Grace Melbury

“ That Fitzpiers could allow himself to look on any other creature for a moment than Grace filled Melbury with grief and astonishment. In the pure and simple life he had led it had scarcely occurred to him that after marriage a man might be faithless. That he could sweep to the heights of Mrs. Charmond’s position, lift the veil of Isis, so to speak, would have amazed Melbury by its audacity if he had not suspected encouragement from that quarter. ”

“ The character of the Melbury family was of that kind which evinces some shyness in showing strong emotion among each other: a trait frequent in rural households, and one which stands in curiously inverse relation to most of the peculiarities distinguishing villagers from the people of towns. Thus hiding their warmer feelings under commonplace talk all round, Grace's reception produced no extraordinary demonstrations. But that more was felt than was enacted appeared from the fact that her father, in taking her in-doors, quite forgot the presence of Giles without, as did also Grace herself. ”

“ To act so promptly as Melbury desired him to act seemed, indeed, scarcely wise, because of the uncertainty of events. Giles knew nothing of legal procedure, but he did know that for him to step up to Grace as a lover before the bond which bound her was actually dissolved was simply an extravagant dream of her father’s overstrained mind. He pitied Melbury for his almost childish enthusiasm, and saw that the aging man must have suffered acutely to be weakened to this unreasoning desire. ”

“ Melbury and Mrs. Melbury were standing there.
“I don’t reproach you, Grace,” said her father, with an estranged manner, and in a voice not at all like his old voice. “What has come upon you and us is beyond reproach, beyond weeping, and beyond wailing. Perhaps I drove you to it. But I am hurt; I am scourged; I am astonished. In the face of this there is nothing to be said.”
Without replying, Grace turned and glided back to the inner chamber. “Marty,” she said, quickly, “I cannot look my father in the face until he knows the true circumstances of my life here. ”

“ When Melbury had recovered a little he said, "You are now, as ever, Fitzpiers's wife. I was deluded. He has not done you ENOUGH harm. You are still subject to his beck and call."
"Then let it be, and never mind, father," she said, with dignified sorrow. "I can bear it. It is your trouble that grieves me most." She stooped over him, and put her arm round his neck, which distressed Melbury still more. "I don't mind at all what comes to me," Grace continued; "whose wife I am, or whose I am not. I do love Giles ”

“ Examine Grace as her father might, she would admit nothing. For the present, therefore, he simply watched.
The suspicion that his darling child was being slighted wrought almost a miraculous change in Melbury’s nature. No man so furtive for the time as the ingenuous countryman who finds that his ingenuousness has been abused. Melbury’s heretofore confidential candor towards his gentlemanly son-in-law was displaced by a feline stealth that did injury to his every action, thought, and mood. ”

“ The proposal pleased Melbury much. There could be hardly any danger in postponing any desirable change of air as long as the warm weather lasted, and for such a reason. Suddenly recollecting himself, he said, "Your time must be precious, doctor. I'll get home-along. I am much obliged to ye. As you will see her often, you'll discover for yourself if anything serious is the matter."
"I can assure you it is nothing," said Fitzpiers, who had seen Grace much oftener already than her father knew of. ”

“ Though accustomed to show herself instantly appreciative of her father's meanings, Grace was fairly unable to look anyhow but at a loss now.
"No, no—of course you don't know what I mean, or you pretend you don't; though, for my part, I believe women can see these things through a double hedge. But I suppose I must tell ye. Why, you've flung your grapnel over the doctor, and he's coming courting forthwith."
"Only think of that, my dear! Don't you feel it a triumph?" said Mrs. Melbury.
"Coming courting! I've done nothing to make him," Grace exclaimed. ”

“ He notes the variety of motives by which people are actuated in the choice of husbands and wives. In the novel called The Woodlanders, Grace Melbury, the daughter of a rich though humbly-born yeoman, has unusual opportunities for a girl of her class, and is educated to a point of physical and intellectual daintiness which make her seem superior to her home environment. Her father has hoped that she will marry her rustic lover, Giles Winterbourne, who, by the way, is a man in every fibre of his being. ”

