finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_51_part_0.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 52
chapter 52
{"name": "Phase VI: \"The Convert,\" Chapter Fifty-Two", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-52", "summary": "Before dawn the next day, Tess, 'Liza-Lu, Abraham, and Joan get up to pack the wagon for their big move. Lots of families are moving, because lots of laborers have signed up for new jobs starting that day. But the Durbeyfields don't have any work lined up where they're headed. On their way, they see Izz and Marian, who are also moving. When they arrive in Kingsbere, someone comes out of the rooms that they had written ahead to rent, and tells them that there aren't actually any rooms available--their letter came too late. They try to find rooms elsewhere, but aren't successful. Everything's already full. The wagon driver tells them that they have to unload somewhere--he's supposed to drive back that night. He unloads their furniture close to the church, and drives off. The D'Urberville family vault is in this church, so Mrs. Durbeyfield sets up a bed for the younger children in the vault where all the family tombs are. Mrs. Durbeyfield, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham set out to look for rooms again, leaving Tess in the vault to look after the little ones. When they get out of the church, they see Alec D'Urberville. Mrs. Durbeyfield doesn't like him very much, so she nods to him, and walks on. After tucking in the children, Tess wanders around the churchyard, and checks out the family tombs. Alec surprises her there, and asks her what he can do for her. She tells him to go away, and he agrees to go--but only to look for her mother, who he figures will be unsuccessful in her search for housing. Tess is left alone in the tombs of her ancestors, and wishes she were with them. In the meanwhile, Marian and Izz are traveling, too, and discussing Angel and Tess. They guess what's going on with Alec, since they've seen him hovering around her, and wonder if there's anything they can do to help mend things between Tess and Angel. After all, they're smart enough to realize that neither one of them will ever get Angel, so why shouldn't they try to help Tess? They write a letter to Angel, and address it to him care of his parents at Emminster Vicarage.", "analysis": ""}


During the small hours of the next morning, while it was still dark,
dwellers near the highways were conscious of a disturbance of their
night's rest by rumbling noises, intermittently continuing till
daylight--noises as certain to recur in this particular first week of
the month as the voice of the cuckoo in the third week of the same.
They were the preliminaries of the general removal, the passing of
the empty waggons and teams to fetch the goods of the migrating
families; for it was always by the vehicle of the farmer who required
his services that the hired man was conveyed to his destination.
That this might be accomplished within the day was the explanation
of the reverberation occurring so soon after midnight, the aim of
the carters being to reach the door of the outgoing households by
six o'clock, when the loading of their movables at once began.

But to Tess and her mother's household no such anxious farmer sent
his team.  They were only women; they were not regular labourers;
they were not particularly required anywhere; hence they had to hire
a waggon at their own expense, and got nothing sent gratuitously.

It was a relief to Tess, when she looked out of the window that
morning, to find that though the weather was windy and louring, it
did not rain, and that the waggon had come.  A wet Lady-Day was a
spectre which removing families never forgot; damp furniture, damp
bedding, damp clothing accompanied it, and left a train of ills.

Her mother, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham were also awake, but the younger
children were let sleep on.  The four breakfasted by the thin light,
and the "house-ridding" was taken in hand.

It proceeded with some cheerfulness, a friendly neighbour or two
assisting.  When the large articles of furniture had been packed in
position, a circular nest was made of the beds and bedding, in which
Joan Durbeyfield and the young children were to sit through the
journey.  After loading there was a long delay before the horses were
brought, these having been unharnessed during the ridding; but at
length, about two o'clock, the whole was under way, the cooking-pot
swinging from the axle of the waggon, Mrs Durbeyfield and family
at the top, the matron having in her lap, to prevent injury to its
works, the head of the clock, which, at any exceptional lurch of the
waggon, struck one, or one-and-a-half, in hurt tones.  Tess and the
next eldest girl walked alongside till they were out of the village.

They had called on a few neighbours that morning and the previous
evening, and some came to see them off, all wishing them well,
though, in their secret hearts, hardly expecting welfare possible
to such a family, harmless as the Durbeyfields were to all except
themselves.  Soon the equipage began to ascend to higher ground,
and the wind grew keener with the change of level and soil.

