"I don't mind telling you, dear mother," he said, "that I always
meant to keep her away from this house till I should feel she could
some with credit to you. But this idea of Brazil is quite a recent
one. If I do go it will be unadvisable for me to take her on this my
first journey. She will remain at her mother's till I come back."
"And I shall not see her before you start?" He was afraid they would not.
His original plan had been, as he had
said, to refrain from bringing her there for some little while--not
to wound their prejudices--feelings--in any way; and for other
reasons he had adhered to it. He would have to visit home in the
course of a year, if he went out at once; and it would be possible
for them to see her before he started a second time--with her.
A hastily prepared supper was brought in, and Clare made further
exposition of his plans. His mother's disappointment at not seeing
the bride still remained with her. Clare's late enthusiasm for Tess
had infected her through her maternal sympathies, till she had almost
fancied that a good thing could come out of Nazareth--a charming
woman out of Talbothays Dairy. She watched her son as he ate. "Cannot you describe her?
I am sure she is very pretty, Angel." "Of that there can be no question!" he said, with a zest which
covered its bitterness. "And that she is pure and virtuous goes without question?" "Pure and virtuous, of course, she is." "I can see her quite distinctly. You said the other day that she was
fine in figure; roundly built; had deep red lips like Cupid's bow;
dark eyelashes and brows, an immense rope of hair like a ship's
cable; and large eyes violety-bluey-blackish." "I did, mother."
"I quite see her. And living in such seclusion she naturally had
scarce ever seen any young man from the world without till she saw
you." "Scarcely." "You were her first love?" "Of course."
"There are worse wives than these simple, rosy-mouthed, robust girls
of the farm. Certainly I could have wished--well, since my son is to
be an agriculturist, it is perhaps but proper that his wife should
have been accustomed to an outdoor life."
His father was less inquisitive; but when the time came for the
chapter from the Bible which was always read before evening prayers,
the Vicar observed to Mrs Clare-"I think, since Angel has come, that it will be more appropriate to
read the thirty-first of Proverbs than the chapter which we should
have had in the usual course of our reading?"