الفصل الفصل 8 · Chapter VIII The Present

. Chapter VIII The Present

Having mounted beside her, Alec d’Urberville drove rapidly along the

crest of the first hill, chatting compliments to Tess as they went, the

cart with her box being left far behind. Rising still, an immense

landscape stretched around them on every side; behind, the green valley

of her birth, before, a gray country of which she knew nothing except

from her first brief visit to Trantridge. Thus they reached the verge

of an incline down which the road stretched in a long straight descent

of nearly a mile.

Ever since the accident with her father’s horse Tess Durbeyfield,

courageous as she naturally was, had been exceedingly timid on wheels;

the least irregularity of motion startled her. She began to get uneasy

at a certain recklessness in her conductor’s driving.

“You will go down slow, sir, I suppose?” she said with attempted

unconcern.

D’Urberville looked round upon her, nipped his cigar with the tips of

his large white centre-teeth, and allowed his lips to smile slowly of

themselves.

“Why, Tess,” he answered, after another whiff or two, “it isn’t a brave

bouncing girl like you who asks that? Why, I always go down at full

gallop. There’s nothing like it for raising your spirits.”

“But perhaps you need not now?”

“Ah,” he said, shaking his head, “there are two to be reckoned with. It

is not me alone. Tib has to be considered, and she has a very queer

temper.”

“Who?”

“Why, this mare. I fancy she looked round at me in a very grim way just

then. Didn’t you notice it?”

“Don’t try to frighten me, sir,” said Tess stiffly.

“Well, I don’t. If any living man can manage this horse I can: I won’t

say any living man can do it—but if such has the power, I am he.”

“Why do you have such a horse?”

“Ah, well may you ask it! It was my fate, I suppose. Tib has killed one

chap; and just after I bought her she nearly killed me. And then, take

my word for it, I nearly killed her. But she’s touchy still, very

touchy; and one’s life is hardly safe behind her sometimes.”

They were just beginning to descend; and it was evident that the horse,

whether of her own will or of his (the latter being the more likely),

knew so well the reckless performance expected of her that she hardly

required a hint from behind.

Down, down, they sped, the wheels humming like a top, the dog-cart

rocking right and left, its axis acquiring a slightly oblique set in

relation to the line of progress; the figure of the horse rising and

falling in undulations before them. Sometimes a wheel was off the

ground, it seemed, for many yards; sometimes a stone was sent spinning

over the hedge, and flinty sparks from the horse’s hoofs outshone the

daylight. The aspect of the straight road enlarged with their advance,

the two banks dividing like a splitting stick; one rushing past at each

shoulder.

The wind blew through Tess’s white muslin to her very skin, and her

washed hair flew out behind. She was determined to show no open fear,

but she clutched d’Urberville’s rein-arm.

“Don’t touch my arm! We shall be thrown out if you do! Hold on round my

waist!”

She grasped his waist, and so they reached the bottom.

“Safe, thank God, in spite of your fooling!” said she, her face on

fire.

“Tess—fie! that’s temper!” said d’Urberville.

“’Tis truth.”

“Well, you need not let go your hold of me so thanklessly the moment

you feel yourself out of danger.”

She had not considered what she had been doing; whether he were man or

woman, stick or stone, in her involuntary hold on him. Recovering her

reserve, she sat without replying, and thus they reached the summit of

another declivity.

“Now then, again!” said d’Urberville.

“No, no!” said Tess. “Show more sense, do, please.”

“But when people find themselves on one of the highest points in the

county, they must get down again,” he retorted.

He loosened rein, and away they went a second time. D’Urberville turned

his face to her as they rocked, and said, in playful raillery: “Now

then, put your arms round my waist again, as you did before, my

Beauty.”

“Never!” said Tess independently, holding on as well as she could

without touching him.

“Let me put one little kiss on those holmberry lips, Tess, or even on

that warmed cheek, and I’ll stop—on my honour, I will!”

Tess, surprised beyond measure, slid farther back still on her seat, at

which he urged the horse anew, and rocked her the more.

“Will nothing else do?” she cried at length, in desperation, her large

eyes staring at him like those of a wild animal. This dressing her up

so prettily by her mother had apparently been to lamentable purpose.

