She heard the rattle of taking down the pails from the forked stands;
the 'waow-waow!' which accompanied the getting together of the cows.
But she did not go to the milking. They would see her agitation;
and the dairyman, thinking the cause to be love alone, would
good-naturedly tease her; and that harassment could not be borne.
Her lover must have guessed her overwrought state, and invented some
excuse for her non-appearance, for no inquiries were made or calls
given. At half-past six the sun settled down upon the levels with
the aspect of a great forge in the heavens; and presently a monstrous
pumpkin-like moon arose on the other hand. The pollard willows,
tortured out of their natural shape by incessant choppings, became
spiny-haired monsters as they stood up against it. She went in and
upstairs without a light.
It was now Wednesday. Thursday came, and Angel looked thoughtfully
at her from a distance, but intruded in no way upon her. The indoor
milkmaids, Marian and the rest, seemed to guess that something
definite was afoot, for they did not force any remarks upon her in
the bedchamber. Friday passed; Saturday. To-morrow was the day.
'I shall give way--I shall say yes--I shall let myself marry
him--I cannot help it!' she jealously panted, with her hot face to
the pillow that night, on hearing one of the other girls sigh his
name in her sleep. 'I can't bear to let anybody have him but me!
Yet it is a wrong to him, and may kill him when he knows! O my
heart--O--O--O!'
XXIX
'Now, who mid ye think I've heard news o' this morning?' said
Dairyman Crick, as he sat down to breakfast next day, with a riddling
gaze round upon the munching men and maids. 'Now, just who mid ye
think?'
One guessed, and another guessed. Mrs Crick did not guess, because
she knew already.
'Well,' said the dairyman, ''tis that slack-twisted 'hore's-bird of a
feller, Jack Dollop. He's lately got married to a widow-woman.'
'Not Jack Dollop? A villain--to think o' that!' said a milker.
The name entered quickly into Tess Durbeyfield's consciousness, for
it was the name of the lover who had wronged his sweetheart, and had
afterwards been so roughly used by the young woman's mother in the
butter-churn.
'And had he married the valiant matron's daughter, as he promised?'
asked Angel Clare absently, as he turned over the newspaper he was
reading at the little table to which he was always banished by Mrs
Crick, in her sense of his gentility.
'Not he, sir. Never meant to,' replied the dairyman. 'As I say, 'tis
a widow-woman, and she had money, it seems--fifty poun' a year or so;
and that was all he was after. They were married in a great hurry;
and then she told him that by marrying she had lost her fifty poun'
a year. Just fancy the state o' my gentleman's mind at that news!
Never such a cat-and-dog life as they've been leading ever since!
Serves him well beright. But onluckily the poor woman gets the worst
o't.'
