must try your friends. Do you know that there is a very rich Mrs. D’Urberville living out on the edge of The Chase, who must be our relation? You must go to her and claim kin, and ask for some assistance 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.’
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,
62
