The Woodlanders Part 2 by Thomas Hardy (best romantic books to read txt) 📕

"Oh Yes,  Yes!" Said Grace,  With Feeble Impatience.  She Tore The

Envelope,  Unfolded the Sheet,  And Read; When A Creeping blush

Tinctured her White Neck And Cheek.

Her Father Had Exercised a Bold Discretion.  He Informed her That

She Need have No Further Concern About Fitzpiers'S Return; That

She Would Shortly Be A Free Woman; And Therefore,  If She Should

Desire To Wed her Old Lover--Which He Trusted was The Case,  Since

It Was His Own Deep Wish--She Would Be In a Position To Do So.  In

This Melbury Had Not Written Beyond His Belief.  But He Very Much

Stretched the Facts In adding that The Legal Formalities For

Dissolving her Union Were Practically Settled.  The Truth Was That

On The Arrival Of The Doctor'S Letter Poor Melbury Had Been Much

Agitated,  And Could With Difficulty Be Prevented by Beaucock From

Returning to Her Bedside.  What Was The Use Of His Rushing back To

Hintock? Beaucock Had Asked him.  The Only Thing that Could Do Her

Any Good Was A Breaking of The Bond.  Though He Had Not As Yet Had

An Interview With The Eminent Solicitor They Were About To

Consult,  He Was On The Point Of Seeing him; And The Case Was Clear

Enough.  Thus The Simple Melbury,  Urged by His Parental Alarm At

Her Danger By The Representations Of His Companion,  And By The

Doctor'S Letter,  Had Yielded,  And Sat Down To Tell Her Roundly

That She Was Virtually Free.

"And You'D Better Write Also To The Gentleman," Suggested

Beaucock,  Who,  Scenting notoriety And The Germ Of A Large Practice

In The Case,  Wished to Commit Melbury To It Irretrievably; To

Effect Which He Knew That Nothing would Be So Potent As Awakening

The Passion Of Grace For Winterborne,  So That Her Father Might Not

Have The Heart To Withdraw From His Attempt To Make Her Love

Legitimate When He Discovered that There Were Difficulties In the

Way.

The Nervous,  Impatient Melbury Was Much Pleased with The Idea Of

"Starting them At Once," As He Called it.  To Put His Long-Delayed

Reparative Scheme In train Had Become A Passion With Him Now.  He

Added to The Letter Addressed to His Daughter A Passage Hinting

That She Ought To Begin To Encourage Winterborne,  Lest She Should

Lose Him Altogether; And He Wrote To Giles That The Path Was

Virtually Open For Him At Last.  Life Was Short,  He Declared;

There Were Slips Betwixt The Cup And The Lip; Her Interest In him

Should Be Reawakened at Once,  That All Might Be Ready When The

Good Time Came For Uniting them.

At These Warm Words Winterborne Was Not Less Dazed than He Was

Moved in heart.  The Novelty Of The Avowal Rendered what It

Carried with It Inapprehensible By Him In its Entirety.

Only A Few Short Months Ago Completely Estranged from This Family--

Beholding grace Going to And Fro In the Distance,  Clothed with

The Alienating radiance Of Obvious Superiority,  The Wife Of The

Then Popular And Fashionable Fitzpiers,  Hopelessly Outside His

Social Boundary Down To So Recent A Time That Flowers Then Folded

Were Hardly Faded yet--He Was Now Asked by That Jealously Guarding

Father Of Hers To Take Courage--To Get Himself Ready For The Day

When He Should Be Able To Claim Her.

The Old Times Came Back To Him In dim Procession.  How He Had Been

Snubbed; How Melbury Had Despised his Christmas Party; How That

Sweet,  Coy Grace Herself Had Looked down Upon Him And His

Household Arrangements,  And Poor Creedle'S Contrivances!

Well,  He Could Not Believe It.  Surely The Adamantine Barrier Of

Marriage With Another Could Not Be Pierced like This! It Did

Violence To Custom.  Yet A New Law Might Do Anything.  But Was It

At All Within The Bounds Of Probability That A Woman Who,  Over And

Above Her Own Attainments,  Had Been Accustomed to Those Of A

Cultivated professional Man,  Could Ever Be The Wife Of Such As He?

Since The Date Of His Rejection He Had Almost Grown To See The

Reasonableness Of That Treatment.  He Had Said To Himself Again

And Again That Her Father Was Right; That The Poor Ceorl,  Giles

Winterborne,  Would Never Have Been Able To Make Such A Dainty Girl

Happy.  Yet,  Now That She Had Stood In a Position Farther Removed

From His Own Than At First,  He Was Asked to Prepare To Woo Her.

He Was Full Of Doubt.

Nevertheless,  It Was Not In him To Show Backwardness.  To Act So

Promptly As Melbury Desired him To Act Seemed,  Indeed,  Scarcely

Wise,  Because Of The Uncertainty Of Events.  Giles Knew Nothing of

Legal Procedure,  But He Did Know That For Him To Step Up To Grace

As A Lover Before The Bond Which Bound Her Was Actually Dissolved

Was Simply An Extravagant Dream Of Her Father'S Overstrained mind.

