The Woodlanders - Thomas Hardy (best books to read for women .txt) 📗

on one of the stone sills⁠—still warm with the sun that had been pouring its rays upon them all the afternoon.

“This place would just do for us, would it not, dearest,” said her betrothed, as they sat, turning and looking idly at the old façade.

“Oh yes,” said Grace, plainly showing that no such fancy had ever crossed her mind. “She is away from home still,” Grace added in a minute, rather sadly, for she could not forget that she had somehow lost the valuable friendship of the lady of this bower.

“Who is?⁠—oh, you mean Mrs. Charmond. Do you know, dear, that at one time I thought you lived here.”

“Indeed!” said Grace. “How was that?”

He explained, as far as he could do so without mentioning his disappointment at finding it was otherwise; and then went on: “Well, never mind that. Now I want to ask you something. There is one detail of our wedding which I am sure you will leave to me. My inclination is not to be married at the horrid little church here, with all the yokels staring round at us, and a droning parson reading.”

“Where, then, can it be? At a church in town?”

“No. Not at a church at all. At a registry office. It is a quieter, snugger, and more convenient place in every way.”

“Oh,” said she, with real distress. “How can I be married except at church, and with all my dear friends round me?”

“Yeoman Winterborne among them.”

“Yes⁠—why not? You know there was nothing serious between him and me.”

“You see, dear, a noisy bell-ringing marriage at church has this objection in our case: it would be a thing of report a long way round. Now I would gently, as gently as possible, indicate to you how inadvisable such publicity would be if we leave Hintock, and I purchase the practice that I contemplate purchasing at Budmouth⁠—hardly more than twenty miles off. Forgive my saying that it will be far better if nobody there knows where you come from, nor anything about your parents. Your beauty and knowledge and manners will carry you anywhere if you are not hampered by such retrospective criticism.”

“But could it not be a quiet ceremony, even at church?” she pleaded.

“I don’t see the necessity of going there!” he said, a trifle impatiently. “Marriage is a civil contract, and the shorter and simpler it is made the better. People don’t go to church when they take a house, or even when they make a will.”

“Oh, Edgar⁠—I don’t like to hear you speak like that.”

“Well, well⁠—I didn’t mean to. But I have mentioned as much to your father, who has made no objection; and why should you?”

She gave way, deeming the point one on which she ought to allow sentiment to give way to policy⁠—if there were indeed policy in his plan. But she was indefinably depressed as they walked homeward.

XXIV

He left her at the door of her father’s house. As he receded, and was clasped out of sight by the filmy shades, he impressed Grace as a man who hardly appertained to her existence at all. Cleverer, greater than herself, one outside her mental orbit, as she considered him, he seemed to be her ruler rather than her equal, protector, and dear familiar friend.

The disappointment she had experienced at his wish, the shock given to her girlish sensibilities by his irreverent views of marriage, together with the sure and near approach of the day fixed for committing her future to his keeping, made her so restless that she could scarcely sleep at all that night. She rose when the sparrows began to walk out of the roof-holes, sat on the floor of her room in the dim light, and by-and-by peeped out behind the window-curtains. It was even now day out-of-doors, though the tones of morning were feeble and wan, and it was long before the sun would be perceptible in this overshadowed vale. Not a sound came from any of the outhouses as yet. The tree-trunks, the road, the outbuildings, the garden, every object wore that aspect of mesmeric fixity which the suspensive quietude of daybreak lends to such scenes. Outside her window helpless immobility seemed to be combined with intense consciousness; a meditative inertness possessed all things, oppressively contrasting with her own active emotions. Beyond the road were some cottage roofs and orchards; over these roofs and over the apple-trees behind, high up the slope, and backed by the plantation on the crest, was the house yet occupied by her future husband, the roughcast front showing whitely through its creepers. The window-shutters were closed, the bedroom curtains closely drawn, and not the thinnest coil of smoke rose from the rugged chimneys.

Something broke the stillness. The front door of the house she was gazing at opened softly, and there came out into the porch a female figure, wrapped in a large shawl, beneath which was visible the white skirt of a long loose garment. A gray arm, stretching from within the porch, adjusted the shawl over the woman’s shoulders; it was withdrawn and disappeared, the door closing behind her.

The woman went quickly down the box-edged path between the raspberries and currants, and as she walked her well-developed form and gait betrayed her individuality. It was Suke Damson, the affianced one of simple young Tim Tangs. At the bottom of the garden she entered the shelter of the tall hedge, and only the top of her head could be seen hastening in the direction of her own dwelling.

Grace had recognized, or thought she recognized, in the gray arm stretching from the porch, the sleeve of a dressing-gown which Mr. Fitzpiers had been wearing on her own memorable visit to him. Her face fired red. She had just before thought of dressing herself and taking a lonely walk under the trees, so coolly green this early morning; but she now sat down on her bed and fell into reverie. It seemed as if hardly any time had passed when