The day being the sixth of April, the Durbeyfield waggon met many
other waggons with families on the summit of the load, which was
built on a wellnigh unvarying principle, as peculiar, probably, to
the rural labourer as the hexagon to the bee.  The groundwork of the
arrangement was the family dresser, which, with its shining handles,
and finger-marks, and domestic evidences thick upon it, stood
importantly in front, over the tails of the shaft-horses, in its
erect and natural position, like some Ark of the Covenant that they
were bound to carry reverently.

Some of the households were lively, some mournful; some were stopping
at the doors of wayside inns; where, in due time, the Durbeyfield
menagerie also drew up to bait horses and refresh the travellers.

During the halt Tess's eyes fell upon a three-pint blue mug, which
was ascending and descending through the air to and from the feminine
section of a household, sitting on the summit of a load that had also
drawn up at a little distance from the same inn.  She followed one of
the mug's journeys upward, and perceived it to be clasped by hands
whose owner she well knew.  Tess went towards the waggon.

"Marian and Izz!" she cried to the girls, for it was they, sitting
with the moving family at whose house they had lodged.  "Are you
house-ridding to-day, like everybody else?"

They were, they said.  It had been too rough a life for them at
Flintcomb-Ash, and they had come away, almost without notice,
leaving Groby to prosecute them if he chose.  They told Tess their
destination, and Tess told them hers.

Marian leant over the load, and lowered her voice.  "Do you know that
the gentleman who follows 'ee--you'll guess who I mean--came to ask
for 'ee at Flintcomb after you had gone?  We didn't tell'n where you
was, knowing you wouldn't wish to see him."

"Ah--but I did see him!" Tess murmured.  "He found me."

"And do he know where you be going?"

"I think so."

"Husband come back?"

"No."

She bade her acquaintance goodbye--for the respective carters had now
come out from the inn--and the two waggons resumed their journey in
opposite directions; the vehicle whereon sat Marian, Izz, and the
ploughman's family with whom they had thrown in their lot, being
brightly painted, and drawn by three powerful horses with shining
brass ornaments on their harness; while the waggon on which Mrs
Durbeyfield and her family rode was a creaking erection that would
scarcely bear the weight of the superincumbent load; one which had
known no paint since it was made, and drawn by two horses only.
The contrast well marked the difference between being fetched by a
thriving farmer and conveying oneself whither no hirer waited one's
coming.

The distance was great--too great for a day's journey--and it was
with the utmost difficulty that the horses performed it.  Though they
had started so early, it was quite late in the afternoon when they
turned the flank of an eminence which formed part of the upland
called Greenhill.  While the horses stood to stale and breathe
themselves Tess looked around.  Under the hill, and just ahead of
them, was the half-dead townlet of their pilgrimage, Kingsbere,
where lay those ancestors of whom her father had spoken and sung to
painfulness: Kingsbere, the spot of all spots in the world which
could be considered the d'Urbervilles' home, since they had resided
there for full five hundred years.

A man could be seen advancing from the outskirts towards them, and
when he beheld the nature of their waggon-load he quickened his
steps.

"You be the woman they call Mrs Durbeyfield, I reckon?" he said to
Tess's mother, who had descended to walk the remainder of the way.

She nodded.  "Though widow of the late Sir John d'Urberville, poor
nobleman, if I cared for my rights; and returning to the domain of
his forefathers."

"Oh?  Well, I know nothing about that; but if you be Mrs Durbeyfield,
I am sent to tell 'ee that the rooms you wanted be let.  We didn't
know that you was coming till we got your letter this morning--when
'twas too late.  But no doubt you can get other lodgings somewhere."

The man had noticed the face of Tess, which had become ash-pale at
his intelligence.  Her mother looked hopelessly at fault.  "What
shall we do now, Tess?" she said bitterly.  "Here's a welcome to
your ancestors' lands!  However, let's try further."

They moved on into the town, and tried with all their might, Tess
remaining with the waggon to take care of the children whilst her
mother and 'Liza-Lu made inquiries.  At the last return of Joan to
the vehicle, an hour later, when her search for accommodation had
still been fruitless, the driver of the waggon said the goods must be
unloaded, as the horses were half-dead, and he was bound to return
part of the way at least that night.

"Very well--unload it here," said Joan recklessly.  "I'll get shelter
somewhere."

