42
It was now broad day, and she started again, emerging cautiously uponthe highway.But ther e was no need f or caution; n ot a soul was at hand, and Tess went onward with fortitude, her r ecollection of the birds'silent endurance of their n ight of agony impressing upon her the relativity of sorrows and th e tolerable nature of her own, if she could once r ise high eno ugh to despise opinion.But that she could not do so long as it was held by Clare.
She reach ed Chaik-New ton, and br eakfasted at an inn, where severalyoung men were troublesomely co mplimentary to her good looks.Someh ow she felt hopeful, f or was it not possib le that her husband also might say these same th ings to her even y et?She was bound to take care o f herself on th e chance of it, and keep off these casual lovers.To this end Tess resolved to run no further risks fro m her appearance.As soon as she got out of the village she entered a thicket and took from her basket one of the oldest field-gowns, which she had never put on even at the dairy—never since she had worked among the stubble at Marlott.She also, by a felicitous thought, took a handkerch ief from her bundle and tied it ro und her face under her bonnet, cov ering her chin and half her cheeks and temples, as if she were suffering from toothache.Then with her little scissors, by the aid of a pocket looking-glass, she mercilessly nipped her eyebrows off, and th us insured against aggressive admiration she went on her uneven way.
“What a mommet of a maid！”s aid the nex t man who met h er to a companion.
Tears came into her eyes for very pity of herself as she heard him.
“But I don't care！”she said.“O no—I don't care！I'll always be ugly now, because Angel is not here, and I have nobody to take car e of me.My husband that was is gone away, and never will love me any more; but I love him just the same, and hate all other men, and like to make'em think scornfully of me！”
Thus Tess walks on; a figure which is part of the landscape; a fieldwoman pure and simple, in winter guise; a gray serge cape, a red woollen cravat, a stuff skirt covered by a whitey-brown rough wrapper, and buff-leather gloves.Every thread of that old attire has become faded and thin under the stroke of raindrops, the bu rn of sunbeams, and the str ess of winds.There is no sign o f y oung passion in her now—
The maiden's mouth is cold
……
Fold over simple fold
Binding her head.
Inside this exterior, ov er which the eye might h ave roved as over a thing scarcely percipient, almost inor ganic, ther e was the re cord of a puls ing life which had learnt too well, for its y ears, of the dus t and ashes of things, of the cruelty of lust and the fragility of love.
Next day the weather was bad, but she trudged on, the honesty, directness, and i mpartiality of e lemental en mity disconc erting her but l ittle.Her ob ject being a winter's occupation and a winter's home, there was no time to lose.Her experience of short hirings had been such that she was determined to accept no more.
Thus she went forward from f arm to farm i n the di rection of th e p lace whence Marian had written to h er, which she d etermined to make use o f as a last shift only, its rumoured stringencies being the reverse of tempting.First she inquired for the lighter kinds of employment, and, as acceptance in any variety of these grew hopeless, applied next for the less light, till, beginning with the dairy and poultry tendance that she liked best, she ended with the heavy and coarse p ursuits wh ich sh e liked le ast—work on arable land：work of su ch roughness, indeed, as she would never have deliberately volunteered for.
Towards the second evening she reached the irregular chalk tableland or plateau, bosomed with semi-globular tumuli—as if Cybele the Many-breasted were supinely extended there—which stretched between the valley of her birth and the valley of her love.
Here the air was dry and cold, and the long cart-roads were b lown white and dusty within a few h ours after rain.There wer e few trees, or none, tho sethat would have grown in the hed ges being mercilessly plashed down with the quickset by the tenant-farmers, the natural enemies of tree, bush, and brake.In the middle distance ahead of her she could see th e summits of Bulbarrow and of Nettleco mbe T out, and they seem ed fr iendly.They had a low and unassuming aspect from this upland, though as ap proached on the other side from Blackmoor in her childhood they were as lofty bastions against th e sky.Southerly, at many miles'distance, and over the hills and ridges coastward, she could discern a surface like polished steel：it was the English Channel at a point far out towards France.
