I’ll see what grub I can find.”
Stoke d’Urberville took her back to the lawn and into the tent, where he left her, soon reappearing with a basket of light luncheon, which he put before her himself. It was evidently the gentleman’s wish not to be disturbed in this pleasant tête-à-tête by the servantry.
“Do you mind my smoking?” he asked.
“Oh, not at all, sir.”
He watched her pretty and unconscious munching through the skeins of smoke that pervaded the tent, and Tess Durbeyfield did not divine, as she innocently looked down at the roses in her bosom, that there behind the blue narcotic haze was potentially the “tragic mischief” of her drama – one who stood fair to be the blood-red ray in the spectrum of her young life. She had an attribute which amounted to a disadvantage just now; and it was this that caused Alec d’Urberville’s eyes to rivet themselves upon her. It was a luxuriance of aspect, a fulness of growth, which made her appear more of a woman than she really was. She had inherited the feature from her mother without the quality it denoted. It had troubled her mind occasionally, till her companions had said that it was a fault which time would cure.
She soon had finished her lunch. “Now I am going home, sir,” she said, rising.
“And what do they call you?” he asked, as he accompanied her along the drive till they were out of sight of the house.
“Tess Durbeyfield, down at Marlott.”
“And you say your people have lost their horse?”
“I – killed him!” she answered, her eyes filling with tears as she gave particulars of Prince’s death. “And I don’t know what to do for father on account of it!”
“I must think if I cannot do something. My mother must find a berth for you. But, Tess, no nonsense about ‘d’Urberville’; – ‘Durbeyfield’ only, you know – quite another name.”
“I wish for no better, sir,” said she with something of dignity.
For a moment – only for a moment – when they were in the turning of the drive, between the tall rhododendrons and conifers, before the lodge became visible, he inclined his face towards her as if – but, no: he thought better of it, and let her go.
Thus the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting’s import she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired one in all respects – as nearly as humanity can supply the right and desired; yet to him who amongst her acquaintance might have approximated to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half forgotten.
In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not often say “See!” to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply “Here!” to a body’s cry of “Where?” till the hide-and-seek has become an irksome, outworn game. We may wonder whether at the acme and summit of the human progress these anachronisms will be corrected by a finer intuition, a closer interaction of the social machinery than that which now jolts us round and along; but such completeness is not to be prophesied, or even conceived as possible. Enough that in the present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a perfect whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment; a missing counterpart wandered independently about the earth waiting in crass obtuseness till the late time came. Out of which maladroit delay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks, catastrophes, and passing-strange destinies.
When d’Urberville got back to the tent he sat down astride on a chair, reflecting, with a pleased gleam in his face. Then he broke into a loud laugh.
“Well, I’m damned! What a funny thing! Ha-ha-ha! And what a crumby girl!”
VI
Tess went down the hill to Trantridge Cross, and inattentively waited to take her seat in the van returning from Chaseborough to Shaston. She did not know what the other occupants said to her as she entered, though she answered them; and when they had started anew she rode along with an inward and not an outward eye.
One among her fellow-travellers addressed her more pointedly than any had spoken before: “Why, you be quite a posy! And such roses in early June!”
Then she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their surprised vision: roses at her breasts; roses in her hat; roses and strawberries in her basket to the brim. She blushed, and said confusedly that the flowers had been given to her. When the passengers were not looking she stealthily removed the more prominent blooms from her hat and placed them in the basket, where she covered them with her handkerchief. Then she fell to reflecting again, and in looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining in her breast accidentally pricked her chin. Like all the cottagers in Blackmoor Vale, Tess was steeped in fancies and prefigurative superstitions; she thought this an ill omen – the first she had noticed that day.
The van travelled only so far as Shaston, and there were several miles of pedestrian descent from that mountain-town into the vale to Marlott. Her mother had advised her to stay here for the night, at the house of a cottage-woman they knew, if she should feel too tired to come on; and this Tess did, not descending to her home till the following afternoon.
When she entered the house she perceived in a moment from her mother’s triumphant manner that something had occurred in the interim.
“Oh yes; I know all about it! I told ’ee it would be all right, and now ’tis proved!”
“Since I’ve been away? What has?” said Tess rather wearily.
Her mother surveyed the girl up and down with arch approval, and went on banteringly: “So you’ve brought ’em round!”
“How do you know, mother?”
“I’ve had a letter.”
Tess then remembered that there would have been time for this.
“They say – Mrs d’Urberville says – that she wants you to look after a little fowl-farm which is her hobby. But this is only her artful way of getting ’ee there without raising your hopes. She’s going to own ’ee as kin – that’s the meaning o’t.”
“But I didn’t see her.”
“You zid somebody, I suppose?”
“I saw her son.”
“And did he own ’ee?”
“Well – he called me Coz.”
“An’ I knew it! Jacky – he called her Coz!” cried Joan to her husband. “Well, he spoke to his mother, of course, and she do want ’ee there.”
“But I don’t know that I am apt at tending fowls,” said the dubious Tess.
“Then I don’t know who is apt. You’ve be’n born in the business, and brought up in it. They that be born in a business always know more about it than any ’prentice. Besides, that’s only just a show of something for you to do, that you midn’t feel beholden.”
“I don’t altogether think I ought to go,” said Tess thoughtfully. “Who wrote the letter? Will you let me look at it?”
“Mrs d’Urberville wrote it. Here it is.”
The letter was in the third person, and briefly informed Mrs Durbeyfield that her daughter’s services would be useful to that lady in the management of her poultry-farm, that a comfortable room would be provided for her if she could come, and that the wages would be on a liberal scale if they liked her.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив