Tess of the d'Urbervilles

idnight came and passed silently, for there was nothing to announce it
in the Valley of the Froom.

Not long after one o’clock there was a slight creak in the darkened
farmhouse once the mansion of the d’Urbervilles. Tess, who used the
upper chamber, heard it and awoke. It had come from the corner step of
the staircase, which, as usual, was loosely nailed. She saw the door of
her bedroom open, and the figure of her husband crossed the stream of
moonlight with a curiously careful tread. He was in his shirt and
trousers only, and her first flush of joy died when she perceived that
his eyes were fixed in an unnatural stare on vacancy. When he reached
the middle of the room he stood still and murmured in tones of
indescribable sadness—

“Dead! dead! dead!”

Under the influence of any strongly-disturbing force, Clare would
occasionally walk in his sleep, and even perform strange feats, such as
he had done on the night of their return from market just before their
marriage, when he re-enacted in his bedroom his combat with the man who
had insulted her. Tess saw that continued mental distress had wrought
him into that somnambulistic state now.

Her loyal confidence in him lay so deep down in her heart, that, awake
or asleep, he inspired her with no sort of personal fear. If he had
entered with a pistol in his hand he would scarcely have disturbed her
trust in his protectiveness.

Clare came close, and bent over her. “Dead, dead, dead!” he murmured.

After fixedly regarding her for some moments with the same gaze of
unmeasurable woe, he bent lower, enclosed her in his arms, and rolled
her in the sheet as in a shroud. Then lifting her from the bed with as
much respect as one would show to a dead body, he carried her across
the room, murmuring—

“My poor, poor Tess—my dearest, darling Tess! So sweet, so good, so
true!”

The words of endearment, withheld so severely in his waking hours, were
inexpressibly sweet to her forlorn and hungry heart. If it had been to
save her weary life she would not, by moving or struggling, have put an
end to the position she found herself in. Thus she lay in absolute
stillness, scarcely venturing to breathe, and, wondering what he was
going to do with her, suffered herself to be borne out upon the
landing.

“My wife—dead, dead!” he said.

He paused in his labours for a moment to lean with her against the
banister. Was he going to throw her down? Self-solicitude was near
extinction in her, and in the knowledge that he had planned to depart
on the morrow, possibly for always, she lay in his arms in this
precarious position with a sense rather of luxury than of terror. If
they could only fall together, and both be dashed to pieces, how fit,
how desirable.

However, he did not let her fall, but took advantage of the support of
the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips—lips in the day-time
scorned. Then he clasped her with a renewed firmness of hold, and
descended the staircase. The creak of the loose stair did not awaken
him, and they reached the ground-floor safely. Freeing one of his hands
from his grasp of her for a moment, he slid back the door-bar and
passed out, slightly striking his stockinged toe against the edge of
the door. But this he seemed not to mind, and, having room for
extension in the open air, he lifted her against his shoulder, so that
he could carry her with ease, the absence of clothes taking much from
his burden. Thus he bore her off the premises in the direction of the
river a few yards distant.

His ultimate intention, if he had any, she had not yet divined; and she
found herself conjecturing on the matter as a third person might have
done. So easefully had she delivered her whole being up to him that it
pleased her to think he was regarding her as his absolute possession,
to dispose of as he should choose. It was consoling, under the hovering
terror of to-morrow’s separation, to feel that he really recognized her
now as his wife Tess, and did not cast her off, even if in that
recognition he went so far as to arrogate to himself the right of
harming her.

Ah! now she knew what he was dreaming of—that Sunday morning when he
had borne her along through the water with the other dairymaids, who
had loved him nearly as much as she, if that were possible, which Tess
could hardly admit. Clare did not cross the bridge with her, but
proceeding several paces on the same side towards the adjoining mill,
at length stood still on the brink of the river.

Its waters, in creeping down these miles of meadowland, frequently
divided, serpentining in purposeless curves, looping themselves around
little islands that had no name, returning and re-embodying themselves
as a broad main stream further on. Opposite the spot to which he had
brought her was such a general confluence, and the river was
proportionately voluminous and deep. Across it was a narrow
foot-bridge; but now the autumn flood had washed the handrail away,
leaving the bare plank only, which, lying a few inches above the
speeding current, formed a giddy pathway for even steady heads; and
Tess had noticed from the window of the house in the day-time young men
walking across upon it as a feat in balancing. Her husband had possibly
observed the same performance; anyhow, he now mounted the plank, and,
sliding one foot forward, advanced along it.

