Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy [best large ereader TXT] 📗

against by various schemes of skirt-tucking and self-elevation. The rat was at last dislodged, and, amid the barking of dogs, masculine shouts, feminine screams, oaths, stampings, and confusion as of Pandemonium, Tess untied her last sheaf; the drum slowed, the whizzing ceased, and she stepped from the machine to the ground.

Her lover, who had only looked on at the rat-catching, was promptly at her side.

“What⁠—after all⁠—my insulting slap, too!” said she in an underbreath. She was so utterly exhausted that she had not strength to speak louder.

“I should indeed be foolish to feel offended at anything you say or do,” he answered, in the seductive voice of the Trantridge time. “How the little limbs tremble! You are as weak as a bled calf, you know you are; and yet you need have done nothing since I arrived. How could you be so obstinate? However, I have told the farmer that he has no right to employ women at steam-threshing. It is not proper work for them; and on all the better class of farms it has been given up, as he knows very well. I will walk with you as far as your home.”

“O yes,” she answered with a jaded gait. “Walk wi’ me if you will! I do bear in mind that you came to marry me before you knew o’ my state. Perhaps⁠—perhaps you are a little better and kinder than I have been thinking you were. Whatever is meant as kindness I am grateful for; whatever is meant in any other way I am angered at. I cannot sense your meaning sometimes.”

“If I cannot legitimize our former relations at least I can assist you. And I will do it with much more regard for your feelings than I formerly showed. My religious mania, or whatever it was, is over. But I retain a little good nature; I hope I do. Now, Tess, by all that’s tender and strong between man and woman, trust me! I have enough and more than enough to put you out of anxiety, both for yourself and your parents and sisters. I can make them all comfortable if you will only show confidence in me.”

“Have you seen ’em lately?” she quickly inquired.

“Yes. They didn’t know where you were. It was only by chance that I found you here.”

The cold moon looked aslant upon Tess’s fagged face between the twigs of the garden-hedge as she paused outside the cottage which was her temporary home, d’Urberville pausing beside her.

“Don’t mention my little brothers and sisters⁠—don’t make me break down quite!” she said. “If you want to help them⁠—God knows they need it⁠—do it without telling me. But no, no!” she cried. “I will take nothing from you, either for them or for me!”

He did not accompany her further, since, as she lived with the household, all was public indoors. No sooner had she herself entered, laved herself in a washing-tub, and shared supper with the family than she fell into thought, and withdrawing to the table under the wall, by the light of her own little lamp wrote in a passionate mood⁠—

My own Husband⁠—

Let me call you so⁠—I must⁠—even if it makes you angry to think of such an unworthy wife as I. I must cry to you in my trouble⁠—I have no one else! I am so exposed to temptation, Angel. I fear to say who it is, and I do not like to write about it at all. But I cling to you in a way you cannot think! Can you not come to me now, at once, before anything terrible happens? O, I know you cannot, because you are so far away! I think I must die if you do not come soon, or tell me to come to you. The punishment you have measured out to me is deserved⁠—I do know that⁠—well deserved⁠—and you are right and just to be angry with me. But, Angel, please, please, not to be just⁠—only a little kind to me, even if I do not deserve it, and come to me! If you would come, I could die in your arms! I would be well content to do that if so be you had forgiven me!

Angel, I live entirely for you. I love you too much to blame you for going away, and I know it was necessary you should find a farm. Do not think I shall say a word of sting or bitterness. Only come back to me. I am desolate without you, my darling, O, so desolate! I do not mind having to work: but if you will send me one little line, and say, “I am coming soon,” I will bide on, Angel⁠—O, so cheerfully!

It has been so much my religion ever since we were married to be faithful to you in every thought and look, that even when a man speaks a compliment to me before I am aware, it seems wronging you. Have you never felt one little bit of what you used to feel when we were at the dairy? If you have, how can you keep away from me? I am the same women, Angel, as you fell in love with; yes, the very same!⁠—not the one you disliked but never saw. What was the past to me as soon as I met you? It was a dead thing altogether. I became another woman, filled full of new life from you. How could I be the early one? Why do you not see this? Dear, if you would only be a little more conceited, and believe in yourself so far as to see that you were strong enough to work this change in me, you would perhaps be in a mind to come to me, your poor wife.

How silly I was in my happiness when I thought I could trust you always to love me! I ought to have known that such as that was not for poor me. But I am sick at heart,