第 四十六 章 · Chapter XLVI Friendly Counsels

. Chapter XLVI Friendly Counsels

Several days had passed since her futile journey, and Tess was afield.

The dry winter wind still blew, but a screen of thatched hurdles

erected in the eye of the blast kept its force away from her. On the

sheltered side was a turnip-slicing machine, whose bright blue hue of

new paint seemed almost vocal in the otherwise subdued scene. Opposite

its front was a long mound or “grave”, in which the roots had been

preserved since early winter. Tess was standing at the uncovered end,

chopping off with a bill-hook the fibres and earth from each root, and

throwing it after the operation into the slicer. A man was turning the

handle of the machine, and from its trough came the newly-cut swedes,

the fresh smell of whose yellow chips was accompanied by the sounds of

the snuffling wind, the smart swish of the slicing-blades, and the

choppings of the hook in Tess’s leather-gloved hand.

The wide acreage of blank agricultural brownness, apparent where the

swedes had been pulled, was beginning to be striped in wales of darker

brown, gradually broadening to ribands. Along the edge of each of these

something crept upon ten legs, moving without haste and without rest up

and down the whole length of the field; it was two horses and a man,

the plough going between them, turning up the cleared ground for a

spring sowing.

For hours nothing relieved the joyless monotony of things. Then, far

beyond the ploughing-teams, a black speck was seen. It had come from

the corner of a fence, where there was a gap, and its tendency was up

the incline, towards the swede-cutters. From the proportions of a mere

point it advanced to the shape of a ninepin, and was soon perceived to

be a man in black, arriving from the direction of Flintcomb-Ash. The

man at the slicer, having nothing else to do with his eyes, continually

observed the comer, but Tess, who was occupied, did not perceive him

till her companion directed her attention to his approach.

It was not her hard taskmaster, Farmer Groby; it was one in a

semi-clerical costume, who now represented what had once been the

free-and-easy Alec d’Urberville. Not being hot at his preaching there

was less enthusiasm about him now, and the presence of the grinder

seemed to embarrass him. A pale distress was already on Tess’s face,

and she pulled her curtained hood further over it.

D’Urberville came up and said quietly—

“I want to speak to you, Tess.”

“You have refused my last request, not to come near me!” said she.

“Yes, but I have a good reason.”

“Well, tell it.”

“It is more serious than you may think.”

He glanced round to see if he were overheard. They were at some

distance from the man who turned the slicer, and the movement of the

machine, too, sufficiently prevented Alec’s words reaching other ears.

D’Urberville placed himself so as to screen Tess from the labourer,

turning his back to the latter.

“It is this,” he continued, with capricious compunction. “In thinking

of your soul and mine when we last met, I neglected to inquire as to

your worldly condition. You were well dressed, and I did not think of

it. But I see now that it is hard—harder than it used to be when I—knew

you—harder than you deserve. Perhaps a good deal of it is owning to

me!”

She did not answer, and he watched her inquiringly, as, with bent head,

her face completely screened by the hood, she resumed her trimming of

the swedes. By going on with her work she felt better able to keep him

outside her emotions.

“Tess,” he added, with a sigh of discontent,—“yours was the very worst

case I ever was concerned in! I had no idea of what had resulted till

you told me. Scamp that I was to foul that innocent life! The whole

blame was mine—the whole unconventional business of our time at

Trantridge. You, too, the real blood of which I am but the base

imitation, what a blind young thing you were as to possibilities! I say

in all earnestness that it is a shame for parents to bring up their

girls in such dangerous ignorance of the gins and nets that the wicked

may set for them, whether their motive be a good one or the result of

simple indifference.”

Tess still did no more than listen, throwing down one globular root and

taking up another with automatic regularity, the pensive contour of the

mere fieldwoman alone marking her.

