Clare was a thoughtful, honest man. He knew Tess was not a toy to play with and throw away when finished with. Her life was as important to her as his was to him. He knew he must treat her affection for him seriously. But if they went on meeting every day, their relationship must develop: he could not stop himself. As he had not decided what purpose their relationship should have, he decided that for the moment they should meet as little as possible. But it was not easy to keep to this decision. He was driven towards her by the heat in his blood.

The nights were as hot as the days. Angel Clare could not sleep. He went out into the darkness to think over what had happened that afternoon. He had come as a student of farming to this dairy, thinking he would be here only a short time. He thought it would be a quiet place. From here he could observe the great world outside, before plunging back into it. But the world outside had lost its interest, and the quiet place was now the centre of all feeling.

He thought he would go and see his family. In less than five months he would have finished his studies here. After a few more months on other farms, he would be ready to start farming himself. Shouldn't a farmer's wife be a woman who understood farming?

His family were delighted, though surprised, to see him. Angel was glad to be at home, and yet he did not feel so much part of the family as he used to. His father's religious belief was very strict, but he was a kind, honest man, and fond of his sons. However, he would have been shocked to know of the pagan pleasure in nature and pretty womanhood experienced by Angel. His mother shared his father's religious views and helped in his church work. His brothers seemed rather unimaginative and narrow-minded, although they were both well educated: they felt that anybody outside the Church or university could not be respected.

As he rode into the village, he saw a group of young girls waiting outside the church. Walking quickly to join them was Miss Mercy Chant, only daughter of his father's neighbour. His parents quietly hoped Angel would marry Mercy one day. She was very good at giving Bible classes, but in Angel's mind was the face of the pretty milkmaid who hardly ever thought of God.

He rode along the narrow road towards Emminster and his parents' house. His eyes were looking, not at the road, but at next year. He loved her: ought he to marry her? What would his mother and brothers say? What would he himself say two years after the wedding?

"A really Christian woman. Nothing else matters. For example, my neighbour Dr Chant…"

As he walked with his brothers, Angel felt that, however lucky they were to have a university education, neither of them really saw life as it was lived. They thought farming was a poor man's job, not suitable for a gentleman. Angel felt all the more determined to keep to his choice.

"But isn't the main thing that she should be able to milk cows, churn good butter, value animals and direct farm workers?"

Mr Clare had clearly never thought of this before.

In the evening he spoke to his father alone after prayers. Mr Clare told his son he had been saving the money he would have spent on his university education for him. This encouraged Angel to ask his father what sort of wife a farmer needed.

"Yes, yes, certainly. But I was going to say that you will never find a purer woman than Mercy Chant. Your mother and I would be very happy if you…"

"Yes, yes, Mercy is good, I know. But, father, don't you think that one who is just as good and pure, and who understands farm life as well as the farmer, would be much better?"

"Is she of a good family, like Mercy?" asked his surprised mother, who had come in during the conversation.

"I shall help her with her reading. She will learn fast. She's full of poetry, real poetry. She lives what poets only write. And she is a good Christian girl. I'm sure you'll value her for that."

After much discussion Angel got down to details. He explained he had met a woman who was ideally suited to be a farmer's wife, who went to church reqularly, who was honest, sensitive, intelligent, graceful, pure as snow, and extremely beautiful.

"Mercy is educated. That has its charm," said his mother, looking at him through her silver glasses.

"She is not what we call a lady," said Angel firmly. "She is a cottager's daughter. What's the advantage of good family to me? My wife will have to work hard and manage with very little money."

His parents already doubted Angel's religious belief, so they were almost relieved to hear this of his future wife. They told him not to act in a hurry, but they would like to see her. Although Angel was free to marry or not as he wished, he did not want to hurt his parents, and he accepted their advice.

Angel was angry with D'Urberville. Dear father, you should not let yourself be insulted like that!"

"It doesn't matter to me. I have a duty to point out where people go wrong. Often men have hit me, but then at least they haven't hit their families. And they live to thank me, and praise God."

