She took off the thick boots in which she had walked thus far, put on her pretty thin ones of patent leather, and, stuffing the former into the hedge by the gate-post where she might readily find them again, descended the hill; the freshness of colour she had derived from the keen air thinning away in spite of her as she drew near the parsonage.
Tess hoped for some accident that might favour her, but nothing favoured her.The shrubs on the Vicarage lawn rustled uncomfortably in the frosty breeze; she could not feel by any stretch of imagination, dressed to her highest as she was, that the house was the residence of near relations;and yet nothing essential, in nature or emotion, divided her from them:
in pains, pleasures, thoughts, birth, death, and after-death, they were the same.
She nerved herself by an effort, entered the swing-gate, and rang the door-bell.The thing was done; there could be no retreat.No; the thing was not done.Nobody answered to her ringing.The effort had to be risen to and made again.She rang a second time, and the agitation of the act, coupled with her weariness after the fifteen miles' walk, led her to support herself while she waited by resting her hand on her hip, and her elbow against the wall of the porch.The wind was so nipping that the ivy-leaves had become wizened and gray, each tapping incessantly upon its neighbour with a disquieting stir of her nerves.A piece of blood-stained paper, caught up from some meat-buyer's dust-heap, beat up and down the road without the gate; too flimsy to rest, too heavy to fly away; and a few straws kept it company.
The second peal had been louder, and still nobody came.Then she walked out of the porch, opened the gate, and passed through.And though she looked dubiously at the house-front as if inclined to return, it was with a breath of relief that she closed the gate.A feeling haunted her that she might have been recognized (though how she could not tell), and orders been given not to admit her.
Tess went as far as the corner.She had done all she could do; but determined not to escape present trepidation at the expense of future distress, she walked back again quite past the house, looking up at all the windows.
Ah - the explanation was that they were all at church, every one.She remembered her husband saying that his father always insisted upon the household, servants included, going to morning service, and, as a consequence, eating cold food when they came home.It was, therefore, only necessary to wait till the service was over.She would not make herself conspicuous by waiting on the spot, and she started to get past the church into the lane.But as she reached the churchyard-gate the people began pouring out, and Tess found herself in the midst of them.
The Emminster congregation looked at her as only a congregation of small country-townsfolk walking home at its leisure can look at a woman out of the common whom it perceives to be a stranger.She quickened her pace, and ascended the road by which she had come, to find a retreat between its hedges till the Vicar's family should have lunched, and it might be convenient for them to receive her.She soon distanced the churchgoers, except two youngish men, who, linked arm-in-arm, were beating up behind her at a quick step.
As they drew nearer she could hear their voices engaged in earnest discourse, and, with the natural quickness of a woman in her situation, did not fall to recognize in those voices the quality of her husband's tones.The pedestrians were his two brothers.Forgetting all her plans, Tess's one dread was lest they should overtake her now, in her disorganized condition, before she was prepared to confront them; for though she felt that they could not identify her she instinctively dreaded their scrutiny.The more briskly they walked the more briskly walked she.They were plainly bent upon taking a short quick stroll before going indoors to lunch or dinner, to restore warmth to limbs chilled with sitting through a long service.Only one person had preceded Tess up the hill - a ladylike young woman, somewhat interesting, though, perhaps, a trifle guindée and prudish.Tess had nearly overtaken her when the speed of her brothers-in-law brought them so nearly behind her back that she could hear every word of their conversation.They `d nothing, however, which particularly interested her till, observing the young lady still further in front, one of them remarked, `There is Mercy Chant.Let us overtake her.'
Tess knew the name.It was the woman who had been destined for Angel's life-companion by his and her parents, and whom he probably would have married but for her intrusive self.She would have known as much without previous information if she had waited a moment, for one of the brothers proceeded to say: `Ah! poor Angel, poor Angel! I never see that nice girl without more and more regretting his precipitancy in throwing himself away upon a dairymaid, or whatever she may be.It is a queer business, apparently.
Whether she has Joined him yet or not I don't know; but she had not done so some months ago when I heard from him.'
`I can't say.He never tells me anything nowadays.His ill-considered marriage seems to have completed that estrangement from me which was begun by his extraordinary opinions.'
Tess beat up the long hill still faster; but she could not outwalk them without exciting notice.At last they outsped her altogether, and passed her by.The young lady still further ahead heard their footsteps and turned.
Then there was a greeting and a shaking of hands, and the three went on together.
They soon reached the summit of the hill, and, evidently intending this point to be the limit of their promenade, slackened pace and turned all three aside to the gate whereat Tess had paused an hour before that time to reconnoitre the town before descending into it.During their discourse one of the clerical brothers probed the hedge carefully with his umbrella, and dragged something to light.
