by Thomas Hardy
Graded Reader – Intermediate level
Chapter 1
On an evening in late May, a middle-aged man was walking home from Shaston to the village of Marlott. His legs were weak, and he found it difficult to walk in a straight line. He appeared to be deep in thought, but in fact he was thinking about very little. Near the village he met an old vicar riding on a grey horse.
‘Goodnight to you,’ said the man.
‘Goodnight, Sir John,’ said the vicar.
The man, after another step or two, stopped, and turned round. ‘Now, sir, I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘We met last market-day on this road at about this time. I said “Goodnight”, and you replied “Goodnight, Sir John”, as you did just now.’
‘I did,’ said the vicar.
‘And once before that – nearly a month ago.’
‘I may have.’
‘Then why do you keep calling me “Sir John”? I am plain Jack Durbeyfield.’
The vicar rode a step or two nearer.
‘It’s because of something I discovered recently, while I was studying local history. I am Mr Tringham, the historian, of Stagfoot Lane. Don’t you know, Durbeyfield, that you are the direct descendant of the ancient and noble d’Urberville family? This great family began with Sir Pagan d’Urberville. He came to England from Normandy in 1066, along with King William.’
‘I’ve never heard of this before!’
‘Well it’s true. Raise your head for a moment. I want to see your face better. Yes, that’s the d’Urberville nose and mouth. Later, others of your family owned land over all this part of England. Some of them were rich enough to give land to the Church. They helped kings in their times of trouble. Oh yes, there have been many Sir Johns among your family.’
‘Is that so?’
‘In fact,’ said the vicar, ‘the d’Urbervilles are one of England’s greatest families.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Durbeyfield. ‘And I’ve been living like any ordinary man for all these years. How long have these facts about me been known, Mr Tringham?’
‘They’re completely forgotten. I am one of the few people who do know the story of the d’Urbervilles. One day last spring I noticed the name Durbeyfield on the side of your waggon. That made me want to find out more about your father and grandfather. Now I have no doubt that you are a descendant of the d’Urbervilles. At first I didn’t want to tell you such a useless fact. However, I found it difficult to keep silent when I passed you on the road. I thought you might perhaps know already.’
‘Well, I’ve sometimes heard that my family was richer once. But I took no notice of such stories. I thought they meant that we used to have two horses instead of one. I’ve got an old silver spoon at home, but that doesn’t mean much. It was said that my grandfather had secrets. He didn’t like to say where he came from. So, where do we d’Urbervilles live now?’
‘You don’t live anywhere. You are finished as a noble family.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘Yes. The d’Urbervilles men all died.’
‘Then where are we buried?’
‘At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill. Line after line of you in your graves.’
‘And where are our family houses and lands?’
‘You haven’t any.’
‘Oh? None at all?’
‘None; although you once had many, as I said. There were d’Urbervilles in many parts of the country. In this district there was a house of yours at Kingsbere, and others at Sherton, Millpond, Lullstead, and at Wellbridge.’
‘And shall we never get them back?’
‘Ah – I don’t know that!’
‘What ought I to do about it, sir?’ asked Durbeyfield, after a while.
‘Oh – nothing, nothing. It’s an interesting but useless fact. Goodnight.’
‘Will you turn back and have a pint of beer with me, Mr Tringham? There’s some nice stuff at The Pure Drop, though not as good as at Rolliver’s.’
‘No, thank you – not this evening, Durbeyfield. You’ve had enough already.’
With this, the vicar rode on his way. When he was gone, Durbeyfield walked a few steps as if in a dream. He then sat down upon the grass by the roadside. In a few minutes a young man appeared, walking in the same direction as Durbeyfield had been.
‘Boy, take my basket! I want you to do something for me.’
‘Don’t order me about like that, John Durbeyfield. You know my name as well as I know yours!’
‘Do you, do you? That’s the secret, that’s the secret! Now follow my orders, and take the message I’m going to give you. Well, Fred, I don’t mind telling you my secret. I’m part of a noble family. I have just found out this afternoon,’ And as he said this, Durbeyfield lay down on the grass and looked up with pleasure at the sky.
