Royal Oak, our real name being d'Urberville! ... Don't that make
your bosom plim? 'Twas on this account that your father rode home
in the vlee; not because he'd been drinking, as people supposed.'
'I'm glad of that. Will it do us any good, mother?'
'O yes! 'Tis thoughted that great things may come o't. No doubt a
mampus of volk of our own rank will be down here in their carriages
as soon as 'tis known. Your father learnt it on his way hwome
from Shaston, and he has been telling me the whole pedigree of the
matter.'
'Where is father now?' asked Tess suddenly.
Her mother gave irrelevant information by way of answer: 'He called
to see the doctor to-day in Shaston. It is not consumption at all,
it seems. It is fat round his heart, 'a says. There, it is like
this.' Joan Durbeyfield, as she spoke, curved a sodden thumb
and forefinger to the shape of the letter C, and used the other
forefinger as a pointer. ''At the present moment,' he says to your
father, 'your heart is enclosed all round there, and all round
there; this space is still open,' 'a says. 'As soon as it do
meet, so,''--Mrs Durbeyfield closed her fingers into a circle
complete--''off you will go like a shadder, Mr Durbeyfield,' 'a says.
'You mid last ten years; you mid go off in ten months, or ten days.''
Tess looked alarmed. Her father possibly to go behind the eternal
cloud so soon, notwithstanding this sudden greatness!
'But where IS father?' she asked again.
Her mother put on a deprecating look. 'Now don't you be bursting out
angry! The poor man--he felt so rafted after his uplifting by the
pa'son's news--that he went up to Rolliver's half an hour ago. He do
want to get up his strength for his journey to-morrow with that load
of beehives, which must be delivered, family or no. He'll have to
start shortly after twelve to-night, as the distance is so long.'
'Get up his strength!' said Tess impetuously, the tears welling to
her eyes. 'O my God! Go to a public-house to get up his strength!
And you as well agreed as he, mother!'
Her rebuke and her mood seemed to fill the whole room, and to impart
a cowed look to the furniture, and candle, and children playing
about, and to her mother's face.
'No,' said the latter touchily, 'I be not agreed. I have been
waiting for 'ee to bide and keep house while I go fetch him.'
'I'll go.'
'O no, Tess. You see, it would be no use.'
Tess did not expostulate. She knew what her mother's objection
meant. Mrs Durbeyfield's jacket and bonnet were already hanging
slily upon a chair by her side, in readiness for this contemplated
jaunt, the reason for which the matron deplored more than its
necessity.
'And take the _Compleat Fortune-Teller_ to the outhouse,' Joan
continued, rapidly wiping her hands, and donning the garments.
The _Compleat Fortune-Teller_ was an old thick volume, which lay on a
table at her elbow, so worn by pocketing that the margins had reached
the edge of the type. Tess took it up, and her mother started.
