“I tried her fate in the Fortune-Teller, and it brought out that very thing……You should ha'seen ho w pretty she look ed to-day; her sk in is as sumple as a duchess's.”
“What says the maid herself to going?”
“I've not asked her.She don't know there is any such lady-relation yet.But it would certainly put her in the way of a gr and marriage, and sh e won't say nay to going.”
“Tess is queer.”
“But she's tractable at bottom.Leave her to me.”
Though this conversation had been private, sufficient of its import reached the understandings of those around to suggest to them that the Durbeyfields had weightier concerns to talk of now than common folks had, and that Tess, their pretty eldest daughter, had fine prospects, in store.
“Tess is a f ine figure o'fun, as I s aid to myself to-day when I zeed her vamping round parish with the rest, ”observed one of the elderly boozers in an undertone.“But Joan Durbeyfield must mind that she don't get green malt in floor.”It was a local phr ase which h ad a peculiar meaning, and there was no reply.
The conversation b ecame inclusive, and presen tly other footsteps wer e heard crossing the room below.
“—Being a few private friends asked in to-night to keep up clubwalking at my own exp ense.”The landlady had rapidly re-used the for mula 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 s adly out of place amid the alcoho lic vapours which flo ated here as no u nsuitable medium for wrinkled middle-age; and h ardly was a reproachful flash from Tess's dark eyes needed to make her father and mother rise from their seats, hastily finish their ale, and descend th e stairs beh ind her, Mrs.Rolliv er's caution following their footsteps.
“No noise, please, if ye'll be so good, my dears; or I mid lose my licends, and be summons'd, and I don't know what all！'Night tye！”
They went h ome together, Tess holding one ar m of her father, and Mrs.Durbeyfield the other.He had, in tru th, drunk very little—not a fourth of th equantity which a sy stematic tippler could car ry to church on a Sunday
afternoon without a h itch in his castin gs or genuflections; but the weakness of Sir John's constitution made mountains of h is petty sins in th is k ind.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 produ ced a co mical effect, f requent enough in families on nocturnal homegoings; and, like most comical effects, not quite so comic after all.The two women valiantly disguised these forced excursions and countermarches as well as they could from Durbeyfield their cause, and fr om Abraham, and from themselves; and so they approached by degrees their own door, the head of th e f amily burs ting sudden ly into h is f ormer refrain as he drew near, as if to f ortify his soul at sigh t of the s mallness of his pres ent residence—
“I've got a fam—ily vault at Kingsbere！”
“Hush—don't be so sill y, Jacky, ”said h is wif e.“Yours is n ot t he on ly family that was of'count in wold days.Look at the Anktells, and Horseys, and the Tringhams themselves—gone to seed a'most as much as you—though you was bigger f olks than they, that's true.Thank God, I was never of no fam ily, and have nothing to be ashamed of in that way！”
“Don't y ou be so sure o'that.From y our nater'tis m y belief y ou've disgraced yourselves more than any o'us, and was kings and queens outright at one time.”
Tess turned the subject by saying what was far more prominent in her own mind at the moment than thoughts of her ancestry—
“I am afraid father won't be ab le to take the journey with the beehiv es to-morrow so early.”
“I?I shall be all right in an hour or two, ”said Durbeyfield.
It was elev en o'clock before the family were all in bed, and two o'clock next morning was the latest hour for starting with the beehives if they were to be delivered to the retailers in Casterbridge before the Saturday market began, the way thither lying, by bad roads over a distance of between twenty and thirty miles, and the horse and waggon b eing of the slowest.At half-past on e Mrs.Durbeyfield came into the large bedroom where Tess and all her little brothersand 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 someb ody m ust go, ”she rep lied.“It is la te for the h ives alre ady.Swarming will soon be over for the year; and if we put off taking'em till next week's m arket the call for'em will be pas t, and they'll be thrown on our hands.”
Mrs.Durbeyfield looked unequal to the emergency.“Some young feller, perhaps, would go?One of them wh o were so much after dancing with'ee yesterday, ”she presently suggested.
“O no—I wouldn't have it for the world！”d eclared Tess pro udly.“And letting everybody know the reason—such a thing to be ash amed of！I think I could go if Abraham could go with me to kip me company.”
