It was not her husband, she had said. Yet a
consciousness that in a physical sense this man alone
was her husband seemed to weigh on her more and more.
LII
During the small hours of the next morning, while
it was still dark, dwellers near the highways were
conscious of a disturbance of their night’s
rest by rumbling noises, intermittently continuing
till daylight—noises as certain to recur
in this particular first week of the month as the
voice of the cuckoo in the third week of the same.
They were the preliminaries of the general removal,
the passing of the empty waggons and teams to fetch
the goods of the migrating families; for it was always
by the vehicle of the farmer who required his services
that the hired man was conveyed to his destination.
That this might be accomplished within the day was
the explanation of the reverberation occurring so
soon after midnight, the aim of the carters being
to reach the door of the outgoing households by six
o’clock, when the loading of their movables at
once began.
But to Tess and her mother’s household no such
anxious farmer sent his team. They were only
women; they were not regular labourers; they were
not particularly required anywhere; hence they had
to hire a waggon at their own expense, and got nothing
sent gratuitously.
It was a relief to Tess, when she looked out of the
window that morning, to find that though the weather
was windy and louring, it did not rain, and that the
waggon had come. A wet Lady-Day was a spectre
which removing families never forgot; damp furniture,
damp bedding, damp clothing accompanied it, and left
a train of ills.
Her mother, ’Liza-Lu, and Abraham were also
awake, but the younger children were let sleep on.
The four breakfasted by the thin light, and the “house-ridding”
was taken in hand.
It proceeded with some cheerfulness, a friendly neighbour
or two assisting. When the large articles of
furniture had been packed in position, a circular
nest was made of the beds and bedding, in which Joan
Durbeyfield and the young children were to sit through
the journey. After loading there was a long
delay before the horses were brought, these having
been unharnessed during the ridding; but at length,
about two o’clock, the whole was under way, the
cooking-pot swinging from the axle of the waggon,
Mrs Durbeyfield and family at the top, the matron
having in her lap, to prevent injury to its works,
the head of the clock, which, at any exceptional lurch
of the waggon, struck one, or one-and-a-half, in hurt
tones. Tess and the next eldest girl walked
alongside till they were out of the village.
They had called on a few neighbours that morning and
the previous evening, and some came to see them off,
all wishing them well, though, in their secret hearts,
hardly expecting welfare possible to such a family,
harmless as the Durbeyfields were to all except themselves.
Soon the equipage began to ascend to higher ground,
and the wind grew keener with the change of level and
soil.
