XL
At breakfast Brazil was the topic, and all endeavoured to take a
hopeful view of Clare's proposed experiment with that country's soil,
notwithstanding the discouraging reports of some farm-labourers who
had emigrated thither and returned home within the twelve months.
After breakfast Clare went into the little town to wind up such
trifling matters as he was concerned with there, and to get from
the local bank all the money he possessed. On his way back he
encountered Miss Mercy Chant by the church, from whose walls she
seemed to be a sort of emanation. She was carrying an armful of
Bibles for her class, and such was her view of life that events which
produced heartache in others wrought beatific smiles upon her--an
enviable result, although, in the opinion of Angel, it was obtained
by a curiously unnatural sacrifice of humanity to mysticism. S
he had learnt that he was about to leave England, and observed what
an excellent and promising scheme it seemed to be. "Yes; it is a likely scheme enough in a commercial sense, no doubt,"
he replied. "But, my dear Mercy, it snaps the continuity of
existence. Perhaps a cloister would be preferable."
"A cloister! O, Angel Clare!" "Well?"
"Why, you wicked man, a cloister implies a monk, and a monk Roman
Catholicism." "And Roman Catholicism sin, and sin damnation. Thou art in a parlous
state, Angel Clare."
"I glory in my Protestantism!" she said severely.
Then Clare, thrown by sheer misery into one of the demoniacal moods
in which a man does despite to his true principles, called her close
to him, and fiendishly whispered in her ear the most heterodox ideas
he could think of. His momentary laughter at the horror which
appeared on her fair face ceased when it merged in pain and anxiety
for his welfare. "Dear Mercy," he said, "you must forgive me. I think I am going
crazy!" She thought that he was; and thus the interview ended, and Clare
re-entered the Vicarage. With the local banker he deposited the
jewels till happier days should arise. He also paid into the bank
thirty pounds--to be sent to Tess in a few months, as she might
require; and wrote to her at her parents' home in Blackmoor Vale to
inform her of what he had done. This amount, with the sum he had
already placed in her hands--about fifty pounds--he hoped would be
amply sufficient for her wants just at present, particularly as in
an emergency she had been directed to apply to his father.