His father persisted in his conviction that a knowledge of a farmer's wife's duties came second to a Pauline view of hu manity; and the im pulsive Angel, wishing to honour his fathers'feelings and to advance th e cause of his heart at the same time, grew specious.He said that fate or Providence had thrown in his way a woman who pos sessed every qualificatio n to b e the helpmate of an agriculturist, and was decided ly of a serious turn of m ind.He would not say whether or not she had attached herself to the sound Low Church School of his father; but she would probably be o pen to co nviction on that point; she was a regular chu rch-goer of simple f aith; hon est-hearted, receptive, intelligent, graceful to a degree, chaste as a ves tal, and, in per sonal appearance, exceptionally beautiful.
“Is she of a fa mily such as y ou would car e to m arry into—a lady, in short?”asked his startled mother, who had come softly into the study during the conversation.
“She is not what in co mmon p arlance is called a lady, ”said Angel, unflinchingly, “for she is a cottager's daughter, as I am proud to say.But she is a lady, nevertheless—in feeling and nature.”
“Mercy Chant is of a very good family.”
“Pooh！—what's the advantage of that, mother?”said Angel quickly.“How is family to avail the wife of a man who has to r ough it as I have, and shall have to do?”
“Mercy is accomplished.And acc omplishments have th eir char m, ”returned his mother, looking at him through her silver spectacles.
“As to external accomplishments, what will be the use of them in the life I am going to lead?—while as to her reading, I can take th at in hand.She'll be apt pupil enough, as you would say if you knew her.She's brim full of poetry—actualized poetry, if I may use th e express ion.She lives w hat p aper-poets only write……And she is a n unimpeachable Christian, I am sure; perhaps of the very tribe, genus, and species you desire to propagate.”
“O Angel, you are mocking！”
“Mother, I beg pardon.But as sh e really does attend Church almost every Sunday morning, and is a good Chris tian girl, I am sure you will tolerate any social shortcomings for the sake of that quality, and feel th at I may do worse than choose her.”Angel waxed quite earnest on that rather automatic orthodoxy in his beloved Tess which（never dreaming that it might stand him in such good stead）he h ad been pron e to slig ht when observing it practised by her and the other milkmaids, becaus e of its ob vious unrea lity a mid beliefs essentially naturalistic.
In their sad doubts as to whether their son had himself any right whatever to the title he claim ed for the unkn own y oung woman, Mr.and Mrs.Clar e began to feel it as an advantage not to be overlooked that she at least was sound in her v iews; especially as the c onjunction of th e pair must have arisen by an act of Providence; for Angel never would have made orthodoxy a condition of his choice.They said finally that it was better not to act in a hurry, but that they would not object to see her.
Angel therefore refrained from declaring more particulars now.He felt that, single-minded and self-sacrificing as his parents were, there yet existed certain latent prejudices of theirs, as middle-class people, which it would require some tact to over come.For th ough legally at liberty to do as he chose, and tho ugh their daugh ter-in-law's q ualifications could make no practical dif ference to their lives, in the probab ility of her living far away from them, he wished fo r affection's sake not to w ound their sentiment in th e most important decision of his life.
He observed his own inconsisten cies in dwelling upon accidents in Tess's life as if they were vital features.It was for herself that he loved Tess; her soul, her heart, her substance—not for her skill in the dairy, her aptness as his scholar, and certain ly not for her sim ple for mal faithp rofessions.Her unsophisticated open-air existence required no v arnish of conventionality to make it palatable to him.He held that education had as yet but little affected the beats of emotion and impulse on which domestic happiness depends.It was probable that, in the lapse o f ag es, improved sy stems of moral and int ellectual tra ining woul d appreciably, perhaps considerab ly, elevate th e involun tary and even th e unconscious instincts of human nature; but up to the present day culture, as far as he cou ld see, might b e said to h ave af fected only the mental ep iderm of those liv es which had been brought under its influ ence.T his belief was confirmed by his experience of women, which, having latterly been extended from the cultivated middle-class into the rural community, had taught him how much less was the in trinsic difference between th e good and wise wom an of one social s tratum and the good and wise wo man of ano ther social str atum, than between the good and bad, the wise and the foolish, of the same stratum or class.
