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Melbury and his daughter drew near their house, having seen but one
living thing on their way, a squirrel, which did not run up its tree,
but, dropping the sweet chestnut which it carried, cried
chut-chut-chut, and stamped with its hind legs on the ground. When the
roofs and chimneys of the homestead began to emerg... | |
The firelight
of the room she sat in threw her figure into dark relief against the
window as she looked through the panes, and he must have seen her
distinctly. In a moment he went on, the gate fell to, and he
disappeared. At the hut she had declared that another had displaced
him; and now she had banished him. CH... | |
The liquid was of an opaline hue, and bore a
label with an inscription in Italian. He had probably got it in his
wanderings abroad. She knew but little Italian, but could understand
that the cordial was a febrifuge of some sort. Her father, her mother,
and all the household were anxious for her recovery, and she re... | |
The current of her being had
again set towards the lost Giles Winterborne. “Marty,” she said, “we both loved him. We will go to his grave
together.”
Great Hintock church stood at the upper part of the village, and could
be reached without passing through the street. In the dusk of the late
September day they wen... | |
Grace was abased when, by degrees, she found that she had never
understood Giles as Marty had done. Marty South alone, of all the women
in Hintock and the world, had approximated to Winterborne’s level of
intelligent intercourse with nature. In that respect she had formed the
complement to him in the other sex, had... | |
They knew by a glance at a trunk if its heart were sound, or
tainted with incipient decay, and by the state of its upper twigs, the
stratum that had been reached by its roots. The artifices of the
seasons were seen by them from the conjuror’s own point of view, and
not from that of the spectator’s. “He ought to hav... | |
Yet to ask him it
would be necessary to detail the true conditions in which she and
Winterborne had lived during these three or four critical days that
followed her flight; and in withdrawing her original defiant
announcement on that point, there seemed a weakness she did not care to
show. She never doubted that F... | |
He asked
himself whether it were not the act of a woman whose natural purity and
innocence had blinded her to the contingencies of such an announcement. His wide experience of the sex had taught him that, in many cases,
women who ventured on hazardous matters did so because they lacked an
imagination sensuous enoug... | |
They are not mine.” He could see,
indeed, that they were not hers, for one was a spade, large and heavy,
and another was a bill-hook which she could only have used with both
hands. The spade, though not a new one, had been so completely
burnished that it was bright as silver. Fitzpiers somehow divined that they wer... | |
“One who lived where he lived, and was with him when he
died.”
Then Marty, suspecting that he did not know the true circumstances,
from the fact that Mrs. Fitzpiers and himself were living apart, told
him of Giles’s generosity to Grace in giving up his house to her at the
risk, and possibly the sacrifice, of his... | |
Sometimes Grace thought that
it was a pity neither one of them had been his wife for a little while,
and given the world a copy of him who was so valuable in their eyes. Nothing ever had brought home to her with such force as this death how
little acquirements and culture weigh beside sterling personal
character. W... | |
On a certain day in February—the cheerful day of St. Valentine, in
fact—a letter reached Mrs. Fitzpiers, which had been mentally promised
her for that particular day a long time before. It announced that Fitzpiers was living at some midland town, where he
had obtained a temporary practice as assistant to some local ... | |
Is there any use in telling you—no, there is not—that I dream of your
ripe lips more frequently than I say my prayers; that the old familiar
rustle of your dress often returns upon my mind till it distracts me? If you could condescend even only to see me again you would be
breathing life into a corpse. My pure, pure... | |
Its perusal, therefore, had a certain novelty for her. She thought
that, upon the whole, he wrote love-letters very well. But the chief
rational interest of the letter to the reflective Grace lay in the
chance that such a meeting as he proposed would afford her of setting
her doubts at rest, one way or the other, o... | |
It was one of the few pleasures
that he had experienced of late years at all resembling those of his
early youth. He promptly replied that he accepted the conditions, and
named the day and hour at which he would be on the spot she mentioned. A few minutes before three on the appointed day found him climbing the
wel... | |
To be the vassal of her
sweet will for a time, he demanded no more, and found solace in the
contemplation of the soft miseries she caused him. Approaching the hill-top with a mind strung to these notions, Fitzpiers
discerned a gay procession of people coming over the crest, and was not
long in perceiving it to be a... | |
Home says I, but it won’t be that long! We be off next month.”
“Indeed. Where to?”