Her m other at leng th 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 cloth es while still mentally in the o ther world.Mean while Tess had hastily dressed herself; and the twain, lighting a lantern, went out to the stable.The r ickety little waggo n was alr eady laden, an d the girl led out the h orse 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, wh en 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 candleends into the lantern, hung the latter to the off-side of the load, and dir ected the horse onward, walking at his shoulder a t first during the uphill parts of the way, in order not to overload an animal of so little vigour.To cheer themselves as well as they could, they made an artificial morning with the lan tern, some bread and butter, and their own conversation, the real morning being far from come.Abraham, as he more fully awoke（for he had moved in a sor t of trance so far）, began to talk o f 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 th ey had passed the little tow n of Stourcastle, dumbly somnolen t under its thick brown thatch, they reached higher ground.Still higher, on their left, the elevatio n called Bulb arrow or Bealbarr ow, well-nigh the h ighest in South Wess ex, swelled into the sky, engir dled b y its ea rthen tren ches.Fro m hereabout th e long road was fairly level for so me distance onward.They mounted in front of the waggon, and Abraham grew reflective.
“Tess！”he said in a preparatory tone, after a silence.
“Yes, Abraham.”
“Bain't you glad that we've become gentlefolk?”
“Not particular glad.”
“But you be glad that you'm going to marry a gentleman?”
“What?”said Tess, lifting her face.
“That our great relation will help'ee to marry a gentleman.”
“I?Our great relation?We have no such relation.What has p ut that in to your head?”
“I heard'em talking about it up a t Rolliver's when I went to find fath er.There's a rich lady of our family out at Trantridge, and mother said that if you claimed kin with the lady, she'd put'ee in the way of marrying a gentleman.”
His sister became abru ptly still, an d lapsed in to a pondering silence.Abraham talked on, rath er for th e pleasure of u tterance than for audition, so that his sister's abstraction was of no account.He leant back against the hives, and with upturned face made observations on the stars, whose cold pulses were beating amid the black hollows above, in serene dissociation from these two wisps of human life.He asked how far away those twinklers were, and whether God was on the o ther side of them.But ever and anon his child ish pr attle recurred to what impressed his imagination even more deeply than the wonders of creation.I f Tess were made rich b y marrying a gentleman, would she hav e money enough to buy a spy-glass so large that it would draw the stars as near to her as Nettlecombe-Tout?
The renewed subject, which seemed to have impregnated the whole family, filled Tess with impatience.
“Never mind that now！”she exclaimed.
“Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?”
“Yes.”
“All like ours?”
“I don't know; but I think so.They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our srubbard-tree.Most of them splendid and sound—a few blighted.”
“Which do we live on—a splendid one or a blighted one?”
“A blighted one.”
“'Tis very unlucky that we didn't pitch on a sou nd one, when there wer e so many more of'em！”
“Yes.”
“Is it like that really, Tess?”said Abraham, turning to her much impressed, on reconsideration of this rare information.“How would it have been if we had pitched on a sound one?”
“Well, father wouldn't have coughed and creeped about as he does, an d wouldn't have got too tipsy to go this journey; and mother wouldn't have been always washing, and never geeting finished.”
“And you would hav e been a r ich lady ready-made, and no t have to be made rich by marrying a gentleman?”
“O Aby, don't—don't talk of that any more！”
Left to his reflections Abraham soon grew drowsy.Tess was not skilful in the management of a horse, but she thought that she could take upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the pr esent, 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 r eins into her o wn hands, jogged on as before.
Prince requ ired but slight atten tion, lack ing energy for superfluou s movements of any sort.With no longer a co mpanion to d istract her, Tess fell more de eply into reverie than ever, her back le aning ag ainst the h ives.The mute pro cession past her shoulders of trees and hedges becam e attached to fantastic scenes outside r eality, and the occas ional heave of the wind beca me the sigh of some immense sad soul, c onterminous 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 he r fath er's pride; th e g entlemanly suitor awa iting herse lf in hermother's fancy; to see him as a gr imacing personage, laughing at her pov erty, and her sh rouded king htly ances try.Every thing grew more and more extravagant, and she no longer knew how time passed.A sudden jerk shook her in her seat, and Tess awoke from the sleep into which she, too, had fallen.
