

On the morning appointed for her departure Tess was awake before dawn—at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still mute, save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear-voiced conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest preserving silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken. She remained upstairs packing till breakfast-time, and then came down in her ordinary week-day clothes, her Sunday apparel being carefully folded in her box.

Her mother expostulated. ‘You will never set out to see your folks without dressing up more the dand than that?’

‘But I am going to work!’ said Tess.

‘Well, yes,’ said Mrs. Durbeyfield; and in a private tone, ‘at first there mid be a little pretence o’t…But I think it will be wiser of ’ee to put your best side outward,’ she added.

‘Very well; I suppose you know best,’ replied Tess with calm abandonment.

And to please her parent the girl put herself quite in Joan’s hands, saying serenely—‘Do what you like with me, mother.’

Mrs. Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tractability. First she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess’s hair with such thoroughness that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as at other times. She tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual. Then she put upon her the white frock that Tess had worn at the club-walking, the airy fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged coiffure, imparted to her developing figure an amplitude which belied her age, and might cause her to be estimated as a woman when she was not much more than a child.

‘I declare there’s a hole in my stocking-heel!’ said Tess.

‘Never mind holes in your stockings—they don’t speak! When I was a maid, so long as I had a pretty bonnet the devil might ha’ found me in heels.’

Her mother’s pride in the girl’s appearance led her to step back, like a painter from his easel, and survey her work as a whole.

‘You must zee yourself!’ she cried. ‘It is much better than you was t’other day.’

As the looking-glass was only large enough to reflect a very small portion of Tess’s person at one time, Mrs. Durbeyfield hung a black cloak outside the casement, and so made a large reflector of the panes, as it is the wont of bedecking cottagers to do. After this she went downstairs to her husband, who was sitting in the lower room.

‘I’ll tell ’ee what ’tis, Durbeyfield,’ said she exultingly; ‘he’ll never have the heart not to love her. But whatever you do, don’t zay too much to Tess of his fancy for her, and this chance she has got. She is such an odd maid that it mid zet her against him, or against going there, even now. If all goes well, I shall certainly be for making some return to that pa’son at Stagfoot Lane for telling us—dear, good man!’

However, as the moment for the girl’s setting out drew nigh, when the first excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving found place in Joan Durbeyfield’s mind. It prompted the matron to say that she would walk a little way—as far as the point where the acclivity from the valley began its first steep ascent to the outer world. At the top Tess was going to be met with the spring-cart sent by the Stoke-d’Urbervilles, and her box had already been wheeled ahead towards this summit by a lad with trucks, to be in readiness.

Seeing their mother put on her bonnet the younger children clamoured to go with her.

‘I do want to walk a little-ways wi’ Sissy, now she’s going to marry our gentleman-cousin, and wear fine cloze!’

‘Now,’ said Tess, flushing and turning quickly, ‘I’ll hear no more o’ that! Mother, how could you ever put such stuff into their heads?’

‘Going to work, my dears, for our rich relation, and help get enough money for a new horse,’ said Mrs. Durbeyfield pacifically.

‘Good-bye, father,’ said Tess, with a lumpy throat.

‘Good-bye, my maid,’ said Sir John, raising his head from his breast as he suspended his nap, induced by a slight excess this morning in honour of the occasion.

‘Well, I hope my young friend will like such a comely sample of his own blood. And tell’n, Tess, that being sunk, quite, from our former grandeur, I’ll sell him the title—yes, sell it—and at no onreasonable figure.’

‘Not for less than a thousand pound!’ cried Lady Durbeyfield.

‘Tell’n—I’ll take a thousand pound. Well, I’ll take less, when I come to think o’t. He’ll adorn it better than a poor lammicken feller like myself can. Tell’n he shall hae it for a hundred. But I won’t stand upon trifles—tell’n he shall hae it for fifty—for twenty pound! Yes, twenty pound—that’s the lowest. Dammy, family honour is family honour, and I won’t take a penny less!’

Tess’s eyes were too full and her voice too choked to utter the sentiments that were in her. She turned quickly, and went out.

So the girls and their mother all walked together, a child on each side of Tess, holding her hand, and looking at her meditatively from time to time, as at one who was about to do great things; her mother just behind with the smallest; the group forming a picture of honest beauty flanked by innocence, and backed by simple-souled vanity. They followed the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent, on the crest of which the vehicle from Trantridge was to receive her, this limit having been fixed to save the horse the labour of the last slope. Far away behind the first hills the cliff-like dwellings of Shaston broke the line of the ridge. Nobody was visible in the elevated road which skirted the ascent save the lad whom they had sent on before them, sitting on the handle of the barrow that contained all Tess’s worldly possessions.

‘Bide here a bit, and the cart will soon come, no doubt,’ said Mrs. Durbeyfield. ‘Yes, I see it yonder!’

It had come—appearing suddenly from behind the forehead of the nearest upland, and stopping beside the boy with the barrow. Her mother and the children there-upon decided to go no farther, and bidding them a hasty good-bye Tess bent her steps up the hill.

They saw her white shape draw near to the spring-cart, on which her box was already placed. But before she had quite reached it another vehicle shot out from a clump of trees on the summit, came round the bend of the road there, passed the luggage-cart, and halted beside Tess, who looked up as if in great surprise.

Her mother perceived, for the first time, that the second vehicle was not a humble conveyance like the first, but a spick-and-span gig or dog-cart, highly varnished and equipped. The driver was a young man of three- or four-and-twenty, with a cigar between his teeth; wearing a dandy cap, drab jacket, breeches of the same hue, white neckcloth, stick-up collar, and brown driving-gloves—in short, he was the handsome, horsy young buck who had visited Joan a week or two before to get her answer about Tess.

Mrs. Durbeyfield clapped her hands like a child. Then she looked down, then stared again. Could she be deceived as to the meaning of this?

‘Is dat the gentleman-kinsman who’ll make Sissy a lady?’ asked the youngest child.

Meanwhile the muslined form of Tess could be seen standing still, undecided, beside this turn-out, whose owner was talking to her. Her seeming indecision was, in fact, more than indecision: it was misgiving. She would have preferred the humble cart. The young man dismounted, and appeared to urge her to ascend. She turned her face down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group. Something seemed to quicken her to a determination; possibly the thought that she had killed Prince. She suddenly stepped up; he mounted beside her, and immediately whipped on the horse. In a moment they had passed the slow cart with the box, and disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill.

Directly Tess was out of sight, and the interest of the matter as a drama was at an end, the little ones’ eyes filled with tears. The youngest child said, ‘I wish poor, poor Tess wasn’t gone away to be a lady!’ and, lowering the corners of his lips, burst out crying. The new point of view was infectious, and the next child did likewise, and then the next, till the whole three of them wailed loud.