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',
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?