He was quite angry with circumstances for so heedlessly inflicting4 on Giles a second trouble when the needful one inflicted5 by himself was all that the proper order of events demanded. “I told Giles’s father when he came into those houses not to spend too much money on lifehold property held neither for his own life nor his son’s,” he exclaimed. “But he wouldn’t listen to me. And now Giles has to suffer for it.”
“Poor Giles!” murmured Grace.
“Now, Grace, between us two, it is very, very remarkable6. It is almost as if I had foreseen this; and I am thankful for your escape, though I am sincerely sorry for Giles. Had we not dismissed him already, we could hardly have found it in our hearts to dismiss him now. So I say, be thankful. I’ll do all I can for him as a friend; but as a pretender to the position of my son-in law, that can never be thought of more.”
And yet at that very moment the impracticability to which poor Winterborne’s suit had been reduced was touching7 Grace’s heart to a warmer sentiment on his behalf than she had felt for years concerning him.
He, meanwhile, was sitting down alone in the old familiar house which had ceased to be his, taking a calm if somewhat dismal8 survey of affairs. The pendulum9 of the clock bumped every now and then against one side of the case in which it swung, as the muffled10 drum to his worldly march. Looking out of the window he could perceive that a paralysis11 had come over Creedle’s occupation of manuring the garden, owing, obviously, to a conviction that they might not be living there long enough to profit by next season’s crop.
He looked at the leases again and the letter attached. There was no doubt that he had lost his houses by an accident which might easily have been circumvented12 if he had known the true conditions of his holding. The time for performance had now lapsed13 in strict law; but might not the intention be considered by the landholder when she became aware of the circumstances, and his moral right to retain the holdings for the term of his life be conceded?
His heart sank within him when he perceived that despite all the legal reciprocities and safeguards prepared and written, the upshot of the matter amounted to this, that it depended upon the mere14 caprice — good or ill — of the woman he had met the day before in such an unfortunate way, whether he was to possess his houses for life or no.
While he was sitting and thinking a step came to the door, and Melbury appeared, looking very sorry for his position. Winterborne welcomed him by a word and a look, and went on with his examination of the parchments. His visitor sat down.
“Giles,” he said, “this is very awkward, and I am sorry for it. What are you going to do?”
Giles informed him of the real state of affairs, and how barely he had missed availing himself of his chance of renewal15.
“What a misfortune! Why was this neglected? Well, the best thing you can do is to write and tell her all about it, and throw yourself upon her generosity16.”
“I would rather not,” murmured Giles.
“But you must,” said Melbury.
In short, he argued so cogently17 that Giles allowed himself to be persuaded, and the letter to Mrs. Charmond was written and sent to Hintock House, whence, as he knew, it would at once be forwarded to her.
Melbury feeling that he had done so good an action in coming as almost to extenuate18 his previous arbitrary conduct to nothing, went home; and Giles was left alone to the suspense19 of waiting for a reply from the divinity who shaped the ends of the Hintock population. By this time all the villagers knew of the circumstances, and being wellnigh like one family, a keen interest was the result all round.
Everybody thought of Giles; nobody thought of Marty. Had any of them looked in upon her during those moonlight nights which preceded the burial of her father, they would have seen the girl absolutely alone in the house with the dead man. Her own chamber20 being nearest the stairs, the coffin21 had been placed there for convenience; and at a certain hour of the night, when the moon arrived opposite the window, its beams streamed across the still profile of South, sublimed22 by the august presence of death, and onward23 a few feet farther upon the face of his daughter, lying in her little bed in the stillness of a repose24 almost as dignified25 as that of her companion — the repose of a guileless soul that had nothing more left on earth to lose, except a life which she did not overvalue.
South was buried, and a week passed, and Winterborne watched for a reply from Mrs. Charmond. Melbury was very sanguine26 as to its tenor27; but Winterborne had not told him of the encounter with her carriage, when, if ever he had heard an affronted28 tone on a woman’s lips, he had heard it on hers.
The postman’s time for passing was just after Melbury’s men had assembled in the spar-house; and Winterborne, who when not busy on his own account would lend assistance there, used to go out into the lane every morning and meet the post-man at the end of one of the green rides through the hazel copse, in the straight stretch of which his laden29 figure could be seen a long way off. Grace also was very anxious; more anxious than her father; more, perhaps, than Winterborne himself. This anxiety led her into the spar-house on some pretext30 or other almost every morning while they were awaiting the reply.
Fitzpiers too, though he did not personally appear, was much interested, and not altogether easy in his mind; for he had been informed by an authority of what he had himself conjectured31, that if the tree had been allowed to stand, the old man would have gone on complaining, but might have lived for twenty years.
Eleven times had Winterborne gone to that corner of the ride, and looked up its long straight slope through the wet grays of winter dawn. But though the postman’s bowed figure loomed32 in view pretty regularly, he brought nothing for Giles. On the twelfth day the man of missives, while yet in the extreme distance, held up his hand, and Winterborne saw a letter in it. He took it into the spar-house before he broke the seal, and those who were there gathered round him while he read, Grace looking in at the door.
