feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_5_part_7.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 51
feat_summary_id: chapter 51
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 51", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-6-chapters-45-52", "summary": "Over the preceding generation, the class of skilled laborers in Marlott had largely left, leaving only tenant farmers. Those who were not employed as farmers were largely forced to seek refuge. Upon John Durbeyfield's death, the Durbeyfield's lease of their home is not renewed and the family is forced to find accommodations elsewhere. Tess believes that their lease is not renewed because of her reappearance in Marlott, a reminder of the family's questionable morals. Alec tells Tess the full legend of the d'Urberville coach. According to family legend, a d'Urberville abducted a beautiful woman who tried to escape from his coach and, in a struggle, he killed her. Tess admits that she is the reason that her family must leave their home, for she is not a proper woman. She tells Alec that they will go to Kingsbere, where they have lodgings. Alec offers his house at Trantridge and tells Tess that her husband will never return to her. Tess says that, if her circumstances with Alec would change, her mother would be homeless again. He offers a guarantee in writing against that occurring. Tess says that she can have money from her father-in-law if she were to ask, but Alec retorts that he knows that she will never ask. Tess writes to Angel again, asking why he has treated her so monstrously and vowing to forget him because of the injustice she has received at his hands. Tess and her family remain in their home for the last night, and Joan sees a man at the window. Tess says that it is not her husband, and once they reach Kingsbere she will tell her mother everything. Tess worries that Alec is her husband in a very physical sense.", "analysis": "Tess once again shoulders the burden of her family's troubles in this chapter, as the disreputable status of her family for which she is partially to blame causes Joan Durbeyfield to lose the lease to the family house after John Durbeyfield's death. This returns to the theme of Tess's inability to escape her past, yet darkens this theme by showing that Tess's actions have determined the fate of her family. This turn of events seems particularly tragic, for the dutiful Tess has always taken responsibility when her family has faced hardship, yet always blames herself. Here Tess actually is the reason for her family's hardship. The recurrence of past sins is also evident in this chapter in Tess's worry that Alec is her husband in a more physical sense than Angel, a worry that also illustrates the differences between the carnal, physical Alec and the spiritual, intellectual Angel. The explanation of the d'Urberville coach foreshadows a tragic end to Tess Durbeyfield and neatly parallels the events of Tess's seduction by Alec. The legend posits that a beautiful woman falls victim to a villainous d'Urberville while traveling, recalling Alec's repeated attempts to seduce Tess while traveling by coach. However, at this point the conflict between Alec and Tess has not yet reached the point of serious violence. The offer that Alec d'Urberville makes guaranteeing that he help the Durbeyfield family is perhaps the one act of charity that Tess finds difficult to reject, for in this situation she condemns her family to the same suffering she has felt. However, this does not necessarily indicate that Alec's offer is pure; rather, it remains tainted by its actual intent, for like the others it is merely a means for him to secure Tess as his own once more"}
text: 
  
  At length it was the eve of Old Lady-Day, and the agricultural world
  was in a fever of mobility such as only occurs at that particular
  date of the year.  It is a day of fulfilment; agreements for outdoor
  service during the ensuing year, entered into at Candlemas, are to
  be now carried out.  The labourers--or "work-folk", as they used to
  call themselves immemorially till the other word was introduced from
  without--who wish to remain no longer in old places are removing to
  the new farms.
  
  These annual migrations from farm to farm were on the increase here.
  When Tess's mother was a child the majority of the field-folk about
  Marlott had remained all their lives on one farm, which had been the
  home also of their fathers and grandfathers; but latterly the desire
  for yearly removal had risen to a high pitch.  With the younger
  families it was a pleasant excitement which might possibly be an
  advantage.  The Egypt of one family was the Land of Promise to the
  family who saw it from a distance, till by residence there it became
  it turn their Egypt also; and so they changed and changed.
  
