第92章

`I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my punishment ought to be; only - only - don't make it more than I can bear!'

That was all she said on the matter.If Tess had been artful, had she made a scene, fainted, wept hysterically, in that lonely lane, notwithstanding the fury of fastidiousness with which he was possessed, he would probably not have withstood her.But her mood of long-suffering made his way easy for him, and she herself was his best advocate.Pride, too, entered into her submission which perhaps was a symptom of that reckless acquiescence in chance too apparent in the whole d'Urberville family - and the many effective chords which she could have stirred by an appeal were left untouched.

The remainder of their discourse was on practical matters only.He now handed her a packet containing a fairly good sum of money, which he had obtained from his bankers for the purpose.The brilliants, the interest in which seemed to be Tess's for her life only (if he understood the wording of the will), he advised her to let him send to a bank for safety; and to this she readily agreed.

These things arranged he walked with Tess back to the carriage, and handed her in.The coachman was paid and told where to drive her.Taking next his own bag and umbrella - the sole articles he had brought with him hitherwards - he bade her good-bye; and they parted there and then.

The fly moved creepingly up a hill, and Clare watched it go with an unpremeditated hope that Tess would look out of the window for one moment.

But that she never thought of doing, would not have ventured to do, lying in a half-dead faint inside.Thus he beheld her recede, and in the anguish of his heart quoted a line from a poet, with peculiar emendations of his own-- God's not in his heaven: all's wrong with the world! When Tess had passed over the crest of the hill he turned to go his own way, and hardly knew that he loved her still.

Chapter 38 As she drove on through Blackmoor Vale, and the landscape of her youth began to open around her, Tess aroused herself from her stupor.Her first thought was how would she be able to face her parents?

She reached a turnpike-gate which stood upon the highway to the village.

It was thrown open by a stranger, not by the old man who had kept it for many years, and to whom she had been known; he had probably left on New Year's Day, the date when such changes were made.Having received no intelligence lately from her home, she asked the turnpike-keeper for news.

`Oh - nothing, miss,' he answered.Marlott is Marlott still.Folks have died and that.John Durbeyfield, too, hev had a daughter married this week to a gentleman-farmer; not from John's own house, you know; they was married elsewhere; the gentleman being of that high standing that John's own folk was not considered well-be-doing enough to have any part in it, the bridegroom seeming not to know how't have been discovered that John is a old and ancient nobleman himself by blood, with family skillentons in their own vaults to this day, but done out of his property in the time o' the Romans.However, Sir John, as we call 'n now, kept up the wedding-day as well as he could, and stood treat to everybody in the parish; and John's wife sung songs at the Pure Drop till past eleven o'clock.'

Hearing this, Tess felt so sick at heart that she could not decide to go home publicly in the fly with her luggage and belongings.She asked the turnpike-keeper if she might deposit her things at his house for a while, and, on his offering no objection, she dismissed her carriage, and went on to the village alone by a back lane.

At sight of her father's chimney she asked herself how she could possibly enter the house? Inside that cottage her relations were calmly supposing her far away on a wedding-tour with a comparatively rich man, who was to conduct her to bouncing prosperity; while here she was, friendless, creeping up to the old door quite by herself, with no better place to go to in the world.

She did not reach the house unobserved.just by the garden hedge she was met by a girl who knew her - one of the two or three with whom she had been intimate at school.After making a few inquiries as to how Tess came there, her friend, unheeding her tragic look, interrupted with--`But where's thy gentleman, Tess?'

Tess hastily explained that he had been called away on business, and, leaving her interlocutor, clambered over the garden-hedge, and thus made her way to the house.

As she went up the garden-path she heard her mother singing by the back door, coming in sight of which she perceived Mrs Durbeyfield on the doorstep in the act of wringing a sheet.Having performed this without observing Tess, she went indoors, and her daughter followed her.

The washing-tub stood in the same old place on the same old quarter-hogshead, and her mother, having thrown the sheet aside, was about to plunge her arms in anew.

`Why - Tess! - my chil' - I thought you was married! - married really and truly this time - we sent the cider--'

`Yes, mother; so I am.'

`Going to be?'

`No - I am married.'

`Married! Then where's thy husband?'

`Oh, he's gone away for a time.'

`Gone away! When was you married, then? The day you said?'

`Yes, Tuesday, mother.'

`And now 'tis on'y Saturday, and he gone away?'

`Yes; he's gone.'

`What's the meaning o' that? `Nation seize such husbands as you seem to get, say I!'

`Mother!' Tess went across to Joan Durbeyfield, laid her face upon the matron's bosom, and burst into sobs.`I don't know how to tell 'ee, mother!

You said to me, and wrote to me, that I was not to tell him.But I did tell him - I couldn't help it - and he went away!'

`O you little fool - you little fool!' burst out Mrs Durbeyfield, splashing Tess and herself in her agitation.`My good God! that ever I should ha'

lived to say it, but I say it again, you little fool!'

Tess was convulsed with weeping, the tension of so many days having relaxed at last.