In point of fact Mrs Crick did remember
thinking that Tess was graceful and good-looking as she approached;
but the superiority might have been a growth of the imagination aided
by subsequent knowledge.
Tess was now carried along upon the wings of the hours, without the
sense of a will. The word had been given; the number of the day
written down. Her naturally bright intelligence had begun to admit
the fatalistic convictions common to field-folk and those who
associate more extensively with natural phenomena than with their
fellow-creatures; and she accordingly drifted into that passive
responsiveness to all things her lover suggested, characteristic of
the frame of mind.
But she wrote anew to her mother, ostensibly to notify the
wedding-day; really to again implore her advice. It was a gentleman
who had chosen her, which perhaps her mother had not sufficiently
considered. A post-nuptial explanation, which might be accepted with
a light heart by a rougher man, might not be received with the same
feeling by him. But this communication brought no reply from Mrs
Durbeyfield.
Despite Angel Clare's plausible representation to himself and to Tess
of the practical need for their immediate marriage, there was in
truth an element of precipitancy in the step, as became apparent at a
later date.
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