THE TWAIN CANTERED along for some time without speech, Tess as she clung to him still panting in her triumph, yet in other respects dubious. She had perceived that the horse was not the spirited one he sometimes rode, and felt no alarm on that score, though her seat was precarious enough despite her tight hold of him. She begged him to slow the animal to a walk, which Alec accordingly did.
“Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess?” he said by and by.
“Yes!” said she. “I am sure I ought to be much obliged to you.”
“And are you?”
She did not reply.
“Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you?”
“I suppose—because I don’t love you.”
“You are quite sure?”
“I am angry with you sometimes!”
“Ah, I half feared as much.” Nevertheless, Alec did not object to that confession. He knew that anything was better than frigidity. “Why haven’t you told me when I have made you angry?”
“You know very well why. Because I cannot help myself here.”
“I haven’t offended you often by love-making?”
“You have sometimes.”
“How many times?”
“You know as well as I—too many times.”
“Every time I have tried?”
She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows all the evening, became general and enveloped them. It seemed to hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in clear air. Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.
She was inexpressibly weary. She had risen at five o‘clock every morning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on this evening had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough, waited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking, her impatience to start them preventing either; she had then walked a mile of the way home and had undergone the excitement of the quarrel till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now nearly one o’clock. Only once, however, was she overcome by actual drowsiness. In that moment of oblivion her head sank gently against him.
D‘Urberville stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups, turned sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to support her.
This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a little push from her. In his ticklish position he nearly lost his balance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse, though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode.
“That is devilish unkind!” he said. “I mean no harm—only to keep you from falling.”
She pondered suspiciously, till, thinking that this might after all be true, she relented and said quite humbly, “I beg your pardon, sir.”
“I won’t pardon you unless you show some confidence in me. Good God!” he burst out. “What am I, to be repulsed so by a mere chit like you? For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings, eluded me, and snubbed me; and I won’t stand it!”
“I’ll leave you to-morrow, sir.”
“No, you will not leave me to-morrow! Will you, I ask once more, show your belief in me by letting me clasp you with my arm? Come, between us two and nobody else, now. We know each other well; and you know that I love you and think you the prettiest girl in the world, which you are. Mayn’t I treat you as a lover?”
She drew a quick, pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on her seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, “I don’t know—I wish—how can I say yes or no when—”
He settled the matter by clasping his arm round her as he desired, and Tess expressed no further negative. Thus they sidled slowly onward till it struck her they had been advancing for an unconscionable time—far longer than was usually occupied by the short journey from Chaseborough, even at this walking pace, and that they were no longer on hard road but in a mere trackway.
“Why, where be we?” she exclaimed.
“Passing by a wood.”
“A wood—what wood? Surely we are quite out of the road?”
“A bit of The Chase—the oldest wood in England. It is a lovely night, and why should we not prolong our ride a little?”
“How could you be so treacherous!” said Tess between archness and real dismay, and getting rid of his arm by pulling open his fingers one by one, though at the risk of slipping off herself. “Just when I’ve been putting such trust in you and obliging you to please you because I thought I had wronged you by that push! Please set me down and let me walk home.”
“You cannot walk home, darling, even if the air were clear. We are miles away from Trantridge, if I must tell you, and in this growing fog you might wander for hours among these trees.”
“Never mind that,” she coaxed. “Put me down, I beg you. I don’t mind where it is; only let me get down, sir, please!”
“Very well, then, I will—on one condition. Having brought you here to this out-of-the-way place, I feel myself responsible for your safe-conduct home, whatever you may yourself feel about it. As to your getting to Trantridge without assistance, it is quite impossible; for to tell the truth, dear, owing to this fog, which so disguises everything, I don’t quite know where we are myself. Now, if you will promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through the bushes till I come to some road or house and ascertain exactly our whereabouts, I’ll deposit you here willingly. When I come back I’ll give you full directions, and if you insist upon walking you may; or you may ride—at your pleasure.”
She accepted these terms and slid off on the near side, though not till he had stolen a cursory kiss. He sprang down on the other side.
“I suppose I must hold the horse?” said she.
“Oh no; it’s not necessary,” replied Alec, patting the panting creature. “He’s had enough of it for to-night.”
He turned the horse’s head into the bushes, hitched him to a bough, and made a sort of couch or nest for her in the deep mass of dead leaves.