He Pitied melbury For His Almost Childish Enthusiasm,  And Saw That

The Aging man Must Have Suffered acutely To Be Weakened to This

Unreasoning desire.

Winterborne Was Far Too Magnanimous To Harbor Any Cynical

Conjecture That The Timber-Merchant,  In his Intense Affection For

Grace,  Was Courting him Now Because That Young Lady,  When

Disunited,  Would Be Left In an Anomalous Position,  To Escape Which

A Bad Husband Was Better Than None.  He Felt Quite Sure That His

Old Friend Was Simply On Tenterhooks Of Anxiety To Repair The

Almost Irreparable Error Of Dividing two Whom Nature Had Striven

To Join Together In earlier Days,  And That In his Ardor To Do This

He Was Oblivious Of Formalities. The Cautious Supervision Of His

Past Years Had Overleaped itself At Last.  Hence,  Winterborne

Perceived that,  In this New Beginning,  The Necessary Care Not To

Compromise Grace By Too Early Advances Must Be Exercised by

Himself.

Perhaps Winterborne Was Not Quite So Ardent As Heretofore.  There

Is No Such Thing as A Stationary Love: Men Are Either Loving more

Or Loving less.  But Giles Himself Recognized no Decline In his

Sense Of Her Dearness.  If The Flame Did Indeed burn Lower Now

Than When He Had Fetched her From Sherton At Her Last Return From

School,  The Marvel Was Small.  He Had Been Laboring ever Since His

Rejection And Her Marriage To Reduce His Former Passion To A

Docile Friendship,  Out Of Pure Regard To Its Expediency; And Their

Separation May Have Helped him To A Partial Success.

A Week And More Passed,  And There Was No Further News Of Melbury.

But The Effect Of The Intelligence He Had Already Transmitted upon

The Elastic-Nerved daughter Of The Woods Had Been Much What The

Old Surgeon Jones Had Surmised.  It Had Soothed her Perturbed

Spirit Better Than All The Opiates In the Pharmacopoeia.  She Had

Slept Unbrokenly A Whole Night And A Day.  The "New Law" Was To

Her A Mysterious,  Beneficent,  Godlike Entity,  Lately Descended

Upon Earth,  That Would Make Her As She Once Had Been Without

Trouble Or Annoyance.  Her Position Fretted her,  Its Abstract

Features Rousing an Aversion Which Was Even Greater Than Her

Aversion To The Personality Of Him Who Had Caused it.  It Was

Mortifying,  Productive Of Slights,  Undignified.  Him She Could

Forget; Her Circumstances She Had Always With Her.

She Saw Nothing of Winterborne During the Days Of Her Recovery;

And Perhaps On That Account Her Fancy Wove About Him A More

Romantic Tissue Than It Could Have Done If He Had Stood Before Her

With All The Specks And Flaws Inseparable From Corporeity.  He

Rose Upon Her Memory As The Fruit-God And The Wood-God In

Alternation; Sometimes Leafy,  And Smeared with Green Lichen,  As

She Had Seen Him Among The Sappy Boughs Of The Plantations;

Sometimes Cider-Stained,  And With Apple-Pips In the Hair Of His

Arms,  As She Had Met Him On His Return From Cider-Making in white

Hart Vale,  With His Vats And Presses Beside Him.  In her Secret

Heart She Almost Approximated to Her Father'S Enthusiasm In

Wishing to Show Giles Once For All How She Still Regarded him.

The Question Whether The Future Would Indeed bring them Together

For Life Was A Standing wonder With Her.  She Knew That It Could

Not With Any Propriety Do So Just Yet.  But Reverently Believing

In Her Father'S Sound Judgment And Knowledge,  As Good Girls Are

Wont To Do,  She Remembered what He Had Written About Her Giving a

Hint To Winterborne Lest There Should Be Risk In delay,  And Her

Feelings Were Not Averse To Such A Step,  So Far As It Could Be

Done Without Danger At This Early Stage Of The Proceedings.

From Being a Frail Phantom Of Her Former Equable Self She Returned

In Bounds To A Condition Of Passable Philosophy.  She Bloomed

Again In the Face In the Course Of A Few Days,  And Was Well Enough

To Go About As Usual.  One Day Mrs. Melbury Proposed that For A

Change She Should Be Driven In the Gig To Sherton Market,  Whither

Melbury'S Man Was Going on Other Errands.  Grace Had No Business

Whatever In sherton; But It Crossed her Mind That Winterborne

Would Probably Be There,  And This Made The Thought Of Such A Drive

Interesting.

On The Way She Saw Nothing of Him; But When The Horse Was Walking

Slowly Through The Obstructions Of Sheep Street,  She Discerned the

Young Man On The Pavement.  She Thought Of That Time When He Had

Been Standing under His Apple-Tree On Her Return From School,  And

Of The Tender Opportunity Then Missed through Her Fastidiousness.

Her Heart Rose In her Throat.  She Abjured all Such Fastidiousness

Now.  Nor Did She Forget The Last Occasion On Which She Had Beheld

Him In that Town,  Making cider In the Court-Yard Of The Earl Of

Wessex Hotel,  While She Was Figuring as A Fine Lady In the