第102章

Before her, in a slight 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 kind of labour in demand here was of the roughest kind; but it was time to rest from searching, and she resolved to stay, particularly as it began to rain.At the entrance to the village was a cottage whose gable jutted into the road, and before applying 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 felt warm to her back and shoulders, and she found that immediately 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 moist with the drizzle - against their comforting surface.The wall 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 ill the village-street she had seen no soul as yet.The solitude was at last broken by the approach of one feminine figure, who, though the evening was cold, wore the print gown and the tilt-bonnet of summer time.Tess instinctively thought it might be Marian, and when she came near enough to be distinguishable in the gloom surely enough it was she.Marian was even stouter and redder in the face than formerly, and decidedly shabbier in attire.At any previous period of her existence Tess would hardly have 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 inquiries, but seemed much moved by the fact that Tess should still continue in no better condition than at first; though she had dimly heard of the separation.

`Tess - Mrs Clare - the dear wife of dear he! And is it really so bad as this, my child? Why is your cwomely face tied up in such a way? Anybody been beating 'ee? Not he ?'

`No, no, no! I merely did it not to be clipsed or colled, Marian.'

She pulled off in disgust a bandage which could suggest such wild thoughts.

`And you've got no collar on' (Tess had been accustomed to wear a little white collar at the dairy).

`I 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 ribbon.

I don't wish people to think who I am by marriage, or that I 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 hardly 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 - from 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, dear Marian, will you do me a good turn without asking questions?

My husband has gone abroad, and somehow I have overrun my allowance, so that I have to fall back upon my old work for a time.Do not call me Mrs Clare, but Tess, as before.Do they want a hand here?'

`O yes; they'll take one always, because few care to come.'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 dairy-woman as I.'

`Yes; but I've got out o' that since I took to drink.Lord, that's the only 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 trustworthy girl though of coarser grain than 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 together, and soon reached the farmhouse, which was almost sublime in its dreariness.There was not a tree within sight; 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 work-folk had received their wages, and then Marian introduced her.The farmer himself, it appeared, was not at home, but his wife, who represented him this evening, made no objection to hiring Tess, on her agreeing to remain till Old Lady-Day.

Female field-labour was seldom offered now, and its cheapness made it profitable for tasks which women could perform as readily as men.

Having signed the agreement, there was nothing more for Tess to do at present than to get a lodging, and she found one in the house at whose gable-wall she had warmed herself.It was a poor subsistence that she had ensured, but it would afford a shelter for the winter at any rate.

That night she wrote to inform her parents of her new address, in case a letter should arrive at Marlott from her husband.But she did not tell them of the sorriness of her situation: it might have brought reproach upon him.