finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_3_part_8.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 32
chapter 32
{"name": "Chapter 32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-4-chapters-25-34", "summary": "Tess seems to want to stay in a state of perpetual betrothal with Angel, although the beginning of November seems to be when she will marry him. Angel mentions to Tess how Mr. Crick told him how, when he leaves Talbothays it will be winter, when the workload would be light and therefore he should take Tess with him. Tess finally agrees to fix the day of the wedding. Angel wishes to see a little of the working of a flour mill, and visits one at Wellbridge, where he stays at a farm house that had once been a d'Urberville mansion. Tess finally decides to marry Angel on the thirty-first of December. Tess, however, forgets to publish banns in time, but Angel says that obtaining a marriage license will be a better means of marrying. Angel obtains a white wedding dress for Tess. She thinks of her mother's ballad of the mystic robe: \"That never would become that wife / That had once done amiss. Tess wonders whether her wedding dress will betray her.", "analysis": "In a state of near-permanent engagement with Angel, Tess may feel secure in her relationship, for she has no obligation to tell Angel of her past experiences and need not fear the consequences of divulging this information. Therefore the inevitable fact that she must set a date for the wedding continues Tess's sense of anxiety. When Tess forgets to publish the banns for the wedding, this is an action that simultaneously reveals her fear that her secret may be exposed and her desire to sabotage the possibility of an earlier wedding. During this time in England, a couple had several means by which they could become married. The most common means by which this could be done is the publication of banns; this required the announcement of the engagement on several successive Sundays in church. This means of legally marrying is public and allows the possibility that a person may voice objections to the marriage; in the particular case of Tess, she likely fears the possibility that knowledge of her illegitimate child may be exposed. However, a less public, if more expensive means of marriage is through a marriage license, which Angel will obtain. Obtaining a marriage license therefore decreases the possibility of exposure for Tess, even if it does not relieve Tess's sense of guilt. Hardy foreshadows the inevitable return of Tess's history with the d'Urbervilles when Angel secures a former d'Urberville mansion as the site of the couple's honeymoon. Tess will come to face her family ancestry at this location; this suggests that she will face her more personalized d'Urberville experiences as well"}


This penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding-day. The
beginning of November found its date still in abeyance, though he
asked her at the most tempting times.  But Tess's desire seemed to be
for a perpetual betrothal in which everything should remain as it was
then.

The meads were changing now; but it was still warm enough in early
afternoons before milking to idle there awhile, and the state of
dairy-work at this time of year allowed a spare hour for idling.
Looking over the damp sod in the direction of the sun, a glistening
ripple of gossamer webs was visible to their eyes under the luminary,
like the track of moonlight on the sea.  Gnats, knowing nothing
of their brief glorification, wandered across the shimmer of this
pathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within them, then passed out
of its line, and were quite extinct.  In the presence of these things
he would remind her that the date was still the question.

Or he would ask her at night, when he accompanied her on some mission
invented by Mrs Crick to give him the opportunity.  This was mostly a
journey to the farmhouse on the slopes above the vale, to inquire how
the advanced cows were getting on in the straw-barton to which they
were relegated.  For it was a time of the year that brought great
changes to the world of kine.  Batches of the animals were sent away
daily to this lying-in hospital, where they lived on straw till their
calves were born, after which event, and as soon as the calf could
walk, mother and offspring were driven back to the dairy.  In the
interval which elapsed before the calves were sold there was, of
course, little milking to be done, but as soon as the calf had been
taken away the milkmaids would have to set to work as usual.

Returning from one of these dark walks they reached a great
gravel-cliff immediately over the levels, where they stood still and
listened.  The water was now high in the streams, squirting through
the weirs, and tinkling under culverts; the smallest gullies were all
full; there was no taking short cuts anywhere, and foot-passengers
were compelled to follow the permanent ways.  From the whole extent
of the invisible vale came a multitudinous intonation; it forced upon
their fancy that a great city lay below them, and that the murmur was
the vociferation of its populace.

"It seems like tens of thousands of them," said Tess; "holding
public-meetings in their market-places, arguing, preaching,
quarrelling, sobbing, groaning, praying, and cursing."

Clare was not particularly heeding.

"Did Crick speak to you to-day, dear, about his not wanting much
assistance during the winter months?"

"No."

"The cows are going dry rapidly."

"Yes.  Six or seven went to the straw-barton yesterday, and three the
day before, making nearly twenty in the straw already.  Ah--is it
that the farmer don't want my help for the calving?  O, I am not
wanted here any more!  And I have tried so hard to--"

"Crick didn't exactly say that he would no longer require you.  But,
knowing what our relations were, he said in the most good-natured
and respectful manner possible that he supposed on my leaving at
Christmas I should take you with me, and on my asking what he would
do without you he merely observed that, as a matter of fact, it was a
time of year when he could do with a very little female help.  I am
afraid I was sinner enough to feel rather glad that he was in this
way forcing your hand."