  However, all the mutations so increasingly discernible in village
  life did not originate entirely in the agricultural unrest.  A
  depopulation was also going on.  The village had formerly contained,
  side by side with the argicultural labourers, an interesting and
  better-informed class, ranking distinctly above the former--the class
  to which Tess's father and mother had belonged--and including the
  carpenter, the smith, the shoemaker, the huckster, together with
  nondescript workers other than farm-labourers; a set of people
  who owed a certain stability of aim and conduct to the fact of
  their being lifeholders like Tess's father, or copyholders, or
  occasionally, small freeholders.  But as the long holdings fell
  in, they were seldom again let to similar tenants, and were mostly
  pulled down, if not absolutely required by the farmer for his hands.
  Cottagers who were not directly employed on the land were looked
  upon with disfavour, and the banishment of some starved the trade of
  others, who were thus obliged to follow.  These families, who had
  formed the backbone of the village life in the past, who were the
  depositaries of the village traditions, had to seek refuge in the
  large centres; the process, humorously designated by statisticians as
  "the tendency of the rural population towards the large towns", being
  really the tendency of water to flow uphill when forced by machinery.
  
  The cottage accommodation at Marlott having been in this manner
  considerably curtailed by demolitions, every house which remained
  standing was required by the agriculturist for his work-people.  Ever
  since the occurrence of the event which had cast such a shadow over
  Tess's life, the Durbeyfield family (whose descent was not credited)
  had been tacitly looked on as one which would have to go when their
  lease ended, if only in the interests of morality.  It was, indeed,
  quite true that the household had not been shining examples either of
  temperance, soberness, or chastity.  The father, and even the mother,
  had got drunk at times, the younger children seldom had gone to
  church, and the eldest daughter had made queer unions.  By some means
  the village had to be kept pure.  So on this, the first Lady-Day
  on which the Durbeyfields were expellable, the house, being roomy,
  was required for a carter with a large family; and Widow Joan,
  her daughters Tess and 'Liza-Lu, the boy Abraham, and the younger
  children had to go elsewhere.
  
  On the evening preceding their removal it was getting dark betimes by
  reason of a drizzling rain which blurred the sky.  As it was the last
  night they would spend in the village which had been their home and
  birthplace, Mrs Durbeyfield, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham had gone out to
  bid some friends goodbye, and Tess was keeping house till they should
  return.
  
  She was kneeling in the window-bench, her face close to the casement,
  where an outer pane of rain-water was sliding down the inner pane of
  glass.  Her eyes rested on the web of a spider, probably starved long
  ago, which had been mistakenly placed in a corner where no flies
  ever came, and shivered in the slight draught through the casement.
  Tess was reflecting on the position of the household, in which she
  perceived her own evil influence.  Had she not come home, her mother
  and the children might probably have been allowed to stay on as
  weekly tenants.  But she had been observed almost immediately on her
  return by some people of scrupulous character and great influence:
  they had seen her idling in the churchyard, restoring as well as she
  could with a little trowel a baby's obliterated grave.  By this means
  they had found that she was living here again; her mother was scolded
  for "harbouring" her; sharp retorts had ensued from Joan, who had
  independently offered to leave at once; she had been taken at her
  word; and here was the result.
  
  "I ought never to have come home," said Tess to herself, bitterly.
  
  She was so intent upon these thoughts that she hardly at first took
  note of a man in a white mackintosh whom she saw riding down the
  street.  Possibly it was owing to her face being near to the pane
  that he saw her so quickly, and directed his horse so close to the
  cottage-front that his hoofs were almost upon the narrow border for
  plants growing under the wall.  It was not till he touched the window
  with his riding-crop that she observed him.  The rain had nearly
  ceased, and she opened the casement in obedience to his gesture.
  
  "Didn't you see me?" asked d'Urberville.
  
  "I was not attending," she said.  "I heard you, I believe, though I
  fancied it was a carriage and horses. I was in a sort of dream."
  