As he set off to return to the dairy and Tess, his father rode with him a little way. Mr Clare was telling his son about the new D'Urberville family who had taken the ancient name and lived near Trantridge. There was a young man and his blind mother. Preaching in the church there one day, Mr Clare had spoken out bravely against the well-known wickedness of young D'Urberville, who, after this, had publicly insulted him when they met later.

Angel could not accept his father's narrow religious beliefs, but he loved him for his courage. He remembered that his father had not once asked whether Tess had money or not. This lack of interest in money meant that all the brothers would probably be poor for ever, but Angel still admired his father's belief that money was not important.

"I hope this young man does the same!" said Angel warmly. "But it doesn't seem likely."

"We'll hope anyway," said Mr Clare. "Maybe one of my words may grow like a seed in his heart one day."

"Oh Mr Clar! How you frightened me -- I…" she said, looking glad, shy and surprised at the same time.

Clare stepped forward to put his arms round her.

When he returned to the dairy, in the sleepy afternoon heat, nobody was awake. Getting up so early in the morning meant the milkers really needed a sleep before the afternoon milking. It was three o'clock, time for skimming. There was a slight noise upstairs, then Tess appeared before his eyes. She did not see him, and stretched one arm up above her head. She yawned like a cat and he saw the red inside of her mouth. Her whole soul breathed out physical beauty. Then her eyes flashed as she recognized him.

"Dear, darling Tessy!" he whispered, putting his face to her warm cheek. "Don't call me Mr Clare any more! I've hurried back because of you!"

They stood holding each other, the sun warming them through the window He looked deep into her eyes of blue and black and grey. She looked at him as Eve must have looked at Adam.

"I must go skimming," she said Together they went to the milk-house.

"Theres's something very practical that I want to ask you," he said gently. "I shall sonn want to marry. Being a farmer, I need a wife who knows all about farms. Will you be that woman, Tessy?"

Perhaps the Talbothays milk was not very well skimmed that afternoon. Tess was in a dream as she skimmed. The heat of his love made her feel like a plant under a burning sun.

"Tess, have, you agreed to marry someone else?"

She looked quite worried. She had accepted that she could not help loving him, but she had not expected this result. With bitter pain she replied as she had promised herself she would.

"But Tess!" he said, amazed at her answer and holding her still closer. "Surely you love me?"

"Oh Mr Clare -- I cannot be your wife… I cannot be!" The sound of these words seemed to break her very heart.

"No, no!"

"Your father is a parson, and your mother will want you to marry a lady," said poor Tess, desperately trying to find an excuse.

"Then why do you refuse me?"

"Oh yes, yes! And I would rather be yours than anybody's in the whole world! But I cannot marry you!" cried the sweet and honest voice miserably.

"No, certainly not, that's why I went home, to talk to them both."

She tried to skim again, but her tears fell so that she could not do it. She could never explain her sadness, even to this her best friend. Clare began to talk more generally, to calm her. He talked about his father's religious views, and the good work he did. He mentioned the insults his father had received from a young man near Trantridge who had a blind mother.

She went out with the other milkmaids to the cows in the fields. Angel watched her moving freely in the air like a swimmer on a wave. He knew he was right to choose a wife from nature, not from civilization.

"And my question, Tessy?"

Tess now looked hard and worn, and her mouth was tragic. Clare did not notice. They finished skimming and he said to her softly:

"I feel I cannot -- never, never!"

"Is it too sudden, my pretty? I'll give you time. I won't mention it again for a while."

"Oh no -- no!" she replied, hopelessly, thinking bitterly of Alec D'Urberville. "It can't be!"

Clare was not depressed by Tess's refusal, feeling sure that she would finally accept him. A few days later he asked her again.

"Ah, you think so, but you don't know!"

"I'm not good enough."

"Not enough of a fine lady?"

She could only shake her head and look away.

"Then I ought not to hold you, to talk to you like this? Why, Tess?"