Before her, in a sligh t depression, were the remains of a village.She had, in fact, reached Flintcomb-Ash, the place of Marian's sojourn.There seemed to be no help for it; hither she was doomed to come.The stubborn soil around her showed plainly enough that the k ind of labour in demand here was of th e roughest kind; but it was time to r est from searching, and she r esolved to stay, particularly as it began to rain.At th e entr ance to the v illage was a cotta ge whose gable jutted into the road, and before app lying for a lodging she stood under its shelter, and watched the evening close in.
“Who would think I was Mrs.Angel Clare！”she said.
The wall f elt war m to her back and should ers, and she found thatimmediately within the gable was the cottage fireplace, the heat of which came through the bricks.She warmed her hands upon them, and also put her cheek—red and moi st with the drizz le—against the ir co mforting sur face.The w all seemed to be the only friend she had.She had so little wish to leave it that she could have stayed there all night.
Tess could hear the occupants of the cottage—gathered together after their day's labour—talking to each other within, and the rattle of their supper-plates was also audible.But in the villag e-street she had seen no soul as y et Th e solitude was at las t bro ken by the approach of one f eminine figu re, w ho, though the evening was cold, wore the prin t g own and th e tilt-bonnet of summer time.T ess instinctiv ely tho ught it might be Marian, and when she came near enough to be distin guishable in the gloom surely enough it was she.Marian was even stouter and redd er in the face than for merly, and decidedly shabbier in attire.At an y previous p eriod of her existence Tess would har dlyhave cared to renew the acquaintance in such conditions; but her loneliness was excessive, and she responded readily to Marian's greeting.
Marian was quite respectful in her in quiries, but seemed much moved by the f act that Tess should still con tinue in no b etter condition th an at first; though she had dimly heard of the separation.
“Tess—Mrs.Clare—the dear wife of dear he！And is it r eally so bad as this, my child?Why is your comely face tied up in such a way?Anybody been beating'ee?Not be?”
“No, no, no！I merely did it not to be clipsed or coiled, Marian.”
She pulled of f in disgu st a bandag e which co uld suggest such wild thoughts.
“And you've got no co llar on”（Tess had been accustomed to wear a littl e white collar at the dairy）.
“l know it, Marian.”
“You've lost it travelling.”
“I've not lost it.The truth is, I don't care anything about my looks; and so I didn't put it on.”
“And you don't wear your wedding-ring?”
“Yes, I do; but not in public.I wear it round my neck on a r ibbon.I don't wish people to think who I am by marriage, or that 1 am married at all; it would be so awkward while I lead my present life.”
Marian paused.
“But you be a gentleman's wife; and it seems har dly fair that you should live like this！”
“O yes it is, quite fair; though I am very unhappy.”
“Well, well.He married you—and you can be unhappy！”
“Wives are unhappy sometimes; from no fault of their husbands—fro m their own.”
“You've no faults, deary; that I'm sure of.And he's none.So it must be something outside ye both.”
“Marian, de ar Mari an, will y ou do me a goo d turn w ithout ask ing questions?My husband has gone abroad, and s omehow I h ave ov errun my allowance, so that I have to fall back upon my old work for a time.Do not callme Mrs.Clare, but Tess, as before.Do they want a hand here?”
“O yes; they'll take one alway s, because few care to co me.'Tis a starve-acre place.Corn and swedes are all they grow.Though I be here myself, I feel'tis a pity for such as you to come.”
“But you used to be as good a dairywoman as I.”
“Yes; but I've got out o'that sin ce I took to drink.Lord, that's the on ly comfort I've got now！If you engage, you'll be set swedehacking.That's what I be doing; but you won't like it.”
“O—anything！Will you speak for me?”
“You will do better by speaking for yourself.”
“Very well.Now, Marian, remember—nothing about him, if I get the place.I don't wish to bring his name down to the dirt.”
Marian, who was really a trustworth y girl thoug h of coarser grain th an Tess, promised anything she asked.
