DEAR TESS,-J write these few lines Hoping they will find you well,
as they leave me at Present, thank God for it. Dear
Tess, we are all glad to Hear that you are going really
to be married soon. But with respect to your question,
Tess, J say between ourselves, quite private but very
strong, that on no account do you say a word of your
Bygone Trouble to him. J did not tell everything
to your Father, he being so Proud on account of his
Respectability, which, perhaps, your Intended is
the same. Many a woman--some of the Highest in the
Land--have had a Trouble in their time; and why should
you Trumpet yours when others don't Trumpet theirs? No
girl would be such a Fool, specially as it is so long
ago, and not your Fault at all. J shall answer the
same if you ask me fifty times. Besides, you must bear
in mind that, knowing it to be your Childish Nature to
tell all that's in your heart--so simple!--J made you
promise me never to let it out by Word or Deed, having
your Welfare in my Mind; and you most solemnly did
promise it going from this Door. J have not named
either that Question or your coming marriage to your
Father, as he would blab it everywhere, poor Simple
Man. Dear Tess, keep up your Spirits, and we mean to send
you a Hogshead of Cyder for you Wedding, knowing there
is not much in your parts, and thin Sour Stuff what
there is. So no more at present, and with kind love
to your Young Man.--From your affectte. Mother, J. DURBEYFIELD
"O mother, mother!" murmured Tess.
She was recognizing how light was the touch of events the most
oppressive upon Mrs Durbeyfield's elastic spirit. Her mother did not
see life as Tess saw it. That haunting episode of bygone days was
to her mother but a passing accident. But perhaps her mother was
right as to the course to be followed, whatever she might be in her
reasons. Silence seemed, on the face of it, best for her adored
one's happiness: silence it should be.
Thus steadied by a command from the only person in the world who had
any shadow of right to control her action, Tess grew calmer. The
responsibility was shifted, and her heart was lighter than it had
been for weeks. The days of declining autumn which followed her
assent, beginning with the month of October, formed a season through
which she lived in spiritual altitudes more nearly approaching
ecstasy than any other period of her life.