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diff --git a/482-h/482-h.htm b/482-h/482-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d93caa --- /dev/null +++ b/482-h/482-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,20452 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Woodlanders, by Thomas Hardy</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Woodlanders, by Thomas Hardy</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Woodlanders</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Hardy</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April, 1996 [eBook #482]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 4, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOODLANDERS ***</div> + +<h1>The Woodlanders</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Thomas Hardy</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER XXX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">CHAPTER XL.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">CHAPTER XLI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">CHAPTER XLII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap43">CHAPTER XLIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap44">CHAPTER XLIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap45">CHAPTER XLV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap46">CHAPTER XLVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap47">CHAPTER XLVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap48">CHAPTER XLVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p> +The rambler who, for old association or other reasons, should trace the +forsaken coach-road running almost in a meridional line from Bristol to the +south shore of England, would find himself during the latter half of his +journey in the vicinity of some extensive woodlands, interspersed with +apple-orchards. Here the trees, timber or fruit-bearing, as the case may be, +make the wayside hedges ragged by their drip and shade, stretching over the +road with easeful horizontality, as if they found the unsubstantial air an +adequate support for their limbs. At one place, where a hill is crossed, the +largest of the woods shows itself bisected by the high-way, as the head of +thick hair is bisected by the white line of its parting. The spot is lonely. +</p> + +<p> +The physiognomy of a deserted highway expresses solitude to a degree that is +not reached by mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a tomb-like stillness more +emphatic than that of glades and pools. The contrast of what is with what might +be probably accounts for this. To step, for instance, at the place under +notice, from the hedge of the plantation into the adjoining pale thoroughfare, +and pause amid its emptiness for a moment, was to exchange by the act of a +single stride the simple absence of human companionship for an incubus of the +forlorn. +</p> + +<p> +At this spot, on the lowering evening of a by-gone winter’s day, there +stood a man who had entered upon the scene much in the aforesaid manner. +Alighting into the road from a stile hard by, he, though by no means a +“chosen vessel” for impressions, was temporarily influenced by some +such feeling of being suddenly more alone than before he had emerged upon the +highway. +</p> + +<p> +It could be seen by a glance at his rather finical style of dress that he did +not belong to the country proper; and from his air, after a while, that though +there might be a sombre beauty in the scenery, music in the breeze, and a wan +procession of coaching ghosts in the sentiment of this old turnpike-road, he +was mainly puzzled about the way. The dead men’s work that had been +expended in climbing that hill, the blistered soles that had trodden it, and +the tears that had wetted it, were not his concern; for fate had given him no +time for any but practical things. +</p> + +<p> +He looked north and south, and mechanically prodded the ground with his +walking-stick. A closer glance at his face corroborated the testimony of his +clothes. It was self-complacent, yet there was small apparent ground for such +complacence. Nothing irradiated it; to the eye of the magician in character, if +not to the ordinary observer, the expression enthroned there was absolute +submission to and belief in a little assortment of forms and habitudes. +</p> + +<p> +At first not a soul appeared who could enlighten him as he desired, or seemed +likely to appear that night. But presently a slight noise of laboring wheels +and the steady dig of a horse’s shoe-tips became audible; and there +loomed in the notch of the hill and plantation that the road formed here at the +summit a carrier’s van drawn by a single horse. When it got nearer, he +said, with some relief to himself, “’Tis Mrs. +Dollery’s—this will help me.” +</p> + +<p> +The vehicle was half full of passengers, mostly women. He held up his stick at +its approach, and the woman who was driving drew rein. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been trying to find a short way to Little Hintock this last +half-hour, Mrs. Dollery,” he said. “But though I’ve been to +Great Hintock and Hintock House half a dozen times I am at fault about the +small village. You can help me, I dare say?” +</p> + +<p> +She assured him that she could—that as she went to Great Hintock her van +passed near it—that it was only up the lane that branched out of the lane +into which she was about to turn—just ahead. “Though,” +continued Mrs. Dollery, “’tis such a little small place that, as a +town gentleman, you’d need have a candle and lantern to find it if ye +don’t know where ’tis. Bedad! I wouldn’t live there if +they’d pay me to. Now at Great Hintock you do see the world a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +He mounted and sat beside her, with his feet outside, where they were ever and +anon brushed over by the horse’s tail. +</p> + +<p> +This van, driven and owned by Mrs. Dollery, was rather a movable attachment of +the roadway than an extraneous object, to those who knew it well. The old +horse, whose hair was of the roughness and color of heather, whose leg-joints, +shoulders, and hoofs were distorted by harness and drudgery from +colthood—though if all had their rights, he ought, symmetrical in +outline, to have been picking the herbage of some Eastern plain instead of +tugging here—had trodden this road almost daily for twenty years. Even +his subjection was not made congruous throughout, for the harness being too +short, his tail was not drawn through the crupper, so that the breeching +slipped awkwardly to one side. He knew every subtle incline of the seven or +eight miles of ground between Hintock and Sherton Abbas—the market-town +to which he journeyed—as accurately as any surveyor could have learned it +by a Dumpy level. +</p> + +<p> +The vehicle had a square black tilt which nodded with the motion of the wheels, +and at a point in it over the driver’s head was a hook to which the reins +were hitched at times, when they formed a catenary curve from the horse’s +shoulders. Somewhere about the axles was a loose chain, whose only known +purpose was to clink as it went. Mrs. Dollery, having to hop up and down many +times in the service of her passengers, wore, especially in windy weather, +short leggings under her gown for modesty’s sake, and instead of a bonnet +a felt hat tied down with a handkerchief, to guard against an earache to which +she was frequently subject. In the rear of the van was a glass window, which +she cleaned with her pocket-handkerchief every market-day before starting. +Looking at the van from the back, the spectator could thus see through its +interior a square piece of the same sky and landscape that he saw without, but +intruded on by the profiles of the seated passengers, who, as they rumbled +onward, their lips moving and heads nodding in animated private converse, +remained in happy unconsciousness that their mannerisms and facial +peculiarities were sharply defined to the public eye. +</p> + +<p> +This hour of coming home from market was the happy one, if not the happiest, of +the week for them. Snugly ensconced under the tilt, they could forget the +sorrows of the world without, and survey life and recapitulate the incidents of +the day with placid smiles. +</p> + +<p> +The passengers in the back part formed a group to themselves, and while the +new-comer spoke to the proprietress, they indulged in a confidential chat about +him as about other people, which the noise of the van rendered inaudible to +himself and Mrs. Dollery, sitting forward. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis Barber Percombe—he that’s got the waxen woman in +his window at the top of Abbey Street,” said one. “What business +can bring him from his shop out here at this time and not a journeyman +hair-cutter, but a master-barber that’s left off his pole because +’tis not genteel!” +</p> + +<p> +They listened to his conversation, but Mr. Percombe, though he had nodded and +spoken genially, seemed indisposed to gratify the curiosity which he had +aroused; and the unrestrained flow of ideas which had animated the inside of +the van before his arrival was checked thenceforward. +</p> + +<p> +Thus they rode on till they turned into a half-invisible little lane, whence, +as it reached the verge of an eminence, could be discerned in the dusk, about +half a mile to the right, gardens and orchards sunk in a concave, and, as it +were, snipped out of the woodland. From this self-contained place rose in +stealthy silence tall stems of smoke, which the eye of imagination could trace +downward to their root on quiet hearth-stones festooned overhead with hams and +flitches. It was one of those sequestered spots outside the gates of the world +where may usually be found more meditation than action, and more passivity than +meditation; where reasoning proceeds on narrow premises, and results in +inferences wildly imaginative; yet where, from time to time, no less than in +other places, dramas of a grandeur and unity truly Sophoclean are enacted in +the real, by virtue of the concentrated passions and closely knit +interdependence of the lives therein. +</p> + +<p> +This place was the Little Hintock of the master-barber’s search. The +coming night gradually obscured the smoke of the chimneys, but the position of +the sequestered little world could still be distinguished by a few faint +lights, winking more or less ineffectually through the leafless boughs, and the +undiscerned songsters they bore, in the form of balls of feathers, at roost +among them. +</p> + +<p> +Out of the lane followed by the van branched a yet smaller lane, at the corner +of which the barber alighted, Mrs. Dollery’s van going on to the larger +village, whose superiority to the despised smaller one as an exemplar of the +world’s movements was not particularly apparent in its means of approach. +</p> + +<p> +“A very clever and learned young doctor, who, they say, is in league with +the devil, lives in the place you be going to—not because there’s +anybody for’n to cure there, but because ’tis the middle of his +district.” +</p> + +<p> +The observation was flung at the barber by one of the women at parting, as a +last attempt to get at his errand that way. +</p> + +<p> +But he made no reply, and without further pause the pedestrian plunged towards +the umbrageous nook, and paced cautiously over the dead leaves which nearly +buried the road or street of the hamlet. As very few people except themselves +passed this way after dark, a majority of the denizens of Little Hintock deemed +window-curtains unnecessary; and on this account Mr. Percombe made it his +business to stop opposite the casements of each cottage that he came to, with a +demeanor which showed that he was endeavoring to conjecture, from the persons +and things he observed within, the whereabouts of somebody or other who resided +here. +</p> + +<p> +Only the smaller dwellings interested him; one or two houses, whose size, +antiquity, and rambling appurtenances signified that notwithstanding their +remoteness they must formerly have been, if they were not still, inhabited by +people of a certain social standing, being neglected by him entirely. Smells of +pomace, and the hiss of fermenting cider, which reached him from the back +quarters of other tenements, revealed the recent occupation of some of the +inhabitants, and joined with the scent of decay from the perishing leaves +underfoot. +</p> + +<p> +Half a dozen dwellings were passed without result. The next, which stood +opposite a tall tree, was in an exceptional state of radiance, the flickering +brightness from the inside shining up the chimney and making a luminous mist of +the emerging smoke. The interior, as seen through the window, caused him to +draw up with a terminative air and watch. The house was rather large for a +cottage, and the door, which opened immediately into the living-room, stood +ajar, so that a ribbon of light fell through the opening into the dark +atmosphere without. Every now and then a moth, decrepit from the late season, +would flit for a moment across the out-coming rays and disappear again into the +night. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p> +In the room from which this cheerful blaze proceeded, he beheld a girl seated +on a willow chair, and busily occupied by the light of the fire, which was +ample and of wood. With a bill-hook in one hand and a leather glove, much too +large for her, on the other, she was making spars, such as are used by +thatchers, with great rapidity. She wore a leather apron for this purpose, +which was also much too large for her figure. On her left hand lay a bundle of +the straight, smooth sticks called spar-gads—the raw material of her +manufacture; on her right, a heap of chips and ends—the refuse—with +which the fire was maintained; in front, a pile of the finished articles. To +produce them she took up each gad, looked critically at it from end to end, cut +it to length, split it into four, and sharpened each of the quarters with +dexterous blows, which brought it to a triangular point precisely resembling +that of a bayonet. +</p> + +<p> +Beside her, in case she might require more light, a brass candlestick stood on +a little round table, curiously formed of an old coffin-stool, with a deal top +nailed on, the white surface of the latter contrasting oddly with the black +carved oak of the substructure. The social position of the household in the +past was almost as definitively shown by the presence of this article as that +of an esquire or nobleman by his old helmets or shields. It had been customary +for every well-to-do villager, whose tenure was by copy of court-roll, or in +any way more permanent than that of the mere cotter, to keep a pair of these +stools for the use of his own dead; but for the last generation or two a +feeling of cui bono had led to the discontinuance of the custom, and the stools +were frequently made use of in the manner described. +</p> + +<p> +The young woman laid down the bill-hook for a moment and examined the palm of +her right hand, which, unlike the other, was ungloved, and showed little +hardness or roughness about it. The palm was red and blistering, as if this +present occupation were not frequent enough with her to subdue it to what it +worked in. As with so many right hands born to manual labor, there was nothing +in its fundamental shape to bear out the physiological conventionalism that +gradations of birth, gentle or mean, show themselves primarily in the form of +this member. Nothing but a cast of the die of destiny had decided that the girl +should handle the tool; and the fingers which clasped the heavy ash haft might +have skilfully guided the pencil or swept the string, had they only been set to +do it in good time. +</p> + +<p> +Her face had the usual fulness of expression which is developed by a life of +solitude. Where the eyes of a multitude beat like waves upon a countenance they +seem to wear away its individuality; but in the still water of privacy every +tentacle of feeling and sentiment shoots out in visible luxuriance, to be +interpreted as readily as a child’s look by an intruder. In years she was +no more than nineteen or twenty, but the necessity of taking thought at a too +early period of life had forced the provisional curves of her childhood’s +face to a premature finality. Thus she had but little pretension to beauty, +save in one prominent particular—her hair. Its abundance made it almost +unmanageable; its color was, roughly speaking, and as seen here by firelight, +brown, but careful notice, or an observation by day, would have revealed that +its true shade was a rare and beautiful approximation to chestnut. +</p> + +<p> +On this one bright gift of Time to the particular victim of his now before us +the new-comer’s eyes were fixed; meanwhile the fingers of his right hand +mechanically played over something sticking up from his +waistcoat-pocket—the bows of a pair of scissors, whose polish made them +feebly responsive to the light within. In her present beholder’s mind the +scene formed by the girlish spar-maker composed itself into a post-Raffaelite +picture of extremest quality, wherein the girl’s hair alone, as the focus +of observation, was depicted with intensity and distinctness, and her face, +shoulders, hands, and figure in general, being a blurred mass of unimportant +detail lost in haze and obscurity. +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated no longer, but tapped at the door and entered. The young woman +turned at the crunch of his boots on the sanded floor, and exclaiming, +“Oh, Mr. Percombe, how you frightened me!” quite lost her color for +a moment. +</p> + +<p> +He replied, “You should shut your door—then you’d hear folk +open it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t,” she said; “the chimney smokes so. Mr. +Percombe, you look as unnatural out of your shop as a canary in a thorn-hedge. +Surely you have not come out here on my account—for—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—to have your answer about this.” He touched her head +with his cane, and she winced. “Do you agree?” he continued. +“It is necessary that I should know at once, as the lady is soon going +away, and it takes time to make up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t press me—it worries me. I was in hopes you had thought +no more of it. I can <i>not</i> part with it—so there!” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look here, Marty,” said the barber, sitting down on the +coffin-stool table. “How much do you get for making these spars?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush—father’s up-stairs awake, and he don’t know that +I am doing his work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now tell me,” said the man, more softly. “How much do +you get?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eighteenpence a thousand,” she said, reluctantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you making them for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Melbury, the timber-dealer, just below here.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how many can you make in a day?” +</p> + +<p> +“In a day and half the night, three bundles—that’s a thousand +and a half.” +</p> + +<p> +“Two and threepence.” The barber paused. “Well, look +here,” he continued, with the remains of a calculation in his tone, which +calculation had been the reduction to figures of the probable monetary +magnetism necessary to overpower the resistant force of her present purse and +the woman’s love of comeliness, “here’s a sovereign—a +gold sovereign, almost new.” He held it out between his finger and thumb. +“That’s as much as you’d earn in a week and a half at that +rough man’s work, and it’s yours for just letting me snip off what +you’ve got too much of.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl’s bosom moved a very little. “Why can’t the lady +send to some other girl who don’t value her hair—not to me?” +she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, simpleton, because yours is the exact shade of her own, and +’tis a shade you can’t match by dyeing. But you are not going to +refuse me now I’ve come all the way from Sherton o’ purpose?” +</p> + +<p> +“I say I won’t sell it—to you or anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now listen,” and he drew up a little closer beside her. “The +lady is very rich, and won’t be particular to a few shillings; so I will +advance to this on my own responsibility—I’ll make the one +sovereign two, rather than go back empty-handed.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no!” she cried, beginning to be much agitated. “You +are a-tempting me, Mr. Percombe. You go on like the Devil to Dr. Faustus in the +penny book. But I don’t want your money, and won’t agree. Why did +you come? I said when you got me into your shop and urged me so much, that I +didn’t mean to sell my hair!” The speaker was hot and stern. +</p> + +<p> +“Marty, now hearken. The lady that wants it wants it badly. And, between +you and me, you’d better let her have it. ’Twill be bad for you if +you don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bad for me? Who is she, then?” +</p> + +<p> +The barber held his tongue, and the girl repeated the question. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not at liberty to tell you. And as she is going abroad soon it +makes no difference who she is at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“She wants it to go abroad wi’?” +</p> + +<p> +Percombe assented by a nod. The girl regarded him reflectively. “Barber +Percombe,” she said, “I know who ’tis. ’Tis she at the +House—Mrs. Charmond!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s my secret. However, if you agree to let me have it, +I’ll tell you in confidence.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll certainly not let you have it unless you tell me the truth. +It is Mrs. Charmond.” +</p> + +<p> +The barber dropped his voice. “Well—it is. You sat in front of her +in church the other day, and she noticed how exactly your hair matched her own. +Ever since then she’s been hankering for it, and at last decided to get +it. As she won’t wear it till she goes off abroad, she knows nobody will +recognize the change. I’m commissioned to get it for her, and then it is +to be made up. I shouldn’t have vamped all these miles for any less +important employer. Now, mind—’tis as much as my business with her +is worth if it should be known that I’ve let out her name; but honor +between us two, Marty, and you’ll say nothing that would injure +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish to tell upon her,” said Marty, coolly. +“But my hair is my own, and I’m going to keep it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, that’s not fair, after what I’ve told you,” said +the nettled barber. “You see, Marty, as you are in the same parish, and +in one of her cottages, and your father is ill, and wouldn’t like to turn +out, it would be as well to oblige her. I say that as a friend. But I +won’t press you to make up your mind to-night. You’ll be coming to +market to-morrow, I dare say, and you can call then. If you think it over +you’ll be inclined to bring what I want, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve nothing more to say,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +Her companion saw from her manner that it was useless to urge her further by +speech. “As you are a trusty young woman,” he said, +“I’ll put these sovereigns up here for ornament, that you may see +how handsome they are. Bring the hair to-morrow, or return the +sovereigns.” He stuck them edgewise into the frame of a small mantle +looking-glass. “I hope you’ll bring it, for your sake and mine. I +should have thought she could have suited herself elsewhere; but as it’s +her fancy it must be indulged if possible. If you cut it off yourself, mind how +you do it so as to keep all the locks one way.” He showed her how this +was to be done. +</p> + +<p> +“But I sha’nt,” she replied, with laconic indifference. +“I value my looks too much to spoil ’em. She wants my hair to get +another lover with; though if stories are true she’s broke the heart of +many a noble gentleman already.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord, it’s wonderful how you guess things, Marty,” said the +barber. “I’ve had it from them that know that there certainly is +some foreign gentleman in her eye. However, mind what I ask.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not going to get him through me.” +</p> + +<p> +Percombe had retired as far as the door; he came back, planted his cane on the +coffin-stool, and looked her in the face. “Marty South,” he said, +with deliberate emphasis, “<i>you’ve got a lover yourself</i>, and +that’s why you won’t let it go!” +</p> + +<p> +She reddened so intensely as to pass the mild blush that suffices to heighten +beauty; she put the yellow leather glove on one hand, took up the hook with the +other, and sat down doggedly to her work without turning her face to him again. +He regarded her head for a moment, went to the door, and with one look back at +her, departed on his way homeward. +</p> + +<p> +Marty pursued her occupation for a few minutes, then suddenly laying down the +bill-hook, she jumped up and went to the back of the room, where she opened a +door which disclosed a staircase so whitely scrubbed that the grain of the wood +was wellnigh sodden away by such cleansing. At the top she gently approached a +bedroom, and without entering, said, “Father, do you want +anything?” +</p> + +<p> +A weak voice inside answered in the negative; adding, “I should be all +right by to-morrow if it were not for the tree!” +</p> + +<p> +“The tree again—always the tree! Oh, father, don’t worry so +about that. You know it can do you no harm.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who have ye had talking to ye down-stairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“A Sherton man called—nothing to trouble about,” she said, +soothingly. “Father,” she went on, “can Mrs. Charmond turn us +out of our house if she’s minded to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Turn us out? No. Nobody can turn us out till my poor soul is turned out +of my body. ’Tis life-hold, like Ambrose Winterborne’s. But when my +life drops ’twill be hers—not till then.” His words on this +subject so far had been rational and firm enough. But now he lapsed into his +moaning strain: “And the tree will do it—that tree will soon be the +death of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, you know better. How can it be?” She refrained from +further speech, and descended to the ground-floor again. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank Heaven, then,” she said to herself, “what belongs to +me I keep.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p> +The lights in the village went out, house after house, till there only remained +two in the darkness. One of these came from a residence on the hill-side, of +which there is nothing to say at present; the other shone from the window of +Marty South. Precisely the same outward effect was produced here, however, by +her rising when the clock struck ten and hanging up a thick cloth curtain. The +door it was necessary to keep ajar in hers, as in most cottages, because of the +smoke; but she obviated the effect of the ribbon of light through the chink by +hanging a cloth over that also. She was one of those people who, if they have +to work harder than their neighbors, prefer to keep the necessity a secret as +far as possible; and but for the slight sounds of wood-splintering which came +from within, no wayfarer would have perceived that here the cottager did not +sleep as elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +Eleven, twelve, one o’clock struck; the heap of spars grew higher, and +the pile of chips and ends more bulky. Even the light on the hill had now been +extinguished; but still she worked on. When the temperature of the night +without had fallen so low as to make her chilly, she opened a large blue +umbrella to ward off the draught from the door. The two sovereigns confronted +her from the looking-glass in such a manner as to suggest a pair of jaundiced +eyes on the watch for an opportunity. Whenever she sighed for weariness she +lifted her gaze towards them, but withdrew it quickly, stroking her tresses +with her fingers for a moment, as if to assure herself that they were still +secure. When the clock struck three she arose and tied up the spars she had +last made in a bundle resembling those that lay against the wall. +</p> + +<p> +She wrapped round her a long red woollen cravat and opened the door. The night +in all its fulness met her flatly on the threshold, like the very brink of an +absolute void, or the antemundane Ginnung-Gap believed in by her Teuton +forefathers. For her eyes were fresh from the blaze, and here there was no +street-lamp or lantern to form a kindly transition between the inner glare and +the outer dark. A lingering wind brought to her ear the creaking sound of two +over-crowded branches in the neighboring wood which were rubbing each other +into wounds, and other vocalized sorrows of the trees, together with the +screech of owls, and the fluttering tumble of some awkward wood-pigeon +ill-balanced on its roosting-bough. +</p> + +<p> +But the pupils of her young eyes soon expanded, and she could see well enough +for her purpose. Taking a bundle of spars under each arm, and guided by the +serrated line of tree-tops against the sky, she went some hundred yards or more +down the lane till she reached a long open shed, carpeted around with the dead +leaves that lay about everywhere. Night, that strange personality, which within +walls brings ominous introspectiveness and self-distrust, but under the open +sky banishes such subjective anxieties as too trivial for thought, inspired +Marty South with a less perturbed and brisker manner now. She laid the spars on +the ground within the shed and returned for more, going to and fro till her +whole manufactured stock were deposited here. +</p> + +<p> +This erection was the wagon-house of the chief man of business hereabout, Mr. +George Melbury, the timber, bark, and copse-ware merchant for whom +Marty’s father did work of this sort by the piece. It formed one of the +many rambling out-houses which surrounded his dwelling, an equally irregular +block of building, whose immense chimneys could just be discerned even now. The +four huge wagons under the shed were built on those ancient lines whose +proportions have been ousted by modern patterns, their shapes bulging and +curving at the base and ends like Trafalgar line-of-battle ships, with which +venerable hulks, indeed, these vehicles evidenced a constructed spirit +curiously in harmony. One was laden with sheep-cribs, another with hurdles, +another with ash poles, and the fourth, at the foot of which she had placed her +thatching-spars was half full of similar bundles. +</p> + +<p> +She was pausing a moment with that easeful sense of accomplishment which +follows work done that has been a hard struggle in the doing, when she heard a +woman’s voice on the other side of the hedge say, anxiously, +“George!” In a moment the name was repeated, with “Do come +indoors! What are you doing there?” +</p> + +<p> +The cart-house adjoined the garden, and before Marty had moved she saw enter +the latter from the timber-merchant’s back door an elderly woman +sheltering a candle with her hand, the light from which cast a moving +thorn-pattern of shade on Marty’s face. Its rays soon fell upon a man +whose clothes were roughly thrown on, standing in advance of the speaker. He +was a thin, slightly stooping figure, with a small nervous mouth and a face +cleanly shaven; and he walked along the path with his eyes bent on the ground. +In the pair Marty South recognized her employer Melbury and his wife. She was +the second Mrs. Melbury, the first having died shortly after the birth of the +timber-merchant’s only child. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis no use to stay in bed,” he said, as soon as she came up +to where he was pacing restlessly about. “I can’t sleep—I +keep thinking of things, and worrying about the girl, till I’m quite in a +fever of anxiety.” He went on to say that he could not think why +“she (Marty knew he was speaking of his daughter) did not answer his +letter. She must be ill—she must, certainly,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. ’Tis all right, George,” said his wife; and she +assured him that such things always did appear so gloomy in the night-time, if +people allowed their minds to run on them; that when morning came it was seen +that such fears were nothing but shadows. “Grace is as well as you or +I,” she declared. +</p> + +<p> +But he persisted that she did not see all—that she did not see as much as +he. His daughter’s not writing was only one part of his worry. On account +of her he was anxious concerning money affairs, which he would never alarm his +mind about otherwise. The reason he gave was that, as she had nobody to depend +upon for a provision but himself, he wished her, when he was gone, to be +securely out of risk of poverty. +</p> + +<p> +To this Mrs. Melbury replied that Grace would be sure to marry well, and that +hence a hundred pounds more or less from him would not make much difference. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband said that that was what she, Mrs. Melbury, naturally thought; but +there she was wrong, and in that lay the source of his trouble. “I have a +plan in my head about her,” he said; “and according to my plan she +won’t marry a rich man.” +</p> + +<p> +“A plan for her not to marry well?” said his wife, surprised. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, in one sense it is that,” replied Melbury. “It is a +plan for her to marry a particular person, and as he has not so much money as +she might expect, it might be called as you call it. I may not be able to carry +it out; and even if I do, it may not be a good thing for her. I want her to +marry Giles Winterborne.” +</p> + +<p> +His companion repeated the name. “Well, it is all right,” she said, +presently. “He adores the very ground she walks on; only he’s +close, and won’t show it much.” +</p> + +<p> +Marty South appeared startled, and could not tear herself away. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, the timber-merchant asserted, he knew that well enough. Winterborne had +been interested in his daughter for years; that was what had led him into the +notion of their union. And he knew that she used to have no objection to him. +But it was not any difficulty about that which embarrassed him. It was that, +since he had educated her so well, and so long, and so far above the level of +daughters thereabout, it was <i>wasting her</i> to give her to a man of no +higher standing than the young man in question. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I have been thinking,” said Mrs. Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, Lucy, now you’ve hit it,” answered the +timber-merchant, with feeling. “There lies my trouble. I vowed to let her +marry him, and to make her as valuable as I could to him by schooling her as +many years and as thoroughly as possible. I mean to keep my vow. I made it +because I did his father a terrible wrong; and it was a weight on my conscience +ever since that time till this scheme of making amends occurred to me through +seeing that Giles liked her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wronged his father?” asked Mrs. Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, grievously wronged him,” said her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t think of it to-night,” she urged. “Come +indoors.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, the air cools my head. I shall not stay long.” He was +silent a while; then he told her, as nearly as Marty could gather, that his +first wife, his daughter Grace’s mother, was first the sweetheart of +Winterborne’s father, who loved her tenderly, till he, the speaker, won +her away from him by a trick, because he wanted to marry her himself. He sadly +went on to say that the other man’s happiness was ruined by it; that +though he married Winterborne’s mother, it was but a half-hearted +business with him. Melbury added that he was afterwards very miserable at what +he had done; but that as time went on, and the children grew up, and seemed to +be attached to each other, he determined to do all he could to right the wrong +by letting his daughter marry the lad; not only that, but to give her the best +education he could afford, so as to make the gift as valuable a one as it lay +in his power to bestow. “I still mean to do it,” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Then do,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“But all these things trouble me,” said he; “for I feel I am +sacrificing her for my own sin; and I think of her, and often come down here +and look at this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look at what?” asked his wife. +</p> + +<p> +He took the candle from her hand, held it to the ground, and removed a tile +which lay in the garden-path. “’Tis the track of her shoe that she +made when she ran down here the day before she went away all those months ago. +I covered it up when she was gone; and when I come here and look at it, I ask +myself again, why should she be sacrificed to a poor man?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not altogether a sacrifice,” said the woman. “He is in +love with her, and he’s honest and upright. If she encourages him, what +can you wish for more?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish for nothing definite. But there’s a lot of things possible +for her. 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all uncertain. Better stick to what’s sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll write soon, depend upon’t. Come, ’tis wrong to +stay here and brood so.” +</p> + +<p> +He admitted it, but said he could not help it. “Whether she write or no, +I shall fetch her in a few days.” And thus speaking, he covered the +track, and preceded his wife indoors. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury, perhaps, was an unlucky man in having within him the sentiment which +could indulge in this foolish fondness about the imprint of a daughter’s +footstep. Nature does not carry on her government with a view to such feelings, +and when advancing years render the open hearts of those who possess them less +dexterous than formerly in shutting against the blast, they must suffer +“buffeting at will by rain and storm” no less than Little +Celandines. +</p> + +<p> +But her own existence, and not Mr. Melbury’s, was the centre of +Marty’s consciousness, and it was in relation to this that the matter +struck her as she slowly withdrew. +</p> + +<p> +“That, then, is the secret of it all,” she said. “And Giles +Winterborne is not for me, and the less I think of him the better.” +</p> + +<p> +She returned to her cottage. The sovereigns were staring at her from the +looking-glass as she had left them. With a preoccupied countenance, and with +tears in her eyes, she got a pair of scissors, and began mercilessly cutting +off the long locks of her hair, arranging and tying them with their points all +one way, as the barber had directed. Upon the pale scrubbed deal of the +coffin-stool table they stretched like waving and ropy weeds over the washed +gravel-bed of a clear stream. +</p> + +<p> +She would not turn again to the little looking-glass, out of humanity to +herself, knowing what a deflowered visage would look back at her, and almost +break her heart; she dreaded it as much as did her own ancestral goddess Sif +the reflection in the pool after the rape of her locks by Loke the malicious. +She steadily stuck to business, wrapped the hair in a parcel, and sealed it up, +after which she raked out the fire and went to bed, having first set up an +alarum made of a candle and piece of thread, with a stone attached. +</p> + +<p> +But such a reminder was unnecessary to-night. Having tossed till about five +o’clock, Marty heard the sparrows walking down their long holes in the +thatch above her sloping ceiling to their orifice at the eaves; whereupon she +also arose, and descended to the ground-floor again. +</p> + +<p> +It was still dark, but she began moving about the house in those automatic +initiatory acts and touches which represent among housewives the installation +of another day. While thus engaged she heard the rumbling of Mr. +Melbury’s wagons, and knew that there, too, the day’s toil had +begun. +</p> + +<p> +An armful of gads thrown on the still hot embers caused them to blaze up +cheerfully and bring her diminished head-gear into sudden prominence as a +shadow. At this a step approached the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Are folk astir here yet?” inquired a voice she knew well. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mr. Winterborne,” said Marty, throwing on a tilt bonnet, +which completely hid the recent ravages of the scissors. “Come in!” +</p> + +<p> +The door was flung back, and there stepped in upon the mat a man not +particularly young for a lover, nor particularly mature for a person of +affairs. There was reserve in his glance, and restraint upon his mouth. He +carried a horn lantern which hung upon a swivel, and wheeling as it dangled +marked grotesque shapes upon the shadier part of the walls. +</p> + +<p> +He said that he had looked in on his way down, to tell her that they did not +expect her father to make up his contract if he was not well. Mr. Melbury would +give him another week, and they would go their journey with a short load that +day. +</p> + +<p> +“They are done,” said Marty, “and lying in the +cart-house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Done!” he repeated. “Your father has not been too ill to +work after all, then?” +</p> + +<p> +She made some evasive reply. “I’ll show you where they be, if you +are going down,” she added. +</p> + +<p> +They went out and walked together, the pattern of the air-holes in the top of +the lantern being thrown upon the mist overhead, where they appeared of giant +size, as if reaching the tent-shaped sky. They had no remarks to make to each +other, and they uttered none. Hardly anything could be more isolated or more +self-contained than the lives of these two walking here in the lonely antelucan +hour, when gray shades, material and mental, are so very gray. And yet, looked +at in a certain way, their lonely courses formed no detached design at all, but +were part of the pattern in the great web of human doings then weaving in both +hemispheres, from the White Sea to Cape Horn. +</p> + +<p> +The shed was reached, and she pointed out the spars. Winterborne regarded them +silently, then looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Marty, I believe—” he said, and shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“That you’ve done the work yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you tell anybody, will you, Mr. Winterborne?” she +pleaded, by way of answer. “Because I am afraid Mr. Melbury may refuse my +work if he knows it is mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how could you learn to do it? ’Tis a trade.” +</p> + +<p> +“Trade!” said she. “I’d be bound to learn it in two +hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, you wouldn’t, Mrs. Marty.” Winterborne held down his +lantern, and examined the cleanly split hazels as they lay. +“Marty,” he said, with dry admiration, “your father with his +forty years of practice never made a spar better than that. They are too good +for the thatching of houses—they are good enough for the furniture. But I +won’t tell. Let me look at your hands—your poor hands!” +</p> + +<p> +He had a kindly manner of a quietly severe tone; and when she seemed reluctant +to show her hands, he took hold of one and examined it as if it were his own. +Her fingers were blistered. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ll get harder in time,” she said. “For if father +continues ill, I shall have to go on wi’ it. Now I’ll help put +’em up in wagon.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne without speaking set down his lantern, lifted her as she was about +to stoop over the bundles, placed her behind him, and began throwing up the +bundles himself. “Rather than you should do it I will,” he said. +“But the men will be here directly. Why, Marty!—whatever has +happened to your head? Lord, it has shrunk to nothing—it looks an apple +upon a gate-post!” +</p> + +<p> +Her heart swelled, and she could not speak. At length she managed to groan, +looking on the ground, “I’ve made myself ugly—and +hateful—that’s what I’ve done!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” he answered. “You’ve only cut your +hair—I see now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why must you needs say that about apples and gate-posts?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” She ran off into the gloom of the sluggish dawn. He did +not attempt to follow her. When she reached her father’s door she stood +on the step and looked back. Mr. Melbury’s men had arrived, and were +loading up the spars, and their lanterns appeared from the distance at which +she stood to have wan circles round them, like eyes weary with watching. She +observed them for a few seconds as they set about harnessing the horses, and +then went indoors. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p> +There was now a distinct manifestation of morning in the air, and presently the +bleared white visage of a sunless winter day emerged like a dead-born child. +The villagers everywhere had already bestirred themselves, rising at this time +of the year at the far less dreary hour of absolute darkness. It had been above +an hour earlier, before a single bird had untucked his head, that twenty lights +were struck in as many bedrooms, twenty pairs of shutters opened, and twenty +pairs of eyes stretched to the sky to forecast the weather for the day. +</p> + +<p> +Owls that had been catching mice in the out-houses, rabbits that had been +eating the wintergreens in the gardens, and stoats that had been sucking the +blood of the rabbits, discerning that their human neighbors were on the move, +discreetly withdrew from publicity, and were seen and heard no more that day. +</p> + +<p> +The daylight revealed the whole of Mr. Melbury’s homestead, of which the +wagon-sheds had been an outlying erection. It formed three sides of an open +quadrangle, and consisted of all sorts of buildings, the largest and central +one being the dwelling itself. The fourth side of the quadrangle was the public +road. +</p> + +<p> +It was a dwelling-house of respectable, roomy, almost dignified aspect; which, +taken with the fact that there were the remains of other such buildings +thereabout, indicated that Little Hintock had at some time or other been of +greater importance than now, as its old name of Hintock St. Osmond also +testified. The house was of no marked antiquity, yet of well-advanced age; +older than a stale novelty, but no canonized antique; faded, not hoary; looking +at you from the still distinct middle-distance of the early Georgian time, and +awakening on that account the instincts of reminiscence more decidedly than the +remoter and far grander memorials which have to speak from the misty reaches of +mediaevalism. The faces, dress, passions, gratitudes, and revenues of the +great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers who had been the first to gaze from +those rectangular windows, and had stood under that key-stoned doorway, could +be divined and measured by homely standards of to-day. It was a house in whose +reverberations queer old personal tales were yet audible if properly listened +for; and not, as with those of the castle and cloister, silent beyond the +possibility of echo. +</p> + +<p> +The garden-front remained much as it had always been, and there was a porch and +entrance that way. But the principal house-door opened on the square yard or +quadrangle towards the road, formerly a regular carriage entrance, though the +middle of the area was now made use of for stacking timber, fagots, bundles, +and other products of the wood. It was divided from the lane by a lichen-coated +wall, in which hung a pair of gates, flanked by piers out of the perpendicular, +with a round white ball on the top of each. +</p> + +<p> +The building on the left of the enclosure was a long-backed erection, now used +for spar-making, sawing, crib-framing, and copse-ware manufacture in general. +Opposite were the wagon-sheds where Marty had deposited her spars. +</p> + +<p> +Here Winterborne had remained after the girl’s abrupt departure, to see +that the wagon-loads were properly made up. Winterborne was connected with the +Melbury family in various ways. In addition to the sentimental relationship +which arose from his father having been the first Mrs. Melbury’s lover, +Winterborne’s aunt had married and emigrated with the brother of the +timber-merchant many years before—an alliance that was sufficient to +place Winterborne, though the poorer, on a footing of social intimacy with the +Melburys. As in most villages so secluded as this, intermarriages were of +Hapsburgian frequency among the inhabitants, and there were hardly two houses +in Little Hintock unrelated by some matrimonial tie or other. +</p> + +<p> +For this reason a curious kind of partnership existed between Melbury and the +younger man—a partnership based upon an unwritten code, by which each +acted in the way he thought fair towards the other, on a give-and-take +principle. Melbury, with his timber and copse-ware business, found that the +weight of his labor came in winter and spring. Winterborne was in the apple and +cider trade, and his requirements in cartage and other work came in the autumn +of each year. Hence horses, wagons, and in some degree men, were handed over to +him when the apples began to fall; he, in return, lending his assistance to +Melbury in the busiest wood-cutting season, as now. +</p> + +<p> +Before he had left the shed a boy came from the house to ask him to remain till +Mr. Melbury had seen him. Winterborne thereupon crossed over to the spar-house +where two or three men were already at work, two of them being travelling +spar-makers from White-hart Lane, who, when this kind of work began, made their +appearance regularly, and when it was over disappeared in silence till the +season came again. +</p> + +<p> +Firewood was the one thing abundant in Little Hintock; and a blaze of gad-cuds +made the outhouse gay with its light, which vied with that of the day as yet. +In the hollow shades of the roof could be seen dangling etiolated arms of ivy +which had crept through the joints of the tiles and were groping in vain for +some support, their leaves being dwarfed and sickly for want of sunlight; +others were pushing in with such force at the eaves as to lift from their +supports the shelves that were fixed there. +</p> + +<p> +Besides the itinerant journey-workers there were also present John Upjohn, +engaged in the hollow-turnery trade, who lived hard by; old Timothy Tangs and +young Timothy Tangs, top and bottom sawyers, at work in Mr. Melbury’s pit +outside; Farmer Bawtree, who kept the cider-house, and Robert Creedle, an old +man who worked for Winterborne, and stood warming his hands; these latter being +enticed in by the ruddy blaze, though they had no particular business there. +None of them call for any remark except, perhaps, Creedle. To have completely +described him it would have been necessary to write a military memoir, for he +wore under his smock-frock a cast-off soldier’s jacket that had seen hot +service, its collar showing just above the flap of the frock; also a hunting +memoir, to include the top-boots that he had picked up by chance; also +chronicles of voyaging and shipwreck, for his pocket-knife had been given him +by a weather-beaten sailor. But Creedle carried about with him on his +uneventful rounds these silent testimonies of war, sport, and adventure, and +thought nothing of their associations or their stories. +</p> + +<p> +Copse-work, as it was called, being an occupation which the secondary +intelligence of the hands and arms could carry on without requiring the +sovereign attention of the head, the minds of its professors wandered +considerably from the objects before them; hence the tales, chronicles, and +ramifications of family history which were recounted here were of a very +exhaustive kind, and sometimes so interminable as to defy description. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne, seeing that Melbury had not arrived, stepped back again outside +the door; and the conversation interrupted by his momentary presence flowed +anew, reaching his ears as an accompaniment to the regular dripping of the fog +from the plantation boughs around. +</p> + +<p> +The topic at present handled was a highly popular and frequent one—the +personal character of Mrs. Charmond, the owner of the surrounding woods and +groves. +</p> + +<p> +“My brother-in-law told me, and I have no reason to doubt it,” said +Creedle, “that she’d sit down to her dinner with a frock hardly +higher than her elbows. ‘Oh, you wicked woman!’ he said to himself +when he first see her, ‘you go to your church, and sit, and kneel, as if +your knee-jints were greased with very saint’s anointment, and tell off +your Hear-us-good-Lords like a business man counting money; and yet you can eat +your victuals such a figure as that!’ Whether she’s a reformed +character by this time I can’t say; but I don’t care who the man +is, that’s how she went on when my brother-in-law lived there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she do it in her husband’s time?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I don’t know—hardly, I should think, considering his +temper. Ah!” Here Creedle threw grieved remembrance into physical form by +slowly resigning his head to obliquity and letting his eyes water. “That +man! ‘Not if the angels of heaven come down, Creedle,’ he said, +‘shall you do another day’s work for me!’ +Yes—he’d say anything—anything; and would as soon take a +winged creature’s name in vain as yours or mine! Well, now I must get +these spars home-along, and to-morrow, thank God, I must see about using +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +An old woman now entered upon the scene. She was Mr. Melbury’s servant, +and passed a great part of her time in crossing the yard between the house-door +and the spar-shed, whither she had come now for fuel. She had two facial +aspects—one, of a soft and flexible kind, she used indoors when assisting +about the parlor or upstairs; the other, with stiff lines and corners, when she +was bustling among the men in the spar-house or out-of-doors. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Grammer Oliver,” said John Upjohn, “it do do my heart +good to see a old woman like you so dapper and stirring, when I bear in mind +that after fifty one year counts as two did afore! But your smoke didn’t +rise this morning till twenty minutes past seven by my beater; and that’s +late, Grammer Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you was a full-sized man, John, people might take notice of your +scornful meanings. But your growing up was such a scrimped and scanty business +that really a woman couldn’t feel hurt if you were to spit fire and +brimstone itself at her. Here,” she added, holding out a spar-gad to one +of the workmen, from which dangled a long +black-pudding—“here’s something for thy breakfast, and if you +want tea you must fetch it from in-doors.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Melbury is late this morning,” said the bottom-sawyer. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. ’Twas a dark dawn,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Even when +I opened the door, so late as I was, you couldn’t have told poor men from +gentlemen, or John from a reasonable-sized object. And I don’t think +maister’s slept at all well to-night. He’s anxious about his +daughter; and I know what that is, for I’ve cried bucketfuls for my +own.” +</p> + +<p> +When the old woman had gone Creedle said, +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll fret his gizzard green if he don’t soon hear from that +maid of his. Well, learning is better than houses and lands. But to keep a maid +at school till she is taller out of pattens than her mother was in +’em—’tis tempting Providence.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems no time ago that she was a little playward girl,” said +young Timothy Tangs. +</p> + +<p> +“I can mind her mother,” said the hollow-turner. “Always a +teuny, delicate piece; her touch upon your hand was as soft and cool as wind. +She was inoculated for the small-pox and had it beautifully fine, just about +the time that I was out of my apprenticeship—ay, and a long +apprenticeship ’twas. I served that master of mine six years and three +hundred and fourteen days.” +</p> + +<p> +The hollow-turner pronounced the days with emphasis, as if, considering their +number, they were a rather more remarkable fact than the years. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Winterborne’s father walked with her at one time,” said +old Timothy Tangs. “But Mr. Melbury won her. She was a child of a woman, +and would cry like rain if so be he huffed her. Whenever she and her husband +came to a puddle in their walks together he’d take her up like a +half-penny doll and put her over without dirting her a speck. And if he keeps +the daughter so long at boarding-school, he’ll make her as nesh as her +mother was. But here he comes.” +</p> + +<p> +Just before this moment Winterborne had seen Melbury crossing the court from +his door. He was carrying an open letter in his hand, and came straight to +Winterborne. His gloom of the preceding night had quite gone. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d no sooner made up my mind, Giles, to go and see why Grace +didn’t come or write than I get a letter from her—‘Clifton: +Wednesday. My dear father,’ says she, ‘I’m coming home +to-morrow’ (that’s to-day), ‘but I didn’t think it +worth while to write long beforehand.’ The little rascal, and +didn’t she! Now, Giles, as you are going to Sherton market to-day with +your apple-trees, why not join me and Grace there, and we’ll drive home +all together?” +</p> + +<p> +He made the proposal with cheerful energy; he was hardly the same man as the +man of the small dark hours. Ever it happens that even among the moodiest the +tendency to be cheered is stronger than the tendency to be cast down; and a +soul’s specific gravity stands permanently less than that of the sea of +troubles into which it is thrown. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne, though not demonstrative, replied to this suggestion with +something like alacrity. There was not much doubt that Marty’s grounds +for cutting off her hair were substantial enough, if Ambrose’s eyes had +been a reason for keeping it on. As for the timber-merchant, it was plain that +his invitation had been given solely in pursuance of his scheme for uniting the +pair. He had made up his mind to the course as a duty, and was strenuously bent +upon following it out. +</p> + +<p> +Accompanied by Winterborne, he now turned towards the door of the spar-house, +when his footsteps were heard by the men as aforesaid. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, John, and Lot,” he said, nodding as he entered. “A +rimy morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis, sir!” said Creedle, energetically; for, not having as +yet been able to summon force sufficient to go away and begin work, he felt the +necessity of throwing some into his speech. “I don’t care who the +man is, ’tis the rimiest morning we’ve had this fall.” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard you wondering why I’ve kept my daughter so long at +boarding-school,” resumed Mr. Melbury, looking up from the letter which +he was reading anew by the fire, and turning to them with the suddenness that +was a trait in him. “Hey?” he asked, with affected shrewdness. +“But you did, you know. Well, now, though it is my own business more than +anybody else’s, I’ll tell ye. When I was a boy, another +boy—the pa’son’s son—along with a lot of others, asked +me ‘Who dragged Whom round the walls of What?’ and I said, +‘Sam Barrett, who dragged his wife in a chair round the tower corner when +she went to be churched.’ They laughed at me with such torrents of scorn +that I went home ashamed, and couldn’t sleep for shame; and I cried that +night till my pillow was wet: till at last I thought to myself there and +then—‘They may laugh at me for my ignorance, but that was +father’s fault, and none o’ my making, and I must bear it. But they +shall never laugh at my children, if I have any: I’ll starve +first!’ Thank God, I’ve been able to keep her at school without +sacrifice; and her scholarship is such that she stayed on as governess for a +time. Let ’em laugh now if they can: Mrs. Charmond herself is not better +informed than my girl Grace.” +</p> + +<p> +There was something between high indifference and humble emotion in his +delivery, which made it difficult for them to reply. Winterborne’s +interest was of a kind which did not show itself in words; listening, he stood +by the fire, mechanically stirring the embers with a spar-gad. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be, then, ready, Giles?” Melbury continued, awaking +from a reverie. “Well, what was the latest news at Shottsford yesterday, +Mr. Bawtree?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Shottsford is Shottsford still—you can’t victual your +carcass there unless you’ve got money; and you can’t buy a cup of +genuine there, whether or no....But as the saying is, ‘Go abroad and +you’ll hear news of home.’ It seems that our new neighbor, this +young Dr. What’s-his-name, is a strange, deep, perusing gentleman; and +there’s good reason for supposing he has sold his soul to the wicked +one.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Od name it all,” murmured the timber-merchant, unimpressed +by the news, but reminded of other things by the subject of it; +“I’ve got to meet a gentleman this very morning? and yet I’ve +planned to go to Sherton Abbas for the maid.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t praise the doctor’s wisdom till I hear what sort of +bargain he’s made,” said the top-sawyer. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis only an old woman’s tale,” said Bawtree. +“But it seems that he wanted certain books on some mysterious science or +black-art, and in order that the people hereabout should not know anything +about his dark readings, he ordered ’em direct from London, and not from +the Sherton book-seller. The parcel was delivered by mistake at the +pa’son’s, and he wasn’t at home; so his wife opened it, and +went into hysterics when she read ’em, thinking her husband had turned +heathen, and ’twould be the ruin of the children. But when he came he +said he knew no more about ’em than she; and found they were this Mr. +Fitzpier’s property. So he wrote ‘Beware!’ outside, and sent +’em on by the sexton.” +</p> + +<p> +“He must be a curious young man,” mused the hollow-turner. +</p> + +<p> +“He must,” said Timothy Tangs. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” said Mr. Melbury, authoritatively, “he’s +only a gentleman fond of science and philosophy and poetry, and, in fact, every +kind of knowledge; and being lonely here, he passes his time in making such +matters his hobby.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said old Timothy, “’tis a strange thing about +doctors that the worse they be the better they be. I mean that if you hear +anything of this sort about ’em, ten to one they can cure ye as nobody +else can.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said Bawtree, emphatically. “And for my part I shall +take my custom from old Jones and go to this one directly I’ve anything +the matter with me. That last medicine old Jones gave me had no taste in it at +all.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Melbury, as became a well-informed man, did not listen to these recitals, +being moreover preoccupied with the business appointment which had come into +his head. He walked up and down, looking on the floor—his usual custom +when undecided. That stiffness about the arm, hip, and knee-joint which was +apparent when he walked was the net product of the divers sprains and +over-exertions that had been required of him in handling trees and timber when +a young man, for he was of the sort called self-made, and had worked hard. He +knew the origin of every one of these cramps: that in his left shoulder had +come of carrying a pollard, unassisted, from Tutcombe Bottom home; that in one +leg was caused by the crash of an elm against it when they were felling; that +in the other was from lifting a bole. On many a morrow after wearying himself +by these prodigious muscular efforts, he had risen from his bed fresh as usual; +his lassitude had departed, apparently forever; and confident in the +recuperative power of his youth, he had repeated the strains anew. But +treacherous Time had been only hiding ill results when they could be guarded +against, for greater accumulation when they could not. In his declining years +the store had been unfolded in the form of rheumatisms, pricks, and spasms, in +every one of which Melbury recognized some act which, had its consequence been +contemporaneously made known, he would wisely have abstained from repeating. +</p> + +<p> +On a summons by Grammer Oliver to breakfast, he left the shed. Reaching the +kitchen, where the family breakfasted in winter to save house-labor, he sat +down by the fire, and looked a long time at the pair of dancing shadows cast by +each fire-iron and dog-knob on the whitewashed chimney-corner—a yellow +one from the window, and a blue one from the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite know what to do to-day,” he said to his wife +at last. “I’ve recollected that I promised to meet Mrs. +Charmond’s steward in Round Wood at twelve o’clock, and yet I want +to go for Grace.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not let Giles fetch her by himself? ’Twill bring ’em +together all the quicker.” +</p> + +<p> +“I could do that—but I should like to go myself. I always have +gone, without fail, every time hitherto. It has been a great pleasure to drive +into Sherton, and wait and see her arrive; and perhaps she’ll be +disappointed if I stay away.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may be disappointed, but I don’t think she will, if you send +Giles,” said Mrs. Melbury, dryly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well—I’ll send him.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury was often persuaded by the quietude of his wife’s words when +strenuous argument would have had no effect. This second Mrs. Melbury was a +placid woman, who had been nurse to his child Grace before her mother’s +death. After that melancholy event little Grace had clung to the nurse with +much affection; and ultimately Melbury, in dread lest the only woman who cared +for the girl should be induced to leave her, persuaded the mild Lucy to marry +him. The arrangement—for it was little more—had worked +satisfactorily enough; Grace had thriven, and Melbury had not repented. +</p> + +<p> +He returned to the spar-house and found Giles near at hand, to whom he +explained the change of plan. “As she won’t arrive till five +o’clock, you can get your business very well over in time to receive +her,” said Melbury. “The green gig will do for her; you’ll +spin along quicker with that, and won’t be late upon the road. Her boxes +can be called for by one of the wagons.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne, knowing nothing of the timber-merchant’s restitutory aims, +quietly thought all this to be a kindly chance. Wishing even more than her +father to despatch his apple-tree business in the market before Grace’s +arrival, he prepared to start at once. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury was careful that the turnout should be seemly. The gig-wheels, for +instance, were not always washed during winter-time before a journey, the muddy +roads rendering that labor useless; but they were washed to-day. The harness +was blacked, and when the rather elderly white horse had been put in, and +Winterborne was in his seat ready to start, Mr. Melbury stepped out with a +blacking-brush, and with his own hands touched over the yellow hoofs of the +animal. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, Giles,” he said, as he blacked, “coming from a +fashionable school, she might feel shocked at the homeliness of home; and +’tis these little things that catch a dainty woman’s eye if they +are neglected. We, living here alone, don’t notice how the whitey-brown +creeps out of the earth over us; but she, fresh from a city—why, +she’ll notice everything!” +</p> + +<p> +“That she will,” said Giles. +</p> + +<p> +“And scorn us if we don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not scorn us.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no—that’s only words. She’s too good a girl to +do that. But when we consider what she knows, and what she has seen since she +last saw us, ’tis as well to meet her views as nearly as possible. Why, +’tis a year since she was in this old place, owing to her going abroad in +the summer, which I agreed to, thinking it best for her; and naturally we shall +look small, just at first—I only say just at first.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Melbury’s tone evinced a certain exultation in the very sense of that +inferiority he affected to deplore; for this advanced and refined being, was +she not his own all the time? Not so Giles; he felt doubtful—perhaps a +trifle cynical—for that strand was wound into him with the rest. He +looked at his clothes with misgiving, then with indifference. +</p> + +<p> +It was his custom during the planting season to carry a specimen apple-tree to +market with him as an advertisement of what he dealt in. This had been tied +across the gig; and as it would be left behind in the town, it would cause no +inconvenience to Miss Grace Melbury coming home. +</p> + +<p> +He drove away, the twigs nodding with each step of the horse; and Melbury went +in-doors. Before the gig had passed out of sight, Mr. Melbury reappeared and +shouted after— +</p> + +<p> +“Here, Giles,” he said, breathlessly following with some wraps, +“it may be very chilly to-night, and she may want something extra about +her. And, Giles,” he added, when the young man, having taken the +articles, put the horse in motion once more, “tell her that I should have +come myself, but I had particular business with Mrs. Charmond’s agent, +which prevented me. Don’t forget.” +</p> + +<p> +He watched Winterborne out of sight, saying, with a jerk—a shape into +which emotion with him often resolved itself—“There, now, I hope +the two will bring it to a point and have done with it! ’Tis a pity to +let such a girl throw herself away upon him—a thousand pities!...And yet +’tis my duty for his father’s sake.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p> +Winterborne sped on his way to Sherton Abbas without elation and without +discomposure. Had he regarded his inner self spectacularly, as lovers are now +daily more wont to do, he might have felt pride in the discernment of a +somewhat rare power in him—that of keeping not only judgment but emotion +suspended in difficult cases. But he noted it not. Neither did he observe what +was also the fact, that though he cherished a true and warm feeling towards +Grace Melbury, he was not altogether her fool just now. It must be remembered +that he had not seen her for a year. +</p> + +<p> +Arrived at the entrance to a long flat lane, which had taken the spirit out of +many a pedestrian in times when, with the majority, to travel meant to walk, he +saw before him the trim figure of a young woman in pattens, journeying with +that steadfast concentration which means purpose and not pleasure. He was soon +near enough to see that she was Marty South. Click, click, click went the +pattens; and she did not turn her head. +</p> + +<p> +She had, however, become aware before this that the driver of the approaching +gig was Giles. She had shrunk from being overtaken by him thus; but as it was +inevitable, she had braced herself up for his inspection by closing her lips so +as to make her mouth quite unemotional, and by throwing an additional firmness +into her tread. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you wear pattens, Marty? The turnpike is clean enough, although +the lanes are muddy.” +</p> + +<p> +“They save my boots.” +</p> + +<p> +“But twelve miles in pattens—’twill twist your feet off. +Come, get up and ride with me.” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated, removed her pattens, knocked the gravel out of them against the +wheel, and mounted in front of the nodding specimen apple-tree. She had so +arranged her bonnet with a full border and trimmings that her lack of long hair +did not much injure her appearance; though Giles, of course, saw that it was +gone, and may have guessed her motive in parting with it, such sales, though +infrequent, being not unheard of in that locality. +</p> + +<p> +But nature’s adornment was still hard by—in fact, within two feet +of him, though he did not know it. In Marty’s basket was a brown paper +packet, and in the packet the chestnut locks, which, by reason of the +barber’s request for secrecy, she had not ventured to intrust to other +hands. +</p> + +<p> +Giles asked, with some hesitation, how her father was getting on. +</p> + +<p> +He was better, she said; he would be able to work in a day or two; he would be +quite well but for his craze about the tree falling on him. +</p> + +<p> +“You know why I don’t ask for him so often as I might, I +suppose?” said Winterborne. “Or don’t you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because of the houses?” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I am afraid it may seem that my anxiety is about those houses, +which I should lose by his death, more than about him. Marty, I do feel anxious +about the houses, since half my income depends upon them; but I do likewise +care for him; and it almost seems wrong that houses should be leased for lives, +so as to lead to such mixed feelings.” +</p> + +<p> +“After father’s death they will be Mrs. Charmond’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“They’ll be hers.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are going to keep company with my hair,” she thought. +</p> + +<p> +Thus talking, they reached the town. By no pressure would she ride up the +street with him. “That’s the right of another woman,” she +said, with playful malice, as she put on her pattens. “I wonder what you +are thinking of! Thank you for the lift in that handsome gig. Good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +He blushed a little, shook his head at her, and drove on ahead into the +streets—the churches, the abbey, and other buildings on this clear bright +morning having the liny distinctness of architectural drawings, as if the +original dream and vision of the conceiving master-mason, some mediaeval Vilars +or other unknown to fame, were for a few minutes flashed down through the +centuries to an unappreciative age. Giles saw their eloquent look on this day +of transparency, but could not construe it. He turned into the inn-yard. +</p> + +<p> +Marty, following the same track, marched promptly to the hair-dresser’s, +Mr. Percombe’s. Percombe was the chief of his trade in Sherton Abbas. He +had the patronage of such county offshoots as had been obliged to seek the +shelter of small houses in that ancient town, of the local clergy, and so on, +for some of whom he had made wigs, while others among them had compensated for +neglecting him in their lifetime by patronizing him when they were dead, and +letting him shave their corpses. On the strength of all this he had taken down +his pole, and called himself “Perruquier to the aristocracy.” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, this sort of support did not quite fill his children’s +mouths, and they had to be filled. So, behind his house there was a little +yard, reached by a passage from the back street, and in that yard was a pole, +and under the pole a shop of quite another description than the ornamental one +in the front street. Here on Saturday nights from seven till ten he took an +almost innumerable succession of twopences from the farm laborers who flocked +thither in crowds from the country. And thus he lived. +</p> + +<p> +Marty, of course, went to the front shop, and handed her packet to him +silently. “Thank you,” said the barber, quite joyfully. “I +hardly expected it after what you said last night.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned aside, while a tear welled up and stood in each eye at this +reminder. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing of what I told you,” he whispered, there being others in +the shop. “But I can trust you, I see.” +</p> + +<p> +She had now reached the end of this distressing business, and went listlessly +along the street to attend to other errands. These occupied her till four +o’clock, at which time she recrossed the market-place. It was impossible +to avoid rediscovering Winterborne every time she passed that way, for +standing, as he always did at this season of the year, with his specimen +apple-tree in the midst, the boughs rose above the heads of the crowd, and +brought a delightful suggestion of orchards among the crowded buildings there. +When her eye fell upon him for the last time he was standing somewhat apart, +holding the tree like an ensign, and looking on the ground instead of pushing +his produce as he ought to have been doing. He was, in fact, not a very +successful seller either of his trees or of his cider, his habit of speaking +his mind, when he spoke at all, militating against this branch of his business. +</p> + +<p> +While she regarded him he suddenly lifted his eyes in a direction away from +Marty, his face simultaneously kindling with recognition and surprise. She +followed his gaze, and saw walking across to him a flexible young creature in +whom she perceived the features of her she had known as Miss Grace Melbury, but +now looking glorified and refined above her former level. Winterborne, being +fixed to the spot by his apple-tree, could not advance to meet her; he held out +his spare hand with his hat in it, and with some embarrassment beheld her +coming on tiptoe through the mud to the middle of the square where he stood. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Melbury’s arrival so early was, as Marty could see, unexpected by +Giles, which accounted for his not being ready to receive her. Indeed, her +father had named five o’clock as her probable time, for which reason that +hour had been looming out all the day in his forward perspective, like an +important edifice on a plain. Now here she was come, he knew not how, and his +arranged welcome stultified. +</p> + +<p> +His face became gloomy at her necessity for stepping into the road, and more +still at the little look of embarrassment which appeared on hers at having to +perform the meeting with him under an apple-tree ten feet high in the middle of +the market-place. Having had occasion to take off the new gloves she had bought +to come home in, she held out to him a hand graduating from pink at the tips of +the fingers to white at the palm; and the reception formed a scene, with the +tree over their heads, which was not by any means an ordinary one in Sherton +Abbas streets. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, the greeting on her looks and lips was of a restrained type, +which perhaps was not unnatural. For true it was that Giles Winterborne, +well-attired and well-mannered as he was for a yeoman, looked rough beside her. +It had sometimes dimly occurred to him, in his ruminating silence at Little +Hintock, that external phenomena—such as the lowness or height or color +of a hat, the fold of a coat, the make of a boot, or the chance attitude or +occupation of a limb at the instant of view—may have a great influence +upon feminine opinion of a man’s worth—so frequently founded on +non-essentials; but a certain causticity of mental tone towards himself and the +world in general had prevented to-day, as always, any enthusiastic action on +the strength of that reflection; and her momentary instinct of reserve at first +sight of him was the penalty he paid for his laxness. +</p> + +<p> +He gave away the tree to a by-stander, as soon as he could find one who would +accept the cumbersome gift, and the twain moved on towards the inn at which he +had put up. Marty made as if to step forward for the pleasure of being +recognized by Miss Melbury; but abruptly checking herself, she glided behind a +carrier’s van, saying, dryly, “No; I baint wanted there,” and +critically regarded Winterborne’s companion. +</p> + +<p> +It would have been very difficult to describe Grace Melbury with precision, +either now or at any time. Nay, from the highest point of view, to precisely +describe a human being, the focus of a universe—how impossible! But, +apart from transcendentalism, there never probably lived a person who was in +herself more completely a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of attempts to appraise a +woman, even externally, by items of face and figure. Speaking generally, it may +be said that she was sometimes beautiful, at other times not beautiful, +according to the state of her health and spirits. +</p> + +<p> +In simple corporeal presentment she was of a fair and clear complexion, rather +pale than pink, slim in build and elastic in movement. Her look expressed a +tendency to wait for others’ thoughts before uttering her own; possibly +also to wait for others’ deeds before her own doing. In her small, +delicate mouth, which had perhaps hardly settled down to its matured curves, +there was a gentleness that might hinder sufficient self-assertion for her own +good. She had well-formed eyebrows which, had her portrait been painted, would +probably have been done in Prout’s or Vandyke brown. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing remarkable in her dress just now, beyond a natural fitness +and a style that was recent for the streets of Sherton. But, indeed, had it +been the reverse, and quite striking, it would have meant just as little. For +there can be hardly anything less connected with a woman’s personality +than drapery which she has neither designed, manufactured, cut, sewed, or even +seen, except by a glance of approval when told that such and such a shape and +color must be had because it has been decided by others as imperative at that +particular time. +</p> + +<p> +What people, therefore, saw of her in a cursory view was very little; in truth, +mainly something that was not she. The woman herself was a shadowy, conjectural +creature who had little to do with the outlines presented to Sherton eyes; a +shape in the gloom, whose true description could only be approximated by +putting together a movement now and a glance then, in that patient and +long-continued attentiveness which nothing but watchful loving-kindness ever +troubles to give. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +There was a little delay in their setting out from the town, and Marty South +took advantage of it to hasten forward, with the view of escaping them on the +way, lest they should feel compelled to spoil their <i>tête-à -tête</i> by +asking her to ride. She walked fast, and one-third of the journey was done, and +the evening rapidly darkening, before she perceived any sign of them behind +her. Then, while ascending a hill, she dimly saw their vehicle drawing near the +lowest part of the incline, their heads slightly bent towards each other; drawn +together, no doubt, by their souls, as the heads of a pair of horses well in +hand are drawn in by the rein. She walked still faster. +</p> + +<p> +But between these and herself there was a carriage, apparently a brougham, +coming in the same direction, with lighted lamps. When it overtook +her—which was not soon, on account of her pace—the scene was much +darker, and the lights glared in her eyes sufficiently to hide the details of +the equipage. +</p> + +<p> +It occurred to Marty that she might take hold behind this carriage and so keep +along with it, to save herself the mortification of being overtaken and picked +up for pity’s sake by the coming pair. Accordingly, as the carriage drew +abreast of her in climbing the long ascent, she walked close to the wheels, the +rays of the nearest lamp penetrating her very pores. She had only just dropped +behind when the carriage stopped, and to her surprise the coachman asked her, +over his shoulder, if she would ride. What made the question more surprising +was that it came in obedience to an order from the interior of the vehicle. +</p> + +<p> +Marty gladly assented, for she was weary, very weary, after working all night +and keeping afoot all day. She mounted beside the coachman, wondering why this +good-fortune had happened to her. He was rather a great man in aspect, and she +did not like to inquire of him for some time. +</p> + +<p> +At last she said, “Who has been so kind as to ask me to ride?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Charmond,” replied her statuesque companion. +</p> + +<p> +Marty was stirred at the name, so closely connected with her last night’s +experiences. “Is this her carriage?” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; she’s inside.” +</p> + +<p> +Marty reflected, and perceived that Mrs. Charmond must have recognized her +plodding up the hill under the blaze of the lamp; recognized, probably, her +stubbly poll (since she had kept away her face), and thought that those +stubbles were the result of her own desire. +</p> + +<p> +Marty South was not so very far wrong. Inside the carriage a pair of bright +eyes looked from a ripely handsome face, and though behind those bright eyes +was a mind of unfathomed mysteries, beneath them there beat a heart capable of +quick extempore warmth—a heart which could, indeed, be passionately and +imprudently warm on certain occasions. At present, after recognizing the girl, +she had acted on a mere impulse, possibly feeling gratified at the denuded +appearance which signified the success of her agent in obtaining what she had +required. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis wonderful that she should ask ye,” observed the +magisterial coachman, presently. “I have never known her do it before, +for as a rule she takes no interest in the village folk at all.” +</p> + +<p> +Marty said no more, but occasionally turned her head to see if she could get a +glimpse of the Olympian creature who as the coachman had truly observed, hardly +ever descended from her clouds into the Tempe of the parishioners. But she +could discern nothing of the lady. She also looked for Miss Melbury and +Winterborne. The nose of their horse sometimes came quite near the back of Mrs. +Charmond’s carriage. But they never attempted to pass it till the latter +conveyance turned towards the park gate, when they sped by. Here the carriage +drew up that the gate might be opened, and in the momentary silence Marty heard +a gentle oral sound, soft as a breeze. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Mis’ess yawning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should she yawn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, because she’s been used to such wonderfully good life, and +finds it dull here. She’ll soon be off again on account of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“So rich and so powerful, and yet to yawn!” the girl murmured. +“Then things don’t fay with she any more than with we!” +</p> + +<p> +Marty now alighted; the lamp again shone upon her, and as the carriage rolled +on, a soft voice said to her from the interior, “Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, ma’am,” said Marty. But she had not been able to +see the woman who began so greatly to interest her—the second person of +her own sex who had operated strongly on her mind that day. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Winterborne and Grace Melbury had also undergone their little +experiences of the same homeward journey. +</p> + +<p> +As he drove off with her out of the town the glances of people fell upon them, +the younger thinking that Mr. Winterborne was in a pleasant place, and +wondering in what relation he stood towards her. Winterborne himself was +unconscious of this. Occupied solely with the idea of having her in charge, he +did not notice much with outward eye, neither observing how she was dressed, +nor the effect of the picture they together composed in the landscape. +</p> + +<p> +Their conversation was in briefest phrase for some time, Grace being somewhat +disconcerted, through not having understood till they were about to start that +Giles was to be her sole conductor in place of her father. When they were in +the open country he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t Brownley’s farm-buildings look strange to you, now +they have been moved bodily from the hollow where the old ones stood to the top +of the hill?” +</p> + +<p> +She admitted that they did, though she should not have seen any difference in +them if he had not pointed it out. +</p> + +<p> +“They had a good crop of bitter-sweets; they couldn’t grind them +all” (nodding towards an orchard where some heaps of apples had been left +lying ever since the ingathering). +</p> + +<p> +She said “Yes,” but looking at another orchard. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you are looking at John-apple-trees! You know +bitter-sweets—you used to well enough!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid I have forgotten, and it is getting too dark to +distinguish.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne did not continue. It seemed as if the knowledge and interest which +had formerly moved Grace’s mind had quite died away from her. He wondered +whether the special attributes of his image in the past had evaporated like +these other things. +</p> + +<p> +However that might be, the fact at present was merely this, that where he was +seeing John-apples and farm-buildings she was beholding a far remoter +scene—a scene no less innocent and simple, indeed, but much +contrasting—a broad lawn in the fashionable suburb of a fast city, the +evergreen leaves shining in the evening sun, amid which bounding girls, +gracefully clad in artistic arrangements of blue, brown, red, black, and white, +were playing at games, with laughter and chat, in all the pride of life, the +notes of piano and harp trembling in the air from the open windows adjoining. +Moreover, they were girls—and this was a fact which Grace Melbury’s +delicate femininity could not lose sight of—whose parents Giles would +have addressed with a deferential Sir or Madam. Beside this visioned scene the +homely farmsteads did not quite hold their own from her present twenty-year +point of survey. For all his woodland sequestration, Giles knew the primitive +simplicity of the subject he had started, and now sounded a deeper note. