第73章

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 to 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 butterpats 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 representations 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.