The Woodlanders

by Thomas Hardy

  CHAPTER XII.

  It was a day of rather bright weather for the season. Miss Melburywent out for a morning walk, and her ever-regardful father, having anhour's leisure, offered to walk with her. The breeze was fresh andquite steady, filtering itself through the denuded mass of twigswithout swaying them, but making the point of each ivy-leaf on thetrunks scratch its underlying neighbor restlessly. Grace's lips suckedin this native air of hers like milk. They soon reached a place wherethe wood ran down into a corner, and went outside it towardscomparatively open ground. Having looked round about, they wereintending to re-enter the copse when a fox quietly emerged with adragging brush, trotted past them tamely as a domestic cat, anddisappeared amid some dead fern. They walked on, her father merelyobserving, after watching the animal, "They are hunting somewhere near."

  Farther up they saw in the mid-distance the hounds running hither andthither, as if there were little or no scent that day. Soon diversmembers of the hunt appeared on the scene, and it was evident fromtheir movements that the chase had been stultified by generalpuzzle-headedness as to the whereabouts of the intended victim. In aminute a farmer rode up to the two pedestrians, panting with acteonicexcitement, and Grace being a few steps in advance, he addressed her,asking if she had seen the fox.

  "Yes," said she. "We saw him some time ago--just out there."

  "Did you cry Halloo?"

  "We said nothing."

  "Then why the d---- didn't you, or get the old buffer to do it for you?"said the man, as he cantered away.

  She looked rather disconcerted at this reply, and observing herfather's face, saw that it was quite red.

  "He ought not to have spoken to ye like that!" said the old man, in thetone of one whose heart was bruised, though it was not by the epithetapplied to himself. "And he wouldn't if he had been a gentleman.'Twas not the language to use to a woman of any niceness. You, so wellread and cultivated--how could he expect ye to know what tom-boyfield-folk are in the habit of doing? If so be you had just come fromtrimming swedes or mangolds--joking with the rough work-folk and allthat--I could have stood it. But hasn't it cost me near a hundred ayear to lift you out of all that, so as to show an example to theneighborhood of what a woman can be? Grace, shall I tell you the secretof it? 'Twas because I was in your company. If a black-coated squireor pa'son had been walking with you instead of me he wouldn't havespoken so."

  "No, no, father; there's nothing in you rough or ill-mannered!"

  "I tell you it is that! I've noticed, and I've noticed it many times,that a woman takes her color from the man she's walking with. Thewoman who looks an unquestionable lady when she's with a polished-upfellow, looks a mere tawdry imitation article when she's hobbing andnobbing with a homely blade. You sha'n't be treated like that forlong, or at least your children sha'n't. You shall have somebody towalk with you who looks more of a dandy than I--please God you shall!"

  "But, my dear father," she said, much distressed, "I don't mind at all.I don't wish for more honor than I already have!"

  "A perplexing and ticklish possession is a daughter," according toMenander or some old Greek poet, and to nobody was one ever more sothan to Melbury, by reason of her very dearness to him. As for Grace,she began to feel troubled; she did not perhaps wish there and then tounambitiously devote her life to Giles Winterborne, but she wasconscious of more and more uneasiness at the possibility of being thesocial hope of the family.

  "You would like to have more honor, if it pleases me?" asked herfather, in continuation of the subject.

  Despite her feeling she assented to this. His reasoning had not beenwithout its weight upon her.

  "Grace," he said, just before they had reached the house, "if it costsme my life you shall marry well! To-day has shown me that whatever ayoung woman's niceness, she stands for nothing alone. You shall marrywell."

  He breathed heavily, and his breathing was caught up by the breeze,which seemed to sigh a soft remonstrance.

  She looked calmly at him. "And how about Mr. Winterborne?" she asked."I mention it, father, not as a matter of sentiment, but as a questionof keeping faith."

  The timber-merchant's eyes fell for a moment. "I don't know--I don'tknow," he said. "'Tis a trying strait. Well, well; there's no hurry.We'll wait and see how he gets on."

  That evening he called her into his room, a snug little apartmentbehind the large parlor. It had at one time been part of thebakehouse, with the ordinary oval brick oven in the wall; but Mr.Melbury, in turning it into an office, had built into the cavity aniron safe, which he used for holding his private papers. The door ofthe safe was now open, and his keys were hanging from it.

  "Sit down, Grace, and keep me company," he said. "You may amuseyourself by looking over these." He threw out a heap of papers beforeher.

  "What are they?" she asked.

  "Securities of various sorts." He unfolded them one by one. "Papersworth so much money each. Now here's a lot of turnpike bonds for onething. Would you think that each of these pieces of paper is worth twohundred pounds?"

  "No, indeed, if you didn't say so."

  "'Tis so, then. Now here are papers of another sort. They are fordifferent sums in the three-per-cents. Now these are Port BreedyHarbor bonds. We have a great stake in that harbor, you know, becauseI send off timber there. Open the rest at your pleasure. They'llinterest ye."

  "Yes, I will, some day," said she, rising.