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas very odd what we said to each other years ago; I often think +of it. I mean our saying that if we still liked each other when you were twenty +and I twenty-five, we’d—” +</p> + +<p> +“It was child’s tattle.” +</p> + +<p> +“H’m!” said Giles, suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean we were young,” said she, more considerately. That gruff +manner of his in making inquiries reminded her that he was unaltered in much. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes....I beg your pardon, Miss Melbury; your father <i>sent</i> me to +meet you to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it, and I am glad of it.” +</p> + +<p> +He seemed satisfied with her tone and went on: “At that time you were +sitting beside me at the back of your father’s covered car, when we were +coming home from gypsying, all the party being squeezed in together as tight as +sheep in an auction-pen. It got darker and darker, and I said—I forget +the exact words—but I put my arm round your waist and there you let it +stay till your father, sitting in front suddenly stopped telling his story to +Farmer Bollen, to light his pipe. The flash shone into the car, and showed us +all up distinctly; my arm flew from your waist like lightning; yet not so +quickly but that some of ’em had seen, and laughed at us. Yet your +father, to our amazement, instead of being angry, was mild as milk, and seemed +quite pleased. Have you forgot all that, or haven’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +She owned that she remembered it very well, now that he mentioned the +circumstances. “But, goodness! I must have been in short frocks,” +she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Come now, Miss Melbury, that won’t do! Short frocks, indeed! You +know better, as well as I.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace thereupon declared that she would not argue with an old friend she valued +so highly as she valued him, saying the words with the easy elusiveness that +will be polite at all costs. It might possibly be true, she added, that she was +getting on in girlhood when that event took place; but if it were so, then she +was virtually no less than an old woman now, so far did the time seem removed +from her present. “Do you ever look at things philosophically instead of +personally?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say that I do,” answered Giles, his eyes lingering +far ahead upon a dark spot, which proved to be a brougham. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you may, sometimes, with advantage,” said she. “Look +at yourself as a pitcher drifting on the stream with other pitchers, and +consider what contrivances are most desirable for avoiding cracks in general, +and not only for saving your poor one. Shall I tell you all about Bath or +Cheltenham, or places on the Continent that I visited last summer?” +</p> + +<p> +“With all my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +She then described places and persons in such terms as might have been used for +that purpose by any woman to any man within the four seas, so entirely absent +from that description was everything specially appertaining to her own +existence. When she had done she said, gayly, “Now do you tell me in +return what has happened in Hintock since I have been away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything to keep the conversation away from her and me,” said +Giles within him. +</p> + +<p> +It was true cultivation had so far advanced in the soil of Miss Melbury’s +mind as to lead her to talk by rote of anything save of that she knew well, and +had the greatest interest in developing—that is to say, herself. +</p> + +<p> +He had not proceeded far with his somewhat bald narration when they drew near +the carriage that had been preceding them for some time. Miss Melbury inquired +if he knew whose carriage it was. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne, although he had seen it, had not taken it into account. On +examination, he said it was Mrs. Charmond’s. +</p> + +<p> +Grace watched the vehicle and its easy roll, and seemed to feel more nearly +akin to it than to the one she was in. +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh! We can polish off the mileage as well as they, come to +that,” said Winterborne, reading her mind; and rising to emulation at +what it bespoke, he whipped on the horse. This it was which had brought the +nose of Mr. Melbury’s old gray close to the back of Mrs. Charmond’s +much-eclipsing vehicle. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s Marty South sitting up with the coachman,” said he, +discerning her by her dress. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, poor Marty! I must ask her to come to see me this very evening. How +does she happen to be riding there?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. It is very singular.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus these people with converging destinies went along the road together, till +Winterborne, leaving the track of the carriage, turned into Little Hintock, +where almost the first house was the timber-merchant’s. Pencils of +dancing light streamed out of the windows sufficiently to show the white +laurestinus flowers, and glance over the polished leaves of laurel. The +interior of the rooms could be seen distinctly, warmed up by the fire-flames, +which in the parlor were reflected from the glass of the pictures and bookcase, +and in the kitchen from the utensils and ware. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us look at the dear place for a moment before we call them,” +she said. +</p> + +<p> +In the kitchen dinner was preparing; for though Melbury dined at one +o’clock at other times, to-day the meal had been kept back for Grace. A +rickety old spit was in motion, its end being fixed in the fire-dog, and the +whole kept going by means of a cord conveyed over pulleys along the ceiling to +a large stone suspended in a corner of the room. Old Grammer Oliver came and +wound it up with a rattle like that of a mill. +</p> + +<p> +In the parlor a large shade of Mrs. Melbury’s head fell on the wall and +ceiling; but before the girl had regarded this room many moments their presence +was discovered, and her father and stepmother came out to welcome her. +</p> + +<p> +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. He said +nothing, but took the gig round to the yard and called out from the spar-house +the man who particularly attended to these matters when there was no +conversation to draw him off among the copse-workers inside. Winterborne then +returned to the door with the intention of entering the house. +</p> + +<p> +The family had gone into the parlor, and were still absorbed in themselves. The +fire was, as before, the only light, and it irradiated Grace’s face and +hands so as to make them look wondrously smooth and fair beside those of the +two elders; shining also through the loose hair about her temples as sunlight +through a brake. Her father was surveying her in a dazed conjecture, so much +had she developed and progressed in manner and stature since he last had set +eyes on her. +</p> + +<p> +Observing these things, Winterborne remained dubious by the door, mechanically +tracing with his fingers certain time-worn letters carved in the +jambs—initials of by-gone generations of householders who had lived and +died there. +</p> + +<p> +No, he declared to himself, he would not enter and join the family; they had +forgotten him, and it was enough for to-day that he had brought her home. +Still, he was a little surprised that her father’s eagerness to send him +for Grace should have resulted in such an anticlimax as this. +</p> + +<p> +He walked softly away into the lane towards his own house, looking back when he +reached the turning, from which he could get a last glimpse of the +timber-merchant’s roof. He hazarded guesses as to what Grace was saying +just at that moment, and murmured, with some self-derision, “nothing +about me!” He looked also in the other direction, and saw against the sky +the thatched hip and solitary chimney of Marty’s cottage, and thought of +her too, struggling bravely along under that humble shelter, among her +spar-gads and pots and skimmers. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At the timber-merchant’s, in the mean time, the conversation flowed; and, +as Giles Winterborne had rightly enough deemed, on subjects in which he had no +share. Among the excluding matters there was, for one, the effect upon Mr. +Melbury of the womanly mien and manners of his daughter, which took him so much +unawares that, though it did not make him absolutely forget the existence of +her conductor homeward, thrust Giles’s image back into quite the +obscurest cellarage of his brain. Another was his interview with Mrs. +Charmond’s agent that morning, at which the lady herself had been present +for a few minutes. Melbury had purchased some standing timber from her a long +time before, and now that the date had come for felling it he was left to +pursue almost his own course. This was what the household were actually talking +of during Giles’s cogitation without; and Melbury’s satisfaction +with the clear atmosphere that had arisen between himself and the deity of the +groves which enclosed his residence was the cause of a counterbalancing +mistiness on the side towards Winterborne. +</p> + +<p> +“So thoroughly does she trust me,” said Melbury, “that I +might fell, top, or lop, on my own judgment, any stick o’ timber whatever +in her wood, and fix the price o’t, and settle the matter. But, name it +all! I wouldn’t do such a thing. 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. The chambers seemed lower than they had appeared on any previous +occasion of her return, the surfaces of both walls and ceilings standing in +such relations to the eye that it could not avoid taking microscopic note of +their irregularities and old fashion. Her own bedroom wore at once a look more +familiar than when she had left it, and yet a face estranged. The world of +little things therein gazed at her in helpless stationariness, as though they +had tried and been unable to make any progress without her presence. Over the +place where her candle had been accustomed to stand, when she had used to read +in bed till the midnight hour, there was still the brown spot of smoke. She did +not know that her father had taken especial care to keep it from being cleaned +off. +</p> + +<p> +Having concluded her perambulation of this now uselessly commodious edifice, +Grace began to feel that she had come a long journey since the morning; and +when her father had been up himself, as well as his wife, to see that her room +was comfortable and the fire burning, she prepared to retire for the night. No +sooner, however, was she in bed than her momentary sleepiness took itself off, +and she wished she had stayed up longer. She amused herself by listening to the +old familiar noises that she could hear to be still going on down-stairs, and +by looking towards the window as she lay. The blind had been drawn up, as she +used to have it when a girl, and she could just discern the dim tree-tops +against the sky on the neighboring hill. Beneath this meeting-line of light and +shade nothing was visible save one solitary point of light, which blinked as +the tree-twigs waved to and fro before its beams. From its position it seemed +to radiate from the window of a house on the hill-side. The house had been +empty when she was last at home, and she wondered who inhabited the place now. +</p> + +<p> +Her conjectures, however, were not intently carried on, and she was watching +the light quite idly, when it gradually changed color, and at length shone blue +as sapphire. Thus it remained several minutes, and then it passed through +violet to red. +</p> + +<p> +Her curiosity was so widely awakened by the phenomenon that she sat up in bed, +and stared steadily at the shine. An appearance of this sort, sufficient to +excite attention anywhere, was no less than a marvel in Hintock, as Grace had +known the hamlet. Almost every diurnal and nocturnal effect in that woodland +place had hitherto been the direct result of the regular terrestrial roll which +produced the season’s changes; but here was something dissociated from +these normal sequences, and foreign to local habit and knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +It was about this moment that Grace heard the household below preparing to +retire, the most emphatic noise in the proceeding being that of her father +bolting the doors. Then the stairs creaked, and her father and mother passed +her chamber. The last to come was Grammer Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +Grace slid out of bed, ran across the room, and lifting the latch, said, +“I am not asleep, Grammer. Come in and talk to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Before the old woman had entered, Grace was again under the bedclothes. Grammer +set down her candlestick, and seated herself on the edge of Miss +Melbury’s coverlet. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to tell me what light that is I see on the hill-side,” +said Grace. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Oliver looked across. “Oh, that,” she said, “is from the +doctor’s. He’s often doing things of that sort. Perhaps you +don’t know that we’ve a doctor living here now—Mr. Fitzpiers +by name?” +</p> + +<p> +Grace admitted that she had not heard of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, miss, he’s come here to get up a practice. I know him +very well, through going there to help ’em scrub sometimes, which your +father said I might do, if I wanted to, in my spare time. Being a bachelor-man, +he’ve only a lad in the house. Oh yes, I know him very well. Sometimes +he’ll talk to me as if I were his own mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. ‘Grammer,’ he said one day, when I asked him why he +came here where there’s hardly anybody living, ‘I’ll tell you +why I came here. I took a map, and I marked on it where Dr. Jones’s +practice ends to the north of this district, and where Mr. Taylor’s ends +on the south, and little Jimmy Green’s on the east, and somebody +else’s to the west. Then I took a pair of compasses, and found the exact +middle of the country that was left between these bounds, and that middle was +Little Hintock; so here I am....’ But, Lord, there: poor young +man!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“He said, ‘Grammer Oliver, I’ve been here three months, and +although there are a good many people in the Hintocks and the villages round, +and a scattered practice is often a very good one, I don’t seem to get +many patients. And there’s no society at all; and I’m pretty near +melancholy mad,’ he said, with a great yawn. ‘I should be quite if +it were not for my books, and my lab—laboratory, and what not. Grammer, I +was made for higher things.’ And then he’d yawn and yawn +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was he really made for higher things, do you think? I mean, is he +clever?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no. How can he be clever? He may be able to jine up a broken man +or woman after a fashion, and put his finger upon an ache if you tell him +nearly where ’tis; but these young men—they should live to my time +of life, and then they’d see how clever they were at five-and-twenty! And +yet he’s a projick, a real projick, and says the oddest of rozums. +‘Ah, Grammer,’ he said, at another time, ‘let me tell you +that Everything is Nothing. There’s only Me and not Me in the whole +world.’ And he told me that no man’s hands could help what they +did, any more than the hands of a clock....Yes, he’s a man of strange +meditations, and his eyes seem to see as far as the north star.” +</p> + +<p> +“He will soon go away, no doubt.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so.” Grace did not say “Why?” and +Grammer hesitated. At last she went on: “Don’t tell your father or +mother, miss, if I let you know a secret.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace gave the required promise. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he talks of buying me; so he won’t go away just yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Buying you!—how?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not my soul—my body, when I’m dead. One day when I was there +cleaning, he said, ‘Grammer, you’ve a large brain—a very +large organ of brain,’ he said. ‘A woman’s is usually four +ounces less than a man’s; but yours is man’s size.’ Well, +then—hee, hee!—after he’d flattered me a bit like that, he +said he’d give me ten pounds to have me as a natomy after my death. Well, +knowing I’d no chick nor chiel left, and nobody with any interest in me, +I thought, faith, if I can be of any use to my fellow-creatures after I’m +gone they are welcome to my services; so I said I’d think it over, and +would most likely agree and take the ten pounds. Now this is a secret, miss, +between us two. The money would be very useful to me; and I see no harm in +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course there’s no harm. But oh, Grammer, how can you think to +do it? I wish you hadn’t told me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I hadn’t—if you don’t like to know it, miss. +But you needn’t mind. Lord—hee, hee!—I shall keep him waiting +many a year yet, bless ye!” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you will, I am sure.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl thereupon fell into such deep reflection that conversation languished, +and Grammer Oliver, taking her candle, wished Miss Melbury good-night. The +latter’s eyes rested on the distant glimmer, around which she allowed her +reasoning fancy to play in vague eddies that shaped the doings of the +philosopher behind that light on the lines of intelligence just received. It +was strange to her to come back from the world to Little Hintock and find in +one of its nooks, like a tropical plant in a hedgerow, a nucleus of advanced +ideas and practices which had nothing in common with the life around. Chemical +experiments, anatomical projects, and metaphysical conceptions had found a +strange home here. +</p> + +<p> +Thus she remained thinking, the imagined pursuits of the man behind the light +intermingling with conjectural sketches of his personality, till her eyes fell +together with their own heaviness, and she slept. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p> +Kaleidoscopic dreams of a weird alchemist-surgeon, Grammer Oliver’s +skeleton, and the face of Giles Winterborne, brought Grace Melbury to the +morning of the next day. It was fine. A north wind was blowing—that not +unacceptable compromise between the atmospheric cutlery of the eastern blast +and the spongy gales of the west quarter. She looked from her window in the +direction of the light of the previous evening, and could just discern through +the trees the shape of the surgeon’s house. Somehow, in the broad, +practical daylight, that unknown and lonely gentleman seemed to be shorn of +much of the interest which had invested his personality and pursuits in the +hours of darkness, and as Grace’s dressing proceeded he faded from her +mind. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Winterborne, though half assured of her father’s favor, was +rendered a little restless by Miss Melbury’s behavior. Despite his dry +self-control, he could not help looking continually from his own door towards +the timber-merchant’s, in the probability of somebody’s emergence +therefrom. His attention was at length justified by the appearance of two +figures, that of Mr. Melbury himself, and Grace beside him. They stepped out in +a direction towards the densest quarter of the wood, and Winterborne walked +contemplatively behind them, till all three were soon under the trees. +</p> + +<p> +Although the time of bare boughs had now set in, there were sheltered hollows +amid the Hintock plantations and copses in which a more tardy leave-taking than +on windy summits was the rule with the foliage. This caused here and there an +apparent mixture of the seasons; so that in some of the dells that they passed +by holly-berries in full red were found growing beside oak and hazel whose +leaves were as yet not far removed from green, and brambles whose verdure was +rich and deep as in the month of August. To Grace these well-known +peculiarities were as an old painting restored. +</p> + +<p> +Now could be beheld that change from the handsome to the curious which the +features of a wood undergo at the ingress of the winter months. Angles were +taking the place of curves, and reticulations of surfaces—a change +constituting a sudden lapse from the ornate to the primitive on Nature’s +canvas, and comparable to a retrogressive step from the art of an advanced +school of painting to that of the Pacific Islander. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne followed, and kept his eye upon the two figures as they threaded +their way through these sylvan phenomena. Mr. Melbury’s long legs, and +gaiters drawn in to the bone at the ankles, his slight stoop, his habit of +getting lost in thought and arousing himself with an exclamation of +“Hah!” accompanied with an upward jerk of the head, composed a +personage recognizable by his neighbors as far as he could be seen. It seemed +as if the squirrels and birds knew him. One of the former would occasionally +run from the path to hide behind the arm of some tree, which the little animal +carefully edged round <i>pari passu</i> with Melbury and his daughters movement +onward, assuming a mock manner, as though he were saying, “Ho, ho; you +are only a timber-merchant, and carry no gun!” +</p> + +<p> +They went noiselessly over mats of starry moss, rustled through interspersed +tracts of leaves, skirted trunks with spreading roots, whose mossed rinds made +them like hands wearing green gloves; elbowed old elms and ashes with great +forks, in which stood pools of water that overflowed on rainy days, and ran +down their stems in green cascades. On older trees still than these, huge lobes +of fungi grew like lungs. Here, as everywhere, the Unfulfilled Intention, which +makes life what it is, was as obvious as it could be among the depraved crowds +of a city slum. The leaf was deformed, the curve was crippled, the taper was +interrupted; the lichen eat the vigor of the stalk, and the ivy slowly +strangled to death the promising sapling. +</p> + +<p> +They dived amid beeches under which nothing grew, the younger boughs still +retaining their hectic leaves, that rustled in the breeze with a sound almost +metallic, like the sheet-iron foliage of the fabled Jarnvid wood. Some flecks +of white in Grace’s drapery had enabled Giles to keep her and her father +in view till this time; but now he lost sight of them, and was obliged to +follow by ear—no difficult matter, for on the line of their course every +wood-pigeon rose from its perch with a continued clash, dashing its wings +against the branches with wellnigh force enough to break every quill. By taking +the track of this noise he soon came to a stile. +</p> + +<p> +Was it worth while to go farther? He examined the doughy soil at the foot of +the stile, and saw among the large sole-and-heel tracks an impression of a +slighter kind from a boot that was obviously not local, for Winterborne knew +all the cobblers’ patterns in that district, because they were very few +to know. The mud-picture was enough to make him swing himself over and proceed. +</p> + +<p> +The character of the woodland now changed. The bases of the smaller trees were +nibbled bare by rabbits, and at divers points heaps of fresh-made chips, and +the newly-cut stool of a tree, stared white through the undergrowth. There had +been a large fall of timber this year, which explained the meaning of some +sounds that soon reached him. +</p> + +<p> +A voice was shouting intermittently in a sort of human bark, which reminded +Giles that there was a sale of trees and fagots that very day. Melbury would +naturally be present. Thereupon Winterborne remembered that he himself wanted a +few fagots, and entered upon the scene. +</p> + +<p> +A large group of buyers stood round the auctioneer, or followed him when, +between his pauses, he wandered on from one lot of plantation produce to +another, like some philosopher of the Peripatetic school delivering his +lectures in the shady groves of the Lyceum. His companions were timber-dealers, +yeomen, farmers, villagers, and others; mostly woodland men, who on that +account could afford to be curious in their walking-sticks, which consequently +exhibited various monstrosities of vegetation, the chief being cork-screw +shapes in black and white thorn, brought to that pattern by the slow torture of +an encircling woodbine during their growth, as the Chinese have been said to +mould human beings into grotesque toys by continued compression in infancy. Two +women, wearing men’s jackets on their gowns, conducted in the rear of the +halting procession a pony-cart containing a tapped barrel of beer, from which +they drew and replenished horns that were handed round, with bread-and-cheese +from a basket. +</p> + +<p> +The auctioneer adjusted himself to circumstances by using his walking-stick as +a hammer, and knocked down the lot on any convenient object that took his +fancy, such as the crown of a little boy’s head, or the shoulders of a +by-stander who had no business there except to taste the brew; a proceeding +which would have been deemed humorous but for the air of stern rigidity which +that auctioneer’s face preserved, tending to show that the eccentricity +was a result of that absence of mind which is engendered by the press of +affairs, and no freak of fancy at all. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Melbury stood slightly apart from the rest of the Peripatetics, and Grace +beside him, clinging closely to his arm, her modern attire looking almost odd +where everything else was old-fashioned, and throwing over the familiar +garniture of the trees a homeliness that seemed to demand improvement by the +addition of a few contemporary novelties also. Grace seemed to regard the +selling with the interest which attaches to memories revived after an interval +of obliviousness. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne went and stood close to them; the timber-merchant spoke, and +continued his buying; Grace merely smiled. To justify his presence there +Winterborne began bidding for timber and fagots that he did not want, pursuing +the occupation in an abstracted mood, in which the auctioneer’s voice +seemed to become one of the natural sounds of the woodland. A few flakes of +snow descended, at the sight of which a robin, alarmed at these signs of +imminent winter, and seeing that no offence was meant by the human invasion, +came and perched on the tip of the fagots that were being sold, and looked into +the auctioneer’s face, while waiting for some chance crumb from the +bread-basket. Standing a little behind Grace, Winterborne observed how one +flake would sail downward and settle on a curl of her hair, and how another +would choose her shoulder, and another the edge of her bonnet, which took up so +much of his attention that his biddings proceeded incoherently; and when the +auctioneer said, every now and then, with a nod towards him, “Yours, Mr. +Winterborne,” he had no idea whether he had bought fagots, poles, or +logwood. +</p> + +<p> +He regretted, with some causticity of humor, that her father should show such +inequalities of temperament as to keep Grace tightly on his arm to-day, when he +had quite lately seemed anxious to recognize their betrothal as a fact. And +thus musing, and joining in no conversation with other buyers except when +directly addressed, he followed the assemblage hither and thither till the end +of the auction, when Giles for the first time realized what his purchases had +been. Hundreds of fagots, and divers lots of timber, had been set down to him, +when all he had required had been a few bundles of spray for his odd man Robert +Creedle’s use in baking and lighting fires. +</p> + +<p> +Business being over, he turned to speak to the timber merchant. But +Melbury’s manner was short and distant; and Grace, too, looked vexed and +reproachful. Winterborne then discovered that he had been unwittingly bidding +against her father, and picking up his favorite lots in spite of him. With a +very few words they left the spot and pursued their way homeward. +</p> + +<p> +Giles was extremely sorry at what he had done, and remained standing under the +trees, all the other men having strayed silently away. He saw Melbury and his +daughter pass down a glade without looking back. While they moved slowly +through it a lady appeared on horseback in the middle distance, the line of her +progress converging upon that of Melbury’s. They met, Melbury took off +his hat, and she reined in her horse. A conversation was evidently in progress +between Grace and her father and this equestrian, in whom he was almost sure +that he recognized Mrs. Charmond, less by her outline than by the livery of the +groom who had halted some yards off. +</p> + +<p> +The interlocutors did not part till after a prolonged pause, during which much +seemed to be said. When Melbury and Grace resumed their walk it was with +something of a lighter tread than before. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne then pursued his own course homeward. He was unwilling to let +coldness grow up between himself and the Melburys for any trivial reason, and +in the evening he went to their house. On drawing near the gate his attention +was attracted by the sight of one of the bedrooms blinking into a state of +illumination. In it stood Grace lighting several candles, her right hand +elevating the taper, her left hand on her bosom, her face thoughtfully fixed on +each wick as it kindled, as if she saw in every flame’s growth the rise +of a life to maturity. He wondered what such unusual brilliancy could mean +to-night. On getting in-doors he found her father and step-mother in a state of +suppressed excitement, which at first he could not comprehend. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry about my biddings to-day,” said Giles. “I +don’t know what I was doing. I have come to say that any of the lots you +may require are yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind—never mind,” replied the timber-merchant, +with a slight wave of his hand, “I have so much else to think of that I +nearly had forgot it. Just now, too, there are matters of a different kind from +trade to attend to, so don’t let it concern ye.” +</p> + +<p> +As the timber-merchant spoke, as it were, down to him from a higher moral plane +than his own, Giles turned to Mrs. Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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; yet whenever the subject was Grace, his +judgment resigned the ministry of speech in spite of him. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne felt surprise, pleasure, and also a little apprehension at the +news. He repeated Mrs. Melbury’s words. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said paternal pride, not sorry to have dragged out of him +what he could not in any circumstances have kept in. “Coming home from +the woods this afternoon we met Mrs. Charmond out for a ride. She spoke to me +on a little matter of business, and then got acquainted with Grace. ’Twas +wonderful how she took to Grace in a few minutes; that freemasonry of education +made ’em close at once. Naturally enough she was amazed that such an +article—ha, ha!—could come out of my house. At last it led on to +Mis’ess Grace being asked to the House. So she’s busy hunting up +her frills and furbelows to go in.” As Giles remained in thought without +responding, Melbury continued: “But I’ll call her +down-stairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; don’t do that, since she’s busy,” said +Winterborne. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury, feeling from the young man’s manner that his own talk had been +too much at Giles and too little to him, repented at once. His face changed, +and he said, in lower tones, with an effort, “She’s yours, Giles, +as far as I am concerned.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks—my best thanks....But I think, since it is all right +between us about the biddings, that I’ll not interrupt her now. +I’ll step homeward, and call another time.” +</p> + +<p> +On leaving the house he looked up at the bedroom again. Grace, surrounded by a +sufficient number of candles to answer all purposes of self-criticism, was +standing before a cheval-glass that her father had lately bought expressly for +her use; she was bonneted, cloaked, and gloved, and glanced over her shoulder +into the mirror, estimating her aspect. Her face was lit with the natural +elation of a young girl hoping to inaugurate on the morrow an intimate +acquaintance with a new, interesting, and powerful friend. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p> +The inspiriting appointment which had led Grace Melbury to indulge in a +six-candle illumination for the arrangement of her attire, carried her over the +ground the next morning with a springy tread. Her sense of being properly +appreciated on her own native soil seemed to brighten the atmosphere and +herbage around her, as the glowworm’s lamp irradiates the grass. Thus she +moved along, a vessel of emotion going to empty itself on she knew not what. +</p> + +<p> +Twenty minutes’ walking through copses, over a stile, and along an upland +lawn brought her to the verge of a deep glen, at the bottom of which Hintock +House appeared immediately beneath her eye. To describe it as standing in a +hollow would not express the situation of the manor-house; it stood in a hole, +notwithstanding that the hole was full of beauty. From the spot which Grace had +reached a stone could easily have been thrown over or into, the +birds’-nested chimneys of the mansion. Its walls were surmounted by a +battlemented parapet; but the gray lead roofs were quite visible behind it, +with their gutters, laps, rolls, and skylights, together with incised +letterings and shoe-patterns cut by idlers thereon. +</p> + +<p> +The front of the house exhibited an ordinary manorial presentation of +Elizabethan windows, mullioned and hooded, worked in rich snuff-colored +freestone from local quarries. The ashlar of the walls, where not overgrown +with ivy and other creepers, was coated with lichen of every shade, +intensifying its luxuriance with its nearness to the ground, till, below the +plinth, it merged in moss. +</p> + +<p> +Above the house to the back was a dense plantation, the roots of whose trees +were above the level of the chimneys. The corresponding high ground on which +Grace stood was richly grassed, with only an old tree here and there. A few +sheep lay about, which, as they ruminated, looked quietly into the bedroom +windows. The situation of the house, prejudicial to humanity, was a stimulus to +vegetation, on which account an endless shearing of the heavy-armed ivy was +necessary, and a continual lopping of trees and shrubs. It was an edifice built +in times when human constitutions were damp-proof, when shelter from the +boisterous was all that men thought of in choosing a dwelling-place, the +insidious being beneath their notice; and its hollow site was an ocular +reminder, by its unfitness for modern lives, of the fragility to which these +have declined. The highest architectural cunning could have done nothing to +make Hintock House dry and salubrious; and ruthless ignorance could have done +little to make it unpicturesque. It was vegetable nature’s own home; a +spot to inspire the painter and poet of still life—if they did not suffer +too much from the relaxing atmosphere—and to draw groans from the +gregariously disposed. Grace descended the green escarpment by a zigzag path +into the drive, which swept round beneath the slope. The exterior of the house +had been familiar to her from her childhood, but she had never been inside, and +the approach to knowing an old thing in a new way was a lively experience. It +was with a little flutter that she was shown in; but she recollected that Mrs. +Charmond would probably be alone. Up to a few days before this time that lady +had been accompanied in her comings, stayings, and goings by a relative +believed to be her aunt; latterly, however, these two ladies had separated, +owing, it was supposed, to a quarrel, and Mrs. Charmond had been left desolate. +Being presumably a woman who did not care for solitude, this deprivation might +possibly account for her sudden interest in Grace. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond was at the end of a gallery opening from the hall when Miss +Melbury was announced, and saw her through the glass doors between them. She +came forward with a smile on her face, and told the young girl it was good of +her to come. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! you have noticed those,” she said, seeing that Grace’s +eyes were attracted by some curious objects against the walls. “They are +man-traps. My husband was a connoisseur in man-traps and spring-guns and such +articles, collecting them from all his neighbors. He knew the histories of all +these—which gin had broken a man’s leg, which gun had killed a man. +That one, I remember his saying, had been set by a game-keeper in the track of +a notorious poacher; but the keeper, forgetting what he had done, went that way +himself, received the charge in the lower part of his body, and died of the +wound. I don’t like them here, but I’ve never yet given directions +for them to be taken away.” She added, playfully, “Man-traps are of +rather ominous significance where a person of our sex lives, are they +not?” +</p> + +<p> +Grace was bound to smile; but that side of womanliness was one which her +inexperience had no great zest in contemplating. +</p> + +<p> +“They are interesting, no doubt, as relics of a barbarous time happily +past,” she said, looking thoughtfully at the varied designs of these +instruments of torture—some with semi-circular jaws, some with +rectangular; most of them with long, sharp teeth, but a few with none, so that +their jaws looked like the blank gums of old age. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we must not take them too seriously,” said Mrs. Charmond, +with an indolent turn of her head, and they moved on inward. When she had shown +her visitor different articles in cabinets that she deemed likely to interest +her, some tapestries, wood-carvings, ivories, miniatures, and so +on—always with a mien of listlessness which might either have been +constitutional, or partly owing to the situation of the place—they sat +down to an early cup of tea. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you pour it out, please? Do,” she said, leaning back in her +chair, and placing her hand above her forehead, while her almond +eyes—those long eyes so common to the angelic legions of early Italian +art—became longer, and her voice more languishing. She showed that +oblique-mannered softness which is perhaps most frequent in women of darker +complexion and more lymphatic temperament than Mrs. Charmond’s was; who +lingeringly smile their meanings to men rather than speak them, who inveigle +rather than prompt, and take advantage of currents rather than steer. +</p> + +<p> +“I am the most inactive woman when I am here,” she said. “I +think sometimes I was born to live and do nothing, nothing, nothing but float +about, as we fancy we do sometimes in dreams. But that cannot be really my +destiny, and I must struggle against such fancies.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am so sorry you do not enjoy exertion—it is quite sad! I wish I +could tend you and make you very happy.” +</p> + +<p> +There was something so sympathetic, so appreciative, in the sound of +Grace’s voice, that it impelled people to play havoc with their customary +reservations in talking to her. “It is tender and kind of you to feel +that,” said Mrs. Charmond. “Perhaps I have given you the notion +that my languor is more than it really is. But this place oppresses me, and I +have a plan of going abroad a good deal. I used to go with a relative, but that +arrangement has dropped through.” Regarding Grace with a final glance of +criticism, she seemed to make up her mind to consider the young girl +satisfactory, and continued: “Now I am often impelled to record my +impressions of times and places. I have often thought of writing a ‘New +<i>Sentimental Journey</i>.’ But I cannot find energy enough to do it +alone. When I am at different places in the south of Europe I feel a crowd of +ideas and fancies thronging upon me continually, but to unfold +writing-materials, take up a cold steel pen, and put these impressions down +systematically on cold, smooth paper—that I cannot do. So I have thought +that if I always could have somebody at my elbow with whom I am in sympathy, I +might dictate any ideas that come into my head. And directly I had made your +acquaintance the other day it struck me that you would suit me so well. Would +you like to undertake it? You might read to me, too, if desirable. Will you +think it over, and ask your parents if they are willing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” said Grace. “I am almost sure they would be very +glad.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are so accomplished, I hear; I should be quite honored by such +intellectual company.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace, modestly blushing, deprecated any such idea. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you keep up your lucubrations at Little Hintock?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no. Lucubrations are not unknown at Little Hintock; but they are not +carried on by me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What—another student in that retreat?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a surgeon lately come, and I have heard that he reads a great +deal—I see his light sometimes through the trees late at night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—a doctor—I believe I was told of him. It is a strange +place for him to settle in.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a convenient centre for a practice, they say. But he does not +confine his studies to medicine, it seems. He investigates theology and +metaphysics and all sorts of subjects.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is his name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fitzpiers. He represents a very old family, I believe, the Fitzpierses +of Buckbury-Fitzpiers—not a great many miles from here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not sufficiently local to know the history of the family. I was +never in the county till my husband brought me here.” Mrs. Charmond did +not care to pursue this line of investigation. Whatever mysterious merit might +attach to family antiquity, it was one which, though she herself could claim +it, her adaptable, wandering <i>weltbürgerliche</i> nature had grown tired of +caring about—a peculiarity that made her a contrast to her neighbors. +“It is of rather more importance to know what the man is himself than +what his family is,” she said, “if he is going to practise upon us +as a surgeon. Have you seen him?” +</p> + +<p> +Grace had not. “I think he is not a very old man,” she added. +</p> + +<p> +“Has he a wife?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not aware that he has.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope he will be useful here. I must get to know him when I come +back. It will be very convenient to have a medical man—if he is +clever—in one’s own parish. I get dreadfully nervous sometimes, +living in such an outlandish place; and Sherton is so far to send to. No doubt +you feel Hintock to be a great change after watering-place life.