Tim informed him that they were going to New Zealand. Not but that he
would have been contented with Hintock, but his wife was ambitious and
wanted to leave, so he had given way. “Then good-by,” said Fitzpiers; “I may not see you... | |
There’ll be no such clever doctor as he in New
Zealand, if I should require one; and the thought o’t got the better of
my feelings!”
They walked on, but Tim’s face had grown rigid and pale, for he
recalled slight circumstances, disregarded at the time of their
occurrence. The former boisterous laughter of the we... | |
“I have agreed to be here mostly because I wanted to ask you something
important,” said Mrs. Fitzpiers, her intonation modulating in a
direction that she had not quite wished it to take. “I am most attentive,” said her husband. “Shall we take to the wood for
privacy?”
Grace demurred, and Fitzpiers gave in, and th... | |
Fitzpiers could hardly help showing his satisfaction at what her
narrative indirectly revealed, the actual harmlessness of an escapade
with her lover, which had at first, by her own showing, looked so
grave, and he did not care to inquire whether that harmlessness had
been the result of aim or of accident. With reg... | |
“It was nearly the whole.”
They stood and looked over a gate at twenty or thirty starlings feeding
in the grass, and he started the talk again by saying, in a low voice,
“And yet I love you more than ever I loved you in my life.”
Grace did not move her eyes from the birds, and folded her delicate
lips as if to... | |
“But, dearest Grace,” said he, “you have condescended to come; and I
thought from it that perhaps when I had passed through a long state of
probation you would be generous. But if there can be no hope of our
getting completely reconciled, treat me gently—wretch though I am.”
“I did not say you were a wretch, nor ... | |
But I have chosen to return to the one spot on
earth where my name is tarnished—to enter the house of a man from whom
I have had worse treatment than from any other man alive—all for you!”
This was undeniably true, and it had its weight with Grace, who began
to look as if she thought she had been shockingly sever... | |
Fitzpiers
expostulated at the interval, but the half-alarmed earnestness with
which she entreated him not to come sooner made him say hastily that he
submitted to her will—that he would regard her as a friend only,
anxious for his reform and well-being, till such time as she might
allow him to exceed that privileg... | |
They came onward, and
saw Melbury standing at the scene of the felling which had been audible
to them, when, telling Marty that she wished her meeting with Mr.
Fitzpiers to be kept private, she left the girl to join her father. At
any rate, she would consult him on the expediency of occasionally
seeing her husband... | |
But my opinion is that if you don’t live with him, you had better
live without him, and not go shilly-shallying and playing bopeep. You
sent him away; and now he’s gone. Very well; trouble him no more.”
Grace felt a guiltiness—she hardly knew why—and made no confession. CHAPTER XLVI. The woods were uninteresting, ... | |
“I said a
fortnight from the last meeting.”
“My dear, you don’t suppose I could wait a fortnight without trying to
get a glimpse of you, even though you had declined to meet me! Would it
make you angry to know that I have been along this path at dusk three
or four times since our last meeting? Well, how are you?... | |
I am sure you would
get on.”
“It is the very thing I am doing. I was going to ask you to burn—or, at
least, get rid of—all my philosophical literature. It is in the
bookcases in your rooms. The fact is, I never cared much for abstruse
studies.”
“I am so glad to hear you say that. And those other books—those p... | |
“I go with Marty to Giles’s grave. We
swore we would show him that devotion. And I mean to keep it up.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind that at all. I have no right to expect anything
else, and I will not wish you to keep away. I liked the man as well as
any I ever knew. In short, I would accompany you a part of the way t... | |
“It
was when I was under the impression that my marriage with you was about
to be annulled, and that he could then marry me. So I encouraged him to
love me.”
Fitzpiers winced visibly; and yet, upon the whole, she was right in
telling it. Indeed, his perception that she was right in her absolute
sincerity kept u... | |
“I wonder if you ever will?” He looked musingly into her indistinct
face, as if he would read the future there. “Now have pity, and tell
me: will you try?”
“To love you again?”
“Yes; if you can.”
