"We must take the ups wi' the downs, Tess," said she; "and never
could your high blood have been found out at a more called-for
moment. You must try your friends. Do ye know that there is a very
rich Mrs d'Urberville living on the outskirts o' The Chase, who must
be our relation? You must go to her and claim kin, and ask for some
help in our trouble." "I shouldn't care to do that," says Tess.
"If there is such a lady,
'twould be enough for us if she were friendly--not to expect her to
give us help."
"You could win her round to do anything, my dear. Besides, perhaps
there's more in it than you know of. I've heard what I've heard,
good-now." The oppressive sense of the harm she had done led Tess to be more
deferential than she might otherwise have been to the maternal
wish; but she could not understand why her mother should find such
satisfaction in contemplating an enterprise of, to her, such doubtful
profit. Her mother might have made inquiries, and have discovered
that this Mrs d'Urberville was a lady of unequalled virtues and
charity. But Tess's pride made the part of poor relation one of
particular distaste to her.
"I'd rather try to get work," she murmured.
"Durbeyfield, you can settle it," said his wife, turning to where he
sat in the background. "If you say she ought to go, she will go."
"I don't like my children going and making themselves beholden to
strange kin," murmured he. "I'm the head of the noblest branch o'
the family, and I ought to live up to it."
His reasons for staying away were worse to Tess than her own
objections to going. "Well, as I killed the horse, mother," she said
mournfully, "I suppose I ought to do something. I don't mind going
and seeing her, but you must leave it to me about asking for help.
And don't go thinking about her making a match for me--it is silly."
"Very well said, Tess!" observed her father sententiously.
"Who said I had such a thought?" asked Joan. "I fancy it is in your mind, mother. But I'll go."
Rising early next day she walked to the hill-town called Shaston,
and there took advantage of a van which twice in the week ran from
Shaston eastward to Chaseborough, passing near Trantridge, the parish
in which the vague and mysterious Mrs d'Urberville had her residence.