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do. But it is home. It has its advantages and its +disadvantages.” Grace was thinking less of the solitude than of the +attendant circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +They chatted on for some time, Grace being set quite at her ease by her +entertainer. Mrs. Charmond was far too well-practised a woman not to know that +to show a marked patronage to a sensitive young girl who would probably be very +quick to discern it, was to demolish her dignity rather than to establish it in +that young girl’s eyes. So, being violently possessed with her idea of +making use of this gentle acquaintance, ready and waiting at her own door, she +took great pains to win her confidence at starting. +</p> + +<p> +Just before Grace’s departure the two chanced to pause before a mirror +which reflected their faces in immediate juxtaposition, so as to bring into +prominence their resemblances and their contrasts. Both looked attractive as +glassed back by the faithful reflector; but Grace’s countenance had the +effect of making Mrs. Charmond appear more than her full age. There are +complexions which set off each other to great advantage, and there are those +which antagonize, the one killing or damaging its neighbor unmercifully. This +was unhappily the case here. Mrs. Charmond fell into a meditation, and replied +abstractedly to a cursory remark of her companion’s. However, she parted +from her young friend in the kindliest tones, promising to send and let her +know as soon as her mind was made up on the arrangement she had suggested. +</p> + +<p> +When Grace had ascended nearly to the top of the adjoining slope she looked +back, and saw that Mrs. Charmond still stood at the door, meditatively +regarding her. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Often during the previous night, after his call on the Melburys, +Winterborne’s thoughts ran upon Grace’s announced visit to Hintock +House. Why could he not have proposed to walk with her part of the way? +Something told him that she might not, on such an occasion, care for his +company. +</p> + +<p> +He was still more of that opinion when, standing in his garden next day, he saw +her go past on the journey with such a pretty pride in the event. He wondered +if her father’s ambition, which had purchased for her the means of +intellectual light and culture far beyond those of any other native of the +village, would conduce to the flight of her future interests above and away +from the local life which was once to her the movement of the world. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, he had her father’s permission to win her if he could; and +to this end it became desirable to bring matters soon to a crisis, if he ever +hoped to do so. If she should think herself too good for him, he could let her +go and make the best of his loss; but until he had really tested her he could +not say that she despised his suit. The question was how to quicken events +towards an issue. +</p> + +<p> +He thought and thought, and at last decided that as good a way as any would be +to give a Christmas party, and ask Grace and her parents to come as chief +guests. +</p> + +<p> +These ruminations were occupying him when there became audible a slight +knocking at his front door. He descended the path and looked out, and beheld +Marty South, dressed for out-door work. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you come, Mr. Winterborne?” she said. +“I’ve been waiting there hours and hours, and at last I thought I +must try to find you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless my soul, I’d quite forgot,” said Giles. +</p> + +<p> +What he had forgotten was that there was a thousand young fir-trees to be +planted in a neighboring spot which had been cleared by the wood-cutters, and +that he had arranged to plant them with his own hands. He had a marvellous +power of making trees grow. Although he would seem to shovel in the earth quite +carelessly, there was a sort of sympathy between himself and the fir, oak, or +beech that he was operating on, so that the roots took hold of the soil in a +few days. When, on the other hand, any of the journeymen planted, although they +seemed to go through an identically similar process, one quarter of the trees +would die away during the ensuing August. +</p> + +<p> +Hence Winterborne found delight in the work even when, as at present, he +contracted to do it on portions of the woodland in which he had no personal +interest. Marty, who turned her hand to anything, was usually the one who +performed the part of keeping the trees in a perpendicular position while he +threw in the mould. +</p> + +<p> +He accompanied her towards the spot, being stimulated yet further to proceed +with the work by the knowledge that the ground was close to the way-side along +which Grace must pass on her return from Hintock House. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve a cold in the head, Marty,” he said, as they walked. +“That comes of cutting off your hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it do. Yes; I’ve three headaches going on in my head at +the same time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Three headaches!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a rheumatic headache in my poll, a sick headache over my eyes, and +a misery headache in the middle of my brain. However, I came out, for I thought +you might be waiting and grumbling like anything if I was not there.” +</p> + +<p> +The holes were already dug, and they set to work. Winterborne’s fingers +were endowed with a gentle conjuror’s touch in spreading the roots of +each little tree, resulting in a sort of caress, under which the delicate +fibres all laid themselves out in their proper directions for growth. He put +most of these roots towards the south-west; for, he said, in forty years’ +time, when some great gale is blowing from that quarter, the trees will require +the strongest holdfast on that side to stand against it and not fall. +</p> + +<p> +“How they sigh directly we put ’em upright, though while they are +lying down they don’t sigh at all,” said Marty. +</p> + +<p> +“Do they?” said Giles. “I’ve never noticed it.” +</p> + +<p> +She erected one of the young pines into its hole, and held up her finger; the +soft musical breathing instantly set in, which was not to cease night or day +till the grown tree should be felled—probably long after the two planters +should be felled themselves. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me,” the girl continued, “as if they sigh +because they are very sorry to begin life in earnest—just as we +be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just as we be?” He looked critically at her. “You ought not +to feel like that, Marty.” +</p> + +<p> +Her only reply was turning to take up the next tree; and they planted on +through a great part of the day, almost without another word. +Winterborne’s mind ran on his contemplated evening-party, his abstraction +being such that he hardly was conscious of Marty’s presence beside him. +From the nature of their employment, in which he handled the spade and she +merely held the tree, it followed that he got good exercise and she got none. +But she was an heroic girl, and though her out-stretched hand was chill as a +stone, and her cheeks blue, and her cold worse than ever, she would not +complain while he was disposed to continue work. But when he paused she said, +“Mr. Winterborne, can I run down the lane and back to warm my +feet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, of course,” he said, awakening anew to her existence. +“Though I was just thinking what a mild day it is for the season. Now I +warrant that cold of yours is twice as bad as it was. You had no business to +chop that hair off, Marty; it serves you almost right. Look here, cut off home +at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“A run down the lane will be quite enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it won’t. You ought not to have come out to-day at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I should like to finish the—” +</p> + +<p> +“Marty, I tell you to go home,” said he, peremptorily. “I can +manage to keep the rest of them upright with a stick or something.” +</p> + +<p> +She went away without saying any more. When she had gone down the orchard a +little distance she looked back. Giles suddenly went after her. +</p> + +<p> +“Marty, it was for your good that I was rough, you know. But warm +yourself in your own way, I don’t care.” +</p> + +<p> +When she had run off he fancied he discerned a woman’s dress through the +holly-bushes which divided the coppice from the road. It was Grace at last, on +her way back from the interview with Mrs. Charmond. He threw down the tree he +was planting, and was about to break through the belt of holly when he suddenly +became aware of the presence of another man, who was looking over the hedge on +the opposite side of the way upon the figure of the unconscious Grace. He +appeared as a handsome and gentlemanly personage of six or eight and twenty, +and was quizzing her through an eye-glass. Seeing that Winterborne was noticing +him, he let his glass drop with a click upon the rail which protected the +hedge, and walked away in the opposite direction. Giles knew in a moment that +this must be Mr. Fitzpiers. When he was gone, Winterborne pushed through the +hollies, and emerged close beside the interesting object of their +contemplation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p> +“I heard the bushes move long before I saw you,” she began. +“I said first, ‘it is some terrible beast;’ next, ‘it +is a poacher;’ next, ‘it is a friend!’” +</p> + +<p> +He regarded her with a slight smile, weighing, not her speech, but the question +whether he should tell her that she had been watched. He decided in the +negative. +</p> + +<p> +“You have been to the house?” he said. “But I need not +ask.” The fact was that there shone upon Miss Melbury’s face a +species of exaltation, which saw no environing details nor his own occupation; +nothing more than his bare presence. +</p> + +<p> +“Why need you not ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your face is like the face of Moses when he came down from the +Mount.” +</p> + +<p> +She reddened a little and said, “How can you be so profane, Giles +Winterborne?” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you think so much of that class of people? Well, I beg pardon; I +didn’t mean to speak so freely. How do you like her house and her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Exceedingly. I had not been inside the walls since I was a child, when +it used to be let to strangers, before Mrs. Charmond’s late husband +bought the property. She is SO nice!” And Grace fell into such an +abstracted gaze at the imaginary image of Mrs. Charmond and her niceness that +it almost conjured up a vision of that lady in mid-air before them. +</p> + +<p> +“She has only been here a month or two, it seems, and cannot stay much +longer, because she finds it so lonely and damp in winter. She is going abroad. +Only think, she would like me to go with her.” +</p> + +<p> +Giles’s features stiffened a little at the news. “Indeed; what for? +But I won’t keep you standing here. Hoi, Robert!” he cried to a +swaying collection of clothes in the distance, which was the figure of Creedle +his man. “Go on filling in there till I come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a-coming, sir; I’m a-coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the reason is this,” continued she, as they went on +together—“Mrs. Charmond has a delightful side to her +character—a desire to record her impressions of travel, like Alexandre +Dumas, and Méry, and Sterne, and others. But she cannot find energy enough to +do it herself.” And Grace proceeded to explain Mrs. Charmond’s +proposal at large. “My notion is that Méry’s style will suit her +best, because he writes in that soft, emotional, luxurious way she has,” +Grace said, musingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” said Winterborne, with mock awe. “Suppose you talk +over my head a little longer, Miss Grace Melbury?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I didn’t mean it!” she said, repentantly, looking into +his eyes. “And as for myself, I hate French books. And I love dear old +Hintock, <i>and the people in it</i>, fifty times better than all the +Continent. But the scheme; I think it an enchanting notion, don’t you, +Giles?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is well enough in one sense, but it will take you away,” said +he, mollified. +</p> + +<p> +“Only for a short time. We should return in May.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Miss Melbury, it is a question for your father.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne walked with her nearly to her house. He had awaited her coming, +mainly with the view of mentioning to her his proposal to have a Christmas +party; but homely Christmas gatherings in the venerable and jovial Hintock +style seemed so primitive and uncouth beside the lofty matters of her converse +and thought that he refrained. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she was gone he turned back towards the scene of his planting, and +could not help saying to himself as he walked, that this engagement of his was +a very unpromising business. Her outing to-day had not improved it. A woman who +could go to Hintock House and be friendly with its mistress, enter into the +views of its mistress, talk like her, and dress not much unlike her, why, she +would hardly be contented with him, a yeoman, now immersed in tree-planting, +even though he planted them well. “And yet she’s a true-hearted +girl,” he said, thinking of her words about Hintock. “I must bring +matters to a point, and there’s an end of it.” +</p> + +<p> +When he reached the plantation he found that Marty had come back, and +dismissing Creedle, he went on planting silently with the girl as before. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose, Marty,” he said, after a while, looking at her extended +arm, upon which old scratches from briers showed themselves purple in the cold +wind—“suppose you know a person, and want to bring that person to a +good understanding with you, do you think a Christmas party of some sort is a +warming-up thing, and likely to be useful in hastening on the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there to be dancing?” +</p> + +<p> +“There might be, certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will He dance with She?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it might bring things to a head, one way or the other; I +won’t be the one to say which.” +</p> + +<p> +“It shall be done,” said Winterborne, not to her, though he spoke +the words quite loudly. And as the day was nearly ended, he added, “Here, +Marty, I’ll send up a man to plant the rest to-morrow. I’ve other +things to think of just now.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not inquire what other things, for she had seen him walking with Grace +Melbury. She looked towards the western sky, which was now aglow like some vast +foundery wherein new worlds were being cast. Across it the bare bough of a tree +stretched horizontally, revealing every twig against the red, and showing in +dark profile every beck and movement of three pheasants that were settling +themselves down on it in a row to roost. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be fine to-morrow,” said Marty, observing them with the +vermilion light of the sun in the pupils of her eyes, “for they are +a-croupied down nearly at the end of the bough. If it were going to be stormy +they’d squeeze close to the trunk. The weather is almost all they have to +think of, isn’t it, Mr. Winterborne? and so they must be lighter-hearted +than we.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say they are,” said Winterborne. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Before taking a single step in the preparations, Winterborne, with no great +hopes, went across that evening to the timber-merchant’s to ascertain if +Grace and her parents would honor him with their presence. Having first to set +his nightly gins in the garden, to catch the rabbits that ate his +winter-greens, his call was delayed till just after the rising of the moon, +whose rays reached the Hintock houses but fitfully as yet, on account of the +trees. Melbury was crossing his yard on his way to call on some one at the +larger village, but he readily turned and walked up and down the path with the +young man. +</p> + +<p> +Giles, in his self-deprecatory sense of living on a much smaller scale than the +Melburys did, would not for the world imply that his invitation was to a +gathering of any importance. So he put it in the mild form of “Can you +come in for an hour, when you have done business, the day after to-morrow; and +Mrs. and Miss Melbury, if they have nothing more pressing to do?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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; and his instinct was, for the moment, to suggest the +negative. His errand took him past the church, and the way to his destination +was either across the church-yard or along-side it, the distances being the +same. For some reason or other he chose the former way. +</p> + +<p> +The moon was faintly lighting up the gravestones, and the path, and the front +of the building. Suddenly Mr. Melbury paused, turned ill upon the grass, and +approached a particular headstone, where he read, “In memory of John +Winterborne,” with the subjoined date and age. It was the grave of +Giles’s father. +</p> + +<p> +The timber-merchant laid his hand upon the stone, and was humanized. +“Jack, my wronged friend!” he said. “I’ll be faithful +to my plan of making amends to ’ee.” +</p> + +<p> +When he reached home that evening, he said to Grace and Mrs. Melbury, who were +working at a little table by the fire, +</p> + +<p> +“Giles wants us to go down and spend an hour with him the day after +to-morrow; and I’m thinking, that as ’tis Giles who asks us, +we’ll go.” +</p> + +<p> +They assented without demur, and accordingly the timber-merchant sent Giles the +next morning an answer in the affirmative. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Winterborne, in his modesty, or indifference, had mentioned no particular hour +in his invitation; and accordingly Mr. Melbury and his family, expecting no +other guests, chose their own time, which chanced to be rather early in the +afternoon, by reason of the somewhat quicker despatch than usual of the +timber-merchant’s business that day. To show their sense of the +unimportance of the occasion, they walked quite slowly to the house, as if they +were merely out for a ramble, and going to nothing special at all; or at most +intending to pay a casual call and take a cup of tea. +</p> + +<p> +At this hour stir and bustle pervaded the interior of Winterborne’s +domicile from cellar to apple-loft. He had planned an elaborate high tea for +six o’clock or thereabouts, and a good roaring supper to come on about +eleven. Being a bachelor of rather retiring habits, the whole of the +preparations devolved upon himself and his trusty man and familiar, Robert +Creedle, who did everything that required doing, from making Giles’s bed +to catching moles in his field. He was a survival from the days when +Giles’s father held the homestead, and Giles was a playing boy. +</p> + +<p> +These two, with a certain dilatoriousness which appertained to both, were now +in the heat of preparation in the bake-house, expecting nobody before six +o’clock. Winterborne was standing before the brick oven in his +shirt-sleeves, tossing in thorn sprays, and stirring about the blazing mass +with a long-handled, three-pronged Beelzebub kind of fork, the heat shining out +upon his streaming face and making his eyes like furnaces, the thorns crackling +and sputtering; while Creedle, having ranged the pastry dishes in a row on the +table till the oven should be ready, was pressing out the crust of a final +apple-pie with a rolling-pin. A great pot boiled on the fire, and through the +open door of the back kitchen a boy was seen seated on the fender, emptying the +snuffers and scouring the candlesticks, a row of the latter standing upside +down on the hob to melt out the grease. +</p> + +<p> +Looking up from the rolling-pin, Creedle saw passing the window first the +timber-merchant, in his second-best suit, Mrs. Melbury in her best silk, and +Grace in the fashionable attire which, in part brought home with her from the +Continent, she had worn on her visit to Mrs. Charmond’s. The eyes of the +three had been attracted to the proceedings within by the fierce illumination +which the oven threw out upon the operators and their utensils. +</p> + +<p> +“Lord, Lord! if they baint come a’ready!” said Creedle. +</p> + +<p> +“No—hey?” said Giles, looking round aghast; while the boy in +the background waved a reeking candlestick in his delight. As there was no help +for it, Winterborne went to meet them in the door-way. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Giles, I see we have made a mistake in the time,” said the +timber-merchant’s wife, her face lengthening with concern. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it is not much difference. I hope you’ll come in.” +</p> + +<p> +“But this means a regular randyvoo!” said Mr. Melbury, accusingly, +glancing round and pointing towards the bake-house with his stick. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes,” said Giles. +</p> + +<p> +“And—not Great Hintock band, and dancing, surely?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told three of ’em they might drop in if they’d nothing +else to do,” Giles mildly admitted. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, why the name didn’t ye tell us ’twas going to be a +serious kind of thing before? How should I know what folk mean if they +don’t say? Now, shall we come in, or shall we go home and come back along +in a couple of hours?” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll stay, if you’ll be so good as not to mind, now +you are here. I shall have it all right and tidy in a very little time. I ought +not to have been so backward.” Giles spoke quite anxiously for one of his +undemonstrative temperament; for he feared that if the Melburys once were back +in their own house they would not be disposed to turn out again. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis we ought not to have been so forward; that’s what +’tis,” said Mr. Melbury, testily. “Don’t keep us here +in the sitting-room; lead on to the bakehouse, man. Now we are here we’ll +help ye get ready for the rest. Here, mis’ess, take off your things, and +help him out in his baking, or he won’t get done to-night. I’ll +finish heating the oven, and set you free to go and skiver up them +ducks.” His eye had passed with pitiless directness of criticism into yet +remote recesses of Winterborne’s awkwardly built premises, where the +aforesaid birds were hanging. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ll help finish the tarts,” said Grace, cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know about that,” said her father. +“’Tisn’t quite so much in your line as it is in your +mother-law’s and mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I couldn’t let you, Grace!” said Giles, with some +distress. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do it, of course,” said Mrs. Melbury, taking off her +silk train, hanging it up to a nail, carefully rolling back her sleeves, +pinning them to her shoulders, and stripping Giles of his apron for her own +use. +</p> + +<p> +So Grace pottered idly about, while her father and his wife helped on the +preparations. A kindly pity of his household management, which Winterborne saw +in her eyes whenever he caught them, depressed him much more than her contempt +would have done. +</p> + +<p> +Creedle met Giles at the pump after a while, when each of the others was +absorbed in the difficulties of a <i>cuisine</i> based on utensils, cupboards, +and provisions that were strange to them. He groaned to the young man in a +whisper, “This is a bruckle het, maister, I’m much afeared! +Who’d ha’ thought they’d ha’ come so soon?” +</p> + +<p> +The bitter placidity of Winterborne’s look adumbrated the misgivings he +did not care to express. “Have you got the celery ready?” he asked, +quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Now that’s a thing I never could mind; no, not if you’d paid +me in silver and gold. And I don’t care who the man is, I says that a +stick of celery that isn’t scrubbed with the scrubbing-brush is not +clean.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Very</i> well, very well! I’ll attend to it. You go and get +’em comfortable in-doors.” +</p> + +<p> +He hastened to the garden, and soon returned, tossing the stalks to Creedle, +who was still in a tragic mood. “If ye’d ha’ married, +d’ye see, maister,” he said, “this caddle couldn’t have +happened to us.” +</p> + +<p> +Everything being at last under way, the oven set, and all done that could +insure the supper turning up ready at some time or other, Giles and his friends +entered the parlor, where the Melburys again dropped into position as guests, +though the room was not nearly so warm and cheerful as the blazing bakehouse. +Others now arrived, among them Farmer Bawtree and the hollow-turner, and tea +went off very well. +</p> + +<p> +Grace’s disposition to make the best of everything, and to wink at +deficiencies in Winterborne’s menage, was so uniform and persistent that +he suspected her of seeing even more deficiencies than he was aware of. That +suppressed sympathy which had showed in her face ever since her arrival told +him as much too plainly. +</p> + +<p> +“This muddling style of house-keeping is what you’ve not lately +been used to, I suppose?” he said, when they were a little apart. +</p> + +<p> +“No; but I like it; it reminds me so pleasantly that everything here in +dear old Hintock is just as it used to be. The oil is—not quite nice; but +everything else is.” +</p> + +<p> +“The oil?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the chairs, I mean; because it gets on one’s dress. Still, mine +is not a new one.” +</p> + +<p> +Giles found that Creedle, in his zeal to make things look bright, had smeared +the chairs with some greasy kind of furniture-polish, and refrained from +rubbing it dry in order not to diminish the mirror-like effect that the mixture +produced as laid on. Giles apologized and called Creedle; but he felt that the +Fates were against him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p> +Supper-time came, and with it the hot-baked meats from the oven, laid on a +snowy cloth fresh from the press, and reticulated with folds, as in Flemish +“Last Suppers.” Creedle and the boy fetched and carried with +amazing alacrity, the latter, to mollify his superior and make things pleasant, +expressing his admiration of Creedle’s cleverness when they were alone. +</p> + +<p> +“I s’pose the time when you learned all these knowing things, Mr. +Creedle, was when you was in the militia?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes. I seed the world at that time somewhat, certainly, and many +ways of strange dashing life. Not but that Giles has worked hard in helping me +to bring things to such perfection to-day. ‘Giles,’ says I, though +he’s maister. Not that I should call’n maister by rights, for his +father growed up side by side with me, as if one mother had twinned us and been +our nourishing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I s’pose your memory can reach a long way back into history, Mr. +Creedle?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes. Ancient days, when there was battles and famines and hang-fairs +and other pomps, seem to me as yesterday. Ah, many’s the patriarch +I’ve seed come and go in this parish! There, he’s calling for more +plates. Lord, why can’t ’em turn their plates bottom upward for +pudding, as they used to do in former days?” +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, in the adjoining room Giles was presiding in a half-unconscious +state. He could not get over the initial failures in his scheme for advancing +his suit, and hence he did not know that he was eating mouthfuls of bread and +nothing else, and continually snuffing the two candles next him till he had +reduced them to mere glimmers drowned in their own grease. Creedle now appeared +with a specially prepared dish, which he served by elevating the little +three-legged pot that contained it, and tilting the contents into a dish, +exclaiming, simultaneously, “Draw back, gentlemen and ladies, +please!” +</p> + +<p> +A splash followed. Grace gave a quick, involuntary nod and blink, and put her +handkerchief to her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Good heavens! what did you do that for, Creedle?” said Giles, +sternly, and jumping up. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis how I do it when they baint here, maister,” mildly +expostulated Creedle, in an aside audible to all the company. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes—but—” replied Giles. He went over to Grace, +and hoped none of it had gone into her eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” she said. “Only a sprinkle on my face. It was +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Kiss it and make it well,” gallantly observed Mr. Bawtree. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Melbury blushed. +</p> + +<p> +The timber-merchant said, quickly, “Oh, it is nothing! She must bear +these little mishaps.” But there could be discerned in his face something +which said “I ought to have foreseen this.” +</p> + +<p> +Giles himself, since the untoward beginning of the feast, had not quite liked +to see Grace present. He wished he had not asked such people as Bawtree and the +hollow-turner. He had done it, in dearth of other friends, that the room might +not appear empty. In his mind’s eye, before the event, they had been the +mere background or padding of the scene, but somehow in reality they were the +most prominent personages there. +</p> + +<p> +After supper they played cards, Bawtree and the hollow-turner monopolizing the +new packs for an interminable game, in which a lump of chalk was incessantly +used—a game those two always played wherever they were, taking a solitary +candle and going to a private table in a corner with the mien of persons bent +on weighty matters. The rest of the company on this account were obliged to put +up with old packs for their round game, that had been lying by in a drawer ever +since the time that Giles’s grandmother was alive. Each card had a great +stain in the middle of its back, produced by the touch of generations of damp +and excited thumbs now fleshless in the grave; and the kings and queens wore a +decayed expression of feature, as if they were rather an impecunious dethroned +race of monarchs hiding in obscure slums than real regal characters. Every now +and then the comparatively few remarks of the players at the round game were +harshly intruded on by the measured jingle of Farmer Bawtree and the +hollow-turner from the back of the room: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“And I′ will hold′ a wa′-ger with you′<br /> +That all′ these marks′ are thirt′-y two!” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +accompanied by rapping strokes with the chalk on the table; then an +exclamation, an argument, a dealing of the cards; then the commencement of the +rhymes anew. +</p> + +<p> +The timber-merchant showed his feelings by talking with a satisfied sense of +weight in his words, and by praising the party in a patronizing tone, when +Winterborne expressed his fear that he and his were not enjoying themselves. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, yes; pretty much. What handsome glasses those are! I +didn’t know you had such glasses in the house. Now, Lucy” (to his +wife), “you ought to get some like them for ourselves.” And when +they had abandoned cards, and Winterborne was talking to Melbury by the fire, +it was the timber-merchant who stood with his back to the mantle in a +proprietary attitude, from which post of vantage he critically regarded +Giles’s person, rather as a superficies than as a solid with ideas and +feelings inside it, saying, “What a splendid coat that one is you have +on, Giles! I can’t get such coats. You dress better than I.” +</p> + +<p> +After supper there was a dance, the bandsmen from Great Hintock having arrived +some time before. Grace had been away from home so long that she had forgotten +the old figures, and hence did not join in the movement. Then Giles felt that +all was over. As for her, she was thinking, as she watched the gyrations, of a +very different measure that she had been accustomed to tread with a bevy of +sylph-like creatures in muslin, in the music-room of a large house, most of +whom were now moving in scenes widely removed from this, both as regarded place +and character. +</p> + +<p> +A woman she did not know came and offered to tell her fortune with the +abandoned cards. Grace assented to the proposal, and the woman told her tale +unskilfully, for want of practice, as she declared. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +At last the time came for breaking up, Melbury and his family being the +earliest to leave, the two card-players still pursuing their game doggedly in +the corner, where they had completely covered Giles’s mahogany table with +chalk scratches. The three walked home, the distance being short and the night +clear. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Giles is a very good fellow,” said Mr. Melbury, as they +struck down the lane under boughs which formed a black filigree in which the +stars seemed set. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly he is,” said Grace, quickly, and in such a tone as to +show that he stood no lower, if no higher, in her regard than he had stood +before. +</p> + +<p> +When they were opposite an opening through which, by day, the doctor’s +house could be seen, they observed a light in one of his rooms, although it was +now about two o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +“The doctor is not abed yet,” said Mrs. Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Hard study, no doubt,” said her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“One would think that, as he seems to have nothing to do about here by +day, he could at least afford to go to bed early at night. ’Tis +astonishing how little we see of him.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +I didn’t foresee that in sending her to boarding-school and letting her +travel, and what not, to make her a good bargain for Giles, I should be really +spoiling her for him. Ah, ’tis a thousand pities! But he ought to have +her—he ought!” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the two exclusive, chalk-mark men, having at last really +finished their play, could be heard coming along in the rear, vociferously +singing a song to march-time, and keeping vigorous step to the same in +far-reaching strides— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“She may go, oh!<br /> +She may go, oh!<br /> +She may go to the d—— for me!” +</p> + +<p> +The timber-merchant turned indignantly to Mrs. Melbury. “That’s the +sort of society we’ve been asked to meet,” he said. “For us +old folk it didn’t matter; but for Grace—Giles should have known +better!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Meanwhile, in the empty house from which the guests had just cleared out, the +subject of their discourse was walking from room to room surveying the general +displacement of furniture with no ecstatic feeling; rather the reverse, indeed. +At last he entered the bakehouse, and found there Robert Creedle sitting over +the embers, also lost in contemplation. Winterborne sat down beside him. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Robert, you must be tired. You’d better get on to +bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, Giles—what do I call ye? Maister, I would say. But +’tis well to think the day <i>is</i> done, when ’tis done.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne had abstractedly taken the poker, and with a wrinkled forehead was +ploughing abroad the wood-embers on the broad hearth, till it was like a vast +scorching Sahara, with red-hot bowlders lying about everywhere. “Do you +think it went off well, Creedle?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The victuals did; that I know. And the drink did; that I steadfastly +believe, from the holler sound of the barrels. Good, honest drink ’twere, +the headiest mead I ever brewed; and the best wine that berries could rise to; +and the briskest Horner-and-Cleeves cider ever wrung down, leaving out the +spice and sperrits I put into it, while that egg-flip would ha’ passed +through muslin, so little curdled ’twere. ’Twas good enough to make +any king’s heart merry—ay, to make his whole carcass smile. Still, +I don’t deny I’m afeared some things didn’t go well with He +and his.” Creedle nodded in a direction which signified where the +Melburys lived. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid, too, that it was a failure there!” +</p> + +<p> +“If so, ’twere doomed to be so. Not but what that snail might as +well have come upon anybody else’s plate as hers.” +</p> + +<p> +“What snail?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, maister, there was a little one upon the edge of her plate when I +brought it out; and so it must have been in her few leaves of +wintergreen.” +</p> + +<p> +“How the deuce did a snail get there?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I don’t know no more than the dead; but there my gentleman +was.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Robert, of all places, that was where he shouldn’t have +been!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’twas his native home, come to that; and where else could we +expect him to be? I don’t care who the man is, snails and caterpillars +always will lurk in close to the stump of cabbages in that tantalizing +way.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wasn’t alive, I suppose?” said Giles, with a shudder on +Grace’s account. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no. He was well boiled. I warrant him well boiled. God forbid that a +<i>live</i> snail should be seed on any plate of victuals that’s served +by Robert Creedle....But Lord, there; I don’t mind ’em +myself—them small ones, for they were born on cabbage, and they’ve +lived on cabbage, so they must be made of cabbage. But she, the close-mouthed +little lady, she didn’t say a word about it; though ’twould have +made good small conversation as to the nater of such creatures; especially as +wit ran short among us sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—’tis all over!” murmured Giles to himself, +shaking his head over the glooming plain of embers, and lining his forehead +more than ever. “Do you know, Robert,” he said, “that +she’s been accustomed to servants and everything superfine these many +years? How, then, could she stand our ways?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, all I can say is, then, that she ought to hob-and-nob elsewhere. +They shouldn’t have schooled her so monstrous high, or else bachelor men +shouldn’t give randys, or if they do give ’em, only to their own +race.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps that’s true,” said Winterborne, rising and yawning a +sigh. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p> +“’Tis a pity—a thousand pities!” her father kept saying +next morning at breakfast, Grace being still in her bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +But how could he, with any self-respect, obstruct Winterborne’s suit at +this stage, and nullify a scheme he had labored to promote—was, indeed, +mechanically promoting at this moment? A crisis was approaching, mainly as a +result of his contrivances, and it would have to be met. +</p> + +<p> +But here was the fact, which could not be disguised: since seeing what an +immense change her last twelve months of absence had produced in his daughter, +after the heavy sum per annum that he had been spending for several years upon +her education, he was reluctant to let her marry Giles Winterborne, +indefinitely occupied as woodsman, cider-merchant, apple-farmer, and what not, +even were she willing to marry him herself. +</p> + +<p> +“She will be his wife if you don’t upset her notion that +she’s bound to accept him as an understood thing,” said Mrs. +Melbury. “Bless ye, she’ll soon shake down here in Hintock, and be +content with Giles’s way of living, which he’ll improve with what +money she’ll have from you. ’Tis the strangeness after her genteel +life that makes her feel uncomfortable at first. Why, when <i>I</i> saw Hintock +the first time I thought I never could like it. But things gradually get +familiar, and stone floors seem not so very cold and hard, and the hooting of +the owls not so very dreadful, and loneliness not so very lonely, after a +while.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I believe ye. That’s just it. I <i>know</i> Grace will +gradually sink down to our level again, and catch our manners and way of +speaking, and feel a drowsy content in being Giles’s wife. But I +can’t bear the thought of dragging down to that old level as promising a +piece of maidenhood as ever lived—fit to ornament a palace +wi’—that I’ve taken so much trouble to lift up. Fancy her +white hands getting redder every day, and her tongue losing its pretty +up-country curl in talking, and her bounding walk becoming the regular Hintock +shail and wamble!” +</p> + +<p> +“She may shail, but she’ll never wamble,” replied his wife, +decisively. +</p> + +<p> +When Grace came down-stairs he complained of her lying in bed so late; not so +much moved by a particular objection to that form of indulgence as discomposed +by these other reflections. +</p> + +<p> +The corners of her pretty mouth dropped a little down. “You used to +complain with justice when I was a girl,” she said. “But I am a +woman now, and can judge for myself....But it is not that; it is something +else!” Instead of sitting down she went outside the door. +</p> + +<p> +He was sorry. The petulance that relatives show towards each other is in truth +directed against that intangible Causality which has shaped the situation no +less for the offenders than the offended, but is too elusive to be discerned +and cornered by poor humanity in irritated mood. Melbury followed her. She had +rambled on to the paddock, where the white frost lay, and where starlings in +flocks of twenties and thirties were walking about, watched by a comfortable +family of sparrows perched in a line along the string-course of the chimney, +preening themselves in the rays of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in to breakfast, my girl,” he said. “And as to Giles, +use your own mind. Whatever pleases you will please me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am promised to him, father; and I cannot help thinking that in honor I +ought to marry him, whenever I do marry.” +</p> + +<p> +He had a strong suspicion that somewhere in the bottom of her heart there +pulsed an old simple indigenous feeling favorable to Giles, though it had +become overlaid with implanted tastes. But he would not distinctly express his +views on the promise. “Very well,” he said. “But I hope I +sha’n’t lose you yet. Come in to breakfast. What did you think of +the inside of Hintock House the other day?” +</p> + +<p> +“I liked it much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Different from friend Winterborne’s?” +</p> + +<p> +She said nothing; but he who knew her was aware that she meant by her silence +to reproach him with drawing cruel comparisons. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Charmond has asked you to come again—when, did you +say?” +</p> + +<p> +“She thought Tuesday, but would send the day before to let me know if it +suited her.” And with this subject upon their lips they entered to +breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +Tuesday came, but no message from Mrs. Charmond. Nor was there any on +Wednesday. In brief, a fortnight slipped by without a sign, and it looked +suspiciously as if Mrs. Charmond were not going further in the direction of +“taking up” Grace at present. +</p> + +<p> +Her father reasoned thereon. Immediately after his daughter’s two +indubitable successes with Mrs. Charmond—the interview in the wood and a +visit to the House—she had attended Winterborne’s party. No doubt +the out-and-out joviality of that gathering had made it a topic in the +neighborhood, and that every one present as guests had been widely spoken +of—Grace, with her exceptional qualities, above all. What, then, so +natural as that Mrs. Charmond should have heard the village news, and become +quite disappointed in her expectations of Grace at finding she kept such +company? +</p> + +<p> +Full of this <i>post hoc</i> argument, Mr. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a thousand pities!” he would repeat to himself. +“I am ruining her for conscience’ sake!” +</p> + +<p> +It was one morning later on, while these things were agitating his mind, that, +curiously enough, something darkened the window just as they finished +breakfast. Looking up, they saw Giles in person mounted on horseback, and +straining his neck forward, as he had been doing for some time, to catch their +attention through the window. Grace had been the first to see him, and +involuntarily exclaimed, “There he is—and a new horse!” +</p> + +<p> +On their faces as they regarded Giles were written their suspended thoughts and +compound feelings concerning him, could he have read them through those old +panes. But he saw nothing: his features just now were, for a wonder, lit up +with a red smile at some other idea. So they rose from breakfast and went to +the door, Grace with an anxious, wistful manner, her father in a reverie, Mrs. +Melbury placid and inquiring. “We have come out to look at your +horse,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +It could be seen that he was pleased at their attention, and explained that he +had ridden a mile or two to try the animal’s paces. “I bought +her,” he added, with warmth so severely repressed as to seem +indifference, “because she has been used to carry a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +Still Mr. Melbury did not brighten. Mrs. Melbury said, “And is she +quiet?” