The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy (small books to read .txt) 📕

she heard the household moving briskly about, and breakfast preparing downstairs; though, on rousing herself to robe and descend, she found that the sun was throwing his rays completely over the treetops, a progress of natural phenomena denoting that at least three hours had elapsed since she last looked out of the window.

When attired she searched about the house for her father; she found him at last in the garden, stooping to examine the potatoes for signs of disease. Hearing her rustle, he stood up and stretched his back and arms, saying, “Morning t’ye, Gracie. I congratulate ye. It is only a month today to the time!”

She did not answer, but, without lifting her dress, waded between the dewy rows of tall potato-green into the middle of the plot where he was.

“I have been thinking very much about my position this morning⁠—ever since it was light,” she began, excitedly, and trembling so that she could hardly stand. “And I feel it is a false one. I wish not to marry Mr. Fitzpiers. I wish not to marry anybody; but I’ll marry Giles Winterborne if you say I must as an alternative.”

Her father’s face settled into rigidity, he turned pale, and came deliberately out of the plot before he answered her. She had never seen him look so incensed before.

“Now, hearken to me,” he said. “There’s a time for a woman to alter her mind; and there’s a time when she can no longer alter it, if she has any right eye to her parents’ honor and the seemliness of things. That time has come. I won’t say to ye, you shall marry him. But I will say that if you refuse, I shall forever be ashamed and a-weary of ye as a daughter, and shall look upon you as the hope of my life no more. What do you know about life and what it can bring forth, and how you ought to act to lead up to best ends? Oh, you are an ungrateful maid, Grace; you’ve seen that fellow Giles, and he has got over ye; that’s where the secret lies, I’ll warrant me!”

“No, father, no! It is not Giles⁠—it is something I cannot tell you of⁠—”

“Well, make fools of us all; make us laughingstocks; break it off; have your own way.”

“But who knows of the engagement as yet? how can breaking it disgrace you?”

Melbury then by degrees admitted that he had mentioned the engagement to this acquaintance and to that, till she perceived that in his restlessness and pride he had published it everywhere. She went dismally away to a bower of laurel at the top of the garden. Her father followed her.

“It is that Giles Winterborne!” he said, with an upbraiding gaze at her.

“No, it is not; though for that matter you encouraged him once,” she said, troubled to the verge of despair. “It is not Giles, it is Mr. Fitzpiers.”

“You’ve had a tiff⁠—a lovers’ tiff⁠—that’s all, I suppose!”

“It is some woman⁠—”

“Ay, ay; you are jealous. The old story. Don’t tell me. Now do you bide here. I’ll send Fitzpiers to you. I saw him smoking in front of his house but a minute bygone.”

He went off hastily out of the garden-gate and down the lane. But she would not stay where she was; and edging through a slit in the garden-fence, walked away into the wood. Just about here the trees were large and wide apart, and there was no undergrowth, so that she could be seen to some distance; a sylphlike, greenish-white creature, as toned by the sunlight and leafage. She heard a footfall crushing dead leaves behind her, and found herself reconnoitered by Fitzpiers himself, approaching gay and fresh as the morning around them.

His remote gaze at her had been one of mild interest rather than of rapture. But she looked so lovely in the green world about her, her pink cheeks, her simple light dress, and the delicate flexibility of her movement acquired such rarity from their wild-wood setting, that his eyes kindled as he drew near.

“My darling, what is it? Your father says you are in the pouts, and jealous, and I don’t know what. Ha! ha! ha! as if there were any rival to you, except vegetable nature, in this home of recluses! We know better.”

“Jealous; oh no, it is not so,” said she, gravely. “That’s a mistake of his and yours, sir. I spoke to him so closely about the question of marriage with you that he did not apprehend my state of mind.”

“But there’s something wrong⁠—eh?” he asked, eying her narrowly, and bending to kiss her. She shrank away, and his purposed kiss miscarried.

“What is it?” he said, more seriously for this little defeat.

She made no answer beyond, “Mr. Fitzpiers, I have had no breakfast, I must go in.”

“Come,” he insisted, fixing his eyes upon her. “Tell me at once, I say.”

It was the greater strength against the smaller; but she was mastered less by his manner than by her own sense of the unfairness of silence. “I looked out of the window,” she said, with hesitation. “I’ll tell you by-and-by. I must go indoors. I have had no breakfast.”

By a sort of divination his conjecture went straight to the fact. “Nor I,” said he, lightly. “Indeed, I rose late today. I have had a broken night, or rather morning. A girl of the village⁠—I don’t know her name⁠—came and rang at my bell as soon as it was light⁠—between four and five, I should think it was⁠—perfectly maddened with an aching tooth. As nobody heard her ring, she threw some gravel at my window, till at last I heard her and slipped on my dressing-gown and went down. The poor thing begged me with tears in her eyes to take out her tormentor, if I dragged her head off. Down she sat and out it came⁠—a lovely molar, not a speck upon it; and off she went with it in her handkerchief, much contented, though it would have done good