finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_2_part_1.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 7
chapter 7
{"name": "CHAPTER 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD17.asp", "summary": "On the day of her departure, Tess dresses in her best clothes at the insistence of her mother, who is still dreaming about her daughter marrying Alec. Joan is delighted with Tess's appearance and feels confident that it will be difficult for Alec to ignore her beauty. Tess's younger brothers and sisters are jubilant about the thought of their sister marrying a gentleman. When Tess is ready to leave, Joan begins to worry about sending her daughter away. She walks with Tess for awhile, and some of the children follow along. As she approaches the cart that will take her luggage, Tess bids her family a quick good- bye. She then looks up and sees Alec, who has come for her. When she climbs up beside him, she can still see her family in the distance. As she thinks about their needs, Tess knows that she is doing the correct thing by going to Trantridge. It is now her family that is uncertain; they are unhappy and tearful about her departure. For the first time, Joan is apprehensive about sending her away with a stranger and regrets not having made inquiries about him.", "analysis": "Notes Joan is fully aware of her family's plight in life. She also knows that Tess' rustic beauty is the only thing to save them from poverty. When Tess tells her mother about the D'Urberville's son, Joan thinks that Alec must have great admiration for her daughter. She, therefore, insists that Tess dress in her best clothes to go to Trantridge in order to impress Alec further. She wants her daughter to wed this wealthy young man, for matrimony is the most convenient way of gaining wealth and status. A D'Urberville marriage would benefit the whole family. Unfortunately, Joan is not sending Tess away to a marriage to Alec; instead, she her daughter will soon endure a seduction by this cruel man. It is important to note Joan's misgivings during the chapter. At first she thinks it is wonderful that Tess is going to Trantridge. Then she is saddened by the thought of losing her daughter. Finally, she feels guilty and nervous about sending Tess away with a stranger that she knows nothing about. Joan's misgivings are well founded and serve as a flashback to the feelings Tess has had upon meeting Alec. Joan's feelings also foreshadow the future trouble that Alec will cause"}


On the morning appointed for her departure Tess was awake before
dawn--at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still
mute, save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear-voiced
conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest
preserving silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken.  She
remained upstairs packing till breakfast-time, and then came down in
her ordinary week-day clothes, her Sunday apparel being carefully
folded in her box.

Her mother expostulated. "You will never set out to see your folks
without dressing up more the dand than that?"

"But I am going to work!" said Tess.

"Well, yes," said Mrs Durbeyfield; and in a private tone, "at first
there mid be a little pretence o't ...  But I think it will be wiser
of 'ee to put your best side outward," she added.

"Very well; I suppose you know best," replied Tess with calm
abandonment.

And to please her parent the girl put herself quite in Joan's hands,
saying serenely--"Do what you like with me, mother."

Mrs Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tractability.
First she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess's hair with such
thoroughness that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as
at other times.  She tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual.
Then she put upon her the white frock that Tess had worn at the
club-walking, the airy fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged
_coiffure_, imparted to her developing figure an amplitude which
belied her age, and might cause her to be estimated as a woman when
she was not much more than a child.

"I declare there's a hole in my stocking-heel!" said Tess.

"Never mind holes in your stockings--they don't speak!  When I was a
maid, so long as I had a pretty bonnet the devil might ha' found me
in heels."

Her mother's pride in the girl's appearance led her to step back,
like a painter from his easel, and survey her work as a whole.

"You must zee yourself!" she cried.  "It is much better than you was
t'other day."

As the looking-glass was only large enough to reflect a very small
portion of Tess's person at one time, Mrs Durbeyfield hung a black
cloak outside the casement, and so made a large reflector of the
panes, as it is the wont of bedecking cottagers to do.  After this
she went downstairs to her husband, who was sitting in the lower
room.