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne assured her that there was no doubt of it. “I took care of +that. She’s five-and-twenty, and very clever for her age.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, get off and come in,” said Melbury, brusquely; and Giles +dismounted accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +This event was the concrete result of Winterborne’s thoughts during the +past week or two. The want of success with his evening party he had accepted in +as philosophic a mood as he was capable of; but there had been enthusiasm +enough left in him one day at Sherton Abbas market to purchase this old mare, +which had belonged to a neighboring parson with several daughters, and was +offered him to carry either a gentleman or a lady, and to do odd jobs of +carting and agriculture at a pinch. This obliging quadruped seemed to furnish +Giles with a means of reinstating himself in Melbury’s good opinion as a +man of considerateness by throwing out future possibilities to Grace. +</p> + +<p> +The latter looked at him with intensified interest this morning, in the mood +which is altogether peculiar to woman’s nature, and which, when reduced +into plain words, seems as impossible as the penetrability of matter—that +of entertaining a tender pity for the object of her own unnecessary coldness. +The imperturbable poise which marked Winterborne in general was enlivened now +by a freshness and animation that set a brightness in his eye and on his cheek. +Mrs. Melbury asked him to have some breakfast, and he pleasurably replied that +he would join them, with his usual lack of tactical observation, not perceiving +that they had all finished the meal, that the hour was inconveniently late, and +that the note piped by the kettle denoted it to be nearly empty; so that fresh +water had to be brought in, trouble taken to make it boil, and a general +renovation of the table carried out. Neither did he know, so full was he of his +tender ulterior object in buying that horse, how many cups of tea he was +gulping down one after another, nor how the morning was slipping, nor how he +was keeping the family from dispersing about their duties. +</p> + +<p> +Then he told throughout the humorous story of the horse’s purchase, +looking particularly grim at some fixed object in the room, a way he always +looked when he narrated anything that amused him. While he was still thinking +of the scene he had described, Grace rose and said, “I have to go and +help my mother now, Mr. Winterborne.” +</p> + +<p> +“H’m!” he ejaculated, turning his eyes suddenly upon her. +</p> + +<p> +She repeated her words with a slight blush of awkwardness; whereupon Giles, +becoming suddenly conscious, too conscious, jumped up, saying, “To be +sure, to be sure!” wished them quickly good-morning, and bolted out of +the house. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless he had, upon the whole, strengthened his position, with her at +least. Time, too, was on his side, for (as her father saw with some regret) +already the homeliness of Hintock life was fast becoming effaced from her +observation as a singularity; just as the first strangeness of a face from +which we have for years been separated insensibly passes off with renewed +intercourse, and tones itself down into simple identity with the lineaments of +the past. +</p> + +<p> +Thus Mr. Melbury went out of the house still unreconciled to the sacrifice of +the gem he had been at such pains in mounting. He fain could hope, in the +secret nether chamber of his mind, that something would happen, before the +balance of her feeling had quite turned in Winterborne’s favor, to +relieve his conscience and preserve her on her elevated plane. +</p> + +<p> +He could not forget that Mrs. Charmond had apparently abandoned all interest in +his daughter as suddenly as she had conceived it, and was as firmly convinced +as ever that the comradeship which Grace had shown with Giles and his crew by +attending his party had been the cause. +</p> + +<p> +Matters lingered on thus. And then, as a hoop by gentle knocks on this side and +on that is made to travel in specific directions, the little touches of +circumstance in the life of this young girl shaped the curves of her career. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<p> +It was a day of rather bright weather for the season. Miss Melbury went out for +a morning walk, and her ever-regardful father, having an hour’s leisure, +offered to walk with her. The breeze was fresh and quite steady, filtering +itself through the denuded mass of twigs without swaying them, but making the +point of each ivy-leaf on the trunks scratch its underlying neighbor +restlessly. Grace’s lips sucked in this native air of hers like milk. +They soon reached a place where the wood ran down into a corner, and went +outside it towards comparatively open ground. Having looked round about, they +were intending to re-enter the copse when a fox quietly emerged with a dragging +brush, trotted past them tamely as a domestic cat, and disappeared amid some +dead fern. They walked on, her father merely observing, after watching the +animal, “They are hunting somewhere near.” +</p> + +<p> +Farther up they saw in the mid-distance the hounds running hither and thither, +as if there were little or no scent that day. Soon divers members of the hunt +appeared on the scene, and it was evident from their movements that the chase +had been stultified by general puzzle-headedness as to the whereabouts of the +intended victim. In a minute a farmer rode up to the two pedestrians, panting +with acteonic excitement, and Grace being a few steps in advance, he addressed +her, asking if she had seen the fox. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said she. “We saw him some time ago—just out +there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you cry Halloo?” +</p> + +<p> +“We said nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why the d—— didn’t you, or get the old buffer to +do it for you?” said the man, as he cantered away. +</p> + +<p> +She looked rather disconcerted at this reply, and observing her father’s +face, saw that it was quite red. +</p> + +<p> +“He ought not to have spoken to ye like that!” said the old man, in +the tone of one whose heart was bruised, though it was not by the epithet +applied 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 well +read and cultivated—how could he expect ye to know what tom-boy +field-folk are in the habit of doing? If so be you had just come from trimming +swedes or mangolds—joking with the rough work-folk and all that—I +could have stood it. But hasn’t it cost me near a hundred a year to lift +you out of all that, so as to show an example to the neighborhood of what a +woman can be? Grace, shall I tell you the secret of it? ’Twas because I +was in your company. If a black-coated squire or pa’son had been walking +with you instead of me he wouldn’t have spoken so.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, father; there’s nothing in you rough or +ill-mannered!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +The woman who looks an unquestionable lady when she’s with a polished-up +fellow, looks a mere tawdry imitation article when she’s hobbing and +nobbing with a homely blade. You sha’n’t be treated like that for +long, or at least your children sha’n’t. You shall have somebody to +walk with you who looks more of a dandy than I—please God you +shall!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“A perplexing and ticklish possession is a daughter,” according to +Menander or some old Greek poet, and to nobody was one ever more so than 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 to unambitiously devote her +life to Giles Winterborne, but she was conscious of more and more uneasiness at +the possibility of being the social hope of the family. +</p> + +<p> +“You would like to have more honor, if it pleases me?” asked her +father, in continuation of the subject. +</p> + +<p> +Despite her feeling she assented to this. His reasoning had not been without +its weight upon her. +</p> + +<p> +“Grace,” he said, just before they had reached the house, “if +it costs me my life you shall marry well! To-day has shown me that whatever a +young woman’s niceness, she stands for nothing alone. You shall marry +well.” +</p> + +<p> +He breathed heavily, and his breathing was caught up by the breeze, which +seemed to sigh a soft remonstrance. +</p> + +<p> +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 +question of keeping faith.” +</p> + +<p> +The timber-merchant’s eyes fell for a moment. “I don’t +know—I don’t know,” he said. “’Tis a trying +strait. Well, well; there’s no hurry. We’ll wait and see how he +gets on.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +That evening he called her into his room, a snug little apartment behind the +large parlor. It had at one time been part of the bakehouse, with the ordinary +oval brick oven in the wall; but Mr. Melbury, in turning it into an office, had +built into the cavity an iron safe, which he used for holding his private +papers. The door of the safe was now open, and his keys were hanging from it. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, Grace, and keep me company,” he said. “You may +amuse yourself by looking over these.” He threw out a heap of papers +before her. +</p> + +<p> +“What are they?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Securities of various sorts.” He unfolded them one by one. +“Papers worth so much money each. Now here’s a lot of turnpike +bonds for one thing. Would you think that each of these pieces of paper is +worth two hundred pounds?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed, if you didn’t say so.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis so, then. Now here are papers of another sort. They are for +different sums in the three-per-cents. Now these are Port Breedy Harbor bonds. +We have a great stake in that harbor, you know, because I send off timber +there. Open the rest at your pleasure. They’ll interest ye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I will, some day,” said she, rising. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, open them now. You ought to learn a little of such matters. A +young lady of education should not be ignorant of money affairs altogether. +Suppose you should be left a widow some day, with your husband’s +title-deeds and investments thrown upon your hands—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say that, father—title-deeds; it sounds so +vain!” +</p> + +<p> +“It does not. Come to that, I have title-deeds myself. There, that piece +of parchment represents houses in Sherton Abbas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but—” She hesitated, looked at the fire, and went on in +a low voice: “If what has been arranged about me should come to anything, +my sphere will be quite a middling one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your sphere ought not to be middling,” he exclaimed, not in +passion, but in earnest conviction. “You said you never felt more at +home, more in your element, anywhere than you did that afternoon with Mrs. +Charmond, when she showed you her house and all her knick-knacks, and made you +stay to tea so nicely in her drawing-room—surely you did!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I did say so,” admitted Grace. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it true?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I felt so at the time. The feeling is less strong now, +perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Now, though you don’t see it, your feeling at the time was the +right one, because your mind and body were just in full and fresh cultivation, +so that going there with her was like meeting like. Since then you’ve +been biding with us, and have fallen back a little, and so you don’t feel +your place so strongly. Now, do as I tell ye, and look over these papers and +see what you’ll be worth some day. For they’ll all be yours, you +know; who have I got to leave ’em to but you? Perhaps when your education +is backed up by what these papers represent, 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 more than a buffer’s girl.” +</p> + +<p> +So she did as commanded, and opened each of the folded representatives of hard +cash that her father put before her. To sow in her heart cravings for social +position was obviously his strong desire, though in direct antagonism to a +better feeling which had hitherto prevailed with him, and had, indeed, only +succumbed that morning during the ramble. +</p> + +<p> +She wished that she was not his worldly hope; the responsibility of such a +position was too great. She had made it for herself mainly by her appearance +and attractive behavior to him since her return. “If I had only come home +in a shabby dress, and tried to speak roughly, this might not have +happened,” she thought. She deplored less the fact than the sad +possibilities that might lie hidden therein. +</p> + +<p> +Her father then insisted upon her looking over his checkbook and reading the +counterfoils. This, also, she obediently did, and at last came to two or three +which had been drawn to defray some of the late expenses of her clothes, board, +and education. +</p> + +<p> +“I, too, cost a good deal, like the horses and wagons and corn,” +she said, looking up sorrily. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t want you to look at those; I merely meant to give you an +idea of my investment transactions. But if you do cost as much as they, never +mind. You’ll yield a better return.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think of me like that!” she begged. “A mere +chattel.” +</p> + +<p> +“A what? Oh, a dictionary word. Well, as that’s in your line I +don’t forbid it, even if it tells against me,” he said, +good-humoredly. And he looked her proudly up and down. +</p> + +<p> +A few minutes later Grammer Oliver came to tell them that supper was ready, and +in giving the information she added, incidentally, “So we shall soon lose +the mistress of Hintock House for some time, I hear, Maister Melbury. Yes, +she’s going off to foreign parts to-morrow, for the rest of the winter +months; and be-chok’d if I don’t wish I could do the same, for my +wynd-pipe is furred like a flue.” +</p> + +<p> +When the old woman had left the room, Melbury turned to his daughter and said, +“So, Grace, you’ve lost your new friend, and your chance of keeping +her company and writing her travels is quite gone from ye!” +</p> + +<p> +Grace said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” he went on, emphatically, “’tis +Winterborne’s affair has done this. Oh yes, ’tis. So let me say one +word. Promise me that you will not meet him again without my knowledge.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never do meet him, father, either without your knowledge or with +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better. I don’t like the look of this at all. And I +say it not out of harshness to him, poor fellow, but out of tenderness to you. +For how could a woman, brought up delicately as you have been, bear the +roughness of a life with him?” +</p> + +<p> +She sighed; it was a sigh of sympathy with Giles, complicated by a sense of the +intractability of circumstances. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At that same hour, and almost at that same minute, there was a conversation +about Winterborne in progress in the village street, opposite Mr. +Melbury’s gates, where Timothy Tangs the elder and Robert Creedle had +accidentally met. +</p> + +<p> +The sawyer was asking Creedle if he had heard what was all over the parish, the +skin of his face being drawn two ways on the matter—towards brightness in +respect of it as news, and towards concern in respect of it as circumstance. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that poor little lonesome thing, Marty South, is likely to lose her +father. He was almost well, but is much worse again. A man all skin and grief +he ever were, and if he leave Little Hintock for a better land, won’t it +make some difference to your Maister Winterborne, neighbor Creedle?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can I be a prophet in Israel?” said Creedle. “Won’t +it! I was only shaping of such a thing yesterday in my poor, long-seeing way, +and all the work of the house upon my one shoulders! You know what it means? It +is upon John South’s life that all Mr. Winterborne’s houses hang. +If so be South die, and so make his decease, thereupon the law is that the +houses fall without the least chance of absolution into HER hands at the House. +I told him so; but the words of the faithful be only as wind!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p> +The news was true. The life—the one fragile life—that had been used +as a measuring-tape of time by law, was in danger of being frayed away. It was +the last of a group of lives which had served this purpose, at the end of whose +breathings the small homestead occupied by South himself, the larger one of +Giles Winterborne, and half a dozen others that had been in the possession of +various Hintock village families for the previous hundred years, and were now +Winterborne’s, would fall in and become part of the encompassing estate. +</p> + +<p> +Yet a short two months earlier Marty’s father, aged fifty-five years, +though something of a fidgety, anxious being, would have been looked on as a +man whose existence was so far removed from hazardous as any in the parish, and +as bidding fair to be prolonged for another quarter of a century. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne walked up and down his garden next day thinking of the contingency. +The sense that the paths he was pacing, the cabbage-plots, the apple-trees, his +dwelling, cider-cellar, wring-house, stables, and weathercock, were all +slipping away over his head and beneath his feet, as if they were painted on a +magic-lantern slide, was curious. In spite of John South’s late +indisposition he had not anticipated danger. To inquire concerning his health +had been to show less sympathy than to remain silent, considering the material +interest he possessed in the woodman’s life, and he had, accordingly, +made a point of avoiding Marty’s house. +</p> + +<p> +While he was here in the garden somebody came to fetch him. It was Marty +herself, and she showed her distress by her unconsciousness of a cropped poll. +</p> + +<p> +“Father is still so much troubled in his mind about that tree,” she +said. “You know the tree I mean, Mr. Winterborne? the tall one in front +of the house, that he thinks will blow down and kill us. Can you come and see +if you can persuade him out of his notion? I can do nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +He accompanied her to the cottage, and she conducted him upstairs. John South +was pillowed up in a chair between the bed and the window exactly opposite the +latter, towards which his face was turned. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, neighbor Winterborne,” he said. “I wouldn’t have +minded if my life had only been my own to lose; I don’t vallie it in much +of itself, and can let it go if ’tis required of me. But to think what +’tis worth to you, a young man rising in life, that do trouble me! It +seems a trick of dishonesty towards ye to go off at fifty-five! I could bear +up, I know I could, if it were not for the tree—yes, the tree, ’tis +that’s killing me. There he stands, threatening my life every minute that +the wind do blow. He’ll come down upon us and squat us dead; and what +will ye do when the life on your property is taken away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never you mind me—that’s of no consequence,” said +Giles. “Think of yourself alone.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked out of the window in the direction of the woodman’s gaze. The +tree was a tall elm, familiar to him from childhood, which stood at a distance +of two-thirds its own height from the front of South’s dwelling. Whenever +the wind blew, as it did now, the tree rocked, naturally enough; and the sight +of its motion and sound of its sighs had gradually bred the terrifying illusion +in the woodman’s mind that it would descend and kill him. Thus he would +sit all day, in spite of persuasion, watching its every sway, and listening to +the melancholy Gregorian melodies which the air wrung out of it. This fear it +apparently was, rather than any organic disease which was eating away the +health of John South. +</p> + +<p> +As the tree waved, South waved his head, making it his flugel-man with abject +obedience. “Ah, when it was quite a small tree,” he said, +“and I was a little boy, I thought one day of chopping it off with my +hook to make a clothes-line prop with. But I put off doing it, and then I again +thought that I would; but I forgot it, and didn’t. And at last it got too +big, and now ’tis my enemy, and will be the death o’ me. Little did +I think, when I let that sapling stay, that a time would come when it would +torment me, and dash me into my grave.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Winterborne and Marty, soothingly. But they thought +it possible that it might hasten him into his grave, though in another way than +by falling. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you what,” added Winterborne, “I’ll climb up +this afternoon and shroud off the lower boughs, and then it won’t be so +heavy, and the wind won’t affect it so.” +</p> + +<p> +“She won’t allow it—a strange woman come from nobody knows +where—she won’t have it done.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean Mrs. Charmond? Oh, she doesn’t know there’s such a +tree on her estate. Besides, shrouding is not felling, and I’ll risk that +much.” +</p> + +<p> +He went out, and when afternoon came he returned, took a billhook from the +woodman’s shed, and with a ladder climbed into the lower part of the +tree, where he began lopping off—“shrouding,” as they called +it at Hintock—the lowest boughs. Each of these quivered under his attack, +bent, cracked, and fell into the hedge. Having cut away the lowest tier, he +stepped off the ladder, climbed a few steps higher, and attacked those at the +next level. Thus he ascended with the progress of his work far above the top of +the ladder, cutting away his perches as he went, and leaving nothing but a bare +stem below him. +</p> + +<p> +The work was troublesome, for the tree was large. The afternoon wore on, +turning dark and misty about four o’clock. From time to time Giles cast +his eyes across towards the bedroom window of South, where, by the flickering +fire in the chamber, he could see the old man watching him, sitting motionless +with a hand upon each arm of the chair. Beside him sat Marty, also straining +her eyes towards the skyey field of his operations. +</p> + +<p> +A curious question suddenly occurred to Winterborne, and he stopped his +chopping. He was operating on another person’s property to prolong the +years of a lease by whose termination that person would considerably benefit. +In that aspect of the case he doubted if he ought to go on. On the other hand +he was working to save a man’s life, and this seemed to empower him to +adopt arbitrary measures. +</p> + +<p> +The wind had died down to a calm, and while he was weighing the circumstances +he saw coming along the road through the increasing mist a figure which, +indistinct as it was, he knew well. It was Grace Melbury, on her way out from +the house, probably for a short evening walk before dark. He arranged himself +for a greeting from her, since she could hardly avoid passing immediately +beneath the tree. +</p> + +<p> +But Grace, though she looked up and saw him, was just at that time too full of +the words of her father to give him any encouragement. The years-long regard +that she had had for him was not kindled by her return into a flame of +sufficient brilliancy to make her rebellious. Thinking that she might not see +him, he cried, “Miss Melbury, here I am.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked up again. She was near enough to see the expression of his face, and +the nails in his soles, silver-bright with constant walking. But she did not +reply; and dropping her glance again, went on. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne’s face grew strange; he mused, and proceeded automatically +with his work. Grace meanwhile had not gone far. She had reached a gate, +whereon she had leaned sadly, and whispered to herself, “What shall I +do?” +</p> + +<p> +A sudden fog came on, and she curtailed her walk, passing under the tree again +on her return. Again he addressed her. “Grace,” he said, when she +was close to the trunk, “speak to me.” She shook her head without +stopping, and went on to a little distance, where she stood observing him from +behind the hedge. +</p> + +<p> +Her coldness had been kindly meant. If it was to be done, she had said to +herself, it should be begun at once. While she stood out of observation Giles +seemed to recognize her meaning; with a sudden start he worked on, climbing +higher, and cutting himself off more and more from all intercourse with the +sublunary world. At last he had worked himself so high up the elm, and the mist +had so thickened, that he could only just be discerned as a dark-gray spot on +the light-gray sky: he would have been altogether out of notice but for the +stroke of his billhook and the flight of a bough downward, and its crash upon +the hedge at intervals. +</p> + +<p> +It was not to be done thus, after all: plainness and candor were best. She went +back a third time; he did not see her now, and she lingeringly gazed up at his +unconscious figure, loath to put an end to any kind of hope that might live on +in him still. “Giles— Mr. Winterborne,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He was so high amid the fog that he did not hear. “Mr. +Winterborne!” she cried again, and this time he stopped, looked down, and +replied. +</p> + +<p> +“My silence just now was not accident,” she said, in an unequal +voice. “My father says it is best not to think too much of +that—engagement, or understanding between us, that you know of. I, too, +think that upon the whole he is right. But we are friends, you know, Giles, and +almost relations.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” he answered, as if without surprise, in a voice which +barely reached down the tree. “I have nothing to say in objection—I +cannot say anything till I’ve thought a while.” +</p> + +<p> +She added, with emotion in her tone, “For myself, I would have married +you—some day—I think. But I give way, for I see it would be +unwise.” +</p> + +<p> +He made no reply, but sat back upon a bough, placed his elbow in a fork, and +rested his head upon his hand. Thus he remained till the fog and the night had +completely enclosed him from her view. +</p> + +<p> +Grace heaved a divided sigh, with a tense pause between, and moved onward, her +heart feeling uncomfortably big and heavy, and her eyes wet. Had Giles, instead +of remaining still, immediately come down from the tree to her, would she have +continued in that filial acquiescent frame of mind which she had announced to +him as final? If it be true, as women themselves have declared, that one of +their sex is never so much inclined to throw in her lot with a man for good and +all as five minutes after she has told him such a thing cannot be, the +probabilities are that something might have been done by the appearance of +Winterborne on the ground beside Grace. But he continued motionless and silent +in that gloomy Niflheim or fog-land which involved him, and she proceeded on +her way. +</p> + +<p> +The spot seemed now to be quite deserted. The light from South’s window +made rays on the fog, but did not reach the tree. A quarter of an hour passed, +and all was blackness overhead. Giles had not yet come down. +</p> + +<p> +Then the tree seemed to shiver, then to heave a sigh; a movement was audible, +and Winterborne dropped almost noiselessly to the ground. He had thought the +matter out, and having returned the ladder and billhook to their places, +pursued his way homeward. He would not allow this incident to affect his outer +conduct any more than the danger to his leaseholds had done, and went to bed as +usual. Two simultaneous troubles do not always make a double trouble; and thus +it came to pass that Giles’s practical anxiety about his houses, which +would have been enough to keep him awake half the night at any other time, was +displaced and not reinforced by his sentimental trouble about Grace Melbury. +This severance was in truth more like a burial of her than a rupture with her; +but he did not realize so much at present; even when he arose in the morning he +felt quite moody and stern: as yet the second note in the gamut of such +emotions, a tender regret for his loss, had not made itself heard. +</p> + +<p> +A load of oak timber was to be sent away that morning to a builder whose works +were in a town many miles off. The proud trunks were taken up from the silent +spot which had known them through the buddings and sheddings of their growth +for the foregoing hundred years; chained down like slaves to a heavy timber +carriage with enormous red wheels, and four of the most powerful of +Melbury’s horses were harnessed in front to draw them. +</p> + +<p> +The horses wore their bells that day. There were sixteen to the team, carried +on a frame above each animal’s shoulders, and tuned to scale, so as to +form two octaves, running from the highest note on the right or off-side of the +leader to the lowest on the left or near-side of the shaft-horse. Melbury was +among the last to retain horse-bells in that neighborhood; for, living at +Little Hintock, where the lanes yet remained as narrow as before the days of +turnpike roads, these sound-signals were still as useful to him and his +neighbors as they had ever been in former times. Much backing was saved in the +course of a year by the warning notes they cast ahead; moreover, the tones of +all the teams in the district being known to the carters of each, they could +tell a long way off on a dark night whether they were about to encounter +friends or strangers. +</p> + +<p> +The fog of the previous evening still lingered so heavily over the woods that +the morning could not penetrate the trees till long after its time. The load +being a ponderous one, the lane crooked, and the air so thick, Winterborne set +out, as he often did, to accompany the team as far as the corner, where it +would turn into a wider road. +</p> + +<p> +So they rumbled on, shaking the foundations of the roadside cottages by the +weight of their progress, the sixteen bells chiming harmoniously over all, till +they had risen out of the valley and were descending towards the more open +route, the sparks rising from their creaking skid and nearly setting fire to +the dead leaves alongside. +</p> + +<p> +Then occurred one of the very incidents against which the bells were an +endeavor to guard. Suddenly there beamed into their eyes, quite close to them, +the two lamps of a carriage, shorn of rays by the fog. Its approach had been +quite unheard, by reason of their own noise. The carriage was a covered one, +while behind it could be discerned another vehicle laden with luggage. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne went to the head of the team, and heard the coachman telling the +carter that he must turn back. The carter declared that this was impossible. +</p> + +<p> +“You can turn if you unhitch your string-horses,” said the +coachman. +</p> + +<p> +“It is much easier for you to turn than for us,” said Winterborne. +“We’ve five tons of timber on these wheels if we’ve an +ounce.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I’ve another carriage with luggage at my back.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne admitted the strength of the argument. “But even with +that,” he said, “you can back better than we. And you ought to, for +you could hear our bells half a mile off.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you could see our lights.” +</p> + +<p> +“We couldn’t, because of the fog.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, our time’s precious,” said the coachman, haughtily. +“You are only going to some trumpery little village or other in the +neighborhood, while we are going straight to Italy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Driving all the way, I suppose,” said Winterborne, sarcastically. +</p> + +<p> +The argument continued in these terms till a voice from the interior of the +carriage inquired what was the matter. It was a lady’s. +</p> + +<p> +She was briefly informed of the timber people’s obstinacy; and then Giles +could hear her telling the footman to direct the timber people to turn their +horses’ heads. +</p> + +<p> +The message was brought, and Winterborne sent the bearer back to say that he +begged the lady’s pardon, but that he could not do as she requested; that +though he would not assert it to be impossible, it was impossible by comparison +with the slight difficulty to her party to back their light carriages. As fate +would have it, the incident with Grace Melbury on the previous day made Giles +less gentle than he might otherwise have shown himself, his confidence in the +sex being rudely shaken. +</p> + +<p> +In fine, nothing could move him, and the carriages were compelled to back till +they reached one of the sidings or turnouts constructed in the bank for the +purpose. Then the team came on ponderously, and the clanging of its sixteen +bells as it passed the discomfited carriages, tilted up against the bank, lent +a particularly triumphant tone to the team’s progress—a tone which, +in point of fact, did not at all attach to its conductor’s feelings. +</p> + +<p> +Giles walked behind the timber, and just as he had got past the yet stationary +carriages he heard a soft voice say, “Who is that rude man? Not +Melbury?” The sex of the speaker was so prominent in the voice that +Winterborne felt a pang of regret. +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am. A younger man, in a smaller way of business in Little +Hintock. Winterborne is his name.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus they parted company. “Why, Mr. Winterborne,” said the wagoner, +when they were out of hearing, “that was She—Mrs. Charmond! +Who’d ha’ thought it? What in the world can a woman that does +nothing be cock-watching out here at this time o’ day for? Oh, going to +Italy—yes to be sure, I heard she was going abroad, she can’t +endure the winter here.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne was vexed at the incident; the more so that he knew Mr. Melbury, in +his adoration of Hintock House, would be the first to blame him if it became +known. But saying no more, he accompanied the load to the end of the lane, and +then turned back with an intention to call at South’s to learn the result +of the experiment of the preceding evening. +</p> + +<p> +It chanced that a few minutes before this time Grace Melbury, who now rose soon +enough to breakfast with her father, in spite of the unwontedness of the hour, +had been commissioned by him to make the same inquiry at South’s. Marty +had been standing at the door when Miss Melbury arrived. Almost before the +latter had spoken, Mrs. Charmond’s carriages, released from the +obstruction up the lane, came bowling along, and the two girls turned to regard +the spectacle. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond did not see them, but there was sufficient light for them to +discern her outline between the carriage windows. A noticeable feature in her +<i>tournure</i> was a magnificent mass of braided locks. +</p> + +<p> +“How well she looks this morning!” said Grace, forgetting Mrs. +Charmond’s slight in her generous admiration. “Her hair so becomes +her worn that way. I have never seen any more beautiful!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor have I, miss,” said Marty, dryly, unconsciously stroking her +crown. +</p> + +<p> +Grace watched the carriages with lingering regret till they were out of sight. +She then learned of Marty that South was no better. Before she had come away +Winterborne approached the house, but seeing that one of the two girls standing +on the door-step was Grace, he suddenly turned back again and sought the +shelter of his own home till she should have gone away. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<p> +The encounter with the carriages having sprung upon Winterborne’s mind +the image of Mrs. Charmond, his thoughts by a natural channel went from her to +the fact that several cottages and other houses in the two Hintocks, now his +own, would fall into her possession in the event of South’s death. He +marvelled what people could have been thinking about in the past to invent such +precarious tenures as these; still more, what could have induced his ancestors +at Hintock, and other village people, to exchange their old copyholds for +life-leases. But having naturally succeeded to these properties through his +father, he had done his best to keep them in order, though he was much struck +with his father’s negligence in not insuring South’s life. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast, still musing on the circumstances, he went upstairs, turned +over his bed, and drew out a flat canvas bag which lay between the mattress and +the sacking. In this he kept his leases, which had remained there unopened ever +since his father’s death. It was the usual hiding-place among rural +lifeholders for such documents. Winterborne sat down on the bed and looked them +over. They were ordinary leases for three lives, which a member of the South +family, some fifty years before this time, had accepted of the lord of the +manor in lieu of certain copyholds and other rights, in consideration of having +the dilapidated houses rebuilt by said lord. They had come into his +father’s possession chiefly through his mother, who was a South. +</p> + +<p> +Pinned to the parchment of one of the indentures was a letter, which +Winterborne had never seen before. It bore a remote date, the handwriting being +that of some solicitor or agent, and the signature the landholder’s. It +was to the effect that at any time before the last of the stated lives should +drop, Mr. Giles Winterborne, senior, or his representative, should have the +privilege of adding his own and his son’s life to the life remaining on +payment of a merely nominal sum; the concession being in consequence of the +elder Winterborne’s consent to demolish one of the houses and relinquish +its site, which stood at an awkward corner of the lane and impeded the way. +</p> + +<p> +The house had been pulled down years before. Why Giles’s father had not +taken advantage of his privilege to insert his own and his son’s lives it +was impossible to say. The likelihood was that death alone had hindered him in +the execution of his project, as it surely was, the elder Winterborne having +been a man who took much pleasure in dealing with house property in his small +way. +</p> + +<p> +Since one of the Souths still survived, there was not much doubt that Giles +could do what his father had left undone, as far as his own life was concerned. +This possibility cheered him much, for by those houses hung many things. +Melbury’s doubt of the young man’s fitness to be the husband of +Grace had been based not a little on the precariousness of his holdings in +Little and Great Hintock. He resolved to attend to the business at once, the +fine for renewal being a sum that he could easily muster. His scheme, however, +could not be carried out in a day; and meanwhile he would run up to +South’s, as he had intended to do, to learn the result of the experiment +with the tree. +</p> + +<p> +Marty met him at the door. “Well, Marty,” he said; and was +surprised to read in her face that the case was not so hopeful as he had +imagined. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry for your labor,” she said. “It is all lost. He +says the tree seems taller than ever.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne looked round at it. Taller the tree certainly did seem, the +gauntness of its now naked stem being more marked than before. +</p> + +<p> +“It quite terrified him when he first saw what you had done to it this +morning,” she added. “He declares it will come down upon us and +cleave us, like ‘the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Well; can I do anything else?” asked he. +</p> + +<p> +“The doctor says the tree ought to be cut down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—you’ve had the doctor?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t send for him. Mrs. Charmond, before she left, heard that +father was ill, and told him to attend him at her expense.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was very good of her. And he says it ought to be cut down. We +mustn’t cut it down without her knowledge, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +He went up-stairs. There the old man sat, staring at the now gaunt tree as if +his gaze were frozen on to its trunk. Unluckily the tree waved afresh by this +time, a wind having sprung up and blown the fog away, and his eyes turned with +its wavings. +</p> + +<p> +They heard footsteps—a man’s, but of a lighter type than usual. +“There is Doctor Fitzpiers again,” she said, and descended. +Presently his tread was heard on the naked stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Fitzpiers entered the sick-chamber just as a doctor is more or less wont to +do on such occasions, and pre-eminently when the room is that of a humble +cottager, looking round towards the patient with that preoccupied gaze which so +plainly reveals that he has wellnigh forgotten all about the case and the whole +circumstances since he dismissed them from his mind at his last exit from the +same apartment. He nodded to Winterborne, with whom he was already a little +acquainted, recalled the case to his thoughts, and went leisurely on to where +South sat. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers was, on the whole, a finely formed, handsome man. His eyes were dark +and impressive, and beamed with the light either of energy or of +susceptivity—it was difficult to say which; it might have been a little +of both. That quick, glittering, practical eye, sharp for the surface of things +and for nothing beneath it, he had not. But whether his apparent depth of +vision was real, or only an artistic accident of his corporeal moulding, +nothing but his deeds could reveal. +</p> + +<p> +His face was rather soft than stern, charming than grand, pale than flushed; +his nose—if a sketch of his features be <i>de rigueur</i> for a person of +his pretensions—was artistically beautiful enough to have been worth +doing in marble by any sculptor not over-busy, and was hence devoid of those +knotty irregularities which often mean power; while the double-cyma or +classical curve of his mouth was not without a looseness in its close. +Nevertheless, either from his readily appreciative mien, or his reflective +manner, or the instinct towards profound things which was said to possess him, +his presence bespoke the philosopher rather than the dandy or macaroni—an +effect which was helped by the absence of trinkets or other trivialities from +his attire, though this was more finished and up to date than is usually the +case among rural practitioners. +</p> + +<p> +Strict people of the highly respectable class, knowing a little about him by +report, might have said that he seemed likely to err rather in the possession +of too many ideas than too few; to be a dreamy ’ist of some sort, or too +deeply steeped in some false kind of ’ism. However this may be, it will +be seen that he was undoubtedly a somewhat rare kind of gentleman and doctor to +have descended, as from the clouds, upon Little Hintock. +</p> + +<p> +“This is an extraordinary case,” he said at last to Winterborne, +after examining South by conversation, look, and touch, and learning that the +craze about the elm was stronger than ever. “Come down-stairs, and +I’ll tell you what I think.” +</p> + +<p> +They accordingly descended, and the doctor continued, “The tree must be +cut down, or I won’t answer for his life.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis Mrs. Charmond’s tree, and I suppose we must get +permission?” said Giles. “If so, as she is gone away, I must speak +to her agent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—never mind whose tree it is—what’s a tree beside a +life! Cut it down. I have not the honor of knowing Mrs. Charmond as yet, but I +am disposed to risk that much with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis timber,” rejoined Giles, more scrupulous than he would +have been had not his own interests stood so closely involved. +“They’ll never fell a stick about here without it being marked +first, either by her or the agent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we’ll inaugurate a new era forthwith. How long has he +complained of the tree?” asked the doctor of Marty. +</p> + +<p> +“Weeks and weeks, sir. The shape of it seems to haunt him like an evil +spirit. He says that it is exactly his own age, that it has got human sense, +and sprouted up when he was born on purpose to rule him, and keep him as its +slave. Others have been like it afore in Hintock.” +</p> + +<p> +They could hear South’s voice up-stairs “Oh, he’s rocking +this way; he must come! And then my poor life, that’s worth houses upon +houses, will be squashed out o’ me. Oh! oh!