Tess had heard those notes in the attic above her head. Dim,
flattened, constrained by their confinement, they had never appealed
to her as now, when they wandered in the still air with a stark
quality like that of nudity. To speak absolutely, both instrument
and execution were poor; but the relative is all, and as she listened
Tess, like a fascinated bird, could not leave the spot. Far from
leaving she drew up towards the performer, keeping behind the hedge
that he might not guess her presence.
The outskirt of the garden in which Tess found herself had been
left uncultivated for some years, and was now damp and rank with
juicy grass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch; and with tall
blooming weeds emitting offensive smells--weeds whose red and yellow
and purple hues formed a polychrome as dazzling as that of cultivated
flowers. She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of
growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that
were underfoot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug-slime,
and rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights which, though
snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin;
thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him.
Tess was conscious of neither time nor space. The exaltation which
she had described as being producible at will by gazing at a star
came now without any determination of hers; she undulated upon the
thin notes of the second-hand harp, and their harmonies passed like
breezes through her, bringing tears into her eyes. The floating
pollen seemed to be his notes made visible, and the dampness of
the garden the weeping of the garden's sensibility. Though near
nightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they would not
close for intentness, and the waves of colour mixed with the waves of
sound. The light which still shone was derived mainly from a large hole in
the western bank of cloud; it was like a piece of day left behind
by accident, dusk having closed in elsewhere. He concluded his
plaintive melody, a very simple performance, demanding no great
skill; and she waited, thinking another might be begun. But, tired
of playing, he had desultorily come round the fence, and was rambling
up behind her. Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved away furtively, as if
hardly moving at all. Angel, however, saw her light summer gown, and he spoke; his low
tones reaching her, though he was some distance off.
"What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?" said he. "Are you
afraid?"
"Oh no, sir--not of outdoor things; especially just now when the
apple-blooth is falling, and everything is so green."