"I don't think you ought to have felt glad, Angel.  Because 'tis
always mournful not to be wanted, even if at the same time 'tis
convenient."

"Well, it is convenient--you have admitted that."  He put his finger
upon her cheek.  "Ah!" he said.

"What?"

"I feel the red rising up at her having been caught!  But why should
I trifle so!  We will not trifle--life is too serious."

"It is.  Perhaps I saw that before you did."

She was seeing it then.  To decline to marry him after all--in
obedience to her emotion of last night--and leave the dairy, meant
to go to some strange place, not a dairy; for milkmaids were not in
request now calving-time was coming on; to go to some arable farm
where no divine being like Angel Clare was.  She hated the thought,
and she hated more the thought of going home.

"So that, seriously, dearest Tess," he continued, "since you will
probably have to leave at Christmas, it is in every way desirable and
convenient that I should carry you off then as my property.  Besides,
if you were not the most uncalculating girl in the world you would
know that we could not go on like this for ever."

"I wish we could.  That it would always be summer and autumn, and you
always courting me, and always thinking as much of me as you have
done through the past summer-time!"

"I always shall."

"O, I know you will!" she cried, with a sudden fervour of faith
in him.  "Angel, I will fix the day when I will become yours for
always!"

Thus at last it was arranged between them, during that dark walk
home, amid the myriads of liquid voices on the right and left.

When they reached the dairy Mr and Mrs Crick were promptly told--with
injunctions of secrecy; for each of the lovers was desirous that the
marriage should be kept as private as possible.  The dairyman, though
he had thought of dismissing her soon, now made a great concern about
losing her.  What should he do about his skimming?  Who would make
the ornamental butter-pats for the Anglebury and Sandbourne ladies?
Mrs Crick congratulated Tess on the shilly-shallying having at last
come to an end, and said that directly she set eyes on Tess she
divined that she was to be the chosen one of somebody who was no
common outdoor man; Tess had looked so superior as she walked across
the barton on that afternoon of her arrival; that she was of a good
family she could have sworn.  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.  He loved her dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and
fancifully than with the impassioned thoroughness of her feeling for
him.  He had entertained no notion, when doomed as he had thought to
an unintellectual bucolic life, that such charms as he beheld in this
idyllic creature would be found behind the scenes.  Unsophistication
was a thing to talk of; but he had not known how it really struck one
until he came here.  Yet he was very far from seeing his future track
clearly, and it might be a year or two before he would be able to
consider himself fairly started in life.  The secret lay in the tinge
of recklessness imparted to his career and character by the sense
that he had been made to miss his true destiny through the prejudices
of his family.

"Don't you think 'twould have been better for us to wait till you
were quite settled in your midland farm?" she once asked timidly.
(A midland farm was the idea just then.)

"To tell the truth, my Tess, I don't like you to be left anywhere
away from my protection and sympathy."

The reason was a good one, so far as it went.  His influence over her
had been so marked that she had caught his manner and habits, his
speech and phrases, his likings and his aversions.  And to leave her
in farmland would be to let her slip back again out of accord with
him.  He wished to have her under his charge for another reason.
His parents had naturally desired to see her once at least before he
carried her off to a distant settlement, English or colonial; and
as no opinion of theirs was to be allowed to change his intention,
he judged that a couple of months' life with him in lodgings
whilst seeking for an advantageous opening would be of some social
assistance to her at what she might feel to be a trying ordeal--her
presentation to his mother at the Vicarage.

Next, he wished to see a little of the working of a flour-mill,
having an idea that he might combine the use of one with
corn-growing.  The proprietor of a large old water-mill at
Wellbridge--once the mill of an Abbey--had offered him the inspection
of his time-honoured mode of procedure, and a hand in the operations
for a few days, whenever he should choose to come.  Clare paid a
visit to the place, some few miles distant, one day at this time,
to inquire particulars, and returned to Talbothays in the evening.
She found him determined to spend a short time at the Wellbridge
flour-mills. And what had determined him?  Less the opportunity of an
insight into grinding and bolting than the casual fact that lodgings
were to be obtained in that very farmhouse which, before its
mutilation, had been the mansion of a branch of the d'Urberville
family.  This was always how Clare settled practical questions; by
a sentiment which had nothing to do with them.  They decided to go
immediately after the wedding, and remain for a fortnight, instead
of journeying to towns and inns.

"Then we will start off to examine some farms on the other side of
London that I have heard of," he said, "and by March or April we will
pay a visit to my father and mother."

Questions of procedure such as these arose and passed, and the day,
the incredible day, on which she was to become his, loomed large in
the near future.  The thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, was
the date.  His wife, she said to herself.  Could it ever be?  Their
two selves together, nothing to divide them, every incident shared
by them; why not?  And yet why?

One Sunday morning Izz Huett returned from church, and spoke
privately to Tess.

"You was not called home this morning."

