feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_20_part_2.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 54
feat_summary_id: chapter 54
feat_summary: {"name": "CHAPTER 54", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD63.asp", "summary": "In his journey to find Tess, Angel first visits Flintcomb-Ash, where he learns she is no longer working. He continues to Marlott and learns where Joan has gone. He also finds out about John's death and sees his fancy tombstone that links him to the D'Urbervilles. He rushes on to Kingsbere, where he locates Joan. She, however, is very reluctant to give him information about Tess. Finally, she tells Angel that Tess is in Sanbourne.", "analysis": "Notes In this chapter, Angel's determination is presented. He rushes from town to town searching for his wife. As he visits Marlott, Angel, like Tess, remembers the May-Day dance and is saddened to think how different things might be if he had danced with her then. He is also saddened to see the family's pathetic attempts to ennoble John by placing a showy tombstone at his grave. Angel learns that the marker is unpaid and takes care of the bill. When Angel meets Joan for the first time, he is not surprised at her reticence with him. After all, he has deserted her daughter and hurt her greatly. But when Angel reveals his feelings for Tess and explains the pain he is going through, Joan finally tells him that Tess is living in Sanbourne. She also warns Angel that her daughter is no longer expecting him to return. Angel still does not give up hope, but pushes on to Sanbourne to find Tess"}
text: 
  
  In a quarter of an hour Clare was leaving the house, whence his
  mother watched his thin figure as it disappeared into the street.
  He had declined to borrow his father's old mare, well knowing of
  its necessity to the household.  He went to the inn, where he hired
  a trap, and could hardly wait during the harnessing.  In a very few
  minutes after, he was driving up the hill out of the town which,
  three or four months earlier in the year, Tess had descended with
  such hopes and ascended with such shattered purposes.
  
  Benvill Lane soon stretched before him, its hedges and trees purple
  with buds; but he was looking at other things, and only recalled
  himself to the scene sufficiently to enable him to keep the way.  In
  something less than an hour-and-a-half he had skirted the south of
  the King's Hintock estates and ascended to the untoward solitude of
  Cross-in-Hand, the unholy stone whereon Tess had been compelled by
  Alec d'Urberville, in his whim of reformation, to swear the strange
  oath that she would never wilfully tempt him again.  The pale and
  blasted nettle-stems of the preceding year even now lingered nakedly
  in the banks, young green nettles of the present spring growing from
  their roots.
  
  Thence he went along the verge of the upland overhanging the other
  Hintocks, and, turning to the right, plunged into the bracing
  calcareous region of Flintcomb-Ash, the address from which she had
  written to him in one of the letters, and which he supposed to be
  the place of sojourn referred to by her mother.  Here, of course, he
  did not find her; and what added to his depression was the discovery
  that no "Mrs Clare" had ever been heard of by the cottagers or by
  the farmer himself, though Tess was remembered well enough by her
  Christian name.  His name she had obviously never used during their
  separation, and her dignified sense of their total severance was
  shown not much less by this abstention than by the hardships she had
  chosen to undergo (of which he now learnt for the first time) rather
  than apply to his father for more funds.
  
  From this place they told him Tess Durbeyfield had gone, without due
  notice, to the home of her parents on the other side of Blackmoor,
  and it therefore became necessary to find Mrs Durbeyfield.  She had
  told him she was not now at Marlott, but had been curiously reticent
  as to her actual address, and the only course was to go to Marlott
  and inquire for it.  The farmer who had been so churlish with Tess
  was quite smooth-tongued to Clare, and lent him a horse and man to
  drive him towards Marlott, the gig he had arrived in being sent back
  to Emminster; for the limit of a day's journey with that horse was
  reached.
  
  Clare would not accept the loan of the farmer's vehicle for a further
  distance than to the outskirts of the Vale, and, sending it back with
  the man who had driven him, he put up at an inn, and next day entered
  on foot the region wherein was the spot of his dear Tess's birth.
  It was as yet too early in the year for much colour to appear in the
  gardens and foliage; the so-called spring was but winter overlaid
  with a thin coat of greenness, and it was of a parcel with his
  expectations.
  
  The house in which Tess had passed the years of her childhood was
  now inhabited by another family who had never known her.  The new
  residents were in the garden, taking as much interest in their own
  doings as if the homestead had never passed its primal time in
  conjunction with the histories of others, beside which the histories
  of these were but as a tale told by an idiot.  They walked about the
  garden paths with thoughts of their own concerns entirely uppermost,
  bringing their actions at every moment in jarring collision with the
  dim ghosts behind them, talking as though the time when Tess lived
  there were not one whit intenser in story than now.  Even the spring
  birds sang over their heads as if they thought there was nobody
  missing in particular.
  
  On inquiry of these precious innocents, to whom even the name of
  their predecessors was a failing memory, Clare learned that John
  Durbeyfield was dead; that his widow and children had left Marlott,
  declaring that they were going to live at Kingsbere, but instead of
  doing so had gone on to another place they mentioned.  By this time
  Clare abhorred the house for ceasing to contain Tess, and hastened
  away from its hated presence without once looking back.
  
