Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Phase the Seventh: Fulfilment

Hardy Phase the First: The Maiden
Phase the Second: Maiden no More
Phase the Third: The Rally
Phase the Fourth: The Consequence
Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays
Phase the Sixth: The Convert
Phase the Seventh: Fulfilment

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Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.
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[16135]     Phase the Seventh: Fulfilment
[16136]     
[16137]     
[16138]     
[16139]     LIII
[16140]     
[16141]     
[16142]     It was evening at Emminster Vicarage. The two customary candles were
[16143]     burning under their green shades in the Vicar's study, but he had not
[16144]     been sitting there. Occasionally he came in, stirred the small fire
[16145]     which sufficed for the increasing mildness of the spring, and went
[16146]     out again; sometimes pausing at the front door, going on to the
[16147]     drawing-room, then returning again to the front door.
[16148]     
[16149]     It faced westward, and though gloom prevailed inside, there was still
[16150]     light enough without to see with distinctness. Mrs Clare, who had
[16151]     been sitting in the drawing-room, followed him hither.
[16152]     
[16153]     "Plenty of time yet," said the Vicar. "He doesn't reach Chalk-Newton
[16154]     till six, even if the train should be punctual, and ten miles of
[16155]     country-road, five of them in Crimmercrock Lane, are not jogged over
[16156]     in a hurry by our old horse."
[16157]     
[16158]     "But he has done it in an hour with us, my dear."
[16159]     
[16160]     "Years ago."
[16161]     
[16162]     Thus they passed the minutes, each well knowing that this was only
[16163]     waste of breath, the one essential being simply to wait.
[16164]     
[16165]     At length there was a slight noise in the lane, and the old
[16166]     pony-chaise appeared indeed outside the railings. They saw alight
[16167]     therefrom a form which they affected to recognize, but would actually
[16168]     have passed by in the street without identifying had he not got out
[16169]     of their carriage at the particular moment when a particular person
[16170]     was due.
[16171]     
[16172]     Mrs Clare rushed through the dark passage to the door, and her
[16173]     husband came more slowly after her.
[16174]     
[16175]     The new arrival, who was just about to enter, saw their anxious faces
[16176]     in the doorway and the gleam of the west in their spectacles because
[16177]     they confronted the last rays of day; but they could only see his
[16178]     shape against the light.
[16179]     
[16180]     "O, my boy, my boy--home again at last!" cried Mrs Clare, who cared
[16181]     no more at that moment for the stains of heterodoxy which had caused
[16182]     all this separation than for the dust upon his clothes. What woman,
[16183]     indeed, among the most faithful adherents of the truth, believes the
[16184]     promises and threats of the Word in the sense in which she believes
[16185]     in her own children, or would not throw her theology to the wind if
[16186]     weighed against their happiness? As soon as they reached the room
[16187]     where the candles were lighted she looked at his face.
[16188]     
[16189]     "O, it is not Angel--not my son--the Angel who went away!" she cried
[16190]     in all the irony of sorrow, as she turned herself aside.
[16191]     
[16192]     His father, too, was shocked to see him, so reduced was that figure
[16193]     from its former contours by worry and the bad season that Clare had
[16194]     experienced, in the climate to which he had so rashly hurried in his
[16195]     first aversion to the mockery of events at home. You could see the
[16196]     skeleton behind the man, and almost the ghost behind the skeleton.
[16197]     He matched Crivelli's dead _Christus_. His sunken eye-pits were of
[16198]     morbid hue, and the light in his eyes had waned. The angular hollows
[16199]     and lines of his aged ancestors had succeeded to their reign in his
[16200]     face twenty years before their time.
[16201]     
[16202]     "I was ill over there, you know," he said. "I am all right now."
[16203]     
[16204]     As if, however, to falsify this assertion, his legs seemed to give
[16205]     way, and he suddenly sat down to save himself from falling. It was
[16206]     only a slight attack of faintness, resulting from the tedious day's
[16207]     journey, and the excitement of arrival.
[16208]     
[16209]     "Has any letter come for me lately?" he asked. "I received the
[16210]     last you sent on by the merest chance, and after considerable delay
[16211]     through being inland; or I might have come sooner."
[16212]     
[16213]     "It was from your wife, we supposed?"
[16214]     
[16215]     "It was."
[16216]     
[16217]     Only one other had recently come. They had not sent it on to him,
[16218]     knowing he would start for home so soon.
[16219]     
[16220]     He hastily opened the letter produced, and was much disturbed to read
[16221]     in Tess's handwriting the sentiments expressed in her last hurried
[16222]     scrawl to him.
[16223]     
[16224]     
[16225]        O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do
[16226]        not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully,
[16227]        and I can never, never forgive you! You know that I
[16228]        did not intend to wrong you--why have you so wronged
[16229]        me? You are cruel, cruel indeed! I will try to forget
[16230]        you. It is all injustice I have received at your
[16231]        hands!
[16232]                                       T.
[16233]     
[16234]     "It is quite true!" said Angel, throwing down the letter. "Perhaps
[16235]     she will never be reconciled to me!"
[16236]     
[16237]     "Don't, Angel, be so anxious about a mere child of the soil!" said
[16238]     his mother.
[16239]     
[16240]     "Child of the soil! Well, we all are children of the soil. I wish
[16241]     she were so in the sense you mean; but let me now explain to you what
[16242]     I have never explained before, that her father is a descendant in the
[16243]     male line of one of the oldest Norman houses, like a good many others
[16244]     who lead obscure agricultural lives in our villages, and are dubbed
[16245]     'sons of the soil.'"
[16246]     
[16247]     He soon retired to bed; and the next morning, feeling exceedingly
[16248]     unwell, he remained in his room pondering. The circumstances amid
[16249]     which he had left Tess were such that though, while on the south of
[16250]     the Equator and just in receipt of her loving epistle, it had seemed
[16251]     the easiest thing in the world to rush back into her arms the moment
[16252]     he chose to forgive her, now that he had arrived it was not so easy
[16253]     as it had seemed. She was passionate, and her present letter,
[16254]     showing that her estimate of him had changed under his delay--too
[16255]     justly changed, he sadly owned,--made him ask himself if it would
[16256]     be wise to confront her unannounced in the presence of her parents.
[16257]     Supposing that her love had indeed turned to dislike during the last
[16258]     weeks of separation, a sudden meeting might lead to bitter words.
[16259]     
[16260]     Clare therefore thought it would be best to prepare Tess and her
[16261]     family by sending a line to Marlott announcing his return, and his
[16262]     hope that she was still living with them there, as he had arranged
[16263]     for her to do when he left England. He despatched the inquiry that
[16264]     very day, and before the week was out there came a short reply from
[16265]     Mrs Durbeyfield which did not remove his embarrassment, for it bore
[16266]     no address, though to his surprise it was not written from Marlott.
[16267]     
[16268]     
[16269]        SIR,
[16270]     
[16271]        J write these few lines to say that my Daughter is away
[16272]        from me at present, and J am not sure when she will
[16273]        return, but J will let you know as Soon as she do.
[16274]        J do not feel at liberty to tell you Where she is
[16275]        temperly biding. J should say that me and my Family
[16276]        have left Marlott for some Time.--
[16277]     
[16278]        Yours,
[16279]     
[16280]        J. DURBEYFIELD
[16281]     
[16282]     
[16283]     It was such a relief to Clare to learn that Tess was at least
[16284]     apparently well that her mother's stiff reticence as to her
[16285]     whereabouts did not long distress him. They were all angry with him,
[16286]     evidently. He would wait till Mrs Durbeyfield could inform him of
[16287]     Tess's return, which her letter implied to be soon. He deserved no
[16288]     more. His had been a love "which alters when it alteration finds".
[16289]     He had undergone some strange experiences in his absence; he had seen
[16290]     the virtual Faustina in the literal Cornelia, a spiritual Lucretia in
[16291]     a corporeal Phryne; he had thought of the woman taken and set in the
[16292]     midst as one deserving to be stoned, and of the wife of Uriah being
[16293]     made a queen; and he had asked himself why he had not judged Tess
[16294]     constructively rather than biographically, by the will rather than
[16295]     by the deed?
[16296]     
[16297]     A day or two passed while he waited at his father's house for the
[16298]     promised second note from Joan Durbeyfield, and indirectly to recover
[16299]     a little more strength. The strength showed signs of coming back,
[16300]     but there was no sign of Joan's letter. Then he hunted up the
[16301]     old letter sent on to him in Brazil, which Tess had written from
[16302]     Flintcomb-Ash, and re-read it. The sentences touched him now as
[16303]     much as when he had first perused them.
