The room below being unceiled she could hear most of what went on

there. Presently her father entered, apparently carrying in a live

hen. He was a foot-haggler now, having been obliged to sell his

second horse, and he travelled with his basket on his arm. The hen

had been carried about this morning as it was often carried, to show

people that he was in his work, though it had lain, with its legs

tied, under the table at Rolliver's for more than an hour. "We've just had up a story about--" Durbeyfield began, and thereupon

related in detail to his wife a discussion which had arisen at the

inn about the clergy, originated by the fact of his daughter having

married into a clerical family. "They was formerly styled 'sir',

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like my own ancestry," he said, "though nowadays their true style,

strictly speaking, is 'clerk' only." As Tess had wished that no

great publicity should be given to the event, he had mentioned no

particulars. He hoped she would remove that prohibition soon. He

proposed that the couple should take Tess's own name, d'Urberville,

as uncorrupted. It was better than her husbands's. He asked if any

letter had come from her that day.

Then Mrs Durbeyfield informed him that no letter had come, but Tess

unfortunately had come herself. When at length the collapse was explained to him, a sullen

mortification, not usual with Durbeyfield, overpowered the influence

of the cheering glass. Yet the intrinsic quality of the event moved

his touchy sensitiveness less than its conjectured effect upon the

minds of others. "To think, now, that this was to be the end o't!" said Sir John.

"And I with a family vault under that there church of Kingsbere as

big as Squire Jollard's ale-cellar, and my folk lying there in sixes

and sevens, as genuine county bones and marrow as any recorded in

history. And now to be sure what they fellers at Rolliver's and The

Pure Drop will say to me! How they'll squint and glane, and say,

'This is yer mighty match is it; this is yer getting back to the true

level of yer forefathers in King Norman's time!' I feel this is too

much, Joan; I shall put an end to myself, title and all--I can bear

it no longer! ... But she can make him keep her if he's married

her?" "Why, yes. But she won't think o' doing that." "D'ye think he really have married her?--or is it like the first--" Poor Tess, who had heard as far as this, could not bear to hear more.

The perception that her word could be doubted even here, in her own

parental house, set her mind against the spot as nothing else could

have done. How unexpected were the attacks of destiny! And if her

father doubted her a little, would not neighbours and acquaintance

doubt her much?




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