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

of the court. Somebody had looked over the wall to talk to the sawyers, and was telling them in a loud voice news in which the name of Mrs. Charmond soon arrested his ears.

“Grammer, don’t make so much noise with that grate,” said the surgeon; at which Grammer reared herself upon her knees and held the fuel suspended in her hand, while Fitzpiers half opened the casement.

“She is off to foreign lands again at last⁠—hev made up her mind quite sudden-like⁠—and it is thoughted she’ll leave in a day or two. She’s been all as if her mind were low for some days past⁠—with a sort of sorrow in her face, as if she reproached her own soul. She’s the wrong sort of woman for Hintock⁠—hardly knowing a beech from a woak⁠—that I own. But I don’t care who the man is, she’s been a very kind friend to me.

“Well, the day after tomorrow is the Sabbath day, and without charity we are but tinkling simples; but this I do say, that her going will be a blessed thing for a certain married couple who remain.”

The fire was lighted, and Fitzpiers sat down in front of it, restless as the last leaf upon a tree. “A sort of sorrow in her face, as if she reproached her own soul.” Poor Felice. How Felice’s frame must be pulsing under the conditions of which he had just heard the caricature; how her fair temples must ache; what a mood of wretchedness she must be in! But for the mixing up of his name with hers, and her determination to sunder their too close acquaintance on that account, she would probably have sent for him professionally. She was now sitting alone, suffering, perhaps wishing that she had not forbidden him to come again.

Unable to remain in this lonely room any longer, or to wait for the meal which was in course of preparation, he made himself ready for riding, descended to the yard, stood by the stable-door while Darling was being saddled, and rode off down the lane. He would have preferred walking, but was weary with his day’s travel.

As he approached the door of Marty South’s cottage, which it was necessary to pass on his way, she came from the porch as if she had been awaiting him, and met him in the middle of the road, holding up a letter. Fitzpiers took it without stopping, and asked over his shoulder from whom it came.

Marty hesitated. “From me,” she said, shyly, though with noticeable firmness.

This letter contained, in fact, Marty’s declaration that she was the original owner of Mrs. Charmond’s supplementary locks, and enclosed a sample from the native stock, which had grown considerably by this time. It was her long contemplated apple of discord, and much her hand trembled as she handed the document up to him.

But it was impossible on account of the gloom for Fitzpiers to read it then, while he had the curiosity to do so, and he put it in his pocket. His imagination having already centred itself on Hintock House, in his pocket the letter remained unopened and forgotten, all the while that Marty was hopefully picturing its excellent weaning effect upon him.

He was not long in reaching the precincts of the Manor House. He drew rein under a group of dark oaks commanding a view of the front, and reflected a while. His entry would not be altogether unnatural in the circumstances of her possible indisposition; but upon the whole he thought it best to avoid riding up to the door. By silently approaching he could retreat unobserved in the event of her not being alone. Thereupon he dismounted, hitched Darling to a stray bough hanging a little below the general browsing line of the trees, and proceeded to the door on foot.

In the meantime Melbury had returned from Shottsford-Forum. The great court or quadrangle of the timber-merchant’s house, divided from the shady lane by an ivy-covered wall, was entered by two white gates, one standing near each extremity of the wall. It so happened that at the moment when Fitzpiers was riding out at the lower gate on his way to the Manor House, Melbury was approaching the upper gate to enter it. Fitzpiers being in front of Melbury was seen by the latter, but the surgeon, never turning his head, did not observe his father-in-law, ambling slowly and silently along under the trees, though his horse too was a gray one.

“How is Grace?” said his wife, as soon as he entered.

Melbury looked gloomy. “She is not at all well,” he said. “I don’t like the looks of her at all. I couldn’t bear the notion of her biding away in a strange place any longer, and I begged her to let me get her home. At last she agreed to it, but not till after much persuading. I was then sorry that I rode over instead of driving; but I have hired a nice comfortable carriage⁠—the easiest-going I could get⁠—and she’ll be here in a couple of hours or less. I rode on ahead to tell you to get her room ready; but I see her husband has come back.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Melbury. She expressed her concern that her husband had hired a carriage all the way from Shottsford. “What it will cost!” she said.

“I don’t care what it costs!” he exclaimed, testily. “I was determined to get her home. Why she went away I can’t think! She acts in a way that is not at all likely to mend matters as far as I can see.” (Grace had not told her father of her interview with Mrs. Charmond, and the disclosure that had been whispered in her startled ear.) “Since Edgar is come,” he continued, “he might have waited in till I got home, to ask me how she was, if only for a compliment. I saw him go out; where is he gone?”

Mrs. Melbury did not know positively; but she told her husband that there was