“But it is not that I came to say,” d’Urberville went on. “My

circumstances are these. I have lost my mother since you were at

Trantridge, and the place is my own. But I intend to sell it, and

devote myself to missionary work in Africa. A devil of a poor hand I

shall make at the trade, no doubt. However, what I want to ask you is,

will you put it in my power to do my duty—to make the only reparation I

can make for the trick played you: that is, will you be my wife, and go

with me?... I have already obtained this precious document. It was my

old mother’s dying wish.”

He drew a piece of parchment from his pocket, with a slight fumbling of

embarrassment.

“What is it?” said she.

“A marriage licence.”

“O no, sir—no!” she said quickly, starting back.

“You will not? Why is that?”

And as he asked the question a disappointment which was not entirely

the disappointment of thwarted duty crossed d’Urberville’s face. It was

unmistakably a symptom that something of his old passion for her had

been revived; duty and desire ran hand-in-hand.

“Surely,” he began again, in more impetuous tones, and then looked

round at the labourer who turned the slicer.

Tess, too, felt that the argument could not be ended there. Informing

the man that a gentleman had come to see her, with whom she wished to

walk a little way, she moved off with d’Urberville across the

zebra-striped field. When they reached the first newly-ploughed section

he held out his hand to help her over it; but she stepped forward on

the summits of the earth-rolls as if she did not see him.

“You will not marry me, Tess, and make me a self-respecting man?” he

repeated, as soon as they were over the furrows.

“I cannot.”

“But why?”

“You know I have no affection for you.”

“But you would get to feel that in time, perhaps—as soon as you really

could forgive me?”

“Never!”

“Why so positive?”

“I love somebody else.”

The words seemed to astonish him.

“You do?” he cried. “Somebody else? But has not a sense of what is

morally right and proper any weight with you?”

“No, no, no—don’t say that!”

“Anyhow, then, your love for this other man may be only a passing

feeling which you will overcome—”

“No—no.”

“Yes, yes! Why not?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“You must in honour!”

“Well then.... I have married him.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed; and he stopped dead and gazed at her.

“I did not wish to tell—I did not mean to!” she pleaded. “It is a

secret here, or at any rate but dimly known. So will you, _please_ will

you, keep from questioning me? You must remember that we are now

strangers.”

“Strangers—are we? Strangers!”

For a moment a flash of his old irony marked his face; but he

determinedly chastened it down.

“Is that man your husband?” he asked mechanically, denoting by a sign

the labourer who turned the machine.

“That man!” she said proudly. “I should think not!”

“Who, then?”

“Do not ask what I do not wish to tell!” she begged, and flashed her

appeal to him from her upturned face and lash-shadowed eyes.

D’Urberville was disturbed.

“But I only asked for your sake!” he retorted hotly. “Angels of

heaven!—God forgive me for such an expression—I came here, I swear, as

I thought for your good. Tess—don’t look at me so—I cannot stand your

looks! There never were such eyes, surely, before Christianity or

since! There—I won’t lose my head; I dare not. I own that the sight of

you had waked up my love for you, which, I believed, was extinguished

with all such feelings. But I thought that our marriage might be a

sanctification for us both. ‘The unbelieving husband is sanctified by

the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband,’ I

said to myself. But my plan is dashed from me; and I must bear the

disappointment!”

He moodily reflected with his eyes on the ground.

“Married. Married!... Well, that being so,” he added, quite calmly,

tearing the licence slowly into halves and putting them in his pocket;

“that being prevented, I should like to do some good to you and your

husband, whoever he may be. There are many questions that I am tempted

to ask, but I will not do so, of course, in opposition to your wishes.

Though, if I could know your husband, I might more easily benefit him

and you. Is he on this farm?”

“No,” she murmured. “He is far away.”

“Far away? From _you_? What sort of husband can he be?”

“O, do not speak against him! It was through you! He found out—”

“Ah, is it so!... That’s sad, Tess!”

“Yes.”

“But to stay away from you—to leave you to work like this!”

“He does not leave me to work!” she cried, springing to the defence of

the absent one with all her fervour. “He don’t know it! It is by my own

arrangement.”

“Then, does he write?”