[16304]     
[16305]     
[16306]        ... I must cry to you in my trouble--I have no one
[16307]        else! ... I think I must die if you do not come
[16308]        soon, or tell me to come to you... please, please,
[16309]        not to be just--only a little kind to me ... If
[16310]        you would come, I could die in your arms! I would
[16311]        be well content to do that if so be you had forgiven
[16312]        me! ... if you will send me one little line, and say,
[16313]        "I am coming soon," I will bide on, Angel--O, so
[16314]        cheerfully! ... think how it do hurt my heart not to
[16315]        see you ever--ever! Ah, if I could only make your
[16316]        dear heart ache one little minute of each day as mine
[16317]        does every day and all day long, it might lead you to
[16318]        show pity to your poor lonely one. ... I would be
[16319]        content, ay, glad, to live with you as your servant,
[16320]        if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be
[16321]        near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you
[16322]        as mine. ... I long for only one thing in heaven
[16323]        or earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own
[16324]        dear! Come to me--come to me, and save me from what
[16325]        threatens me!
[16326]     
[16327]     
[16328]     Clare determined that he would no longer believe in her more recent
[16329]     and severer regard of him, but would go and find her immediately. He
[16330]     asked his father if she had applied for any money during his absence.
[16331]     His father returned a negative, and then for the first time it
[16332]     occurred to Angel that her pride had stood in her way, and that she
[16333]     had suffered privation. From his remarks his parents now gathered
[16334]     the real reason of the separation; and their Christianity was such
[16335]     that, reprobates being their especial care, the tenderness towards
[16336]     Tess which her blood, her simplicity, even her poverty, had not
[16337]     engendered, was instantly excited by her sin.
[16338]     
[16339]     Whilst he was hastily packing together a few articles for his journey
[16340]     he glanced over a poor plain missive also lately come to hand--the
[16341]     one from Marian and Izz Huett, beginning--
[16342]     
[16343]     "Honour'd Sir, Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do
[16344]     love you," and signed, "From Two Well-Wishers."
[16345]     
[16346]     
[16347]     
[16348]     LIV
[16349]     
[16350]     
[16351]     In a quarter of an hour Clare was leaving the house, whence his
[16352]     mother watched his thin figure as it disappeared into the street.
[16353]     He had declined to borrow his father's old mare, well knowing of
[16354]     its necessity to the household. He went to the inn, where he hired
[16355]     a trap, and could hardly wait during the harnessing. In a very few
[16356]     minutes after, he was driving up the hill out of the town which,
[16357]     three or four months earlier in the year, Tess had descended with
[16358]     such hopes and ascended with such shattered purposes.
[16359]     
[16360]     Benvill Lane soon stretched before him, its hedges and trees purple
[16361]     with buds; but he was looking at other things, and only recalled
[16362]     himself to the scene sufficiently to enable him to keep the way. In
[16363]     something less than an hour-and-a-half he had skirted the south of
[16364]     the King's Hintock estates and ascended to the untoward solitude of
[16365]     Cross-in-Hand, the unholy stone whereon Tess had been compelled by
[16366]     Alec d'Urberville, in his whim of reformation, to swear the strange
[16367]     oath that she would never wilfully tempt him again. The pale and
[16368]     blasted nettle-stems of the preceding year even now lingered nakedly
[16369]     in the banks, young green nettles of the present spring growing from
[16370]     their roots.
[16371]     
[16372]     Thence he went along the verge of the upland overhanging the other
[16373]     Hintocks, and, turning to the right, plunged into the bracing
[16374]     calcareous region of Flintcomb-Ash, the address from which she had
[16375]     written to him in one of the letters, and which he supposed to be
[16376]     the place of sojourn referred to by her mother. Here, of course, he
[16377]     did not find her; and what added to his depression was the discovery
[16378]     that no "Mrs Clare" had ever been heard of by the cottagers or by
[16379]     the farmer himself, though Tess was remembered well enough by her
[16380]     Christian name. His name she had obviously never used during their
[16381]     separation, and her dignified sense of their total severance was
[16382]     shown not much less by this abstention than by the hardships she had
[16383]     chosen to undergo (of which he now learnt for the first time) rather
[16384]     than apply to his father for more funds.
[16385]     
[16386]     From this place they told him Tess Durbeyfield had gone, without due
[16387]     notice, to the home of her parents on the other side of Blackmoor,
[16388]     and it therefore became necessary to find Mrs Durbeyfield. She had
[16389]     told him she was not now at Marlott, but had been curiously reticent
[16390]     as to her actual address, and the only course was to go to Marlott
[16391]     and inquire for it. The farmer who had been so churlish with Tess
[16392]     was quite smooth-tongued to Clare, and lent him a horse and man to
[16393]     drive him towards Marlott, the gig he had arrived in being sent back
[16394]     to Emminster; for the limit of a day's journey with that horse was
[16395]     reached.
[16396]     
[16397]     Clare would not accept the loan of the farmer's vehicle for a further
[16398]     distance than to the outskirts of the Vale, and, sending it back with
[16399]     the man who had driven him, he put up at an inn, and next day entered
[16400]     on foot the region wherein was the spot of his dear Tess's birth.
[16401]     It was as yet too early in the year for much colour to appear in the
[16402]     gardens and foliage; the so-called spring was but winter overlaid
[16403]     with a thin coat of greenness, and it was of a parcel with his
[16404]     expectations.
[16405]     
[16406]     The house in which Tess had passed the years of her childhood was
[16407]     now inhabited by another family who had never known her. The new
[16408]     residents were in the garden, taking as much interest in their own
[16409]     doings as if the homestead had never passed its primal time in
[16410]     conjunction with the histories of others, beside which the histories
[16411]     of these were but as a tale told by an idiot. They walked about the
[16412]     garden paths with thoughts of their own concerns entirely uppermost,
[16413]     bringing their actions at every moment in jarring collision with the
[16414]     dim ghosts behind them, talking as though the time when Tess lived
[16415]     there were not one whit intenser in story than now. Even the spring
[16416]     birds sang over their heads as if they thought there was nobody
[16417]     missing in particular.
[16418]     
[16419]     On inquiry of these precious innocents, to whom even the name of
[16420]     their predecessors was a failing memory, Clare learned that John
[16421]     Durbeyfield was dead; that his widow and children had left Marlott,
[16422]     declaring that they were going to live at Kingsbere, but instead of
[16423]     doing so had gone on to another place they mentioned. By this time
[16424]     Clare abhorred the house for ceasing to contain Tess, and hastened
[16425]     away from its hated presence without once looking back.
[16426]     
[16427]     His way was by the field in which he had first beheld her at the
[16428]     dance. It was as bad as the house--even worse. He passed on through
[16429]     the churchyard, where, amongst the new headstones, he saw one of a
[16430]     somewhat superior design to the rest. The inscription ran thus:
[16431]     
[16432]     
[16433]       In memory of John Durbeyfield, rightly d'Urberville, of
[16434]       the once powerful family of that Name, and Direct
[16435]       Descendant through an illustrious Line from Sir Pagan
[16436]       d'Urberville, one of the Knights of the Conqueror. Died
[16437]       March 10th, 18--
[16438]     
[16439]                     HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN.
[16440]     
[16441]     
[16442]     Some man, apparently the sexton, had observed Clare standing there,
[16443]     and drew nigh. "Ah, sir, now that's a man who didn't want to lie
[16444]     here, but wished to be carried to Kingsbere, where his ancestors be."
[16445]     
[16446]     "And why didn't they respect his wish?"
[16447]     
[16448]     "Oh--no money. Bless your soul, sir, why--there, I wouldn't wish to
[16449]     say it everywhere, but--even this headstone, for all the flourish
[16450]     wrote upon en, is not paid for."
[16451]     
[16452]     "Ah, who put it up?"
[16453]     
[16454]     The man told the name of a mason in the village, and, on leaving the
[16455]     churchyard, Clare called at the mason's house. He found that the
[16456]     statement was true, and paid the bill. This done, he turned in the
[16457]     direction of the migrants.
[16458]     
[16459]     The distance was too long for a walk, but Clare felt such a strong
[16460]     desire for isolation that at first he would neither hire a conveyance
[16461]     nor go to a circuitous line of railway by which he might eventually
[16462]     reach the place. At Shaston, however, he found he must hire; but
[16463]     the way was such that he did not enter Joan's place till about seven
[16464]     o'clock in the evening, having traversed a distance of over twenty
[16465]     miles since leaving Marlott.
[16466]     
[16467]     The village being small he had little difficulty in finding Mrs
[16468]     Durbeyfield's tenement, which was a house in a walled garden,
[16469]     remote from the main road, where she had stowed away her clumsy old
[16470]     furniture as best she could. It was plain that for some reason or
[16471]     other she had not wished him to visit her, and he felt his call to
[16472]     be somewhat of an intrusion. She came to the door herself, and the
[16473]     light from the evening sky fell upon her face.
[16474]     
[16475]     This was the first time that Clare had ever met her, but he was too
[16476]     preoccupied to observe more than that she was still a handsome woman,
[16477]     in the garb of a respectable widow. He was obliged to explain that
[16478]     he was Tess's husband, and his object in coming there, and he did it
[16479]     awkwardly enough. "I want to see her at once," he added. "You said
[16480]     you would write to me again, but you have not done so."
