finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_5_part_0.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 6
chapter 6
{"name": "Phase I: \"The Maiden,\" Chapter Six", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-6", "summary": "Tess takes the same cart back to Marlott that she had taken out to Trantridge that morning. The basket of roses and the bouquets that Alec had pinned to her hat and dress attract the attention of the other passengers, so she tries to hide them as though ashamed of them. As she removes one of the roses from under her chin, it pricks her skin. It's getting late, so she spends the night at a friend's house on her way back to Marlott . When she arrives at home the next morning, her mother looks triumphant--she's received a letter from Mrs. D'Urberville. The letter invites Tess to come stay at the house and look after a little poultry-farm there, which is Mrs. D'Urberville's special hobby. Mrs. Durbeyfield assumes that Mrs. D'Urberville is just asking Tess to work as a means of getting her there, but that she really means to bring Tess up in her own family and make a lady of her. Tess is confused, since she didn't actually meet Mrs. D'Urberville. Mrs. Durbeyfield asks whom she did meet, then--and when Tess reports that Alec had called her \"Coz,\" Mrs. Durbeyfield is exultant, thinking that he's acknowledged her as a relation. Tess is still hesitant about going, and asks to see the letter. She isn't convinced that it was written by Mrs. D'Urberville, and would rather stay at home with her parents. She holds out for a week, looking for work in her own neighborhood. One day she comes home, and her younger siblings inform her that \"the gentleman has been here!\" . Mrs. Durbeyfield explains that Mrs. D'Urberville's son happened to be passing by, and stopped to ask whether Tess would come to manage the old lady's poultry-farm or not. Tess is pleased that Alec thinks that she would do a good job managing the poultry-farm, but is still reluctant to go--she doesn't know what it will be like, living there. Her parents and her younger siblings can't stop talking about Alec's moustache or his diamond ring. Tess wanders off to think it over in the garden, while her mother triumphantly asserts that Alec is in love with Tess, and will marry her and make her a lady. Jack Durbeyfield likes this idea--it flatters his vanity. Tess comes back, and says she still doesn't know--but she's the one who killed the old horse, and she feels responsible for helping to get a new one. But she can't help not liking Mr. D'Urberville. The younger children start crying because they want Tess to become a lady. Tess finally agrees to go. Her mother is relieved--it's a fine opportunity, she says. Tess says it's an opportunity for making money, and that her mother had better not tell the neighbors that it's any other kind of opportunity. Her mother understands her, but doesn't promise. Tess writes to Mrs. D'Urberville, agreeing to come whenever she is sent for. Mrs. D'Urberville writes back, saying that a cart would be sent to pick her up the day after tomorrow. The narrator notes that Mrs. D'Urberville's handwriting looks rather masculine. Tess is happy at the prospect of helping her father to buy a new horse, but would rather have been a teacher at the school. She doesn't take her mother's hopes that she would marry Alec at all seriously.", "analysis": ""}


Tess went down the hill to Trantridge Cross, and inattentively waited
to take her seat in the van returning from Chaseborough to Shaston.
She did not know what the other occupants said to her as she entered,
though she answered them; and when they had started anew she rode
along with an inward and not an outward eye.

One among her fellow-travellers addressed her more pointedly than
any had spoken before: "Why, you be quite a posy!  And such roses in
early June!"

Then she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their
surprised vision: roses at her breasts; roses in her hat; roses
and strawberries in her basket to the brim.  She blushed, and
said confusedly that the flowers had been given to her.  When the
passengers were not looking she stealthily removed the more prominent
blooms from her hat and placed them in the basket, where she covered
them with her handkerchief.  Then she fell to reflecting again, and
in looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining in her breast
accidentally pricked her chin. Like all the cottagers in Blackmoor
Vale, Tess was steeped in fancies and prefigurative superstitions;
she thought this an ill omen--the first she had noticed that day.

The van travelled only so far as Shaston, and there were several
miles of pedestrian descent from that mountain-town into the vale to
Marlott.  Her mother had advised her to stay here for the night, at
the house of a cottage-woman they knew, if she should feel too tired
to come on; and this Tess did, not descending to her home till the
following afternoon.

When she entered the house she perceived in a moment from her
mother's triumphant manner that something had occurred in the
interim.

"Oh yes; I know all about it!  I told 'ee it would be all right, and
now 'tis proved!"

"Since I've been away?  What has?" said Tess rather wearily.

Her mother surveyed the girl up and down with arch approval, and went
on banteringly: "So you've brought 'em round!"

"How do you know, mother?"

"I've had a letter."

Tess then remembered that there would have been time for this.

