finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_1_part_5.txt
Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter v
chapter v
{"name": "Chapter V", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase1-chapter1-11", "summary": "Tess does not argue when her mother sends her to the Trantridge estate of the d'Urbervilles to work. Joan Durbeyfield has no idea, however, that the d'Urbervilles have absolutely no blood relation to Tess and that the name itself was purchased to enhance the family's social standing. Tess is surprised to find a large new red brick country estate instead of the ancient house she envisioned. Here Tess meets Alec d'Urberville who, in his early twenties, is very attracted to his new \"poor relation. After feeding her strawberries and showering her with roses, he explains that his mother is ill but that he will find a way to help her. Then he sends her on her way", "analysis": ""}


The haggling business, which had mainly depended on the horse, became
disorganized forthwith.  Distress, if not penury, loomed in the
distance.  Durbeyfield was what was locally called a slack-twisted
fellow; he had good strength to work at times; but the times could
not be relied on to coincide with the hours of requirement; and,
having been unaccustomed to the regular toil of the day-labourer,
he was not particularly persistent when they did so coincide.

Tess, meanwhile, as the one who had dragged her parents into this
quagmire, was silently wondering what she could do to help them out
of it; and then her mother broached her scheme.

"We must take the ups wi' the downs, Tess," said she; "and never
could your high blood have been found out at a more called-for
moment.  You must try your friends.  Do ye know that there is a very
rich Mrs d'Urberville living on the outskirts o' The Chase, who must
be our relation?  You must go to her and claim kin, and ask for some
help 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,
good-now."

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, turning to where he
sat in the background.  "If you say she ought to go, she will go."

"I don't like my children going and making themselves beholden to
strange kin," murmured he.  "I'm the head of the noblest branch o'
the family, and I ought to live up to it."

His reasons for staying away were worse to Tess than her own
objections to going.  "Well, as I killed the horse, mother," she said
mournfully, "I suppose I ought to do something.  I don't mind going
and seeing her, but you must leave it to me about asking for help.
And don't go thinking about her making a match for me--it is silly."

"Very well said, Tess!" observed her father sententiously.

"Who said I had such a thought?" asked Joan.

"I fancy it is in your mind, mother.  But I'll go."

Rising early next day she walked to the hill-town called Shaston,
and there took advantage of a van which twice in the week ran from
Shaston eastward to Chaseborough, passing near Trantridge, the parish
in which the vague and mysterious Mrs d'Urberville had her residence.

Tess Durbeyfield's route on this memorable morning lay amid the
north-eastern undulations of the Vale in which she had been born, and
in which her life had unfolded.  The Vale of Blackmoor was to her the
world, and its inhabitants the races thereof.  From the gates and
stiles of Marlott she had looked down its length in the wondering
days of infancy, and what had been mystery to her then was not
much less than mystery to her now.  She had seen daily from her
chamber-window towers, villages, faint white mansions; above all,
the town of Shaston standing majestically on its height; its windows
shining like lamps in the evening sun.  She had hardly ever visited
the place, only a small tract even of the Vale and its environs being
known to her by close inspection.  Much less had she been far outside
the valley.  Every contour of the surrounding hills was as personal
to her as that of her relatives' faces; but for what lay beyond, her
judgment was dependent on the teaching of the village school, where
she had held a leading place at the time of her leaving, a year or
two before this date.

In those early days she had been much loved by others of her own
sex and age, and had used to be seen about the village as one of
three--all nearly of the same year--walking home from school side
by side; Tess the middle one--in a pink print pinafore, of a finely
reticulated pattern, worn over a stuff frock that had lost its
original colour for a nondescript tertiary--marching on upon long
stalky legs, in tight stockings which had little ladder-like holes
at the knees, torn by kneeling in the roads and banks in search of
vegetable and mineral treasures; her then earth-coloured hair hanging
like pot-hooks; the arms of the two outside girls resting round the
waist of Tess; her arms on the shoulders of the two supporters.

As Tess grew older, and began to see how matters stood, she felt
quite a Malthusian towards her mother for thoughtlessly giving her so
many little sisters and brothers, when it was such a trouble to nurse
and provide for them.  Her mother's intelligence was that of a happy
child: Joan Durbeyfield was simply an additional one, and that not
the eldest, to her own long family of waiters on Providence.

