Tess's father gets too drunk to drive a load of beehives to a neighbouring town that night, and so Tess undertakes the journey herself with her younger brother. However, she falls asleep at the reins, and the family's only horse, Prince, encounters a speeding wagon and is fatally wounded. Tess feels so guilty over Prince's death and the economic consequences for the family that she agrees, against her better judgement, to visit Mrs. d'Urberville, a rich widow in a rural mansion near the town of Trantridge, and "claim kin". She is unaware that in reality, Mrs. d'Urberville's husband Simon Stoke adopted the surname, even though he was unrelated to the real d'Urbervilles.