The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy (the reader ebook TXT) 📖

muddy roads rendering that labor useless; but they were washed today. The harness was blacked, and when the rather elderly white horse had been put in, and Winterborne was in his seat ready to start, Mr. Melbury stepped out with a blacking-brush, and with his own hands touched over the yellow hoofs of the animal.

“You see, Giles,” he said, as he blacked, “coming from a fashionable school, she might feel shocked at the homeliness of home; and ’tis these little things that catch a dainty woman’s eye if they are neglected. We, living here alone, don’t notice how the whitey-brown creeps out of the earth over us; but she, fresh from a city⁠—why, she’ll notice everything!”

“That she will,” said Giles.

“And scorn us if we don’t mind.”

“Not scorn us.”

“No, no, no⁠—that’s only words. She’s too good a girl to do that. But when we consider what she knows, and what she has seen since she last saw us, ’tis as well to meet her views as nearly as possible. Why, ’tis a year since she was in this old place, owing to her going abroad in the summer, which I agreed to, thinking it best for her; and naturally we shall look small, just at first⁠—I only say just at first.”

Mr. Melbury’s tone evinced a certain exultation in the very sense of that inferiority he affected to deplore; for this advanced and refined being, was she not his own all the time? Not so Giles; he felt doubtful⁠—perhaps a trifle cynical⁠—for that strand was wound into him with the rest. He looked at his clothes with misgiving, then with indifference.

It was his custom during the planting season to carry a specimen apple-tree to market with him as an advertisement of what he dealt in. This had been tied across the gig; and as it would be left behind in the town, it would cause no inconvenience to Miss Grace Melbury coming home.

He drove away, the twigs nodding with each step of the horse; and Melbury went indoors. Before the gig had passed out of sight, Mr. Melbury reappeared and shouted after⁠—

“Here, Giles,” he said, breathlessly following with some wraps, “it may be very chilly tonight, and she may want something extra about her. And, Giles,” he added, when the young man, having taken the articles, put the horse in motion once more, “tell her that I should have come myself, but I had particular business with Mrs. Charmond’s agent, which prevented me. Don’t forget.”

He watched Winterborne out of sight, saying, with a jerk⁠—a shape into which emotion with him often resolved itself⁠—“There, now, I hope the two will bring it to a point and have done with it! ’Tis a pity to let such a girl throw herself away upon him⁠—a thousand pities!⁠ ⁠… And yet ’tis my duty for his father’s sake.”

V

Winterborne sped on his way to Sherton Abbas without elation and without discomposure. Had he regarded his inner self spectacularly, as lovers are now daily more wont to do, he might have felt pride in the discernment of a somewhat rare power in him⁠—that of keeping not only judgment but emotion suspended in difficult cases. But he noted it not. Neither did he observe what was also the fact, that though he cherished a true and warm feeling towards Grace Melbury, he was not altogether her fool just now. It must be remembered that he had not seen her for a year.

Arrived at the entrance to a long flat lane, which had taken the spirit out of many a pedestrian in times when, with the majority, to travel meant to walk, he saw before him the trim figure of a young woman in pattens, journeying with that steadfast concentration which means purpose and not pleasure. He was soon near enough to see that she was Marty South. Click, click, click went the pattens; and she did not turn her head.

She had, however, become aware before this that the driver of the approaching gig was Giles. She had shrunk from being overtaken by him thus; but as it was inevitable, she had braced herself up for his inspection by closing her lips so as to make her mouth quite unemotional, and by throwing an additional firmness into her tread.

“Why do you wear pattens, Marty? The turnpike is clean enough, although the lanes are muddy.”

“They save my boots.”

“But twelve miles in pattens⁠—’twill twist your feet off. Come, get up and ride with me.”

She hesitated, removed her pattens, knocked the gravel out of them against the wheel, and mounted in front of the nodding specimen apple-tree. She had so arranged her bonnet with a full border and trimmings that her lack of long hair did not much injure her appearance; though Giles, of course, saw that it was gone, and may have guessed her motive in parting with it, such sales, though infrequent, being not unheard of in that locality.

But nature’s adornment was still hard by⁠—in fact, within two feet of him, though he did not know it. In Marty’s basket was a brown paper packet, and in the packet the chestnut locks, which, by reason of the barber’s request for secrecy, she had not ventured to entrust to other hands.

Giles asked, with some hesitation, how her father was getting on.

He was better, she said; he would be able to work in a day or two; he would be quite well but for his craze about the tree falling on him.

“You know why I don’t ask for him so often as I might, I suppose?” said Winterborne. “Or don’t you know?”

“I think I do.”

“Because of the houses?”

She nodded.

“Yes. I am afraid it may seem that my anxiety is about those houses, which I should lose by his death, more than about him. Marty, I do feel anxious about the houses, since half my income depends upon them; but I do likewise care for him; and it almost seems wrong that houses should be leased for lives, so as to lead to