[16481]     
[16482]     "Because she've not come home," said Joan.
[16483]     
[16484]     "Do you know if she is well?"
[16485]     
[16486]     "I don't. But you ought to, sir," said she.
[16487]     
[16488]     "I admit it. Where is she staying?"
[16489]     
[16490]     From the beginning of the interview Joan had disclosed her
[16491]     embarrassment by keeping her hand to the side of her cheek.
[16492]     
[16493]     "I--don't know exactly where she is staying," she answered. "She
[16494]     was--but--"
[16495]     
[16496]     "Where was she?"
[16497]     
[16498]     "Well, she is not there now."
[16499]     
[16500]     In her evasiveness she paused again, and the younger children had by
[16501]     this time crept to the door, where, pulling at his mother's skirts,
[16502]     the youngest murmured--
[16503]     
[16504]     "Is this the gentleman who is going to marry Tess?"
[16505]     
[16506]     "He has married her," Joan whispered. "Go inside."
[16507]     
[16508]     Clare saw her efforts for reticence, and asked--
[16509]     
[16510]     "Do you think Tess would wish me to try and find her? If not, of
[16511]     course--"
[16512]     
[16513]     "I don't think she would."
[16514]     
[16515]     "Are you sure?"
[16516]     
[16517]     "I am sure she wouldn't."
[16518]     
[16519]     He was turning away; and then he thought of Tess's tender letter.
[16520]     
[16521]     "I am sure she would!" he retorted passionately. "I know her better
[16522]     than you do."
[16523]     
[16524]     "That's very likely, sir; for I have never really known her."
[16525]     
[16526]     "Please tell me her address, Mrs Durbeyfield, in kindness to a lonely
[16527]     wretched man!" Tess's mother again restlessly swept her cheek with
[16528]     her vertical hand, and seeing that he suffered, she at last said, is
[16529]     a low voice--
[16530]     
[16531]     "She is at Sandbourne."
[16532]     
[16533]     "Ah--where there? Sandbourne has become a large place, they say."
[16534]     
[16535]     "I don't know more particularly than I have said--Sandbourne. For
[16536]     myself, I was never there."
[16537]     
[16538]     It was apparent that Joan spoke the truth in this, and he pressed her
[16539]     no further.
[16540]     
[16541]     "Are you in want of anything?" he said gently.
[16542]     
[16543]     "No, sir," she replied. "We are fairly well provided for."
[16544]     
[16545]     Without entering the house Clare turned away. There was a station
[16546]     three miles ahead, and paying off his coachman, he walked thither.
[16547]     The last train to Sandbourne left shortly after, and it bore Clare
[16548]     on its wheels.
[16549]     
[16550]     
[16551]     
[16552]     LV
[16553]     
[16554]     
[16555]     At eleven o'clock that night, having secured a bed at one of the
[16556]     hotels and telegraphed his address to his father immediately on his
[16557]     arrival, he walked out into the streets of Sandbourne. It was too
[16558]     late to call on or inquire for any one, and he reluctantly postponed
[16559]     his purpose till the morning. But he could not retire to rest just
[16560]     yet.
[16561]     
[16562]     This fashionable watering-place, with its eastern and its western
[16563]     stations, its piers, its groves of pines, its promenades, and its
[16564]     covered gardens, was, to Angel Clare, like a fairy place suddenly
[16565]     created by the stroke of a wand, and allowed to get a little dusty.
[16566]     An outlying eastern tract of the enormous Egdon Waste was close at
[16567]     hand, yet on the very verge of that tawny piece of antiquity such a
[16568]     glittering novelty as this pleasure city had chosen to spring up.
[16569]     Within the space of a mile from its outskirts every irregularity
[16570]     of the soil was prehistoric, every channel an undisturbed British
[16571]     trackway; not a sod having been turned there since the days of the
[16572]     Caesars. Yet the exotic had grown here, suddenly as the prophet's
[16573]     gourd; and had drawn hither Tess.
[16574]     
[16575]     By the midnight lamps he went up and down the winding way of this new
[16576]     world in an old one, and could discern between the trees and against
[16577]     the stars the lofty roofs, chimneys, gazebos, and towers of the
[16578]     numerous fanciful residences of which the place was composed. It
[16579]     was a city of detached mansions; a Mediterranean lounging-place on
[16580]     the English Channel; and as seen now by night it seemed even more
[16581]     imposing than it was.
[16582]     
[16583]     The sea was near at hand, but not intrusive; it murmured, and he
[16584]     thought it was the pines; the pines murmured in precisely the same
[16585]     tones, and he thought they were the sea.
[16586]     
[16587]     Where could Tess possibly be, a cottage-girl, his young wife, amidst
[16588]     all this wealth and fashion? The more he pondered, the more was he
[16589]     puzzled. Were there any cows to milk here? There certainly were
[16590]     no fields to till. She was most probably engaged to do something in
[16591]     one of these large houses; and he sauntered along, looking at the
[16592]     chamber-windows and their lights going out one by one, and wondered
[16593]     which of them might be hers.
[16594]     
[16595]     Conjecture was useless, and just after twelve o'clock he entered
[16596]     and went to bed. Before putting out his light he re-read Tess's
[16597]     impassioned letter. Sleep, however, he could not--so near her, yet
[16598]     so far from her--and he continually lifted the window-blind and
[16599]     regarded the backs of the opposite houses, and wondered behind which
[16600]     of the sashes she reposed at that moment.
[16601]     
[16602]     He might almost as well have sat up all night. In the morning he
[16603]     arose at seven, and shortly after went out, taking the direction of
[16604]     the chief post-office. At the door he met an intelligent postman
[16605]     coming out with letters for the morning delivery.
[16606]     
[16607]     "Do you know the address of a Mrs Clare?" asked Angel. The postman
[16608]     shook his head.
[16609]     
[16610]     Then, remembering that she would have been likely to continue the use
[16611]     of her maiden name, Clare said--
[16612]     
[16613]     "Of a Miss Durbeyfield?"
[16614]     
[16615]     "Durbeyfield?"
[16616]     
[16617]     This also was strange to the postman addressed.
[16618]     
[16619]     "There's visitors coming and going every day, as you know, sir," he
[16620]     said; "and without the name of the house 'tis impossible to find
[16621]     'em."
[16622]     
[16623]     One of his comrades hastening out at that moment, the name was
[16624]     repeated to him.
[16625]     
[16626]     "I know no name of Durbeyfield; but there is the name of d'Urberville
[16627]     at The Herons," said the second.
[16628]     
[16629]     "That's it!" cried Clare, pleased to think that she had reverted to
[16630]     the real pronunciation. "What place is The Herons?"
[16631]     
[16632]     "A stylish lodging-house. 'Tis all lodging-houses here, bless 'ee."
[16633]     
[16634]     Clare received directions how to find the house, and hastened
[16635]     thither, arriving with the milkman. The Herons, though an ordinary
[16636]     villa, stood in its own grounds, and was certainly the last place
[16637]     in which one would have expected to find lodgings, so private was
[16638]     its appearance. If poor Tess was a servant here, as he feared, she
[16639]     would go to the back-door to that milkman, and he was inclined to go
[16640]     thither also. However, in his doubts he turned to the front, and
[16641]     rang.
[16642]     
[16643]     The hour being early, the landlady herself opened the door. Clare
[16644]     inquired for Teresa d'Urberville or Durbeyfield.
[16645]     
[16646]     "Mrs d'Urberville?"
[16647]     
[16648]     "Yes."
[16649]     
[16650]     Tess, then, passed as a married woman, and he felt glad, even though
[16651]     she had not adopted his name.
[16652]     
[16653]     "Will you kindly tell her that a relative is anxious to see her?"
[16654]     
[16655]     "It is rather early. What name shall I give, sir?"
[16656]     
[16657]     "Angel."
[16658]     
[16659]     "Mr Angel?"
[16660]     
[16661]     "No; Angel. It is my Christian name. She'll understand."
[16662]     
[16663]     "I'll see if she is awake."
[16664]     
[16665]     He was shown into the front room--the dining-room--and looked out
[16666]     through the spring curtains at the little lawn, and the rhododendrons
[16667]     and other shrubs upon it. Obviously her position was by no means so
[16668]     bad as he had feared, and it crossed his mind that she must somehow
[16669]     have claimed and sold the jewels to attain it. He did not blame her
[16670]     for one moment. Soon his sharpened ear detected footsteps upon the
[16671]     stairs, at which his heart thumped so painfully that he could hardly
[16672]     stand firm. "Dear me! what will she think of me, so altered as I
[16673]     am!" he said to himself; and the door opened.
[16674]     
[16675]     Tess appeared on the threshold--not at all as he had expected to
[16676]     see her--bewilderingly otherwise, indeed. Her great natural beauty
[16677]     was, if not heightened, rendered more obvious by her attire. She
[16678]     was loosely wrapped in a cashmere dressing-gown of gray-white,
[16679]     embroidered in half-mourning tints, and she wore slippers of the same
[16680]     hue. Her neck rose out of a frill of down, and her well-remembered
[16681]     cable of dark-brown hair was partially coiled up in a mass at the
[16682]     back of her head and partly hanging on her shoulder--the evident
[16683]     result of haste.
