feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_31_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 32
feat_summary_id: chapter 32
feat_summary: {"name": "Phase IV: \"The Consequence,\" Chapter Thirty-Two", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-32", "summary": "Tess still hasn't named the wedding day by the time November rolls around . It's calving season, and Tess and Angel walk together between the cow hospital, where the calves are born, and the dairy. Angel points out that, with calving season, there are fewer cows to milk , and so she won't be needed at the dairy anymore. He suggests that they get married at around Christmas, and she agrees. When they get back to the house, they tell the Cricks, and they are congratulated appropriately. Tess still feels anxious, and wants to tell him everything before they're married, since she thinks that a man like Angel wouldn't appreciate being told after the fact. She writes to her mother asking for advice on this subject, but her mother already said her piece, and doesn't respond. The date they agree upon is December 31--New Year's Eve. One Sunday, about three weeks before the wedding, Izz Huett comes home from church and tells Tess that her name hasn't been read out. Historical Context time: Back in the day, it was traditional for a proposed wedding to be announced three Sundays in a row at church before the ceremony. That way, if anyone knew of a reason why the couple shouldn't marry, they'd have a chance to get their say in. This tradition was called \"reading the banns,\" or \"publishing the banns.\" And that's why Izz thought it was important to tell Tess that the banns hadn't been read that Sunday: because now there would only be two Sundays left until the ceremony, instead of the required three. But Angel says that he didn't want to have a big public ceremony, anyway, and that he'd just applied for a marriage license, instead. It would be more private that way. Tess is relieved--if anyone knew about her history and saw or heard the banns, they might say something. The next question is about her wedding clothes--should she wear her best white dress, or should she buy something new? Before she's able to ask Angel, he presents her with a package. He'd ordered a whole new outfit for her, down to gloves and shoes. It's not all that fancy, but it's nicer than anything she's ever had. She's very grateful, and goes to try it on, but can't seem to shake her sense of dread.", "analysis": ""}
text: 
  
  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.
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Phase IV: "The Consequence," Chapter Thirty-Two
target: Tess still hasn't named the wedding day by the time November rolls around . It's calving season, and Tess and Angel walk together between the cow hospital, where the calves are born, and the dairy. Angel points out that, with calving season, there are fewer cows to milk , and so she won't be needed at the dairy anymore. He suggests that they get married at around Christmas, and she agrees. When they get back to the house, they tell the Cricks, and they are congratulated appropriately. Tess still feels anxious, and wants to tell him everything before they're married, since she thinks that a man like Angel wouldn't appreciate being told after the fact. She writes to her mother asking for advice on this subject, but her mother already said her piece, and doesn't respond. The date they agree upon is December 31--New Year's Eve. One Sunday, about three weeks before the wedding, Izz Huett comes home from church and tells Tess that her name hasn't been read out. Historical Context time: Back in the day, it was traditional for a proposed wedding to be announced three Sundays in a row at church before the ceremony. That way, if anyone knew of a reason why the couple shouldn't marry, they'd have a chance to get their say in. This tradition was called "reading the banns," or "publishing the banns." And that's why Izz thought it was important to tell Tess that the banns hadn't been read that Sunday: because now there would only be two Sundays left until the ceremony, instead of the required three. But Angel says that he didn't want to have a big public ceremony, anyway, and that he'd just applied for a marriage license, instead. It would be more private that way. Tess is relieved--if anyone knew about her history and saw or heard the banns, they might say something. The next question is about her wedding clothes--should she wear her best white dress, or should she buy something new? Before she's able to ask Angel, he presents her with a package. He'd ordered a whole new outfit for her, down to gloves and shoes. It's not all that fancy, but it's nicer than anything she's ever had. She's very grateful, and goes to try it on, but can't seem to shake her sense of dread.