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D'Urberville's bad temper cleared up at sight of hers; and he laughed heartily. "Well, I like you all the better," he said. "Come, let there be peace. I'll never do it any more against your will. My life upon it now!" Still Tess could not be induced to remount.
Mrs d'Urberville's son had called on horseback, having been riding by chance in the direction of Marlott. He had wished to know, finally, in the name of his mother, if Tess could really come to manage the old lady's fowl-farm or not; the lad who had hitherto superintended the birds having proved untrustworthy.
The man turned and stared hard at her. "Why, surely, it is the young wench who was at Trantridge awhile young Squire d'Urberville's friend? I was there at that time, though I don't live there now." She recognized in him the well-to-do boor whom Angel had knocked down at the inn for addressing her coarsely. A spasm of anguish shot through her, and she returned him no answer.
She alighted from the van at Trantridge Cross, and ascended on foot 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.
"What about you?" "I am not a proper woman." D'Urberville's face flushed. "What a blasted shame! Miserable snobs! May their dirty souls be burnt to cinders!" he exclaimed in tones of ironic resentment. "That's why you are going, is it? Turned out?"
She had hardly finished her dinner when d'Urberville's figure darkened the window of the cottage wherein she was a lodger, which she had all to herself to-day. Tess jumped up, but her visitor had knocked at the door, and she could hardly in reason run away. D'Urberville's knock, his walk up to the door, had some indescribable quality of difference from his air when she last saw him.
It was my old mother's dying wish." He drew a piece of parchment from his pocket, with a slight fumbling of embarrassment. "What is it?" said she. "A marriage licence." "O no, sir no!" she said quickly, starting back. "You will not? Why is that?" And as he asked the question a disappointment which was not entirely the disappointment of thwarted duty crossed d'Urberville's face.
The old lady's face creased into furrows of repugnance, and she made no further reply. Thus the reception of Tess by her fancied kinswoman terminated, and the birds were taken back to their quarters. The girl's surprise at Mrs d'Urberville's manner was not great; for since seeing the size of the house she had expected no more.
D'Urberville opened the letter. It was dated several months before this time, and was signed by Parson Clare. The letter began by expressing the writer's unfeigned joy at d'Urberville's conversion, and thanked him for his kindness in communicating with the parson on the subject.
A familiarity with Alec d'Urberville's presence which that young man carefully cultivated in her by playful dialogue, and by jestingly calling her his cousin when they were alone removed much of her original shyness of him, without, however, implanting any feeling which could engender shyness of a new and tenderer kind.
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