feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_0_part_7.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 7
feat_summary_id: chapter 7
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-1-chapters-1-11", "summary": "The day that Tess is to leave, her mother scolds her for not dressing well, even though Tess dresses in proper clothes for working. Tess submits to her mother's wishes and has her hair washed. Although Joan expects her daughter to be married, she feels a slight misgiving as Tess leaves. The younger children cry when Tess leaves, but Tess scolds them for thinking that she will marry a gentleman. As Tess leaves, Joan remarks that Tess will do well as long as she plays her trump card. This trump card is not her d'Urberville blood, as her father believes, but her face.", "analysis": "Joan Durbeyfield continues to promote the idea of Tess going to Trantridge Cross to marry in this chapter, in which she dresses her daughter for attracting men, and not for her labor tending Mrs. d'Urberville's chickens. Her remark that Tess's trump card' is her face is the most explicit declaration that Joan is sending her daughter to find a husband and not to work in a job. Likewise, Tess continues to resist the idea that she is a sexual object sent for a commercial transaction that will save her family's financial situation. However, Joan exhibits her first signs of guilt and self-awareness concerning her actions toward her daughter. This further foreshadows the impending danger that Tess faces in going to Trantridge Cross"}
text: 
  
  On the morning appointed for her departure Tess was awake before
  dawn--at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still
  mute, save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear-voiced
  conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest
  preserving silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken.  She
  remained upstairs packing till breakfast-time, and then came down in
  her ordinary week-day clothes, her Sunday apparel being carefully
  folded in her box.
  
  Her mother expostulated. "You will never set out to see your folks
  without dressing up more the dand than that?"
  
  "But I am going to work!" said Tess.
  
  "Well, yes," said Mrs Durbeyfield; and in a private tone, "at first
  there mid be a little pretence o't ...  But I think it will be wiser
  of 'ee to put your best side outward," she added.
  
  "Very well; I suppose you know best," replied Tess with calm
  abandonment.
  
  And to please her parent the girl put herself quite in Joan's hands,
  saying serenely--"Do what you like with me, mother."
  
  Mrs Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tractability.
  First she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess's hair with such
  thoroughness that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as
  at other times.  She tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual.
  Then she put upon her the white frock that Tess had worn at the
  club-walking, the airy fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged
  _coiffure_, imparted to her developing figure an amplitude which
  belied her age, and might cause her to be estimated as a woman when
  she was not much more than a child.
  
  "I declare there's a hole in my stocking-heel!" said Tess.
  
  "Never mind holes in your stockings--they don't speak!  When I was a
  maid, so long as I had a pretty bonnet the devil might ha' found me
  in heels."
  
  Her mother's pride in the girl's appearance led her to step back,
  like a painter from his easel, and survey her work as a whole.
  
  "You must zee yourself!" she cried.  "It is much better than you was
  t'other day."
  
  As the looking-glass was only large enough to reflect a very small
  portion of Tess's person at one time, Mrs Durbeyfield hung a black
  cloak outside the casement, and so made a large reflector of the
  panes, as it is the wont of bedecking cottagers to do.  After this
  she went downstairs to her husband, who was sitting in the lower
  room.
  
  "I'll tell 'ee what 'tis, Durbeyfield," said she exultingly; "he'll
  never have the heart not to love her.  But whatever you do, don't zay
  too much to Tess of his fancy for her, and this chance she has got.
  She is such an odd maid that it mid zet her against him, or against
  going there, even now.  If all goes well, I shall certainly be for
  making some return to pa'son at Stagfoot Lane for telling us--dear,
  good man!"
  
  However, as the moment for the girl's setting out drew nigh, when the
  first excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving
  found place in Joan Durbeyfield's mind.  It prompted the matron to
  say that she would walk a little way--as far as to the point where
  the acclivity from the valley began its first steep ascent to
  the outer world.  At the top Tess was going to be met with the
  spring-cart sent by the Stoke-d'Urbervilles, and her box had already
  been wheeled ahead towards this summit by a lad with trucks, to be in
  readiness.
  
  Seeing their mother put on her bonnet, the younger children clamoured
  to go with her.
  
  "I do want to walk a little-ways wi' Sissy, now she's going to marry
  our gentleman-cousin, and wear fine cloze!"
  
  "Now," said Tess, flushing and turning quickly, "I'll hear no more o'
  that!  Mother, how could you ever put such stuff into their heads?"
  
  "Going to work, my dears, for our rich relation, and help get enough
  money for a new horse," said Mrs Durbeyfield pacifically.
  
  "Goodbye, father," said Tess, with a lumpy throat.
  
  "Goodbye, my maid," said Sir John, raising his head from his breast
  as he suspended his nap, induced by a slight excess this morning in
  honour of the occasion.  "Well, I hope my young friend will like such
  a comely sample of his own blood.  And tell'n, Tess, that being sunk,
  quite, from our former grandeur, I'll sell him the title--yes, sell
  it--and at no onreasonable figure."
  
  "Not for less than a thousand pound!" cried Lady Durbeyfield.
  
  "Tell'n--I'll take a thousand pound.  Well, I'll take less, when
  I come to think o't.  He'll adorn it better than a poor lammicken
  feller like myself can.  Tell'n he shall hae it for a hundred.  But
  I won't stand upon trifles--tell'n he shall hae it for fifty--for
  twenty pound!  Yes, twenty pound--that's the lowest.  Dammy, family
  honour is family honour, and I won't take a penny less!"
  
