"I've got to go a-skimming," she pleaded, "and I have on'y old Deb to
help me to-day. Mrs Crick is gone to market with Mr Crick, and Retty
is not well, and the others are gone out somewhere, and won't be home
till milking." As they retreated to the milk-house Deborah Fyander appeared on the
stairs. "I have come back, Deborah," said Mr Clare, upwards. "So I can help
Tess with the skimming; and, as you are very tired, I am sure, you
needn't come down till milking-time."
Possibly the Talbothays milk was not very thoroughly skimmed that
afternoon. Tess was in a dream wherein familiar objects appeared
as having light and shade and position, but no particular outline.
Every time she held the skimmer under the pump to cool it for the
work her hand trembled, the ardour of his affection being so palpable
that she seemed to flinch under it like a plant in too burning a sun.
Then he pressed her again to his side, and when she had done running
her forefinger round the leads to cut off the cream-edge, he cleaned
it in nature's way; for the unconstrained manners of Talbothays dairy
came convenient now. "I may as well say it now as later, dearest," he resumed gently. "I
wish to ask you something of a very practical nature, which I have
been thinking of ever since that day last week in the meads. I shall
soon want to marry, and, being a farmer, you see I shall require for
my wife a woman who knows all about the management of farms. Will
you be that woman, Tessy?" He put it that way that she might not think he had yielded to an
impulse of which his head would disapprove.
She turned quite careworn. She had bowed to the inevitable result of
proximity, the necessity of loving him; but she had not calculated
upon this sudden corollary, which, indeed, Clare had put before her
without quite meaning himself to do it so soon. With pain that was
like the bitterness of dissolution she murmured the words of her
indispensable and sworn answer as an honourable woman.
"O Mr Clare--I cannot be your wife--I cannot be!"
The sound of her own decision seemed to break Tess's very heart, and
she bowed her face in her grief. "But, Tess!" he said, amazed at her reply, and holding her still more
greedily close. "Do you say no? Surely you love me?"
"O yes, yes! And I would rather be yours than anybody's in the
world," returned the sweet and honest voice of the distressed girl.
"But I CANNOT marry you!"