A far more satisfactory
time than when she practised in the garden was this whistling by the
cages each morning. Unrestrained by the young man's presence she
threw up her mouth, put her lips near the bars, and piped away in
easeful grace to the attentive listeners.
Mrs d'Urberville slept in a large four-post bedstead hung with heavy
damask curtains, and the bullfinches occupied the same apartment,
where they flitted about freely at certain hours, and made little
white spots on the furniture and upholstery. Once while Tess was at
the window where the cages were ranged, giving her lesson as usual,
she thought she heard a rustling behind the bed. The old lady was
not present, and turning round the girl had an impression that
the toes of a pair of boots were visible below the fringe of the
curtains. Thereupon her whistling became so disjointed that the
listener, if such there were, must have discovered her suspicion of
his presence. She searched the curtains every morning after that,
but never found anybody within them. Alec d'Urberville had evidently
thought better of his freak to terrify her by an ambush of that kind.
X
Every village has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, often its own
code of morality.
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