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

than her who belongs to him. But I guess from your manner that you love him desperately, and I don’t hate you as I did before.”

“Yes, indeed,” continued Mrs. Fitzpiers, with a trembling tongue, “since it is not playing in your case at all, but real. Oh, I do pity you, more than I despise you, for you will s-s-suffer most!”

Mrs. Charmond was now as much agitated as Grace. “I ought not to allow myself to argue with you,” she exclaimed. “I demean myself by doing it. But I liked you once, and for the sake of that time I try to tell you how mistaken you are!” Much of her confusion resulted from her wonder and alarm at finding herself in a sense dominated mentally and emotionally by this simple schoolgirl. “I do not love him,” she went on, with desperate untruth. “It was a kindness⁠—my making somewhat more of him than one usually does of one’s doctor. I was lonely; I talked⁠—well, I trifled with him. I am very sorry if such child’s playing out of pure friendship has been a serious matter to you. Who could have expected it? But the world is so simple here.”

“Oh, that’s affectation,” said Grace, shaking her head. “It is no use⁠—you love him. I can see in your face that in this matter of my husband you have not let your acts belie your feelings. During these last four or six months you have been terribly indiscreet; but you have not been insincere, and that almost disarms me.”

“I have been insincere⁠—if you will have the word⁠—I mean I have coquetted, and do not love him!”

But Grace clung to her position like a limpet. “You may have trifled with others, but him you love as you never loved another man.”

“Oh, well⁠—I won’t argue,” said Mrs. Charmond, laughing faintly. “And you come to reproach me for it, child.”

“No,” said Grace, magnanimously. “You may go on loving him if you like⁠—I don’t mind at all. You’ll find it, let me tell you, a bitterer business for yourself than for me in the end. He’ll get tired of you soon, as tired as can be⁠—you don’t know him so well as I⁠—and then you may wish you had never seen him!”

Mrs. Charmond had grown quite pale and weak under this prophecy. It was extraordinary that Grace, whom almost everyone would have characterized as a gentle girl, should be of stronger fibre than her interlocutor. “You exaggerate⁠—cruel, silly young woman,” she reiterated, writhing with little agonies. “It is nothing but playful friendship⁠—nothing! It will be proved by my future conduct. I shall at once refuse to see him more⁠—since it will make no difference to my heart, and much to my name.”

“I question if you will refuse to see him again,” said Grace, dryly, as with eyes askance she bent a sapling down. “But I am not incensed against you as you are against me,” she added, abandoning the tree to its natural perpendicular. “Before I came I had been despising you for wanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When Edgar has gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonable hours and unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and miles across the country at midnight, and risking his life, and getting covered with mud, to get a glimpse of you, I have called him a foolish man⁠—the plaything of a finished coquette. I thought that what was getting to be a tragedy to me was a comedy to you. But now I see that tragedy lies on your side of the situation no less than on mine, and more; that if I have felt trouble at my position, you have felt anguish at yours; that if I have had disappointments, you have had despairs. Heaven may fortify me⁠—God help you!”

“I cannot attempt to reply to your raving eloquence,” returned the other, struggling to restore a dignity which had completely collapsed. “My acts will be my proofs. In the world which you have seen nothing of, friendships between men and women are not unknown, and it would have been better both for you and your father if you had each judged me more respectfully, and left me alone. As it is I wish never to see or speak to you, madam, any more.”

Grace bowed, and Mrs. Charmond turned away. The two went apart in directly opposite courses, and were soon hidden from each other by their umbrageous surroundings and by the shadows of eve.

In the excitement of their long argument they had walked onward and zigzagged about without regarding direction or distance. All sound of the woodcutters had long since faded into remoteness, and even had not the interval been too great for hearing them they would have been silent and homeward bound at this twilight hour. But Grace went on her course without any misgiving, though there was much underwood here, with only the narrowest passages for walking, across which brambles hung. She had not, however, traversed this the wildest part of the wood since her childhood, and the transformation of outlines had been great; old trees which once were landmarks had been felled or blown down, and the bushes which then had been small and scrubby were now large and overhanging. She soon found that her ideas as to direction were vague⁠—that she had indeed no ideas as to direction at all. If the evening had not been growing so dark, and the wind had not put on its night moan so distinctly, Grace would not have minded; but she was rather frightened now, and began to strike across hither and thither in random courses.

Denser grew the darkness, more developed the wind-voices, and still no recognizable spot or outlet of any kind appeared, nor any sound of the Hintocks floated near, though she had wandered probably between one and two hours, and began to be weary. She was vexed at her foolishness, since the ground she had covered, if in