The young man stood before Durbeyfield, and looked at him from head to toe.
‘Sir John d’Urberville – that’s who I am,’ continued Durbeyfield. ‘I’m in all the history books. Do you know of a place, boy, called Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill?’
‘Yes, I’ve been there.’
‘Well, in that city’s church there lie -’
‘It’s not a city, the place I mean. At least it wasn’t when I was there. It was a little sort of place.’
‘It doesn’t matter about the place, that’s not the question. In Kingsbere church there are hundreds of my ancestors. No man in South Wessex has greater and richer ancestors than I.’
‘Oh?’
‘Now take my basket, and go on to Marlott. When you come to The Pure Drop, tell them to send a horse and carriage to me immediately. I wish to be carried home. And when you’ve done that, go on to my house with the basket. Tell my wife to stop her washing because she needn’t finish it. I’ve got news to tell her.’
As the young man looked doubtful, Durbeyfield put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out a shilling. It was one of the few that he had.
‘This is for you, boy, if you take the message.’
This made a difference in the young man’s thoughts on the matter.
‘Yes, Sir John. Thank you. Anything else I can do for you, Sir John?’
‘Tell them at home that I should like the best supper of the year.’
Yes, Sir John.’
The young man took up the basket. As he set out, they heard of the sound of music coming from the direction of the village.
‘What’s that?’ said Durbeyfield. ‘It’s not because of my news, is it?’
‘It’s the women’s club, out walking, Sir John. Your own daughter belongs to the club.’
‘Oh yes, you’re right. I’d forgotten it in the middle of all my excitement. Well, go on to Marlott will you, and order my carriage.’
The young man left, and Durbeyfiels lay waiting on the grass in the evening sun. Nobody passed that way for a long time. The far-off music from the village was the only human sound in the valley.
The village of Marlott lay in the north-eastern corner of the beautiful Vale of Blackmoor. It was a rich and sheltered land. The fields were never brown and the streams never dry. To the south were the high chalk hills of Hambledon, Bulbarrow and Bubb Down. They were corn-lands, large and open. In the valley, the world seemed to be smaller and sleepier beneath the deep blue sky.
That same afternoon, Marlott was keeping the ancient custom of the women’s club walk. The women dressed themselves in white, and carried little white flowers as they marched around the village. There were a few older women, but young girls formed most of the band. In the bright sunlight their fresh hair shone in every shade of gold, black and brown. Some had beautiful eyes, others a beautiful nose or mouth. Few, if any, had all these. Each had some private dream, some love, some interest, or at least a distant hope. So each was happy in her way.
They came round by the pub called The Pure Drop. as they left the road and started to move into the fields, a woman said, ‘Tess! Look at your father. He’s riding home in a carriage!’
A young girl turned her head at these words. She was fine and very pretty, with a face full of expression. On looking round she saw Durbeyfield being driven along in the carriage that he had ordered from The Pure Drop. He was leaning back, with his eyes closed, and singing in a slow voice.
‘I’ve got great relations buried at Kingsbere,’ he sang, ‘Oh yes, they’re all so noble!’
The women laughed, except the girl called Tess. Her face went red as she saw her father making a fool of himself.
‘He’s tired, that’s all,’ she said quickly. ‘He has got a carriage because our horse needs a rest today.’
‘Oh, you’re so simple, Tess,’ said her companions. ‘He got drunk at the market.’
‘Look here,’ Tess cried, ‘I won’t walk another inch with you if you tell any more jokes about him!’ In a moment her eyes grew wet, and she looked at the ground. The others saw that they had really hurt her and said no more. They moved on into the field.
Tess Durbeyfield was full of strong feelings, but untouched by experience. The child she had been sometimes appeared in her face. At times you could see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth in her bright eyes.
Once the club was in the field, dancing began. At first the girls danced with each other, but after work the men of the village joined them. Some started to dance immediately; others just stood around, talking and looking.
