"Oh--you have heard the legend of the d'Urberville Coach--that
well-known superstition of this county about your family when they
were very popular here; and this lumbering old thing reminds you of
it." "I have never heard of it to my knowledge," said she. "What is the
legend--may I know it?" "Well--I would rather not tell it in detail just now. A certain
d'Urberville of the sixteenth or seventeenth century committed a
dreadful crime in his family coach; and since that time members of
the family see or hear the old coach whenever--But I'll tell you
another day--it is rather gloomy. Evidently some dim knowledge of
it has been brought back to your mind by the sight of this venerable
caravan." "I don't remember hearing it before," she murmured. "Is it when we
are going to die, Angel, that members of my family see it, or is it
when we have committed a crime?" "Now, Tess!"
He silenced her by a kiss. By the time they reached home she was contrite and spiritless. She
was Mrs Angel Clare, indeed, but had she any moral right to the name?
Was she not more truly Mrs Alexander d'Urberville? Could intensity
of love justify what might be considered in upright souls as culpable
reticence? She knew not what was expected of women in such cases;
and she had no counsellor. However, when she found herself alone in her room for a few
minutes--the last day this on which she was ever to enter it--she
knelt down and prayed. She tried to pray to God, but it was her
husband who really had her supplication. Her idolatry of this man
was such that she herself almost feared it to be ill-omened. She was
conscious of the notion expressed by Friar Laurence: "These violent
delights have violent ends." It might be too desperate for human
conditions--too rank, to wild, too deadly.
"O my love, why do I love you so!" she whispered there alone; "for
she you love is not my real self, but one in my image; the one I
might have been!" Afternoon came, and with it the hour for departure. They had decided
to fulfil the plan of going for a few days to the lodgings in the old
farmhouse near Wellbridge Mill, at which he meant to reside during
his investigation of flour processes. At two o'clock there was
nothing left to do but to start. All the servantry of the dairy were
standing in the red-brick entry to see them go out, the dairyman and
his wife following to the door. Tess saw her three chamber-mates
in a row against the wall, pensively inclining their heads. She
had much questioned if they would appear at the parting moment; but
there they were, stoical and staunch to the last. She knew why the
delicate Retty looked so fragile, and Izz so tragically sorrowful,
and Marian so blank; and she forgot her own dogging shadow for a
moment in contemplating theirs. She impulsively whispered to him-