However, Tess became humanely beneficent towards the small ones,
and to help them as much as possible she used, as soon as she left
school, to lend a hand at haymaking or harvesting on neighbouring
farms; or, by preference, at milking or butter-making processes,
which she had learnt when her father had owned cows; and being
deft-fingered it was a kind of work in which she excelled.

Every day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders more of the
family burdens, and that Tess should be the representative of the
Durbeyfields at the d'Urberville mansion came as a thing of course.
In this instance it must be admitted that the Durbeyfields were
putting their fairest side outward.

She alighted from the van at Trantridge Cross, and ascended on foot
a hill in the direction of the district known as The Chase, on the
borders of which, as she had been informed, Mrs d'Urberville's seat,
The Slopes, would be found.  It was not a manorial home in the
ordinary sense, with fields, and pastures, and a grumbling farmer,
out of whom the owner had to squeeze an income for himself and his
family by hook or by crook.  It was more, far more; a country-house
built for enjoyment pure and simple, with not an acre of troublesome
land attached to it beyond what was required for residential
purposes, and for a little fancy farm kept in hand by the owner, and
tended by a bailiff.

The crimson brick lodge came first in sight, up to its eaves in dense
evergreens.  Tess thought this was the mansion itself till, passing
through the side wicket with some trepidation, and onward to a point
at which the drive took a turn, the house proper stood in full view.
It was of recent erection--indeed almost new--and of the same rich
red colour that formed such a contrast with the evergreens of the
lodge.  Far behind the corner of the house--which rose like a
geranium bloom against the subdued colours around--stretched the soft
azure landscape of The Chase--a truly venerable tract of forest land,
one of the few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primaeval
date, wherein Druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and
where enormous yew-trees, not planted by the hand of man grew as
they had grown when they were pollarded for bows.  All this sylvan
antiquity, however, though visible from The Slopes, was outside the
immediate boundaries of the estate.

Everything on this snug property was bright, thriving, and well kept;
acres of glass-houses stretched down the inclines to the copses at
their feet.  Everything looked like money--like the last coin issued
from the Mint.  The stables, partly screened by Austrian pines
and evergreen oaks, and fitted with every late appliance, were
as dignified as Chapels-of-Ease.  On the extensive lawn stood an
ornamental tent, its door being towards her.

Simple Tess Durbeyfield stood at gaze, in a half-alarmed attitude,
on the edge of the gravel sweep.  Her feet had brought her onward to
this point before she had quite realized where she was; and now all
was contrary to her expectation.

"I thought we were an old family; but this is all new!" she said, in
her artlessness.  She wished that she had not fallen in so readily
with her mother's plans for "claiming kin," and had endeavoured to
gain assistance nearer home.


The d'Urbervilles--or Stoke-d'Urbervilles, as they at first called
themselves--who owned all this, were a somewhat unusual family to
find in such an old-fashioned part of the country.  Parson Tringham
had spoken truly when he said that our shambling John Durbeyfield was
the only really lineal representative of the old d'Urberville family
existing in the county, or near it; he might have added, what he knew
very well, that the Stoke-d'Urbervilles were no more d'Urbervilles of
the true tree then he was himself.  Yet it must be admitted that this
family formed a very good stock whereon to regraft a name which sadly
wanted such renovation.

When old Mr Simon Stoke, latterly deceased, had made his fortune as
an honest merchant (some said money-lender) in the North, he decided
to settle as a county man in the South of England, out of hail of
his business district; and in doing this he felt the necessity of
recommencing with a name that would not too readily identify him with
the smart tradesman of the past, and that would be less commonplace
than the original bald, stark words.  Conning for an hour in the
British Museum the pages of works devoted to extinct, half-extinct,
obscured, and ruined families appertaining to the quarter of England
in which he proposed to settle, he considered that _d'Urberville_
looked and sounded as well as any of them: and d'Urberville
accordingly was annexed to his own name for himself and his heirs
eternally.  Yet he was not an extravagant-minded man in this, and in
constructing his family tree on the new basis was duly reasonable in
framing his inter-marriages and aristocratic links, never inserting
a single title above a rank of strict moderation.

