Speaker 1: Chapter twenty nine. Now, who MIDGYI think I've heard news
her this mornin, said Dairyman Crick as he sat down
to breakfast next day, with a riddling gaze round the
munching men and maids. Now, jest, do MIDGYI think one
guest and another guest? Missus Creak did not guess, because
she knew already well, said the dairyman. Tis that slack
twisted or as bird of a feller, Jack Dollop, He's
lately got married to a widow woman. Not Jack Dullup,
a villain to think? O that, said a milker. The
name entered quickly into Tess Durbeyfield's consciousness, for it was
the name of the lover who had wronged his sweetheart
and had afterwards been so roughly used by the young
woman's mother in the butter churn. And has he married
the valiant matron's daughter as he promised? Asked Angel Clare absently,
as he turned over the newspaper he was reading at
the little table to which he was always banished by
Missus Crick in her sense of his gentility. Not he, sir,
never meant too, replied the dairyman. As I say tis
a widow woman, and she had money, it seems, fifty
pound a year or so, and that was all he
was after they were married in a great hurry, And
then she told him that by marrying she had lost
her fifty pound a year. Just fancy the state of
my gentleman's mind at the news. Never such a cat
and dog life as they've been leading ever since, serves him. Well,
be right, but unlucky. The poor woman gets the worst.
Aunt well, the silly buddy. She'd had told him sooner
that the ghost of her first man would trouble him,
said missus. Craik ay Ay, responded the dairyman indecisively. Still,
you can see exactly how twas she wanted a home
and didn't like to run the risk of losing him.
Don't ye think that was something like it? Maidens? He
glanced toward the royal girls she h told him just
before they went out to church, when he could hardly
have backed out, exclaimed Marian. Yes, she ought agreed. Is
she must have seen what he was after, and she'd
have refused him, said Retty sposmatically. And what do you say,
my dear, asked the dairyman of tess I think she
ought to have told him the true state of things,
or else refused him. I don't know, replied Tess. The
bread and butter choking her be cussed if I'd done either, aunt,
said beck NIBBs, a married helper from one of the cottages.
All's fair in love and war. I'd a married him
just as she did. And if he'd ha said two
words to me about not telling him beforehand anything whatsoever
about my first chap that I hadn't choose to tell. Oh,
i'd a knut em down. We are rolling pin, a
scrammed little fellow like e any woman could do it.
The laughter which followed this Sally was supplemented only by
a sorry smile for form's sake from Tess. What was
comedy to them was tragedy to her, and she could
hardly bear the mirth. She soon rose from table, and,
with an impression that Claire would follow her, went along
a little wriggling path, now stepping to one side of
the irrigating channels, and now to the other, till she
stood by the main stream of the var Men had
been cutting the water weeds higher up the river, and
masses of them were floating past her, moving islands of
green crowfoot, whereupon she might almost have ridden long locks
of which weed had lodged against the piles, driven to
keep the cows from crossing. Yes, there was the pain
of it, This question of a woman telling her story
the heaviest of crosses to herself seemed but amusement to others.
It was as if people should laugh at martyrdom. Tessy
came from behind her, and Claire sprang across the gully,
alighting beside her feet. My wife soon, No, No, I cannot.
For your sake, Oh, mister Clare, for your sake, I
say no. Tess Still, I say no, she repeated, not
expecting that he had put his arm lightly round her
waist the moment after speaking beneath her hanging tail of hair.
The younger dairy maids, including tess breakfasted with their hair
loose on Sunday mornings, before building it up extra high
for attending church, a style which they could not adopt
when milking with their heads against the cows. If she
had said yes instead of no, he would have kissed her.
It had evidently been his intention, but had determined negative
deterred his scrupulous heart. Their condition of domiciliary comradeship put
her as the woman, to such disadvantage by its enforced
intercourse that he felt it unfair to her to exercise
any pressure of blandishment, which he might have honestly employed
had she been better able to avoid him. He released
her momentarily imprisoned waist and withheld the kiss. It all
turned on that release. What had given her strength to
refuse him this time was solely the tale of the
widow told by the dairy man, and that would have
been overcome in another moment. But Angel said no more.
His face was perplexed. He went away. Day after day
they met somewhat less constantly than before, and thus two
or three weeks went by the end of September drew near,
and she could see in his eye that he might
ask her again. His plan of procedure was different now,
as though he had made up his mind that her
negatives were after all, only coyness and youth. Startled by
the novelty of the proposal, the fitful evasiveness of her
manner when the subject was under discussion countenanced the idea.
So he played a more coaxing game, and while never
going beyond words, or attempting the renewal of caresses. He
did his utmost orally. In this way, Claire persistently wooed
her in undertones like that of the pearling milk at
the cow's side, at skimmings, at butter makings, at cheese makings,
among broody poultry, and among farrowing pigs. As no milkmaid
was ever wooed before by such a man, Tess knew
that she must break down. Neither a religious sense of
a certain moral validity in the previous union, nor a
conscientious wish for candor, could hold out against it much longer.