It was th e morning of his depar ture.His broth ers had already left the vicarage to proceed on a walking tour in the north, whence one was to return to his college, and the other to h is curacy.Angel might hav e accompanied them, but preferr ed to rejo in his sweethear t at T albothays.He would have been an awkward member of the party; for, though the most appreciative humanist, the most ideal religionist, even the best-versed Christologist of the three, there was alienation in the standin g consciousness that his squareness would not f it the round hole that had been prepared for him.To neither Felix nor Cuthbert had he ventured to mention Tess.
His mother made him sandwiches, and his father accompanied him, on his own mare, a little way along th e road.Having fairly well ad vanced his own affairs Angel listened in a willing silence, as they jogged on together through the shady lanes, to his fath er's account of his parish difficulties, and th e coldness of his brother cler gymen whom he loved, because of his stric t interpretation of the New T estament by the li ght of what they dee med a pernicious Calvinistic doctrine.
“Pernicious！”said M r.Clare, with genial scorn; and h e pr oceeded torecount experiences which would sho w the absur dity of that idea.He to ld of wondrous conversions of evil livers of which he h ad been the instrument, not only am ongst the poor, but among st the ri ch and well to do; an d he als o candidly admitted many failures.
As an ins tance of th e latter, he mentioned the case of a y oung upstart squire named d'Urberville, living some forty miles off, in the neighbourhood of Trantridge.
“Not one of the anc ient d'Urbervilles of Kings bere and o ther places?”asked his so n.“That curiously historic wornout family with its ghostly legend of the coach-and-four?”
“O no.The original d'Urbervilles decayed and disappeared sixty or eighty years ago—at least, I b elieve so.This see ms to be a new f amily which has taken the n ame; for the credit of the for mer kn ightly lin e I hope they are spurious, I'm sure.But it is odd to hear y ou express inter est in old f amilies.I thought you set less store by them even than I.”
“You m isapprehend me, father; y ou often do, ”said Angel with a little impatience.“Politically I am sceptical as to the v irtue of their being old.Some of the wise even among themselves‘exclaim against their own succession, 'as Hamlet puts it; but lyrically, dramatically, and e ven historically, I a m tenderly attached to them.”
This distinction, thoug h by no m eans a subtle on e, was y et too subtle fo r Mr.Clare the elder, and he went on with the story he had been about to relate; which was that after the death of the senior so-called d'Urberville the young man dev eloped th e most cu lpable p assions, th ough he h ad a blind mother, whose condition should have made him know better.A knowledge of his career having come to the ears of Mr.Clare, when he was in that par t of th e country preaching missionary ser mons, he bold ly too k occas ion to spea k to th e delinquent on his spiritual state.Though he was a stranger, occupying another's pulpit, he had felt th is to be his duty, and took for his text the words fro m St.Luke：“Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee！”The young man much resented this directness of attack, and in the war of words which followed when they met he did no t scruple pub licly to insu lt Mr.Clare, without respect for his gray hairs.
Angel flushed with distress.
“Dear father, ”he said s adly, “I wish y ou would not expos e y ourself to such gratuitous pain from scoundrels！”
“Pain?”said his fath er, his rugg ed face sh ining in the ardour o f self-abnegation.“The only pain to m e was pain on his accoun t, poor, foolish young man.Do you suppose his incensed words could g ive me any paim, or even his blows?‘Being r eviled we bless; being persecuted we su ffer it; being defamed we entre at; we are made as the f ilth of the wor ld, and as the offscouring of all things unto th is day.'Those ancient and no ble words to the Corinthians are strictly true at this present hour.”
“Not blows, father?He did not proceed to blows?”
“No, he did not.Though I have borne blows fro m men in a mad state of intoxication.”
“No！”
“A dozen times, my boy.What th en?I have saved them from the guilt of murdering their own flesh and blood thereby; and they have lived to thank me, and praisc God.”
