Summary: Chapter XXV
Angel feels that he needs time to understand the nature
of his relationship with Tess, so he decides to spend a few days
away from the dairy visiting his family. At his father’s house in
Emminster, he finds his parents breakfasting with his brothers:
the Reverend Felix, a town curate, and the Reverend Cuthbert, a
college dean at Cambridge. Angel’s family notices that his manners
have worsened somewhat during his time with common farm folk, while
Angel thinks that his brothers have become mentally limited and
bogged down by their comfortable situations.
Summary: Chapter XXVI
After prayers that evening, Angel and his father discuss
Angel’s marriage prospects. The Clares hope Angel will marry Mercy
Chant, a pious neighbor girl, and they admonish their son about
the importance of Christian piety in a wife. Angel contends that
a wife who understands farm life would also be an asset, and he
tells them about Tess, emphasizing her religious sincerity. The
family agrees to meet her. Angel’s father also tells Angel that
he has saved the money he would have needed for his college education,
and, since Angel did not go to college, he is willing to give it
to Angel to buy land. Before Angel leaves, his father tells him
about his efforts to convert the local populace, and mentions his
failed efforts to tame a young miscreant named Alec d’Urberville.
Angel’s dislike for old families increases.
Summary: Chapter XXVII
Angel returns to the dairy, where he finds Tess just awakening
from her afternoon nap. He takes her in his arms and asks her to
marry him. Tess replies that she loves him but that she cannot marry.
Angel replies that he will give her time to think it over, but she
replies again that the marriage is impossible. Nevertheless, in
the coming days Angel continues to try to persuade her, and Tess
quickly realizes that she loves him too strongly to keep up her
refusal.
Summary: Chapter XXVIII
In the early fall, Angel again asks Tess to marry him.
Tess hesitates, saying that one of the other girls might make a
better wife than she. Tess still feels that she cannot marry Angel
because of the implications of her past indiscretions. But Angel
still believes that Tess is objecting only because of her low social
status, and he thinks that she will accept soon enough. Tess believes
that she must tell Angel about her lineage and her dark past, but
hesitates and resolves to tell him later.
Summary: Chapter XXIX
The farm floods with gossip about a failed marriage. A
man named Jack Dollop married a widow, expecting to partake of her
substantial dowry, only to discover that her financial stability
and income vanishes as a result of the marriage. Most people at
the dairy think the widow was wrong to deceive Jack Dollop of this
fact and that she should have been completely truthful with him
before marrying. This widespread opinion makes Tess nervous again
about her past. She wonders whether she should reveal this past
to Angel.
Summary: Chapter XXX
As they are taking care of some chores, Angel mentions
offhandedly to Tess that they are near the ancestral territory of
the ancient d’Urbervilles. She takes the opportunity to tell Angel
that she descends from the d’Urbervilles, and he is pleased, realizing
that her descent from noble blood will make her a better match in
the eyes of his family. At last Tess agrees to marry him, and she
begins to weep. Tess asks if she may write to her mother, and when
Angel learns she is from Marlott, he remembers where he has seen
her before—on May Day, when they did not dance.