“I—I cannot tell you. There are things which are private to ourselves.”

“Of course that means that he does not. You are a deserted wife, my

fair Tess—”

In an impulse he turned suddenly to take her hand; the buff-glove was

on it, and he seized only the rough leather fingers which did not

express the life or shape of those within.

“You must not—you must not!” she cried fearfully, slipping her hand

from the glove as from a pocket, and leaving it in his grasp. “O, will

you go away—for the sake of me and my husband—go, in the name of your

own Christianity!”

“Yes, yes; I will,” he said abruptly, and thrusting the glove back to

her he turned to leave. Facing round, however, he said, “Tess, as God

is my judge, I meant no humbug in taking your hand!”

A pattering of hoofs on the soil of the field, which they had not

noticed in their preoccupation, ceased close behind them; and a voice

reached her ear:

“What the devil are you doing away from your work at this time o’ day?”

Farmer Groby had espied the two figures from the distance, and had

inquisitively ridden across, to learn what was their business in his

field.

“Don’t speak like that to her!” said d’Urberville, his face blackening

with something that was not Christianity.

“Indeed, Mister! And what mid Methodist pa’sons have to do with she?”

“Who is the fellow?” asked d’Urberville, turning to Tess.

She went close up to him.

“Go—I do beg you!” she said.

“What! And leave you to that tyrant? I can see in his face what a churl

he is.”

“He won’t hurt me. _He’s_ not in love with me. I can leave at

Lady-Day.”

“Well, I have no right but to obey, I suppose. But—well, goodbye!”

Her defender, whom she dreaded more than her assailant, having

reluctantly disappeared, the farmer continued his reprimand, which Tess

took with the greatest coolness, that sort of attack being independent

of sex. To have as a master this man of stone, who would have cuffed

her if he had dared, was almost a relief after her former experiences.

She silently walked back towards the summit of the field that was the

scene of her labour, so absorbed in the interview which had just taken

place that she was hardly aware that the nose of Groby’s horse almost

touched her shoulders.

“If so be you make an agreement to work for me till Lady-Day, I’ll see

that you carry it out,” he growled. “’Od rot the women—now ’tis one

thing, and then ’tis another. But I’ll put up with it no longer!”

Knowing very well that he did not harass the other women of the farm as

he harassed her out of spite for the flooring he had once received, she

did for one moment picture what might have been the result if she had

been free to accept the offer just made her of being the monied Alec’s

wife. It would have lifted her completely out of subjection, not only

to her present oppressive employer, but to a whole world who seemed to

despise her. “But no, no!” she said breathlessly; “I could not have

married him now! He is so unpleasant to me.”

That very night she began an appealing letter to Clare, concealing from

him her hardships, and assuring him of her undying affection. Any one

who had been in a position to read between the lines would have seen

that at the back of her great love was some monstrous fear—almost a

desperation—as to some secret contingencies which were not disclosed.

But again she did not finish her effusion; he had asked Izz to go with

him, and perhaps he did not care for her at all. She put the letter in

her box, and wondered if it would ever reach Angel’s hands.

After this her daily tasks were gone through heavily enough, and

brought on the day which was of great import to agriculturists—the day

of the Candlemas Fair. It was at this fair that new engagements were

entered into for the twelve months following the ensuing Lady-Day, and

those of the farming population who thought of changing their places

duly attended at the county-town where the fair was held. Nearly all

the labourers on Flintcomb-Ash farm intended flight, and early in the

morning there was a general exodus in the direction of the town, which

lay at a distance of from ten to a dozen miles over hilly country.

Though Tess also meant to leave at the quarter-day, she was one of the

few who did not go to the fair, having a vaguely-shaped hope that

something would happen to render another outdoor engagement

unnecessary.

It was a peaceful February day, of wonderful softness for the time, and

one would almost have thought that winter was over. She had hardly

finished her dinner when d’Urberville’s figure darkened the window of

the cottage wherein she was a lodger, which she had all to herself

to-day.

