Tess of the d'Urbervilles

he haggling business, which had mainly depended on the horse, became
disorganized forthwith. Distress, if not penury, loomed in the
distance. Durbeyfield was what was locally called a slack-twisted
fellow; he had good strength to work at times; but the times could not
be relied on to coincide with the hours of requirement; and, having
been unaccustomed to the regular toil of the day-labourer, he was not
particularly persistent when they did so coincide.

Tess, meanwhile, as the one who had dragged her parents into this
quagmire, was silently wondering what she could do to help them out of
it; and then her mother broached her scheme.

“We must take the ups wi’ the downs, Tess,” said she; “and never could
your high blood have been found out at a more called-for moment. You
must try your friends. Do ye know that there is a very rich Mrs
d’Urberville living on the outskirts o’ The Chase, who must be our
relation? You must go to her and claim kin, and ask for some help in
our trouble.”

“I shouldn’t care to do that,” says Tess. “If there is such a lady,
’twould be enough for us if she were friendly—not to expect her to give
us help.”

“You could win her round to do anything, my dear. Besides, perhaps
there’s more in it than you know of. I’ve heard what I’ve heard,
good-now.”

The oppressive sense of the harm she had done led Tess to be more
deferential than she might otherwise have been to the maternal wish;
but she could not understand why her mother should find such
satisfaction in contemplating an enterprise of, to her, such doubtful
profit. Her mother might have made inquiries, and have discovered that
this Mrs d’Urberville was a lady of unequalled virtues and charity. But
Tess’s pride made the part of poor relation one of particular distaste
to her.

“I’d rather try to get work,” she murmured.

“Durbeyfield, you can settle it,” said his wife, turning to where he
sat in the background. “If you say she ought to go, she will go.”

“I don’t like my children going and making themselves beholden to
strange kin,” murmured he. “I’m the head of the noblest branch o’ the
family, and I ought to live up to it.”

His reasons for staying away were worse to Tess than her own objections
to going. “Well, as I killed the horse, mother,” she said mournfully,
“I suppose I ought to do something. I don’t mind going and seeing her,
but you must leave it to me about asking for help. And don’t go
thinking about her making a match for me—it is silly.”

“Very well said, Tess!” observed her father sententiously.

“Who said I had such a thought?” asked Joan.

“I fancy it is in your mind, mother. But I’ll go.”

Rising early next day she walked to the hill-town called Shaston, and
there took advantage of a van which twice in the week ran from Shaston
eastward to Chaseborough, passing near Trantridge, the parish in which
the vague and mysterious Mrs d’Urberville had her residence.

Tess Durbeyfield’s route on this memorable morning lay amid the
north-eastern undulations of the Vale in which she had been born, and
in which her life had unfolded. The Vale of Blackmoor was to her the
world, and its inhabitants the races thereof. From the gates and stiles
of Marlott she had looked down its length in the wondering days of
infancy, and what had been mystery to her then was not much less than
mystery to her now. She had seen daily from her chamber-window towers,
villages, faint white mansions; above all, the town of Shaston standing
majestically on its height; its windows shining like lamps in the
evening sun. She had hardly ever visited the place, only a small tract
even of the Vale and its environs being known to her by close
inspection. Much less had she been far outside the valley. Every
contour of the surrounding hills was as personal to her as that of her
relatives’ faces; but for what lay beyond, her judgment was dependent
on the teaching of the village school, where she had held a leading
place at the time of her leaving, a year or two before this date.

In those early days she had been much loved by others of her own sex
and age, and had used to be seen about the village as one of three—all
nearly of the same year—walking home from school side by side; Tess the
middle one—in a pink print pinafore, of a finely reticulated pattern,
worn over a stuff frock that had lost its original colour for a
nondescript tertiary—marching on upon long stalky legs, in tight
stockings which had little ladder-like holes at the knees, torn by
kneeling in the roads and banks in search of vegetable and mineral
treasures; her then earth-coloured hair hanging like pot-hooks; the
arms of the two outside girls resting round the waist of Tess; her arms
on the shoulders of the two supporters.

