Tess of the dUrbervilles - Page 65/283

"You ought to have been more careful if you didn't mean to get him to

make you his wife!"

"O mother, my mother!" cried the agonized girl, turning passionately

upon her parent as if her poor heart would break. "How could I be

expected to know? I was a child when I left this house four months

ago. Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk? Why

didn't you warn me? Ladies know what to fend hands against, because

they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the

chance o' learning in that way, and you did not help me!"

Her mother was subdued. "I thought if I spoke of his fond feelings and what they might lead

to, you would be hontish wi' him and lose your chance," she murmured,

wiping her eyes with her apron. "Well, we must make the best of it,

I suppose. 'Tis nater, after all, and what do please God!"

XIII

The event of Tess Durbeyfield's return from the manor of her bogus

kinsfolk was rumoured abroad, if rumour be not too large a word for

a space of a square mile. In the afternoon several young girls of

Marlott, former schoolfellows and acquaintances of Tess, called to

see her, arriving dressed in their best starched and ironed, as

became visitors to a person who had made a transcendent conquest (as

they supposed), and sat round the room looking at her with great

curiosity. For the fact that it was this said thirty-first cousin,

Mr d'Urberville, who had fallen in love with her, a gentleman

not altogether local, whose reputation as a reckless gallant and

heartbreaker was beginning to spread beyond the immediate boundaries

of Trantridge, lent Tess's supposed position, by its fearsomeness, a

far higher fascination that it would have exercised if unhazardous.

Their interest was so deep that the younger ones whispered when her

back was turned-"How pretty she is; and how that best frock do set her off! I

believe it cost an immense deal, and that it was a gift from him."

Tess, who was reaching up to get the tea-things from the

corner-cupboard, did not hear these commentaries. If she had heard

them, she might soon have set her friends right on the matter. But

her mother heard, and Joan's simple vanity, having been denied the

hope of a dashing marriage, fed itself as well as it could upon

the sensation of a dashing flirtation. Upon the whole she felt

gratified, even though such a limited and evanescent triumph should

involve her daughter's reputation; it might end in marriage yet, and

in the warmth of her responsiveness to their admiration she invited

her visitors to stay to tea.