  "Ah! you heard the d'Urberville Coach, perhaps.  You know the legend,
  I suppose?"
  
  "No.  My--somebody was going to tell it me once, but didn't."
  
  "If you are a genuine d'Urberville I ought not to tell you either,
  I suppose.  As for me, I'm a sham one, so it doesn't matter.  It is
  rather dismal.  It is that this sound of a non-existent coach can
  only be heard by one of d'Urberville blood, and it is held to be
  of ill-omen to the one who hears it.  It has to do with a murder,
  committed by one of the family, centuries ago."
  
  "Now you have begun it, finish it."
  
  "Very well.  One of the family is said to have abducted some
  beautiful woman, who tried to escape from the coach in which he was
  carrying her off, and in the struggle he killed her--or she killed
  him--I forget which.  Such is one version of the tale...  I see that
  your tubs and buckets are packed.  Going away, aren't you?"
  
  "Yes, to-morrow--Old Lady Day."
  
  "I heard you were, but could hardly believe it; it seems so sudden.
  Why is it?"
  
  "Father's was the last life on the property, and when that dropped we
  had no further right to stay.  Though we might, perhaps, have stayed
  as weekly tenants--if it had not been for me."
  
  "What about you?"
  
  "I am not a--proper woman."
  
  D'Urberville's face flushed.
  
  "What a blasted shame!  Miserable snobs!  May their dirty souls
  be burnt to cinders!" he exclaimed in tones of ironic resentment.
  "That's why you are going, is it?  Turned out?"
  
  "We are not turned out exactly; but as they said we should have to go
  soon, it was best to go now everybody was moving, because there are
  better chances."
  
  "Where are you going to?"
  
  "Kingsbere.  We have taken rooms there.  Mother is so foolish about
  father's people that she will go there."
  
  "But your mother's family are not fit for lodgings, and in a little
  hole of a town like that.  Now why not come to my garden-house at
  Trantridge?  There are hardly any poultry now, since my mother's
  death; but there's the house, as you know it, and the garden.  It
  can be whitewashed in a day, and your mother can live there quite
  comfortably; and I will put the children to a good school.  Really
  I ought to do something for you!"
  
  "But we have already taken the rooms at Kingsbere!" she declared.
  "And we can wait there--"
  
  "Wait--what for?  For that nice husband, no doubt.  Now look here,
  Tess, I know what men are, and, bearing in mind the _grounds_ of
  your separation, I am quite positive he will never make it up with
  you.  Now, though I have been your enemy, I am your friend, even
  if you won't believe it.  Come to this cottage of mine. We'll get
  up a regular colony of fowls, and your mother can attend to them
  excellently; and the children can go to school."
  
  Tess breathed more and more quickly, and at length she said--
  
  "How do I know that you would do all this?  Your views may
  change--and then--we should be--my mother would be--homeless
  again."
  
  "O no--no.  I would guarantee you against such as that in writing, if
  necessary.  Think it over."
  
  Tess shook her head.  But d'Urberville persisted; she had seldom seen
  him so determined; he would not take a negative.
  
  "Please just tell your mother," he said, in emphatic tones.  "It is
  her business to judge--not yours.  I shall get the house swept out
  and whitened to-morrow morning, and fires lit; and it will be dry by
  the evening, so that you can come straight there.  Now mind, I shall
  expect you."
  
  Tess again shook her head, her throat swelling with complicated
  emotion.  She could not look up at d'Urberville.
  
  "I owe you something for the past, you know," he resumed.  "And you
  cured me, too, of that craze; so I am glad--"
  
  "I would rather you had kept the craze, so that you had kept the
  practice which went with it!"
  
  "I am glad of this opportunity of repaying you a little.  To-morrow I
  shall expect to hear your mother's goods unloading...  Give me your
  hand on it now--dear, beautiful Tess!"
  