[16684]     
[16685]     He had held out his arms, but they had fallen again to his side;
[16686]     for she had not come forward, remaining still in the opening of the
[16687]     doorway. Mere yellow skeleton that he was now, he felt the contrast
[16688]     between them, and thought his appearance distasteful to her.
[16689]     
[16690]     "Tess!" he said huskily, "can you forgive me for going away? Can't
[16691]     you--come to me? How do you get to be--like this?"
[16692]     
[16693]     "It is too late," said she, her voice sounding hard through the room,
[16694]     her eyes shining unnaturally.
[16695]     
[16696]     "I did not think rightly of you--I did not see you as you were!" he
[16697]     continued to plead. "I have learnt to since, dearest Tessy mine!"
[16698]     
[16699]     "Too late, too late!" she said, waving her hand in the impatience of
[16700]     a person whose tortures cause every instant to seem an hour. "Don't
[16701]     come close to me, Angel! No--you must not. Keep away."
[16702]     
[16703]     "But don't you love me, my dear wife, because I have been so pulled
[16704]     down by illness? You are not so fickle--I am come on purpose for
[16705]     you--my mother and father will welcome you now!"
[16706]     
[16707]     "Yes--O, yes, yes! But I say, I say it is too late."
[16708]     
[16709]     She seemed to feel like a fugitive in a dream, who tries to move
[16710]     away, but cannot. "Don't you know all--don't you know it? Yet how
[16711]     do you come here if you do not know?"
[16712]     
[16713]     "I inquired here and there, and I found the way."
[16714]     
[16715]     "I waited and waited for you," she went on, her tones suddenly
[16716]     resuming their old fluty pathos. "But you did not come! And I wrote
[16717]     to you, and you did not come! He kept on saying you would never come
[16718]     any more, and that I was a foolish woman. He was very kind to me,
[16719]     and to mother, and to all of us after father's death. He--"
[16720]     
[16721]     "I don't understand."
[16722]     
[16723]     "He has won me back to him."
[16724]     
[16725]     Clare looked at her keenly, then, gathering her meaning, flagged
[16726]     like one plague-stricken, and his glance sank; it fell on her hands,
[16727]     which, once rosy, were now white and more delicate.
[16728]     
[16729]     She continued--
[16730]     
[16731]     "He is upstairs. I hate him now, because he told me a lie--that you
[16732]     would not come again; and you HAVE come! These clothes are what he's
[16733]     put upon me: I didn't care what he did wi' me! But--will you go
[16734]     away, Angel, please, and never come any more?"
[16735]     
[16736]     They stood fixed, their baffled hearts looking out of their eyes with
[16737]     a joylessness pitiful to see. Both seemed to implore something to
[16738]     shelter them from reality.
[16739]     
[16740]     "Ah--it is my fault!" said Clare.
[16741]     
[16742]     But he could not get on. Speech was as inexpressive as silence. But
[16743]     he had a vague consciousness of one thing, though it was not clear
[16744]     to him till later; that his original Tess had spiritually ceased to
[16745]     recognize the body before him as hers--allowing it to drift, like a
[16746]     corpse upon the current, in a direction dissociated from its living
[16747]     will.
[16748]     
[16749]     A few instants passed, and he found that Tess was gone. His face
[16750]     grew colder and more shrunken as he stood concentrated on the moment,
[16751]     and a minute or two after, he found himself in the street, walking
[16752]     along he did not know whither.
[16753]     
[16754]     
[16755]     
[16756]     LVI
[16757]     
[16758]     
[16759]     Mrs Brooks, the lady who was the householder at The Herons and owner
[16760]     of all the handsome furniture, was not a person of an unusually
[16761]     curious turn of mind. She was too deeply materialized, poor woman,
[16762]     by her long and enforced bondage to that arithmetical demon
[16763]     Profit-and-Loss, to retain much curiousity for its own sake, and
[16764]     apart from possible lodgers' pockets. Nevertheless, the visit of
[16765]     Angel Clare to her well-paying tenants, Mr and Mrs d'Urberville, as
[16766]     she deemed them, was sufficiently exceptional in point of time and
[16767]     manner to reinvigorate the feminine proclivity which had been stifled
[16768]     down as useless save in its bearings to the letting trade.
[16769]     
[16770]     Tess had spoken to her husband from the doorway, without entering
[16771]     the dining-room, and Mrs Brooks, who stood within the partly-closed
[16772]     door of her own sitting-room at the back of the passage, could
[16773]     hear fragments of the conversation--if conversation it could be
[16774]     called--between those two wretched souls. She heard Tess re-ascend
[16775]     the stairs to the first floor, and the departure of Clare, and the
[16776]     closing of the front door behind him. Then the door of the room
[16777]     above was shut, and Mrs Brooks knew that Tess had re-entered her
[16778]     apartment. As the young lady was not fully dressed, Mrs Brooks knew
[16779]     that she would not emerge again for some time.
[16780]     
[16781]     She accordingly ascended the stairs softly, and stood at the door of
[16782]     the front room--a drawing-room, connected with the room immediately
[16783]     behind it (which was a bedroom) by folding-doors in the common
[16784]     manner. This first floor, containing Mrs Brooks's best apartments,
[16785]     had been taken by the week by the d'Urbervilles. The back room was
[16786]     now in silence; but from the drawing-room there came sounds.
[16787]     
[16788]     All that she could at first distinguish of them was one syllable,
[16789]     continually repeated in a low note of moaning, as if it came from a
[16790]     soul bound to some Ixionian wheel--
[16791]     
[16792]     "O--O--O!"
[16793]     
[16794]     Then a silence, then a heavy sigh, and again--
[16795]     
[16796]     "O--O--O!"
[16797]     
[16798]     The landlady looked through the keyhole. Only a small space of the
[16799]     room inside was visible, but within that space came a corner of the
[16800]     breakfast table, which was already spread for the meal, and also a
[16801]     chair beside. Over the seat of the chair Tess's face was bowed, her
[16802]     posture being a kneeling one in front of it; her hands were clasped
[16803]     over her head, the skirts of her dressing-gown and the embroidery of
[16804]     her night-gown flowed upon the floor behind her, and her stockingless
[16805]     feet, from which the slippers had fallen, protruded upon the carpet.
[16806]     It was from her lips that came the murmur of unspeakable despair.
[16807]     
[16808]     Then a man's voice from the adjoining bedroom--
[16809]     
[16810]     "What's the matter?"
[16811]     
[16812]     She did not answer, but went on, in a tone which was a soliloquy
[16813]     rather than an exclamation, and a dirge rather than a soliloquy.
[16814]     Mrs Brooks could only catch a portion:
[16815]     
[16816]     "And then my dear, dear husband came home to me ... and I did not
[16817]     know it! ... And you had used your cruel persuasion upon me ... you
[16818]     did not stop using it--no--you did not stop! My little sisters and
[16819]     brothers and my mother's needs--they were the things you moved me
[16820]     by ... and you said my husband would never come back--never; and you
[16821]     taunted me, and said what a simpleton I was to expect him! ... And
[16822]     at last I believed you and gave way! ... And then he came back!
[16823]     Now he is gone. Gone a second time, and I have lost him now
[16824]     for ever ... and he will not love me the littlest bit ever any
[16825]     more--only hate me! ... O yes, I have lost him now--again because
[16826]     of--you!" In writhing, with her head on the chair, she turned her
[16827]     face towards the door, and Mrs Brooks could see the pain upon it,
[16828]     and that her lips were bleeding from the clench of her teeth upon
[16829]     them, and that the long lashes of her closed eyes stuck in wet tags
[16830]     to her cheeks. She continued: "And he is dying--he looks as if he
[16831]     is dying! ... And my sin will kill him and not kill me! ... O, you
[16832]     have torn my life all to pieces ... made me be what I prayed you in
[16833]     pity not to make me be again! ... My own true husband will never,
[16834]     never--O God--I can't bear this!--I cannot!"
[16835]     
[16836]     There were more and sharper words from the man; then a sudden rustle;
[16837]     she had sprung to her feet. Mrs Brooks, thinking that the speaker
[16838]     was coming to rush out of the door, hastily retreated down the
[16839]     stairs.
[16840]     
[16841]     She need not have done so, however, for the door of the sitting-room
[16842]     was not opened. But Mrs Brooks felt it unsafe to watch on the
[16843]     landing again, and entered her own parlour below.