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s how he goes on,” she added. “And he’ll +never look anywhere else but out of the window, and scarcely have the curtains +drawn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Down with it, then, and hang Mrs. Charmond,” said Mr. Fitzpiers. +“The best plan will be to wait till the evening, when it is dark, or +early in the morning before he is awake, so that he doesn’t see it fall, +for that would terrify him worse than ever. Keep the blind down till I come, +and then I’ll assure him, and show him that his trouble is over.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor then departed, and they waited till the evening. When it was dusk, +and the curtains drawn, Winterborne directed a couple of woodmen to bring a +crosscut-saw, and the tall, threatening tree was soon nearly off at its base. +He would not fell it completely then, on account of the possible crash, but +next morning, before South was awake, they went and lowered it cautiously, in a +direction away from the cottage. It was a business difficult to do quite +silently; but it was done at last, and the elm of the same birth-year as the +woodman’s lay stretched upon the ground. The weakest idler that passed +could now set foot on marks formerly made in the upper forks by the shoes of +adventurous climbers only; once inaccessible nests could be examined +microscopically; and on swaying extremities where birds alone had perched, the +by-standers sat down. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as it was broad daylight the doctor came, and Winterborne entered the +house with him. Marty said that her father was wrapped up and ready, as usual, +to be put into his chair. They ascended the stairs, and soon seated him. He +began at once to complain of the tree, and the danger to his life and +Winterborne’s house-property in consequence. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor signalled to Giles, who went and drew back the printed cotton +curtains. “’Tis gone, see,” said Mr. Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the old man saw the vacant patch of sky in place of the branched +column so familiar to his gaze, he sprang up, speechless, his eyes rose from +their hollows till the whites showed all round; he fell back, and a bluish +whiteness overspread him. +</p> + +<p> +Greatly alarmed, they put him on the bed. As soon as he came a little out of +his fit, he gasped, “Oh, it is gone!—where?—where?” +</p> + +<p> +His whole system seemed paralyzed by amazement. They were thunder-struck at the +result of the experiment, and did all they could. Nothing seemed to avail. +Giles and Fitzpiers went and came, but uselessly. He lingered through the day, +and died that evening as the sun went down. +</p> + +<p> +“D—d if my remedy hasn’t killed him!” murmured the +doctor. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<p> +When Melbury heard what had happened he seemed much moved, and walked +thoughtfully about the premises. On South’s own account he was genuinely +sorry; and on Winterborne’s he was the more grieved in that this +catastrophe had so closely followed the somewhat harsh dismissal of Giles as +the betrothed of his daughter. +</p> + +<p> +He was quite angry with circumstances for so heedlessly inflicting on Giles a +second trouble when the needful one inflicted 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Giles!” murmured Grace. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Grace, between us two, it is very, very remarkable. 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.” +</p> + +<p> +And yet at that very moment the impracticability to which poor +Winterborne’s suit had been reduced was touching Grace’s heart to a +warmer sentiment on his behalf than she had felt for years concerning him. +</p> + +<p> +He, meanwhile, was sitting down alone in the old familiar house which had +ceased to be his, taking a calm if somewhat dismal survey of affairs. The +pendulum of the clock bumped every now and then against one side of the case in +which it swung, as the muffled drum to his worldly march. Looking out of the +window he could perceive that a paralysis 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 circumvented +if he had known the true conditions of his holding. The time for performance +had now lapsed 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? +</p> + +<p> +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 mere 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Giles,” he said, “this is very awkward, and I am sorry for +it. What are you going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +Giles informed him of the real state of affairs, and how barely he had missed +availing himself of his chance of renewal. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +generosity.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather not,” murmured Giles. +</p> + +<p> +“But you must,” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +In short, he argued so cogently 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. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury feeling that he had done so good an action in coming as almost to +extenuate his previous arbitrary conduct to nothing, went home; and Giles was +left alone to the suspense 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 chamber being nearest the stairs, the coffin 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, sublimed by +the august presence of death, and onward a few feet farther upon the face of +his daughter, lying in her little bed in the stillness of a repose almost as +dignified 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. +</p> + +<p> +South was buried, and a week passed, and Winterborne watched for a reply from +Mrs. Charmond. Melbury was very sanguine as to its tenor; but Winterborne had +not told him of the encounter with her carriage, when, if ever he had heard an +affronted tone on a woman’s lips, he had heard it on hers. +</p> + +<p> +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 laden 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 pretext or other almost every morning while they were awaiting the reply. +</p> + +<p> +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 conjectured, that if the tree had been allowed to stand, +the old man would have gone on complaining, but might have lived for twenty +years. +</p> + +<p> +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 loomed 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. +</p> + +<p> +The letter was not from Mrs. Charmond herself, but her agent at Sherton. +Winterborne glanced it over and looked up. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all over,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said they altogether. +</p> + +<p> +“Her lawyer is instructed to say that Mrs. Charmond sees no reason for +disturbing the natural course of things, particularly as she contemplates +pulling the houses down,” he said, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“Only think of that!” said several. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne had turned away, and said vehemently to himself, “Then let +her pull ’em down, and be d—d to her!” +</p> + +<p> +Creedle looked at him with a face of seven sorrows, saying, “Ah, +’twas that sperrit that lost ’em for ye, maister!” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne subdued his feelings, and from that hour, whatever they were, kept +them entirely to himself. There could be no doubt that, up to this last moment, +he had nourished a feeble hope of regaining Grace in the event of this +negotiation 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 absurdity to dream any longer of such a vanity as +making her his wife, and sank into silence forthwith. +</p> + +<p> +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 tints 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 alluded to his disapproval 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 +pretensions to Grace, and so get the thing past and done with. For though Giles +had in a measure acquiesced 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 friendliness and +frigidity exactly balanced in his eye till he could see whether Giles’s +manner was presumptive or not. +</p> + +<p> +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 mare 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Melbury was rather affected 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Thereupon he put the case to Winterborne frankly, 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. +</p> + +<p> +Giles quite acquiesced in the awkwardness of his situation. But from a +momentary feeling that he would like to know Grace’s mind from her own +lips, he did not speak out positively there and then. He accordingly departed +somewhat abruptly, and went home to consider whether he would seek to bring +about a meeting with her. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening, while he sat quietly pondering, he fancied that he heard a +scraping on the wall outside his house. The boughs 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 flickered on the whitewashed rough case of the +front, and he saw words written thereon in charcoal, which he read as follows: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“O Giles, you’ve lost your dwelling-place,<br /> +And therefore, Giles, you’ll lose your Grace.” +</p> + +<p> +Giles went in-doors. 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 decided the question for +him. He sat down and wrote a formal note to Melbury, in which he briefly 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. +</p> + +<p> +Having fastened up this their plenary absolution, he determined 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 retired; he crept up to the +house, thrust the note under the door, and stole away as silently as he had +come. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +It happened that Grace went out for an early ramble 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 +crimson. She could see Giles and Creedle talking together at the back; the +charred 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 revival of an old romantic attachment 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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury looked much surprised. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” he said, sharply. “You don’t know what you +are talking about. Look here.” +</p> + +<p> +He handed across to her the letter received from Giles. +</p> + +<p> +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 acquiesce. +</p> + +<p> +It was a few hours after this that Winterborne, who, curiously enough, had +<i>not</i> perceived Grace writing, was clearing away the tree from the front +of South’s late dwelling. He saw Marty standing 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 +<i>was</i> you, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Having prophesied one thing, why did you alter it to another? Your +predictions can’t be worth much.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not altered it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you have.” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is altered. Go and see.” +</p> + +<p> +She went, and read that, in spite of losing his dwelling-place, he would +<i>keep</i> his Grace. Marty came back surprised. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I never,” she said. “Who can have made such nonsense +of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who, indeed?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“I have rubbed it all out, as the point of it is quite gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d no business to rub it out. I didn’t tell you to. I +meant to let it stay a little longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some idle boy did it, no doubt,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +As this seemed very probable, and the actual perpetrator was unsuspected, +Winterborne said no more, and dismissed the matter from his mind. +</p> + +<p> +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 feat 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 +frail bark of fidelity that she had thus timidly launched was stranded and +lost. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<p> +Dr. Fitzpiers lived on the slope of the hill, in a house of much less +pretension, both as to architecture and as to magnitude, than the +timber-merchant’s. The latter had, without doubt, been once the manorial +residence appertaining to the snug and modest domain of Little Hintock, of +which the boundaries were now lost by its absorption with others of its kind +into the adjoining estate of Mrs. Charmond. Though the Melburys themselves were +unaware of the fact, there was every reason to believe—at least so the +parson said—that the owners of that little manor had been Melbury’s +own ancestors, the family name occurring in numerous documents relating to +transfers of land about the time of the civil wars. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Fitzpiers’s dwelling, on the contrary, was small, cottage-like, and +comparatively modern. It had been occupied, and was in part occupied still, by +a retired farmer and his wife, who, on the surgeon’s arrival in quest of +a home, had accommodated him by receding from their front rooms into the +kitchen quarter, whence they administered to his wants, and emerged at regular +intervals to receive from him a not unwelcome addition to their income. +</p> + +<p> +The cottage and its garden were so regular in their arrangement that they might +have been laid out by a Dutch designer of the time of William and Mary. In a +low, dense hedge, cut to wedge-shape, was a door over which the hedge formed an +arch, and from the inside of the door a straight path, bordered with clipped +box, ran up the slope of the garden to the porch, which was exactly in the +middle of the house front, with two windows on each side. Right and left of the +path were first a bed of gooseberry bushes; next of currant; next of raspberry; +next of strawberry; next of old-fashioned flowers; at the corners opposite the +porch being spheres of box resembling a pair of school globes. Over the roof of +the house could be seen the orchard, on yet higher ground, and behind the +orchard the forest-trees, reaching up to the crest of the hill. +</p> + +<p> +Opposite the garden door and visible from the parlor window was a swing-gate +leading into a field, across which there ran a footpath. The swing-gate had +just been repainted, and on one fine afternoon, before the paint was dry, and +while gnats were still dying thereon, the surgeon was standing in his +sitting-room abstractedly looking out at the different pedestrians who passed +and repassed along that route. Being of a philosophical stamp, he perceived +that the character of each of these travellers exhibited itself in a somewhat +amusing manner by his or her method of handling the gate. +</p> + +<p> +As regarded the men, there was not much variety: they gave the gate a kick and +passed through. The women were more contrasting. To them the sticky wood-work +was a barricade, a disgust, a menace, a treachery, as the case might be. +</p> + +<p> +The first that he noticed was a bouncing woman with her skirts tucked up and +her hair uncombed. She grasped the gate without looking, giving it a +supplementary push with her shoulder, when the white imprint drew from her an +exclamation in language not too refined. She went to the green bank, sat down +and rubbed herself in the grass, cursing the while. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +The next was a girl, with her hair cropped short, in whom the surgeon +recognized the daughter of his late patient, the woodman South. Moreover, a +black bonnet that she wore by way of mourning unpleasantly reminded him that he +had ordered the felling of a tree which had caused her parent’s death and +Winterborne’s losses. She walked and thought, and not recklessly; but her +preoccupation led her to grasp unsuspectingly the bar of the gate, and touch it +with her arm. Fitzpiers felt sorry that she should have soiled that new black +frock, poor as it was, for it was probably her only one. She looked at her hand +and arm, seemed but little surprised, wiped off the disfigurement with an +almost unmoved face, and as if without abandoning her original thoughts. Thus +she went on her way. +</p> + +<p> +Then there came over the green quite a different sort of personage. She walked +as delicately as if she had been bred in town, and as firmly as if she had been +bred in the country; she seemed one who dimly knew her appearance to be +attractive, but who retained some of the charm of being ignorant of that fact +by forgetting it in a general pensiveness. She approached the gate. To let such +a creature touch it even with a tip of her glove was to Fitzpiers almost like +letting her proceed to tragical self-destruction. He jumped up and looked for +his hat, but was unable to find the right one; glancing again out of the window +he saw that he was too late. Having come up, she stopped, looked at the gate, +picked up a little stick, and using it as a bayonet, pushed open the obstacle +without touching it at all. +</p> + +<p> +He steadily watched her till she had passed out of sight, recognizing her as +the very young lady whom he had seen once before and been unable to identify. +Whose could that emotional face be? All the others he had seen in Hintock as +yet oppressed him with their crude rusticity; the contrast offered by this +suggested that she hailed from elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +Precisely these thoughts had occurred to him at the first time of seeing her; +but he now went a little further with them, and considered that as there had +been no carriage seen or heard lately in that spot she could not have come a +very long distance. She must be somebody staying at Hintock House? Possibly +Mrs. Charmond, of whom he had heard so much—at any rate an inmate, and +this probability was sufficient to set a mild radiance in the surgeon’s +somewhat dull sky. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers sat down to the book he had been perusing. It happened to be that of +a German metaphysician, for the doctor was not a practical man, except by fits, +and much preferred the ideal world to the real, and the discovery of principles +to their application. The young lady remained in his thoughts. He might have +followed her; but he was not constitutionally active, and preferred a +conjectural pursuit. However, when he went out for a ramble just before dusk he +insensibly took the direction of Hintock House, which was the way that Grace +had been walking, it having happened that her mind had run on Mrs. Charmond +that day, and she had walked to the brow of a hill whence the house could be +seen, returning by another route. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers in his turn reached the edge of the glen, overlooking the +manor-house. The shutters were shut, and only one chimney smoked. The mere +aspect of the place was enough to inform him that Mrs. Charmond had gone away +and that nobody else was staying there. Fitzpiers felt a vague disappointment +that the young lady was not Mrs. Charmond, of whom he had heard so much; and +without pausing longer to gaze at a carcass from which the spirit had flown, he +bent his steps homeward. +</p> + +<p> +Later in the evening Fitzpiers was summoned to visit a cottage patient about +two miles distant. Like the majority of young practitioners in his position he +was far from having assumed the dignity of being driven his rounds by a servant +in a brougham that flashed the sunlight like a mirror; his way of getting about +was by means of a gig which he drove himself, hitching the rein of the horse to +the gate post, shutter hook, or garden paling of the domicile under visitation, +or giving pennies to little boys to hold the animal during his +stay—pennies which were well earned when the cases to be attended were of +a certain cheerful kind that wore out the patience of the little boys. +</p> + +<p> +On this account of travelling alone, the night journeys which Fitzpiers had +frequently to take were dismal enough, a serious apparent perversity in nature +ruling that whenever there was to be a birth in a particularly inaccessible and +lonely place, that event should occur in the night. The surgeon, having been of +late years a town man, hated the solitary midnight woodland. He was not +altogether skilful with the reins, and it often occurred to his mind that if in +some remote depths of the trees an accident were to happen, the fact of his +being alone might be the death of him. Hence he made a practice of picking up +any countryman or lad whom he chanced to pass by, and under the disguise of +treating him to a nice drive, obtained his companionship on the journey, and +his convenient assistance in opening gates. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor had started on his way out of the village on the night in question +when the light of his lamps fell upon the musing form of Winterborne, walking +leisurely along, as if he had no object in life. Winterborne was a better class +of companion than the doctor usually could get, and he at once pulled up and +asked him if he would like a drive through the wood that fine night. +</p> + +<p> +Giles seemed rather surprised at the doctor’s friendliness, but said that +he had no objection, and accordingly mounted beside Mr. Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +They drove along under the black boughs which formed a network upon the stars, +all the trees of a species alike in one respect, and no two of them alike in +another. Looking up as they passed under a horizontal bough they sometimes saw +objects like large tadpoles lodged diametrically across it, which Giles +explained to be pheasants there at roost; and they sometimes heard the report +of a gun, which reminded him that others knew what those tadpole shapes +represented as well as he. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the doctor said what he had been going to say for some time: +</p> + +<p> +“Is there a young lady staying in this neighborhood—a very +attractive girl—with a little white boa round her neck, and white fur +round her gloves?” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne of course knew in a moment that Grace, whom he had caught the +doctor peering at, was represented by these accessories. With a wary grimness, +partly in his character, partly induced by the circumstances, he evaded an +answer by saying, “I saw a young lady talking to Mrs. Charmond the other +day; perhaps it was she.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers concluded from this that Winterborne had not seen him looking over +the hedge. “It might have been,” he said. “She is quite a +gentlewoman—the one I mean. She cannot be a permanent resident in Hintock +or I should have seen her before. Nor does she look like one.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is not staying at Hintock House?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; it is closed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then perhaps she is staying at one of the cottages, or +farmhouses?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—you mistake. She was a different sort of girl +altogether.” As Giles was nobody, Fitzpiers treated him accordingly, and +apostrophized the night in continuation: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness,<br /> +A power, that from its objects scarcely drew<br /> +One impulse of her being—in her lightness<br /> +Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew,<br /> +Which wanders through the waste air’s pathless blue,<br /> +To nourish some far desert: she did seem<br /> +Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew,<br /> +Like the bright shade of some immortal dream<br /> +Which walks, when tempests sleep, the wave of life’s dark +stream.” +</p> + +<p> +The consummate charm of the lines seemed to Winterborne, though he divined that +they were a quotation, to be somehow the result of his lost love’s charms +upon Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to be mightily in love with her, sir,” he said, with a +sensation of heart-sickness, and more than ever resolved not to mention Grace +by name. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—I am not that, Winterborne; people living insulated, as I do +by the solitude of this place, get charged with emotive fluid like a Leyden-jar +with electric, for want of some conductor at hand to disperse it. Human love is +a subjective thing—the essence itself of man, as that great thinker +Spinoza the philosopher says—<i>ipsa hominis essentia</i>—it is joy +accompanied by an idea which we project against any suitable object in the line +of our vision, just as the rainbow iris is projected against an oak, ash, or +elm tree indifferently. So that if any other young lady had appeared instead of +the one who did appear, I should have felt just the same interest in her, and +have quoted precisely the same lines from Shelley about her, as about this one +I saw. Such miserable creatures of circumstance are we all!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it is what we call being in love down in these parts, whether or +no,” said Winterborne. +</p> + +<p> +“You are right enough if you admit that I am in love with something in my +own head, and no thing in itself outside it at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it part of a country doctor’s duties to learn that view of +things, may I ask, sir?” said Winterborne, adopting the Socratic +εἰρωνεία with such well-assumed +simplicity that Fitzpiers answered, readily, +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no. The real truth is, Winterborne, that medical practice in places +like this is a very rule-of-thumb matter; a bottle of bitter stuff for this and +that old woman—the bitterer the better—compounded from a few simple +stereotyped prescriptions; occasional attendance at births, where mere presence +is almost sufficient, so healthy and strong are the people; and a lance for an +abscess now and then. Investigation and experiment cannot be carried on without +more appliances than one has here—though I have attempted it a +little.” +</p> + +<p> +Giles did not enter into this view of the case; what he had been struck with +was the curious parallelism between Mr. Fitzpiers’s manner and +Grace’s, as shown by the fact of both of them straying into a subject of +discourse so engrossing to themselves that it made them forget it was foreign +to him. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing further passed between himself and the doctor in relation to Grace till +they were on their way back. They had stopped at a way-side inn for a glass of +brandy and cider hot, and when they were again in motion, Fitzpiers, possibly a +little warmed by the liquor, resumed the subject by saying, “I should +like very much to know who that young lady was.” +</p> + +<p> +“What difference can it make, if she’s only the tree your rainbow +falls on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! ha! True.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have no wife, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no wife, and no idea of one. I hope to do better things than +marry and settle in Hintock. Not but that it is well for a medical man to be +married, and sometimes, begad, ’twould be pleasant enough in this place, +with the wind roaring round the house, and the rain and the boughs beating +against it. I hear that you lost your life-holds by the death of South?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did. I lost in more ways than one.” +</p> + +<p> +They had reached the top of Hintock Lane or Street, if it could be called such +where three-quarters of the road-side consisted of copse and orchard. One of +the first houses to be passed was Melbury’s. A light was shining from a +bedroom window facing lengthwise of the lane. Winterborne glanced at it, and +saw what was coming. He had withheld an answer to the doctor’s inquiry to +hinder his knowledge of Grace; but, as he thought to himself, “who hath +gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment?” +he could not hinder what was doomed to arrive, and might just as well have been +outspoken. As they came up to the house, Grace’s figure was distinctly +visible, drawing the two white curtains together which were used here instead +of blinds. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there she is!” said Fitzpiers. “How does she come +there?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the most natural way in the world. It is her home. Mr. Melbury is her +father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, indeed—indeed—indeed! How comes he to have a daughter of +that stamp?” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne laughed coldly. “Won’t money do anything,” he +said, “if you’ve promising material to work upon? Why +shouldn’t a Hintock girl, taken early from home, and put under proper +instruction, become as finished as any other young lady, if she’s got +brains and good looks to begin with?” +</p> + +<p> +“No reason at all why she shouldn’t,” murmured the surgeon, +with reflective disappointment. “Only I didn’t anticipate quite +that kind of origin for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you think an inch or two less of her now.” There was a little +tremor in Winterborne’s voice as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the doctor, with recovered warmth, “I am not so +sure that I think less of her. At first it was a sort of blow; but, dammy! +I’ll stick up for her. She’s charming, every inch of her!” +</p> + +<p> +“So she is,” said Winterborne, “but not to me.” +</p> + +<p> +From this ambiguous expression of the reticent woodlander’s, Dr. +Fitzpiers inferred that Giles disliked Miss Melbury because of some haughtiness +in her bearing towards him, and had, on that account, withheld her name. The +supposition did not tend to diminish his admiration for her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<p> +Grace’s exhibition of herself, in the act of pulling-to the +window-curtains, had been the result of an unfortunate incident in the house +that day—nothing less than the illness of Grammer Oliver, a woman who had +never till now lain down for such a reason in her life. Like others to whom +unbroken years of health has made the idea of keeping their bed almost as +repugnant as death itself, she had continued on foot till she literally fell on +the floor; and though she had, as yet, been scarcely a day off duty, she had +sickened into quite a different personage from the independent Grammer of the +yard and spar-house. Ill as she was, on one point she was firm. On no account +would she see a doctor; in other words, Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +The room in which Grace had been discerned was not her own, but the old +woman’s. On the girl’s way to bed she had received a message from +Grammer, to the effect that she would much like to speak to her that night. +</p> + +<p> +Grace entered, and set the candle on a low chair beside the bed, so that the +profile of Grammer as she lay cast itself in a keen shadow upon the whitened +wall, her large head being still further magnified by an enormous turban, which +was, really, her petticoat wound in a wreath round her temples. Grace put the +room a little in order, and approaching the sick woman, said, “I am come, +Grammer, as you wish. Do let us send for the doctor before it gets +later.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not have him,” said Grammer Oliver, decisively. +</p> + +<p> +“Then somebody to sit up with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t abear it! No; I wanted to see you, Miss Grace, because +’ch have something on my mind. Dear Miss Grace, <i>I took that money of +the doctor, after all!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“What money?” +</p> + +<p> +“The ten pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace did not quite understand. +</p> + +<p> +“The ten pounds he offered me for my head, because I’ve a large +brain. I signed a paper when I took the money, not feeling concerned about it +at all. I have not liked to tell ye that it was really settled with him, +because you showed such horror at the notion. Well, having thought it over more +at length, I wish I hadn’t done it; and it weighs upon my mind. John +South’s death of fear about the tree makes me think that I shall die of +this....’Ch have been going to ask him again to let me off, but I +hadn’t the face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve spent some of the money—more’n two pounds +o’t. It do wherrit me terribly; and I shall die o’ the thought of +that paper I signed with my holy cross, as South died of his trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you ask him to burn the paper he will, I’m sure, and think no +more of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Ch have done it once already, miss. But he laughed cruel like. +‘Yours is such a fine brain, Grammer,’ ’er said, ‘that +science couldn’t afford to lose you. Besides, you’ve taken my +money.’...Don’t let your father know of this, please, on no account +whatever!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. I will let you have the money to return to him.” +</p> + +<p> +Grammer rolled her head negatively upon the pillow. “Even if I should be +well enough to take it to him, he won’t like it. Though why he should so +particular want to look into the works of a poor old woman’s head-piece +like mine when there’s so many other folks about, I don’t know. I +know how he’ll answer me: ‘A lonely person like you, +Grammer,’ er woll say. ‘What difference is it to you what becomes +of ye when the breath’s out of your body?’ Oh, it do trouble me! If +you only knew how he do chevy me round the chimmer in my dreams, you’d +pity me. How I could do it I can’t think! But ’ch was always so +rackless!...If I only had anybody to plead for me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Melbury would, I am sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; but he wouldn’t hearken to she! It wants a younger face than +hers to work upon such as he.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace started with comprehension. “You don’t think he would do it +for me?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, wouldn’t he!” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t go to him, Grammer, on any account. I don’t know +him at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very ungrateful, Grammer, to say that. But you are ill, I know, +and that’s why you speak so. Now believe me, you are not going to die +yet. Remember you told me yourself that you meant to keep him waiting many a +year.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, one can joke when one is well, even in old age; but in sickness +one’s gayety falters to grief; and that which seemed small looks large; +and the grim far-off seems near.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace’s eyes had tears in them. “I don’t like to go to him on +such an errand, Grammer,” she said, brokenly. “But I will, to ease +your mind.” +</p> + +<p> +It was with extreme reluctance that Grace cloaked herself next morning for the +undertaking. She was all the more indisposed to the journey by reason of +Grammer’s allusion to the effect of a pretty face upon Dr. Fitzpiers; and +hence she most illogically did that which, had the doctor never seen her, would +have operated to stultify the sole motive of her journey; that is to say, she +put on a woollen veil, which hid all her face except an occasional spark of her +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Her own wish that nothing should be known of this strange and grewsome +proceeding, no less than Grammer Oliver’s own desire, led Grace to take +every precaution against being discovered. She went out by the garden door as +the safest way, all the household having occupations at the other side. The +morning looked forbidding enough when she stealthily opened it. The battle +between frost and thaw was continuing in mid-air: the trees dripped on the +garden-plots, where no vegetables would grow for the dripping, though they were +planted year after year with that curious mechanical regularity of country +people in the face of hopelessness; the moss which covered the once broad +gravel terrace was swamped; and Grace stood irresolute. Then she thought of +poor Grammer, and her dreams of the doctor running after her, scalpel in hand, +and the possibility of a case so curiously similar to South’s ending in +the same way; thereupon she stepped out into the drizzle. +</p> + +<p> +The nature of her errand, and Grammer Oliver’s account of the compact she +had made, lent a fascinating horror to Grace’s conception of Fitzpiers. +She knew that he was a young man; but her single object in seeking an interview +with him put all considerations of his age and social aspect from her mind. +Standing as she stood, in Grammer Oliver’s shoes, he was simply a +remorseless Jove of the sciences, who would not have mercy, and would have +sacrifice; a man whom, save for this, she would have preferred to avoid +knowing. But since, in such a small village, it was improbable that any long +time could pass without their meeting, there was not much to deplore in her +having to meet him now. +</p> + +<p> +But, as need hardly be said, Miss Melbury’s view of the doctor as a +merciless, unwavering, irresistible scientist was not quite in accordance with +fact. The real Dr. Fitzpiers was a man of too many hobbies to show likelihood +of rising to any great eminence in the profession he had chosen, or even to +acquire any wide practice in the rural district he had marked out as his field +of survey for the present. In the course of a year his mind was accustomed to +pass in a grand solar sweep through all the zodiacal signs of the intellectual +heaven. Sometimes it was in the Ram, sometimes in the Bull; one month he would +be immersed in alchemy, another in poesy; one month in the Twins of astrology +and astronomy; then in the Crab of German literature and metaphysics. In +justice to him it must be stated that he took such studies as were immediately +related to his own profession in turn with the rest, and it had been in a month +of anatomical ardor without the possibility of a subject that he had proposed +to Grammer Oliver the terms she had mentioned to her mistress. +</p> + +<p> +As may be inferred from the tone of his conversation with Winterborne, he had +lately plunged into abstract philosophy with much zest; perhaps his keenly +appreciative, modern, unpractical mind found this a realm more to his taste +than any other. Though his aims were desultory, Fitzpiers’s mental +constitution was not without its admirable side; a keen inquirer he honestly +was, even if the midnight rays of his lamp, visible so far through the trees of +Hintock, lighted rank literatures of emotion and passion as often as, or +oftener than, the books and <i>matériel</i> of science. +</p> + +<p> +But whether he meditated the Muses or the philosophers, the loneliness of +Hintock life was beginning to tell upon his impressionable nature. Winter in a +solitary house in the country, without society, is tolerable, nay, even +enjoyable and delightful, given certain conditions, but these are not the +conditions which attach to the life of a professional man who drops down into +such a place by mere accident. They were present to the lives of Winterborne, +Melbury, and Grace; but not to the doctor’s. They are old +association—an almost exhaustive biographical or historical acquaintance +with every object, animate and inanimate, within the observer’s horizon. +He must know all about those invisible ones of the days gone by, whose feet +have traversed the fields which look so gray from his windows; recall whose +creaking plough has turned those sods from time to time; whose hands planted +the trees that form a crest to the opposite hill; whose horses and hounds have +torn through that underwood; what birds affect that particular brake; what +domestic dramas of love, jealousy, revenge, or disappointment have been enacted +in the cottages, the mansion, the street, or on the green. The spot may have +beauty, grandeur, salubrity, convenience; but if it lack memories it will +ultimately pall upon him who settles there without opportunity of intercourse +with his kind. +</p> + +<p> +In such circumstances, maybe, an old man dreams of an ideal friend, till he +throws himself into the arms of any impostor who chooses to wear that title on +his face. A young man may dream of an ideal friend likewise, but some humor of +the blood will probably lead him to think rather of an ideal mistress, and at +length the rustle of a woman’s dress, the sound of her voice, or the +transit of her form across the field of his vision, will enkindle his soul with +a flame that blinds his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The discovery of the attractive Grace’s name and family would have been +enough in other circumstances to lead the doctor, if not to put her personality +out of his head, to change the character of his interest in her. Instead of +treasuring her image as a rarity, he would at most have played with it as a +toy. He was that kind of a man. But situated here he could not go so far as +amative cruelty. He dismissed all reverential thought about her, but he could +not help taking her seriously. +</p> + +<p> +He went on to imagine the impossible. So far, indeed, did he go in this futile +direction that, as others are wont to do, he constructed dialogues and scenes +in which Grace had turned out to be the mistress of Hintock Manor-house, the +mysterious Mrs. Charmond, particularly ready and willing to be wooed by himself +and nobody else. “Well, she isn’t that,” he said, finally. +“But she’s a very sweet, nice, exceptional girl.” +</p> + +<p> +The next morning he breakfasted alone, as usual. It was snowing with a +fine-flaked desultoriness just sufficient to make the woodland gray, without +ever achieving whiteness. There was not a single letter for Fitzpiers, only a +medical circular and a weekly newspaper. +</p> + +<p> +To sit before a large fire on such mornings, and read, and gradually acquire +energy till the evening came, and then, with lamp alight, and feeling full of +vigor, to pursue some engrossing subject or other till the small hours, had +hitherto been his practice. But to-day he could not settle into his chair. That +self-contained position he had lately occupied, in which the only attention +demanded was the concentration of the inner eye, all outer regard being quite +gratuitous, seemed to have been taken by insidious stratagem, and for the first +time he had an interest outside the house. He walked from one window to +another, and became aware that the most irksome of solitudes is not the +solitude of remoteness, but that which is just outside desirable company. +</p> + +<p> +The breakfast hour went by heavily enough, and the next followed, in the same +half-snowy, half-rainy style, the weather now being the inevitable relapse +which sooner or later succeeds a time too radiant for the season, such as they +had enjoyed in the late midwinter at Hintock. To people at home there these +changeful tricks had their interests; the strange mistakes that some of the +more sanguine trees had made in budding before their month, to be incontinently +glued up by frozen thawings now; the similar sanguine errors of impulsive birds +in framing nests that were now swamped by snow-water, and other such incidents, +prevented any sense of wearisomeness in the minds of the natives. But these +were features of a world not familiar to Fitzpiers, and the inner visions to +which he had almost exclusively attended having suddenly failed in their power +to absorb him, he felt unutterably dreary. +</p> + +<p> +He wondered how long Miss Melbury was going to stay in Hintock. The season was +unpropitious for accidental encounters with her out-of-doors, and except by +accident he saw not how they were to become acquainted. One thing was +clear—any acquaintance with her could only, with a due regard to his +future, be casual, at most of the nature of a flirtation; for he had high aims, +and they would some day lead him into other spheres than this. +</p> + +<p> +Thus desultorily thinking he flung himself down upon the couch, which, as in +many draughty old country houses, was constructed with a hood, being in fact a +legitimate development from the settle. He tried to read as he reclined, but +having sat up till three o’clock that morning, the book slipped from his +hand and he fell asleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<p> +It was at this time that Grace approached the house. Her knock, always soft in +virtue of her nature, was softer to-day by reason of her strange errand. +However, it was heard by the farmer’s wife who kept the house, and Grace +was admitted. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. She had no doubt that this was +the doctor. Awaken him herself she could not, and her immediate impulse was to +go and pull the broad ribbon with a brass rosette which hung at one side of the +fireplace. But expecting the landlady to re-enter in a moment she abandoned +this intention, and stood gazing in great embarrassment at the reclining +philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +The windows of Fitzpiers’s soul being at present shuttered, he probably +appeared less impressive than in his hours of animation; but the light +abstracted from his material presence by sleep was more than counterbalanced by +the mysterious influence of that state, in a stranger, upon the consciousness +of a beholder so sensitive. So far as she could criticise at all, she became +aware that she had encountered a specimen of creation altogether unusual in +that locality. The occasions on which Grace had observed men of this stamp were +when she had been far removed away from Hintock, and even then such examples as +had met her eye were at a distance, and mainly of coarser fibre than the one +who now confronted her. +</p> + +<p> +She nervously wondered why the woman had not discovered her mistake and +returned, and went again towards the bell-pull. Approaching the chimney her +back was to Fitzpiers, but she could see him in the glass. An indescribable +thrill passed through her as she perceived that the eyes of the reflected image +were open, gazing wonderingly at her, and under the curious unexpectedness of +the sight she became as if spellbound, almost powerless to turn her head and +regard the original. However, by an effort she did turn, when there he lay +asleep the same as before. +</p> + +<p> +Her startled perplexity as to what he could be meaning was sufficient to lead +her to precipitately abandon her errand. She crossed quickly to the door, +opened and closed it noiselessly, and went out of the house unobserved. By the +time that she had gone down the path and through the garden door into the lane +she had recovered her equanimity. Here, screened by the hedge, she stood and +considered a while. +</p> + +<p> +Drip, drip, drip, fell the rain upon her umbrella and around; she had come out +on such a morning because of the seriousness of the matter in hand; yet now she +had allowed her mission to be stultified by a momentary tremulousness +concerning an incident which perhaps had meant nothing after all. +</p> + +<p> +In the mean time her departure from the room, stealthy as it had been, had +roused Fitzpiers, and he sat up. In the reflection from the mirror which Grace +had beheld there was no mystery; he had opened his eyes for a few moments, but +had immediately relapsed into unconsciousness, if, indeed, he had ever been +positively awake. That somebody had just left the room he was certain, and that +the lovely form which seemed to have visited him in a dream was no less than +the real presentation of the person departed he could hardly doubt. +</p> + +<p> +Looking out of the window a few minutes later, down the box-edged gravel-path +which led to the bottom, he saw the garden door gently open, and through it +enter the young girl of his thoughts, Grace having just at this juncture +determined to return and attempt the interview a second time. That he saw her +coming instead of going made him ask himself if his first impression of her +were not a dream indeed. She came hesitatingly along, carrying her umbrella so +low over her head that he could hardly see her face. When she reached the point +where the raspberry bushes ended and the strawberry bed began, she made a +little pause. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers feared that she might not be coming to him even now, and hastily +quitting the room, he ran down the path to meet her. The nature of her errand +he could not divine, but he was prepared to give her any amount of +encouragement. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg pardon, Miss Melbury,” he said. “I saw you from the +window, and fancied you might imagine that I was not at home—if it is I +you were coming for.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was coming to speak one word to you, nothing more,” she replied. +“And I can say it here.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. Please do come in. Well, then, if you will not come into the +house, come as far as the porch.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus pressed she went on to the porch, and they stood together inside it, +Fitzpiers closing her umbrella for her. +</p> + +<p> +“I have merely a request or petition to make,” she said. “My +father’s servant is ill—a woman you know—and her illness is +serious.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to hear it. You wish me to come and see her at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I particularly wish you not to come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and she wishes the same. It would make her seriously worse if you +were to come. It would almost kill her....My errand is of a peculiar and +awkward nature. It is concerning a subject which weighs on her mind—that +unfortunate arrangement she made with you, that you might have her +body—after death.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Grammer Oliver, the old woman with the fine head. Seriously ill, is +she!” +</p> + +<p> +“And <i>so</i> disturbed by her rash compact! I have brought the money +back—will you please return to her the agreement she signed?” Grace +held out to him a couple of five-pound notes which she had kept ready tucked in +her glove. +</p> + +<p> +Without replying or considering the notes, Fitzpiers allowed his thoughts to +follow his eyes, and dwell upon Grace’s personality, and the sudden close +relation in which he stood to her. The porch was narrow; the rain increased. It +ran off the porch and dripped on the creepers, and from the creepers upon the +edge of Grace’s cloak and skirts. +</p> + +<p> +“The rain is wetting your dress; please do come in,” he said. +“It really makes my heart ache to let you stay here.” +</p> + +<p> +Immediately inside the front door was the door of his sitting-room; he flung it +open, and stood in a coaxing attitude. Try how she would, Grace could not +resist the supplicatory mandate written in the face and manner of this man, and +distressful resignation sat on her as she glided past him into the +room—brushing his coat with her elbow by reason of the narrowness. +</p> + +<p> +He followed her, shut the door—which she somehow had hoped he would leave +open—and placing a chair for her, sat down. The concern which Grace felt +at the development of these commonplace incidents was, of course, mainly owing +to the strange effect upon her nerves of that view of him in the mirror gazing +at her with open eyes when she had thought him sleeping, which made her fancy +that his slumber might have been a feint based on inexplicable reasons. +</p> + +<p> +She again proffered the notes; he awoke from looking at her as at a piece of +live statuary, and listened deferentially as she said, “Will you then +reconsider, and cancel the bond which poor Grammer Oliver so foolishly +gave?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll cancel it without reconsideration. Though you will allow me +to have my own opinion about her foolishness. Grammer is a very wise woman, and +she was as wise in that as in other things. You think there was something very +fiendish in the compact, do you not, Miss Melbury? But remember that the most +eminent of our surgeons in past times have entered into such agreements.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not fiendish—strange.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that may be, since strangeness is not in the nature of a thing, but +in its relation to something extrinsic—in this case an unessential +observer.” +</p> + +<p> +He went to his desk, and searching a while found a paper, which be unfolded and +brought to her. A thick cross appeared in ink at the bottom—evidently +from the hand of Grammer. Grace put the paper in her pocket with a look of much +relief. +</p> + +<p> +As Fitzpiers did not take up the money (half of which had come from +Grace’s own purse), she pushed it a little nearer to him. “No, no. +I shall not take it from the old woman,” he said. “It is more +strange than the fact of a surgeon arranging to obtain a subject for dissection +that our acquaintance should be formed out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid you think me uncivil in showing my dislike to the notion. +But I did not mean to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, no.” He looked at her, as he had done before, with puzzled +interest. “I cannot think, I cannot think,” he murmured. +“Something bewilders me greatly.” He still reflected and hesitated. +“Last night I sat up very late,” he at last went on, “and on +that account I fell into a little nap on that couch about half an hour ago. And +during my few minutes of unconsciousness I dreamed—what do you +think?—that you stood in the room.” +</p> + +<p> +Should she tell? She merely blushed. +</p> + +<p> +“You may imagine,” Fitzpiers continued, now persuaded that it had, +indeed, been a dream, “that I should not have dreamed of you without +considerable thinking about you first.” +</p> + +<p> +He could not be acting; of that she felt assured. +</p> + +<p> +“I fancied in my vision that you stood there,” he said, pointing to +where she had paused. “I did not see you directly, but reflected in the +glass. I thought, what a lovely creature! The design is for once carried out. +Nature has at last recovered her lost union with the Idea! My thoughts ran in +that direction because I had been reading the work of a transcendental +philosopher last night; and I dare say it was the dose of Idealism that I +received from it that made me scarcely able to distinguish between reality and +fancy. I almost wept when I awoke, and found that you had appeared to me in +Time, but not in Space, alas!” +</p> + +<p> +At moments there was something theatrical in the delivery of Fitzpiers’s +effusion; yet it would have been inexact to say that it was intrinsically +theatrical. It often happens that in situations of unrestraint, where there is +no thought of the eye of criticism, real feeling glides into a mode of +manifestation not easily distinguishable from rodomontade. A veneer of +affectation overlies a bulk of truth, with the evil consequence, if perceived, +that the substance is estimated by the superficies, and the whole rejected. +</p> + +<p> +Grace, however, was no specialist in men’s manners, and she admired the +sentiment without thinking of the form. And she was embarrassed: “lovely +creature” made explanation awkward to her gentle modesty. +</p> + +<p> +“But can it be,” said he, suddenly, “that you really were +here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have to confess that I have been in the room once before,” +faltered she. “The woman showed me in, and went away to fetch you; but as +she did not return, I left.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you saw me asleep,” he murmured, with the faintest show of +humiliation. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—<i>if</i> you were asleep, and did not deceive me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you say if?” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw your eyes open in the glass, but as they were closed when I looked +round upon you, I thought you were perhaps deceiving me. +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” said Fitzpiers, fervently—“never could I +deceive you.” +</p> + +<p> +Foreknowledge to the distance of a year or so in either of them might have +spoiled the effect of that pretty speech. Never deceive her! But they knew +nothing, and the phrase had its day. +</p> + +<p> +Grace began now to be anxious to terminate the interview, but the compelling +power of Fitzpiers’s atmosphere still held her there. She was like an +inexperienced actress who, having at last taken up her position on the boards, +and spoken her speeches, does not know how to move off. The thought of Grammer +occurred to her. “I’ll go at once and tell poor Grammer of your +generosity,” she said. “It will relieve her at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Grammer’s a nervous disease, too—how singular!” he +answered, accompanying her to the door. “One moment; look at +this—it is something which may interest you.” +</p> + +<p> +He had thrown open the door on the other side of the passage, and she saw a +microscope on the table of the confronting room. “Look into it, please; +you’ll be interested,” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +She applied her eye, and saw the usual circle of light patterned all over with +a cellular tissue of some indescribable sort. “What do you think that +is?” said Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +She did not know. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a fragment of old John South’s brain, which I am +investigating.” +</p> + +<p> +She started back, not with aversion, but with wonder as to how it should have +got there. Fitzpiers laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Here am I,” he said, “endeavoring to carry on simultaneously +the study of physiology and transcendental philosophy, the material world and +the ideal, so as to discover if possible a point of contrast between them; and +your finer sense is quite offended!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, Mr. Fitzpiers,” said Grace, earnestly. “It is not so +at all. I know from seeing your light at night how deeply you meditate and +work. Instead of condemning you for your studies, I admire you very +much!” +</p> + +<p> +Her face, upturned from the microscope, was so sweet, sincere, and +self-forgetful in its aspect that the susceptible Fitzpiers more than wished to +annihilate the lineal yard which separated it from his own. Whether anything of +the kind showed in his eyes or not, Grace remained no longer at the microscope, +but quickly went her way into the rain. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<p> +Instead of resuming his investigation of South’s brain, which perhaps was +not so interesting under the microscope as might have been expected from the +importance of that organ in life, Fitzpiers reclined and ruminated on the +interview. Grace’s curious susceptibility to his presence, though it was +as if the currents of her life were disturbed rather than attracted by him, +added a special interest to her general charm. Fitzpiers was in a distinct +degree scientific, being ready and zealous to interrogate all physical +manifestations, but primarily he was an idealist. He believed that behind the +imperfect lay the perfect; that rare things were to be discovered amid a bulk +of commonplace; that results in a new and untried case might be different from +those in other cases where the conditions had been precisely similar. Regarding +his own personality as one of unbounded possibilities, because it was his +own—notwithstanding that the factors of his life had worked out a sorry +product for thousands—he saw nothing but what was regular in his +discovery at Hintock of an altogether exceptional being of the other sex, who +for nobody else would have had any existence. +</p> + +<p> +One habit of Fitzpiers’s—commoner in dreamers of more advanced age +than in men of his years—was that of talking to himself. He paced round +his room with a selective tread upon the more prominent blooms of the carpet, +and murmured, “This phenomenal girl will be the light of my life while I +am at Hintock; and the special beauty of the situation is that our attitude and +relations to each other will be purely spiritual. Socially we can never be +intimate. Anything like matrimonial intentions towards her, charming as she is, +would be absurd. They would spoil the ethereal character of my regard. And, +indeed, I have other aims on the practical side of my life.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers bestowed a regulation thought on the advantageous marriage he was +bound to make with a woman of family as good as his own, and of purse much +longer. But as an object of contemplation for the present, as objective spirit +rather than corporeal presence, Grace Melbury would serve to keep his soul +alive, and to relieve the monotony of his days. +</p> + +<p> +His first notion—acquired from the mere sight of her without +converse—that of an idle and vulgar flirtation with a +timber-merchant’s pretty daughter, grated painfully upon him now that he +had found what Grace intrinsically was. Personal intercourse with such as she +could take no lower form than intellectual communion, and mutual explorations +of the world of thought. Since he could not call at her father’s, having +no practical views, cursory encounters in the lane, in the wood, coming and +going to and from church, or in passing her dwelling, were what the +acquaintance would have to feed on. +</p> + +<p> +Such anticipated glimpses of her now and then realized themselves in the event. +Rencounters of not more than a minute’s duration, frequently repeated, +will build up mutual interest, even an intimacy, in a lonely place. Theirs grew +as imperceptibly as the tree-twigs budded. There never was a particular moment +at which it could be said they became friends; yet a delicate understanding now +existed between two who in the winter had been strangers. +</p> + +<p> +Spring weather came on rather suddenly, the unsealing of buds that had long +been swollen accomplishing itself in the space of one warm night. The rush of +sap in the veins of the trees could almost be heard. The flowers of late April +took up a position unseen, and looked as if they had been blooming a long +while, though there had been no trace of them the day before yesterday; birds +began not to mind getting wet. In-door people said they had heard the +nightingale, to which out-door people replied contemptuously that they had +heard him a fortnight before. +</p> + +<p> +The young doctor’s practice being scarcely so large as a London +surgeon’s, he frequently walked in the wood. Indeed such practice as he +had he did not follow up with the assiduity that would have been necessary for +developing it to exceptional proportions. One day, book in hand, he walked in a +part of the wood where the trees were mainly oaks. It was a calm afternoon, and +there was everywhere around that sign of great undertakings on the part of +vegetable nature which is apt to fill reflective human beings who are not +undertaking much themselves with a sudden uneasiness at the contrast. He heard +in the distance a curious sound, something like the quack of a duck, which, +though it was common enough here about this time, was not common to him. +</p> + +<p> +Looking through the trees Fitzpiers soon perceived the origin of the noise. The +barking season had just commenced, and what he had heard was the tear of the +ripping tool as it ploughed its way along the sticky parting between the trunk +and the rind. Melbury did a large business in bark, and as he was Grace’s +father, and possibly might be found on the spot, Fitzpiers was attracted to the +scene even more than he might have been by its intrinsic interest. When he got +nearer he recognized among the workmen the two Timothys, and Robert Creedle, +who probably had been “lent” by Winterborne; Marty South also +assisted. +</p> + +<p> +Each tree doomed to this flaying process was first attacked by Creedle. With a +small billhook he carefully freed the collar of the tree from twigs and patches +of moss which incrusted it to a height of a foot or two above the ground, an +operation comparable to the “little toilet” of the +executioner’s victim. After this it was barked in its erect position to a +point as high as a man could reach. If a fine product of vegetable nature could +ever be said to look ridiculous it was the case now, when the oak stood +naked-legged, and as if ashamed, till the axe-man came and cut a ring round it, +and the two Timothys finished the work with the crosscut-saw. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as it had fallen the barkers attacked it like locusts, and in a short +time not a particle of rind was left on the trunk and larger limbs. Marty South +was an adept at peeling the upper parts, and there she stood encaged amid the +mass of twigs and buds like a great bird, running her tool into the smallest +branches, beyond the farthest points to which the skill and patience of the men +enabled them to proceed—branches which, in their lifetime, had swayed +high above the bulk of the wood, and caught the latest and earliest rays of the +sun and moon while the lower part of the forest was still in darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to have a better instrument than they, Marty,” said +Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” she said, holding up the tool—a horse’s +leg-bone fitted into a handle and filed to an edge—“’tis only +that they’ve less patience with the twigs, because their time is worth +more than mine.” +</p> + +<p> +A little shed had been constructed on the spot, of thatched hurdles and boughs, +and in front of it was a fire, over which a kettle sung. Fitzpiers sat down +inside the shelter, and went on with his reading, except when he looked up to +observe the scene and the actors. The thought that he might settle here and +become welded in with this sylvan life by marrying Grace Melbury crossed his +mind for a moment. Why should he go farther into the world than where he was? +The secret of quiet happiness lay in limiting the ideas and aspirations; these +men’s thoughts were conterminous with the margin of the Hintock +woodlands, and why should not his be likewise limited—a small practice +among the people around him being the bound of his desires? +</p> + +<p> +Presently Marty South discontinued her operations upon the quivering boughs, +came out from the reclining oak, and prepared tea. When it was ready the men +were called; and Fitzpiers being in a mood to join, sat down with them. +</p> + +<p> +The latent reason of his lingering here so long revealed itself when the faint +creaking of the joints of a vehicle became audible, and one of the men said, +“Here’s he.” Turning their heads they saw Melbury’s gig +approaching, the wheels muffled by the yielding moss. +</p> + +<p> +The timber-merchant was on foot leading the horse, looking back at every few +steps to caution his daughter, who kept her seat, where and how to duck her +head so as to avoid the overhanging branches. They stopped at the spot where +the bark-ripping had been temporarily suspended; Melbury cursorily examined the +heaps of bark, and drawing near to where the workmen were sitting down, +accepted their shouted invitation to have a dish of tea, for which purpose he +hitched the horse to a bough. Grace declined to take any of their beverage, and +remained in her place in the vehicle, looking dreamily at the sunlight that +came in thin threads through the hollies with which the oaks were interspersed. +</p> + +<p> +When Melbury stepped up close to the shelter, he for the first time perceived +that the doctor was present, and warmly appreciated Fitzpiers’s +invitation to sit down on the log beside him. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless my heart, who would have thought of finding you here,” he +said, obviously much pleased at the circumstance. “I wonder now if my +daughter knows you are so nigh at hand. I don’t expect she do.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked out towards the gig wherein Grace sat, her face still turned in the +opposite direction. “She doesn’t see us. Well, never mind: let her +be.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace was indeed quite unconscious of Fitzpiers’s propinquity. She was +thinking of something which had little connection with the scene before +her—thinking of her friend, lost as soon as found, Mrs. Charmond; of her +capricious conduct, and of the contrasting scenes she was possibly enjoying at +that very moment in other climes, to which Grace herself had hoped to be +introduced by her friend’s means. She wondered if this patronizing lady +would return to Hintock during the summer, and whether the acquaintance which +had been nipped on the last occasion of her residence there would develop on +the next. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury told ancient timber-stories as he sat, relating them directly to +Fitzpiers, and obliquely to the men, who had heard them often before. Marty, +who poured out tea, was just saying, “I think I’ll take out a cup +to Miss Grace,” when they heard a clashing of the gig-harness, and +turning round Melbury saw that the horse had become restless, and was jerking +about the vehicle in a way which alarmed its occupant, though she refrained +from screaming. Melbury jumped up immediately, but not more quickly than +Fitzpiers; and while her father ran to the horse’s head and speedily +began to control him, Fitzpiers was alongside the gig assisting Grace to +descend. Her surprise at his appearance was so great that, far from making a +calm and independent descent, she was very nearly lifted down in his arms. He +relinquished her when she touched ground, and hoped she was not frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, not much,” she managed to say. “There was no +danger—unless he had run under the trees where the boughs are low enough +to hit my head.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which was by no means an impossibility, and justifies any amount of +alarm.” +</p> + +<p> +He referred to what he thought he saw written in her face, and she could not +tell him that this had little to do with the horse, but much with himself. His +contiguity had, in fact, the same effect upon her as on those former occasions +when he had come closer to her than usual—that of producing in her an +unaccountable tendency to tearfulness. Melbury soon put the horse to rights, +and seeing that Grace was safe, turned again to the work-people. His +daughter’s nervous distress had passed off in a few moments, and she said +quite gayly to Fitzpiers as she walked with him towards the group, +“There’s destiny in it, you see. I was doomed to join in your +picnic, although I did not intend to do so.” +</p> + +<p> +Marty prepared her a comfortable place, and she sat down in the circle, and +listened to Fitzpiers while he drew from her father and the bark-rippers sundry +narratives of their fathers’, their grandfathers’, and their own +adventures in these woods; of the mysterious sights they had seen—only to +be accounted for by supernatural agency; of white witches and black witches; +and the standard story of the spirits of the two brothers who had fought and +fallen, and had haunted Hintock House till they were exorcised by the priest, +and compelled to retreat to a swamp in this very wood, whence they were +returning to their old quarters at the rate of a cock’s stride every +New-year’s Day, old style; hence the local saying, “On +New-year’s tide, a cock’s stride.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a pleasant time. The smoke from the little fire of peeled sticks rose +between the sitters and the sunlight, and behind its blue veil stretched the +naked arms of the prostrate trees. The smell of the uncovered sap mingled with +the smell of the burning wood, and the sticky inner surface of the scattered +bark glistened as it revealed its pale madder hues to the eye. Melbury was so +highly satisfied at having Fitzpiers as a sort of guest that he would have sat +on for any length of time, but Grace, on whom Fitzpiers’s eyes only too +frequently alighted, seemed to think it incumbent upon her to make a show of +going; and her father thereupon accompanied her to the vehicle. +</p> + +<p> +As the doctor had helped her out of it he appeared to think that he had +excellent reasons for helping her in, and performed the attention lingeringly +enough. +</p> + +<p> +“What were you almost in tears about just now?” he asked, softly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she said: and the words were strictly true. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury mounted on the other side, and they drove on out of the grove, their +wheels silently crushing delicate-patterned mosses, hyacinths, primroses, +lords-and-ladies, and other strange and ordinary plants, and cracking up little +sticks that lay across the track. Their way homeward ran along the crest of a +lofty hill, whence on the right they beheld a wide valley, differing both in +feature and atmosphere from that of the Hintock precincts. It was the cider +country, which met the woodland district on the axis of this hill. Over the +vale the air was blue as sapphire—such a blue as outside that +apple-valley was never seen. Under the blue the orchards were in a blaze of +bloom, some of the richly flowered trees running almost up to where they drove +along. Over a gate which opened down the incline a man leaned on his arms, +regarding this fair promise so intently that he did not observe their passing. +</p> + +<p> +“That was Giles,” said Melbury, when they had gone by. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it? Poor Giles,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“All that blooth means heavy autumn work for him and his hands. If no +blight happens before the setting the apple yield will be such as we have not +had for years.” +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, in the wood they had come from, the men had sat on so long that they +were indisposed to begin work again that evening; they were paid by the ton, +and their time for labor was as they chose. They placed the last gatherings of +bark in rows for the curers, which led them farther and farther away from the +shed; and thus they gradually withdrew as the sun went down. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers lingered yet. He had opened his book again, though he could hardly +see a word in it, and sat before the dying fire, scarcely knowing of the +men’s departure. He dreamed and mused till his consciousness seemed to +occupy the whole space of the woodland around, so little was there of jarring +sight or sound to hinder perfect unity with the sentiment of the place. The +idea returned upon him of sacrificing all practical aims to live in calm +contentment here, and instead of going on elaborating new conceptions with +infinite pains, to accept quiet domesticity according to oldest and homeliest +notions. These reflections detained him till the wood was embrowned with the +coming night, and the shy little bird of this dusky time had begun to pour out +all the intensity of his eloquence from a bush not very far off. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers’s eyes commanded as much of the ground in front as was open. +Entering upon this he saw a figure, whose direction of movement was towards the +spot where he sat. The surgeon was quite shrouded from observation by the +recessed shadow of the hut, and there was no reason why he should move till the +stranger had passed by. The shape resolved itself into a woman’s; she was +looking on the ground, and walking slowly as if searching for something that +had been lost, her course being precisely that of Mr. Melbury’s gig. +Fitzpiers by a sort of divination jumped to the idea that the figure was +Grace’s; her nearer approach made the guess a certainty. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, she was looking for something; and she came round by the prostrate trees +that would have been invisible but for the white nakedness which enabled her to +avoid them easily. Thus she approached the heap of ashes, and acting upon what +was suggested by a still shining ember or two, she took a stick and stirred the +heap, which thereupon burst into a flame. On looking around by the light thus +obtained she for the first time saw the illumined face of Fitzpiers, precisely +in the spot where she had left him. +</p> + +<p> +Grace gave a start and a scream: the place had been associated with him in her +thoughts, but she had not expected to find him there still. Fitzpiers lost not +a moment in rising and going to her side. +</p> + +<p> +“I frightened you dreadfully, I know,” he said. “I ought to +have spoken; but I did not at first expect it to be you. I have been sitting +here ever since.” +</p> + +<p> +He was actually supporting her with his arm, as though under the impression +that she was quite overcome, and in danger of falling. As soon as she could +collect her ideas she gently withdrew from his grasp, and explained what she +had returned for: in getting up or down from the gig, or when sitting by the +hut fire, she had dropped her purse. +</p> + +<p> +“Now we will find it,” said Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +He threw an armful of last year’s leaves on to the fire, which made the +flame leap higher, and the encompassing shades to weave themselves into a +denser contrast, turning eve into night in a moment. By this radiance they +groped about on their hands and knees, till Fitzpiers rested on his elbow, and +looked at Grace. “We must always meet in odd circumstances,” he +said; “and this is one of the oddest. I wonder if it means +anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I am sure it doesn’t,” said Grace in haste, quickly +assuming an erect posture. “Pray don’t say it any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope there was not much money in the purse,” said Fitzpiers, +rising to his feet more slowly, and brushing the leaves from his trousers. +</p> + +<p> +“Scarcely any. I cared most about the purse itself, because it was given +me. Indeed, money is of little more use at Hintock than on Crusoe’s +island; there’s hardly any way of spending it.” +</p> + +<p> +They had given up the search when Fitzpiers discerned something by his foot. +“Here it is,” he said, “so that your father, mother, friend, +or <i>admirer</i> will not have his or her feelings hurt by a sense of your +negligence after all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he knows nothing of what I do now.” +</p> + +<p> +“The admirer?” said Fitzpiers, slyly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know if you would call him that,” said Grace, with +simplicity. “The admirer is a superficial, conditional creature, and this +person is quite different.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has all the cardinal virtues.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps—though I don’t know them precisely.” +</p> + +<p> +“You unconsciously practise them, Miss Melbury, which is better. +According to Schleiermacher they are Self-control, Perseverance, Wisdom, and +Love; and his is the best list that I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid poor—” She was going to say that she feared +Winterborne—the giver of the purse years before—had not much +perseverance, though he had all the other three; but she determined to go no +further in this direction, and was silent. +</p> + +<p> +These half-revelations made a perceptible difference in Fitzpiers. His sense of +personal superiority wasted away, and Grace assumed in his eyes the true aspect +of a mistress in her lover’s regard. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Melbury,” he said, suddenly, “I divine that this +virtuous man you mention has been refused by you?” +</p> + +<p> +She could do no otherwise than admit it. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not inquire without good reason. God forbid that I should kneel in +another’s place at any shrine unfairly. But, my dear Miss Melbury, now +that he is gone, may I draw near?” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I can’t say anything about that!” she cried, +quickly. “Because when a man has been refused you feel pity for him, and +like him more than you did before.” +</p> + +<p> +This increasing complication added still more value to Grace in the +surgeon’s eyes: it rendered her adorable. “But cannot you +say?” he pleaded, distractedly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather not—I think I must go home at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” said Fitzpiers. But as he did not move she felt it +awkward to walk straight away from him; and so they stood silently together. A +diversion was created by the accident of two birds, that had either been +roosting above their heads or nesting there, tumbling one over the other into +the hot ashes at their feet, apparently engrossed in a desperate quarrel that +prevented the use of their wings. They speedily parted, however, and flew up, +and were seen no more. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the end of what is called love!” said some one. +</p> + +<p> +The speaker was neither Grace nor Fitzpiers, but Marty South, who approached +with her face turned up to the sky in her endeavor to trace the birds. Suddenly +perceiving Grace, she exclaimed, “Oh, Miss Melbury! I have been following +they pigeons, and didn’t see you. And here’s Mr. +Winterborne!” she continued, shyly, as she looked towards Fitzpiers, who +stood in the background. +</p> + +<p> +“Marty,” Grace interrupted. “I want you to walk home with +me—will you? Come along.” And without lingering longer she took +hold of Marty’s arm and led her away. +</p> + +<p> +They went between the spectral arms of the peeled trees as they lay, and onward +among the growing trees, by a path where there were no oaks, and no barking, +and no Fitzpiers—nothing but copse-wood, between which the primroses +could be discerned in pale bunches. “I didn’t know Mr. Winterborne +was there,” said Marty, breaking the silence when they had nearly reached +Grace’s door. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor was he,” said Grace. +</p> + +<p> +“But, Miss Melbury, I saw him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Grace. “It was somebody else. Giles Winterborne is +nothing to me.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<p> +The leaves over Hintock grew denser in their substance, and the woodland seemed +to change from an open filigree to a solid opaque body of infinitely larger +shape and importance. The boughs cast green shades, which hurt the complexion +of the girls who walked there; and a fringe of them which overhung Mr. +Melbury’s garden dripped on his seed-plots when it rained, pitting their +surface all over as with pock-marks, till Melbury declared that gardens in such +a place were no good at all. The two trees that had creaked all the winter left +off creaking, the whir of the night-jar, however, forming a very satisfactory +continuation of uncanny music from that quarter. Except at mid-day the sun was +not seen complete by the Hintock people, but rather in the form of numerous +little stars staring through the leaves. +</p> + +<p> +Such an appearance it had on Midsummer Eve of this year, and as the hour grew +later, and nine o’clock drew on, the irradiation of the daytime became +broken up by weird shadows and ghostly nooks of indistinctness. Imagination +could trace upon the trunks and boughs strange faces and figures shaped by the +dying lights; the surfaces of the holly-leaves would here and there shine like +peeping eyes, while such fragments of the sky as were visible between the +trunks assumed the aspect of sheeted forms and cloven tongues. This was before +the moonrise. Later on, when that planet was getting command of the upper +heaven, and consequently shining with an unbroken face into such open glades as +there were in the neighborhood of the hamlet, it became apparent that the +margin of the wood which approached the timber-merchant’s premises was +not to be left to the customary stillness of that reposeful time. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers having heard a voice or voices, was looking over his garden +gate—where he now looked more frequently than into his +books—fancying that Grace might be abroad with some friends. He was now +irretrievably committed in heart to Grace Melbury, though he was by no means +sure that she was so far committed to him. That the Idea had for once +completely fulfilled itself in the objective substance—which he had +hitherto deemed an impossibility—he was enchanted enough to fancy must be +the case at last. It was not Grace who had passed, however, but several of the +ordinary village girls in a group—some steadily walking, some in a mood +of wild gayety. He quietly asked his landlady, who was also in the garden, what +these girls were intending, and she informed him that it being Old Midsummer +Eve, they were about to attempt some spell or enchantment which would afford +them a glimpse of their future partners for life. She declared it to be an +ungodly performance, and one which she for her part would never countenance; +saying which, she entered her house and retired to bed. +</p> + +<p> +The young man lit a cigar and followed the bevy of maidens slowly up the road. +They had turned into the wood at an opening between Melbury’s and Marty +South’s; but Fitzpiers could easily track them by their voices, low as +they endeavored to keep their tones. +</p> + +<p> +In the mean time other inhabitants of Little Hintock had become aware of the +nocturnal experiment about to be tried, and were also sauntering stealthily +after the frisky maidens. Miss Melbury had been informed by Marty South during +the day of the proposed peep into futurity, and, being only a girl like the +rest, she was sufficiently interested to wish to see the issue. The moon was so +bright and the night so calm that she had no difficulty in persuading Mrs. +Melbury to accompany her; and thus, joined by Marty, these went onward in the +same direction. +</p> + +<p> +Passing Winterborne’s house, they heard a noise of hammering. Marty +explained it. This was the last night on which his paternal roof would shelter +him, the days of grace since it fell into hand having expired; and Giles was +taking down his cupboards and bedsteads with a view to an early exit next +morning. His encounter with Mrs. Charmond had cost him dearly. +</p> + +<p> +When they had proceeded a little farther Marty was joined by Grammer Oliver +(who was as young as the youngest in such matters), and Grace and Mrs. Melbury +went on by themselves till they had arrived at the spot chosen by the village +daughters, whose primary intention of keeping their expedition a secret had +been quite defeated. Grace and her step-mother paused by a holly-tree; and at a +little distance stood Fitzpiers under the shade of a young oak, intently +observing Grace, who was in the full rays of the moon. +</p> + +<p> +He watched her without speaking, and unperceived by any but Marty and Grammer, +who had drawn up on the dark side of the same holly which sheltered Mrs. and +Miss Melbury on its bright side. The two former conversed in low tones. +</p> + +<p> +“If they two come up in Wood next Midsummer Night they’ll come as +one,” said Grammer, signifying Fitzpiers and Grace. “Instead of my +skellington he’ll carry home her living carcass before long. But though +she’s a lady in herself, and worthy of any such as he, it do seem to me +that he ought to marry somebody more of the sort of Mrs. Charmond, and that +Miss Grace should make the best of Winterborne.” +</p> + +<p> +Marty returned no comment; and at that minute the girls, some of whom were from +Great Hintock, were seen advancing to work the incantation, it being now about +midnight. +</p> + +<p> +“Directly we see anything we’ll run home as fast as we can,” +said one, whose courage had begun to fail her. To this the rest assented, not +knowing that a dozen neighbors lurked in the bushes around. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we had not thought of trying this,” said another, +“but had contented ourselves with the hole-digging to-morrow at twelve, +and hearing our husbands’ trades. It is too much like having dealings +with the Evil One to try to raise their forms.” +</p> + +<p> +However, they had gone too far to recede, and slowly began to march forward in +a skirmishing line through the trees towards the deeper recesses of the wood. +As far as the listeners could gather, the particular form of black-art to be +practised on this occasion was one connected with the sowing of hemp-seed, a +handful of which was carried by each girl. At the moment of their advance they +looked back, and discerned the figure of Miss Melbury, who, alone of all the +observers, stood in the full face of the moonlight, deeply engrossed in the +proceedings. By contrast with her life of late years they made her feel as if +she had receded a couple of centuries in the world’s history. She was +rendered doubly conspicuous by her light dress, and after a few whispered +words, one of the girls—a bouncing maiden, plighted to young Timothy +Tangs—asked her if she would join in. Grace, with some excitement, said +that she would, and moved on a little in the rear of the rest. +</p> + +<p> +Soon the listeners could hear nothing of their proceedings beyond the faintest +occasional rustle of leaves. Grammer whispered again to Marty: “Why +didn’t ye go and try your luck with the rest of the maids?