Among this group there were three young brothers. They were too well-dressed to be villagers. The oldest was a vicar. The second was obviously a student. It was more difficult to guess the job of the third brother. Probably he was too young to have started anything yet. These three brothers were on a walking holiday in the Vale of Blackmoor. They leant over the gate by the road, and asked someone about the meaning of the club dance. The two older brothers plainly wanted to move on quickly, but the sight of a group of girls dancing without men seemed to amuse the third. He didn’t want to leave in a hurry. So he took off his pack, put it on the grass, and opened the gate.
‘What are you going to do, Angel?’ asked the oldest.
‘I want to go and have a dance with them. Why don’t we all go in? Just for a minute or two – it won’t take long.’
‘No, no. Nonsense!’ said the first. ‘Dancing in public with a lot of country girls! I’m surprised that you could even think of it. Come along, or it will be dark before we get to Stourcastle. That’s the only place we can stay tonight.’
‘All right. I’ll catch up with you and Cuthbert in five minutes. Don’t stop. I promise that I will, Felix.’
The two older brothers then left, and the youngest entered the field.
‘This is a great shame,’ he said, to two girls near him. ‘Where are your men, my dears?’
‘They haven’t finished work yet,’ answered one of the bravest. ‘They’ll be here soon. Would you dance with us, until they come?’
‘Certainly. But what is one man among so many girls?’
‘Better than none. It’s sad work dancing with one of your own sex. Now, pick and choose.’
The young man looked at the group of girls, and attempted to choose someone. But because they were all so new to him, he didn’t know where to start. So he took the nearest. This was not the speaker, as she had hoped; nor was it Tess Durbeyfield. Her noble d’Urberville blood had not yet started to help Tess. The example of this stranger made all the other young men quickly choose a girl. Soon even the ugliest woman in the club was dancing with a man.
The sound of the church clock suddenly reminded the young man that he ought to leave. As he left the dance, he saw Tess Durbeyfield. She looked at him, and he felt sorry, then, that he had not danced with her. When he had climbed the hill above the field he looked back. He could see the white shapes of the girls dancing on the grass. They all seemed to have forgotten him already.
All of them, except perhaps one. This white shape stood apart by the gate alone. He knew it was the pretty girl with whom he had not danced. Unimportant as the matter was, he felt that she was hurt by this. He wished that he had asked her to dance, and that he knew her name. She was so sweet, so soft-looking in her thin white dress. The young man felt he had acted foolishly. However, there was nothing he could do about it now. He turned and walked away, forgetting the matter.
Unabridged version
CHAPTER I
On an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare, who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune.
“Good night t’ee,” said the man with the basket.
“Good night, Sir John,” said the parson.
The pedestrian, after another pace or two, halted, and turned round.
“Now, sir, begging your pardon; we met last market-day on this road about this time, and I said ‘Good night,’ and you made reply ‘Good night, Sir John,’ as now.”
“I did,” said the parson.
“And once before that—near a month ago.”
“I may have.”
“Then what might your meaning be in calling me ‘Sir John’ these different times, when I be plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler?”
The parson rode a step or two nearer.
“It was only my whim,” he said; and, after a moment’s hesitation: “It was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane. Don’t you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d’Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d’Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?”
“Never heard it before, sir!”
“Well it’s true. Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better. Yes, that’s the d’Urberville nose and chin—a little debased. Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire. Branches of your family held manors over all this part of England; their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in the time of King Stephen. In the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second’s time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the great Council there. You declined a little in Oliver Cromwell’s time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the Second’s reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty. Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among you, and if knighthood were hereditary, like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now.”
“Ye don’t say so!”
“In short,” concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his switch, “there’s hardly such another family in England.”
“Daze my eyes, and isn’t there?” said Durbeyfield. “And here have I been knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I was no more than the commonest feller in the parish…. And how long hev this news about me been knowed, Pa’son Tringham?”
