LIV
In a quarter of an hour Clare was leaving the house,
whence his mother watched his thin figure as it
disappeared into the street. He had declined to borrow
his father's old mare, well knowing of its necessity to
the household. He went to the inn, where he hired a
trap, and could hardly wait during the harnessing. In
a very few minutes after he was driving up the hill out
of the town which, three or four months earlier in the
year, Tess had descended with such hopes and ascended
with such shattered purposes.
Benvill Lane soon stretched before him, its hedges and
trees purple with buds; but he was looking at other
things, and only recalled himself to the scene
sufficiently to enable him to keep the way. In
something less than an hour-and-a-half he had skirted
the south of the King's Hintock estates and ascended to
the untoward solitude of Cross-in-Hand, the unholy
stone whereon Tess had been compelled by Alec
d'Urberville, in his whim of reformation, to swear the
strange oath that she would never wilfully tempt him
again. The pale and blasted nettle-stems of the
preceding year even now lingered nakedly in the banks,
young green nettles of the present spring growing from
their roots.
Thence he went along the verge of the upland
overhanging the other Hintocks, and, turning to the
right, plunged into the bracing calcareous region of
Flintcomb-Ash, the address from which she had written
to him in one of the letters, and which he supposed to
be the place of sojourn referred to by her mother.
Here, of course, he did not find her; and what added to
his depression was the discovery that no "Mrs Clare"
had ever been heard of by the cottagers or by the
farmer himself, though Tess was remembered well enough
by her Christian name. His name she had obviously
never used during their separation, and her dignified
sense of their total severance was shown not much less
by this abstention than by the hardships she had chosen
to undergo (of which he now learnt for the first time)
rather than apply to his father for more funds.
From this place they told him Tess Durbeyfield had
gone, without due notice, to the home of her parents on
the other side of Blackmoor, and it therefore became
necessary to find Mrs Durbeyfield. She had told him
she was not now at Marlott, but had been curiously
reticent as to her actual address, and the only course
was to go to Marlott and inquire for it. The farmer
who had been so churlish with Tess was quite
smooth-tongued to Clare, and lent him a horse and man
to drive him towards Marlott, the gig he had arrived in
being sent back to Emminster; for the limit of a day's
journey with that horse was reached.
Clare would not accept the loan of the farmer's vehicle
for a further distance than to the outskirts of the
Vale, and, sending it back with the man who had driven
him, he put up at an inn, and next day entered on foot
the region wherein was the spot of his dear Tess's
birth. It was as yet too early in the year for much
colour to appear in the gardens and foliage; the
so-called spring was but winter overlaid with a thin
coat of greenness, and it was of a parcel with his
expectations.
The house in which Tess had passed the years of her
childhood was now inhabited by another family who had
never known her. The new residents were in the garden,
taking as much interest in their own doings as if the
homestead had never passed its primal time in
conjunction with the histories of others, beside which
the histories of these were but as a tale told by an
idiot. They walked about the garden paths with
thoughts of their own concerns entirely uppermost,
bringing their actions at every moment in jarring
collision with the dim ghosts behind them, talking as
though the time when Tess lived there were not one whit
intenser in story than now. Even the spring birds sang
over their heads as if they thought there was nobody
missing in particular.
On inquiry of these precious innocents, to whom even
the name of their predecessors was a failing memory,
Clare learned that John Durbeyfield was dead; that his
widow and children had left Marlott, declaring that
they were going to live at Kingsbere, but instead of
doing so had gone on to another place they mentioned.
By this time Clare abhorred the house for ceasing to
contain Tess, and hastened away from its hated presence
without once looking back.
His way was by the field in which he had first beheld
her at the dance. It was as bad as the house--even
worse. He passed on through the churchyard, where,
amongst the new headstones, he saw one of a somewhat
superior design to the rest. The inscription ran thus:
In memory of John Durbeyfield, rightly d'Urberville, of
the once powerful family of that Name, and Direct
Descendant through an illustrious Line from Sir Pagan
d'Urberville, one of the Knights of the Conqueror. Died
March 10th, 18--
HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN.
Some man, apparently the sexton, had observed Clare
standing there, and drew nigh. "Ah, sir, now that's a
man who didn't want to lie here, but wished to be
carried to Kingsbere, where his ancestors be."
"And why didn't they respect his wish?"
"Oh--no money. Bless your soul, sir, why--there,
I wouldn't wish to say it everywhere, but--even this
headstone, for all the flourish wrote upon en, is not
paid for."
"Ah, who put it up?"
The man told the name of a mason in the village, and,
on leaving the churchyard, Clare called at the mason's
house. He found that the statement was true, and paid
the bill. This done he turned in the direction of the
migrants.
The distance was too long for a walk, but Clare felt
such a strong desire for isolation that at first he
would neither hire a conveyance nor go to a circuitous
line of railway by which he might eventually reach the
place. At Shaston, however, he found he must hire; but
the way was such that he did not enter Joan's place
till about seven o'clock in the evening, having
traversed a distance of over twenty miles since leaving
Marlott. The village being small he had little
difficulty in finding Mrs Durbeyfield's tenement, which
was a house in a walled garden, remote from the main
road, where she had stowed away her clumsy old
furniture as best she could. It was plain that for
some reason or other she had not wished him to visit
her, and he felt his call to be somewhat of an
intrusion. She came to the door herself, and the light
from the evening sky fell upon her face.
This was the first time that Clare had ever met her,
but he was too preoccupied to observe more than that
she was still a handsome woman, in the garb of a
respectable widow. He was obliged to explain that he
was Tess's husband, and his object in coming there, and
he did it awkwardly enough. "I want to see her at
once," he added. "You said you would write to me
again, but you have not done so."
"Because she've not come home," said Joan.
"Do you know if she is well?"
"I don't. But you ought to, sir," said she.
"I admit it. Where is she staying?"
From the beginning of the interview Joan had disclosed
her embarrassment by keeping her hand to the side of
her cheek.
"I--don't know exactly where she is staying," she
answered. "She was--but----"
"Where was she?"
"Well, she is not there now."
In her evasiveness she paused again, and the younger
children had by this time crept to the door, where,
pulling at his mother's skirts, the youngest
murmured----
"Is this the gentleman who is going to marry Tess?"
"He has married her," Joan whispered. "Go inside."
Clare saw her efforts for reticence, and asked----
"Do you think Tess would wish me to try and find her?
If not, of course----"
"I don't think she would."
"Are you sure?"
"I am sure she wouldn't."
He was turning away; and then he thought of Tess's
tender letter.
"I am sure she would!" he retorted passionately.
"I know her better than you do."
"That's very likely, sir; for I have never really known
her."
"Please tell me her address, Mrs Durbeyfield, in
kindness to a lonely wretched man!" Tess's mother again
restlessly swept her cheek with her vertical hand, and
seeing that he suffered, she at last said, is a low
voice----
"She is at Sandbourne."
"Ah--where there? Sandbourne has become a large place,
they say."
"I don't know more particularly than I have said--
Sandbourne. For myself, I was never there."
It was apparent that Joan spoke the truth in this, and
he pressed her no further.
"Are you in want of anything?" he said gently.
"No, sir," she replied. "We are fairly well provided
for."
Without entering the house Clare turned away. There
was a station three miles ahead, and paying off his
coachman, he walked thither. The last train to
Sandbourne left shortly after, and it bore Clare on its
wheels.