  With the last sentence he had dropped his voice to a murmur, and put
  his hand in at the half-open casement.  With stormy eyes she pulled
  the stay-bar quickly, and, in doing so, caught his arm between the
  casement and the stone mullion.
  
  "Damnation--you are very cruel!" he said, snatching out his arm.
  "No, no!--I know you didn't do it on purpose.  Well I shall expect
  you, or your mother and children at least."
  
  "I shall not come--I have plenty of money!" she cried.
  
  "Where?"
  
  "At my father-in-law's, if I ask for it."
  
  "IF you ask for it.  But you won't, Tess; I know you; you'll never
  ask for it--you'll starve first!"
  
  With these words he rode off.  Just at the corner of the street he
  met the man with the paint-pot, who asked him if he had deserted the
  brethren.
  
  "You go to the devil!" said d'Urberville.
  
  Tess remained where she was a long while, till a sudden rebellious
  sense of injustice caused the region of her eyes to swell with the
  rush of hot tears thither.  Her husband, Angel Clare himself, had,
  like others, dealt out hard measure to her; surely he had!  She had
  never before admitted such a thought; but he had surely!  Never
  in her life--she could swear it from the bottom of her soul--had
  she ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard judgements had
  come.  Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of
  inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so persistently?
  
  She passionately seized the first piece of paper that came to hand,
  and scribbled the following lines:
  
  
     O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do
     not deserve it.  I have thought it all over carefully,
     and I can never, never forgive you!  You know that I
     did not intend to wrong you--why have you so wronged
     me?  You are cruel, cruel indeed!  I will try to forget
     you.  It is all injustice I have received at your
     hands!
                                    T.
  
  She watched till the postman passed by, ran out to him with
  her epistle, and then again took her listless place inside the
  window-panes.
  
  It was just as well to write like that as to write tenderly.  How
  could he give way to entreaty?  The facts had not changed: there was
  no new event to alter his opinion.
  
  It grew darker, the fire-light shining over the room.  The two
  biggest of the younger children had gone out with their mother; the
  four smallest, their ages ranging from three-and-a-half years to
  eleven, all in black frocks, were gathered round the hearth babbling
  their own little subjects.  Tess at length joined them, without
  lighting a candle.
  
  "This is the last night that we shall sleep here, dears, in the house
  where we were born," she said quickly.  "We ought to think of it,
  oughtn't we?"
  
  They all became silent; with the impressibility of their age they
  were ready to burst into tears at the picture of finality she had
  conjured up, though all the day hitherto they had been rejoicing in
  the idea of a new place.  Tess changed the subject.
  
  "Sing to me, dears," she said.
  
  "What shall we sing?"
  
  "Anything you know; I don't mind."
  
  There was a momentary pause; it was broken, first, in one little
  tentative note; then a second voice strengthened it, and a third
  and a fourth chimed in unison, with words they had learnt at the
  Sunday-school--
  
  
       Here we suffer grief and pain,
       Here we meet to part again;
         In Heaven we part no more.
  
  
  The four sang on with the phlegmatic passivity of persons who had
  long ago settled the question, and there being no mistake about it,
  felt that further thought was not required.  With features strained
  hard to enunciate the syllables they continued to regard the centre
  of the flickering fire, the notes of the youngest straying over into
  the pauses of the rest.
  
  Tess turned from them, and went to the window again.  Darkness had
  now fallen without, but she put her face to the pane as though to
  peer into the gloom.  It was really to hide her tears.  If she could
  only believe what the children were singing; if she were only sure,
  how different all would now be; how confidently she would leave them
  to Providence and their future kingdom!  But, in default of that, it
  behoved her to do something; to be their Providence; for to Tess,
  as to not a few millions of others, there was ghastly satire in the
  poet's lines--
  
  
                        Not in utter nakedness
       But trailing clouds of glory do we come.
  
  
  To her and her like, birth itself was an ordeal of degrading personal
  compulsion, whose gratuitousness nothing in the result seemed to
  justify, and at best could only palliate.
  