Tess jumped up, but her visitor had knocked at the door, and she could

hardly in reason run away. D’Urberville’s knock, his walk up to the

door, had some indescribable quality of difference from his air when

she last saw him. They seemed to be acts of which the doer was ashamed.

She thought that she would not open the door; but, as there was no

sense in that either, she arose, and having lifted the latch stepped

back quickly. He came in, saw her, and flung himself down into a chair

before speaking.

“Tess—I couldn’t help it!” he began desperately, as he wiped his heated

face, which had also a superimposed flush of excitement. “I felt that I

must call at least to ask how you are. I assure you I had not been

thinking of you at all till I saw you that Sunday; now I cannot get rid

of your image, try how I may! It is hard that a good woman should do

harm to a bad man; yet so it is. If you would only pray for me, Tess!”

The suppressed discontent of his manner was almost pitiable, and yet

Tess did not pity him.

“How can I pray for you,” she said, “when I am forbidden to believe

that the great Power who moves the world would alter His plans on my

account?”

“You really think that?”

“Yes. I have been cured of the presumption of thinking otherwise.”

“Cured? By whom?”

“By my husband, if I must tell.”

“Ah—your husband—your husband! How strange it seems! I remember you

hinted something of the sort the other day. What do you really believe

in these matters, Tess?” he asked. “You seem to have no

religion—perhaps owing to me.”

“But I have. Though I don’t believe in anything supernatural.”

D’Urberville looked at her with misgiving.

“Then do you think that the line I take is all wrong?”

“A good deal of it.”

“H’m—and yet I’ve felt so sure about it,” he said uneasily.

“I believe in the _spirit_ of the Sermon on the Mount, and so did my

dear husband.... But I don’t believe—”

Here she gave her negations.

“The fact is,” said d’Urberville drily, “whatever your dear husband

believed you accept, and whatever he rejected you reject, without the

least inquiry or reasoning on your own part. That’s just like you

women. Your mind is enslaved to his.”

“Ah, because he knew everything!” said she, with a triumphant

simplicity of faith in Angel Clare that the most perfect man could

hardly have deserved, much less her husband.

“Yes, but you should not take negative opinions wholesale from another

person like that. A pretty fellow he must be to teach you such

scepticism!”

“He never forced my judgement! He would never argue on the subject with

me! But I looked at it in this way; what he believed, after inquiring

deep into doctrines, was much more likely to be right than what I might

believe, who hadn’t looked into doctrines at all.”

“What used he to say? He must have said something?”

She reflected; and with her acute memory for the letter of Angel

Clare’s remarks, even when she did not comprehend their spirit, she

recalled a merciless polemical syllogism that she had heard him use

when, as it occasionally happened, he indulged in a species of thinking

aloud with her at his side. In delivering it she gave also Clare’s

accent and manner with reverential faithfulness.

“Say that again,” asked d’Urberville, who had listened with the

greatest attention.

She repeated the argument, and d’Urberville thoughtfully murmured the

words after her.

“Anything else?” he presently asked.

“He said at another time something like this”; and she gave another,

which might possibly have been paralleled in many a work of the

pedigree ranging from the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ to Huxley’s

_Essays_.

“Ah—ha! How do you remember them?”

“I wanted to believe what he believed, though he didn’t wish me to; and

I managed to coax him to tell me a few of his thoughts. I can’t say I

quite understand that one; but I know it is right.”

“H’m. Fancy your being able to teach me what you don’t know yourself!”

He fell into thought.

“And so I threw in my spiritual lot with his,” she resumed. “I didn’t

wish it to be different. What’s good enough for him is good enough for

me.”

“Does he know that you are as big an infidel as he?”

“No—I never told him—if I am an infidel.”

“Well—you are better off to-day that I am, Tess, after all! You don’t

believe that you ought to preach my doctrine, and, therefore, do no

despite to your conscience in abstaining. I do believe I ought to

preach it, but, like the devils, I believe and tremble, for I suddenly

leave off preaching it, and give way to my passion for you.”