"They say--Mrs d'Urberville says--that she wants you to look after a
little fowl-farm which is her hobby.  But this is only her artful way
of getting 'ee there without raising your hopes.  She's going to own
'ee as kin--that's the meaning o't."

"But I didn't see her."

"You zid somebody, I suppose?"

"I saw her son."

"And did he own 'ee?"

"Well--he called me Coz."

"An' I knew it!  Jacky--he called her Coz!" cried Joan to her
husband.  "Well, he spoke to his mother, of course, and she do want
'ee there."

"But I don't know that I am apt at tending fowls," said the dubious
Tess.

"Then I don't know who is apt.  You've be'n born in the business, and
brought up in it.  They that be born in a business always know more
about it than any 'prentice.  Besides, that's only just a show of
something for you to do, that you midn't feel beholden."

"I don't altogether think I ought to go," said Tess thoughtfully.
"Who wrote the letter?  Will you let me look at it?"

"Mrs d'Urberville wrote it.  Here it is."

The letter was in the third person, and briefly informed Mrs
Durbeyfield that her daughter's services would be useful to that lady
in the management of her poultry-farm, that a comfortable room would
be provided for her if she could come, and that the wages would be on
a liberal scale if they liked her.

"Oh--that's all!" said Tess.

"You couldn't expect her to throw her arms round 'ee, an' to kiss and
to coll 'ee all at once."

Tess looked out of the window.

"I would rather stay here with father and you," she said.

"But why?"

"I'd rather not tell you why, mother; indeed, I don't quite know
why."

A week afterwards she came in one evening from an unavailing search
for some light occupation in the immediate neighbourhood.  Her idea
had been to get together sufficient money during the summer to
purchase another horse.  Hardly had she crossed the threshold before
one of the children danced across the room, saying, "The gentleman's
been here!"

Her mother hastened to explain, smiles breaking from every inch of
her person.  Mrs d'Urberville's son had called on horseback, having
been riding by chance in the direction of Marlott.  He had wished
to know, finally, in the name of his mother, if Tess could really
come to manage the old lady's fowl-farm or not; the lad who had
hitherto superintended the birds having proved untrustworthy.  "Mr
d'Urberville says you must be a good girl if you are at all as you
appear; he knows you must be worth your weight in gold.  He is very
much interested in 'ee--truth to tell."

Tess seemed for the moment really pleased to hear that she had won
such high opinion from a stranger when, in her own esteem, she had
sunk so low.

"It is very good of him to think that," she murmured; "and if I was
quite sure how it would be living there, I would go any-when."

"He is a mighty handsome man!"

"I don't think so," said Tess coldly.

"Well, there's your chance, whether or no; and I'm sure he wears a
beautiful diamond ring!"

"Yes," said little Abraham, brightly, from the window-bench; "and
I seed it! and it did twinkle when he put his hand up to his
mistarshers.  Mother, why did our grand relation keep on putting his
hand up to his mistarshers?"

"Hark at that child!" cried Mrs Durbeyfield, with parenthetic
admiration.

"Perhaps to show his diamond ring," murmured Sir John, dreamily, from
his chair.

"I'll think it over," said Tess, leaving the room.

"Well, she's made a conquest o' the younger branch of us, straight
off," continued the matron to her husband, "and she's a fool if she
don't follow it up."

"I don't quite like my children going away from home," said the
haggler.  "As the head of the family, the rest ought to come to me."

"But do let her go, Jacky," coaxed his poor witless wife.  "He's
struck wi' her--you can see that. He called her Coz!  He'll marry
her, most likely, and make a lady of her; and then she'll be what
her forefathers was."

John Durbeyfield had more conceit than energy or health, and this
supposition was pleasant to him.

"Well, perhaps that's what young Mr d'Urberville means," he admitted;
"and sure enough he mid have serious thoughts about improving his
blood by linking on to the old line.  Tess, the little rogue!  And
have she really paid 'em a visit to such an end as this?"

Meanwhile Tess was walking thoughtfully among the gooseberry-bushes
in the garden, and over Prince's grave.  When she came in her mother
pursued her advantage.

"Well, what be you going to do?" she asked.

"I wish I had seen Mrs d'Urberville," said Tess.

"I think you mid as well settle it.  Then you'll see her soon
enough."

Her father coughed in his chair.

"I don't know what to say!" answered the girl restlessly.  "It is for
you to decide.  I killed the old horse, and I suppose I ought to do
something to get ye a new one.  But--but--I don't quite like Mr
d'Urberville being there!"

The children, who had made use of this idea of Tess being taken up by
their wealthy kinsfolk (which they imagined the other family to be)
as a species of dolorifuge after the death of the horse, began to cry
at Tess's reluctance, and teased and reproached her for hesitating.

