As usual, Mrs Durbeyfield was balanced on one foot beside the tub, the other being engaged in the aforesaid business of rocking her youngest child.
The cradle-rockers had done hard duty for so many years, under the weight of so many children, on that flagstone floor, that they were worn nearly flat, in consequence of which a huge jerk accompanied each swing of the cot, flinging the baby from side to side like a weaver's shuttle, as Mrs Durbeyfield, excited by her song, trod the rocker with all the spring that was left in her after a long day's seething in the suds.
Nick-knock, nick-knock, went the cradle; the candle-flame stretched itself tall, and began jigging up and down; the water dribbled from the matron's elbows, and the song galloped on to the end of the verse, Mrs Durbeyfield regarding her daughter the while.Even now, when burdened with a young family, Joan Durbeyfield was a passionate lover of tune.No ditty floated into Blackmoor Vale from the outer world but Tess's mother caught up its notation in a week.
There still faintly beamed from the woman's features something of the freshness, and even the prettiness, of her youth; rendering it probable that the personal charms which Tess could boast of were in main part her mother's gift, and therefore unknightly, unhistorical.
`I'll rock the cradle for 'ee, mother,' said the daughter gently.
`Or I'll take off my best frock and help you wring up? I thought you had finished long ago.'
Her mother bore Tess no ill-will for leaving the house-work to her single-handed efforts for so long; indeed, Joan seldom up-braided her thereon at any time, feeling but slightly the lack of Tess's assistance whilst her instinctive plan for relieving herself of her labours lay in postponing them.To-night, however, she wis even in a blither mood than usual.There was a dreaminess, a preoccupation, an exaltation, in the maternal look which the girl could not understand.
`Well, I'm glad you've come,' her mother said, as soon as the last note had passed out of her.`I want to go and fetch your father; but what's more'n that, I want to tell 'ee what have happened.Y'll be fess enough, my poppet, when th'st know!' (Mrs Durbeyfield habitually spoke the dialect;her daughter, who had passed the Sixth Standard in the National School under a London-trained mistress, spoke two languages; the dialect at home, more or less; ordinary English abroad and to persons of quality.)`Since I've been away?' Tess asked.
`Ay!'
`Had it anything to do with father's ****** such a mommet of himself in thik carriage this afternoon? Why did 'er? I felt inclined to sink into the ground with shame!'
`That wer all a part of the larry! We've been found to be the greatest gentlefolk in the whole county - reaching all back long before Oliver Grumble's time - to the days of the Pagan Turks - with monuments, and vaults, and crests, and `scutcheons, and the Lord knows what all.In Saint Charles's days we was made Knights o' the Royal Oak, our real name being d'Urberville!...
Don't that make your bosom plim? 'Twas on this account that your father rode home in the vlee; not because he'd been drinking, as people supposed.'
`I'm glad of that.Will it do us any good, mother?'
`O yes! 'Tis thoughted that great things may come o't.No doubt a mampus of volk of our own rank will be down here in their carriages as soon as 'tis known.Your father learnt it on his way hwome from Shaston, and he has been telling me the whole pedigree of the matter.'
`Where is father now?' asked Tess suddenly.
Her mother gave irrelevant information by way of answer: `He called to see the doctor to-day in Shaston.It is not consumption at all, it seems.
It is fat round his heart, 'a says.There, it is like this.' Joan Durbeyfield, as she spoke, curved a sodden thumb and forefinger to the shape of the letter C, and used the other forefinger as a pointer.` "At the present moment," he says to your father, "your heart is enclosed all round there, and all round there; this space is still open," 'a says."As soon as it do meet, so," ` - Mrs Durbeyfield closed her fingers into a circle complete"off you will go like a shadder, Mr Durbeyfield," 'a says."You mid last ten years; you mid go off in ten months, or ten days." '
Tess looked alarmed.Her father possibly to go behind the eternal cloud so soon, notwithstanding this sudden greatness!
`But where is father?' she asked again.
Her mother put on a deprecating look.`Now don't you be bursting out angry! The poor man - he felt so rafted after his uplifting by the pa'son's news - that he went up to Rolliver's half an hour ago.He do want to get up his strength for his journey to-morrow with that load of beehives, which must be delivered, family or no.He'll have to start shortly after twelve to-night, as the distance is so long.'
`Get up his strength!' said Tess impetuously, the tears welling to her eyes.`O my God! Go to a public-house to get up his strength! And you as well agreed as he, mother!'
Her rebuke and her mood seemed to fill the whole room, and to impart a cowed look to the furniture, and candle, and children playing about, and to her mother's face.
`No,' said the latter touchily, `I be not agreed.I have been waiting for 'ee to bide and keep house while I go to fetch him.'
`I'll go.'
`O no, Tess.You see, it would be no use.'
Tess did not expostulate.She knew what her mother's objection meant.
Mrs Durbeyfield's jacket and bonnet were already hanging slily upon a chair by her side, in readiness for this contemplated jaunt, the reason for which the matron deplored more than its necessity.
`And take the Compleat Fortune-Teller to the outhouse,' Joan continued, rapidly wiping her hands, and donning the garments.
The Compleat Fortune-Teller was an old thick volume, which lay on a table at her elbow, so worn by pocketing that the margins had reached the edge of the type.Tess took it up, and her mother started.