Of this work of imagination poor Tess and her parents were naturally
in ignorance--much to their discomfiture; indeed, the very
possibility of such annexations was unknown to them; who supposed
that, though to be well-favoured might be the gift of fortune, a
family name came by nature.

Tess still stood hesitating like a bather about to make his plunge,
hardly knowing whether to retreat or to persevere, when a figure came
forth from the dark triangular door of the tent.  It was that of a
tall young man, smoking.

He had an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, badly moulded,
though red and smooth, above which was a well-groomed black moustache
with curled points, though his age could not be more than three- or
four-and-twenty.  Despite the touches of barbarism in his contours,
there was a singular force in the gentleman's face, and in his bold
rolling eye.

"Well, my Beauty, what can I do for you?" said he, coming forward.
And perceiving that she stood quite confounded: "Never mind me. I am
Mr d'Urberville.  Have you come to see me or my mother?"

This embodiment of a d'Urberville and a namesake differed even more
from what Tess had expected than the house and grounds had differed.
She had dreamed of an aged and dignified face, the sublimation of
all the d'Urberville lineaments, furrowed with incarnate memories
representing in hieroglyphic the centuries of her family's and
England's history.  But she screwed herself up to the work in hand,
since she could not get out of it, and answered--

"I came to see your mother, sir."

"I am afraid you cannot see her--she is an invalid," replied the
present representative of the spurious house; for this was Mr Alec,
the only son of the lately deceased gentleman.  "Cannot I answer your
purpose? What is the business you wish to see her about?"

"It isn't business--it is--I can hardly say what!"

"Pleasure?"

"Oh no.  Why, sir, if I tell you, it will seem--"

Tess's sense of a certain ludicrousness in her errand was now
so strong that, notwithstanding her awe of him, and her general
discomfort at being here, her rosy lips curved towards a smile,
much to the attraction of the swarthy Alexander.

"It is so very foolish," she stammered; "I fear can't tell you!"

"Never mind; I like foolish things.  Try again, my dear," said he
kindly.

"Mother asked me to come," Tess continued; "and, indeed, I was in the
mind to do so myself likewise.  But I did not think it would be like
this.  I came, sir, to tell you that we are of the same family as
you."

"Ho!  Poor relations?"

"Yes."

"Stokes?"

"No; d'Urbervilles."

"Ay, ay; I mean d'Urbervilles."

"Our names are worn away to Durbeyfield; but we have several proofs
that we are d'Urbervilles.  Antiquarians hold we are,--and--and we
have an old seal, marked with a ramping lion on a shield, and a
castle over him.  And we have a very old silver spoon, round in the
bowl like a little ladle, and marked with the same castle.  But it
is so worn that mother uses it to stir the pea-soup."

"A castle argent is certainly my crest," said he blandly.  "And my
arms a lion rampant."

"And so mother said we ought to make ourselves beknown to you--as
we've lost our horse by a bad accident, and are the oldest branch o'
the family."

"Very kind of your mother, I'm sure.  And I, for one, don't regret
her step."  Alec looked at Tess as he spoke, in a way that made her
blush a little.  "And so, my pretty girl, you've come on a friendly
visit to us, as relations?"

"I suppose I have," faltered Tess, looking uncomfortable again.

"Well--there's no harm in it.  Where do you live?  What are you?"

She gave him brief particulars; and responding to further inquiries
told him that she was intending to go back by the same carrier who
had brought her.

"It is a long while before he returns past Trantridge Cross.
Supposing we walk round the grounds to pass the time, my pretty Coz?"

Tess wished to abridge her visit as much as possible; but the young
man was pressing, and she consented to accompany him.  He conducted
her about the lawns, and flower-beds, and conservatories; and thence
to the fruit-garden and greenhouses, where he asked her if she liked
strawberries.

"Yes," said Tess, "when they come."

"They are already here."  D'Urberville began gathering specimens
of the fruit for her, handing them back to her as he stooped; and,
presently, selecting a specially fine product of the "British Queen"
variety, he stood up and held it by the stem to her mouth.

"No--no!" she said quickly, putting her fingers between his hand and
her lips.  "I would rather take it in my own hand."

"Nonsense!" he insisted; and in a slight distress she parted her lips
and took it in.