"You know, you're wrong. My father and mother would. And I don't care about my brothers." He held her to stop her slipping away. "You didn't mean it, did you? I can't work or read or play or anything until I know that you will some day be mine! Say you will, Tess!"

"Tess, why did you say 'no' so positively?"

"Yes. Your family would not respect me."

After a struggle like this, Tess would go to the fields or her room to cry. Her heart was so strongly on the side of his that she feared she might give way.

"It is for your good, my dearest! I can't give myself the great happiness of promising to be yours -- because I am sure I ought not to!"

"But you will make me happy!"

"Why doesn't somebody tell him all about me?" she thought. "It was only forty miles away. Somebody must know!" But nobody knew and nobody told him.

"I know I shall say yes -- I can't help it!" She cried to herself in bed one night. "But it may kill him when he knows! Oh, oh!"

"The lover in the butter-churn?" said Angel Clare, looking up from his newspaper. "And has he married the young milkmaid, as he promised?"

"Not he, sir," replied the dairyman. "He's married an older woman who had ￡ 50 a year. They married in a great hurry and then she told him that by marrying she'd lost her￡50 a year! He only married her for her money too. So now they're always quarrelling."

Tess's life now had two parts, positive pleasure and positive pain. Every time she and Angel were alone together he would ask her again, and she would refuse. She was keeping her promise to herself, but in her heart of hearts Tess knew that eventually she would accept him. Love and nature both advised her to have him without thinking of complications, to delight in passion without considering future pain.

"I've got some news for you all," said Dairyman Crick as they sat down to breakfast one Sunday morning. "It's that Jack Dollop again."

"She ought to have told him just before they went to church," said Marian.

"She ought to have seen he only wanted her money, and refused him," said Retty.

"What do you say, my dear? the dairyman asked Tess.

The days were shorter now, and in the mornings the dairy worked by candlelight. One morning between three and four she ran up to Clare's room to wake him, before waking the others. Having dressed, she was about to go downstairs when Angel came out of his room and stopped her.

"I think she ought… to have told him the truth -- or else refused him… I don't know," replied Tess, who could not swallow her food. She soon left the table and went into the fields, feeling the pain in the story. She had continued to refuse Angel's offers of marriage, but from that Sunday he changed his approach towards her. He looked for her and came to talk to her at every possible moment, at milking, butter-making, cheese-making, among chickens and among pigs. She knew she could not resist much longer. She loved him so passionately, and he was so like a god in her eyes. He treated her as if he would love and defend her under any circumstances. This began to make her feel less afraid about agreeing to marry him, and telling him the truth about herself.

"Call me Angel then, and not Mr Clare. Why not Angel dearest?"

"It would mean I agree, wouldn't it?"

"It would only mean you love me, and you did admit that long ago."

"Now, miss," he said firmly. "You must give me an answer or I shall have to leave the house. You aren't safe with me. I saw you just now in your nightdress. Well? Is it yes at last?"

"I really will think seriously about it, Mr Clare."

"Oh Tessy!" he cried impatiently. She was so relieved to hear this that she could not make any further self-sacrifice. She knew that this day would decide it.

"Very well then, Angel dearest, if I must," she murmured, smiling. Clare could not resist kissing her warm cheek.

After milking and skimming, all the dairy people went outside. Tess generously tried for the last time to interest Angel in the other dairymaids.

"There's more in those three than you think," she said. "Any of them would make you a better wife than I could. And perhaps they love you as much as I do -- almost."

In the late afternoon Angel Clare offered to drive the waggon with its buckets of milk to the station. He persuaded Tess to go with him.

"Yes," said Tess.

At first there was silence as they drove along the quiet road, simply enjoying being close to each other. Soon drops of rain started falling. Tess's cheeks were pink and her long hair was wet. She had no jacket, and crept close to Clare. She held an old piece of cloth over them both to keep the rain off.

They passed an old house. Angel explained that it was an interesting place which belonged to the ancient family of the D'Urbervilles.