Was he going to drown her? Probably he was. The spot was lonely, the
river deep and wide enough to make such a purpose easy of
accomplishment. He might drown her if he would; it would be better than
parting to-morrow to lead severed lives.

The swift stream raced and gyrated under them, tossing, distorting, and
splitting the moon’s reflected face. Spots of froth travelled past, and
intercepted weeds waved behind the piles. If they could both fall
together into the current now, their arms would be so tightly clasped
together that they could not be saved; they would go out of the world
almost painlessly, and there would be no more reproach to her, or to
him for marrying her. His last half-hour with her would have been a
loving one, while if they lived till he awoke, his day-time aversion
would return, and this hour would remain to be contemplated only as a
transient dream.

The impulse stirred in her, yet she dared not indulge it, to make a
movement that would have precipitated them both into the gulf. How she
valued her own life had been proved; but his—she had no right to tamper
with it. He reached the other side with her in safety.

Here they were within a plantation which formed the Abbey grounds, and
taking a new hold of her he went onward a few steps till they reached
the ruined choir of the Abbey-church. Against the north wall was the
empty stone coffin of an abbot, in which every tourist with a turn for
grim humour was accustomed to stretch himself. In this Clare carefully
laid Tess. Having kissed her lips a second time he breathed deeply, as
if a greatly desired end were attained. Clare then lay down on the
ground alongside, when he immediately fell into the deep dead slumber
of exhaustion, and remained motionless as a log. The spurt of mental
excitement which had produced the effort was now over.

Tess sat up in the coffin. The night, though dry and mild for the
season, was more than sufficiently cold to make it dangerous for him to
remain here long, in his half-clothed state. If he were left to himself
he would in all probability stay there till the morning, and be chilled
to certain death. She had heard of such deaths after sleep-walking. But
how could she dare to awaken him, and let him know what he had been
doing, when it would mortify him to discover his folly in respect of
her? Tess, however, stepping out of her stone confine, shook him
slightly, but was unable to arouse him without being violent. It was
indispensable to do something, for she was beginning to shiver, the
sheet being but a poor protection. Her excitement had in a measure kept
her warm during the few minutes’ adventure; but that beatific interval
was over.

It suddenly occurred to her to try persuasion; and accordingly she
whispered in his ear, with as much firmness and decision as she could
summon—

“Let us walk on, darling,” at the same time taking him suggestively by
the arm. To her relief, he unresistingly acquiesced; her words had
apparently thrown him back into his dream, which thenceforward seemed
to enter on a new phase, wherein he fancied she had risen as a spirit,
and was leading him to Heaven. Thus she conducted him by the arm to the
stone bridge in front of their residence, crossing which they stood at
the manor-house door. Tess’s feet were quite bare, and the stones hurt
her, and chilled her to the bone; but Clare was in his woollen
stockings and appeared to feel no discomfort.

There was no further difficulty. She induced him to lie down on his own
sofa bed, and covered him up warmly, lighting a temporary fire of wood,
to dry any dampness out of him. The noise of these attentions she
thought might awaken him, and secretly wished that they might. But the
exhaustion of his mind and body was such that he remained undisturbed.

As soon as they met the next morning Tess divined that Angel knew
little or nothing of how far she had been concerned in the night’s
excursion, though, as regarded himself, he may have been aware that he
had not lain still. In truth, he had awakened that morning from a sleep
deep as annihilation; and during those first few moments in which the
brain, like a Samson shaking himself, is trying its strength, he had
some dim notion of an unusual nocturnal proceeding. But the realities
of his situation soon displaced conjecture on the other subject.

He waited in expectancy to discern some mental pointing; he knew that
if any intention of his, concluded over-night, did not vanish in the
light of morning, it stood on a basis approximating to one of pure
reason, even if initiated by impulse of feeling; that it was so far,
therefore, to be trusted. He thus beheld in the pale morning light the
resolve to separate from her; not as a hot and indignant instinct, but
denuded of the passionateness which had made it scorch and burn;
standing in its bones; nothing but a skeleton, but none the less there.
Clare no longer hesitated.

At breakfast, and while they were packing the few remaining articles,
he showed his weariness from the night’s effort so unmistakeably that
Tess was on the point of revealing all that had happened; but the
reflection that it would anger him, grieve him, stultify him, to know
that he had instinctively manifested a fondness for her of which his
common-sense did not approve, that his inclination had compromised his
dignity when reason slept, again deterred her. It was too much like
laughing at a man when sober for his erratic deeds during intoxication.