"I'll tell 'ee what 'tis, Durbeyfield," said she exultingly; "he'll
never have the heart not to love her.  But whatever you do, don't zay
too much to Tess of his fancy for her, and this chance she has got.
She is such an odd maid that it mid zet her against him, or against
going there, even now.  If all goes well, I shall certainly be for
making some return to pa'son at Stagfoot Lane for telling us--dear,
good man!"

However, as the moment for the girl's setting out drew nigh, when the
first excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving
found place in Joan Durbeyfield's mind.  It prompted the matron to
say that she would walk a little way--as far as to the point where
the acclivity from the valley began its first steep ascent to
the outer world.  At the top Tess was going to be met with the
spring-cart sent by the Stoke-d'Urbervilles, and her box had already
been wheeled ahead towards this summit by a lad with trucks, to be in
readiness.

Seeing their mother put on her bonnet, the younger children clamoured
to go with her.

"I do want to walk a little-ways wi' Sissy, now she's going to marry
our gentleman-cousin, and wear fine cloze!"

"Now," said Tess, flushing and turning quickly, "I'll hear no more o'
that!  Mother, how could you ever put such stuff into their heads?"

"Going to work, my dears, for our rich relation, and help get enough
money for a new horse," said Mrs Durbeyfield pacifically.

"Goodbye, father," said Tess, with a lumpy throat.

"Goodbye, my maid," said Sir John, raising his head from his breast
as he suspended his nap, induced by a slight excess this morning in
honour of the occasion.  "Well, I hope my young friend will like such
a comely sample of his own blood.  And tell'n, Tess, that being sunk,
quite, from our former grandeur, I'll sell him the title--yes, sell
it--and at no onreasonable figure."

"Not for less than a thousand pound!" cried Lady Durbeyfield.

"Tell'n--I'll take a thousand pound.  Well, I'll take less, when
I come to think o't.  He'll adorn it better than a poor lammicken
feller like myself can.  Tell'n he shall hae it for a hundred.  But
I won't stand upon trifles--tell'n he shall hae it for fifty--for
twenty pound!  Yes, twenty pound--that's the lowest.  Dammy, family
honour is family honour, and I won't take a penny less!"

Tess's eyes were too full and her voice too choked to utter the
sentiments that were in her.  She turned quickly, and went out.

So the girls and their mother all walked together, a child on each
side of Tess, holding her hand and looking at her meditatively from
time to time, as at one who was about to do great things; her mother
just behind with the smallest; the group forming a picture of honest
beauty flanked by innocence, and backed by simple-souled vanity.
They followed the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent,
on the crest of which the vehicle from Trantridge was to receive her,
this limit having been fixed to save the horse the labour of the last
slope.  Far away behind the first hills the cliff-like dwellings
of Shaston broke the line of the ridge. Nobody was visible in the
elevated road which skirted the ascent save the lad whom they had
sent on before them, sitting on the handle of the barrow that
contained all Tess's worldly possessions.

"Bide here a bit, and the cart will soon come, no doubt," said Mrs
Durbeyfield.  "Yes, I see it yonder!"

It had come--appearing suddenly from behind the forehead of the
nearest upland, and stopping beside the boy with the barrow.  Her
mother and the children thereupon decided to go no farther, and
bidding them a hasty goodbye, Tess bent her steps up the hill.

They saw her white shape draw near to the spring-cart, on which her
box was already placed.  But before she had quite reached it another
vehicle shot out from a clump of trees on the summit, came round the
bend of the road there, passed the luggage-cart, and halted beside
Tess, who looked up as if in great surprise.

Her mother perceived, for the first time, that the second vehicle was
not a humble conveyance like the first, but a spick-and-span gig or
dog-cart, highly varnished and equipped.  The driver was a young man
of three- or four-and-twenty, with a cigar between his teeth; wearing
a dandy cap, drab jacket, breeches of the same hue, white neckcloth,
stick-up collar, and brown driving-gloves--in short, he was the
handsome, horsey young buck who had visited Joan a week or two before
to get her answer about Tess.

Mrs Durbeyfield clapped her hands like a child.  Then she looked
down, then stared again.  Could she be deceived as to the meaning of
this?

