第 七 章 · Chapter VII The Excursion

. Chapter VII The Excursion

On the morning appointed for her departure Tess was awake before

dawn—at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still mute,

save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear-voiced conviction

that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest preserving

silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken. She remained

upstairs packing till breakfast-time, and then came down in her

ordinary week-day clothes, her Sunday apparel being carefully folded in

her box.

Her mother expostulated. “You will never set out to see your folks

without dressing up more the dand than that?”

“But I am going to work!” said Tess.

“Well, yes,” said Mrs Durbeyfield; and in a private tone, “at first

there mid be a little pretence o’t.... But I think it will be wiser of

’ee to put your best side outward,” she added.

“Very well; I suppose you know best,” replied Tess with calm

abandonment.

And to please her parent the girl put herself quite in Joan’s hands,

saying serenely—“Do what you like with me, mother.”

Mrs Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tractability. First she

fetched a great basin, and washed Tess’s hair with such thoroughness

that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as at other times.

She tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual. Then she put upon

her the white frock that Tess had worn at the club-walking, the airy

fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged _coiffure_, imparted to

her developing figure an amplitude which belied her age, and might

cause her to be estimated as a woman when she was not much more than a

child.

“I declare there’s a hole in my stocking-heel!” said Tess.

“Never mind holes in your stockings—they don’t speak! When I was a

maid, so long as I had a pretty bonnet the devil might ha’ found me in

heels.”

Her mother’s pride in the girl’s appearance led her to step back, like

a painter from his easel, and survey her work as a whole.

“You must zee yourself!” she cried. “It is much better than you was

t’other day.”

As the looking-glass was only large enough to reflect a very small

portion of Tess’s person at one time, Mrs Durbeyfield hung a black

cloak outside the casement, and so made a large reflector of the panes,

as it is the wont of bedecking cottagers to do. After this she went

downstairs to her husband, who was sitting in the lower room.

“I’ll tell ’ee what ’tis, Durbeyfield,” said she exultingly; “he’ll

never have the heart not to love her. But whatever you do, don’t zay

too much to Tess of his fancy for her, and this chance she has got. She

is such an odd maid that it mid zet her against him, or against going

there, even now. If all goes well, I shall certainly be for making some

return to pa’son at Stagfoot Lane for telling us—dear, good man!”

However, as the moment for the girl’s setting out drew nigh, when the

first excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving

found place in Joan Durbeyfield’s mind. It prompted the matron to say

that she would walk a little way—as far as to the point where the

acclivity from the valley began its first steep ascent to the outer

world. At the top Tess was going to be met with the spring-cart sent by

the Stoke-d’Urbervilles, and her box had already been wheeled ahead

towards this summit by a lad with trucks, to be in readiness.

Seeing their mother put on her bonnet, the younger children clamoured

to go with her.

“I do want to walk a little-ways wi’ Sissy, now she’s going to marry

our gentleman-cousin, and wear fine cloze!”

“Now,” said Tess, flushing and turning quickly, “I’ll hear no more o’

that! Mother, how could you ever put such stuff into their heads?”

“Going to work, my dears, for our rich relation, and help get enough

money for a new horse,” said Mrs Durbeyfield pacifically.

“Goodbye, father,” said Tess, with a lumpy throat.

“Goodbye, my maid,” said Sir John, raising his head from his breast as

he suspended his nap, induced by a slight excess this morning in honour

of the occasion. “Well, I hope my young friend will like such a comely

sample of his own blood. And tell’n, Tess, that being sunk, quite, from

our former grandeur, I’ll sell him the title—yes, sell it—and at no

onreasonable figure.”

“Not for less than a thousand pound!” cried Lady Durbeyfield.

“Tell’n—I’ll take a thousand pound. Well, I’ll take less, when I come

to think o’t. He’ll adorn it better than a poor lammicken feller like

myself can. Tell’n he shall hae it for a hundred. But I won’t stand

upon trifles—tell’n he shall hae it for fifty—for twenty pound! Yes,

twenty pound—that’s the lowest. Dammy, family honour is family honour,

and I won’t take a penny less!”