“ However, it may be useful to have this good understanding with her....I wish she took more interest in the place, and stayed here all the year round.”
“I am afraid ’tis not her regard for you, but her dislike of Hintock, that makes her so easy about the trees,” said Mrs. Melbury.
When dinner was over, Grace took a candle and began to ramble pleasurably through the rooms of her old home, from which she had latterly become wellnigh an alien. Each nook and each object revived a memory, and simultaneously modified it. ”

“ Melbury would give no answer at once. “No, I can’t tell you to-day,” he said. “I must talk it over with the women. As far as I am concerned, my dear Giles, you know I’ll come with pleasure. But how do I know what Grace’s notions may be? You see, she has been away among cultivated folks a good while; and now this acquaintance with Mrs. Charmond—Well, I’ll ask her. I can say no more.”
When Winterborne was gone the timber-merchant went on his way. He knew very well that Grace, whatever her own feelings, would either go or not go, according as he suggested ”

“ The truth was that he had never come into close comradeship with her since her engagement to Fitzpiers, with the brief exception of the evening encounter on Rubdown Hill, when she met him with his cider apparatus; and that interview had been of too cursory a kind for insight.
Winterborne had advanced, too. He could criticise her. Times had been when to criticise a single trait in Grace Melbury would have lain as far beyond his powers as to criticise a deity. This thing was sure: it was a new woman in many ways whom he had come out to see ”

“ Opening the door of the doctor’s room the housewife glanced in, and imagining Fitzpiers absent, asked Miss Melbury to enter and wait a few minutes while she should go and find him, believing him to be somewhere on the premises. Grace acquiesced, went in, and sat down close to the door.
As soon as the door was shut upon her she looked round the room, and started at perceiving a handsome man snugly ensconced in the couch, like the recumbent figure within some canopied mural tomb of the fifteenth century, except that his hands were by no means clasped in prayer. ”

“ Melbury overlooked the infinite throng of other possible reasons and unreasons for a woman changing her mind. For instance, while knowing that his Grace was attractive, he quite forgot that Mrs. Charmond had also great pretensions to beauty. In his simple estimate, an attractive woman attracted all around.
So it was settled in his mind that her sudden mingling with the villagers at the unlucky Winterborne’s was the cause of her most grievous loss, as he deemed it, in the direction of Hintock House.
“’Tis a thousand pities!” he would repeat to himself. ”

“ Melbury, deserted by Grace, had perceived Fitzpiers and Winterborne, and also the move of the latter. An improvement on Grammer’s idea entered the mind of Mrs. Melbury, for she had lately discerned what her husband had not—that Grace was rapidly fascinating the surgeon. She therefore drew near to Fitzpiers.
“You should be where Mr. Winterborne is standing,” she said to him, significantly. “She will run down through that opening much faster than she went up it, if she is like the rest of the girls.” ”

“ Melbury would, I am sure.”
“Ay; but he wouldn’t hearken to she! It wants a younger face than hers to work upon such as he.”
Grace started with comprehension. “You don’t think he would do it for me?” she said.
“Oh, wouldn’t he!”
“I couldn’t go to him, Grammer, on any account. I don’t know him at all.”
“Ah, if I were a young lady,” said the artful Grammer, “and could save a poor old woman’s skellington from a heathen doctor instead of a Christian grave, I would do it, and be glad to. But nobody will do anything for a poor old familiar friend but push her out of the way.” ”

“ Grace assented to the proposal, and the woman told her tale unskilfully, for want of practice, as she declared.
Mr. Melbury was standing by, and exclaimed, contemptuously, “Tell her fortune, indeed! Her fortune has been told by men of science—what do you call ’em? Phrenologists. You can’t teach her anything new. She’s been too far among the wise ones to be astonished at anything she can hear among us folks in Hintock.” ”