  "Nonsense, open them now. You ought to learn a little of such matters.A young lady of education should not be ignorant of money affairsaltogether. Suppose you should be left a widow some day, with yourhusband's title-deeds and investments thrown upon your hands--"

  "Don't say that, father--title-deeds; it sounds so vain!"

  "It does not. Come to that, I have title-deeds myself. There, thatpiece of parchment represents houses in Sherton Abbas."

  "Yes, but--" She hesitated, looked at the fire, and went on in a lowvoice: "If what has been arranged about me should come to anything, mysphere will be quite a middling one."

  "Your sphere ought not to be middling," he exclaimed, not in passion,but in earnest conviction. "You said you never felt more at home, morein your element, anywhere than you did that afternoon with Mrs.Charmond, when she showed you her house and all her knick-knacks, andmade you stay to tea so nicely in her drawing-room--surely you did!"

  "Yes, I did say so," admitted Grace.

  "Was it true?"

  "Yes, I felt so at the time. The feeling is less strong now, perhaps."

  "Ah! Now, though you don't see it, your feeling at the time was theright one, because your mind and body were just in full and freshcultivation, so that going there with her was like meeting like. Sincethen you've been biding with us, and have fallen back a little, and soyou don't feel your place so strongly. Now, do as I tell ye, and lookover these papers and see what you'll be worth some day. For they'llall be yours, you know; who have I got to leave 'em to but you?Perhaps when your education is backed up by what these papersrepresent, and that backed up by another such a set and their owner,men such as that fellow was this morning may think you a little morethan a buffer's girl."

  So she did as commanded, and opened each of the folded representativesof hard cash that her father put before her. To sow in her heartcravings for social position was obviously his strong desire, though indirect antagonism to a better feeling which had hitherto prevailed withhim, and had, indeed, only succumbed that morning during the ramble.

  She wished that she was not his worldly hope; the responsibility ofsuch a position was too great. She had made it for herself mainly byher appearance and attractive behavior to him since her return. "If Ihad only come home in a shabby dress, and tried to speak roughly, thismight not have happened," she thought. She deplored less the fact thanthe sad possibilities that might lie hidden therein.

  Her father then insisted upon her looking over his checkbook andreading the counterfoils. This, also, she obediently did, and at lastca
me to two or three which had been drawn to defray some of the lateexpenses of her clothes, board, and education.

  "I, too, cost a good deal, like the horses and wagons and corn," shesaid, looking up sorrily.

  "I didn't want you to look at those; I merely meant to give you an ideaof my investment transactions. But if you do cost as much as they,never mind. You'll yield a better return."

  "Don't think of me like that!" she begged. "A mere chattel."

  "A what? Oh, a dictionary word. Well, as that's in your line I don'tforbid it, even if it tells against me," he said, good-humoredly. Andhe looked her proudly up and down.

  A few minutes later Grammer Oliver came to tell them that supper wasready, and in giving the information she added, incidentally, "So weshall soon lose the mistress of Hintock House for some time, I hear,Maister Melbury. Yes, she's going off to foreign parts to-morrow, forthe rest of the winter months; and be-chok'd if I don't wish I could dothe same, for my wynd-pipe is furred like a flue."

  When the old woman had left the room, Melbury turned to his daughterand said, "So, Grace, you've lost your new friend, and your chance ofkeeping her company and writing her travels is quite gone from ye!"

  Grace said nothing.

  "Now," he went on, emphatically, "'tis Winterborne's affair has donethis. Oh yes, 'tis. So let me say one word. Promise me that you willnot meet him again without my knowledge."

  "I never do meet him, father, either without your knowledge or with it."

  "So much the better. I don't like the look of this at all. And I sayit not out of harshness to him, poor fellow, but out of tenderness toyou. For how could a woman, brought up delicately as you have been,bear the roughness of a life with him?"

  She sighed; it was a sigh of sympathy with Giles, complicated by asense of the intractability of circumstances.

  At that same hour, and almost at that same minute, there was aconversation about Winterborne in progress in the village street,opposite Mr. Melbury's gates, where Timothy Tangs the elder and RobertCreedle had accidentally met.

  The sawyer was asking Creedle if he had heard what was all over theparish, the skin of his face being drawn two ways on thematter--towards brightness in respect of it as news, and towardsconcern in respect of it as circumstance.

  "Why, that poor little lonesome thing, Marty South, is likely to loseher father. He was almost well, but is much worse again. A man allskin and grief he ever were, and if he leave Little Hintock for abetter land, won't it make some difference to your Maister Winterborne,neighbor Creedle?"

  "Can I be a prophet in Israel?" said Creedle. "Won't it! I was onlyshaping of such a thing yesterday in my poor, long-seeing way, and allthe work of the house upon my one shoulders! You know what it means? Itis upon John South's life that all Mr. Winterborne's houses hang. Ifso be South die, and so make his decease, thereupon the law is that thehouses fall without the least chance of absolution into HER hands atthe House. I told him so; but the words of the faithful be only aswind!"