They had spent some time wandering desultorily thus, Tess eating in
a half-pleased, half-reluctant state whatever d'Urberville offered
her.  When she could consume no more of the strawberries he filled
her little basket with them; and then the two passed round to the
rose-trees, whence he gathered blossoms and gave her to put in her
bosom. She obeyed like one in a dream, and when she could affix no
more he himself tucked a bud or two into her hat, and heaped her
basket with others in the prodigality of his bounty.  At last,
looking at his watch, he said, "Now, by the time you have had
something to eat, it will be time for you to leave, if you want to
catch the carrier to Shaston.  Come here, and I'll see what grub I
can find."

Stoke d'Urberville took her back to the lawn and into the tent, where
he left her, soon reappearing with a basket of light luncheon, which
he put before her himself.  It was evidently the gentleman's wish not
to be disturbed in this pleasant _tete-a-tete_ by the servantry.

"Do you mind my smoking?" he asked.

"Oh, not at all, sir."

He watched her pretty and unconscious munching through the skeins of
smoke that pervaded the tent, and Tess Durbeyfield did not divine,
as she innocently looked down at the roses in her bosom, that there
behind the blue narcotic haze was potentially the "tragic mischief"
of her drama--one who stood fair to be the blood-red ray in the
spectrum of her young life.  She had an attribute which amounted
to a disadvantage just now; and it was this that caused Alec
d'Urberville's eyes to rivet themselves upon her.  It was a
luxuriance of aspect, a fulness of growth, which made her appear more
of a woman than she really was.  She had inherited the feature from
her mother without the quality it denoted.  It had troubled her mind
occasionally, till her companions had said that it was a fault which
time would cure.

She soon had finished her lunch.  "Now I am going home, sir," she
said, rising.

"And what do they call you?" he asked, as he accompanied her along
the drive till they were out of sight of the house.

"Tess Durbeyfield, down at Marlott."

"And you say your people have lost their horse?"

"I--killed him!" she answered, her eyes filling with tears as she
gave particulars of Prince's death.  "And I don't know what to do
for father on account of it!"

"I must think if I cannot do something.  My mother must find a berth
for you.  But, Tess, no nonsense about 'd'Urberville';--'Durbeyfield'
only, you know--quite another name."

"I wish for no better, sir," said she with something of dignity.

For a moment--only for a moment--when they were in the turning of the
drive, between the tall rhododendrons and conifers, before the lodge
became visible, he inclined his face towards her as if--but, no: he
thought better of it, and let her go.

Thus the thing began.  Had she perceived this meeting's import she
might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day
by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired
one in all respects--as nearly as humanity can supply the right
and desired; yet to him who amongst her acquaintance might have
approximated to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half
forgotten.

In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the
call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with
the hour for loving.  Nature does not often say "See!" to her poor
creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply
"Here!" to a body's cry of "Where?" till the hide-and-seek has become
an irksome, outworn game.  We may wonder whether at the acme and
summit of the human progress these anachronisms will be corrected by
a finer intuition, a closer interaction of the social machinery than
that which now jolts us round and along; but such completeness is not
to be prophesied, or even conceived as possible.  Enough that in the
present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a perfect
whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment; a missing
counterpart wandered independently about the earth waiting in
crass obtuseness till the late time came.  Out of which maladroit
delay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks, catastrophes, and
passing-strange destinies.

When d'Urberville got back to the tent he sat down astride on a
chair, reflecting, with a pleased gleam in his face.  Then he broke
into a loud laugh.

"Well, I'm damned!  What a funny thing!  Ha-ha-ha!  And what a crumby
girl!"



Chapter V
Tess does not argue when her mother sends her to the Trantridge estate of the d'Urbervilles to work. Joan Durbeyfield has no idea, however, that the d'Urbervilles have absolutely no blood relation to Tess and that the name itself was purchased to enhance the family's social standing. Tess is surprised to find a large new red brick country estate instead of the ancient house she envisioned. Here Tess meets Alec d'Urberville who, in his early twenties, is very attracted to his new "poor relation. After feeding her strawberries and showering her with roses, he explains that his mother is ill but that he will find a way to help her. Then he sends her on her way