“This is pay-night, ”she said, “and if you were to come with me you would know at once.I be real sorry that you are not happy; but'tis because he's away, I know.You couldn't be unhappy if he were here even if he gie'd ye no money—even if he used you like a drudge.”
“That's true; I could not！”
They walked on togeth er, and soon reach ed th e far mhouse, which was almost sublime in its dre ariness.There was not a tree within s ight; there was not, at this season, a green pasture—nothing but fallow and turnips everywhere; in large fields divided by hedges plashed to unrelieved levels.
Tess waited outside the door of the farmhouse till the group of workfolk had received their wages, and then Marian introduced her.The farmer himself, it appeared, was not at home, but his wife, who r epresented him this evening, made no objection to hiring Tess, on her agreeing to remain till Old Lady-Day.Female f ield-labour was seldo m of fered n ow, and its cheapness made it profitable for tasks which women could perform as readily as men.
Having sign ed the agreement, there was nothing more for Tess to do at present than to get a lodging, an d she found one in the house at w hose gable-wall s he had war med herself.It was a p oor subsistence th at she had ensured, but it would afford a shelter for the winter at any rate.
That night she wrote to inform her p arents of her new addr ess, in case a letter should arrive at Marlott fro m her husband.But she did not tell th em of the sorriness of her situation：it might have brought reproach upon him.
43
There was no exagg eration in Marian's definition of Flin tcomb-Ashfarm as a starve-acre place.The single fat thing on the soil was Marian herself; and she was an importation.Of the three classes of village, the village cared for by its lord, the village c ared for by itself, and the village uncared for either by itself or by its lord（in other words, the villag e of a resid ent squire's tenantry, the village o f free or co pyholders, and the abse ntee-owner's village, far med with the land）this place, Flintcomb-Ash, was the third.
But Tess set to work.Patience, that blending of m oral courage with physical timidity, was now no longer a minor feature in Mrs.Angel Clare; and it sustained her.
The swede-field in which she and h er companion were set hacking was a stretch of a hundred odd acres, in one patch, on the highest ground of the farm, rising above stony lanchets or lynchers—the outcrop of siliceous veins in the chalk formation, composed of myriads of loose white flints in bulbous, cusped, and phallic shapes.Th e upper half o f each turnip had been eaten off by the livestock, and it was th e business of the two wo men to grub u p the lower or earthy half of the root with a hooked fork called a hacker, that it might be eaten also.Every leaf of the vegetable h aving alr eady been consu med, th e whole field was in colour a desolate drab; it was a complexion without features, as if a face, from chin to brow, should be on ly an expans e of skin.The sky wore, in another colour, the s ame liken ess; a white vacuity of countenance with th e lineaments gone.So these two upper and nether visages confronted each other all day long, the wh ite face looking down on the brown face, and th e brown face looking up at the wh ite face, without anything standing between them but the two girls crawling over the surface of the former like flies.
Nobody came n ear them, an d their movements showed a mechanical regularity; their forms standing enshrouded in Hessian“wroppers”—sl eeved brown pinafores, tied behind to th e bottom, to keep their gowns from blowing about—scant skirts revealing boots that reached high up the ankles, and yellow sheepskin gloves with g auntlets.The pens ive character which the curtained hood lent to their bent heads would h ave reminded the observer of some early Italian conception of the two Marys.
They worked on hour after hour, unconscious of the forlorn aspect th ey bore in the landscape, not thinking, of the justice o r injustice of their lot.Even in such a position as theirs it was possible to exist in a dream.In the afternoon the rain came on again, and Marian said that they need not work any more.But if they did not work they would not be paid; so they worked on.It was so high a situation, this field, that the rain had no occasion to fall, but raced along horizontally upon th e yelling wind, s ticking into them like glass splinters till they were wet th rough.Tess had not known till now what was really meant by that.Ther e are degre es of da mpness, and a ver y littl e is c alled bei ng wet through in common talk.But to stan d working slowly in a field, and f eel the creep of rain-water, first in legs and s houlders, then on h ips and head, then at back, front, and sides, and y et to work on till the leaden light diminishes and marks that the sun is do wn, demands a distinct modicum of stoicism, even of valour.
