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CHAPTER XXXII
This penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding-day.
The beginning of November found its date still in abeyance, though he asked her at
the most tempting times.
But Tess's desire seemed to be for a perpetual betrothal in which everything
should remain as it was then.
The meads were changing now; but it was still warm enough in early afternoons
before milking to idle there awhile, and the state of dairy-work at this time of
year allowed a spare hour for idling.
Looking over the damp sod in the direction of the sun, a glistening ripple of gossamer
webs was visible to their eyes under the luminary, like the track of moonlight on
the sea.
Gnats, knowing nothing of their brief glorification, wandered across the shimmer
of this pathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within them, then passed out of its
line, and were quite extinct.
In the presence of these things he would remind her that the date was still the
question.
Or he would ask her at night, when he accompanied her on some mission invented by
Mrs Crick to give him the opportunity.
This was mostly a journey to the farmhouse on the slopes above the vale, to inquire
how the advanced cows were getting on in the straw-barton to which they were
relegated.
For it was a time of the year that brought great changes to the world of kine.
Batches of the animals were sent away daily to this lying-in hospital, where they lived
on straw till their calves were born, after which event, and as soon as the calf could
walk, mother and offspring were driven back to the dairy.
In the interval which elapsed before the calves were sold there was, of course,
little milking to be done, but as soon as the calf had been taken away the milkmaids
would have to set to work as usual.
Returning from one of these dark walks they reached a great gravel-cliff immediately
over the levels, where they stood still and listened.
The water was now high in the streams, squirting through the weirs, and tinkling
under culverts; the smallest gullies were all full; there was no taking short cuts
anywhere, and foot-passengers were compelled to follow the permanent ways.
From the whole extent of the invisible vale came a multitudinous intonation; it forced
upon their fancy that a great city lay below them, and that the murmur was the
vociferation of its populace.
"It seems like tens of thousands of them," said Tess; "holding public-meetings in
their market-places, arguing, preaching, quarrelling, sobbing, groaning, praying,
and cursing."
Clare was not particularly heeding. "Did Crick speak to you to-day, dear, about
his not wanting much assistance during the winter months?"
"No."
"The cows are going dry rapidly." "Yes.
Six or seven went to the straw-barton yesterday, and three the day before, making
nearly twenty in the straw already.
Ah--is it that the farmer don't want my help for the calving?
O, I am not wanted here any more! And I have tried so hard to--"
"Crick didn't exactly say that he would no longer require you.
But, knowing what our relations were, he said in the most good-natured and
respectful manner possible that he supposed on my leaving at Christmas I should take
you with me, and on my asking what he would
do without you he merely observed that, as a matter of fact, it was a time of year
when he could do with a very little female help.
I am afraid I was sinner enough to feel rather glad that he was in this way forcing
your hand." "I don't think you ought to have felt glad,
Angel.
Because 'tis always mournful not to be wanted, even if at the same time 'tis
convenient." "Well, it is convenient--you have admitted
that."
He put his finger upon her cheek. "Ah!" he said.
"What?" "I feel the red rising up at her having
been caught!
But why should I trifle so! We will not trifle--life is too serious."
"It is. Perhaps I saw that before you did."
She was seeing it then.
To decline to marry him after all--in obedience to her emotion of last night--and
leave the dairy, meant to go to some strange place, not a dairy; for milkmaids
were not in request now calving-time was
coming on; to go to some arable farm where no divine being like Angel Clare was.
She hated the thought, and she hated more the thought of going home.
"So that, seriously, dearest Tess," he continued, "since you will probably have to
leave at Christmas, it is in every way desirable and convenient that I should
carry you off then as my property.
Besides, if you were not the most uncalculating girl in the world you would
know that we could not go on like this for ever."
"I wish we could.
That it would always be summer and autumn, and you always courting me, and always
thinking as much of me as you have done through the past summer-time!"
"I always shall."
"O, I know you will!" she cried, with a sudden fervour of faith in him.
"Angel, I will fix the day when I will become yours for always!"
Thus at last it was arranged between them, during that dark walk home, amid the
myriads of liquid voices on the right and left.
When they reached the dairy Mr and Mrs Crick were promptly told--with injunctions
of secrecy; for each of the lovers was desirous that the marriage should be kept
as private as possible.
The dairyman, though he had thought of dismissing her soon, now made a great
concern about losing her. What should he do about his skimming?
Who would make the ornamental butter-pats for the Anglebury and Sandbourne ladies?
Mrs Crick congratulated Tess on the shilly- shallying having at last come to an end,
and said that directly she set eyes on Tess she divined that she was to be the chosen
one of somebody who was no common outdoor
man; Tess had looked so superior as she walked across the barton on that afternoon
of her arrival; that she was of a good family she could have sworn.
In point of fact Mrs Crick did remember thinking that Tess was graceful and good-
looking as she approached; but the superiority might have been a growth of the
imagination aided by subsequent knowledge.
Tess was now carried along upon the wings of the hours, without the sense of a will.
The word had been given; the number of the day written down.
Her naturally bright intelligence had begun to admit the fatalistic convictions common
to field-folk and those who associate more extensively with natural phenomena than
with their fellow-creatures; and she
accordingly drifted into that passive responsiveness to all things her lover
suggested, characteristic of the frame of mind.
But she wrote anew to her mother, ostensibly to notify the wedding-day;
really to again implore her advice.
It was a gentleman who had chosen her, which perhaps her mother had not
sufficiently considered.
A post-nuptial explanation, which might be accepted with a light heart by a rougher
man, might not be received with the same feeling by him.
But this communication brought no reply from Mrs Durbeyfield.