As Tess grew older, and began to see how matters stood, she felt quite
a Malthusian towards her mother for thoughtlessly giving her so many
little sisters and brothers, when it was such a trouble to nurse and
provide for them. Her mother’s intelligence was that of a happy child:
Joan Durbeyfield was simply an additional one, and that not the eldest,
to her own long family of waiters on Providence.

However, Tess became humanely beneficent towards the small ones, and to
help them as much as possible she used, as soon as she left school, to
lend a hand at haymaking or harvesting on neighbouring farms; or, by
preference, at milking or butter-making processes, which she had learnt
when her father had owned cows; and being deft-fingered it was a kind
of work in which she excelled.

Every day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders more of the family
burdens, and that Tess should be the representative of the Durbeyfields
at the d’Urberville mansion came as a thing of course. In this instance
it must be admitted that the Durbeyfields were putting their fairest
side outward.

She alighted from the van at Trantridge Cross, and ascended on foot a
hill in the direction of the district known as The Chase, on the
borders of which, as she had been informed, Mrs d’Urberville’s seat,
The Slopes, would be found. It was not a manorial home in the ordinary
sense, with fields, and pastures, and a grumbling farmer, out of whom
the owner had to squeeze an income for himself and his family by hook
or by crook. It was more, far more; a country-house built for enjoyment
pure and simple, with not an acre of troublesome land attached to it
beyond what was required for residential purposes, and for a little
fancy farm kept in hand by the owner, and tended by a bailiff.

The crimson brick lodge came first in sight, up to its eaves in dense
evergreens. Tess thought this was the mansion itself till, passing
through the side wicket with some trepidation, and onward to a point at
which the drive took a turn, the house proper stood in full view. It
was of recent erection—indeed almost new—and of the same rich red
colour that formed such a contrast with the evergreens of the lodge.
Far behind the corner of the house—which rose like a geranium bloom
against the subdued colours around—stretched the soft azure landscape
of The Chase—a truly venerable tract of forest land, one of the few
remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primaeval date, wherein
Druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and where enormous
yew-trees, not planted by the hand of man grew as they had grown when
they were pollarded for bows. All this sylvan antiquity, however,
though visible from The Slopes, was outside the immediate boundaries of
the estate.

Everything on this snug property was bright, thriving, and well kept;
acres of glass-houses stretched down the inclines to the copses at
their feet. Everything looked like money—like the last coin issued from
the Mint. The stables, partly screened by Austrian pines and evergreen
oaks, and fitted with every late appliance, were as dignified as
Chapels-of-Ease. On the extensive lawn stood an ornamental tent, its
door being towards her.

Simple Tess Durbeyfield stood at gaze, in a half-alarmed attitude, on
the edge of the gravel sweep. Her feet had brought her onward to this
point before she had quite realized where she was; and now all was
contrary to her expectation.

“I thought we were an old family; but this is all new!” she said, in
her artlessness. She wished that she had not fallen in so readily with
her mother’s plans for “claiming kin,” and had endeavoured to gain
assistance nearer home.

The d’Urbervilles—or Stoke-d’Urbervilles, as they at first called
themselves—who owned all this, were a somewhat unusual family to find
in such an old-fashioned part of the country. Parson Tringham had
spoken truly when he said that our shambling John Durbeyfield was the
only really lineal representative of the old d’Urberville family
existing in the county, or near it; he might have added, what he knew
very well, that the Stoke-d’Urbervilles were no more d’Urbervilles of
the true tree then he was himself. Yet it must be admitted that this
family formed a very good stock whereon to regraft a name which sadly
wanted such renovation.

When old Mr Simon Stoke, latterly deceased, had made his fortune as an
honest merchant (some said money-lender) in the North, he decided to
settle as a county man in the South of England, out of hail of his
business district; and in doing this he felt the necessity of
recommencing with a name that would not too readily identify him with
the smart tradesman of the past, and that would be less commonplace
than the original bald, stark words. Conning for an hour in the British
Museum the pages of works devoted to extinct, half-extinct, obscured,
and ruined families appertaining to the quarter of England in which he
proposed to settle, he considered that d’Urberville looked and
sounded as well as any of them: and d’Urberville accordingly was
annexed to his own name for himself and his heirs eternally. Yet he was
not an extravagant-minded man in this, and in constructing his family
tree on the new basis was duly reasonable in framing his
inter-marriages and aristocratic links, never inserting a single title
above a rank of strict moderation.