It just crossed her mind, too, that he might have a faint recollection
of his tender vagary, and was disinclined to allude to it from a
conviction that she would take amatory advantage of the opportunity it
gave her of appealing to him anew not to go.

He had ordered by letter a vehicle from the nearest town, and soon
after breakfast it arrived. She saw in it the beginning of the end—the
temporary end, at least, for the revelation of his tenderness by the
incident of the night raised dreams of a possible future with him. The
luggage was put on the top, and the man drove them off, the miller and
the old waiting-woman expressing some surprise at their precipitate
departure, which Clare attributed to his discovery that the mill-work
was not of the modern kind which he wished to investigate, a statement
that was true so far as it went. Beyond this there was nothing in the
manner of their leaving to suggest a fiasco, or that they were not
going together to visit friends.

Their route lay near the dairy from which they had started with such
solemn joy in each other a few days back, and as Clare wished to wind
up his business with Mr Crick, Tess could hardly avoid paying Mrs Crick
a call at the same time, unless she would excite suspicion of their
unhappy state.

To make the call as unobtrusive as possible, they left the carriage by
the wicket leading down from the high road to the dairy-house, and
descended the track on foot, side by side. The withy-bed had been cut,
and they could see over the stumps the spot to which Clare had followed
her when he pressed her to be his wife; to the left the enclosure in
which she had been fascinated by his harp; and far away behind the
cow-stalls the mead which had been the scene of their first embrace.
The gold of the summer picture was now gray, the colours mean, the rich
soil mud, and the river cold.

Over the barton-gate the dairyman saw them, and came forward, throwing
into his face the kind of jocularity deemed appropriate in Talbothays
and its vicinity on the re-appearance of the newly-married. Then Mrs
Crick emerged from the house, and several others of their old
acquaintance, though Marian and Retty did not seem to be there.

Tess valiantly bore their sly attacks and friendly humours, which
affected her far otherwise than they supposed. In the tacit agreement
of husband and wife to keep their estrangement a secret they behaved as
would have been ordinary. And then, although she would rather there had
been no word spoken on the subject, Tess had to hear in detail the
story of Marian and Retty. The later had gone home to her father’s, and
Marian had left to look for employment elsewhere. They feared she would
come to no good.

To dissipate the sadness of this recital Tess went and bade all her
favourite cows goodbye, touching each of them with her hand, and as she
and Clare stood side by side at leaving, as if united body and soul,
there would have been something peculiarly sorry in their aspect to one
who should have seen it truly; two limbs of one life, as they outwardly
were, his arm touching hers, her skirts touching him, facing one way,
as against all the dairy facing the other, speaking in their adieux as
“we”, and yet sundered like the poles. Perhaps something unusually
stiff and embarrassed in their attitude, some awkwardness in acting up
to their profession of unity, different from the natural shyness of
young couples, may have been apparent, for when they were gone Mrs
Crick said to her husband—

“How onnatural the brightness of her eyes did seem, and how they stood
like waxen images and talked as if they were in a dream! Didn’t it
strike ’ee that ’twas so? Tess had always sommat strange in her, and
she’s not now quite like the proud young bride of a well-be-doing man.”

They re-entered the vehicle, and were driven along the roads towards
Weatherbury and Stagfoot Lane, till they reached the Lane inn, where
Clare dismissed the fly and man. They rested here a while, and entering
the Vale were next driven onward towards her home by a stranger who did
not know their relations. At a midway point, when Nuttlebury had been
passed, and where there were cross-roads, Clare stopped the conveyance
and said to Tess that if she meant to return to her mother’s house it
was here that he would leave her. As they could not talk with freedom
in the driver’s presence he asked her to accompany him for a few steps
on foot along one of the branch roads; she assented, and directing the
man to wait a few minutes they strolled away.

“Now, let us understand each other,” he said gently. “There is no anger
between us, though there is that which I cannot endure at present. I
will try to bring myself to endure it. I will let you know where I go
to as soon as I know myself. And if I can bring myself to bear it—if it
is desirable, possible—I will come to you. But until I come to you it
will be better that you should not try to come to me.”

The severity of the decree seemed deadly to Tess; she saw his view of
her clearly enough; he could regard her in no other light than that of
one who had practised gross deceit upon him. Yet could a woman who had
done even what she had done deserve all this? But she could contest the
point with him no further. She simply repeated after him his own words.

“Until you come to me I must not try to come to you?”

“Just so.”

“May I write to you?”

“O yes—if you are ill, or want anything at all. I hope that will not be
the case; so that it may happen that I write first to you.”

“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 goodbye; 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.