Tess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this
one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing
staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too
freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their
gait--to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till
lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed
the Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already
tumbled down. Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance
just now to the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was
different. They followed the road with a sensation that they were
soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and
profound thoughts, themselves and surrounding nature forming
an organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously
interpenetrated each other. They were as sublime as the moon and
stars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they.
Tess, however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in
her father's house that the discovery of their condition spoilt the
pleasure she was beginning to feel in the moonlight journey. Yet she
stuck to the party, for reasons above given.
In the open highway they had progressed in scattered order; but now
their route was through a field-gate, and the foremost finding a
difficulty in opening it, they closed up together.
This leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, who carried a
wicker-basket containing her mother's groceries, her own draperies,
and other purchases for the week. The basket being large and heavy,
Car had placed it for convenience of porterage on the top of her
head, where it rode on in jeopardized balance as she walked with
arms akimbo.
"Well--whatever is that a-creeping down thy back, Car Darch?" said
one of the group suddenly. All looked at Car. Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the
back of her head a kind of rope could be seen descending to some
distance below her waist, like a Chinaman's queue.
"'Tis her hair falling down," said another.
No; it was not her hair: it was a black stream of something oozing
from her basket, and it glistened like a slimy snake in the cold
still rays of the moon. "'Tis treacle," said an observant matron.
Treacle it was. Car's poor old grandmother had a weakness for the
sweet stuff. Honey she had in plenty out of her own hives, but
treacle was what her soul desired, and Car had been about to give her
a treat of surprise. Hastily lowering the basket the dark girl found
that the vessel containing the syrup had been smashed within.