[16844]     
[16845]     She could hear nothing through the floor, although she listened
[16846]     intently, and thereupon went to the kitchen to finish her interrupted
[16847]     breakfast. Coming up presently to the front room on the ground floor
[16848]     she took up some sewing, waiting for her lodgers to ring that she
[16849]     might take away the breakfast, which she meant to do herself, to
[16850]     discover what was the matter if possible. Overhead, as she sat, she
[16851]     could now hear the floorboards slightly creak, as if some one were
[16852]     walking about, and presently the movement was explained by the rustle
[16853]     of garments against the banisters, the opening and the closing of
[16854]     the front door, and the form of Tess passing to the gate on her way
[16855]     into the street. She was fully dressed now in the walking costume
[16856]     of a well-to-do young lady in which she had arrived, with the sole
[16857]     addition that over her hat and black feathers a veil was drawn.
[16858]     
[16859]     Mrs Brooks had not been able to catch any word of farewell, temporary
[16860]     or otherwise, between her tenants at the door above. They might have
[16861]     quarrelled, or Mr d'Urberville might still be asleep, for he was not
[16862]     an early riser.
[16863]     
[16864]     She went into the back room, which was more especially her own
[16865]     apartment, and continued her sewing there. The lady lodger did not
[16866]     return, nor did the gentleman ring his bell. Mrs Brooks pondered on
[16867]     the delay, and on what probable relation the visitor who had called
[16868]     so early bore to the couple upstairs. In reflecting she leant back
[16869]     in her chair.
[16870]     
[16871]     As she did so her eyes glanced casually over the ceiling till they
[16872]     were arrested by a spot in the middle of its white surface which she
[16873]     had never noticed there before. It was about the size of a wafer
[16874]     when she first observed it, but it speedily grew as large as the palm
[16875]     of her hand, and then she could perceive that it was red. The oblong
[16876]     white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the
[16877]     appearance of a gigantic ace of hearts.
[16878]     
[16879]     Mrs Brooks had strange qualms of misgiving. She got upon the table,
[16880]     and touched the spot in the ceiling with her fingers. It was damp,
[16881]     and she fancied that it was a blood stain.
[16882]     
[16883]     Descending from the table, she left the parlour, and went upstairs,
[16884]     intending to enter the room overhead, which was the bedchamber at
[16885]     the back of the drawing-room. But, nerveless woman as she had now
[16886]     become, she could not bring herself to attempt the handle. She
[16887]     listened. The dead silence within was broken only by a regular beat.
[16888]     
[16889]     Drip, drip, drip.
[16890]     
[16891]     Mrs Brooks hastened downstairs, opened the front door, and ran into
[16892]     the street. A man she knew, one of the workmen employed at an
[16893]     adjoining villa, was passing by, and she begged him to come in and go
[16894]     upstairs with her; she feared something had happened to one of her
[16895]     lodgers. The workman assented, and followed her to the landing.
[16896]     
[16897]     She opened the door of the drawing-room, and stood back for him
[16898]     to pass in, entering herself behind him. The room was empty; the
[16899]     breakfast--a substantial repast of coffee, eggs, and a cold ham--lay
[16900]     spread upon the table untouched, as when she had taken it up,
[16901]     excepting that the carving-knife was missing. She asked the man to
[16902]     go through the folding-doors into the adjoining room.
[16903]     
[16904]     He opened the doors, entered a step or two, and came back almost
[16905]     instantly with a rigid face. "My good God, the gentleman in bed is
[16906]     dead! I think he has been hurt with a knife--a lot of blood had run
[16907]     down upon the floor!"
[16908]     
[16909]     The alarm was soon given, and the house which had lately been so
[16910]     quiet resounded with the tramp of many footsteps, a surgeon among the
[16911]     rest. The wound was small, but the point of the blade had touched
[16912]     the heart of the victim, who lay on his back, pale, fixed, dead, as
[16913]     if he had scarcely moved after the infliction of the blow. In a
[16914]     quarter of an hour the news that a gentleman who was a temporary
[16915]     visitor to the town had been stabbed in his bed, spread through every
[16916]     street and villa of the popular watering-place.
[16917]     
[16918]     
[16919]     
[16920]     LVII
[16921]     
[16922]     
[16923]     Meanwhile Angel Clare had walked automatically along the way by which
[16924]     he had come, and, entering his hotel, sat down over the breakfast,
[16925]     staring at nothingness. He went on eating and drinking unconsciously
[16926]     till on a sudden he demanded his bill; having paid which, he took his
[16927]     dressing-bag in his hand, the only luggage he had brought with him,
[16928]     and went out.
[16929]     
[16930]     At the moment of his departure a telegram was handed to him--a few
[16931]     words from his mother, stating that they were glad to know his
[16932]     address, and informing him that his brother Cuthbert had proposed to
[16933]     and been accepted by Mercy Chant.
[16934]     
[16935]     Clare crumpled up the paper and followed the route to the station;
[16936]     reaching it, he found that there would be no train leaving for an
[16937]     hour and more. He sat down to wait, and having waited a quarter of
[16938]     an hour felt that he could wait there no longer. Broken in heart and
[16939]     numbed, he had nothing to hurry for; but he wished to get out of a
[16940]     town which had been the scene of such an experience, and turned to
[16941]     walk to the first station onward, and let the train pick him up
[16942]     there.
[16943]     
[16944]     The highway that he followed was open, and at a little distance
[16945]     dipped into a valley, across which it could be seen running from edge
[16946]     to edge. He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and
[16947]     was climbing the western acclivity when, pausing for breath, he
[16948]     unconsciously looked back. Why he did so he could not say, but
[16949]     something seemed to impel him to the act. The tape-like surface of
[16950]     the road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he
[16951]     gazed a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective.
[16952]     
[16953]     It was a human figure running. Clare waited, with a dim sense that
[16954]     somebody was trying to overtake him.
[16955]     
[16956]     The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was
[16957]     his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him that even
[16958]     when she came nearer he did not recognize her under the totally
[16959]     changed attire in which he now beheld her. It was not till she was
[16960]     quite close that he could believe her to be Tess.
[16961]     
[16962]     "I saw you--turn away from the station--just before I got there--and
[16963]     I have been following you all this way!"
[16964]     
[16965]     She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he
[16966]     did not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling
[16967]     it within his arm, he led her along. To avoid meeting any possible
[16968]     wayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some
[16969]     fir-trees. When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped
[16970]     and looked at her inquiringly.
[16971]     
[16972]     "Angel," she said, as if waiting for this, "do you know what I have
[16973]     been running after you for? To tell you that I have killed him!"
[16974]     A pitiful white smile lit her face as she spoke.
[16975]     
[16976]     "What!" said he, thinking from the strangeness of her manner that she
[16977]     was in some delirium.
[16978]     
[16979]     "I have done it--I don't know how," she continued. "Still, I owed it
[16980]     to you, and to myself, Angel. I feared long ago, when I struck him
[16981]     on the mouth with my glove, that I might do it some day for the trap
[16982]     he set for me in my simple youth, and his wrong to you through me.
[16983]     He has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any
[16984]     more. I never loved him at all, Angel, as I loved you. You know it,
[16985]     don't you? You believe it? You didn't come back to me, and I was
[16986]     obliged to go back to him. Why did you go away--why did you--when I
[16987]     loved you so? I can't think why you did it. But I don't blame you;
[16988]     only, Angel, will you forgive me my sin against you, now I have
[16989]     killed him? I thought as I ran along that you would be sure to
[16990]     forgive me now I have done that. It came to me as a shining light
[16991]     that I should get you back that way. I could not bear the loss of
[16992]     you any longer--you don't know how entirely I was unable to bear your
[16993]     not loving me! Say you do now, dear, dear husband; say you do, now I
[16994]     have killed him!"
[16995]     
[16996]     "I do love you, Tess--O, I do--it is all come back!" he said,
[16997]     tightening his arms round her with fervid pressure. "But how do you
[16998]     mean--you have killed him?"
[16999]     
[17000]     "I mean that I have," she murmured in a reverie.
[17001]     
[17002]     "What, bodily? Is he dead?"
[17003]     
[17004]     "Yes. He heard me crying about you, and he bitterly taunted me; and
[17005]     called you by a foul name; and then I did it. My heart could not
[17006]     bear it. He had nagged me about you before. And then I dressed
[17007]     myself and came away to find you."
[17008]     
[17009]     By degrees he was inclined to believe that she had faintly attempted,
[17010]     at least, what she said she had done; and his horror at her impulse
[17011]     was mixed with amazement at the strength of her affection for
[17012]     himself, and at the strangeness of its quality, which had apparently
[17013]     extinguished her moral sense altogether. Unable to realize the
[17014]     gravity of her conduct, she seemed at last content; and he looked
[17015]     at her as she lay upon his shoulder, weeping with happiness, and
[17016]     wondered what obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to
[17017]     this aberration--if it were an aberration. There momentarily flashed
[17018]     through his mind that the family tradition of the coach and murder
[17019]     might have arisen because the d'Urbervilles had been known to do
[17020]     these things. As well as his confused and excited ideas could
[17021]     reason, he supposed that in the moment of mad grief of which she
[17022]     spoke, her mind had lost its balance, and plunged her into this
[17023]     abyss.