“May this young man d o the sam c！”said Angel ferven tly.“But I fear otherwise, from what you say.”
“We'll hope, neverth eless, ”said Mr.Clare.“And I continue to pray fo r him, though on this side of the grave we shall probably never meet again.But, after all, one of those poo r words of mine may spring up in his heart as a go od seed some day.”
Now, as alw ays, Clare's father was s anguine as a child; and though th e younger could not accept his parent's narrow d ogma he revered his practice, and reco gnized th e her o under the pietist.Per haps he rev ered h is father's practice even more now than ever, seeing that, in the question of making Tessy his wife, h is father had not once tho ught of inquiring whether she were well provided or penniless.The same u nworldliness was what had necessitated Angel's getting a liv ing as a far mer, and would pr obably keep his brothers in the position of poor parsons for the term of their activities; yet Angel admired it none the less.Indeed, despite his own heterodoxy, Angel often felt that he was nearer to his father on the human side than was either of his brethren.
27
An up-hill and down-dale ride of twenty-odd miles through a garishmid-day atmosphere brought him in the afternoon to a detached knoll a mile or two west of Talbothays, whence he again looked into that green tr ough of sappiness and humidity, the valley of the Var or Froom.Immediately be began to descend from the upland to the fa t alluvial soil below, the atmosphere grew hesvier; th e langu id per fume of the summer fr uits, the mists, the hay, th e flowers, formed therein a vast pool of odour which at this hour seemed to make the animals, the very bees and butterflies, drowsy.Clare was now so familiar with the spot that he knew the ind ividual cows b y their na mes when, a lo ng distance off, he saw them dotted about the meads.It was with a sense of luxur y that he recognized his power of viewing life here from its inner side, in a waythat had b een quite foreign to him in his student-days; and, much as he lo ved his parents, he could not help being aware that to come here, as now, after an experience of homelife, affected him lik e throwing off splints and band ages; even the on e customary curb on the humours of English rur al societies bein g absent in this place, Talbothays having no resident landlord.
Not a human being was out of doors at the dairy.The denizens were all enjoying the usual afternoon nap of an hour or so which the exceedingly early hours kept in summer-time rendered a necessity.At the door the wood-hooped pails, sodden and bleached by in finite scrubbings, hung lik e hats on a stand upon the for ked and peeled lim b of an oak f ixed there for that purpose; all of them ready and dry for the evening milking.Angel entered, and went thro ugh the silent passages of the house to the back qu arters, where he listened for a moment.Sustained snores came from the cart-house, where some of the men were lying down; the gru nt and squ eal of swelter ing pigs ar ose from the still further distance.The large-leaved rhubarb and cabbage plants slept too, their broad limp surfaces hanging in the sun like half-closed umbrellas.
He unbridled and fed his horse, and as he re-en tered the hous e the clo ck struck three.Three was the after noon skimming-hour; an d, with the str oke, Clare h eard the cre aking of the floo r-boards abo ve, and th en the tou ch o f a descending foot on the stairs.It was Tess's, who in another moment came down before his eyes.
She had no t heard him enter, and h ardly realized his presence there.She was y awning, and he saw the red in terior of her mouth as if it h ad b een a snake's.She had stretched one ar m so high abov e her co iled-up cable of hair that he could see its satin delicacy above the sunburn; her face was flushed with sleep, and her eyelids hung heavy over their pu pils.The brim-fulness of her nature brea thed fro m he r.It was a moment wh en a wo man's soul is more incarnate than at any other time; when the most spiritual beauty bespeaks itself flesh; and sex takes the outside place in the presentation.
Then those eyes flashed brightly through their filmy heaviness, before th e remainder of her face w as well awake.With an oddly co mpounded look of gladness, shyness, and surprise, she exclaimed—
“O Mr.Clare！How you frightened me—I—”
There had not at first been time for her to think of the changed relations which his declaration had introduced; but the full sense of the matter rose up in her face when she encountered Clare's tender look as he stepped forward to the bottom stair.