Despite Angel Clare's plausible representation to himself and to Tess of
the practical need for their immediate marriage, there was in truth an element of
precipitancy in the step, as became apparent at a later date.
He loved her dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and fancifully than with the
impassioned thoroughness of her feeling for him.
He had entertained no notion, when doomed as he had thought to an unintellectual
bucolic life, that such charms as he beheld in this idyllic creature would be found
behind the scenes.
Unsophistication was a thing to talk of; but he had not known how it really struck
one until he came here.
Yet he was very far from seeing his future track clearly, and it might be a year or
two before he would be able to consider himself fairly started in life.
The secret lay in the tinge of recklessness imparted to his career and character by the
sense that he had been made to miss his true destiny through the prejudices of his
family.
"Don't you think 'twould have been better for us to wait till you were quite settled
in your midland farm?" she once asked timidly.
(A midland farm was the idea just then.)
"To tell the truth, my Tess, I don't like you to be left anywhere away from my
protection and sympathy." The reason was a good one, so far as it
went.
His influence over her had been so marked that she had caught his manner and habits,
his speech and phrases, his likings and his aversions.
And to leave her in farmland would be to let her slip back again out of accord with
him. He wished to have her under his charge for
another reason.
His parents had naturally desired to see her once at least before he carried her off
to a distant settlement, English or colonial; and as no opinion of theirs was
to be allowed to change his intention, he
judged that a couple of months' life with him in lodgings whilst seeking for an
advantageous opening would be of some social assistance to her at what she might
feel to be a trying ordeal--her presentation to his mother at the Vicarage.
Next, he wished to see a little of the working of a flour-mill, having an idea
that he might combine the use of one with corn-growing.
The proprietor of a large old water-mill at Wellbridge--once the mill of an Abbey--had
offered him the inspection of his time- honoured mode of procedure, and a hand in
the operations for a few days, whenever he should choose to come.
Clare paid a visit to the place, some few miles distant, one day at this time, to
inquire particulars, and returned to Talbothays in the evening.
She found him determined to spend a short time at the Wellbridge flour-mills.
And what had determined him?
Less the opportunity of an insight into grinding and bolting than the casual fact
that lodgings were to be obtained in that very farmhouse which, before its
mutilation, had been the mansion of a branch of the d'Urberville family.
This was always how Clare settled practical questions; by a sentiment which had nothing
to do with them.
They decided to go immediately after the wedding, and remain for a fortnight,
instead of journeying to towns and inns.
"Then we will start off to examine some farms on the other side of London that I
have heard of," he said, "and by March or April we will pay a visit to my father and
mother."
Questions of procedure such as these arose and passed, and the day, the incredible
day, on which she was to become his, loomed large in the near future.
The thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, was the date.
His wife, she said to herself. Could it ever be?
Their two selves together, nothing to divide them, every incident shared by them;
why not? And yet why?
One Sunday morning Izz Huett returned from church, and spoke privately to Tess.
"You was not called home this morning." "What?"
"It should ha' been the first time of asking to-day," she answered, looking
quietly at Tess. "You meant to be married New Year's Eve,
deary?"
The other returned a quick affirmative. "And there must be three times of asking.
And now there be only two Sundays left between."
Tess felt her cheek paling; Izz was right; of course there must be three.
Perhaps he had forgotten! If so, there must be a week's postponement,
and that was unlucky.
How could she remind her lover? She who had been so backward was suddenly
fired with impatience and alarm lest she should lose her dear prize.
A natural incident relieved her anxiety.
Izz mentioned the omission of the banns to Mrs Crick, and Mrs Crick assumed a matron's
privilege of speaking to Angel on the point.
"Have ye forgot 'em, Mr Clare?
The banns, I mean." "No, I have not forgot 'em," says Clare.
As soon as he caught Tess alone he assured her:
"Don't let them tease you about the banns.
A licence will be quieter for us, and I have decided on a licence without
consulting you.
So if you go to church on Sunday morning you will not hear your own name, if you
wished to." "I didn't wish to hear it, dearest," she
said proudly.
But to know that things were in train was an immense relief to Tess notwithstanding,
who had well-nigh feared that somebody would stand up and forbid the banns on the
ground of her history.
How events were favouring her! "I don't quite feel easy," she said to
herself. "All this good fortune may be scourged out
of me afterwards by a lot of ill.
That's how Heaven mostly does. I wish I could have had common banns!"
But everything went smoothly.
She wondered whether he would like her to be married in her present best white frock,
or if she ought to buy a new one.
The question was set at rest by his forethought, disclosed by the arrival of
some large packages addressed to her.
Inside them she found a whole stock of clothing, from bonnet to shoes, including a
perfect morning costume, such as would well suit the simple wedding they planned.
He entered the house shortly after the arrival of the packages, and heard her
upstairs undoing them. A minute later she came down with a flush
on her face and tears in her eyes.
"How thoughtful you've been!" she murmured, her cheek upon his shoulder.
"Even to the gloves and handkerchief! My own love--how good, how kind!"
"No, no, Tess; just an order to a tradeswoman in London--nothing more."
And to divert her from thinking too highly of him, he told her to go upstairs, and
take her time, and see if it all fitted; and, if not, to get the village sempstress
to make a few alterations.
She did return upstairs, and put on the gown.
Alone, she stood for a moment before the glass looking at the effect of her silk
attire; and then there came into her head her mother's ballad of the mystic robe--
That never would become that wife That had once done amiss, which Mrs Durbeyfield had
used to sing to her as a child, so blithely and so archly, her foot on the cradle,
which she rocked to the tune.
Suppose this robe should betray her by changing colour, as her robe had betrayed
Queen Guinevere. Since she had been at the dairy she had not
once thought of the lines till now.