"I'll try."

"Well, dear," said Angel, "what about my question?"

"Before we get home?"

"It's very sad when a noble family dies out," he said.

At last they reached the station and watched the milk being lifted on to the train. Tess was fascinated.

"That's true, but we drove a little for our own reasons too. Now Tess," he said anxiously, as they drove away into the night, "your heart belongs to me. Why can't you give me your hand as well?"

"I'll answer you soon."

"Londoners will drink it for breakfast, won't they? People who don't know we drove for miles in the rain so that it might reach them in time."

"Well, why should I love you less because of that?"

"A D'Urberville! And is that the whole story, Tess?"

"My only reason is you… I have something to tell you -- I must fell you about my past life!"

"Yes," she answered faintly.

"And there is something unusual about me. I…I am not a Durbeyfield, but a D'Urberville. I'm a descendant of the same family who owned that house we passed."

"Tell me if you want to, dearest. I expect you have had as many experiences as that flower over there!"

"The dairyman told me you hated old families."

"Poor child! That's nothing new." He held her more closely to his side.

He laughed. "Well, I hate the idea that noble blood should be more important than anything else. But I am really very interested in your news. What do you think of it?"

"I grew up in Marlott. And at school they said I would make a good teacher. But there was trouble in my family. Father didn't work very hard and he drank a little."

"I think it's sad, especially here, to see the fields which once belonged to my ancestors."

"Now then, Teresa D'Urberville, I've got you! Take my name and you will escape yours!"

"Why are you crying?"

She had not told him. At the last moment she had not been brave enough.

He held her and kissed her.

"Angel, I would rather not take that name!"

"I'm crying because I promised I would die unmarried! Oh, I sometimes wish I had never been born!"

"But you must! By the way, there's someone who has taken the D'Urberville name near The Chase. Yes, he's the man who insulted my father. How strange!"

"If it is sure to make you happy and you do wish to marry me very very much…"

"I do, dearest, of course! Say you will be mine for ever!"

"I like the other name best."

Angel was delighted. "You see, Tess, society likes a noble name, and will accept you better as my wife, because you are a D'Urberville. Even my mother will like you better. You must use the name of D'Urberville from this very day."

"So that's the awful secret!"

"Yes!" No sooner had she said it than she burst into a dry hard sobbing. Angel was surprised.

"Yes. I never really doubted -- never!"

"There -- now do you believe?" she asked, wiping her eyes.

"Of course, dear child. Where does she live?"

Dear Tess,

"Will this prove it more?" cried Tess desperately, holding him close and kissing him. For the first time Clare learnt what a passionate woman's kisses were like, on the lips of one she loved with all her heart and soul, as Tess loved him.

"Yes, when you would not dance with me. Oh, I hope that doesn't mean bad luck!"

"Tess, how could you wish that if you really loved me? I wish you could prove your love in some way."

They drove on in the darkness, forming one bundle under the cloth.

"In Marlott."

"Ah, then I have seen you before…"

"I must write to my mother," she said.

After this decision Tess wrote an urgent letter to her mother. This was the reply she received:

I hope you are well, as I am. We are all glad to hear you are going to be married soon. But Tess, in answer to your question, whatever you do, don't tell your future husband anything about your past experience. No girl would be so foolish, especially as it is so long ago, and not your fault at all. Remember you promised me you would never tell anybody. Best wishes to your young man.

Tess could not accept her mother's view of life, but perhaps Joan was right in this. Silence seemed best for Angel's happiness. So she grew calm, and from October onwards she was completely happy. Clare seemed the perfect guide, thinker, and friend. She saw perfection in his face, his intelligence, and his soul. She dismissed the past from her mind. They spent all their time together, as country people do once they are engaged. In the wonderful autumn afternoons they walked by streams, crossing on little wooden bridges. They saw tiny blue fogs in the shadows of trees and hedges, and at the same time bright sunshine in the fields. The sun was so near the ground that the shadows of Clare and Tess stretched a quarter of a mile ahead of them, like two long pointing fingers. When Clare talked to Tess of their future, and the farm they would have abroad, she could hardly believe that she would be going through the world by his side. Her feeling for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being. It 152 made her forget her past sorrows, but she knew they were waiting like wolves for their moment to attack.