The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite died out of knowledge, and could hardly be said to be known at all. His own investigations had begun on a day in the preceding spring when, having been engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the d’Urberville family, he had observed Durbeyfield’s name on his waggon, and had thereupon been led to make inquiries about his father and grandfather till he had no doubt on the subject.
“At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information,” said he. “However, our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes. I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the while.”
“Well, I have heard once or twice, ’tis true, that my family had seen better days afore they came to Blackmoor. But I took no notice o’t, thinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses where we now keep only one. I’ve got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what’s a spoon and seal?… And to think that I and these noble d’Urbervilles were one flesh all the time. ’Twas said that my gr’t-granfer had secrets, and didn’t care to talk of where he came from…. And where do we raise our smoke, now, parson, if I may make so bold; I mean, where do we d’Urbervilles live?”
“You don’t live anywhere. You are extinct—as a county family.”
“That’s bad.”
“Yes—what the mendacious family chronicles call extinct in the male line—that is, gone down—gone under.”
“Then where do we lie?”
“At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill: rows and rows of you in your vaults, with your effigies under Purbeck-marble canopies.”
“And where be our family mansions and estates?”
“You haven’t any.”
“Oh? No lands neither?”
“None; though you once had ’em in abundance, as I said, for your family consisted of numerous branches. In this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbere, and another at Sherton, and another in Millpond, and another at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge.”
“And shall we ever come into our own again?”
“Ah—that I can’t tell!”
“And what had I better do about it, sir?” asked Durbeyfield, after a pause.
“Oh—nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself with the thought of ‘how are the mighty fallen.’ It is a fact of some interest to the local historian and genealogist, nothing more. There are several families among the cottagers of this county of almost equal lustre. Good night.”
“But you’ll turn back and have a quart of beer wi’ me on the strength o’t, Pa’son Tringham? There’s a very pretty brew in tap at The Pure Drop—though, to be sure, not so good as at Rolliver’s.”
“No, thank you—not this evening, Durbeyfield. You’ve had enough already.” Concluding thus, the parson rode on his way, with doubts as to his discretion in retailing this curious bit of lore.
When he was gone, Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a profound reverie, and then sat down upon the grassy bank by the roadside, depositing his basket before him. In a few minutes a youth appeared in the distance, walking in the same direction as that which had been pursued by Durbeyfield. The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand, and the lad quickened his pace and came near.
“Boy, take up that basket! I want ’ee to go on an errand for me.”
The lath-like stripling frowned. “Who be you, then, John Durbeyfield, to order me about and call me ‘boy’? You know my name as well as I know yours!”
“Do you, do you? That’s the secret—that’s the secret! Now obey my orders, and take the message I’m going to charge ’ee wi’… Well, Fred, I don’t mind telling you that the secret is that I’m one of a noble race—it has been just found out by me this present afternoon, p.m.” And as he made the announcement, Durbeyfield, declining from his sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank among the daisies.
The lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from crown to toe.
“Sir John d’Urberville—that’s who I am,” continued the prostrate man. “That is if knights were baronets—which they be. ’Tis recorded in history all about me. Dost know of such a place, lad, as Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill?”
“Ees. I’ve been there to Greenhill Fair.”
“Well, under the church of that city there lie—”
“’Tisn’t a city, the place I mean; leastwise ’twaddn’ when I was there—’twas a little one-eyed, blinking sort o’ place.”
“Never you mind the place, boy, that’s not the question before us. Under the church of that there parish lie my ancestors—hundreds of ’em—in coats of mail and jewels, in gr’t lead coffins weighing tons and tons. There’s not a man in the county o’ South-Wessex that’s got grander and nobler skillentons in his family than I.”
“Oh?”
“Now take up that basket, and goo on to Marlott, and when you’ve come to The Pure Drop Inn, tell ’em to send a horse and carriage to me immed’ately, to carry me hwome. And in the bottom o’ the carriage they be to put a noggin o’ rum in a small bottle, and chalk it up to my account. And when you’ve done that goo on to my house with the basket, and tell my wife to put away that washing, because she needn’t finish it, and wait till I come hwome, as I’ve news to tell her.”
