“Not so very different, I think,” she
said.
“Why do you think that?”
“There are very few women’s lives that
are not—tremulous,” Tess replied,
pausing over the new word as if it impressed her.
“There’s more in those three than you
think.”
“What is in them?”
“Almost either of ’em,” she began,
“would make—perhaps would make—a
properer wife than I. And perhaps they love you as
well as I—almost.”
“O, Tessy!”
There were signs that it was an exquisite relief to
her to hear the impatient exclamation, though she
had resolved so intrepidly to let generosity make
one bid against herself. That was now done, and
she had not the power to attempt self-immolation a
second time then. They were joined by a milker
from one of the cottages, and no more was said on
that which concerned them so deeply. But Tess
knew that this day would decide it.
In the afternoon several of the dairyman’s household
and assistants went down to the meads as usual, a
long way from the dairy, where many of the cows were
milked without being driven home. The supply
was getting less as the animals advanced in calf, and
the supernumerary milkers of the lush green season
had been dismissed.
The work progressed leisurely. Each pailful
was poured into tall cans that stood in a large spring-waggon
which had been brought upon the scene; and when they
were milked, the cows trailed away. Dairyman
Crick, who was there with the rest, his wrapper gleaming
miraculously white against a leaden evening sky, suddenly
looked at his heavy watch.
“Why, ’tis later than I thought,”
he said. “Begad! We shan’t
be soon enough with this milk at the station, if we
don’t mind. There’s no time to-day
to take it home and mix it with the bulk afore sending
off. It must go to station straight from here.
Who’ll drive it across?”
Mr Clare volunteered to do so, though it was none
of his business, asking Tess to accompany him.
The evening, though sunless, had been warm and muggy
for the season, and Tess had come out with her milking-hood
only, naked-armed and jacketless; certainly not dressed
for a drive. She therefore replied by glancing
over her scant habiliments; but Clare gently urged
her. She assented by relinquishing her pail
and stool to the dairyman to take home, and mounted
the spring-waggon beside Clare.
In the diminishing daylight they went along the level
roadway through the meads, which stretched away into
gray miles, and were backed in the extreme edge of
distance by the swarthy and abrupt slopes of Egdon
Heath. On its summit stood clumps and stretches
of fir-trees, whose notched tips appeared like battlemented
towers crowning black-fronted castles of enchantment.
They were so absorbed in the sense of being close
to each other that they did not begin talking for
a long while, the silence being broken only by the
clucking of the milk in the tall cans behind them.
The lane they followed was so solitary that the hazel
nuts had remained on the boughs till they slipped
from their shells, and the blackberries hung in heavy
clusters. Every now and then Angel would fling
the lash of his whip round one of these, pluck it off,
and give it to his companion.
