第24章

He had not put himself forward into the light, but some of them had perceived him, and his presence led to a slight pause and a consideration of how the time was flying.As soon as he had re-lit a cigar and walked away the Trantridge people began to collect themselves from amid those who had come in from other farms, and prepared to leave in a body.Their bundles and baskets were gathered up, and half an hour later, when the clock-chime sounded a quarter past eleven, they were straggling along the lane which led up the hill towards their homes.

It was a three-mile walk, along a dry white road, made whiter to-night by the light of the moon.

Tess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their gait to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds;and the young married woman who had already tumbled down.Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was different.They followed the road with a sensation that they were soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and profound thought, themselves and surrounding nature forming an organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously interpenetrated each other.They were as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they.

Tess, however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in her father's house, that the discovery of their condition spoilt the pleasure she was beginning to feel in the moonlight journey.Yet she stuck to the party, for reasons above given.

In the open highway they had progressed in scattered order; but now their route was through a field-gate, and the foremost finding a difficulty in opening it they closed up together.

This leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, who carried a wicker-basket containing her mother's groceries, her own draperies, and other purchases for the week.The basket being large and heavy, Car had placed it for convenience of porterage on the top of her head, where it rode on in jeopardized balance as she walked with arms akimbo.

`Well - whatever is that a-creeping down the back, Car Darch?' said one of the group suddenly.

All looked at Car.Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the back of her head a kind of rope could be seen descending to some distance below her waist, like a Chinaman's queue.

`'Tis her hair falling down,' said another.

No; it was not her hair: it was a black stream of something oozing from her basket, mid it glistened like a slimy snake in the cold still rays of the moon.

`'Tis treacle,' said an observant matron.

Treacle it was.Car's poor old grandmother had a weakness for the sweet stuff.Honey she had in plenty out of her own hives, but treacle was what her soul desired, and Car had been about to give her a treat of surprise.

Hastily lowering the basket the dark girl found that the vessel containing the syrup had been smashed within.

By this time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the extraordinary appearance of Car's back, which irritated the dark queen into getting rid of the disfigurement by the first sudden means available, and independently of the help of the scoffers.She rushed excitedly into the field they were about to cross, and flinging herself flat on her back upon the grass, began to wipe her gown as well as she could by spinning horizontally on the herbage and dragging herself over it upon her elbows.

The laughter rang louder; they clung to the gate, to the posts, rested on their staves, in the weakness engendered by their convulsions at the spectacle of Car.Our heroine, who had hitherto held her peace, at this wild moment could not help joining in with the rest.

It was a misfortune - in more ways than one.No sooner did the dark queen hear the soberer richer note of Tess among those of the other work people than a long smouldering sense of rivalry inflamed her to madness.

She sprang to her feet and closely faced the object of her dislike.

`How darest th' laugh at me, hussy!' she cried.

`I couldn't really help it when toothers did,' apologized Tess, still tittering.

`Ah, th'st think th' beest everybody, dostn't, because th' beest first favourite with He just now! But stop a bit, my lady, stop a bit! I'm as good as two of such! look here here's at 'ee!'

To Tess's horror the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of her gown - which for the added reason of its ridiculed condition she was only too glad to be free of - till she had bared her plump neck, shoulders, and arms to the moonshine, under which they looked as luminous and beautiful as some Praxitelean creation, in their possession of the faultless rotundities of a lusty country girl.

She closed her fists and squared up at Tess.

`Indeed, then, I shall not fight!' said the latter majestically; `and if I had known you was of that sort, I wouldn't have so let myself down as to come with such a whorage as this is!'

The rather too inclusive speech brought down a torrent of vituperation from other quarters upon fair Tess's unlucky head, particularly from the Queen of Diamonds, who having stood in the relations to d'Urberville that Car had also been suspected of, united with the latter against the common enemy.Several other women also chimed in, with an animus which none of them would have been so fatuous as to show but for the rollicking evening they had passed.Thereupon, finding Tess unfairly browbeaten, the husbands and lovers tried to make peace by defending her; but the result of that attempt was directly to increase the war.