The waggon had drawn up under the churchyard wall, in a spot screened
from view, and the driver, nothing loth, soon hauled down the poor
heap of household goods.  This done, she paid him, reducing herself
to almost her last shilling thereby, and he moved off and left them,
only too glad to get out of further dealings with such a family.  It
was a dry night, and he guessed that they would come to no harm.

Tess gazed desperately at the pile of furniture.  The cold sunlight
of this spring evening peered invidiously upon the crocks and
kettles, upon the bunches of dried herbs shivering in the breeze,
upon the brass handles of the dresser, upon the wicker-cradle they
had all been rocked in, and upon the well-rubbed clock-case, all of
which gave out the reproachful gleam of indoor articles abandoned to
the vicissitudes of a roofless exposure for which they were never
made.  Round about were deparked hills and slopes--now cut up
into little paddocks--and the green foundations that showed where
the d'Urberville mansion once had stood; also an outlying stretch
of Egdon Heath that had always belonged to the estate.  Hard by,
the aisle of the church called the d'Urberville Aisle looked on
imperturbably.

"Isn't your family vault your own freehold?" said Tess's mother, as
she returned from a reconnoitre of the church and graveyard.  "Why,
of course 'tis, and that's where we will camp, girls, till the place
of your ancestors finds us a roof!  Now, Tess and 'Liza and Abraham,
you help me.  We'll make a nest for these children, and then we'll
have another look round."

Tess listlessly lent a hand, and in a quarter of an hour the old
four-post bedstead was dissociated from the heap of goods, and
erected under the south wall of the church, the part of the building
known as the d'Urberville Aisle, beneath which the huge vaults lay.
Over the tester of the bedstead was a beautiful traceried window, of
many lights, its date being the fifteenth century.  It was called
the d'Urberville Window, and in the upper part could be discerned
heraldic emblems like those on Durbeyfield's old seal and spoon.

Joan drew the curtains round the bed so as to make an excellent tent
of it, and put the smaller children inside.  "If it comes to the
worst we can sleep there too, for one night," she said.  "But let us
try further on, and get something for the dears to eat!  O, Tess,
what's the use of your playing at marrying gentlemen, if it leaves
us like this!"

Accompanied by 'Liza-Lu and the boy, she again ascended the little
lane which secluded the church from the townlet.  As soon as they got
into the street they beheld a man on horseback gazing up and down.
"Ah--I'm looking for you!" he said, riding up to them.  "This is
indeed a family gathering on the historic spot!"

It was Alec d'Urberville.  "Where is Tess?" he asked.

Personally Joan had no liking for Alec.  She cursorily signified the
direction of the church, and went on, d'Urberville saying that he
would see them again, in case they should be still unsuccessful in
their search for shelter, of which he had just heard.  When they had
gone, d'Urberville rode to the inn, and shortly after came out on
foot.

In the interim Tess, left with the children inside the bedstead,
remained talking with them awhile, till, seeing that no more could
be done to make them comfortable just then, she walked about the
churchyard, now beginning to be embrowned by the shades of nightfall.
The door of the church was unfastened, and she entered it for the
first time in her life.

Within the window under which the bedstead stood were the tombs of
the family, covering in their dates several centuries.  They were
canopied, altar-shaped, and plain; their carvings being defaced
and broken; their brasses torn from the matrices, the rivet-holes
remaining like martin-holes in a sandcliff.  Of all the reminders
that she had ever received that her people were socially extinct,
there was none so forcible as this spoliation.

She drew near to a dark stone on which was inscribed:


   OSTIUM SEPULCHRI ANTIQUAE FAMILIAE D'URBERVILLE


Tess did not read Church-Latin like a Cardinal, but she knew that
this was the door of her ancestral sepulchre, and that the tall
knights of whom her father had chanted in his cups lay inside.

She musingly turned to withdraw, passing near an altar-tomb, the
oldest of them all, on which was a recumbent figure.  In the dusk she
had not noticed it before, and would hardly have noticed it now but
for an odd fancy that the effigy moved.  As soon as she drew close
to it she discovered all in a moment that the figure was a living
person; and the shock to her sense of not having been alone was so
violent that she was quite overcome, and sank down nigh to fainting,
not, however, till she had recognized Alec d'Urberville in the form.

He leapt off the slab and supported her.

