Bab Bab 10 · Chapter X A Contract and a Quarrel

. Chapter X A Contract and a Quarrel

Every village has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, often its own

code of morality. The levity of some of the younger women in and about

Trantridge was marked, and was perhaps symptomatic of the choice spirit

who ruled The Slopes in that vicinity. The place had also a more

abiding defect; it drank hard. The staple conversation on the farms

around was on the uselessness of saving money; and smock-frocked

arithmeticians, leaning on their ploughs or hoes, would enter into

calculations of great nicety to prove that parish relief was a fuller

provision for a man in his old age than any which could result from

savings out of their wages during a whole lifetime.

The chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every Saturday

night, when work was done, to Chaseborough, a decayed market-town two

or three miles distant; and, returning in the small hours of the next

morning, to spend Sunday in sleeping off the dyspeptic effects of the

curious compounds sold to them as beer by the monopolizers of the

once-independent inns.

For a long time Tess did not join in the weekly pilgrimages. But under

pressure from matrons not much older than herself—for a field-man’s

wages being as high at twenty-one as at forty, marriage was early

here—Tess at length consented to go. Her first experience of the

journey afforded her more enjoyment than she had expected, the

hilariousness of the others being quite contagious after her monotonous

attention to the poultry-farm all the week. She went again and again.

Being graceful and interesting, standing moreover on the momentary

threshold of womanhood, her appearance drew down upon her some sly

regards from loungers in the streets of Chaseborough; hence, though

sometimes her journey to the town was made independently, she always

searched for her fellows at nightfall, to have the protection of their

companionship homeward.

This had gone on for a month or two when there came a Saturday in

September, on which a fair and a market coincided; and the pilgrims

from Trantridge sought double delights at the inns on that account.

Tess’s occupations made her late in setting out, so that her comrades

reached the town long before her. It was a fine September evening, just

before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hairlike

lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without aid from more

solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects that dance in it.

Through this low-lit mistiness Tess walked leisurely along.

She did not discover the coincidence of the market with the fair till

she had reached the place, by which time it was close upon dusk. Her

limited marketing was soon completed; and then as usual she began to

look about for some of the Trantridge cottagers.

At first she could not find them, and she was informed that most of

them had gone to what they called a private little jig at the house of

a hay-trusser and peat-dealer who had transactions with their farm. He

lived in an out-of-the-way nook of the townlet, and in trying to find

her course thither her eyes fell upon Mr d’Urberville standing at a

street corner.

“What—my Beauty? You here so late?” he said.

She told him that she was simply waiting for company homeward.

“I’ll see you again,” said he over her shoulder as she went on down the

back lane.

Approaching the hay-trussers, she could hear the fiddled notes of a

reel proceeding from some building in the rear; but no sound of dancing

was audible—an exceptional state of things for these parts, where as a

rule the stamping drowned the music. The front door being open she

could see straight through the house into the garden at the back as far

as the shades of night would allow; and nobody appearing to her knock,

she traversed the dwelling and went up the path to the outhouse whence

the sound had attracted her.

It was a windowless erection used for storage, and from the open door

there floated into the obscurity a mist of yellow radiance, which at

first Tess thought to be illuminated smoke. But on drawing nearer she

perceived that it was a cloud of dust, lit by candles within the

outhouse, whose beams upon the haze carried forward the outline of the

doorway into the wide night of the garden.

When she came close and looked in she beheld indistinct forms racing up

and down to the figure of the dance, the silence of their footfalls

arising from their being overshoe in “scroff”—that is to say, the

powdery residuum from the storage of peat and other products, the

stirring of which by their turbulent feet created the nebulosity that

involved the scene. Through this floating, fusty _débris_ of peat and

hay, mixed with the perspirations and warmth of the dancers, and

forming together a sort of vegeto-human pollen, the muted fiddles

feebly pushed their notes, in marked contrast to the spirit with which

the measure was trodden out. They coughed as they danced, and laughed

as they coughed. Of the rushing couples there could barely be discerned

more than the high lights—the indistinctness shaping them to satyrs

clasping nymphs—a multiplicity of Pans whirling a multiplicity of

Syrinxes; Lotis attempting to elude Priapus, and always failing.

At intervals a couple would approach the doorway for air, and the haze

no longer veiling their features, the demigods resolved themselves into

the homely personalities of her own next-door neighbours. Could

Trantridge in two or three short hours have metamorphosed itself thus

madly!

Some Sileni of the throng sat on benches and hay-trusses by the wall;

and one of them recognized her.

“The maids don’t think it respectable to dance at The Flower-de-Luce,”

he explained. “They don’t like to let everybody see which be their

fancy-men. Besides, the house sometimes shuts up just when their jints

begin to get greased. So we come here and send out for liquor.”

“But when be any of you going home?” asked Tess with some anxiety.

“Now—a’most directly. This is all but the last jig.”