They were a long way further on than when she had lost consciousness, and the wag gon had sto pped.A hollow groan, unlike anything she had ever heard in her life, came from the front, followed by a shout of“Hoi there！”
The lantern hanging at her waggon had gone out, but another was shining in her fac e—much br ighter than her own had been.So mething terrible had happened.The harness was entangled with an object which blocked the way.
In consternation Tess jumped down, and d iscovered the dreadful truth.The gro an h ad proceeded fro m her f ather's poor horse Pr ince.Th e morning mail-cart, with its two n oiseless wheels, sp eeding along these lanes like an arrow, as it always did, had driven into her slow and unlig hted equipage.The pointed shaft of th e cart had entered the breast o f the unhapp y Prince lik e a sword, and from the wo und his life's blood was spouting in a s tream, and falling with a hiss into the road.
In her despair Tess spran g forward an d put her h and upon the hole, with the only result that she became splashed from face to skirt with the crimson drops.Then she stood helplessly looking on.Prince also stood fir m and motionless as long as he could; till he suddenly sank down in a heap.
By this tim e the mail-cart man had joined her, and began dr agging and unharnessing the hot form of Prince.But he was already dead, and, seeing that nothing more cou ld b e done immed iately, th e mail-cart man return ed to his own animal, which was uninjured.
“You was o n the wrong side, ”he said.“I am bo und to go o n with th e mail-bags, so that the best thing for you to do is to bide here with your load.I'll send somebody to help you as soon as I can.It is getting daylight, and you have nothing to fear.”
He m ounted and sped on his way; while Tess stood and waited.Th e atmosphere turned pale, the birds shook them selves in the hedges, arose, and twittered; th e l ane showed a ll i ts wh ite featur es, and Tess sh owed hers, s till whiter.The huge poo l of blood in front of h er was alread y assum ing theiridescence of coagulation; and when the sun ro se a hundred pris matic hues were reflected from it.Prince lay alongside still and stark; his eyes half op en, the hole in his chest look ing scarcely large enough to hav e 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 n ow?Aby, Aby！”She shook the child, who had s lept soundly through the whole disaster.“We can't go on with our load—Prince is killed！”
When Abraham realized all, the furrows of fifty years were extemporized on his young face.
“Why, I danced and laughed only yesterday！”she went on to herself.“To think that I was such a fool！”
“'Tis because we be on a blighted star, and no t a sound one, isn't it, Tess?”murmured Abraham through his tears.
In silence they waited through an interval which seemed endless.At length a sound, an d an appro aching object, proved to them th at th e dr iver of the mail-cart had been as good as his wo rd.A farmer's man from near Stourcastle came up, leading a strong cob.He was harnessed to the waggon of beehives in the place of Prince, and the load taken on towards Casterbridge.
The evening of the sam e day saw the em pty waggon reach again the spo t of the ac cident.Prince had lain there in the di tch since th e morning; but the place of the bloodpoo l was still v isible in the middle of the road, tho ugh scratched and scraped over by passing vehicles.All that was left of Prin ce was now hoisted into the waggon he had formerly hauled, and with his hoofs in the air, and h is shoes shinin g in the setting sunligh t, he retraced the eigh t or nin e miles to Marlott.
Tess had go ne back earlier.How to break the news was more th an sh e could think.It was a relief to her tongue to find f rom the faces of her parents that they already knew of their loss, though this did not lessen the selfreproach which she continued to heap upon herself for her negligence.
But the very shiftlessness of the household, rendered the misfortune a less terrifying one to them than it would have been to a striving family, though in the present case it meant ru in, and in th e o ther i t wou ld o nly have meantinconvenience.In the Durbeyfield countenances there was no thing of the red wrath that would have burnt upon the girl from parents more ambitious for her welfare.Nobody blamed Tess as she blamed herself.
When it was discover ed that the knacker and tanner would g ive on ly a very few shillings for Prince's carcase because of his decrepitude.Durbeyfield rose to the occasion.
“No, ”said he stoically, “I won't sell his old body.When we d'Urbervilles was knights in the land, we didn't sell our chargers for cat's meat.Let'em keep their shillings！He've served me well in his lifetime, and I won't part from him now.”