As the lad stood in a dubious attitude, Durbeyfield put his hand in his pocket, and produced a shilling, one of the chronically few that he possessed.
“Here’s for your labour, lad.”
This made a difference in the young man’s estimate of the position.
“Yes, Sir John. Thank ’ee. Anything else I can do for ’ee, Sir John?”
“Tell ’em at hwome that I should like for supper,—well, lamb’s fry if they can get it; and if they can’t, black-pot; and if they can’t get that, well chitterlings will do.”
“Yes, Sir John.”
The boy took up the basket, and as he set out the notes of a brass band were heard from the direction of the village.
“What’s that?” said Durbeyfield. “Not on account o’ I?”
“’Tis the women’s club-walking, Sir John. Why, your da’ter is one o’ the members.”
“To be sure—I’d quite forgot it in my thoughts of greater things! Well, vamp on to Marlott, will ye, and order that carriage, and maybe I’ll drive round and inspect the club.”
The lad departed, and Durbeyfield lay waiting on the grass and daisies in the evening sun. Not a soul passed that way for a long while, and the faint notes of the band were the only human sounds audible within the rim of blue hills.
CHAPTER II
The village of Marlott lay amid the north-eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor, aforesaid, an engirdled and secluded region, for the most part untrodden as yet by tourist or landscape-painter, though within a four hours’ journey from London.
It is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summits of the hills that surround it—except perhaps during the droughts of summer. An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous, and miry ways.
This fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the fields are never brown and the springs never dry, is bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces the prominences of Hambledon Hill, Bulbarrow, Nettlecombe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb Down. The traveller from the coast, who, after plodding northward for a score of miles over calcareous downs and corn-lands, suddenly reaches the verge of one of these escarpments, is surprised and delighted to behold, extended like a map beneath him, a country differing absolutely from that which he has passed through. Behind him the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give an unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colourless. Here, in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine. Arable lands are few and limited; with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmoor.
The district is of historic, no less than of topographical interest. The Vale was known in former times as the Forest of White Hart, from a curious legend of King Henry III’s reign, in which the killing by a certain Thomas de la Lynd of a beautiful white hart which the king had run down and spared, was made the occasion of a heavy fine. In those days, and till comparatively recent times, the country was densely wooded. Even now, traces of its earlier condition are to be found in the old oak copses and irregular belts of timber that yet survive upon its slopes, and the hollow-trunked trees that shade so many of its pastures.
The forests have departed, but some old customs of their shades remain. Many, however, linger only in a metamorphosed or disguised form. The May-Day dance, for instance, was to be discerned on the afternoon under notice, in the guise of the club revel, or “club-walking,” as it was there called.
It was an interesting event to the younger inhabitants of Marlott, though its real interest was not observed by the participators in the ceremony. Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of walking in procession and dancing on each anniversary than in the members being solely women. In men’s clubs such celebrations were, though expiring, less uncommon; but either the natural shyness of the softer sex, or a sarcastic attitude on the part of male relatives, had denuded such women’s clubs as remained (if any other did) or this their glory and consummation. The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local Cerealia. It had walked for hundreds of years, if not as benefit-club, as votive sisterhood of some sort; and it walked still.
The banded ones were all dressed in white gowns—a gay survival from Old Style days, when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms—days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average. Their first exhibition of themselves was in a processional march of two and two round the parish. Ideal and real clashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green hedges and creeper-laced house-fronts; for, though the whole troop wore white garments, no two whites were alike among them. Some approached pure blanching; some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the older characters (which had possibly lain by folded for many a year) inclined to a cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian style.
In addition to the distinction of a white frock, every woman and girl carried in her right hand a peeled willow wand, and in her left a bunch of white flowers. The peeling of the former, and the selection of the latter, had been an operation of personal care.
There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in the train, their silver-wiry hair and wrinkled faces, scourged by time and trouble, having almost a grotesque, certainly a pathetic, appearance in such a jaunty situation. In a true view, perhaps, there was more to be gathered and told of each anxious and experienced one, to whom the years were drawing nigh when she should say, “I have no pleasure in them,” than of her juvenile comrades. But let the elder be passed over here for those under whose bodices the life throbbed quick and warm.
