第45章

Tess, like her compeers, soon discovered which of the cows had a preference for her style of manipulation, and her fingers having become delicate from the long domiciliary imprisonments to which she had subjected herself at intervals during the last two or three years, she would have been glad to meet the milchers' views in this respect.Out of the whole ninety-five there were eight in particular - Dumpling, Fancy, lofty, Mist, Old Pretty, Young Pretty, Tidy, and Loud - who, though the teats of one or two were as hard as carrots, gave down to her with a readiness that made her work on them a mere touch of the fingers.Knowing, however, the dairyman's wish, she endeavoured conscientiously to take the animals `just as they came, excepting the very hard yielders which she could not yet manage.

But she soon found a curious correspondence between the ostensibly chance position of the cows and her wishes in this matter, till she felt that their order could not be the result of accident.The dairyman's pupil had lent a hand in getting the cows together of late, and at the fifth or sixth time she turned her eyes, as she rested against the cow, full of sly inquiry upon him.

`Mr Clare, you have ranged the cows!' she said, blushing; and in making the accusation symptoms of a smile gently lifted her upper lip in spite of her, so as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower lip remaining severely still.

`Well, it makes no difference,' said he.`You will always be here to milk them.'

`Do you think so? I hope I shall! But I don't know.'

She was angry with herself afterwards, thinking that he, unaware of her grave reasons for liking this seclusion, might have mistaken her meaning.

She had spoken so earnestly to him, as if his presence were somehow a factor in her wish.Her misgiving was such that at dusk, when the milking was over, she walked in the garden alone, to continue her regrets that she had disclosed to him her discovery of his considerateness.

It was a typical summer evening in June, the atmosphere being in such delicate equilibrium and so transmissive that inanimate objects seemed endowed with two or three senses, if not five.There was no distinction between the near and the far, and an auditor felt close to everything within the horizon.The soundlessness impressed her as a positive entity rather than as the mere negation of noise.It was broken by the strumming of strings.

Tess had heard those notes in the attic above her head.Dim, flattened, constrained by their confinement, they had never appealed to her as now, when they wandered in the still air with a stark quality like that of nudity.

To speak absolutely, both instrument and execution were poor, but the relative is all, and as she listened Tess, like a fascinated bird, could not leave the spot.Far from leaving she drew up towards the performer, keeping behind the hedge that he might not guess her presence.

The outskirt of the garden in which Tess found herself had been left uncultivated for some years, and was now damp and rank with juicy grass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch; and with tall blooming weeds emitting offensive smells - weeds whose red and yellow and purple hues formed a polychrome as dazzling as that of cultivated flowers.She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that were underfoot, staining her hands with thistlemilk and slug-slime, and rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights which, though snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin; thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him.

Tess was conscious of neither time nor space.The exaltation which she had described as being producible at will by gazing at a star, came now without any determination of hers; she undulated upon the thin notes of the second-hand harp, and their harmonies passed like breezes through her, bringing tears into her eyes.The floating pollen seemed to be his notes made visible, and the dampness of the garden the weeping of the garden's sensibility.Though near nightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they would not close for intentness, and the waves of colour mixed with the waves of sound.

The light which still shone was derived mainly from a large hole in the western bank of cloud; it was like a piece of day left behind by accident, dusk having closed in elsewhere.He concluded his plaintive melody, a very simple performance, demanding no great skill; and she waited, thinking another might be begun.But, tired of playing, he had desultorily come round the fence, and was rambling up behind her.Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved away furtively, as if hardly moving at all.

Angel, however, saw her light summer gown, and he spoke; his low tones reaching her, though he was some distance off.

`What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?' said he.`Are you afraid?'

`Oh no, sir...not of outdoor things; especially just now when the apple-blooth is failing, and everything so green.'

`But you have your indoor fears - eh?'

`Well - yes, sir.'

`What of?, `I couldn't quite say.'

`The milk turning sour?'

`No.'

`Life in general?'

`Yes, sir.'

`Ah - so have I, very often.This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don't you think so?'

`It is - now you put it that way.'

`All the same, I shouldn't have expected a young girl like you to see it so just yet.How is it you do?'

She maintained a hesitating silence.

`Come, Tess, tell me in confidence.'