Tess’s eyes were too full and her voice too choked to utter the

sentiments that were in her. She turned quickly, and went out.

So the girls and their mother all walked together, a child on each side

of Tess, holding her hand and looking at her meditatively from time to

time, as at one who was about to do great things; her mother just

behind with the smallest; the group forming a picture of honest beauty

flanked by innocence, and backed by simple-souled vanity. They followed

the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent, on the crest of

which the vehicle from Trantridge was to receive her, this limit having

been fixed to save the horse the labour of the last slope. Far away

behind the first hills the cliff-like dwellings of Shaston broke the

line of the ridge. Nobody was visible in the elevated road which

skirted the ascent save the lad whom they had sent on before them,

sitting on the handle of the barrow that contained all Tess’s worldly

possessions.

“Bide here a bit, and the cart will soon come, no doubt,” said Mrs

Durbeyfield. “Yes, I see it yonder!”

It had come—appearing suddenly from behind the forehead of the nearest

upland, and stopping beside the boy with the barrow. Her mother and the

children thereupon decided to go no farther, and bidding them a hasty

goodbye, Tess bent her steps up the hill.

They saw her white shape draw near to the spring-cart, on which her box

was already placed. But before she had quite reached it another vehicle

shot out from a clump of trees on the summit, came round the bend of

the road there, passed the luggage-cart, and halted beside Tess, who

looked up as if in great surprise.

Her mother perceived, for the first time, that the second vehicle was

not a humble conveyance like the first, but a spick-and-span gig or

dog-cart, highly varnished and equipped. The driver was a young man of

three- or four-and-twenty, with a cigar between his teeth; wearing a

dandy cap, drab jacket, breeches of the same hue, white neckcloth,

stick-up collar, and brown driving-gloves—in short, he was the

handsome, horsey young buck who had visited Joan a week or two before

to get her answer about Tess.

Mrs Durbeyfield clapped her hands like a child. Then she looked down,

then stared again. Could she be deceived as to the meaning of this?

“Is dat the gentleman-kinsman who’ll make Sissy a lady?” asked the

youngest child.

Meanwhile the muslined form of Tess could be seen standing still,

undecided, beside this turn-out, whose owner was talking to her. Her

seeming indecision was, in fact, more than indecision: it was

misgiving. She would have preferred the humble cart. The young man

dismounted, and appeared to urge her to ascend. She turned her face

down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group.

Something seemed to quicken her to a determination; possibly the

thought that she had killed Prince. She suddenly stepped up; he mounted

beside her, and immediately whipped on the horse. In a moment they had

passed the slow cart with the box, and disappeared behind the shoulder

of the hill.

Directly Tess was out of sight, and the interest of the matter as a

drama was at an end, the little ones’ eyes filled with tears. The

youngest child said, “I wish poor, poor Tess wasn’t gone away to be a

lady!” and, lowering the corners of his lips, burst out crying. The new

point of view was infectious, and the next child did likewise, and then

the next, till the whole three of them wailed loud.

There were tears also in Joan Durbeyfield’s eyes as she turned to go

home. But by the time she had got back to the village she was passively

trusting to the favour of accident. However, in bed that night she

sighed, and her husband asked her what was the matter.

“Oh, I don’t know exactly,” she said. “I was thinking that perhaps it

would ha’ been better if Tess had not gone.”

“Oughtn’t ye to have thought of that before?”

“Well, ’tis a chance for the maid—Still, if ’twere the doing again, I

wouldn’t let her go till I had found out whether the gentleman is

really a good-hearted young man and choice over her as his kinswoman.”

“Yes, you ought, perhaps, to ha’ done that,” snored Sir John.

Joan Durbeyfield always managed to find consolation somewhere: “Well,

as one of the genuine stock, she ought to make her way with ’en, if she

plays her trump card aright. And if he don’t marry her afore he will

after. For that he’s all afire wi’ love for her any eye can see.”

“What’s her trump card? Her d’Urberville blood, you mean?”

“No, stupid; her face—as ’twas mine.”