"I saw you come in," he said smiling, "and got up there not to
interrupt your meditations.  A family gathering, is it not, with
these old fellows under us here?  Listen."

He stamped with his heel heavily on the floor; whereupon there arose
a hollow echo from below.

"That shook them a bit, I'll warrant!" he continued.  "And you
thought I was the mere stone reproduction of one of them.  But no.
The old order changeth.  The little finger of the sham d'Urberville
can do more for you than the whole dynasty of the real underneath...
Now command me.  What shall I do?"

"Go away!" she murmured.

"I will--I'll look for your mother," said he blandly.  But in passing
her he whispered: "Mind this; you'll be civil yet!"

When he was gone she bent down upon the entrance to the vaults, and
said--

"Why am I on the wrong side of this door!"


In the meantime Marian and Izz Huett had journeyed onward with the
chattels of the ploughman in the direction of their land of Canaan--
the Egypt of some other family who had left it only that morning.
But the girls did not for a long time think of where they were going.
Their talk was of Angel Clare and Tess, and Tess's persistent lover,
whose connection with her previous history they had partly heard and
partly guessed ere this.

"'Tisn't as though she had never known him afore," said Marian.  "His
having won her once makes all the difference in the world.  'Twould
be a thousand pities if he were to tole her away again.  Mr Clare can
never be anything to us, Izz; and why should we grudge him to her,
and not try to mend this quarrel?  If he could on'y know what straits
she's put to, and what's hovering round, he might come to take care
of his own."

"Could we let him know?"

They thought of this all the way to their destination; but the bustle
of re-establishment in their new place took up all their attention
then.  But when they were settled, a month later, they heard of
Clare's approaching return, though they had learnt nothing more of
Tess.  Upon that, agitated anew by their attachment to him, yet
honourably disposed to her, Marian uncorked the penny ink-bottle they
shared, and a few lines were concocted between the two girls.


   HONOUR'D SIR--

   Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do
   love you.  For she is sore put to by an Enemy in the shape
   of a Friend.  Sir, there is one near her who ought to be
   Away.  A woman should not be try'd beyond her Strength,
   and continual dropping will wear away a Stone--ay,
   more--a Diamond.

   FROM TWO WELL-WISHERS


This was addressed to Angel Clare at the only place they had ever
heard him to be connected with, Emminster Vicarage; after which they
continued in a mood of emotional exaltation at their own generosity,
which made them sing in hysterical snatches and weep at the same
time.


END OF PHASE THE SIXTH





Phase the Seventh: Fulfilment



Phase VI: "The Convert," Chapter Fifty-Two
Before dawn the next day, Tess, 'Liza-Lu, Abraham, and Joan get up to pack the wagon for their big move. Lots of families are moving, because lots of laborers have signed up for new jobs starting that day. But the Durbeyfields don't have any work lined up where they're headed. On their way, they see Izz and Marian, who are also moving. When they arrive in Kingsbere, someone comes out of the rooms that they had written ahead to rent, and tells them that there aren't actually any rooms available--their letter came too late. They try to find rooms elsewhere, but aren't successful. Everything's already full. The wagon driver tells them that they have to unload somewhere--he's supposed to drive back that night. He unloads their furniture close to the church, and drives off. The D'Urberville family vault is in this church, so Mrs. Durbeyfield sets up a bed for the younger children in the vault where all the family tombs are. Mrs. Durbeyfield, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham set out to look for rooms again, leaving Tess in the vault to look after the little ones. When they get out of the church, they see Alec D'Urberville. Mrs. Durbeyfield doesn't like him very much, so she nods to him, and walks on. After tucking in the children, Tess wanders around the churchyard, and checks out the family tombs. Alec surprises her there, and asks her what he can do for her. She tells him to go away, and he agrees to go--but only to look for her mother, who he figures will be unsuccessful in her search for housing. Tess is left alone in the tombs of her ancestors, and wishes she were with them. In the meanwhile, Marian and Izz are traveling, too, and discussing Angel and Tess. They guess what's going on with Alec, since they've seen him hovering around her, and wonder if there's anything they can do to help mend things between Tess and Angel. After all, they're smart enough to realize that neither one of them will ever get Angel, so why shouldn't they try to help Tess? They write a letter to Angel, and address it to him care of his parents at Emminster Vicarage.