“ From being a frail phantom of her former equable self she returned in bounds to a condition of passable philosophy. She bloomed again in the face in the course of a few days, and was well enough to go about as usual. One day Mrs. Melbury proposed that for a change she should be driven in the gig to Sherton market, whither Melbury's man was going on other errands. Grace had no business whatever in Sherton; but it crossed her mind that Winterborne would probably be there, and this made the thought of such a drive interesting. ”

“ Melbury's mind seemed to turn with much relief to the contemplation of Mr. Fitzpiers after the scenes of the evening. "It is natural enough," he replied. "What can a man of that sort find to interest him in Hintock? I don't expect he'll stay here long."
His mind reverted to Giles's party, and when they were nearly home he spoke again, his daughter being a few steps in advance: "It is hardly the line of life for a girl like Grace, after what she's been accustomed to. ”

“ Why, Mrs. Charmond is wanting some refined young lady, I hear, to go abroad with her—as companion or something of the kind. She’d jump at Grace.”
“That’s all uncertain. Better stick to what’s sure.”
“True, true,” said Melbury; “and I hope it will be for the best. Yes, let me get ’em married up as soon as I can, so as to have it over and done with.” He continued looking at the imprint, while he added, “Suppose she should be dying, and never make a track on this path any more?”
“She’ll write soon, depend upon’t. Come, ’tis wrong to stay here and brood so.” ”

“ Her husband was absent, and her father did not return. He had, in truth, gone on to Sherton after the interview, but this Grace did not know. In an indefinite dread that something serious would arise out of Melbury's visit by reason of the inequalities of temper and nervous irritation to which he was subject, something possibly that would bring her much more misery than accompanied her present negative state of mind, she left the house about three o'clock, and took a loitering walk in the woodland track by which she imagined he would come home. ”

“ They explored the precincts of the village, and in a short time lighted upon the man-trap. Its discovery simply added an item of fact without helping their conjectures; but Melbury's indefinite alarm was greatly increased when, holding a candle to the ground, he saw in the teeth of the instrument some frayings from Grace's clothing. 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. ”

“ As the timber-merchant spoke, as it were, down to him from a higher moral plane than his own, Giles turned to Mrs. Melbury.
“Grace is going to the House to-morrow,” she said, quietly. “She is looking out her things now. I dare say she is wanting me this minute to assist her.” Thereupon Mrs. Melbury left the room.
Nothing is more remarkable than the independent personality of the tongue now and then. Mr. Melbury knew that his words had been a sort of boast. He decried boasting, particularly to Giles ”

“ Could he help it, if the same lady persisted in flirting with him? He ran away from her the next morning. Did you deserve to be told why he left us? Certainly not—after the vixenish manner in which you handed the bedroom candle to Miss Melbury. You foolish girl! Do you think I couldn’t see that you were in love with him? Thank Heaven, he’s too poor to marry you, and take you away from my children, for some time to come. There will be a long marriage engagement, even if he is magnanimous enough to forgive you. Shall I ask Miss Melbury to come back with him? ”

“ Mrs. Charmond looked ill at ease. She might have begun to guess his meaning; but apart from that, she had such dread of contact with anything painful, harsh, or even earnest, that his preliminaries alone were enough to distress her. “Yes, what is it?” she said.
“I am an old man,” said Melbury, “whom, somewhat late in life, God thought fit to bless with one child, and she a daughter. Her mother was a very dear wife to me, but she was taken away from us when the child was young, and the child became precious as the apple of my eye to me, for she was all I had left to love. ”

“ She was getting the satisfaction that women receive from a certain kind of revenge. “Poor darling! You don’t know how hard she’s tried, Annette. People haven’t understood her. All she’s wanted was to be sure of herself—and now she is. She’s really been in love with Stephen all these years, only she didn’t know it. That is, she knew it; and yet—But I’m sure you see it. You’re one of the few who’ve never been unkind to her. She wanted me to tell you. She’ll be so glad to have you know it, too, Major Melbury. ”