a hill in the direction of the district known as The Chase, on the
borders of which, as she had been informed, Mrs d'Urberville's seat,
The Slopes, would be found. It was not a manorial home in the
ordinary sense, with fields, and pastures, and a grumbling farmer,
out of whom the owner had to squeeze an income for himself and his
family by hook or by crook. It was more, far more; a country-house
built for enjoyment pure and simple, with not an acre of troublesome
land attached to it beyond what was required for residential
purposes, and for a little fancy farm kept in hand by the owner, and
tended by a bailiff.
The crimson brick lodge came first in sight, up to its eaves in dense
evergreens. Tess thought this was the mansion itself till, passing
through the side wicket with some trepidation, and onward to a point
at which the drive took a turn, the house proper stood in full view.
It was of recent erection--indeed almost new--and of the same rich
red colour that formed such a contrast with the evergreens of the
lodge. Far behind the corner of the house--which rose like a
geranium bloom against the subdued colours around--stretched the soft
azure landscape of The Chase--a truly venerable tract of forest land,
one of the few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primaeval
date, wherein Druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and
where enormous yew-trees, not planted by the hand of man grew as
they had grown when they were pollarded for bows. All this sylvan
antiquity, however, though visible from The Slopes, was outside the
immediate boundaries of the estate.
Everything on this snug property was bright, thriving, and well kept;
acres of glass-houses stretched down the inclines to the copses at
their feet. Everything looked like money--like the last coin issued
from the Mint. The stables, partly screened by Austrian pines
and evergreen oaks, and fitted with every late appliance, were
as dignified as Chapels-of-Ease. On the extensive lawn stood an
ornamental tent, its door being towards her.
Simple Tess Durbeyfield stood at gaze, in a half-alarmed attitude,
on the edge of the gravel sweep. Her feet had brought her onward to
this point before she had quite realized where she was; and now all
was contrary to her expectation.
'I thought we were an old family; but this is all new!' she said, in
her artlessness. She wished that she had not fallen in so readily
with her mother's plans for 'claiming kin,' and had endeavoured to
gain assistance nearer home.
The d'Urbervilles--or Stoke-d'Urbervilles, as they at first called
themselves--who owned all this, were a somewhat unusual family to
find in such an old-fashioned part of the country. Parson Tringham
had spoken truly when he said that our shambling John Durbeyfield was
the only really lineal representative of the old d'Urberville family
existing in the county, or near it; he might have added, what he knew
very well, that the Stoke-d'Urbervilles were no more d'Urbervilles of
the true tree then he was himself. Yet it must be admitted that this
family formed a very good stock whereon to regraft a name which sadly
wanted such renovation.
