Tess Durbeyfield's route on this memorable morning lay amid the northeastern undulations of the Vale in which she had been born, and in which her life had unfolded.The Vale of Blackmoor was to her the world, and its inhabitants the races thereof.From the gates and stiles of Marlott she had looked down its length in the wondering days of infancy, and what had been mystery to her then was not much less than mystery to her now.She has seen dally from her chamber-window towers, villages, faint white mansions; above all the town of Shaston standing majestically on its height; its windows shining like lamps in the evening sun.She had hardly ever visited the place, only a small tract even of the Vale and its environs being known to her by close inspection.Much less had she been far outside the valley.Every contour of the surrounding hills was as personal to her as that of her relatives'
faces; but for what lay beyond her judgment was dependent on the teaching of the village school, where she had held a leading place at the time of her leaving, a year or two before this date.
In those early days she had been much loved by others of her own sex and age, and had used to be seen about the village as one of three - all nearly of the same year - walking home from school side by side; Tess the middle one - in a pink print pinafore, of a finely reticulated pattern, worn over a stuff frock that had lost its original colour for a nondescript tertiary - marching on upon long stalky legs, in tight stockings which had little ladder-like holes at the knees, torn by kneeling in the roads and banks in search of vegetable and mineral treasures; her then earth-coloured hair hanging like pot-hooks; the arms of the two outside girls resting round the waist of Tess; her arms on the shoulders of the two supporters.
As Tess grew older, and began to see how matters stood, she felt quite a Malthusian towards her mother for thoughtlessly giving her so many little sisters and brothers, when it was such a trouble to nurse and provide for them.Her mother's intelligence was that of a happy child: Joan Durbeyfield was simply an additional one, and that not the eldest, to her own long family of waiters on Providence.
However, Tess became humanely beneficent towards the small ones, and to help them as much as possible she used, as soon as she left school, to lend a hand at hay making or harvesting on neighbouring farms; or, by preference, at milking or butter-making processes, which she had learnt when her father had owned cows; and being deft-fingered it was a kind of work in which she excelled.
Every day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders more of the family burdens, and that Tess should be the representative of the Durbeyfields at the d'Urberville mansion came as a thing of course.In this instance it must be admitted that the Durbeyfields were putting their fairest side outward.
She alighted from the van at Trantridge Cross, and ascended on foot a hill in the direction of the district known as The Chase, on the borders of which, as she had been informed, Mrs d'Urberville's seat, The Slopes, would be found.It was not a manorial home in the ordinary sense, with fields, and pastures, and a grumbling farmer, out of whom the owner had to squeeze an income for himself and his family by hook or by crook.It was more, far more; a country house built for enjoyment pure and simple, with not an acre of troublesome land attached to it beyond what was required for residential purposes, and for a little fancy farm kept in hand by the owner, and tended by a bailiff.
The crimson brick lodge came first in sight, up to its eaves in dense evergreens.Tess thought this was the mansion itself till, passing through the side wicket with some trepidation, and onward to a point at which the drive took a turn, the house proper stood in full view.It was of recent erection - indeed almost new - and of the same rich red colour that formed such a contrast with the evergreens of the lodge.Far behind the corner of the house - which rose like a geranium bloom against the subdued colours around - stretched the soft azure landscape of The Chase - a truly venerable tract of forest land, one of the few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primaeval date, wherein Druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and where enormous yew trees, not planted by the hand of man, grew as they had grown when they were pollarded for bows.All this sylvan antiquity, however, though visible from the Slopes, was outside the immediate boundaries of the estate.
Everything on this snug property was bright, thriving, and well kept;acres of glass houses stretched down the inclines to the copses at their feet.Everything looked like money - like the last coin issued from the Mint.The stables, partly screened by Austrian pines and evergreen oaks, and fitted with every late appliance, were as dignified as Chapels-of-Ease.
On the extensive lawn stood an ornamental tent, its door being towards her.
Simple Tess Durbeyfield stood at gaze, in a half alarmed attitude, on the edge of the gravel sweep.Her feet had brought her onward to this point before she had quite realized where she was; and now all was contrary to her expectation.
`I thought we were an old family; but this is all new!'she said, in her artlessness.She wished that she had not fallen in so readily with her mother's plans for `claiming kin', and had endeavoured to gain assistance nearer home.