“I don’t know how to reply,” she answered, her embarrassment proving
her truth. “Will you promise to leave me qu... | |
Fitzpiers did not exaggerate when he told her that he should haunt the
precincts of the dwelling. But his persistence in this course did not
result in his seeing her much oftener than at the fortnightly interval
which she had herself marked out as proper. At these times, however,
she punctually appeared, and as the... | |
It
was, naturally, quite out of his power to divine the singular,
sentimental revival in Fitzpiers’s heart; the fineness of tissue which
could take a deep, emotional—almost also an artistic—pleasure in being
the yearning _innamorato_ of a woman he once had deserted, would have
seemed an absurdity to the young sawy... | |
This scheme of emigration was dividing him
from his father—for old Tangs would on no account leave Hintock—and had
it not been for Suke’s reputation and his own dignity, Tim would at the
last moment have abandoned the project. As he sat in the back part of
the room he regarded her moodily, and the fire and the boxe... | |
She had accidentally discovered that Fitzpiers was in the habit
of coming secretly once or twice a week to Hintock, and knew that this
evening was a favorite one of the seven for his journey. As she was
going next day to leave the country, Suke thought there could be no
great harm in giving way to a little sentimen... | |
“And we _be_
anxious for our dears.”
“Then will you step in-doors, where your dear will soon jine ’ee? We’ve
to mouster by half-past three to-morrow, and if we don’t get to bed by
eight at latest our faces will be as long as clock-cases all day.”
She hesitated for a minute, but ultimately obeyed, going slowly ... | |
Owing to the slope of the ground the roof-eaves of the
linhay were here within touch, and he thrust his arm up under them,
feeling about in the space on the top of the wall-plate. “Ah, I thought my memory didn’t deceive me!” he lipped silently. With some exertion he drew down a cobwebbed object curiously framed in
i... | |
In short, though many varieties had been in use during those
centuries which we are accustomed to look back upon as the true and
only period of merry England—in the rural districts more especially—and
onward down to the third decade of the nineteenth century, this model
had borne the palm, and had been most usually... | |
When
they were open, the two halves formed a complete circle between two and
three feet in diameter, the plate or treading-place in the midst being
about a foot square, while from beneath extended in opposite directions
the soul of the apparatus, the pair of springs, each one being of a
stiffness to render necessa... | |
It had, indeed, been a fearful
amusement of Tim and other Hintock lads—especially those who had a dim
sense of becoming renowned poachers when they reached their prime—to
drag out this trap from its hiding, set it, and throw it with billets
of wood, which were penetrated by the teeth to the depth of near an
inch. ... | |
Then there shaped
itself a spot out of the dim mid-distance, between the masses of
brushwood on either hand. And it enlarged, and Tim could hear the
brushing of feet over the tufts of sour-grass. The airy gait revealed
Fitzpiers even before his exact outline could be seen. Tim Tangs turned about, and ran down the o... | |
His object
seemed to be to undress as soon as possible. Before, however, he had
completed the operation, a long cry resounded without—penetrating, but
indescribable. “What’s that?” said Suke, starting up in bed. “Sounds as if somebody had caught a hare in his gin.”
“Oh no,” said she. “It was not a hare, ’twas lou... | |
Should she inform her father before going out that the
estrangement of herself and Edgar was not so complete as he had
imagined, and deemed desirable for her happiness? If she did so she
must in some measure become the apologist of her husband, and she was
not prepared to go so far. As for him, he kept her in a moo... | |
She became lost in long ponderings on how far a person’s conscience
might be bound by vows made without at the time a full recognition of
their force. That particular sentence, beginning “Whom God hath joined
together,” was a staggerer for a gentlewoman of strong devotional
sentiment. She wondered whether God reall... | |
He
walked so much more rapidly than Grace that, if they continued
advancing as they had begun, he would reach the trap a good half-minute
before she could reach the same spot. But here a new circumstance came in; to escape the unpleasantness of
being watched or listened to by lurkers—naturally curious by reason of
... | |
Stretching down his hand to
ascertain the obstruction, it came in contact with a confused mass of
silken drapery and iron-work that conveyed absolutely no explanatory
idea to his mind at all. It was but the work of a moment to strike a
match; and then he saw a sight which congealed his blood. The man-trap was throw... | |
Oh, cruel Heaven—it is too much, this!” he
cried, writhing and rocking himself over the sorry accessories of her
he deplored. The voice of his distress was sufficiently loud to be audible to any
one who might have been there to hear it; and one there was. Right and
left of the narrow pass between the oaks were dens... | |
“Grace, my wife, my love, how is this—what has happened?”
“I was coming on to you,” she said as distinctly as she could in the
half-smothered state of her face against his. “I was trying to be as
punctual as possible, and as I had started a minute late I ran along
the path very swiftly—fortunately for myself. Jus... | |
One or both of your legs would
have been broken if you had come at ordinary walking pace.”
“Or yours, if you had got here first,” said she, beginning to realize
the whole ghastliness of the possibility. “Oh, Edgar, there has been an
Eye watching over us to-night, and we should be thankful indeed!”
