that, how could she write entreaties to him, or show that she cared
for him any more?
XLIV
By the disclosure in the barn her thoughts were led anew in the
direction which they had taken more than once of late--to the distant
Emminster Vicarage. It was through her husband's parents that she
had been charged to send a letter to Clare if she desired; and to
write to them direct if in difficulty. But that sense of her having
morally no claim upon him had always led Tess to suspend her impulse
to send these notes; and to the family at the Vicarage, therefore,
as to her own parents since her marriage, she was virtually
non-existent. This self-effacement in both directions had been quite
in consonance with her independent character of desiring nothing
by way of favour or pity to which she was not entitled on a fair
consideration of her deserts. She had set herself to stand or fall
by her qualities, and to waive such merely technical claims upon a
strange family as had been established for her by the flimsy fact of
a member of that family, in a season of impulse, writing his name in
a church-book beside hers.
But now that she was stung to a fever by Izz's tale, there was a
limit to her powers of renunciation. Why had her husband not written
to her? He had distinctly implied that he would at least let her
know of the locality to which he had journeyed; but he had not sent a
line to notify his address. Was he really indifferent? But was he
ill? Was it for her to make some advance? Surely she might summon
the courage of solicitude, call at the Vicarage for intelligence, and
express her grief at his silence. If Angel's father were the good
man she had heard him represented to be, he would be able to enter
into her heart-starved situation. Her social hardships she could
conceal.
To leave the farm on a week-day was not in her power; Sunday was
the only possible opportunity. Flintcomb-Ash being in the middle
of the cretaceous tableland over which no railway had climbed as
yet, it would be necessary to walk. And the distance being fifteen
miles each way she would have to allow herself a long day for the
undertaking by rising early.
A fortnight later, when the snow had gone, and had been followed by
a hard black frost, she took advantage of the state of the roads to
try the experiment. At four o'clock that Sunday morning she came
downstairs and stepped out into the starlight. The weather was still
favourable, the ground ringing under her feet like an anvil.
Marian and Izz were much interested in her excursion, knowing that
the journey concerned her husband. Their lodgings were in a cottage
a little further along the lane, but they came and assisted Tess
in her departure, and argued that she should dress up in her very
prettiest guise to captivate the hearts of her parents-in-law; though
she, knowing of the austere and Calvinistic tenets of old Mr Clare,
was indifferent, and even doubtful. A year had now elapsed since
her sad marriage, but she had preserved sufficient draperies from
the wreck of her then full wardrobe to clothe her very charmingly as
