knew her present feeling towards this man. Perhaps it was unusual
in the circumstances, unlucky, unaccountable; but there it was; and
this, as she had said, was what made her detest herself. She had
never wholly cared for him; she did not at all care for him now. She
had dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages
he took of her helplessness; then, temporarily blinded by his ardent
manners, had been stirred to confused surrender awhile: had suddenly
despised and disliked him, and had run away. That was all. Hate him
she did not quite; but he was dust and ashes to her, and even for her
name's sake she scarcely wished to marry him.
'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