She waited. The reel drew to a close, and some of the party were in the

mind of starting. But others would not, and another dance was formed.

This surely would end it, thought Tess. But it merged in yet another.

She became restless and uneasy; yet, having waited so long, it was

necessary to wait longer; on account of the fair the roads were dotted

with roving characters of possibly ill intent; and, though not fearful

of measurable dangers, she feared the unknown. Had she been near

Marlott she would have had less dread.

“Don’t ye be nervous, my dear good soul,” expostulated, between his

coughs, a young man with a wet face and his straw hat so far back upon

his head that the brim encircled it like the nimbus of a saint. “What’s

yer hurry? To-morrow is Sunday, thank God, and we can sleep it off in

church-time. Now, have a turn with me?”

She did not abhor dancing, but she was not going to dance here. The

movement grew more passionate: the fiddlers behind the luminous pillar

of cloud now and then varied the air by playing on the wrong side of

the bridge or with the back of the bow. But it did not matter; the

panting shapes spun onwards.

They did not vary their partners if their inclination were to stick to

previous ones. Changing partners simply meant that a satisfactory

choice had not as yet been arrived at by one or other of the pair, and

by this time every couple had been suitably matched. It was then that

the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter of the

universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you

from spinning where you wanted to spin.

Suddenly there was a dull thump on the ground: a couple had fallen, and

lay in a mixed heap. The next couple, unable to check its progress,

came toppling over the obstacle. An inner cloud of dust rose around the

prostrate figures amid the general one of the room, in which a

twitching entanglement of arms and legs was discernible.

“You shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home!” burst

in female accents from the human heap—those of the unhappy partner of

the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap; she happened also to be

his recently married wife, in which assortment there was nothing

unusual at Trantridge as long as any affection remained between wedded

couples; and, indeed, it was not uncustomary in their later lives, to

avoid making odd lots of the single people between whom there might be

a warm understanding.

A loud laugh from behind Tess’s back, in the shade of the garden,

united with the titter within the room. She looked round, and saw the

red coal of a cigar: Alec d’Urberville was standing there alone. He

beckoned to her, and she reluctantly retreated towards him.

“Well, my Beauty, what are you doing here?”

She was so tired after her long day and her walk that she confided her

trouble to him—that she had been waiting ever since he saw her to have

their company home, because the road at night was strange to her. “But

it seems they will never leave off, and I really think I will wait no

longer.”

“Certainly do not. I have only a saddle-horse here to-day; but come to

The Flower-de-Luce, and I’ll hire a trap, and drive you home with me.”

Tess, though flattered, had never quite got over her original mistrust

of him, and, despite their tardiness, she preferred to walk home with

the work-folk. So she answered that she was much obliged to him, but

would not trouble him. “I have said that I will wait for ’em, and they

will expect me to now.”

“Very well, Miss Independence. Please yourself... Then I shall not

hurry... My good Lord, what a kick-up they are having there!”

He had not put himself forward into the light, but some of them had

perceived him, and his presence led to a slight pause and a

consideration of how the time was flying. As soon as he had re-lit a

cigar and walked away the Trantridge people began to collect themselves

from amid those who had come in from other farms, and prepared to leave

in a body. Their bundles and baskets were gathered up, and half an hour

later, when the clock-chime sounded a quarter past eleven, they were

straggling along the lane which led up the hill towards their homes.

It was a three-mile walk, along a dry white road, made whiter to-night

by the light of the moon.

Tess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this

one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing

staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too

freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their

gait—to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till

lately a favourite of d’Urberville’s; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the

Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already tumbled

down. Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to

the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was different. They

followed the road with a sensation that they were soaring along in a

supporting medium, possessed of original and profound thoughts,

themselves and surrounding nature forming an organism of which all the

parts harmoniously and joyously interpenetrated each other. They were

as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the moon and stars

were as ardent as they.

Tess, however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in

her father’s house that the discovery of their condition spoilt the

pleasure she was beginning to feel in the moonlight journey. Yet she

stuck to the party, for reasons above given.

In the open highway they had progressed in scattered order; but now

their route was through a field-gate, and the foremost finding a

difficulty in opening it, they closed up together.

This leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, who carried a

wicker-basket containing her mother’s groceries, her own draperies, and

other purchases for the week. The basket being large and heavy, Car had

placed it for convenience of porterage on the top of her head, where it

rode on in jeopardized balance as she walked with arms akimbo.

“Well—whatever is that a-creeping down thy back, Car Darch?” said one

of the group suddenly.

All looked at Car. Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the back

of her head a kind of rope could be seen descending to some distance

below her waist, like a Chinaman’s queue.

“’Tis her hair falling down,” said another.

No; it was not her hair: it was a black stream of something oozing from

her basket, and it glistened like a slimy snake in the cold still rays

of the moon.

“’Tis treacle,” said an observant matron.