He continued... | |
Fitzpiers assisted her to
put it on again; and when her customary contours were thus restored
they walked on together, Grace taking his arm, till he effected an
improvement by clasping it round her waist. The ice having been broken in this unexpected manner, she made no
further attempt at reserve. “I would ask you ... | |
They went on
together. The adventure, and the emotions consequent upon the reunion which that
event had forced on, combined to render Grace oblivious of the
direction of their desultory ramble, till she noticed they were in an
encircled glade in the densest part of the wood, whereon the moon, that
had imperceptibl... | |
I
recognize now the part of the wood we are in and I can find my way back
quite easily. I’ll tell my father that we have made it up. I wish I had
not kept our meetings so private, for it may vex him a little to know I
have been seeing you. He is getting old and irritable, that was why I
did not. Good-by.”
“But,... | |
She surely said she was going into the garden
to get some parsley.”
Melbury searched the garden, the parsley-bed, and the orchard, but
could find no trace of her, and then he made inquiries at the cottages
of such of his workmen as had not gone to bed, avoiding Tangs’s because
he knew the young people were to ri... | |
No intelligence of
any kind was gained till they met a woodman of Delborough, who said
that he had seen a lady answering to the description her father gave of
Grace, walking through the wood on a gentleman’s arm in the direction
of Sherton. “Was he clutching her tight?” said Melbury. “Well—rather,” said the man. “D... | |
At the entrance to the High
Street they got fresh scent of the pursued, but coupled with the new
condition that the lady in the costume described had been going up the
street alone. “Faith!—I believe she’s mesmerized, or walking in her sleep,” said
Melbury. However, the identity of this woman with Grace was by no m... | |
“Do you know if it is my daughter?” asked Melbury. The waiter did not. “Do you know the lady’s name?”
Of this, too, the household was ignorant, the hotel having been taken
by brand-new people from a distance. They knew the gentleman very well
by sight, and had not thought it necessary to ask him to enter his
name... | |
“You were caught in a man-trap?”
“Yes; my dress was. That’s how it arose. Edgar is up-stairs in his own
sitting-room,” she went on. “He would not mind seeing you, I am sure.”
“Oh, faith, I don’t want to see him! I have seen him too often a’ready. I’ll see him another time, perhaps, if ’tis to oblige ’ee.”
“He... | |
His search-party, too, had looked awkward there, having rushed to
the task of investigation—some in their shirt sleeves, others in their
leather aprons, and all much stained—just as they had come from their
work of barking, and not in their Sherton marketing attire; while
Creedle, with his ropes and grapnels and ai... | |
As soon as they had stumbled down
into the room Melbury ordered them to be served, when they made
themselves comfortable by the long table, and stretched out their legs
upon the herring-boned sand of the floor. Melbury himself, restless as
usual, walked to the door while he waited for them, and looked up and
down ... | |
“I knowed a man and wife—faith, I don’t mind owning, as
there’s no strangers here, that the pair were my own relations—they’d
be at it that hot one hour that you’d hear the poker and the tongs and
the bellows and the warming-pan flee across the house with the
movements of their vengeance; and the next hour you’d he... | |
He is such a projick, you see. And she is a wonderful scholar
too!”
“What women do know nowadays!” observed the hollow-turner. “You can’t
deceive ’em as you could in my time.”
“What they knowed then was not small,” said John Upjohn. “Always a good
deal more than the men! Why, when I went courting my wife that ... | |
No; I don’t think
the women have got cleverer, for they was never otherwise.”
“How many climates may there be in courtship, Mr. Upjohn?” inquired a
youth—the same who had assisted at Winterborne’s Christmas party. “Five—from the coolest to the hottest—leastwise there was five in
mine.”
“Can ye give us the chro... | |
“I think it was Marty South,” said the hollow-turner, parenthetically. “I think ’twas; ’a was always a lonely maid,” said Upjohn. And they
passed on homeward, and thought of the matter no more. It was Marty, as they had supposed. That evening had been the
particular one of the week upon which Grace and herself had be... | |
In the silence of the night Marty could
not help hearing fragments of their conversation, from which she
acquired a general idea of what had occurred, and where Mrs. Fitzpiers
then was. Immediately they had dropped down the hill she entered the church-yard,
going to a secluded corner behind the bushes, where rose t... | |
If ever I
forget your name, let me forget home and Heaven!—But no, no, my love, I
never can forget ’ee; for you was a _good_ man, and did good things!”
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