“Nothing, dear Tess,” he replied.

“Oh, I don’t know—very well; I don’t mind!” she panted miserably.

He drew rein, and as they slowed he was on the point of imprinting the

desired salute, when, as if hardly yet aware of her own modesty, she

dodged aside. His arms being occupied with the reins there was left him

no power to prevent her manœuvre.

“Now, damn it—I’ll break both our necks!” swore her capriciously

passionate companion. “So you can go from your word like that, you

young witch, can you?”

“Very well,” said Tess, “I’ll not move since you be so determined! But

I—thought you would be kind to me, and protect me, as my kinsman!”

“Kinsman be hanged! Now!”

“But I don’t want anybody to kiss me, sir!” she implored, a big tear

beginning to roll down her face, and the corners of her mouth trembling

in her attempts not to cry. “And I wouldn’t ha’ come if I had known!”

He was inexorable, and she sat still, and d’Urberville gave her the

kiss of mastery. No sooner had he done so than she flushed with shame,

took out her handkerchief, and wiped the spot on her cheek that had

been touched by his lips. His ardour was nettled at the sight, for the

act on her part had been unconsciously done.

“You are mighty sensitive for a cottage girl!” said the young man.

Tess made no reply to this remark, of which, indeed, she did not quite

comprehend the drift, unheeding the snub she had administered by her

instinctive rub upon her cheek. She had, in fact, undone the kiss, as

far as such a thing was physically possible. With a dim sense that he

was vexed she looked steadily ahead as they trotted on near Melbury

Down and Wingreen, till she saw, to her consternation, that there was

yet another descent to be undergone.

“You shall be made sorry for that!” he resumed, his injured tone still

remaining, as he flourished the whip anew. “Unless, that is, you agree

willingly to let me do it again, and no handkerchief.”

She sighed. “Very well, sir!” she said. “Oh—let me get my hat!”

At the moment of speaking her hat had blown off into the road, their

present speed on the upland being by no means slow. D’Urberville pulled

up, and said he would get it for her, but Tess was down on the other

side.

She turned back and picked up the article.

“You look prettier with it off, upon my soul, if that’s possible,” he

said, contemplating her over the back of the vehicle. “Now then, up

again! What’s the matter?”

The hat was in place and tied, but Tess had not stepped forward.

“No, sir,” she said, revealing the red and ivory of her mouth as her

eye lit in defiant triumph; “not again, if I know it!”

“What—you won’t get up beside me?”

“No; I shall walk.”

“’Tis five or six miles yet to Trantridge.”

“I don’t care if ’tis dozens. Besides, the cart is behind.”

“You artful hussy! Now, tell me—didn’t you make that hat blow off on

purpose? I’ll swear you did!”

Her strategic silence confirmed his suspicion.

Then d’Urberville cursed and swore at her, and called her everything he

could think of for the trick. Turning the horse suddenly he tried to

drive back upon her, and so hem her in between the gig and the hedge.

But he could not do this short of injuring her.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for using such wicked words!”

cried Tess with spirit, from the top of the hedge into which she had

scrambled. “I don’t like ’ee at all! I hate and detest you! I’ll go

back to mother, I will!”

D’Urberville’s bad temper cleared up at sight of hers; and he laughed

heartily.

“Well, I like you all the better,” he said. “Come, let there be peace.

I’ll never do it any more against your will. My life upon it now!”

Still Tess could not be induced to remount. She did not, however,

object to his keeping his gig alongside her; and in this manner, at a

slow pace, they advanced towards the village of Trantridge. From time

to time d’Urberville exhibited a sort of fierce distress at the sight

of the tramping he had driven her to undertake by his misdemeanour. She

might in truth have safely trusted him now; but he had forfeited her

confidence for the time, and she kept on the ground progressing

thoughtfully, as if wondering whether it would be wiser to return home.

Her resolve, however, had been taken, and it seemed vacillating even to

childishness to abandon it now, unless for graver reasons. How could

she face her parents, get back her box, and disconcert the whole scheme

for the rehabilitation of her family on such sentimental grounds?

A few minutes later the chimneys of The Slopes appeared in view, and in

a snug nook to the right the poultry-farm and cottage of Tess’s

destination.