The letter was not from Mrs. Charmond herself, but her agent at Sherton. Winterborne glanced it over and looked up.
“It’s all over,” he said.
“Ah!” said they altogether.
“Her lawyer is instructed to say that Mrs. Charmond sees no reason for disturbing the natural course of things, particularly as she contemplates33 pulling the houses down,” he said, quietly.
“Only think of that!” said several.
Winterborne had turned away, and said vehemently34 to himself, “Then let her pull ’em down, and be d — d to her!”
Creedle looked at him with a face of seven sorrows, saying, “Ah, ’twas that sperrit that lost ’em for ye, maister!”
Winterborne subdued35 his feelings, and from that hour, whatever they were, kept them entirely36 to himself. There could be no doubt that, up to this last moment, he had nourished a feeble hope of regaining37 Grace in the event of this negotiation38 turning out a success. Not being aware of the fact that her father could have settled upon her a fortune sufficient to enable both to live in comfort, he deemed it now an absurdity39 to dream any longer of such a vanity as making her his wife, and sank into silence forthwith.
Yet whatever the value of taciturnity to a man among strangers, it is apt to express more than talkativeness when he dwells among friends. The countryman who is obliged to judge the time of day from changes in external nature sees a thousand successive tints40 and traits in the landscape which are never discerned by him who hears the regular chime of a clock, because they are never in request. In like manner do we use our eyes on our taciturn comrade. The infinitesimal movement of muscle, curve, hair, and wrinkle, which when accompanied by a voice goes unregarded, is watched and translated in the lack of it, till virtually the whole surrounding circle of familiars is charged with the reserved one’s moods and meanings.
This was the condition of affairs between Winterborne and his neighbors after his stroke of ill-luck. He held his tongue; and they observed him, and knew that he was discomposed.
Mr. Melbury, in his compunction, thought more of the matter than any one else, except his daughter. Had Winterborne been going on in the old fashion, Grace’s father could have alluded41 to his disapproval42 of the alliance every day with the greatest frankness; but to speak any further on the subject he could not find it in his heart to do now. He hoped that Giles would of his own accord make some final announcement that he entirely withdrew his pretensions43 to Grace, and so get the thing past and done with. For though Giles had in a measure acquiesced45 in the wish of her family, he could make matters unpleasant if he chose to work upon Grace; and hence, when Melbury saw the young man approaching along the road one day, he kept friendliness46 and frigidity47 exactly balanced in his eye till he could see whether Giles’s manner was presumptive or not.
His manner was that of a man who abandoned all claims. “I am glad to meet ye, Mr. Melbury,” he said, in a low voice, whose quality he endeavored to make as practical as possible. “I am afraid I shall not be able to keep that mare48 I bought, and as I don’t care to sell her, I should like — if you don’t object — to give her to Miss Melbury. The horse is very quiet, and would be quite safe for her.”
Mr. Melbury was rather affected49 at this. “You sha’n’t hurt your pocket like that on our account, Giles. Grace shall have the horse, but I’ll pay you what you gave for her, and any expense you may have been put to for her keep.”
He would not hear of any other terms, and thus it was arranged. They were now opposite Melbury’s house, and the timber-merchant pressed Winterborne to enter, Grace being out of the way.
“Pull round the settle, Giles,” said the timber-merchant, as soon as they were within. “I should like to have a serious talk with you.”
Thereupon he put the case to Winterborne frankly50, and in quite a friendly way. He declared that he did not like to be hard on a man when he was in difficulty; but he really did not see how Winterborne could marry his daughter now, without even a house to take her to.
Giles quite acquiesced in the awkwardness of his situation. But from a momentary51 feeling that he would like to know Grace’s mind from her own lips, he did not speak out positively52 there and then. He accordingly departed somewhat abruptly53, and went home to consider whether he would seek to bring about a meeting with her.
In the evening, while he sat quietly pondering, he fancied that he heard a scraping on the wall outside his house. The boughs54 of a monthly rose which grew there made such a noise sometimes, but as no wind was stirring he knew that it could not be the rose-tree. He took up the candle and went out. Nobody was near. As he turned, the light flickered55 on the whitewashed56 rough case of the front, and he saw words written thereon in charcoal57, which he read as follows:
“O Giles, you’ve lost your dwelling58-place,
And therefore, Giles, you’ll lose your Grace.”
Giles went indoors. He had his suspicions as to the scrawler of those lines, but he could not be sure. What suddenly filled his heart far more than curiosity about their authorship was a terrible belief that they were turning out to be true, try to see Grace as he might. They decided59 the question for him. He sat down and wrote a formal note to Melbury, in which he briefly60 stated that he was placed in such a position as to make him share to the full Melbury’s view of his own and his daughter’s promise, made some years before; to wish that it should be considered as cancelled, and they themselves quite released from any obligation on account of it.