He worked harder the next day in digging a grave for Prince in the garden than he had worked for months to gr ow a crop fo r his family.When th e hole was ready, Durbeyfield and his wif e tied a rope round the h orse and drag ged him up the path towards it, the children following in funer al train.Abraham and'Liza-Lu sobbed, Hope and Mod esty discharged their griefs in loud b lares which echoed from the walls; and when Prince was tumbled in th ey 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 Durbeyfield began to shovel in the earth, and the children cried anew.All except Tess.Her f ace was dry and pale, as though she regarded h erself in the light of a murderess.
5
The haggling busin ess, which had mainly depended on the hors e, became disorganized forthwith.Distress, if not penury, loomed in the distance.Durbeyfield was what was loc ally 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, meanuhile, as th e one who had dr agged her parents in to this quagmire, was silently wondering what she could do to help them out of it; and then her mother broached her scheme.
“We must take the ups wi'the downs, Tess, ”said she; “and n ever could your high blood have been found out at a more called-for moment.You must try your friends.Do y e know that there is a very rich Mrs.d'Urberville living on the outskirts o'The Chase, who must be our relation?You must go to her and claim kin, and ask for some help in our trouble.”
“I shouldn't care to do that, ”says Tess.“If there is such a lady, 'twould be enough for us if she were friendly—not to expect her to give us help.”
“You could win h er ro und to do any thing, my dear.Bes ides, perh aps there's more in it than you know of.I've heard what I've heard, good-now.”
The oppr essive sens e of the har m s he had done led Tess to be more deferential than she mig ht otherwise have been to the maternal wish; but she could not understand why her mother should find such satisfaction in contemplating an enter prise of, to her, such doubtf ul profit.Her m other might have made inquiries, and have discovered that this Mrs.d'Urberville was a lady of unequalled virtu es an d charity.But Tess's pride made the part of po or relation one of particular distaste to her.
“I'd rather try to get work, ”she murmured.
“Durbeyfield, you can settle it, ”said his wife, tur ning to wher e he sat i n the background.“If you say she ought to go, she will go.”
“I don't lik e my ch ildren go ing and making themselves b eholden t o strange kin, ”murmured he.“I'm the head of the noblest branch o'the family, and I ought to live up to it.”
His reasons for staying away were worse to Tess than her own 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 Shaston, and there took advantage of a van which twice in the week ran from Shaston eastward to Chaseborough, passing n ear Tr antridge, th e par ish in which the vague and mysterious Mrs.d'Urberville had her residence.
Tess Durbe yfield's rout e on this memorable morning lay a mid t henorth-eastern undulations of the Vale in which she had been born, and in which her life had unfolded.Th e Vale of Black moor was to her the world, an d its inhabitants the ra ces thereof.Fro m the ga tes an d stiles of Marlott she had looked down its len gth in the wondering day s of infancy, and what had been mystery to her then was not much less than mystery to her n ow.She had seen daily from her chamber-window towers, villages, faint white mansions; above all the town of Shaston standing majestically on its height; its windows shining like lamps in the ev ening sun.She had hard ly ever v isited the place, on ly a small tr act even of the Vale and its envir ons 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; bu t for what lay bey ond her judgment was dependen t on the teach ing of th e villag e school, where she had held a leading place at the time of her leaving, a year or two before this date.
In those early days she had been much loved by others of her own sex and age, and had used to be seen about the village as one of three—all nearly of the same year—walking home from school side by side; Tess the middle one—in a pink print pinafore, of a finely reticulated pattern, worn over a stuff frock that had lost its original colour for a nonde tertiary—marching on upon long stalky legs, in tigh t stockings which had little ladder-like holes at the kn ees, torn by kneeling in the roads and banks in sear ch 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 m atters stood, she felt quite a Malthusian towards her m other for thought lessly givin g her so many little sisters and brothers, when it was such a trouble to nurse and provide for them.Her m other's intelligenc e was that of a happy child：Joan Durbeyfield was simply an additional on e, and th at not the eldest, to her o wn long f amily of waiters on Providence.
However, Tess becam e humanely beneficent towards the s mall ones, an d 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, atmilking or b utter-making processes, which she h ad learnt when her fa ther had owned cows; and being deftf ingered it was a kind of wor k in which she excelled.
Every day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders more of the family burdens, and that Tess should be the representative of the Durbeyfields at the d'Urberville mansion came as a th ing of course.In this instance it must b e admitted that the Durbeyfields were putting their fairest side forward.