“Now, you sit there,” he said. “The leaves have not got damp as yet. Just give an eye to the horse—it will be quite sufficient.”
He took a few steps away from her, but, returning, said, “By the by, Tess, your father has a new cob today. Somebody gave it to him.”
“Somebody? You!”
D‘Urberville nodded.
“Oh how very good of you that is!” she exclaimed with a painful sense of the awkwardness of having to thank him just then.
“And the children have some toys.”
“I didn’t know—you ever sent them anything!” she murmured, much moved. “I almost wish you had not—yes, I almost wish it!”
“Why, dear?”
“It—hampers me so.”
“Tessy—don’t you love me ever so little now?”
“I’m grateful,” she reluctantly admitted. “But I fear I do not—” The sudden vision of his passion for herself as a factor in this result so distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear and then following with another, she wept outright.
“Don’t cry, dear, dear one! Now sit down here and wait till I come.” She passively sat down amid the leaves he had heaped, and shivered slightly. “Are you cold?” he asked.
“Not very—a little.”
He touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as into down. “You have only that puffy muslin dress on—how’s that?”
“It’s my best summer one. ‘Twas very warm when I started, and I didn’t know I was going to ride and that it would be night.”
“Nights grow chilly in September. Let me see.” He pulled off a light overcoat that he had worn and put it round her tenderly. “That’s it—now you’ll feel warmer,” he continued. “Now, my
pretty, rest there; I shall soon be back again.”
Having buttoned the overcoat round her shoulders, he plunged into the webs of vapour which by this time formed veils between the trees. She could hear the rustling of the branches as he ascended the adjoining slope, till his movements were no louder than the hopping of a bird and finally died away. With the setting of the moon the pale light lessened, and Tess became invisible as she fell into reverie upon the leaves where he had left her.
In the meantime Alec d‘Urberville had pushed on up the slope to clear his genuine doubt as to the quarter of The Chase they were in. He had, in fact, ridden quite at random for over an hour, taking any turning that came to hand in order to prolong companionship with her and giving far more attention to Tess’s moonlit person than to any wayside object. A little rest for the jaded animal being desirable, he did not hasten his search for landmarks. A clamber over the hill into the adjoining vale brought him to the fence of a highway whose contours he recognized, which settled the question of their whereabouts. D’Urberville thereupon turned back; but by this time the moon had quite gone down, and partly on account of the fog The Chase was wrapped in thick darkness, although morning was not far off. He was obliged to advance with outstretched hands to avoid contact with the boughs, and discovered that to hit the exact spot from which he had started was at first entirely beyond him. Roaming up and down, round and round, he at length heard a slight movement of the horse close at hand; and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly caught his foot.
“Tess!” said D‘Urberville.
There was no answer. The obscurity was now so great that he could see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which represented the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves. Everything else was blackness alike. D‘Urberville stooped and heard a gentle regular breathing. He knelt and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears.
Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around. Above them rose the primeval yews and oaks of The Chase, in which were poised gentle roosting birds in their last nap; and about them stole the hopping rabbits and hares. But, might some say, where was Tess’s guardian angel? Where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked.
Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d‘Urberville’s mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant-girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter.
As Tess’s own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: “It was to be.” There lay the pity of it. An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our heroine’s personality thereafter from that previous self of hers who stepped from her mother’s door to try her fortune at Trantridge poultry-farm.
END OF PHASE THE FIRST
PHASE THE SECOND
Maiden No More
12
THE BASKET was heavy and the bundle was large, but she lugged them along like a person who did not find her especial burden in material things. Occasionally she stopped to rest in a mechanical way by some gate or post, and then, giving the baggage another hitch upon her full round arm, went steadily on again.
It was a Sunday morning in late October, about four months after Tess Durbeyfield’s arrival at Trantridge and some few weeks subsequent to the night ride in The Chase. The time was not long past daybreak, and the yellow luminosity upon the horizon behind her back lighted the ridge towards which her face was set—the barrier of the vale wherein she had of late been a stranger—which she would have to climb over to reach her birthplace. The ascent was gradual on this side, and the soil and scenery differed much from those within Blakemore Vale. Even the character and accent of the two peoples had shades of difference, despite the amalgamating effects of a roundabout railway; so that, though less than twenty miles from the place of her sojourn at Trantridge, her native village had seemed a far-away spot. The field-folk shut in there traded northward and westward, travelled, courted, and married northward and westward, thought northward and westward; those on this side mainly directed their energies and attention to the east and south.
