Angel returns to England from Brazil

Angel Clare’s return from Brazil is not a simple homecoming or a reunion with Tess. He arrives at Emminster Vicarage weakened by illness and hardship, carrying the hope of returning to her only to find her letter accusing him of cruelty and learn that she has left Marlott. The return reverses the confidence with which he had imagined reconciliation: forgiveness is no longer his alone to grant, and Tess’s whereabouts are unknown.

The Homecoming at Emminster Vicarage

The return begins as a vigil. In the spring evening, the candles burn beneath their green shades in the Vicar’s study, but the Vicar cannot settle there. He repeatedly comes and goes between the front door and the drawing-room, while Mrs Clare waits with him. They know the arrival time depends on a train reaching Chalk-Newton and a ten-mile journey by country road, half of it along Crimmercrock Lane. Their talk about the delay does not dispel the expectation; it merely fills the minutes until the old pony-chaise appears.

The parents recognize the newcomer less by his appearance than by the fact that he has arrived at the moment when they expect him. Mrs Clare rushes through the dark passage to greet him. Seeing her son, she sets aside the religious disagreement that had contributed to their separation and welcomes him home without regard for the dust on his clothes. But when the family reaches the candlelit room, recognition gives way to alarm: this is not the Angel who left. His mother turns aside in sorrow, and his father is shocked by how much he has been reduced.

The narration makes the cost of the Brazilian absence visible in Angel’s body. Worry, illness, and the bad season have hollowed his face; the description likens him first to a skeleton behind a man and then to a ghost behind a skeleton. He says that he was ill abroad and is now well, but his legs give way and he has to sit down to avoid falling. The slight faintness is attributed to the long journey and the excitement of arriving, yet the collapse undercuts his attempt to reassure his parents. His return is therefore marked both by the relief of homecoming and by evidence of what the intervening months have done to him.

Tess’s Letter and the Reversal of Forgiveness

Angel quickly asks whether any letters have arrived. He explains that the last letter sent on to him reached him only by chance and after considerable delay because he was inland; otherwise, he might have come sooner. His parents suppose that the letter was from his wife, and he confirms that it was. A further letter has arrived, but his parents held it back because they expected him to start for home shortly.

When Angel opens that letter, Tess’s handwriting carries a judgment he has not prepared himself to receive. She says she has thought carefully about how he treated her and cannot forgive him; she insists that she did not intend to wrong him and calls his treatment of her cruel and unjust. The letter is not a request for him to return or a declaration that their marriage is repaired. It tells him that the injury of their separation has altered her view of him. He throws it down and acknowledges that she may never be reconciled to him.

This response overturns the expectation he had formed abroad. While south of the Equator, after receiving a loving letter from Tess, he had thought it easy to rush back into her arms whenever he chose to forgive her. Back in England, the prospect is different. He now has to reckon with the possibility that his delay has changed her love into dislike, and he recognizes that such a change would be justified. The language of forgiveness that once placed the decision in his hands is displaced by Tess’s right to assess what he has done.

An Attempt to Prepare for a Meeting

The morning after his arrival, Angel feels so unwell that he remains in his room, thinking over the circumstances in which he left Tess. He worries that appearing without warning at her parents’ home could bring bitter words rather than reconciliation, especially if her feelings have changed. His hesitation is not simply a logistical delay: he understands that he cannot assume that the wife he left will receive him as the same person he imagined returning to.

He decides to send a message to Marlott before confronting Tess, announcing that he is back and asking whether she is still living with her family there, as he had arranged before leaving England. The reply comes from Mrs Durbeyfield before the week is out. It does not give Angel the reassurance he sought: Tess is away, her mother does not know when she will return, and she does not feel free to disclose where she is staying. Mrs Durbeyfield also says that the family has left Marlott for some time.

The return thus ends this episode not in reunion but in uncertainty. Angel has reached England and his parents’ home, yet he has not reached Tess; even his attempt to find her through her family yields no address. His physical return is complete, but the emotional return he had imagined remains beyond his control. The distance between the two is made concrete by the letter in Tess’s hand and by the missing location in Mrs Durbeyfield’s reply.

Significance of the Return

The scene places Angel’s changed understanding beside his changed appearance. He comes home believing that he may resume the marriage when he is ready, but Tess’s letter confronts him with the consequences of having left her and taken so long to return. His parents’ welcome cannot restore the earlier terms of the relationship: his mother’s immediate affection contrasts with the anger of the wife he hopes to find, while his father’s shock at his condition underscores the hardship he has endured abroad.

The episode also turns homecoming into a failed recovery of certainty. Angel returns to the familiar setting of Emminster Vicarage, where his parents wait for him, but the homecoming supplies no answer about Tess’s feelings or whereabouts. Instead, he learns that she may not forgive him and that her family has moved away from Marlott. The return matters because it converts his imagined reconciliation into an unresolved search, leaving the next approach to Tess dependent on information he does not yet possess.