"What?"

"It should ha' been the first time of asking to-day," she answered,
looking quietly at Tess.  "You meant to be married New Year's Eve,
deary?"

The other returned a quick affirmative.

"And there must be three times of asking.  And now there be only two
Sundays left between."

Tess felt her cheek paling; Izz was right; of course there must be
three.  Perhaps he had forgotten!  If so, there must be a week's
postponement, and that was unlucky.  How could she remind her lover?
She who had been so backward was suddenly fired with impatience and
alarm lest she should lose her dear prize.

A natural incident relieved her anxiety.  Izz mentioned the omission
of the banns to Mrs Crick, and Mrs Crick assumed a matron's privilege
of speaking to Angel on the point.

"Have ye forgot 'em, Mr Clare?  The banns, I mean."

"No, I have not forgot 'em," says Clare.

As soon as he caught Tess alone he assured her:

"Don't let them tease you about the banns.  A licence will be quieter
for us, and I have decided on a licence without consulting you.
So if you go to church on Sunday morning you will not hear your own
name, if you wished to."

"I didn't wish to hear it, dearest," she said proudly.

But to know that things were in train was an immense relief to Tess
notwithstanding, who had well-nigh feared that somebody would stand
up and forbid the banns on the ground of her history.  How events
were favouring her!

"I don't quite feel easy," she said to herself.  "All this good
fortune may be scourged out of me afterwards by a lot of ill.  That's
how Heaven mostly does.  I wish I could have had common banns!"

But everything went smoothly.  She wondered whether he would like her
to be married in her present best white frock, or if she ought to
buy a new one.  The question was set at rest by his forethought,
disclosed by the arrival of some large packages addressed to her.
Inside them she found a whole stock of clothing, from bonnet to
shoes, including a perfect morning costume, such as would well suit
the simple wedding they planned.  He entered the house shortly after
the arrival of the packages, and heard her upstairs undoing them.

A minute later she came down with a flush on her face and tears in
her eyes.

"How thoughtful you've been!" she murmured, her cheek upon his
shoulder.  "Even to the gloves and handkerchief!  My own love--how
good, how kind!"

"No, no, Tess; just an order to a tradeswoman in London--nothing
more."

And to divert her from thinking too highly of him, he told her to go
upstairs, and take her time, and see if it all fitted; and, if not,
to get the village sempstress to make a few alterations.

She did return upstairs, and put on the gown.  Alone, she stood for a
moment before the glass looking at the effect of her silk attire; and
then there came into her head her mother's ballad of the mystic
robe--


     That never would become that wife
       That had once done amiss,


which Mrs Durbeyfield had used to sing to her as a child, so blithely
and so archly, her foot on the cradle, which she rocked to the tune.
Suppose this robe should betray her by changing colour, as her robe
had betrayed Queen Guinevere.  Since she had been at the dairy she
had not once thought of the lines till now.



Chapter 32
Tess seems to want to stay in a state of perpetual betrothal with Angel, although the beginning of November seems to be when she will marry him. Angel mentions to Tess how Mr. Crick told him how, when he leaves Talbothays it will be winter, when the workload would be light and therefore he should take Tess with him. Tess finally agrees to fix the day of the wedding. Angel wishes to see a little of the working of a flour mill, and visits one at Wellbridge, where he stays at a farm house that had once been a d'Urberville mansion. Tess finally decides to marry Angel on the thirty-first of December. Tess, however, forgets to publish banns in time, but Angel says that obtaining a marriage license will be a better means of marrying. Angel obtains a white wedding dress for Tess. She thinks of her mother's ballad of the mystic robe: "That never would become that wife / That had once done amiss. Tess wonders whether her wedding dress will betray her.
In a state of near-permanent engagement with Angel, Tess may feel secure in her relationship, for she has no obligation to tell Angel of her past experiences and need not fear the consequences of divulging this information. Therefore the inevitable fact that she must set a date for the wedding continues Tess's sense of anxiety. When Tess forgets to publish the banns for the wedding, this is an action that simultaneously reveals her fear that her secret may be exposed and her desire to sabotage the possibility of an earlier wedding. During this time in England, a couple had several means by which they could become married. The most common means by which this could be done is the publication of banns; this required the announcement of the engagement on several successive Sundays in church. This means of legally marrying is public and allows the possibility that a person may voice objections to the marriage; in the particular case of Tess, she likely fears the possibility that knowledge of her illegitimate child may be exposed. However, a less public, if more expensive means of marriage is through a marriage license, which Angel will obtain. Obtaining a marriage license therefore decreases the possibility of exposure for Tess, even if it does not relieve Tess's sense of guilt. Hardy foreshadows the inevitable return of Tess's history with the d'Urbervilles when Angel secures a former d'Urberville mansion as the site of the couple's honeymoon. Tess will come to face her family ancestry at this location; this suggests that she will face her more personalized d'Urberville experiences as well