Of this work of imagination poor Tess and her parents were naturally in
ignorance—much to their discomfiture; indeed, the very possibility of
such annexations was unknown to them; who supposed that, though to be
well-favoured might be the gift of fortune, a family name came by
nature.

Tess still stood hesitating like a bather about to make his plunge,
hardly knowing whether to retreat or to persevere, when a figure came
forth from the dark triangular door of the tent. It was that of a tall
young man, smoking.

He had an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, badly moulded,
though red and smooth, above which was a well-groomed black moustache
with curled points, though his age could not be more than three- or
four-and-twenty. Despite the touches of barbarism in his contours,
there was a singular force in the gentleman’s face, and in his bold
rolling eye.

“Well, my Beauty, what can I do for you?” said he, coming forward. And
perceiving that she stood quite confounded: “Never mind me. I am Mr
d’Urberville. Have you come to see me or my mother?”

This embodiment of a d’Urberville and a namesake differed even more
from what Tess had expected than the house and grounds had differed.
She had dreamed of an aged and dignified face, the sublimation of all
the d’Urberville lineaments, furrowed with incarnate memories
representing in hieroglyphic the centuries of her family’s and
England’s history. But she screwed herself up to the work in hand,
since she could not get out of it, and answered—

“I came to see your mother, sir.”

“I am afraid you cannot see her—she is an invalid,” replied the present
representative of the spurious house; for this was Mr Alec, the only
son of the lately deceased gentleman. “Cannot I answer your purpose?
What is the business you wish to see her about?”

“It isn’t business—it is—I can hardly say what!”

“Pleasure?”

“Oh no. Why, sir, if I tell you, it will seem—”

Tess’s sense of a certain ludicrousness in her errand was now so strong
that, notwithstanding her awe of him, and her general discomfort at
being here, her rosy lips curved towards a smile, much to the
attraction of the swarthy Alexander.

“It is so very foolish,” she stammered; “I fear I can’t tell you!”

“Never mind; I like foolish things. Try again, my dear,” said he
kindly.

“Mother asked me to come,” Tess continued; “and, indeed, I was in the
mind to do so myself likewise. But I did not think it would be like
this. I came, sir, to tell you that we are of the same family as you.”

“Ho! Poor relations?”

“Yes.”

“Stokes?”

“No; d’Urbervilles.”

“Ay, ay; I mean d’Urbervilles.”

“Our names are worn away to Durbeyfield; but we have several proofs
that we are d’Urbervilles. Antiquarians hold we are,—and—and we have an
old seal, marked with a ramping lion on a shield, and a castle over
him. And we have a very old silver spoon, round in the bowl like a
little ladle, and marked with the same castle. But it is so worn that
mother uses it to stir the pea-soup.”

“A castle argent is certainly my crest,” said he blandly. “And my arms
a lion rampant.”

“And so mother said we ought to make ourselves beknown to you—as we’ve
lost our horse by a bad accident, and are the oldest branch o’ the
family.”

“Very kind of your mother, I’m sure. And I, for one, don’t regret her
step.” Alec looked at Tess as he spoke, in a way that made her blush a
little. “And so, my pretty girl, you’ve come on a friendly visit to us,
as relations?”

“I suppose I have,” faltered Tess, looking uncomfortable again.

“Well—there’s no harm in it. Where do you live? What are you?”

She gave him brief particulars; and responding to further inquiries
told him that she was intending to go back by the same carrier who had
brought her.

“It is a long while before he returns past Trantridge Cross. Supposing
we walk round the grounds to pass the time, my pretty Coz?”

Tess wished to abridge her visit as much as possible; but the young man
was pressing, and she consented to accompany him. He conducted her
about the lawns, and flower-beds, and conservatories; and thence to the
fruit-garden and greenhouses, where he asked her if she liked
strawberries.

“Yes,” said Tess, “when they come.”

“They are already here.” D’Urberville began gathering specimens of the
fruit for her, handing them back to her as he stooped; and, presently,
selecting a specially fine product of the “British Queen” variety, he
stood up and held it by the stem to her mouth.

“No—no!” she said quickly, putting her fingers between his hand and her
lips. “I would rather take it in my own hand.”

“Nonsense!” he insisted; and in a slight distress she parted her lips
and took it in.

They had spent some time wandering desultorily thus, Tess eating in a
half-pleased, half-reluctant state whatever d’Urberville offered her.
When she could consume no more of the strawberries he filled her little
basket with them; and then the two passed round to the rose-trees,
whence he gathered blossoms and gave her to put in her bosom. She
obeyed like one in a dream, and when she could affix no more he himself
tucked a bud or two into her hat, and heaped her basket with others in
the prodigality of his bounty. At last, looking at his watch, he said,
“Now, by the time you have had something to eat, it will be time for
you to leave, if you want to catch the carrier to Shaston. Come here,
and I’ll see what grub I can find.”

Stoke d’Urberville took her back to the lawn and into the tent, where
he left her, soon reappearing with a basket of light luncheon, which he
put before her himself. It was evidently the gentleman’s wish not to be
disturbed in this pleasant tête-à-tête by the servantry.

“Do you mind my smoking?” he asked.

“Oh, not at all, sir.”

He watched her pretty and unconscious munching through the skeins of
smoke that pervaded the tent, and Tess Durbeyfield did not divine, as
she innocently looked down at the roses in her bosom, that there behind
the blue narcotic haze was potentially the “tragic mischief” of her
drama—one who stood fair to be the blood-red ray in the spectrum of her
young life. She had an attribute which amounted to a disadvantage just
now; and it was this that caused Alec d’Urberville’s eyes to rivet
themselves upon her. It was a luxuriance of aspect, a fulness of
growth, which made her appear more of a woman than she really was. She
had inherited the feature from her mother without the quality it
denoted. It had troubled her mind occasionally, till her companions had
said that it was a fault which time would cure.

She soon had finished her lunch. “Now I am going home, sir,” she said,
rising.

“And what do they call you?” he asked, as he accompanied her along the
drive till they were out of sight of the house.

“Tess Durbeyfield, down at Marlott.”

“And you say your people have lost their horse?”

“I—killed him!” she answered, her eyes filling with tears as she gave
particulars of Prince’s death. “And I don’t know what to do for father
on account of it!”

“I must think if I cannot do something. My mother must find a berth for
you. But, Tess, no nonsense about ‘d’Urberville’;—‘Durbeyfield’ only,
you know—quite another name.”

“I wish for no better, sir,” said she with something of dignity.

For a moment—only for a moment—when they were in the turning of the
drive, between the tall rhododendrons and conifers, before the lodge
became visible, he inclined his face towards her as if—but, no: he
thought better of it, and let her go.

Thus the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting’s import she might
have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the
wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired one in all
respects—as nearly as humanity can supply the right and desired; yet to
him who amongst her acquaintance might have approximated to this kind,
she was but a transient impression, half forgotten.

In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call
seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the
hour for loving. Nature does not often say “See!” to her poor creature
at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply “Here!” to a
body’s cry of “Where?” till the hide-and-seek has become an irksome,
outworn game. We may wonder whether at the acme and summit of the human
progress these anachronisms will be corrected by a finer intuition, a
closer interaction of the social machinery than that which now jolts us
round and along; but such completeness is not to be prophesied, or even
conceived as possible. Enough that in the present case, as in millions,
it was not the two halves of a perfect whole that confronted each other
at the perfect moment; a missing counterpart wandered independently
about the earth waiting in crass obtuseness till the late time came.
Out of which maladroit delay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks,
catastrophes, and passing-strange destinies.

When d’Urberville got back to the tent he sat down astride on a chair,
reflecting, with a pleased gleam in his face. Then he broke into a loud
laugh.

“Well, I’m damned! What a funny thing! Ha-ha-ha! And what a crumby
girl!”