第18章

`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.

`Good-bye, father,' said Tess, with a lumpy throat.

1

`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 dogcart, 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, stickup 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 turnout, 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.'

Chapter 8 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.