Mrs. Gereth had said she would go with the rest to church, but suddenly it seemed to her that sheshould not be able to wait even till church-time for relief: breakfast, at Waterbath, was a punctualmeal, and she had still nearly an hour on her hands. Knowing the church to be near, she prepared inher room for the little rural walk, and on her way down again, passing through corridors andobserving imbecilities of decoration, the ???sthetic misery of the big commodious house, she felt areturn of the tide of last night's ...
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Mrs. Gereth had said she would go with the rest to church, but suddenly it seemed to her that sheshould not be able to wait even till church-time for relief: breakfast, at Waterbath, was a punctualmeal, and she had still nearly an hour on her hands. Knowing the church to be near, she prepared inher room for the little rural walk, and on her way down again, passing through corridors andobserving imbecilities of decoration, the ???sthetic misery of the big commodious house, she felt areturn of the tide of last night's irritation, a renewal of everything she could secretly suffer fromugliness and stupidity. Why did she consent to such contacts, why did she so rashly expose herself?She had had, heaven knew, her reasons, but the whole experience was to be sharper than she hadfeared. To get away from it and out into the air, into the presence of sky and trees, flowers andbirds, was a necessity of every nerve. The flowers at Waterbath would probably go wrong in colorand the nightingales sing out of tune; but she remembered to have heard the place described aspossessing those advantages that are usually spoken of as natural. There were advantages enough itclearly didn't possess. It was hard for her to believe that a woman could look presentable who hadbeen kept awake for hours by the wall-paper in her room; yet none the less, as in her fresh widow'sweeds she rustled across the hall, she was sustained by the consciousness, which always added to theunction of her social Sundays, that she was, as usual, the only person in the house incapable ofwearing in her preparation the horrible stamp of the same exceptional smartness that would beconspicuous in a grocer's wife. She would rather have perished than have looked endimanch???e.She was fortunately not challenged, the hall being empty of the other women, who were engagedprecisely in arraying themselves to that dire end. Once in the grounds, she recognized that, with asite, a view that struck the note, set an example to its inmates, Waterbath ought to have beencharming. How she herself, with such elements to handle, would have taken the fine hint of nature!Suddenly, at the turn of a walk, she came on a member of the party, a young lady seated on a benchin deep and lonely meditation. She had observed the girl at dinner and afterwards: she was alwayslooking at girls with an apprehensive or speculative reference to her son. Deep in her heart was aconviction that Owen would, in spite of all her spells, marry at last a frump; and this from noevidence that she could have represented as adequate, but simply from her deep uneasiness, herbelief that such a special sensibility as her own could have been inflicted on a woman only as asource of anguish. It would be her fate, her discipline, her cross, to have a frump brought hideouslyhome to her. This girl, one of the two Vetches, had no beauty, but Mrs.
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