She loved him so passionately, and he was so godly
in her eyes, and, being though untrained, instinctively refined her nature,
cried for his tutelary guidance. And thus, though Tess kept
repeating to herself, I can never be his wife, the
words were in vain. A proof of her weakness lay
in the very utterance of what calm strength would not
have taken. The trouble to formulate every sound of his voice,
beginning on the cold subject, stirred her with a terrifying bliss,
and she coveted the recantation. She feared his manner was
what man's is, not so much that of one who
would love and cherish and defend her under any conditions, changes, charges,
or revelations, that her gloom lessened as she basked in it.
The season, meanwhile, was drawing onward to the equinox, and
though it was still fine, the days were much shorter.
The dairy had again worked by mourning candlelight for a
long time, and a fresh renewal of Clare's pleading occurred.
One morning between three and four. She had run up
in her bed gown to his door to call him
as usual, then had gone back to dress and called
the others, and in ten minutes was walking to the
head of the stairs with a candle in her hand.
At the same moment, he came down the steps from
above in his shirt sleeves and put his arm across
the stairway. Now, miss Flirt, before you go down, he said, peremptorily.
It is a fortnight since I spoke, and this won't
do any longer. You must tell me what you mean,
or I shall have to leave this house. My door
was ajar just now and I saw you. For your
own safety, I must go. You don't know. Well is
it to be? Yes at last? I'm only just up,
mister Clare, and it's too early to take me to task,
she pouted. You need not call me flirt tis cruel
and untrue. Wait till both, and boy, please wait till
by and by. I will really think seriously about it
between now and then let me go downstairs. She looked
a little like what she said she was, as holding
the candle sideways, she tried to smile away the seriousness
of her words. Call me angel, then, and not mister Clare. Angel,
Angel dearest. Why not twould mean that I agree, wouldn't it?
It would only mean that you love me, even if
you cannot marry me, and you were so good as
to own that long ago. Very well, then, Angel dearest,
if I must, she murmured, looking at her candle, a
roguish curl coming upon her mouth. Notwithstanding her suspense, Claire
had resolved never to kiss her until he had obtained
her promise. But somehow, as Tess stood there in her
pretty tu dup milking gown, her hair carelessly heaped upon
her head till there should be leisure to arrange it.
When skimming and milking were done, he broke his resolve
and brought his lips to her cheek for one moment.
She passed downstairs, very quickly, never looking back at him
or saying another word. The other maids were already down,
and the subject was not pursued. Except Marian. They all
looked wistfully and suspiciously at the pair in the sad
yellow rays which the morning candles emitted in contrast with
the first cold signals of the dawn without When skimming
was done, which as the milk diminished with the approach
of autumn, was a lessening process day by day, Retty
and the rest went out. The lovers followed them. Our
tremulous lives are so different from theirs, are they not?
He musingly observed her as he regarded the three figures
tripping before him through the frigid pallor of opening day.
Not so very different, I think, she said. Why do
you think that there are very few women's lives that
are not tremulous? Tess replied, pausing over the new word,
as if it impressed her. There's more in those three
than you think. What is in them? Almost either of them,
she began, would make, perhaps would make a properer wife
than I, and perhaps they love you as well as I. Almost, Oh, Tessy,
there were signs that it was almost an exquisite relief
to her to hear the impatient exclamation. Though she had
resolved so intrepidly not to let generosity make one beard
against herself, that was now done, and she had not
the power to attempt so immolation a second a time.
Then they were joined by a milker from one of
the cottages, and no more was said on that which
concerned them so deeply, But tess knew that this day
would decide it. In the afternoon, several of the dairy
man's household and assistants went down to the meads, as usual,
a long way from the dairy, where many of the
cows were milked without being driven home. The supply was
getting less as the animals advanced in calf and the
supernumerary milkers of the last green season had been dismissed.
The work progressed leisurely. Each pailful was poured into tall
cans that stood in a large spring wagon which had
been brought upon the scene, and when they were milked,
the cows trailed away. Dairyman Crick, who was there with
the rest his wrapper gleaming miraculously white against it's the
leaden evening sky, suddenly looked at his heavy watch. Why
tis later than a thought? He said, be gad, we
sha'n't be sowed enough with this milk at the station.
If we don't mind, there's no time to day to
take it home and mix it with the bulk afore
ascending off. It must gold a station straight from here.
Who drove it across? Mister Clare volunteered to do so,
though it was none of his business, asking Tess to
accompany him. The evening, though sunless had been warm and
muggy for the season, and Tess had come out with
her milking hood only naked, armed and jacketless, certainly not
dressed for a drive. She therefore replied by glancing over
her scant habiliments, but Claire gently urged her. She assented
by relinquishing her pale and stool to the dairy man
to take home, and mounted the spring wagon besure side Claire.
End of Chapter twenty nine