  His way was by the field in which he had first beheld her at the
  dance.  It was as bad as the house--even worse.  He passed on through
  the churchyard, where, amongst the new headstones, he saw one of a
  somewhat superior design to the rest.  The inscription ran thus:
  
  
    In memory of John Durbeyfield, rightly d'Urberville, of
    the once powerful family of that Name, and Direct
    Descendant through an illustrious Line from Sir Pagan
    d'Urberville, one of the Knights of the Conqueror.  Died
    March 10th, 18--
  
                  HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN.
  
  
  Some man, apparently the sexton, had observed Clare standing there,
  and drew nigh.  "Ah, sir, now that's a man who didn't want to lie
  here, but wished to be carried to Kingsbere, where his ancestors be."
  
  "And why didn't they respect his wish?"
  
  "Oh--no money.  Bless your soul, sir, why--there, I wouldn't wish to
  say it everywhere, but--even this headstone, for all the flourish
  wrote upon en, is not paid for."
  
  "Ah, who put it up?"
  
  The man told the name of a mason in the village, and, on leaving the
  churchyard, Clare called at the mason's house.  He found that the
  statement was true, and paid the bill.  This done, he turned in the
  direction of the migrants.
  
  The distance was too long for a walk, but Clare felt such a strong
  desire for isolation that at first he would neither hire a conveyance
  nor go to a circuitous line of railway by which he might eventually
  reach the place.  At Shaston, however, he found he must hire; but
  the way was such that he did not enter Joan's place till about seven
  o'clock in the evening, having traversed a distance of over twenty
  miles since leaving Marlott.
  
  The village being small he had little difficulty in finding Mrs
  Durbeyfield's tenement, which was a house in a walled garden,
  remote from the main road, where she had stowed away her clumsy old
  furniture as best she could.  It was plain that for some reason or
  other she had not wished him to visit her, and he felt his call to
  be somewhat of an intrusion.  She came to the door herself, and the
  light from the evening sky fell upon her face.
  
  This was the first time that Clare had ever met her, but he was too
  preoccupied to observe more than that she was still a handsome woman,
  in the garb of a respectable widow.  He was obliged to explain that
  he was Tess's husband, and his object in coming there, and he did it
  awkwardly enough.  "I want to see her at once," he added.  "You said
  you would write to me again, but you have not done so."
  
  "Because she've not come home," said Joan.
  
  "Do you know if she is well?"
  
  "I don't.  But you ought to, sir," said she.
  
  "I admit it.  Where is she staying?"
  
  From the beginning of the interview Joan had disclosed her
  embarrassment by keeping her hand to the side of her cheek.
  
  "I--don't know exactly where she is staying," she answered. "She
  was--but--"
  
  "Where was she?"
  
  "Well, she is not there now."
  
  In her evasiveness she paused again, and the younger children had by
  this time crept to the door, where, pulling at his mother's skirts,
  the youngest murmured--
  
  "Is this the gentleman who is going to marry Tess?"
  
  "He has married her," Joan whispered.  "Go inside."
  
  Clare saw her efforts for reticence, and asked--
  
  "Do you think Tess would wish me to try and find her?  If not, of
  course--"
  
  "I don't think she would."
  
  "Are you sure?"
  
  "I am sure she wouldn't."
  
  He was turning away; and then he thought of Tess's tender letter.
  
  "I am sure she would!" he retorted passionately.  "I know her better
  than you do."
  
  "That's very likely, sir; for I have never really known her."
  
  "Please tell me her address, Mrs Durbeyfield, in kindness to a lonely
  wretched man!"  Tess's mother again restlessly swept her cheek with
  her vertical hand, and seeing that he suffered, she at last said, is
  a low voice--
  
  "She is at Sandbourne."
  
  "Ah--where there?  Sandbourne has become a large place, they say."
  
  "I don't know more particularly than I have said--Sandbourne.  For
  myself, I was never there."
  
  It was apparent that Joan spoke the truth in this, and he pressed her
  no further.
  
  "Are you in want of anything?" he said gently.
  
  "No, sir," she replied.  "We are fairly well provided for."
  
  Without entering the house Clare turned away.  There was a station
  three miles ahead, and paying off his coachman, he walked thither.
  The last train to Sandbourne left shortly after, and it bore Clare
  on its wheels.
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: CHAPTER 54
target: In his journey to find Tess, Angel first visits Flintcomb-Ash, where he learns she is no longer working. He continues to Marlott and learns where Joan has gone. He also finds out about John's death and sees his fancy tombstone that links him to the D'Urbervilles. He rushes on to Kingsbere, where he locates Joan. She, however, is very reluctant to give him information about Tess. Finally, she tells Angel that Tess is in Sanbourne.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes In this chapter, Angel's determination is presented. He rushes from town to town searching for his wife. As he visits Marlott, Angel, like Tess, remembers the May-Day dance and is saddened to think how different things might be if he had danced with her then. He is also saddened to see the family's pathetic attempts to ennoble John by placing a showy tombstone at his grave. Angel learns that the marker is unpaid and takes care of the bill. When Angel meets Joan for the first time, he is not surprised at her reticence with him. After all, he has deserted her daughter and hurt her greatly. But when Angel reveals his feelings for Tess and explains the pain he is going through, Joan finally tells him that Tess is living in Sanbourne. She also warns Angel that her daughter is no longer expecting him to return. Angel still does not give up hope, but pushes on to Sanbourne to find Tess