Having fastened up this their plenary absolution, he determined61 to get it out of his hands and have done with it; to which end he went off to Melbury’s at once. It was now so late that the family had all retired62; he crept up to the house, thrust the note under the door, and stole away as silently as he had come.
Melbury himself was the first to rise the next morning, and when he had read the letter his relief was great. “Very honorable of Giles, very honorable,” he kept saying to himself. “I shall not forget him. Now to keep her up to her own true level.”
It happened that Grace went out for an early ramble63 that morning, passing through the door and gate while her father was in the spar-house. To go in her customary direction she could not avoid passing Winterborne’s house. The morning sun was shining flat upon its white surface, and the words, which still remained, were immediately visible to her. She read them. Her face flushed to crimson64. She could see Giles and Creedle talking together at the back; the charred65 spar-gad with which the lines had been written lay on the ground beneath the wall. Feeling pretty sure that Winterborne would observe her action, she quickly went up to the wall, rubbed out “lose” and inserted “keep” in its stead. Then she made the best of her way home without looking behind her. Giles could draw an inference now if he chose.
There could not be the least doubt that gentle Grace was warming to more sympathy with, and interest in, Giles Winterborne than ever she had done while he was her promised lover; that since his misfortune those social shortcomings of his, which contrasted so awkwardly with her later experiences of life, had become obscured by the generous revival66 of an old romantic attachment67 to him. Though mentally trained and tilled into foreignness of view, as compared with her youthful time, Grace was not an ambitious girl, and might, if left to herself, have declined Winterborne without much discontent or unhappiness. Her feelings just now were so far from latent that the writing on the wall had thus quickened her to an unusual rashness.
Having returned from her walk she sat at breakfast silently. When her step-mother had left the room she said to her father, “I have made up my mind that I should like my engagement to Giles to continue, for the present at any rate, till I can see further what I ought to do.”
Melbury looked much surprised.
“Nonsense,” he said, sharply. “You don’t know what you are talking about. Look here.”
He handed across to her the letter received from Giles.
She read it, and said no more. Could he have seen her write on the wall? She did not know. Fate, it seemed, would have it this way, and there was nothing to do but to acquiesce44.
It was a few hours after this that Winterborne, who, curiously68 enough, had NOT perceived Grace writing, was clearing away the tree from the front of South’s late dwelling. He saw Marty standing69 in her door-way, a slim figure in meagre black, almost without womanly contours as yet. He went up to her and said, “Marty, why did you write that on my wall last night? It WAS you, you know.”
“Because it was the truth. I didn’t mean to let it stay, Mr. Winterborne; but when I was going to rub it out you came, and I was obliged to run off.”
“Having prophesied70 one thing, why did you alter it to another? Your predictions can’t be worth much.”
“I have not altered it.”
“But you have.”
“No.”
“It is altered. Go and see.”
She went, and read that, in spite of losing his dwelling-place, he would KEEP his Grace. Marty came back surprised.
“Well, I never,” she said. “Who can have made such nonsense of it?”
“Who, indeed?” said he.
“I have rubbed it all out, as the point of it is quite gone.”
“You’d no business to rub it out. I didn’t tell you to. I meant to let it stay a little longer.”
“Some idle boy did it, no doubt,” she murmured.
As this seemed very probable, and the actual perpetrator was unsuspected, Winterborne said no more, and dismissed the matter from his mind.
From this day of his life onward for a considerable time, Winterborne, though not absolutely out of his house as yet, retired into the background of human life and action thereabout — a feat71 not particularly difficult of performance anywhere when the doer has the assistance of a lost prestige. Grace, thinking that Winterborne saw her write, made no further sign, and the frail72 bark of fidelity73 that she had thus timidly launched was stranded74 and lost.
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1
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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inflicting
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 ) | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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circumvented
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| v.设法克服或避免（某事物），回避( circumvent的过去式和过去分词 )；绕过，绕行，绕道旅行 | |
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13
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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cogently
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| adv.痛切地，中肯地 | |
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extenuate
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| v.减轻，使人原谅 | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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sublimed
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| 伟大的( sublime的过去式和过去分词 )； 令人赞叹的； 极端的； 不顾后果的 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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28
affronted
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| adj.被侮辱的，被冒犯的v.勇敢地面对( affront的过去式和过去分词 )；相遇 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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contemplates
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的第三人称单数 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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regaining
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| 复得( regain的现在分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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negotiation
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| n.谈判，协商 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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44
acquiesce
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| vi.默许，顺从，同意 | |
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45
acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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47
frigidity
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| n.寒冷；冷淡；索然无味；（尤指妇女的）性感缺失 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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51
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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52
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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54
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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55
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56
whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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ramble
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| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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67
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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68
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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69
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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70
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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72
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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73
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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74
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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