The young girls formed, indeed, the majority of the band, and their heads of luxuriant hair reflected in the sunshine every tone of gold, and black, and brown. Some had beautiful eyes, others a beautiful nose, others a beautiful mouth and figure: few, if any, had all. A difficulty of arranging their lips in this crude exposure to public scrutiny, an inability to balance their heads, and to dissociate self-consciousness from their features, was apparent in them, and showed that they were genuine country girls, unaccustomed to many eyes.
And as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, at least some remote and distant hope which, though perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on, as hopes will. They were all cheerful, and many of them merry.
They came round by The Pure Drop Inn, and were turning out of the high road to pass through a wicket-gate into the meadows, when one of the women said—
“The Load-a-Lord! Why, Tess Durbeyfield, if there isn’t thy father riding hwome in a carriage!”
A young member of the band turned her head at the exclamation. She was a fine and handsome girl—not handsomer than some others, possibly—but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment. As she looked round Durbeyfield was seen moving along the road in a chaise belonging to The Pure Drop, driven by a frizzle-headed brawny damsel with her gown-sleeves rolled above her elbows. This was the cheerful servant of that establishment, who, in her part of factotum, turned groom and ostler at times. Durbeyfield, leaning back, and with his eyes closed luxuriously, was waving his hand above his head, and singing in a slow recitative—
“I’ve-got-a-gr’t-family-vault-at-Kingsbere—and knighted-forefathers-in-lead-coffins-there!”
The clubbists tittered, except the girl called Tess—in whom a slow heat seemed to rise at the sense that her father was making himself foolish in their eyes.
“He’s tired, that’s all,” she said hastily, “and he has got a lift home, because our own horse has to rest to-day.”
“Bless thy simplicity, Tess,” said her companions. “He’s got his market-nitch. Haw-haw!”
“Look here; I won’t walk another inch with you, if you say any jokes about him!” Tess cried, and the colour upon her cheeks spread over her face and neck. In a moment her eyes grew moist, and her glance drooped to the ground. Perceiving that they had really pained her they said no more, and order again prevailed. Tess’s pride would not allow her to turn her head again, to learn what her father’s meaning was, if he had any; and thus she moved on with the whole body to the enclosure where there was to be dancing on the green. By the time the spot was reached she had recovered her equanimity, and tapped her neighbour with her wand and talked as usual.
Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience. The dialect was on her tongue to some extent, despite the village school: the characteristic intonation of that dialect for this district being the voicing approximately rendered by the syllable UR, probably as rich an utterance as any to be found in human speech. The pouted-up deep red mouth to which this syllable was native had hardly as yet settled into its definite shape, and her lower lip had a way of thrusting the middle of her top one upward, when they closed together after a word.
Phases of her childhood lurked in her aspect still. As she walked along to-day, for all her bouncing handsome womanliness, you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling from her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now and then.
Yet few knew, and still fewer considered this. A small minority, mainly strangers, would look long at her in casually passing by, and grow momentarily fascinated by her freshness, and wonder if they would ever see her again: but to almost everybody she was a fine and picturesque country girl, and no more.
Nothing was seen or heard further of Durbeyfield in his triumphal chariot under the conduct of the ostleress, and the club having entered the allotted space, dancing began. As there were no men in the company, the girls danced at first with each other, but when the hour for the close of labour drew on, the masculine inhabitants of the village, together with other idlers and pedestrians, gathered round the spot, and appeared inclined to negotiate for a partner.
Among these on-lookers were three young men of a superior class, carrying small knapsacks strapped to their shoulders, and stout sticks in their hands. Their general likeness to each other, and their consecutive ages, would almost have suggested that they might be, what in fact they were, brothers. The eldest wore the white tie, high waistcoat, and thin-brimmed hat of the regulation curate; the second was the normal undergraduate; the appearance of the third and youngest would hardly have been sufficient to characterize him; there was an uncribbed, uncabined aspect in his eyes and attire, implying that he had hardly as yet found the entrance to his professional groove. That he was a desultory tentative student of something and everything might only have been predicted of him.