Yet they did not feel the wetness so much as might be supp osed.They were both young, and they were talking of the time when they lived and loved together at Talbothays Dairy, that happy green tract of land where summer had been liberal in her gif ts; in substance to all, emotionally to th ese.Tess would fain not have conversed with Marian of the man who was legally, if not actually, her husband; but the irr esistible fascina tion of th e subject betray ed her intoreciprocating Marian's remarks.And thus, as has been said, though the damp curtains of their b onnets flapp ed s martly in to th eir f aces, an d their wrap pers clung about them to wearisomeness, they lived all this afterno on in memories of green, sunny, romantic Talbothays.
“You can see a gle am of a hill with in a few miles o'Froom Valley from here when'tis fine, ”said Marian.
“Ah！Can you?”said Tess, awake to the new value of this locality.
So the two forces, were at work h ere as every where, the inherent will to enjoy, and t he cir cumstantial wi ll against enjoyment.Mar ian's will had a method of assisting itself by taking from her pocket as the afternoon wore on a pint bottle corked with white rag, from which she invited T ess to drink.Tess's unassisted, power of dreaming, howev er, being en ough for her sublimation at present, she declined except the merest sip, and then Marian took a pull herself from the spirits.
“I've got us ed to it, ”she said, “and can't leave it off now.'Tis my only comfort—You see I lost him：yon didn't; and you can do without it perhaps.”
Tess thought her loss as great as Mar ian's, but up held by the dignity of being Angel's wife, in the letter at least, she accepted Marian's differentiation.
Amid this scene Tess slaved in the morning frosts and in the afternoon, rains.When it was not swede-grubbing it was swede-trimming, in whichprocess they sliced off the earth and the fibres with a bill-hook before stor ing the roots for future use.At this o ccupation they could shelter themselves by a thatched hurdle if it rained; but if it was frosty even thew thick leacher gloves could not prevent the frozen masses they handled from biting their fingers.Still Tess hoped.She had a conviction that sooner or later the magnanimity which she persisted in reckoning as a chief ingredient of Clare's character would lead him to rejoin her.
Marian, pr imed to a h umorous mood, would d iscover the queershaped flints aforesaid, and shriek with laughter, Tess remaining severely obtuse.They often looked across the country to where the V ar or Froo m was known to stretch, even though they might not be able to s ee it; and, f ixing their ey es on the cloaking gray mist, imagined the old times they had spent out there.
“Ah, ”said Marian, “how I should like ano ther or two of our old set tocome here！Then we could bring up Talbothays every day here afield, and talk of he, and o f what nice tim es we had there, and o'the old things we used to know, and make it all come back again a'most, in seeming！”Marian's eyes softened, and her voice grew vague as the visio ns returned.“I'll write to Izz Huett, ”she said.“She's biding at home doing nothing now, I know, and I'll tell her we be here, and ask her to come; and perhaps Retry is well enough now.”
Tess had nothing to say against the proposal, and the next she heard of this plan for importing o ld Talbothays'joys was two or three d ays later, w hen Marian informed her that Izz had r eplied to her inquiry, and had pro mised to come if she could.
There h ad n ot been such a winter fo r y ears.It c ame on in s tealthy and measured glides, like the moves of a c hessplayer.One morning the few lo nely trees and th e tho rns of the h edgerows appeared, as if they had put of f a vegetable for an animal integument.Every twig was covered with a white nap as of fur grown from the rind during the nigh t, giving it four times its usual stoutness; the whole bush or tree forming a staring sketch in white lines on the mournful gr ay of the sk y and horizon.Cobweb s revealed their pr esence o n sheds and walls wher e none had ever been o bserved till brought ou t into visibility by the crystallizing atmosphere, hanging like loops o f white worsted from salient points of the out-houses, posts, and gates.