[17024]     
[17025]     It was very terrible if true; if a temporary hallucination, sad. But,
[17026]     anyhow, here was this deserted wife of his, this passionately-fond
[17027]     woman, clinging to him without a suspicion that he would be anything
[17028]     to her but a protector. He saw that for him to be otherwise was
[17029]     not, in her mind, within the region of the possible. Tenderness was
[17030]     absolutely dominant in Clare at last. He kissed her endlessly with
[17031]     his white lips, and held her hand, and said--
[17032]     
[17033]     "I will not desert you! I will protect you by every means in my
[17034]     power, dearest love, whatever you may have done or not have done!"
[17035]     
[17036]     They then walked on under the trees, Tess turning her head every now
[17037]     and then to look at him. Worn and unhandsome as he had become, it
[17038]     was plain that she did not discern the least fault in his appearance.
[17039]     To her he was, as of old, all that was perfection, personally and
[17040]     mentally. He was still her Antinous, her Apollo even; his sickly
[17041]     face was beautiful as the morning to her affectionate regard on
[17042]     this day no less than when she first beheld him; for was it not the
[17043]     face of the one man on earth who had loved her purely, and who had
[17044]     believed in her as pure!
[17045]     
[17046]     With an instinct as to possibilities, he did not now, as he had
[17047]     intended, make for the first station beyond the town, but plunged
[17048]     still farther under the firs, which here abounded for miles. Each
[17049]     clasping the other round the waist they promenaded over the dry bed
[17050]     of fir-needles, thrown into a vague intoxicating atmosphere at the
[17051]     consciousness of being together at last, with no living soul between
[17052]     them; ignoring that there was a corpse. Thus they proceeded for
[17053]     several miles till Tess, arousing herself, looked about her, and
[17054]     said, timidly--
[17055]     
[17056]     "Are we going anywhere in particular?"
[17057]     
[17058]     "I don't know, dearest. Why?"
[17059]     
[17060]     "I don't know."
[17061]     
[17062]     "Well, we might walk a few miles further, and when it is evening find
[17063]     lodgings somewhere or other--in a lonely cottage, perhaps. Can you
[17064]     walk well, Tessy?"
[17065]     
[17066]     "O yes! I could walk for ever and ever with your arm round me!"
[17067]     
[17068]     Upon the whole it seemed a good thing to do. Thereupon they
[17069]     quickened their pace, avoiding high roads, and following obscure
[17070]     paths tending more or less northward. But there was an unpractical
[17071]     vagueness in their movements throughout the day; neither one of them
[17072]     seemed to consider any question of effectual escape, disguise, or
[17073]     long concealment. Their every idea was temporary and unforefending,
[17074]     like the plans of two children.
[17075]     
[17076]     At mid-day they drew near to a roadside inn, and Tess would have
[17077]     entered it with him to get something to eat, but he persuaded
[17078]     her to remain among the trees and bushes of this half-woodland,
[17079]     half-moorland part of the country till he should come back. Her
[17080]     clothes were of recent fashion; even the ivory-handled parasol that
[17081]     she carried was of a shape unknown in the retired spot to which they
[17082]     had now wandered; and the cut of such articles would have attracted
[17083]     attention in the settle of a tavern. He soon returned, with food
[17084]     enough for half-a-dozen people and two bottles of wine--enough to
[17085]     last them for a day or more, should any emergency arise.
[17086]     
[17087]     They sat down upon some dead boughs and shared their meal. Between
[17088]     one and two o'clock they packed up the remainder and went on again.
[17089]     
[17090]     "I feel strong enough to walk any distance," said she.
[17091]     
[17092]     "I think we may as well steer in a general way towards the interior
[17093]     of the country, where we can hide for a time, and are less likely to
[17094]     be looked for than anywhere near the coast," Clare remarked. "Later
[17095]     on, when they have forgotten us, we can make for some port."
[17096]     
[17097]     She made no reply to this beyond that of grasping him more tightly,
[17098]     and straight inland they went. Though the season was an English May,
[17099]     the weather was serenely bright, and during the afternoon it was
[17100]     quite warm. Through the latter miles of their walk their footpath
[17101]     had taken them into the depths of the New Forest, and towards
[17102]     evening, turning the corner of a lane, they perceived behind a brook
[17103]     and bridge a large board on which was painted in white letters, "This
[17104]     desirable Mansion to be Let Furnished"; particulars following, with
[17105]     directions to apply to some London agents. Passing through the gate
[17106]     they could see the house, an old brick building of regular design and
[17107]     large accommodation.
[17108]     
[17109]     "I know it," said Clare. "It is Bramshurst Court. You can see that
[17110]     it is shut up, and grass is growing on the drive."
[17111]     
[17112]     "Some of the windows are open," said Tess.
[17113]     
[17114]     "Just to air the rooms, I suppose."
[17115]     
[17116]     "All these rooms empty, and we without a roof to our heads!"
[17117]     
[17118]     "You are getting tired, my Tess!" he said. "We'll stop soon." And
[17119]     kissing her sad mouth, he again led her onwards.
[17120]     
[17121]     He was growing weary likewise, for they had wandered a dozen or
[17122]     fifteen miles, and it became necessary to consider what they should
[17123]     do for rest. They looked from afar at isolated cottages and little
[17124]     inns, and were inclined to approach one of the latter, when their
[17125]     hearts failed them, and they sheered off. At length their gait
[17126]     dragged, and they stood still.
[17127]     
[17128]     "Could we sleep under the trees?" she asked.
[17129]     
[17130]     He thought the season insufficiently advanced.
[17131]     
[17132]     "I have been thinking of that empty mansion we passed," he said.
[17133]     "Let us go back towards it again."
[17134]     
[17135]     They retraced their steps, but it was half an hour before they stood
[17136]     without the entrance-gate as earlier. He then requested her to stay
[17137]     where she was, whilst he went to see who was within.
[17138]     
[17139]     She sat down among the bushes within the gate, and Clare crept
[17140]     towards the house. His absence lasted some considerable time, and
[17141]     when he returned Tess was wildly anxious, not for herself, but for
[17142]     him. He had found out from a boy that there was only an old woman in
[17143]     charge as caretaker, and she only came there on fine days, from the
[17144]     hamlet near, to open and shut the windows. She would come to shut
[17145]     them at sunset. "Now, we can get in through one of the lower
[17146]     windows, and rest there," said he.
[17147]     
[17148]     Under his escort she went tardily forward to the main front, whose
[17149]     shuttered windows, like sightless eyeballs, excluded the possibility
[17150]     of watchers. The door was reached a few steps further, and one of
[17151]     the windows beside it was open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess
[17152]     in after him.
[17153]     
[17154]     Except the hall, the rooms were all in darkness, and they ascended
[17155]     the staircase. Up here also the shutters were tightly closed,
[17156]     the ventilation being perfunctorily done, for this day at least,
[17157]     by opening the hall-window in front and an upper window behind.
[17158]     Clare unlatched the door of a large chamber, felt his way across
[17159]     it, and parted the shutters to the width of two or three inches.
[17160]     A shaft of dazzling sunlight glanced into the room, revealing heavy,
[17161]     old-fashioned furniture, crimson damask hangings, and an enormous
[17162]     four-post bedstead, along the head of which were carved running
[17163]     figures, apparently Atalanta's race.
[17164]     
[17165]     "Rest at last!" said he, setting down his bag and the parcel of
[17166]     viands.
[17167]     
[17168]     They remained in great quietness till the caretaker should have come
[17169]     to shut the windows: as a precaution, putting themselves in total
[17170]     darkness by barring the shutters as before, lest the woman should
[17171]     open the door of their chamber for any casual reason. Between six
[17172]     and seven o'clock she came, but did not approach the wing they
[17173]     were in. They heard her close the windows, fasten them, lock the
[17174]     door, and go away. Then Clare again stole a chink of light from
[17175]     the window, and they shared another meal, till by-and-by they
[17176]     were enveloped in the shades of night which they had no candle to
[17177]     disperse.
[17178]     
[17179]     
[17180]     
[17181]     LVIII
[17182]     
[17183]     
[17184]     The night was strangely solemn and still. In the small hours she
[17185]     whispered to him the whole story of how he had walked in his sleep
[17186]     with her in his arms across the Froom stream, at the imminent risk of
[17187]     both their lives, and laid her down in the stone coffin at the ruined
[17188]     abbey. He had never known of that till now.
[17189]     
[17190]     "Why didn't you tell me next day?" he said. "It might have prevented
[17191]     much misunderstanding and woe."
[17192]     
[17193]     "Don't think of what's past!" said she. "I am not going to think
[17194]     outside of now. Why should we! Who knows what to-morrow has in
[17195]     store?"
[17196]     
[17197]     But it apparently had no sorrow. The morning was wet and foggy, and
[17198]     Clare, rightly informed that the caretaker only opened the windows
[17199]     on fine days, ventured to creep out of their chamber and explore the
[17200]     house, leaving Tess asleep. There was no food on the premises, but
[17201]     there was water, and he took advantage of the fog to emerge from the
[17202]     mansion and fetch tea, bread, and butter from a shop in a little
[17203]     place two miles beyond, as also a small tin kettle and spirit-lamp,
[17204]     that they might get fire without smoke. His re-entry awoke her; and
[17205]     they breakfasted on what he had brought.