These three brethren told casual acquaintance that they were spending their Whitsun holidays in a walking tour through the Vale of Blackmoor, their course being south-westerly from the town of Shaston on the north-east.
They leant over the gate by the highway, and inquired as to the meaning of the dance and the white-frocked maids. The two elder of the brothers were plainly not intending to linger more than a moment, but the spectacle of a bevy of girls dancing without male partners seemed to amuse the third, and make him in no hurry to move on. He unstrapped his knapsack, put it, with his stick, on the hedge-bank, and opened the gate.
“What are you going to do, Angel?” asked the eldest.
“I am inclined to go and have a fling with them. Why not all of us—just for a minute or two—it will not detain us long?”
“No—no; nonsense!” said the first. “Dancing in public with a troop of country hoydens—suppose we should be seen! Come along, or it will be dark before we get to Stourcastle, and there’s no place we can sleep at nearer than that; besides, we must get through another chapter of A Counterblast to Agnosticism before we turn in, now I have taken the trouble to bring the book.”
“All right—I’ll overtake you and Cuthbert in five minutes; don’t stop; I give my word that I will, Felix.”
The two elder reluctantly left him and walked on, taking their brother’s knapsack to relieve him in following, and the youngest entered the field.
“This is a thousand pities,” he said gallantly, to two or three of the girls nearest him, as soon as there was a pause in the dance. “Where are your partners, my dears?”
“They’ve not left off work yet,” answered one of the boldest. “They’ll be here by and by. Till then, will you be one, sir?”
“Certainly. But what’s one among so many!”
“Better than none. ’Tis melancholy work facing and footing it to one of your own sort, and no clipsing and colling at all. Now, pick and choose.”
“’Ssh—don’t be so for’ard!” said a shyer girl.
The young man, thus invited, glanced them over, and attempted some discrimination; but, as the group were all so new to him, he could not very well exercise it. He took almost the first that came to hand, which was not the speaker, as she had expected; nor did it happen to be Tess Durbeyfield. Pedigree, ancestral skeletons, monumental record, the d’Urberville lineaments, did not help Tess in her life’s battle as yet, even to the extent of attracting to her a dancing-partner over the heads of the commonest peasantry. So much for Norman blood unaided by Victorian lucre.
The name of the eclipsing girl, whatever it was, has not been handed down; but she was envied by all as the first who enjoyed the luxury of a masculine partner that evening. Yet such was the force of example that the village young men, who had not hastened to enter the gate while no intruder was in the way, now dropped in quickly, and soon the couples became leavened with rustic youth to a marked extent, till at length the plainest woman in the club was no longer compelled to foot it on the masculine side of the figure.
The church clock struck, when suddenly the student said that he must leave—he had been forgetting himself—he had to join his companions. As he fell out of the dance his eyes lighted on Tess Durbeyfield, whose own large orbs wore, to tell the truth, the faintest aspect of reproach that he had not chosen her. He, too, was sorry then that, owing to her backwardness, he had not observed her; and with that in his mind he left the pasture.
On account of his long delay he started in a flying-run down the lane westward, and had soon passed the hollow and mounted the next rise. He had not yet overtaken his brothers, but he paused to get breath, and looked back. He could see the white figures of the girls in the green enclosure whirling about as they had whirled when he was among them. They seemed to have quite forgotten him already.
All of them, except, perhaps, one. This white shape stood apart by the hedge alone. From her position he knew it to be the pretty maiden with whom he had not danced. Trifling as the matter was, he yet instinctively felt that she was hurt by his oversight. He wished that he had asked her; he wished that he had inquired her name. She was so modest, so expressive, she had looked so soft in her thin white gown that he felt he had acted stupidly.
However, it could not be helped, and turning, and bending himself to a rapid walk, he dismissed the subject from his mind.
