She soon had finished her lunch. “Now
I am going home, sir,” she said, rising.
“And what do they call you?” he asked,
as he accompanied her along the drive till they were
out of sight of the house.
“Tess Durbeyfield, down at Marlott.”
“And you say your people have lost their horse?”
“I—killed him!” she answered,
her eyes filling with tears as she gave particulars
of Prince’s death. “And I don’t
know what to do for father on account of it!”
“I must think if I cannot do something.
My mother must find a berth for you. But, Tess,
no nonsense about ‘d’Urberville’;—’Durbeyfield’
only, you know—quite another name.”
“I wish for no better, sir,” said she
with something of dignity.
For a moment—only for a moment—when
they were in the turning of the drive, between the
tall rhododendrons and conifers, before the lodge
became visible, he inclined his face towards her as
if—but, no: he thought better of it,
and let her go.
Thus the thing began. Had she perceived this
meeting’s import she might have asked why she
was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the
wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and
desired one in all respects—as nearly as
humanity can supply the right and desired; yet to
him who amongst her acquaintance might have approximated
to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half
forgotten.
In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan
of things the call seldom produces the comer, the
man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving.
Nature does not often say “See!” to her
poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy
doing; or reply “Here!” to a body’s
cry of “Where?” till the hide-and-seek
has become an irksome, outworn game. We may
wonder whether at the acme and summit of the human
progress these anachronisms will be corrected by a
finer intuition, a closer interaction of the social
machinery than that which now jolts us round and along;
but such completeness is not to be prophesied, or
even conceived as possible. Enough that in the
present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves
of a perfect whole that confronted each other at the
perfect moment; a missing counterpart wandered independently
about the earth waiting in crass obtuseness till the
late time came. Out of which maladroit delay
sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks, catastrophes,
and passing-strange destinies.
When d’Urberville got back to the tent he sat
down astride on a chair, reflecting, with a pleased
gleam in his face. Then he broke into a loud
laugh.
“Well, I’m damned! What a funny
thing! Ha-ha-ha! And what a crumby girl!”
Tess went down the hill to Trantridge Cross, and inattentively
waited to take her seat in the van returning from
Chaseborough to Shaston. She did not know what
the other occupants said to her as she entered, though
she answered them; and when they had started anew she
rode along with an inward and not an outward eye.