[17206]     
[17207]     They were indisposed to stir abroad, and the day passed, and the
[17208]     night following, and the next, and next; till, almost without their
[17209]     being aware, five days had slipped by in absolute seclusion, not a
[17210]     sight or sound of a human being disturbing their peacefulness, such
[17211]     as it was. The changes of the weather were their only events, the
[17212]     birds of the New Forest their only company. By tacit consent they
[17213]     hardly once spoke of any incident of the past subsequent to their
[17214]     wedding-day. The gloomy intervening time seemed to sink into chaos,
[17215]     over which the present and prior times closed as if it never had
[17216]     been. Whenever he suggested that they should leave their shelter,
[17217]     and go forwards towards Southampton or London, she showed a strange
[17218]     unwillingness to move.
[17219]     
[17220]     "Why should we put an end to all that's sweet and lovely!" she
[17221]     deprecated. "What must come will come." And, looking through the
[17222]     shutter-chink: "All is trouble outside there; inside here content."
[17223]     
[17224]     He peeped out also. It was quite true; within was affection, union,
[17225]     error forgiven: outside was the inexorable.
[17226]     
[17227]     "And--and," she said, pressing her cheek against his, "I fear that
[17228]     what you think of me now may not last. I do not wish to outlive your
[17229]     present feeling for me. I would rather not. I would rather be dead
[17230]     and buried when the time comes for you to despise me, so that it may
[17231]     never be known to me that you despised me."
[17232]     
[17233]     "I cannot ever despise you."
[17234]     
[17235]     "I also hope that. But considering what my life has been, I cannot
[17236]     see why any man should, sooner or later, be able to help despising
[17237]     me.... How wickedly mad I was! Yet formerly I never could bear to
[17238]     hurt a fly or a worm, and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to
[17239]     make me cry."
[17240]     
[17241]     They remained yet another day. In the night the dull sky cleared,
[17242]     and the result was that the old caretaker at the cottage awoke early.
[17243]     The brilliant sunrise made her unusually brisk; she decided to open
[17244]     the contiguous mansion immediately, and to air it thoroughly on such
[17245]     a day. Thus it occurred that, having arrived and opened the lower
[17246]     rooms before six o'clock, she ascended to the bedchambers, and was
[17247]     about to turn the handle of the one wherein they lay. At that moment
[17248]     she fancied she could hear the breathing of persons within. Her
[17249]     slippers and her antiquity had rendered her progress a noiseless one
[17250]     so far, and she made for instant retreat; then, deeming that her
[17251]     hearing might have deceived her, she turned anew to the door and
[17252]     softly tried the handle. The lock was out of order, but a piece of
[17253]     furniture had been moved forward on the inside, which prevented her
[17254]     opening the door more than an inch or two. A stream of morning light
[17255]     through the shutter-chink fell upon the faces of the pair, wrapped in
[17256]     profound slumber, Tess's lips being parted like a half-opened flower
[17257]     near his cheek. The caretaker was so struck with their innocent
[17258]     appearance, and with the elegance of Tess's gown hanging across a
[17259]     chair, her silk stockings beside it, the pretty parasol, and the
[17260]     other habits in which she had arrived because she had none else, that
[17261]     her first indignation at the effrontery of tramps and vagabonds gave
[17262]     way to a momentary sentimentality over this genteel elopement, as it
[17263]     seemed. She closed the door, and withdrew as softly as she had come,
[17264]     to go and consult with her neighbours on the odd discovery.
[17265]     
[17266]     Not more than a minute had elapsed after her withdrawal when Tess
[17267]     woke, and then Clare. Both had a sense that something had disturbed
[17268]     them, though they could not say what; and the uneasy feeling which
[17269]     it engendered grew stronger. As soon as he was dressed he narrowly
[17270]     scanned the lawn through the two or three inches of shutter-chink.
[17271]     
[17272]     "I think we will leave at once," said he. "It is a fine day. And I
[17273]     cannot help fancying somebody is about the house. At any rate, the
[17274]     woman will be sure to come to-day."
[17275]     
[17276]     She passively assented, and putting the room in order, they took up
[17277]     the few articles that belonged to them, and departed noiselessly.
[17278]     When they had got into the Forest she turned to take a last look at
[17279]     the house.
[17280]     
[17281]     "Ah, happy house--goodbye!" she said. "My life can only be a
[17282]     question of a few weeks. Why should we not have stayed there?"
[17283]     
[17284]     "Don't say it, Tess! We shall soon get out of this district
[17285]     altogether. We'll continue our course as we've begun it, and keep
[17286]     straight north. Nobody will think of looking for us there. We shall
[17287]     be looked for at the Wessex ports if we are sought at all. When we
[17288]     are in the north we will get to a port and away."
[17289]     
[17290]     Having thus persuaded her, the plan was pursued, and they kept a
[17291]     bee-line northward. Their long repose at the manor-house lent them
[17292]     walking power now; and towards mid-day they found that they were
[17293]     approaching the steepled city of Melchester, which lay directly in
[17294]     their way. He decided to rest her in a clump of trees during the
[17295]     afternoon, and push onward under cover of darkness. At dusk Clare
[17296]     purchased food as usual, and their night march began, the boundary
[17297]     between Upper and Mid-Wessex being crossed about eight o'clock.
[17298]     
[17299]     To walk across country without much regard to roads was not new
[17300]     to Tess, and she showed her old agility in the performance. The
[17301]     intercepting city, ancient Melchester, they were obliged to pass
[17302]     through in order to take advantage of the town bridge for crossing a
[17303]     large river that obstructed them. It was about midnight when they
[17304]     went along the deserted streets, lighted fitfully by the few lamps,
[17305]     keeping off the pavement that it might not echo their footsteps.
[17306]     The graceful pile of cathedral architecture rose dimly on their left
[17307]     hand, but it was lost upon them now. Once out of the town they
[17308]     followed the turnpike-road, which after a few miles plunged across an
[17309]     open plain.
[17310]     
[17311]     Though the sky was dense with cloud, a diffused light from some
[17312]     fragment of a moon had hitherto helped them a little. But the moon
[17313]     had now sunk, the clouds seemed to settle almost on their heads, and
[17314]     the night grew as dark as a cave. However, they found their way
[17315]     along, keeping as much on the turf as possible that their tread might
[17316]     not resound, which it was easy to do, there being no hedge or fence
[17317]     of any kind. All around was open loneliness and black solitude, over
[17318]     which a stiff breeze blew.
[17319]     
[17320]     They had proceeded thus gropingly two or three miles further when
[17321]     on a sudden Clare became conscious of some vast erection close in
[17322]     his front, rising sheer from the grass. They had almost struck
[17323]     themselves against it.
[17324]     
[17325]     "What monstrous place is this?" said Angel.
[17326]     
[17327]     "It hums," said she. "Hearken!"
[17328]     
[17329]     He listened. The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming
[17330]     tune, like the note of some gigantic one-stringed harp. No other
[17331]     sound came from it, and lifting his hand and advancing a step or
[17332]     two, Clare felt the vertical surface of the structure. It seemed to
[17333]     be of solid stone, without joint or moulding. Carrying his fingers
[17334]     onward he found that what he had come in contact with was a colossal
[17335]     rectangular pillar; by stretching out his left hand he could feel a
[17336]     similar one adjoining. At an indefinite height overhead something
[17337]     made the black sky blacker, which had the semblance of a vast
[17338]     architrave uniting the pillars horizontally. They carefully entered
[17339]     beneath and between; the surfaces echoed their soft rustle; but they
[17340]     seemed to be still out of doors. The place was roofless. Tess drew
[17341]     her breath fearfully, and Angel, perplexed, said--
[17342]     
[17343]     "What can it be?"
[17344]     
[17345]     Feeling sideways they encountered another tower-like pillar, square
[17346]     and uncompromising as the first; beyond it another and another. The
[17347]     place was all doors and pillars, some connected above by continuous
[17348]     architraves.
[17349]     
[17350]     "A very Temple of the Winds," he said.
[17351]     
[17352]     The next pillar was isolated; others composed a trilithon; others
[17353]     were prostrate, their flanks forming a causeway wide enough for a
[17354]     carriage; and it was soon obvious that they made up a forest of
[17355]     monoliths grouped upon the grassy expanse of the plain. The couple
[17356]     advanced further into this pavilion of the night till they stood in
[17357]     its midst.
[17358]     
[17359]     "It is Stonehenge!" said Clare.
[17360]     
[17361]     "The heathen temple, you mean?"
[17362]     
[17363]     "Yes. Older than the centuries; older than the d'Urbervilles! Well,
[17364]     what shall we do, darling? We may find shelter further on."
