Thomas Hardy: Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays 42. CHAPTER XLII (continued)

Marian paused.

"But you BE a gentleman's wife; and it seems hardly fair that you should live like this!"

"O yes it is, quite fair; though I am very unhappy."

"Well, well. HE married you--and you can be unhappy!"

"Wives are unhappy sometimes; from no fault of their husbands--from their own."

"You've no faults, deary; that I'm sure of. And he's none. So it must be something outside ye both."

"Marian, dear Marian, will you do me a good turn without asking questions? My husband has gone abroad, and somehow I have overrun my allowance, so that I have to fall back upon my old work for a time. Do not call me Mrs Clare, but Tess, as before. Do they want a hand here?"

"O yes; they'll take one always, because few care to come. "Tis a starve-acre place. Corn and swedes are all they grow. Though I be here myself, I feel 'tis a pity for such as you to come."

"But you used to be as good a dairywoman as I."

"Yes; but I've got out o' that since I took to drink. Lord, that's the only comfort I've got now! If you engage, you'll be set swede-hacking. That's what I be doing; but you won't like it."

"O--anything! Will you speak for me?"

"You will do better by speaking for yourself."

"Very well. Now, Marian, remember--nothing about HIM, if I get the place. I don't wish to bring his name down to the dirt."

Marian, who was really a trustworthy girl though of coarser grain than Tess, promised anything she asked.