“Dear, darling Tessy！”he whispered, putting his arm round her, and his face to her f lushed cheek.“Don't, for Heaven's sake, Mister me any more.I have hastened back so soon because of you！”
Tess's excita ble h eart b eat against h is by way of reply; and there th ey stood upon the red-br ick floor of the entry, the su n slanting in by the window upon his back, as he held her tightly to his breast; upon her inclining face, upon the blue veins of h er temple, upon her naked arm, and her neck, and into the depths of her hair.Having been ly ing down in her clothes she was warm as a sunned cat.At first she would not lo ok straight up at him, bu t her ey es soon lifted, and h is plu mbed the deepness of the ever-varying pupils, with th eir radiating fibrils of blue, and black, and gray, and violet, while she regarded him as Eve at her second waking might have regarded Adam.
“I've got to go askimming, ”she pleaded, “and I have only old Deb to help me today.Mrs.Crick is gone to mar ket with Mr.Crick, and Retty is not well, and the others are gone out somewhere, and won't be home till milking.”
As they retr eated to the milk-house Deborah F yander appeared o n the stairs.
“I have co me back, Deb orah, ”said Mr.Clare, u pwards.“So I can help Tess with the skimming; and, as y ou are very tir ed, I am sur e, y ou need n't come down till milkingtime.”
Possibly the T albothays milk was not very th oroughly skimm ed that afternoon.Tess was in a dream wher ein familiar objects appeared as havin g light and shade and position, but no particular outline.Every time she held the skimmer under the pump to cool it for the work her hand trembled, the ardour of his affection being so palpable that she seemed to flinch under it like a plant in too burning a sun.
Then he pressed her again to his sid e, and when she had done running her forefinger round the leads to cut off the cr eam-edge, he clean ed it in nature's way; for the unconstrained manners of Talbothays dairy came convenient now.“I may as well say it now as later, dearest, ”he resumed gently.“I wish to ask you something of a very practical nature, w hich I have been thinking of ever since that day last week in the meads.I shall soon want to marry, and, being a farmer, you see I shall requ ire for my wife a wo man who knows all about the management of farms.Will you be that woman, Tessy?”
He put it in that way that she might not think he had yielded to an impulse of which his head would disapprove.
She turn ed quite carew orn.She had bowed to the in evitable r esult of proximity, th e necessity of loving him; but she had not calculated upon this sudden coro llary, which, indeed, Clare had put before h er withou t qu ite meaning him self to do it so soon.W ith pain th at was like the bitternes s of dissolution she murmured the words of her indispensable and sworn answer as an honourable woman.
“O Mr.Clare—I cannot be your wife—I cannot be！”
The sound of her own decision seemed to break T ess's very heart, and sh e bowed her face in her grief.
“But, T ess！”he said, a mazed at he r reply, and holding h er still more greedily close.“Do you say no?Surely you love me?”
“O yes, yes！And I would rather be yours than any body's in the world, ”returned the sweet and honest voice of the distressed girl.“But I canno t marry you！”
“Tess, ”he s aid, holding her at ar m's length, “you are engag ed to marry some one else！”
“No, no！”
“Then why do you refuse me?”
“I don't want to marry！I have not th ought of doing it.I cannot！I only want to love you.”
“But why?”
Driven to subterfuge, she stammered—
“Your father is a parson, and your mother wouldn'like you to marry such as me.She will want you to marry a lady.”
“Nonsense—I hav e sp oken to them bo th.That was par tly why I went home.”
“I feel I cannot—never, never！”she echoed.
“Is it too sudden to be asked thus, my Pretty?”
“Yes—I did not expect it.”
“If you will let it pass, please, Tessy, I will give you time, ”he said.“It was very abrupt to co me ho me and speak to y ou all at once.I'll not allude to it again for a while.”
She again took up the s hining skimmer, held it beneath the pu mp, and began anew.But she could not, as at other times, hit the exact under-surface of the cream with the delicate dexterity required, try as she might：sometimes she was cutting down into the milk, sometimes in the air.She could hardly see, her eyes having filled with two blurring tears drawn forth by a grief which, to this her best friend and dear advocate, she could never explain.