Love from your mother

They had to tell the dairyman and his wife that they were planning to marry. That night as Tess entered the bedroom, all three dairymaids were waiting for her.

"That's how I feel!" said Marian and Izz.

"You are going to marry him!" said Marian.

"I want to hate you, but I cannot!" said Retty.

"Yes, some day," said Tess.

"I think I ought to make him marry one of you even now!" she sobbed. they went up to her and calmed her and helped her to bed. Before they went to sleep, Marian whispered, "You will think of us when you are his wife, Tess, and how we did not hate you, because we did not expect to be chosen by him."

One day she cried out to Angel: "Why didn't you stay and love me when I was sixteen… when you danced in Marlott? Oh, Why didn't you?"

"Do you all hate me for it?" asked Tess in a low voice.

"Going to marry him, a gentleman!" said Izz.

"No, no, dear Tess," they all said.

"Ah yes! If only I had known! But you must not regret so bitterly! Why should you?"

"He ought to marry one of you," murmured Tess. "You are all better than I am!"

Hiding her feelings quickly, she said, "I would have had four more years of your love than I can ever have now."

"It's strange," said Marian, "to think Tess will be his wife, not a fine lady, but a girl who lives like us."

The girls did not know that Tess cried even more at this, and that she decided she would tell Angel all her history.

"I'm afraid I'm glad of it," said Angel to her, "because now we must decide when to marry. We can't go on like this for ever."

Because of this, she would not set a date for the wedding. She wanted to stay as she was, not move forward into a new life. But soon it was clear that the dairyman did not want so many dairymaids at this time of year. Tess would have to leave the dairy at Christmas.

"I wish we could. I wish it could be always summer and autumn, with you always loving me!"

So they decided on 31st December. The wedding was to take place as privately as possible at the dairy. Tess now felt she could not stop things happening, and agreed passively to whatever Angel suggested. In fact Angel's plans were a little hurried. He had not meant to marry so soon. But he wanted to keep her with him, to help her with her reading and studying, so that he could present her proudly as a lady to his parents. He also planned to spend some time studying work in a flour-mill. They could spend their honeymoon staying in the old farmhouse which had once belonged to the D'Urbervilles, while Angel studied at the mill nearby.

"I always shall."

"Oh, I know you will! Angel, I'll fix the day!"

The day, the impossible day of their wedding, came closer. His wife, Tess said to herself. Could it ever be?

Angel and Tess decided to spend a day together shopping on Christmas Eve. They went into town in a borrowed carriage. The town was full of strangers, who stared at Tess, happy and beautiful on Angel's arm. At the end of the day, Tess was waiting for Angel to bring the horse and carriage, when two men passed her in the street.

"She's a lovely maiden," one said to his friend.

Angel returned at that moment and heard these words. Wildly angry at this insult to Tess, he hit the man in the face. The man said quickly:

"Certainly not," said his friend.

"She's lovely, yes. But she's no maiden," replied the other.

"And was it a mistake?" asked the second man.

"I'm sorry, sir, I must have made a mistake."

On the way home Tess was very serious. She felt she could not tell him the truth to his face, but there was another way. So she went to her room and wrote a four-page letter describing exactly what had happened three or four years ago. In the night she crept up to Angel's room and pushed the letter under his door.

Angel accepted this, gave the man some money, said goodnight, and drove off with Tess. The two men went in the opposite direction.

Next morning she looked anxiously at him, but he kissed her as usual. He said nothing about the letter. Had he read it? Did he forgive her? Every morning and night he was the same, until finally the wedding day came.