"Is dat the gentleman-kinsman who'll make Sissy a lady?" asked the
youngest child.

Meanwhile the muslined form of Tess could be seen standing still,
undecided, beside this turn-out, whose owner was talking to her.
Her seeming indecision was, in fact, more than indecision: it was
misgiving.  She would have preferred the humble cart.  The young
man dismounted, and appeared to urge her to ascend.  She turned her
face down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group.
Something seemed to quicken her to a determination; possibly the
thought that she had killed Prince.  She suddenly stepped up; he
mounted beside her, and immediately whipped on the horse.  In a
moment they had passed the slow cart with the box, and disappeared
behind the shoulder of the hill.

Directly Tess was out of sight, and the interest of the matter as a
drama was at an end, the little ones' eyes filled with tears.  The
youngest child said, "I wish poor, poor Tess wasn't gone away to be a
lady!" and, lowering the corners of his lips, burst out crying.  The
new point of view was infectious, and the next child did likewise,
and then the next, till the whole three of them wailed loud.

There were tears also in Joan Durbeyfield's eyes as she turned to
go home.  But by the time she had got back to the village she was
passively trusting to the favour of accident.  However, in bed that
night she sighed, and her husband asked her what was the matter.

"Oh, I don't know exactly," she said.  "I was thinking that perhaps
it would ha' been better if Tess had not gone."

"Oughtn't ye to have thought of that before?"

"Well, 'tis a chance for the maid--Still, if 'twere the doing again,
I wouldn't let her go till I had found out whether the gentleman
is really a good-hearted young man and choice over her as his
kinswoman."

"Yes, you ought, perhaps, to ha' done that," snored Sir John.

Joan Durbeyfield always managed to find consolation somewhere: "Well,
as one of the genuine stock, she ought to make her way with 'en, if
she plays her trump card aright.  And if he don't marry her afore he
will after.  For that he's all afire wi' love for her any eye can
see."

"What's her trump card?  Her d'Urberville blood, you mean?"

"No, stupid; her face--as 'twas mine."



CHAPTER 7
On the day of her departure, Tess dresses in her best clothes at the insistence of her mother, who is still dreaming about her daughter marrying Alec. Joan is delighted with Tess's appearance and feels confident that it will be difficult for Alec to ignore her beauty. Tess's younger brothers and sisters are jubilant about the thought of their sister marrying a gentleman. When Tess is ready to leave, Joan begins to worry about sending her daughter away. She walks with Tess for awhile, and some of the children follow along. As she approaches the cart that will take her luggage, Tess bids her family a quick good- bye. She then looks up and sees Alec, who has come for her. When she climbs up beside him, she can still see her family in the distance. As she thinks about their needs, Tess knows that she is doing the correct thing by going to Trantridge. It is now her family that is uncertain; they are unhappy and tearful about her departure. For the first time, Joan is apprehensive about sending her away with a stranger and regrets not having made inquiries about him.
Notes Joan is fully aware of her family's plight in life. She also knows that Tess' rustic beauty is the only thing to save them from poverty. When Tess tells her mother about the D'Urberville's son, Joan thinks that Alec must have great admiration for her daughter. She, therefore, insists that Tess dress in her best clothes to go to Trantridge in order to impress Alec further. She wants her daughter to wed this wealthy young man, for matrimony is the most convenient way of gaining wealth and status. A D'Urberville marriage would benefit the whole family. Unfortunately, Joan is not sending Tess away to a marriage to Alec; instead, she her daughter will soon endure a seduction by this cruel man. It is important to note Joan's misgivings during the chapter. At first she thinks it is wonderful that Tess is going to Trantridge. Then she is saddened by the thought of losing her daughter. Finally, she feels guilty and nervous about sending Tess away with a stranger that she knows nothing about. Joan's misgivings are well founded and serve as a flashback to the feelings Tess has had upon meeting Alec. Joan's feelings also foreshadow the future trouble that Alec will cause