"Tess won't go-o-o and be made a la-a-dy of!--no, she says she
wo-o-on't!" they wailed, with square mouths.  "And we shan't have a
nice new horse, and lots o' golden money to buy fairlings!  And Tess
won't look pretty in her best cloze no mo-o-ore!"

Her mother chimed in to the same tune: a certain way she had of
making her labours in the house seem heavier than they were by
prolonging them indefinitely, also weighed in the argument.  Her
father alone preserved an attitude of neutrality.

"I will go," said Tess at last.

Her mother could not repress her consciousness of the nuptial vision
conjured up by the girl's consent.

"That's right!  For such a pretty maid as 'tis, this is a fine
chance!"

Tess smiled crossly.

"I hope it is a chance for earning money.  It is no other kind of
chance.  You had better say nothing of that silly sort about parish."

Mrs Durbeyfield did not promise.  She was not quite sure that she did
not feel proud enough, after the visitor's remarks, to say a good
deal.

Thus it was arranged; and the young girl wrote, agreeing to be ready
to set out on any day on which she might be required.  She was duly
informed that Mrs d'Urberville was glad of her decision, and that a
spring-cart should be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top
of the Vale on the day after the morrow, when she must hold herself
prepared to start.  Mrs d'Urberville's handwriting seemed rather
masculine.

"A cart?" murmured Joan Durbeyfield doubtingly.  "It might have been
a carriage for her own kin!"

Having at last taken her course Tess was less restless and
abstracted, going about her business with some self-assurance in the
thought of acquiring another horse for her father by an occupation
which would not be onerous.  She had hoped to be a teacher at the
school, but the fates seemed to decide otherwise.  Being mentally
older than her mother she did not regard Mrs Durbeyfield's
matrimonial hopes for her in a serious aspect for a moment.  The
light-minded woman had been discovering good matches for her daughter
almost from the year of her birth.



Phase I: "The Maiden," Chapter Six
Tess takes the same cart back to Marlott that she had taken out to Trantridge that morning. The basket of roses and the bouquets that Alec had pinned to her hat and dress attract the attention of the other passengers, so she tries to hide them as though ashamed of them. As she removes one of the roses from under her chin, it pricks her skin. It's getting late, so she spends the night at a friend's house on her way back to Marlott . When she arrives at home the next morning, her mother looks triumphant--she's received a letter from Mrs. D'Urberville. The letter invites Tess to come stay at the house and look after a little poultry-farm there, which is Mrs. D'Urberville's special hobby. Mrs. Durbeyfield assumes that Mrs. D'Urberville is just asking Tess to work as a means of getting her there, but that she really means to bring Tess up in her own family and make a lady of her. Tess is confused, since she didn't actually meet Mrs. D'Urberville. Mrs. Durbeyfield asks whom she did meet, then--and when Tess reports that Alec had called her "Coz," Mrs. Durbeyfield is exultant, thinking that he's acknowledged her as a relation. Tess is still hesitant about going, and asks to see the letter. She isn't convinced that it was written by Mrs. D'Urberville, and would rather stay at home with her parents. She holds out for a week, looking for work in her own neighborhood. One day she comes home, and her younger siblings inform her that "the gentleman has been here!" . Mrs. Durbeyfield explains that Mrs. D'Urberville's son happened to be passing by, and stopped to ask whether Tess would come to manage the old lady's poultry-farm or not. Tess is pleased that Alec thinks that she would do a good job managing the poultry-farm, but is still reluctant to go--she doesn't know what it will be like, living there. Her parents and her younger siblings can't stop talking about Alec's moustache or his diamond ring. Tess wanders off to think it over in the garden, while her mother triumphantly asserts that Alec is in love with Tess, and will marry her and make her a lady. Jack Durbeyfield likes this idea--it flatters his vanity. Tess comes back, and says she still doesn't know--but she's the one who killed the old horse, and she feels responsible for helping to get a new one. But she can't help not liking Mr. D'Urberville. The younger children start crying because they want Tess to become a lady. Tess finally agrees to go. Her mother is relieved--it's a fine opportunity, she says. Tess says it's an opportunity for making money, and that her mother had better not tell the neighbors that it's any other kind of opportunity. Her mother understands her, but doesn't promise. Tess writes to Mrs. D'Urberville, agreeing to come whenever she is sent for. Mrs. D'Urberville writes back, saying that a cart would be sent to pick her up the day after tomorrow. The narrator notes that Mrs. D'Urberville's handwriting looks rather masculine. Tess is happy at the prospect of helping her father to buy a new horse, but would rather have been a teacher at the school. She doesn't take her mother's hopes that she would marry Alec at all seriously.