Tess had not invited her family from Marlott. Angel had written to his. His brothers had not replied, and his parents wrote that they hoped he was not hurrying into marriage, but that he was old enough to decide for himself. Angel did not mind, because he was planning to introduce Tess to them as a D'Urberville as well as a dairymaid, some months later.

Tess was still worried about her confession, and left the crowd of busy people downstairs to creep silently up to Angel's bedroom. There she found her letter unopened, just under the carpet. He had not seen it. She could not let him read it now, in the middle of the preparations. She found him alone for a moment.

"I must confess all my mistakes to you!" she said, trying to keep her words light.

"Not today, my sweet! We'll have plenty of time later on! I'll confess mine too."

"I don't, Tessy, really."

"Now, Tess!" He kissed her. But she had no energy left. She was now Mrs Angel Clare, but wasn't she really Mrs Alexander D'Urberville?

"Then you really don't want me to?"

There were few people in the church. At one point she let her shoulder touch Clare's arm, to be sure that he was really there. It was only when she came out that she noticed the carriage they were driving back in. She felt she must have seen it in a dream.

From now on, her one desire, to call him husband, and then if necessary to die, carried her on. She moved in a cloud.

"Oh, maybe you know the story of the D'Urberville carriage," said Angel, "and this one reminds you of it. In the past a certain D'Urberville committed a crime in his carriage, and since then D'Urbervilles see or hear the old carriage whenever… But it's rather depressing to talk about."

"Is it when we are going to die, Angel, or is it when we have committed a crime?"

Later that afternoon they left the dairy. All the dairy people watched them leave, and Clare kissed the dairymaids goodbye. As he was thanking the dairyman, a cock crowed just in front of him.

"Go away!" shouted Mr Crick at the cock. Later he said to his wife, "Why did it have to crow at Mr Clare like that?"

"That's bad!" whispered the dairymen to each other. "When a cock crows at a husband like that…" and they laughed together behind their hands.

"It only means a change in the weather," said Mrs Crick, "not what you think. That's impossible."

Tess and Angel arrived at the old D'Urberville farmhouse. It was empty, although a woman came to cook and clean for them. They had their tea together, and Clare delighted in eating from the same plate as Tess. Looking at her he thought, "Do I realize how important I am to this woman? And how I must look after her? I must never forget to think about her feelings!"

It started to rain as it grew dark outside. Finally a man arrived from the dairy with their bags.

"I'm sorry I'm late, sir," he said, "but terrible things have been happening at the dairy You remember the cock crowing? Well, whatever it means, poor little Retty Priddle has tried to drown herself!"

"Well, after you left, she and Marian walked from one public house to another, drinking. Retty was found in the river, later on. And Marian was found drunk in a field!"

"This morning," he said suddenly, "we said we would both confess our mistakes. I must tell you something and you must forgive me. Perhaps I ought to have told you before. I've put off telling you, because I didn't want to lose you."

"What happened?" asked Angel.

"Izz is at home as usual, but very sad and depressed."

As the man left, Tess sat sadly by the fire, looking into it. They were simple innocent girls who had not been loved. It was wicked of her to take all the love without paying for it. She would pay: she would tell, there and then.

"Angel, I'm sure I'll forgive you…" A wild hope was making Tess's heart beat faster.

"And Izz?" asked Tess.

"Well, wait a minute. You know how much I believe in goodness and purity But I myself, when I was in London years ago, did wrong with a woman I hardly knew. It lasted two days. I came home and I have never done anything like it since. Do you forgive me?"

Angel was sitting beside her, holding her hand. Their faces were red in the firelight.

"Ah yes, well confess, you wicked little girl! It can hardly be more serious than mine."

"It can't, no, it can't!" She jumped up joyfully at the hope. "No, in fact, it is just the same. I will tell you now."

"Oh Angel, of course I do! And I am almost glad, because now you can forgive me! I have a confession too."

She sat down again. They held hands. The fire burned like a Judgement Day fire. Her shadow rose high on the wall. Putting her head against his, she bravely told the whole story of her meeting with Alec D'Urberville and its results.