“How?”

“Why,” he said aridly; “I have come all the way here to see you to-day!

But I started from home to go to Casterbridge Fair, where I have

undertaken to preach the Word from a waggon at half-past two this

afternoon, and where all the brethren are expecting me this minute.

Here’s the announcement.”

He drew from his breast-pocket a poster whereon was printed the day,

hour, and place of meeting, at which he, d’Urberville, would preach the

Gospel as aforesaid.

“But how can you get there?” said Tess, looking at the clock.

“I cannot get there! I have come here.”

“What, you have really arranged to preach, and—”

“I have arranged to preach, and I shall not be there—by reason of my

burning desire to see a woman whom I once despised!—No, by my word and

truth, I never despised you; if I had I should not love you now! Why I

did not despise you was on account of your being unsmirched in spite of

all; you withdrew yourself from me so quickly and resolutely when you

saw the situation; you did not remain at my pleasure; so there was one

petticoat in the world for whom I had no contempt, and you are she. But

you may well despise me now! I thought I worshipped on the mountains,

but I find I still serve in the groves! Ha! ha!”

“O Alec d’Urberville! what does this mean? What have I done!”

“Done?” he said, with a soulless sneer in the word. “Nothing

intentionally. But you have been the means—the innocent means—of my

backsliding, as they call it. I ask myself, am I, indeed, one of those

‘servants of corruption’ who, ‘after they have escaped the pollutions

of the world, are again entangled therein and overcome’—whose latter

end is worse than their beginning?” He laid his hand on her shoulder.

“Tess, my girl, I was on the way to, at least, social salvation till I

saw you again!” he said freakishly shaking her, as if she were a child.

“And why then have you tempted me? I was firm as a man could be till I

saw those eyes and that mouth again—surely there never was such a

maddening mouth since Eve’s!” His voice sank, and a hot archness shot

from his own black eyes. “You temptress, Tess; you dear damned witch of

Babylon—I could not resist you as soon as I met you again!”

“I couldn’t help your seeing me again!” said Tess, recoiling.

“I know it—I repeat that I do not blame you. But the fact remains. When

I saw you ill-used on the farm that day I was nearly mad to think that

I had no legal right to protect you—that I could not have it; whilst he

who has it seems to neglect you utterly!”

“Don’t speak against him—he is absent!” she cried in much excitement.

“Treat him honourably—he has never wronged you! O leave his wife before

any scandal spreads that may do harm to his honest name!”

“I will—I will,” he said, like a man awakening from a luring dream. “I

have broken my engagement to preach to those poor drunken boobies at

the fair—it is the first time I have played such a practical joke. A

month ago I should have been horrified at such a possibility. I’ll go

away—to swear—and—ah, can I! to keep away.” Then, suddenly: “One clasp,

Tessy—one! Only for old friendship—”

“I am without defence. Alec! A good man’s honour is in my

keeping—think—be ashamed!”

“Pooh! Well, yes—yes!”

He clenched his lips, mortified with himself for his weakness. His eyes

were equally barren of worldly and religious faith. The corpses of

those old fitful passions which had lain inanimate amid the lines of

his face ever since his reformation seemed to wake and come together as

in a resurrection. He went out indeterminately.

Though d’Urberville had declared that this breach of his engagement

to-day was the simple backsliding of a believer, Tess’s words, as

echoed from Angel Clare, had made a deep impression upon him, and

continued to do so after he had left her. He moved on in silence, as if

his energies were benumbed by the hitherto undreamt-of possibility that

his position was untenable. Reason had had nothing to do with his

whimsical conversion, which was perhaps the mere freak of a careless

man in search of a new sensation, and temporarily impressed by his

mother’s death.

The drops of logic Tess had let fall into the sea of his enthusiasm

served to chill its effervescence to stagnation. He said to himself, as

he pondered again and again over the crystallized phrases that she had

handed on to him, “That clever fellow little thought that, by telling

her those things, he might be paving my way back to her!”