  In the shades of the wet road she soon discerned her mother with tall
  'Liza-Lu and Abraham.  Mrs Durbeyfield's pattens clicked up to the
  door, and Tess opened it.
  
  "I see the tracks of a horse outside the window," said Joan.  "Hev
  somebody called?"
  
  "No," said Tess.
  
  The children by the fire looked gravely at her, and one murmured--
  
  "Why, Tess, the gentleman a-horseback!"
  
  "He didn't call," said Tess.  "He spoke to me in passing."
  
  "Who was the gentleman?" asked the mother.  "Your husband?"
  
  "No.  He'll never, never come," answered Tess in stony hopelessness.
  
  "Then who was it?"
  
  "Oh, you needn't ask.  You've seen him before, and so have I."
  
  "Ah!  What did he say?" said Joan curiously.
  
  "I will tell you when we are settled in our lodging at Kingsbere
  to-morrow--every word."
  
  It was not her husband, she had said.  Yet a consciousness that in a
  physical sense this man alone was her husband seemed to weigh on her
  more and more.
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 51
target: Over the preceding generation, the class of skilled laborers in Marlott had largely left, leaving only tenant farmers. Those who were not employed as farmers were largely forced to seek refuge. Upon John Durbeyfield's death, the Durbeyfield's lease of their home is not renewed and the family is forced to find accommodations elsewhere. Tess believes that their lease is not renewed because of her reappearance in Marlott, a reminder of the family's questionable morals. Alec tells Tess the full legend of the d'Urberville coach. According to family legend, a d'Urberville abducted a beautiful woman who tried to escape from his coach and, in a struggle, he killed her. Tess admits that she is the reason that her family must leave their home, for she is not a proper woman. She tells Alec that they will go to Kingsbere, where they have lodgings. Alec offers his house at Trantridge and tells Tess that her husband will never return to her. Tess says that, if her circumstances with Alec would change, her mother would be homeless again. He offers a guarantee in writing against that occurring. Tess says that she can have money from her father-in-law if she were to ask, but Alec retorts that he knows that she will never ask. Tess writes to Angel again, asking why he has treated her so monstrously and vowing to forget him because of the injustice she has received at his hands. Tess and her family remain in their home for the last night, and Joan sees a man at the window. Tess says that it is not her husband, and once they reach Kingsbere she will tell her mother everything. Tess worries that Alec is her husband in a very physical sense.
feat_summary_analysis: Tess once again shoulders the burden of her family's troubles in this chapter, as the disreputable status of her family for which she is partially to blame causes Joan Durbeyfield to lose the lease to the family house after John Durbeyfield's death. This returns to the theme of Tess's inability to escape her past, yet darkens this theme by showing that Tess's actions have determined the fate of her family. This turn of events seems particularly tragic, for the dutiful Tess has always taken responsibility when her family has faced hardship, yet always blames herself. Here Tess actually is the reason for her family's hardship. The recurrence of past sins is also evident in this chapter in Tess's worry that Alec is her husband in a more physical sense than Angel, a worry that also illustrates the differences between the carnal, physical Alec and the spiritual, intellectual Angel. The explanation of the d'Urberville coach foreshadows a tragic end to Tess Durbeyfield and neatly parallels the events of Tess's seduction by Alec. The legend posits that a beautiful woman falls victim to a villainous d'Urberville while traveling, recalling Alec's repeated attempts to seduce Tess while traveling by coach. However, at this point the conflict between Alec and Tess has not yet reached the point of serious violence. The offer that Alec d'Urberville makes guaranteeing that he help the Durbeyfield family is perhaps the one act of charity that Tess finds difficult to reject, for in this situation she condemns her family to the same suffering she has felt. However, this does not necessarily indicate that Alec's offer is pure; rather, it remains tainted by its actual intent, for like the others it is merely a means for him to secure Tess as his own once more