After this season of cong ealed dampness came a s pell of dry frost, when strange birds from behind the North Pole began to arrive silently on the upland of Flintcomb-Ash; gaunt spectral creatures with tragical eyes—eyes which had witnessed sc enes of ca taclysmal horr or in in accessible po lar regions of a magnitude such as no hu man being had ever conceived, in cur dling temperatures that no man could endure; which had beheld the crash of icebergs and the s lide of snow-hills by the s hooting light of th e Aurora; been h alf blinded by the whirl o f colossal s torms and terraqueous distortions; and retained the expression of featur e that such scenes had en gendered.These nameless birds came quite near to Tess and Marian, but of all they had seen which hu manity would never see, they brought no accoun t.The trav eller's ambition to tell was no t the irs, an d, with du mb i mpassivity, they dis missed experiences which th ey did no t va lue for the immediate in cidents of thishomely upland—the trivial movements of the two girls in disturbing the clods with th eir h ackers so as to uncov er someth ing or other that thes e vis itants relished as food.
Then one day a peculiar quality invaded the air of this open country.There came a moisture which was not of r ain, and a cold which w as not of fro st.It chilled th e eyeballs of th e twa in, made their bro ws ache, pe netrated to the ir skeletons, affecting the surface of the body less than its core.They knew that it meant snow, and in the night the snow came.Tess, who continued to live at the cottage with the war m g able that ch eered a ny lonely pedestr ian who paus ed beside it, awoke in the night, and heard above the thatch noises which seemed to si gnify th at the roof h ad t urned i tself into a gy mnasium of all th e wi nds.When she lit her lamp to get up in the morning she found that the snow h ad blown through a ch ink in th e casement, for ming a white cone of th e f inest powder against the inside, and had also come do wn the chimney, so that it lay sole-deep upon the floor, on which her shoes left tracks when she moved about.Without, the storm drove so fast as to create a snow-mist in the kitchen; but as yet it was too dark out-of-doors to see anything.
Tess knew that it was impossible to go on with the swedes; and by the time she had finished breakfast beside the solitary little lamp, Marian arrived to tell her that they were to join the rest of the women at reed-drawing in the barn till the weather changed.As soon, therefore, as the uniform cloak of darkn ess without began to turn to a disordered medley of grays, they blew out the lam p, wrapped them selves up in their thickest pinners, tied their woollen cravats round their necks and across their chests, and started for th e barn.The snow had followed the birds f rom the polar basin as a white pillar of a cloud, an d individual f lakes cou ld n ot be seen.The b last s melt of ic ebergs, arc tic seas, whales, and white bears, carrying the snow so that it licked the land but did not deepen o n it.They trudg ed onwards with slanted bodies through the flos sy fields, keeping as well as they could in the shelter of hedges, which, however, acted as strainers rather than screens.The air, afflicted to pallor with the hoary multitudes that infested it, twisted and spun them eccen trically, suggesting an achromatic chaos of things.But bo th the young women were fairly cheerful; such weather on a dry upland is not in itself dispiriting.
“Ha-ha！the cunning northern birds k new this was co ming, ”said Marian.“Depend upon't, they keep just in fr ont o't all the way from the North Star.Your husband, my dear, is, l make no doubt, having scorching weather all this time.Lord, if he could only see his pretty wife now！Not that this weather hurts your beauty at all—in fact, it rather does it good.”
“You mustn't talk about him to me, Marian, ”said Tess severely.
“Well, but—surely you care for'n！Do you?”
Instead of answering, Tess, with tears in her eyes, impulsively faced in the direction in which she imagined South America to lie, and, putting up her lips, blew out a passionate kiss upon the snowy wind.
“Well, well, I know you do.But'pon m y, body, it is a rum life for a married couple！There—I won't say another word！Well, as for the weather, it won't hurt us in the wheat-barn; but reed-drawing is fearful hard work—worse than swede-hacking.I can stand it because I'm stout; but you be slimmer than I.I can't think why maister should have set'ee at it.”