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Thomas Hardy: The Woodlanders30. CHAPTER XXX. (continued)Grace's face had heated at her father's words, and the very rustle of her skirts upon the box-edging bespoke hauteur. "I shall not think of going to her, father--of course I could not!" she answered. "Why--don't 'ee want to be happier than you be at present?" said Melbury, more moved on her account than she was herself. "I don't wish to be more humiliated. If I have anything to bear I can bear it in silence." "But, my dear maid, you are too young--you don't know what the present state of things may lead to. Just see the harm done a'ready! Your husband would have gone away to Budmouth to a bigger practice if it had not been for this. Although it has gone such a little way, it is poisoning your future even now. Mrs. Charmond is thoughtlessly bad, not bad by calculation; and just a word to her now might save 'ee a peck of woes." "Ah, I loved her once," said Grace, with a broken articulation, "and she would not care for me then! Now I no longer love her. Let her do her worst: I don't care." "You ought to care. You have got into a very good position to start with. You have been well educated, well tended, and you have become the wife of a professional man of unusually good family. Surely you ought to make the best of your position." "I don't see that I ought. I wish I had never got into it. I wish you had never, never thought of educating me. I wish I worked in the woods like Marty South. I hate genteel life, and I want to be no better than she." "Why?" said her amazed father. "Because cultivation has only brought me inconveniences and troubles. I say again, I wish you had never sent me to those fashionable schools you set your mind on. It all arose out of that, father. If I had stayed at home I should have married--" She closed up her mouth suddenly and was silent; and be saw that she was not far from crying. This is page 241 of 400. [Mark this Page] Mark any page to add this title to Your Bookshelf. (0 / 10 books on shelf) Buy a copy of The Woodlanders at Amazon.com
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