“I tried her fate in the Fortune-Teller, and it brought out that very thing……You should ha'seen ho w pretty she look ed to-day; her sk in is as sumple as a duchess's.”
“What says the maid herself to going?”
“I've not asked her.She don't know there is any such lady-relation yet.But it would certainly put her in the way of a gr and marriage, and sh e won't say nay to going.”
“Tess is queer.”
“But she's tractable at bottom.Leave her to me.”
Though this conversation had been private, sufficient of its import reached the understandings of those around to suggest to them that the Durbeyfields had weightier concerns to talk of now than common folks had, and that Tess, their pretty eldest daughter, had fine prospects, in store.
“Tess is a f ine figure o'fun, as I s aid to myself to-day when I zeed her vamping round parish with the rest, ”observed one of the elderly boozers in an undertone.“But Joan Durbeyfield must mind that she don't get green malt in floor.”It was a local phr ase which h ad a peculiar meaning, and there was no reply.
The conversation b ecame inclusive, and presen tly other footsteps wer e heard crossing the room below.
“—Being a few private friends asked in to-night to keep up clubwalking at my own exp ense.”The landlady had rapidly re-used the for mula she kept on hand for intruders before she recognized that the newcomer was Tess.
Even to her mother's gaze the girl's young features looked s adly out of place amid the alcoho lic vapours which flo ated here as no u nsuitable medium for wrinkled middle-age; and h ardly was a reproachful flash from Tess's dark eyes needed to make her father and mother rise from their seats, hastily finish their ale, and descend th e stairs beh ind her, Mrs.Rolliv er's caution following their footsteps.
“No noise, please, if ye'll be so good, my dears; or I mid lose my licends, and be summons'd, and I don't know what all！'Night tye！”
They went h ome together, Tess holding one ar m of her father, and Mrs.Durbeyfield the other.He had, in tru th, drunk very little—not a fourth of th equantity which a sy stematic tippler could car ry to church on a Sunday
afternoon without a h itch in his castin gs or genuflections; but the weakness of Sir John's constitution made mountains of h is petty sins in th is k ind.On reaching the fresh air he was sufficiently unsteady to incline the row of three at one moment as if they were marching to London, and at another as if they were marching to Bath—which produ ced a co mical effect, f requent enough in families on nocturnal homegoings; and, like most comical effects, not quite so comic after all.The two women valiantly disguised these forced excursions and countermarches as well as they could from Durbeyfield their cause, and fr om Abraham, and from themselves; and so they approached by degrees their own door, the head of th e f amily burs ting sudden ly into h is f ormer refrain as he drew near, as if to f ortify his soul at sigh t of the s mallness of his pres ent residence—
“I've got a fam—ily vault at Kingsbere！”
“Hush—don't be so sill y, Jacky, ”said h is wif e.“Yours is n ot t he on ly family that was of'count in wold days.Look at the Anktells, and Horseys, and the Tringhams themselves—gone to seed a'most as much as you—though you was bigger f olks than they, that's true.Thank God, I was never of no fam ily, and have nothing to be ashamed of in that way！”
“Don't y ou be so sure o'that.From y our nater'tis m y belief y ou've disgraced yourselves more than any o'us, and was kings and queens outright at one time.”
Tess turned the subject by saying what was far more prominent in her own mind at the moment than thoughts of her ancestry—
“I am afraid father won't be ab le to take the journey with the beehiv es to-morrow so early.”
“I?I shall be all right in an hour or two, ”said Durbeyfield.
It was elev en o'clock before the family were all in bed, and two o'clock next morning was the latest hour for starting with the beehives if they were to be delivered to the retailers in Casterbridge before the Saturday market began, the way thither lying, by bad roads over a distance of between twenty and thirty miles, and the horse and waggon b eing of the slowest.At half-past on e Mrs.Durbeyfield came into the large bedroom where Tess and all her little brothersand sisters slept.
“The poor man can't go, ”she said to her eldest daughter, whose great eyes had opened the moment her mother's hand touched the door.
Tess sat up in bed, lost in a vague interspace between a dream and this information.
“But someb ody m ust go, ”she rep lied.“It is la te for the h ives alre ady.Swarming will soon be over for the year; and if we put off taking'em till next week's m arket the call for'em will be pas t, and they'll be thrown on our hands.”
Mrs.Durbeyfield looked unequal to the emergency.“Some young feller, perhaps, would go?One of them wh o were so much after dancing with'ee yesterday, ”she presently suggested.
“O no—I wouldn't have it for the world！”d eclared Tess pro udly.“And letting everybody know the reason—such a thing to be ash amed of！I think I could go if Abraham could go with me to kip me company.”
Her m other at leng th agreed to this arrangement.Little Abraham was aroused from his deep sleep in a corner of the same apartment, and made to put on his cloth es while still mentally in the o ther world.Mean while Tess had hastily dressed herself; and the twain, lighting a lantern, went out to the stable.The r ickety little waggo n was alr eady laden, an d the girl led out the h orse Prince, only a degree less rickety than the vehicle.
The poor creature looked wonderingly round at the night, at the lantern, at their two figures, as if he could not believe that at that hour, wh en every living thing was intended to be in shelter and at rest, he was called upon to go out and labour.They put a stock of candleends into the lantern, hung the latter to the off-side of the load, and dir ected the horse onward, walking at his shoulder a t first during the uphill parts of the way, in order not to overload an animal of so little vigour.To cheer themselves as well as they could, they made an artificial morning with the lan tern, some bread and butter, and their own conversation, the real morning being far from come.Abraham, as he more fully awoke（for he had moved in a sor t of trance so far）, began to talk o f the strange shapes assumed by the various dark objects against the sky; of this tree that looked like a raging tiger springing from a lair; of that which resembled a giant's head.
When th ey had passed the little tow n of Stourcastle, dumbly somnolen t under its thick brown thatch, they reached higher ground.Still higher, on their left, the elevatio n called Bulb arrow or Bealbarr ow, well-nigh the h ighest in South Wess ex, swelled into the sky, engir dled b y its ea rthen tren ches.Fro m hereabout th e long road was fairly level for so me distance onward.They mounted in front of the waggon, and Abraham grew reflective.
“Tess！”he said in a preparatory tone, after a silence.
“Yes, Abraham.”
“Bain't you glad that we've become gentlefolk?”
“Not particular glad.”
“But you be glad that you'm going to marry a gentleman?”
“What?”said Tess, lifting her face.
“That our great relation will help'ee to marry a gentleman.”
“I?Our great relation?We have no such relation.What has p ut that in to your head?”
“I heard'em talking about it up a t Rolliver's when I went to find fath er.There's a rich lady of our family out at Trantridge, and mother said that if you claimed kin with the lady, she'd put'ee in the way of marrying a gentleman.”