The incline was the same down which d‘Urberville had driven with her so wildly on that day in June. Tess went up the remainder of its length without stopping and, on reaching the edge of the escarpment, gazed over the familiar green world beyond, now half veiled in mist. It was always beautiful from here; it was terribly beautiful to Tess to-day, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing, and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson. Verily another girl than the simple one she had been at home was she who, bowed by thought, stood still here and turned to look behind her. She could not bear to look forward into the vale.
Ascending by the long white road that Tess herself had just laboured up, she saw a two-wheeled vehicle, beside which walked a man, who held up his hand to attract her attention.
She obeyed the signal to wait for him with unspeculative repose, and in a few minutes man and horse stopped beside her.
“Why did you slip away by stealth like this?” said d‘Urber ville with upbraiding breathlessness; “on a Sunday morning, too, when people were all in bed! I only discovered it by accident, and I have been driving like the deuce to overtake you. Just look at the mare. Why go off like this? You know that nobody wished to hinder your going. And how unnecessary it has been for you to toil along on foot and encumber yourself with this heavy load! I have followed like a madman, simply to drive you the rest of the distance if you won’t come back.”
“I shan’t come back,” said she.
“I thought you wouldn‘t—I said so! Well, then, put up your baskets and let me help you on.”
She listlessly placed her basket and bundle within the dog-cart and stepped up, and they sat side by side. She had no fear of him now, and in the cause of her confidence her sorrow lay.
D‘Urberville mechanically lit a cigar, and the journey was continued with broken unemotional conversation on the commonplace objects by the wayside. He had quite forgotten his struggle to kiss her when, in the early summer, they had driven in the opposite direction along the same road. But she had not, and she sat now, like a puppet, replying to his remarks in monosyllables. After some miles they came in view of the clump of trees beyond which the village of Marlott stood. It was only then that her still face showed the least emotion, a tear or two beginning to trickle down.
“What are you crying for?” he coldly asked.
“I was only thinking that I was born over there,” murmured Tess.
“Well—we must all be born somewhere.”
“I wish I had never been born—there or anywhere else!”
“Pooh! Well, if you didn’t wish to come to Trantridge, why did you come?”
She did not reply.
“You didn’t come for love of me, that I’ll swear.”
“ ‘Tis quite true. If I had gone for love o’ you, if I had ever sincerely loved you, if I loved you still, I should not so loathe and hate myself for my weakness as I do now! ... My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.”
He shrugged his shoulders. She resumed: “I di
dn’t understand your meaning till it was too late.”
“That’s what every woman says.”
“How can you dare to use such words!” she cried, turning impetuously upon him, her eyes flashing as the latent spirit (of which he was to see more some day) awoke in her. “My God! I could knock you out of the gig! Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel?”
“Very well,” he said, laughing; “I am sorry to wound you. I did wrong—I admit it.” He dropped into some little bitterness as he continued: “Only you needn’t be so everlastingly flinging it in my face. I am ready to pay to the uttermost farthing. You know you need not work in the fields or the dairies again. You know you may clothe yourself with the best, instead of in the bald, plain way you have lately affected, as if you couldn’t get a ribbon more than you earn.”
Her lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn, as a rule, in her large and impulsive nature.
“I have said I will not take anything more from you, and I will not—I cannot! I should be your creature to go on doing that, and I won‘t!”
“One would think you were a princess from your manner, in addition to a true and original d‘Urberville—ha! ha! Well, Tess, dear, I can say no more. I suppose I am a bad fellow—a damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability. But, upon my lost soul, I won’t be bad towards you again, Tess. And if certain circumstances should arise—you understand—in which you are in the least need, the least difficulty, send me one line and you shall have by return whatever you require. I may not be at Trantridge—I am going to London for a time—I can’t stand the old woman. But all letters will be forwarded.”
She said that she did not wish him to drive her further, and they stopped just under the clump of trees. D‘Urberville alighted and lifted her down bodily in his arms, afterwards placing her articles on the ground beside her. She bowed to him slightly, her eye just lingering in his; and then she turned to take the parcels for departure.