[17365]     
[17366]     But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong
[17367]     slab that lay close at hand, and was sheltered from the wind by a
[17368]     pillar. Owing to the action of the sun during the preceding day, the
[17369]     stone was warm and dry, in comforting contrast to the rough and chill
[17370]     grass around, which had damped her skirts and shoes.
[17371]     
[17372]     "I don't want to go any further, Angel," she said, stretching out her
[17373]     hand for his. "Can't we bide here?"
[17374]     
[17375]     "I fear not. This spot is visible for miles by day, although it does
[17376]     not seem so now."
[17377]     
[17378]     "One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of
[17379]     it. And you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen. So now
[17380]     I am at home."
[17381]     
[17382]     He knelt down beside her outstretched form, and put his lips upon
[17383]     hers.
[17384]     
[17385]     "Sleepy are you, dear? I think you are lying on an altar."
[17386]     
[17387]     "I like very much to be here," she murmured. "It is so solemn and
[17388]     lonely--after my great happiness--with nothing but the sky above my
[17389]     face. It seems as if there were no folk in the world but we two;
[17390]     and I wish there were not--except 'Liza-Lu."
[17391]     
[17392]     Clare though she might as well rest here till it should get a little
[17393]     lighter, and he flung his overcoat upon her, and sat down by her
[17394]     side.
[17395]     
[17396]     "Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over 'Liza-Lu for
[17397]     my sake?" she asked, when they had listened a long time to the wind
[17398]     among the pillars.
[17399]     
[17400]     "I will."
[17401]     
[17402]     "She is so good and simple and pure. O, Angel--I wish you would
[17403]     marry her if you lose me, as you will do shortly. O, if you would!"
[17404]     
[17405]     "If I lose you I lose all! And she is my sister-in-law."
[17406]     
[17407]     "That's nothing, dearest. People marry sister-laws continually about
[17408]     Marlott; and 'Liza-Lu is so gentle and sweet, and she is growing
[17409]     so beautiful. O, I could share you with her willingly when we are
[17410]     spirits! If you would train her and teach her, Angel, and bring her
[17411]     up for your own self! ... She had all the best of me without the bad
[17412]     of me; and if she were to become yours it would almost seem as if
[17413]     death had not divided us... Well, I have said it. I won't mention
[17414]     it again."
[17415]     
[17416]     She ceased, and he fell into thought. In the far north-east sky he
[17417]     could see between the pillars a level streak of light. The uniform
[17418]     concavity of black cloud was lifting bodily like the lid of a pot,
[17419]     letting in at the earth's edge the coming day, against which the
[17420]     towering monoliths and trilithons began to be blackly defined.
[17421]     
[17422]     "Did they sacrifice to God here?" asked she.
[17423]     
[17424]     "No," said he.
[17425]     
[17426]     "Who to?"
[17427]     
[17428]     "I believe to the sun. That lofty stone set away by itself is in the
[17429]     direction of the sun, which will presently rise behind it."
[17430]     
[17431]     "This reminds me, dear," she said. "You remember you never would
[17432]     interfere with any belief of mine before we were married? But I knew
[17433]     your mind all the same, and I thought as you thought--not from any
[17434]     reasons of my own, but because you thought so. Tell me now, Angel,
[17435]     do you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know."
[17436]     
[17437]     He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time.
[17438]     
[17439]     "O, Angel--I fear that means no!" said she, with a suppressed sob.
[17440]     "And I wanted so to see you again--so much, so much! What--not even
[17441]     you and I, Angel, who love each other so well?"
[17442]     
[17443]     Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical
[17444]     time he did not answer; and they were again silent. In a minute or
[17445]     two her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed,
[17446]     and she fell asleep. The band of silver paleness along the east
[17447]     horizon made even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark
[17448]     and near; and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of
[17449]     reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day.
[17450]     The eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against
[17451]     the light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them; and the
[17452]     Stone of Sacrifice midway. Presently the night wind died out, and
[17453]     the quivering little pools in the cup-like hollows of the stones lay
[17454]     still. At the same time something seemed to move on the verge of the
[17455]     dip eastward--a mere dot. It was the head of a man approaching them
[17456]     from the hollow beyond the Sun-stone. Clare wished they had gone
[17457]     onward, but in the circumstances decided to remain quiet. The figure
[17458]     came straight towards the circle of pillars in which they were.
[17459]     
[17460]     He heard something behind him, the brush of feet. Turning, he saw
[17461]     over the prostrate columns another figure; then before he was aware,
[17462]     another was at hand on the right, under a trilithon, and another on
[17463]     the left. The dawn shone full on the front of the man westward, and
[17464]     Clare could discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if
[17465]     trained. They all closed in with evident purpose. Her story then
[17466]     was true! Springing to his feet, he looked around for a weapon,
[17467]     loose stone, means of escape, anything. By this time the nearest
[17468]     man was upon him.
[17469]     
[17470]     "It is no use, sir," he said. "There are sixteen of us on the Plain,
[17471]     and the whole country is reared."
[17472]     
[17473]     "Let her finish her sleep!" he implored in a whisper of the men as
[17474]     they gathered round.
[17475]     
[17476]     When they saw where she lay, which they had not done till then, they
[17477]     showed no objection, and stood watching her, as still as the pillars
[17478]     around. He went to the stone and bent over her, holding one poor
[17479]     little hand; her breathing now was quick and small, like that of a
[17480]     lesser creature than a woman. All waited in the growing light, their
[17481]     faces and hands as if they were silvered, the remainder of their
[17482]     figures dark, the stones glistening green-gray, the Plain still a
[17483]     mass of shade. Soon the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her
[17484]     unconscious form, peering under her eyelids and waking her.
[17485]     
[17486]     "What is it, Angel?" she said, starting up. "Have they come for me?"
[17487]     
[17488]     "Yes, dearest," he said. "They have come."
[17489]     
[17490]     "It is as it should be," she murmured. "Angel, I am almost glad--yes,
[17491]     glad! This happiness could not have lasted. It was too much. I
[17492]     have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!"
[17493]     
[17494]     She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men
[17495]     having moved.
[17496]     
[17497]     "I am ready," she said quietly.
[17498]     
[17499]     
[17500]     
[17501]     LIX
[17502]     
[17503]     
[17504]     The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital
[17505]     of Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the
[17506]     brightness and warmth of a July morning. The gabled brick, tile, and
[17507]     freestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument
[17508]     of lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping
[17509]     High Street, from the West Gateway to the mediæval cross, and from
[17510]     the mediæval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping
[17511]     was in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day.
[17512]     
[17513]     From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian
[17514]     knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a
[17515]     measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind. Up this road
[17516]     from the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly,
[17517]     as if unconscious of the trying ascent--unconscious through
[17518]     preoccupation and not through buoyancy. They had emerged upon this
[17519]     road through a narrow, barred wicket in a high wall a little lower
[17520]     down. They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and
[17521]     of their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means
[17522]     of doing so. Though they were young, they walked with bowed heads,
[17523]     which gait of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly.
[17524]     
[17525]     One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding
[17526]     creature--half girl, half woman--a spiritualized image of Tess,
[17527]     slighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes--Clare's
[17528]     sister-in-law, 'Liza-Lu. Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk
[17529]     to half their natural size. They moved on hand in hand, and never
[17530]     spoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's
[17531]     "Two Apostles".
[17532]     
[17533]     When they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the
[17534]     clocks in the town struck eight. Each gave a start at the notes,
[17535]     and, walking onward yet a few steps, they reached the first
[17536]     milestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the grass, and
[17537]     backed by the down, which here was open to the road. They entered
[17538]     upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their
[17539]     will, suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense
[17540]     beside the stone.
[17541]     
[17542]     The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited. In the valley
[17543]     beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings
[17544]     showing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad cathedral
[17545]     tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave,
[17546]     the spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the College, and,
[17547]     more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice,
[17548]     where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale.
[17549]     Behind the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine's Hill;
[17550]     further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost
[17551]     in the radiance of the sun hanging above it.
[17552]     
[17553]     Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other
[17554]     city edifices, a large red-brick building, with level gray roofs,
[17555]     and rows of short barred windows bespeaking captivity, the whole
[17556]     contrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities
[17557]     of the Gothic erections. It was somewhat disguised from the road in
[17558]     passing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up
[17559]     here. The wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in the
[17560]     wall of this structure. From the middle of the building an ugly
[17561]     flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and
[17562]     viewed from this spot, on its shady side and against the light, it
[17563]     seemed the one blot on the city's beauty. Yet it was with this blot,
[17564]     and not with the beauty, that the two gazers were concerned.
[17565]     
[17566]     Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes
[17567]     were riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck
[17568]     something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the
[17569]     breeze. It was a black flag.
[17570]     
[17571]     "Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean
[17572]     phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the d'Urberville knights
[17573]     and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless
[17574]     gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and
[17575]     remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued
[17576]     to wave silently. As soon as they had strength, they arose, joined
[17577]     hands again, and went on.
[17578]