“I can't skim—I can't！”she said, turning away from him.
Not to agitate and hinder her longer the considerate Clare began talking in a more general way：
“You quite misappr ehend my parents.They are th e most simplemannered people alive, and qu ite unam bitious.They are two of th e few rem aining Evangelical school.Tessy, are you an Evangelical?”
“I don't know.”
“You go to church very regularly, and our p arson here is not very High, they tell me.”
Tess's ideas on the views of the parish clergyman, whom she heard every week, seemed to be rather more vague than Clare's, who had n ever heard him at all.
“I wish I could fix my mind on what I hear ther e more firmly than I do, ”she remarked as a safe generality.“It is often a great sorrow to me.”
She spoke so unaf fectedly that Angel was sure in his heart th at his father could no t ob ject to h er o n religious g rounds, even though she did not kn ow whether her principles w ere High, Low, or Broad.He him self knew that, in reality, the confused beliefs which sh e held, apparently imbibed in childhood, were, if any thing, Tractarian as to phraseology, and Pantheistic as to essence.Confused or otherwise, to disturb them was his last desire：
Leave thou thy sister, when she prays,
Her early Heaven, her happy views;
Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse
A life that leads melodious days.
He had occasionally thought the counsel less honest than musical; but h e gladly conformed to it now.
He spoke further of th e incidents of h is visit, of his father's mode of lif e, of his zeal for his principles; she grew serener, and the undulations disappeared from her skimming; as she finished one lead after another he followed her, and drew the plugs for letting down the milk.
“I fancied y ou looked a little downcast when y ou came in, ”she ventured to observe, anxious to keep away from the subject of herself.
“Yes—well, my father has been talking a good deal to me of his troubles and difficulties, and the s ubject always tends to de press me.He is so zealo us that he gets many snub s and buf fetings fro m p eople of a different way of thinking than himself, and I don't like to hear of such humiliations to a man of his age, the more particularly as I don't think earnestness does any good when carried so f ar.He has been telling me of a very unpleasant scene in which he took part quite recently.He went as the deputy of som e missionary society to preach in the neighbourhood of Trantridge, a place forty miles from here, and made it his business to expostulate with a lax y oung c ynic he met w ith somewhere about there—son of some landowner up that way—and who has a mother afflicted with blindness.My father addressed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there was quite a disturbance.It was very foolish of my father, I must say, to in trude his conversation upon a stranger when the probabilities were so obvious that it would be useless.But whatever he thinks to be his duty, that he'll do, in season or out of s eason; and, o f course, h e makes many enemies, no t only amon g the abso lutely vicious, but am ong the easy-going, who hate being both ered.He say s he glories in what happened, and that good may be done indirectly; but I wish he would not so wear himself out now he is getting old, and would leave such pigs to their wallowing.”
Tess's look had grown hard and worn, and her ripe mouth tragical; but she no longer sh owed any trem ulousness.Clare's revived thoughts of his fath er prevented his noticing h er particu larly; and so they went on down the white row of liquid rectan gles till they had finished and drained them off, when theother maids returned, and took their pails, and Deb came to scald out th e leads for th e new milk.As Tess withdrew to go af ield to the cows he sa id to her softly—
“And my question, Tessy?”
“O no—no！”replied sh e with grave hopelessness, as one who had heard anew the turmoil of her own past in the allusion to Alec d'Urberville.“It can't be！”
She went out towards the mead, joining the other milkmaids with a bound, as if trying to make the open air drive away her sad constr aint.All the girls drew onward to the spot where the cows were grazing in the farther mead, the bevy advancing with the bold grace of wild animals—the reckless unchastened motion of w omen accustomed to unlimited space—in which they abandoned themselves to the air as a swimmer to the wave.It seemed natural enough to him now th at Tess was again in sig ht to ch oose a mate fro m un constrained Nature, and not from the abodes of Art.