  Tess's eyes were too full and her voice too choked to utter the
  sentiments that were in her.  She turned quickly, and went out.
  
  So the girls and their mother all walked together, a child on each
  side of Tess, holding her hand and looking at her meditatively from
  time to time, as at one who was about to do great things; her mother
  just behind with the smallest; the group forming a picture of honest
  beauty flanked by innocence, and backed by simple-souled vanity.
  They followed the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent,
  on the crest of which the vehicle from Trantridge was to receive her,
  this limit having been fixed to save the horse the labour of the last
  slope.  Far away behind the first hills the cliff-like dwellings
  of Shaston broke the line of the ridge. Nobody was visible in the
  elevated road which skirted the ascent save the lad whom they had
  sent on before them, sitting on the handle of the barrow that
  contained all Tess's worldly possessions.
  
  "Bide here a bit, and the cart will soon come, no doubt," said Mrs
  Durbeyfield.  "Yes, I see it yonder!"
  
  It had come--appearing suddenly from behind the forehead of the
  nearest upland, and stopping beside the boy with the barrow.  Her
  mother and the children thereupon decided to go no farther, and
  bidding them a hasty goodbye, Tess bent her steps up the hill.
  
  They saw her white shape draw near to the spring-cart, on which her
  box was already placed.  But before she had quite reached it another
  vehicle shot out from a clump of trees on the summit, came round the
  bend of the road there, passed the luggage-cart, and halted beside
  Tess, who looked up as if in great surprise.
  
  Her mother perceived, for the first time, that the second vehicle was
  not a humble conveyance like the first, but a spick-and-span gig or
  dog-cart, highly varnished and equipped.  The driver was a young man
  of three- or four-and-twenty, with a cigar between his teeth; wearing
  a dandy cap, drab jacket, breeches of the same hue, white neckcloth,
  stick-up collar, and brown driving-gloves--in short, he was the
  handsome, horsey young buck who had visited Joan a week or two before
  to get her answer about Tess.
  
  Mrs Durbeyfield clapped her hands like a child.  Then she looked
  down, then stared again.  Could she be deceived as to the meaning of
  this?
  
  "Is dat the gentleman-kinsman who'll make Sissy a lady?" asked the
  youngest child.
  
  Meanwhile the muslined form of Tess could be seen standing still,
  undecided, beside this turn-out, whose owner was talking to her.
  Her seeming indecision was, in fact, more than indecision: it was
  misgiving.  She would have preferred the humble cart.  The young
  man dismounted, and appeared to urge her to ascend.  She turned her
  face down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group.
  Something seemed to quicken her to a determination; possibly the
  thought that she had killed Prince.  She suddenly stepped up; he
  mounted beside her, and immediately whipped on the horse.  In a
  moment they had passed the slow cart with the box, and disappeared
  behind the shoulder of the hill.
  
  Directly Tess was out of sight, and the interest of the matter as a
  drama was at an end, the little ones' eyes filled with tears.  The
  youngest child said, "I wish poor, poor Tess wasn't gone away to be a
  lady!" and, lowering the corners of his lips, burst out crying.  The
  new point of view was infectious, and the next child did likewise,
  and then the next, till the whole three of them wailed loud.
  
  There were tears also in Joan Durbeyfield's eyes as she turned to
  go home.  But by the time she had got back to the village she was
  passively trusting to the favour of accident.  However, in bed that
  night she sighed, and her husband asked her what was the matter.
  
  "Oh, I don't know exactly," she said.  "I was thinking that perhaps
  it would ha' been better if Tess had not gone."
  
  "Oughtn't ye to have thought of that before?"
  
  "Well, 'tis a chance for the maid--Still, if 'twere the doing again,
  I wouldn't let her go till I had found out whether the gentleman
  is really a good-hearted young man and choice over her as his
  kinswoman."
  
  "Yes, you ought, perhaps, to ha' done that," snored Sir John.
  
  Joan Durbeyfield always managed to find consolation somewhere: "Well,
  as one of the genuine stock, she ought to make her way with 'en, if
  she plays her trump card aright.  And if he don't marry her afore he
  will after.  For that he's all afire wi' love for her any eye can
  see."
  
  "What's her trump card?  Her d'Urberville blood, you mean?"
  
  "No, stupid; her face--as 'twas mine."
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 7
target: The day that Tess is to leave, her mother scolds her for not dressing well, even though Tess dresses in proper clothes for working. Tess submits to her mother's wishes and has her hair washed. Although Joan expects her daughter to be married, she feels a slight misgiving as Tess leaves. The younger children cry when Tess leaves, but Tess scolds them for thinking that she will marry a gentleman. As Tess leaves, Joan remarks that Tess will do well as long as she plays her trump card. This trump card is not her d'Urberville blood, as her father believes, but her face.
feat_summary_analysis: Joan Durbeyfield continues to promote the idea of Tess going to Trantridge Cross to marry in this chapter, in which she dresses her daughter for attracting men, and not for her labor tending Mrs. d'Urberville's chickens. Her remark that Tess's trump card' is her face is the most explicit declaration that Joan is sending her daughter to find a husband and not to work in a job. Likewise, Tess continues to resist the idea that she is a sexual object sent for a commercial transaction that will save her family's financial situation. However, Joan exhibits her first signs of guilt and self-awareness concerning her actions toward her daughter. This further foreshadows the impending danger that Tess faces in going to Trantridge Cross