Treacle it was. Car’s poor old grandmother had a weakness for the sweet

stuff. Honey she had in plenty out of her own hives, but treacle was

what her soul desired, and Car had been about to give her a treat of

surprise. Hastily lowering the basket the dark girl found that the

vessel containing the syrup had been smashed within.

By this time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the extraordinary

appearance of Car’s back, which irritated the dark queen into getting

rid of the disfigurement by the first sudden means available, and

independently of the help of the scoffers. She rushed excitedly into

the field they were about to cross, and flinging herself flat on her

back upon the grass, began to wipe her gown as well as she could by

spinning horizontally on the herbage and dragging herself over it upon

her elbows.

The laughter rang louder; they clung to the gate, to the posts, rested

on their staves, in the weakness engendered by their convulsions at the

spectacle of Car. Our heroine, who had hitherto held her peace, at this

wild moment could not help joining in with the rest.

It was a misfortune—in more ways than one. No sooner did the dark queen

hear the soberer richer note of Tess among those of the other

work-people than a long-smouldering sense of rivalry inflamed her to

madness. She sprang to her feet and closely faced the object of her

dislike.

“How darest th’ laugh at me, hussy!” she cried.

“I couldn’t really help it when t’others did,” apologized Tess, still

tittering.

“Ah, th’st think th’ beest everybody, dostn’t, because th’ beest first

favourite with He just now! But stop a bit, my lady, stop a bit! I’m as

good as two of such! Look here—here’s at ’ee!”

To Tess’s horror the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of her

gown—which for the added reason of its ridiculed condition she was only

too glad to be free of—till she had bared her plump neck, shoulders,

and arms to the moonshine, under which they looked as luminous and

beautiful as some Praxitelean creation, in their possession of the

faultless rotundities of a lusty country-girl. She closed her fists and

squared up at Tess.

“Indeed, then, I shall not fight!” said the latter majestically; “and

if I had known you was of that sort, I wouldn’t have so let myself down

as to come with such a whorage as this is!”

The rather too inclusive speech brought down a torrent of vituperation

from other quarters upon fair Tess’s unlucky head, particularly from

the Queen of Diamonds, who having stood in the relations to

d’Urberville that Car had also been suspected of, united with the

latter against the common enemy. Several other women also chimed in,

with an animus which none of them would have been so fatuous as to show

but for the rollicking evening they had passed. Thereupon, finding Tess

unfairly browbeaten, the husbands and lovers tried to make peace by

defending her; but the result of that attempt was directly to increase

the war.

Tess was indignant and ashamed. She no longer minded the loneliness of

the way and the lateness of the hour; her one object was to get away

from the whole crew as soon as possible. She knew well enough that the

better among them would repent of their passion next day. They were all

now inside the field, and she was edging back to rush off alone when a

horseman emerged almost silently from the corner of the hedge that

screened the road, and Alec d’Urberville looked round upon them.

“What the devil is all this row about, work-folk?” he asked.

The explanation was not readily forthcoming; and, in truth, he did not

require any. Having heard their voices while yet some way off he had

ridden creepingly forward, and learnt enough to satisfy himself.

Tess was standing apart from the rest, near the gate. He bent over

towards her. “Jump up behind me,” he whispered, “and we’ll get shot of

the screaming cats in a jiffy!”

She felt almost ready to faint, so vivid was her sense of the crisis.

At almost any other moment of her life she would have refused such

proffered aid and company, as she had refused them several times

before; and now the loneliness would not of itself have forced her to

do otherwise. But coming as the invitation did at the particular

juncture when fear and indignation at these adversaries could be

transformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over them, she

abandoned herself to her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon

his instep, and scrambled into the saddle behind him. The pair were

speeding away into the distant gray by the time that the contentious

revellers became aware of what had happened.

The Queen of Spades forgot the stain on her bodice, and stood beside

the Queen of Diamonds and the new-married, staggering young woman—all

with a gaze of fixity in the direction in which the horse’s tramp was

diminishing into silence on the road.

“What be ye looking at?” asked a man who had not observed the incident.

“Ho-ho-ho!” laughed dark Car.

“Hee-hee-hee!” laughed the tippling bride, as she steadied herself on

the arm of her fond husband.

“Heu-heu-heu!” laughed dark Car’s mother, stroking her moustache as she

explained laconically: “Out of the frying-pan into the fire!”

Then these children of the open air, whom even excess of alcohol could

scarce injure permanently, betook themselves to the field-path; and as

they went there moved onward with them, around the shadow of each one’s

head, a circle of opalized light, formed by the moon’s rays upon the

glistening sheet of dew. Each pedestrian could see no halo but his or

her own, which never deserted the head-shadow, whatever its vulgar

unsteadiness might be; but adhered to it, and persistently beautified

it; till the erratic motions seemed an inherent part of the

irradiation, and the fumes of their breathing a component of the

night’s mist; and the spirit of the scene, and of the moonlight, and of

Nature, seemed harmoniously to mingle with the spirit of wine.