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe in it,” said Marty, shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, half the parish is here—the silly hussies should have kept it +quiet. I see Mr. Winterborne through the leaves, just come up with Robert +Creedle. Marty, we ought to act the part o’ Providence sometimes. Do go +and tell him that if he stands just behind the bush at the bottom of the slope, +Miss Grace must pass down it when she comes back, and she will most likely rush +into his arms; for as soon as the clock strikes, they’ll bundle back +home—along like hares. I’ve seen such larries before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think I’d better?” said Marty, reluctantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, he’ll bless ye for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want that kind of blessing.” But after a +moment’s thought she went and delivered the information; and Grammer had +the satisfaction of seeing Giles walk slowly to the bend in the leafy defile +along which Grace would have to return. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Mrs. 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers did not require to be told twice. He went across to Winterborne and +stood beside him. Each knew the probable purpose of the other in standing +there, and neither spoke, Fitzpiers scorning to look upon Winterborne as a +rival, and Winterborne adhering to the off-hand manner of indifference which +had grown upon him since his dismissal. +</p> + +<p> +Neither Grammer nor Marty South had seen the surgeon’s manoeuvre, and, +still to help Winterborne, as she supposed, the old woman suggested to the +wood-girl that she should walk forward at the heels of Grace, and +“tole” her down the required way if she showed a tendency to run in +another direction. Poor Marty, always doomed to sacrifice desire to obligation, +walked forward accordingly, and waited as a beacon, still and silent, for the +retreat of Grace and her giddy companions, now quite out of hearing. +</p> + +<p> +The first sound to break the silence was the distant note of Great Hintock +clock striking the significant hour. About a minute later that quarter of the +wood to which the girls had wandered resounded with the flapping of disturbed +birds; then two or three hares and rabbits bounded down the glade from the same +direction, and after these the rustling and crackling of leaves and dead twigs +denoted the hurried approach of the adventurers, whose fluttering gowns soon +became visible. Miss Melbury, having gone forward quite in the rear of the +rest, was one of the first to return, and the excitement being contagious, she +ran laughing towards Marty, who still stood as a hand-post to guide her; then, +passing on, she flew round the fatal bush where the undergrowth narrowed to a +gorge. Marty arrived at her heels just in time to see the result. Fitzpiers had +quickly stepped forward in front of Winterborne, who, disdaining to shift his +position, had turned on his heel, and then the surgeon did what he would not +have thought of doing but for Mrs. Melbury’s encouragement and the +sentiment of an eve which effaced conventionality. Stretching out his arms as +the white figure burst upon him, he captured her in a moment, as if she had +been a bird. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” cried Grace, in her fright. +</p> + +<p> +“You are in my arms, dearest,” said Fitzpiers, “and I am +going to claim you, and keep you there all our two lives!” +</p> + +<p> +She rested on him like one utterly mastered, and it was several seconds before +she recovered from this helplessness. Subdued screams and struggles, audible +from neighboring brakes, revealed that there had been other lurkers thereabout +for a similar purpose. Grace, unlike most of these companions of hers, instead +of gasping and writhing, said in a trembling voice, “Mr. Fitzpiers, will +you let me go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” he said, laughing; “as soon as you have +recovered.” +</p> + +<p> +She waited another few moments, then quietly and firmly pushed him aside, and +glided on her path, the moon whitening her hot blush away. But it had been +enough—new relations between them had begun. +</p> + +<p> +The case of the other girls was different, as has been said. They wrestled and +tittered, only escaping after a desperate struggle. Fitzpiers could hear these +enactments still going on after Grace had left him, and he remained on the spot +where he had caught her, Winterborne having gone away. On a sudden another girl +came bounding down the same descent that had been followed by Grace—a +fine-framed young woman with naked arms. Seeing Fitzpiers standing there, she +said, with playful effrontery, “May’st kiss me if ‘canst +catch me, Tim!” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers recognized her as Suke Damson, a hoydenish damsel of the hamlet, who +was plainly mistaking him for her lover. He was impulsively disposed to profit +by her error, and as soon as she began racing away he started in pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +On she went under the boughs, now in light, now in shade, looking over her +shoulder at him every few moments and kissing her hand; but so cunningly +dodging about among the trees and moon-shades that she never allowed him to get +dangerously near her. Thus they ran and doubled, Fitzpiers warming with the +chase, till the sound of their companions had quite died away. He began to lose +hope of ever overtaking her, when all at once, by way of encouragement, she +turned to a fence in which there was a stile and leaped over it. Outside the +scene was a changed one—a meadow, where the half-made hay lay about in +heaps, in the uninterrupted shine of the now high moon. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers saw in a moment that, having taken to open ground, she had placed +herself at his mercy, and he promptly vaulted over after her. She flitted a +little way down the mead, when all at once her light form disappeared as if it +had sunk into the earth. She had buried herself in one of the hay-cocks. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers, now thoroughly excited, was not going to let her escape him thus. He +approached, and set about turning over the heaps one by one. As soon as he +paused, tantalized and puzzled, he was directed anew by an imitative kiss which +came from her hiding-place, and by snatches of a local ballad in the smallest +voice she could assume: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“O come in from the foggy, foggy dew.” +</p> + +<p> +In a minute or two he uncovered her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ’tis not Tim!” said she, burying her face. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers, however, disregarded her resistance by reason of its mildness, +stooped and imprinted the purposed kiss, then sunk down on the next hay-cock, +panting with his race. +</p> + +<p> +“Whom do you mean by Tim?” he asked, presently. +</p> + +<p> +“My young man, Tim Tangs,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, honor bright, did you really think it was he?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did at first.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you didn’t at last?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t at last.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you much mind that it was not?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she answered, slyly. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers did not pursue his questioning. In the moonlight Suke looked very +beautiful, the scratches and blemishes incidental to her out-door occupation +being invisible under these pale rays. While they remain silent the coarse whir +of the eternal night-jar burst sarcastically from the top of a tree at the +nearest corner of the wood. Besides this not a sound of any kind reached their +ears, the time of nightingales being now past, and Hintock lying at a distance +of two miles at least. In the opposite direction the hay-field stretched away +into remoteness till it was lost to the eye in a soft mist. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<p> +When the general stampede occurred Winterborne had also been looking on, and +encountering one of the girls, had asked her what caused them all to fly. +</p> + +<p> +She said with solemn breathlessness that they had seen something very different +from what they had hoped to see, and that she for one would never attempt such +unholy ceremonies again. “We saw Satan pursuing us with his hour-glass. +It was terrible!” +</p> + +<p> +This account being a little incoherent, Giles went forward towards the spot +from which the girls had retreated. After listening there a few minutes he +heard slow footsteps rustling over the leaves, and looking through a tangled +screen of honeysuckle which hung from a bough, he saw in the open space beyond +a short stout man in evening-dress, carrying on one arm a light overcoat and +also his hat, so awkwardly arranged as possibly to have suggested the +“hour-glass” to his timid observers—if this were the person +whom the girls had seen. With the other hand he silently gesticulated and the +moonlight falling upon his bare brow showed him to have dark hair and a high +forehead of the shape seen oftener in old prints and paintings than in real +life. His curious and altogether alien aspect, his strange gestures, like those +of one who is rehearsing a scene to himself, and the unusual place and hour, +were sufficient to account for any trepidation among the Hintock daughters at +encountering him. +</p> + +<p> +He paused, and looked round, as if he had forgotten where he was; not observing +Giles, who was of the color of his environment. The latter advanced into the +light. The gentleman held up his hand and came towards Giles, the two meeting +half-way. +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost my way,” said the stranger. “Perhaps you can put +me in the path again.” He wiped his forehead with the air of one +suffering under an agitation more than that of simple fatigue. +</p> + +<p> +“The turnpike-road is over there,” said Giles +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want the turnpike-road,” said the gentleman, +impatiently. “I came from that. I want Hintock House. Is there not a path +to it across here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes, a sort of path. But it is hard to find from this point. +I’ll show you the way, sir, with great pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, my good friend. The truth is that I decided to walk across the +country after dinner from the hotel at Sherton, where I am staying for a day or +two. But I did not know it was so far.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is about a mile to the house from here.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked on together. As there was no path, Giles occasionally stepped in +front and bent aside the underboughs of the trees to give his companion a +passage, saying every now and then when the twigs, on being released, flew back +like whips, “Mind your eyes, sir.” To which the stranger replied, +“Yes, yes,” in a preoccupied tone. +</p> + +<p> +So they went on, the leaf-shadows running in their usual quick succession over +the forms of the pedestrians, till the stranger said, +</p> + +<p> +“Is it far?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not much farther,” said Winterborne. “The plantation runs up +into a corner here, close behind the house.” He added with hesitation, +“You know, I suppose, sir, that Mrs. Charmond is not at home?” +</p> + +<p> +“You mistake,” said the other, quickly. “Mrs. Charmond has +been away for some time, but she’s at home now.” +</p> + +<p> +Giles did not contradict him, though he felt sure that the gentleman was wrong. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a native of this place?” the stranger said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you are happy in having a home. It is what I don’t +possess.” +</p> + +<p> +“You come from far, seemingly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I come now from the south of Europe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, indeed, sir. You are an Italian, or Spanish, or French gentleman, +perhaps?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not either.” +</p> + +<p> +Giles did not fill the pause which ensued, and the gentleman, who seemed of an +emotional nature, unable to resist friendship, at length answered the question. +</p> + +<p> +“I am an Italianized American, a South Carolinian by birth,” he +said. “I left my native country on the failure of the Southern cause, and +have never returned to it since.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke no more about himself, and they came to the verge of the wood. Here, +striding over the fence out upon the upland sward, they could at once see the +chimneys of the house in the gorge immediately beneath their position, silent, +still, and pale. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you tell me the time?” the gentleman asked. “My watch +has stopped.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is between twelve and one,” said Giles. +</p> + +<p> +His companion expressed his astonishment. “I thought it between nine and +ten at latest! Dear me—dear me!” +</p> + +<p> +He now begged Giles to return, and offered him a gold coin, which looked like a +sovereign, for the assistance rendered. Giles declined to accept anything, to +the surprise of the stranger, who, on putting the money back into his pocket, +said, awkwardly, “I offered it because I want you to utter no word about +this meeting with me. Will you promise?” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne promised readily. He thereupon stood still while the other ascended +the slope. At the bottom he looked back dubiously. Giles would no longer remain +when he was so evidently desired to leave, and returned through the boughs to +Hintock. +</p> + +<p> +He suspected that this man, who seemed so distressed and melancholy, might be +that lover and persistent wooer of Mrs. Charmond whom he had heard so +frequently spoken of, and whom it was said she had treated cavalierly. But he +received no confirmation of his suspicion beyond a report which reached him a +few days later that a gentleman had called up the servants who were taking care +of Hintock House at an hour past midnight; and on learning that Mrs. Charmond, +though returned from abroad, was as yet in London, he had sworn bitterly, and +gone away without leaving a card or any trace of himself. +</p> + +<p> +The girls who related the story added that he sighed three times before he +swore, but this part of the narrative was not corroborated. Anyhow, such a +gentleman had driven away from the hotel at Sherton next day in a carriage +hired at that inn. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<p> +The sunny, leafy week which followed the tender doings of Midsummer Eve brought +a visitor to Fitzpiers’s door; a voice that he knew sounded in the +passage. Mr. Melbury had called. At first he had a particular objection to +enter the parlor, because his boots were dusty, but as the surgeon insisted he +waived the point and came in. +</p> + +<p> +Looking neither to the right nor to the left, hardly at Fitzpiers himself, he +put his hat under his chair, and with a preoccupied gaze at the floor, he said, +“I’ve called to ask you, doctor, quite privately, a question that +troubles me. I’ve a daughter, Grace, an only daughter, as you may have +heard. Well, she’s been out in the dew—on Midsummer Eve in +particular she went out in thin slippers to watch some vagary of the Hintock +maids—and she’s got a cough, a distinct hemming and hacking, that +makes me uneasy. Now, I have decided to send her away to some seaside place for +a change—” +</p> + +<p> +“Send her away!” Fitzpiers’s countenance had fallen. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And the question is, where would you advise me to send her?” +</p> + +<p> +The timber-merchant had happened to call at a moment when Fitzpiers was at the +spring-tide of a sentiment that Grace was a necessity of his existence. The +sudden pressure of her form upon his breast as she came headlong round the bush +had never ceased to linger with him, ever since he adopted the manoeuvre for +which the hour and the moonlight and the occasion had been the only excuse. Now +she was to be sent away. Ambition? it could be postponed. Family? culture and +reciprocity of tastes had taken the place of family nowadays. He allowed +himself to be carried forward on the wave of his desire. +</p> + +<p> +“How strange, how very strange it is,” he said, “that you +should have come to me about her just now. I have been thinking every day of +coming to you on the very same errand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!—you have noticed, too, that her health——” +</p> + +<p> +“I have noticed nothing the matter with her health, because there is +nothing. But, Mr. Melbury, I have seen your daughter several times by accident. +I have admired her infinitely, and I was coming to ask you if I may become +better acquainted with her—pay my addresses to her?” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury was looking down as he listened, and did not see the air of +half-misgiving at his own rashness that spread over Fitzpiers’s face as +he made this declaration. +</p> + +<p> +“You have—got to know her?” said Melbury, a spell of dead +silence having preceded his utterance, during which his emotion rose with +almost visible effect. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +“And you wish to become better acquainted with her? You mean with a view +to marriage—of course that is what you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the young man. “I mean, get acquainted with her, +with a view to being her accepted lover; and if we suited each other, what +would naturally follow.” +</p> + +<p> +The timber-merchant was much surprised, and fairly agitated; his hand trembled +as he laid by his walking-stick. “This takes me unawares,” said he, +his voice wellnigh breaking down. “I don’t mean that there is +anything unexpected in a gentleman being attracted by her; but it did not occur +to me that it would be you. I always said,” continued he, with a lump in +his throat, “that my Grace would make a mark at her own level some day. +That was why I educated her. I said to myself, ‘I’ll do it, cost +what it may;’ though her mother-law was pretty frightened at my paying +out so much money year after year. I knew it would tell in the end. +‘Where you’ve not good material to work on, such doings would be +waste and vanity,’ I said. ‘But where you have that material it is +sure to be worth while.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you don’t object,” said Fitzpiers, almost wishing +that Grace had not been quite so cheap for him. +</p> + +<p> +“If she is willing I don’t object, certainly. Indeed,” added +the honest man, “it would be deceit if I were to pretend to feel anything +else than highly honored personally; and it is a great credit to her to have +drawn to her a man of such good professional station and venerable old family. +That huntsman-fellow little thought how wrong he was about her! Take her and +welcome, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll endeavor to ascertain her mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes. But she will be agreeable, I should think. She ought to +be.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope she may. Well, now you’ll expect to see me +frequently.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes. But, name it all—about her cough, and her going away. I +had quite forgot that that was what I came about.” +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you,” said the surgeon, “that her cough can only be +the result of a slight cold, and it is not necessary to banish her to any +seaside place at all.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury looked unconvinced, doubting whether he ought to take Fitzpiers’s +professional opinion in circumstances which naturally led him to wish to keep +her there. The doctor saw this, and honestly dreading to lose sight of her, he +said, eagerly, “Between ourselves, if I am successful with her I will +take her away myself for a month or two, as soon as we are married, which I +hope will be before the chilly weather comes on. This will be so very much +better than letting her go now.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can assure you it is nothing,” said Fitzpiers, who had seen +Grace much oftener already than her father knew of. +</p> + +<p> +When he was gone Fitzpiers paused, silent, registering his sensations, like a +man who has made a plunge for a pearl into a medium of which he knows not the +density or temperature. But he had done it, and Grace was the sweetest girl +alive. +</p> + +<p> +As for the departed visitor, his own last words lingered in Melbury’s +ears as he walked homeward; he felt that what he had said in the emotion of the +moment was very stupid, ungenteel, and unsuited to a dialogue with an educated +gentleman, the smallness of whose practice was more than compensated by the +former greatness of his family. He had uttered thoughts before they were +weighed, and almost before they were shaped. They had expressed in a certain +sense his feeling at Fitzpiers’s news, but yet they were not right. +Looking on the ground, and planting his stick at each tread as if it were a +flag-staff, he reached his own precincts, where, as he passed through the +court, he automatically stopped to look at the men working in the shed and +around. One of them asked him a question about wagon-spokes. +</p> + +<p> +“Hey?” said Melbury, looking hard at him. The man repeated the +words. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury stood; then turning suddenly away without answering, he went up the +court and entered the house. As time was no object with the journeymen, except +as a thing to get past, they leisurely surveyed the door through which he had +disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“What maggot has the gaffer got in his head now?” said Tangs the +elder. “Sommit to do with that chiel of his! When you’ve got a maid +of yer own, John Upjohn, that costs ye what she costs him, that will take the +squeak out of your Sunday shoes, John! But you’ll never be tall enough to +accomplish such as she; and ’tis a lucky thing for ye, John, as things +be. Well, he ought to have a dozen—that would bring him to reason. I see +’em walking together last Sunday, and when they came to a puddle he +lifted her over like a halfpenny doll. He ought to have a dozen; he’d let +’em walk through puddles for themselves then.” +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Melbury had entered the house with the look of a man who sees a +vision before him. His wife was in the room. Without taking off his hat he sat +down at random. +</p> + +<p> +“Luce—we’ve done it!” he said. “Yes—the +thing is as I expected. The spell, that I foresaw might be worked, has worked. +She’s done it, and done it well. Where is she—Grace, I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Up in her room—what has happened!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Melbury explained the circumstances as coherently as he could. “I +told you so,” he said. “A maid like her couldn’t stay hid +long, even in a place like this. But where is Grace? Let’s have her down. +Here—Gra-a-ace!” +</p> + +<p> +She appeared after a reasonable interval, for she was sufficiently spoiled by +this father of hers not to put herself in a hurry, however impatient his tones. +“What is it, father?” said she, with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you scamp, what’s this you’ve been doing? Not home here +more than six months, yet, instead of confining yourself to your father’s +rank, making havoc in the educated classes.” +</p> + +<p> +Though accustomed to show herself instantly appreciative of her father’s +meanings, Grace was fairly unable to look anyhow but at a loss now. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only think of that, my dear! Don’t you feel it a triumph?” +said Mrs. Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Coming courting! I’ve done nothing to make him,” Grace +exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twasn’t necessary that you should, ’Tis voluntary +that rules in these things....Well, he has behaved very honorably, and asked my +consent. You’ll know what to do when he gets here, I dare say. I +needn’t tell you to make it all smooth for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean, to lead him on to marry me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do. Haven’t I educated you for it?” +</p> + +<p> +Grace looked out of the window and at the fireplace with no animation in her +face. “Why is it settled off-hand in this way?” said she, +coquettishly. “You’ll wait till you hear what I think of him, I +suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, of course. But you see what a good thing it will be.” +</p> + +<p> +She weighed the statement without speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“You will be restored to the society you’ve been taken away +from,” continued her father; “for I don’t suppose he’ll +stay here long.” +</p> + +<p> +She admitted the advantage; but it was plain that though Fitzpiers exercised a +certain fascination over her when he was present, or even more, an almost +psychic influence, and though his impulsive act in the wood had stirred her +feelings indescribably, she had never regarded him in the light of a destined +husband. “I don’t know what to answer,” she said. “I +have learned that he is very clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s all right, and he’s coming here to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +A premonition that she could not resist him if he came strangely moved her. +“Of course, father, you remember that it is only lately that +Giles—” +</p> + +<p> +“You know that you can’t think of him. He has given up all claim to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +She could not explain the subtleties of her feeling as he could state his +opinion, even though she had skill in speech, and her father had none. That +Fitzpiers acted upon her like a dram, exciting her, throwing her into a novel +atmosphere which biassed her doings until the influence was over, when she felt +something of the nature of regret for the mood she had experienced—still +more if she reflected on the silent, almost sarcastic, criticism apparent in +Winterborne’s air towards her—could not be told to this worthy +couple in words. +</p> + +<p> +It so happened that on this very day Fitzpiers was called away from Hintock by +an engagement to attend some medical meetings, and his visits, therefore, did +not begin at once. A note, however, arrived from him addressed to Grace, +deploring his enforced absence. As a material object this note was pretty and +superfine, a note of a sort that she had been unaccustomed to see since her +return to Hintock, except when a school friend wrote to her—a rare +instance, for the girls were respecters of persons, and many cooled down +towards the timber-dealer’s daughter when she was out of sight. Thus the +receipt of it pleased her, and she afterwards walked about with a reflective +air. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening her father, who knew that the note had come, said, “Why be +ye not sitting down to answer your letter? That’s what young folks did in +my time.” +</p> + +<p> +She replied that it did not require an answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you know best,” he said. Nevertheless, he went about his +business doubting if she were right in not replying; possibly she might be so +mismanaging matters as to risk the loss of an alliance which would bring her +much happiness. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury’s respect for Fitzpiers was based less on his professional +position, which was not much, than on the standing of his family in the county +in by-gone days. That implicit faith in members of long-established families, +as such, irrespective of their personal condition or character, which is still +found among old-fashioned people in the rural districts reached its full +intensity in Melbury. His daughter’s suitor was descended from a family +he had heard of in his grandfather’s time as being once great, a family +which had conferred its name upon a neighboring village; how, then, could +anything be amiss in this betrothal? +</p> + +<p> +“I must keep her up to this,” he said to his wife. “She sees +it is for her happiness; but still she’s young, and may want a little +prompting from an older tongue.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<p> +With this in view he took her out for a walk, a custom of his when he wished to +say anything specially impressive. Their way was over the top of that lofty +ridge dividing their woodland from the cider district, whence they had in the +spring beheld the miles of apple-trees in bloom. All was now deep green. The +spot recalled to Grace’s mind the last occasion of her presence there, +and she said, “The promise of an enormous apple-crop is fulfilling +itself, is it not? I suppose Giles is getting his mills and presses +ready.” +</p> + +<p> +This was just what her father had not come there to talk about. Without +replying he raised his arm, and moved his finger till he fixed it at a point. +“There,” he said, “you see that plantation reaching over the +hill like a great slug, and just behind the hill a particularly green sheltered +bottom? That’s where Mr. Fitzpiers’s family were lords of the manor +for I don’t know how many hundred years, and there stands the village of +Buckbury Fitzpiers. A wonderful property ’twas—wonderful!” +</p> + +<p> +“But they are not lords of the manor there now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no. But good and great things die as well as little and foolish. +The only ones representing the family now, I believe, are our doctor and a +maiden lady living I don’t know where. You can’t help being happy, +Grace, in allying yourself with such a romantical family. You’ll feel as +if you’ve stepped into history.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve been at Hintock as long as they’ve been at Buckbury; +is it not so? You say our name occurs in old deeds continually.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—as yeomen, copyholders, and such like. But think how much +better this will be for ’ee. You’ll be living a high intellectual +life, such as has now become natural to you; and though the doctor’s +practice is small here, he’ll no doubt go to a dashing town when +he’s got his hand in, and keep a stylish carriage, and you’ll be +brought to know a good many ladies of excellent society. If you should ever +meet me then, Grace, you can drive past me, looking the other way. I +shouldn’t expect you to speak to me, or wish such a thing, unless it +happened to be in some lonely, private place where ’twouldn’t lower +ye at all. Don’t think such men as neighbor Giles your equal. He and I +shall be good friends enough, but he’s not for the like of you. +He’s lived our rough and homely life here, and his wife’s life must +be rough and homely likewise.” +</p> + +<p> +So much pressure could not but produce some displacement. As Grace was left +very much to herself, she took advantage of one fine day before +Fitzpiers’s return to drive into the aforesaid vale where stood the +village of Buckbury Fitzpiers. Leaving her father’s man at the inn with +the horse and gig, she rambled onward to the ruins of a castle, which stood in +a field hard by. She had no doubt that it represented the ancient stronghold of +the Fitzpiers family. +</p> + +<p> +The remains were few, and consisted mostly of remnants of the lower vaulting, +supported on low stout columns surmounted by the <i>crochet</i> capital of the +period. The two or three arches of these vaults that were still in position +were utilized by the adjoining farmer as shelter for his calves, the floor +being spread with straw, amid which the young creatures rustled, cooling their +thirsty tongues by licking the quaint Norman carving, which glistened with the +moisture. It was a degradation of even such a rude form of art as this to be +treatad so grossly, she thought, and for the first time the family of Fitzpiers +assumed in her imagination the hues of a melancholy romanticism. +</p> + +<p> +It was soon time to drive home, and she traversed the distance with a +preoccupied mind. The idea of so modern a man in science and aesthetics as the +young surgeon springing out of relics so ancient was a kind of novelty she had +never before experienced. The combination lent him a social and intellectual +interest which she dreaded, so much weight did it add to the strange influence +he exercised upon her whenever he came near her. +</p> + +<p> +In an excitement which was not love, not ambition, rather a fearful +consciousness of hazard in the air, she awaited his return. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile her father was awaiting him also. In his house there was an old work +on medicine, published towards the end of the last century, and to put himself +in harmony with events Melbury spread this work on his knees when he had done +his day’s business, and read about Galen, Hippocrates, and +Herophilus—of the dogmatic, the empiric, the hermetical, and other sects +of practitioners that have arisen in history; and thence proceeded to the +classification of maladies and the rules for their treatment, as laid down in +this valuable book with absolute precision. Melbury regretted that the treatise +was so old, fearing that he might in consequence be unable to hold as complete +a conversation as he could wish with Mr. Fitzpiers, primed, no doubt, with more +recent discoveries. +</p> + +<p> +The day of Fitzpiers’s return arrived, and he sent to say that he would +call immediately. In the little time that was afforded for putting the house in +order the sweeping of Melbury’s parlor was as the sweeping of the parlor +at the Interpreter’s which wellnigh choked the Pilgrim. At the end of it +Mrs. Melbury sat down, folded her hands and lips, and waited. Her husband +restlessly walked in and out from the timber-yard, stared at the interior of +the room, jerked out “ay, ay,” and retreated again. Between four +and five Fitzpiers arrived, hitching his horse to the hook outside the door. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as he had walked in and perceived that Grace was not in the room, he +seemed to have a misgiving. Nothing less than her actual presence could long +keep him to the level of this impassioned enterprise, and that lacking he +appeared as one who wished to retrace his steps. +</p> + +<p> +He mechanically talked at what he considered a woodland matron’s level of +thought till a rustling was heard on the stairs, and Grace came in. Fitzpiers +was for once as agitated as she. Over and above the genuine emotion which she +raised in his heart there hung the sense that he was casting a die by impulse +which he might not have thrown by judgment. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Melbury was not in the room. Having to attend to matters in the yard, he +had delayed putting on his afternoon coat and waistcoat till the doctor’s +appearance, when, not wishing to be backward in receiving him, he entered the +parlor hastily buttoning up those garments. Grace’s fastidiousness was a +little distressed that Fitzpiers should see by this action the strain his visit +was putting upon her father; and to make matters worse for her just then, old +Grammer seemed to have a passion for incessantly pumping in the back kitchen, +leaving the doors open so that the banging and splashing were distinct above +the parlor conversation. +</p> + +<p> +Whenever the chat over the tea sank into pleasant desultoriness Mr. Melbury +broke in with speeches of labored precision on very remote topics, as if he +feared to let Fitzpiers’s mind dwell critically on the subject nearest +the hearts of all. In truth a constrained manner was natural enough in Melbury +just now, for the greatest interest of his life was reaching its crisis. Could +the real have been beheld instead of the corporeal merely, the corner of the +room in which he sat would have been filled with a form typical of anxious +suspense, large-eyed, tight-lipped, awaiting the issue. That paternal hopes and +fears so intense should be bound up in the person of one child so peculiarly +circumstanced, and not have dispersed themselves over the larger field of a +whole family, involved dangerous risks to future happiness. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers did not stay more than an hour, but that time had apparently advanced +his sentiments towards Grace, once and for all, from a vaguely liquescent to an +organic shape. She would not have accompanied him to the door in response to +his whispered “Come!” if her mother had not said in a +matter-of-fact way, “Of course, Grace; go to the door with Mr. +Fitzpiers.” Accordingly Grace went, both her parents remaining in the +room. When the young pair were in the great brick-floored hall the lover took +the girl’s hand in his, drew it under his arm, and thus led her on to the +door, where he stealthily kissed her. +</p> + +<p> +She broke from him trembling, blushed and turned aside, hardly knowing how +things had advanced to this. Fitzpiers drove off, kissing his hand to her, and +waving it to Melbury who was visible through the window. Her father returned +the surgeon’s action with a great flourish of his own hand and a +satisfied smile. +</p> + +<p> +The intoxication that Fitzpiers had, as usual, produced in Grace’s brain +during the visit passed off somewhat with his withdrawal. She felt like a woman +who did not know what she had been doing for the previous hour, but supposed +with trepidation that the afternoon’s proceedings, though vague, had +amounted to an engagement between herself and the handsome, coercive, +irresistible Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +This visit was a type of many which followed it during the long summer days of +that year. Grace was borne along upon a stream of reasonings, arguments, and +persuasions, supplemented, it must be added, by inclinations of her own at +times. No woman is without aspirations, which may be innocent enough within +certain limits; and Grace had been so trained socially, and educated +intellectually, as to see clearly enough a pleasure in the position of wife to +such a man as Fitzpiers. His material standing of itself, either present or +future, had little in it to give her ambition, but the possibilities of a +refined and cultivated inner life, of subtle psychological intercourse, had +their charm. It was this rather than any vulgar idea of marrying well which +caused her to float with the current, and to yield to the immense influence +which Fitzpiers exercised over her whenever she shared his society. +</p> + +<p> +Any observer would shrewdly have prophesied that whether or not she loved him +as yet in the ordinary sense, she was pretty sure to do so in time. +</p> + +<p> +One evening just before dusk they had taken a rather long walk together, and +for a short cut homeward passed through the shrubberies of Hintock +House—still deserted, and still blankly confronting with its sightless +shuttered windows the surrounding foliage and slopes. Grace was tired, and they +approached the wall, and sat together on one of the stone sills—still +warm with the sun that had been pouring its rays upon them all the afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +“This place would just do for us, would it not, dearest,” said her +betrothed, as they sat, turning and looking idly at the old facade. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” said Grace, plainly showing that no such fancy had ever +crossed her mind. “She is away from home still,” Grace added in a +minute, rather sadly, for she could not forget that she had somehow lost the +valuable friendship of the lady of this bower. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is?—oh, you mean Mrs. Charmond. Do you know, dear, that at one +time I thought you lived here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” said Grace. “How was that?” +</p> + +<p> +He explained, as far as he could do so without mentioning his disappointment at +finding it was otherwise; and then went on: “Well, never mind that. Now I +want to ask you something. There is one detail of our wedding which I am sure +you will leave to me. My inclination is not to be married at the horrid little +church here, with all the yokels staring round at us, and a droning parson +reading.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where, then, can it be? At a church in town?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Not at a church at all. At a registry office. It is a quieter, +snugger, and more convenient place in every way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said she, with real distress. “How can I be married +except at church, and with all my dear friends round me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yeoman Winterborne among them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—why not? You know there was nothing serious between him and +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, dear, a noisy bell-ringing marriage at church has this +objection in our case: it would be a thing of report a long way round. Now I +would gently, as gently as possible, indicate to you how inadvisable such +publicity would be if we leave Hintock, and I purchase the practice that I +contemplate purchasing at Budmouth—hardly more than twenty miles off. +Forgive my saying that it will be far better if nobody there knows where you +come from, nor anything about your parents. Your beauty and knowledge and +manners will carry you anywhere if you are not hampered by such retrospective +criticism.” +</p> + +<p> +“But could it not be a quiet ceremony, even at church?” she +pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see the necessity of going there!” he said, a trifle +impatiently. “Marriage is a civil contract, and the shorter and simpler +it is made the better. People don’t go to church when they take a house, +or even when they make a will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Edgar—I don’t like to hear you speak like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well—I didn’t mean to. But I have mentioned as much to +your father, who has made no objection; and why should you?” +</p> + +<p> +She gave way, deeming the point one on which she ought to allow sentiment to +give way to policy—if there were indeed policy in his plan. But she was +indefinably depressed as they walked homeward. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<p> +He left her at the door of her father’s house. As he receded, and was +clasped out of sight by the filmy shades, he impressed Grace as a man who +hardly appertained to her existence at all. Cleverer, greater than herself, one +outside her mental orbit, as she considered him, he seemed to be her ruler +rather than her equal, protector, and dear familiar friend. +</p> + +<p> +The disappointment she had experienced at his wish, the shock given to her +girlish sensibilities by his irreverent views of marriage, together with the +sure and near approach of the day fixed for committing her future to his +keeping, made her so restless that she could scarcely sleep at all that night. +She rose when the sparrows began to walk out of the roof-holes, sat on the +floor of her room in the dim light, and by-and-by peeped out behind the +window-curtains. It was even now day out-of-doors, though the tones of morning +were feeble and wan, and it was long before the sun would be perceptible in +this overshadowed vale. Not a sound came from any of the out-houses as yet. The +tree-trunks, the road, the out-buildings, the garden, every object wore that +aspect of mesmeric fixity which the suspensive quietude of daybreak lends to +such scenes. Outside her window helpless immobility seemed to be combined with +intense consciousness; a meditative inertness possessed all things, +oppressively contrasting with her own active emotions. Beyond the road were +some cottage roofs and orchards; over these roofs and over the apple-trees +behind, high up the slope, and backed by the plantation on the crest, was the +house yet occupied by her future husband, the rough-cast front showing whitely +through its creepers. The window-shutters were closed, the bedroom curtains +closely drawn, and not the thinnest coil of smoke rose from the rugged +chimneys. +</p> + +<p> +Something broke the stillness. The front door of the house she was gazing at +opened softly, and there came out into the porch a female figure, wrapped in a +large shawl, beneath which was visible the white skirt of a long loose garment. +A gray arm, stretching from within the porch, adjusted the shawl over the +woman’s shoulders; it was withdrawn and disappeared, the door closing +behind her. +</p> + +<p> +The woman went quickly down the box-edged path between the raspberries and +currants, and as she walked her well-developed form and gait betrayed her +individuality. It was Suke Damson, the affianced one of simple young Tim Tangs. +At the bottom of the garden she entered the shelter of the tall hedge, and only +the top of her head could be seen hastening in the direction of her own +dwelling. +</p> + +<p> +Grace had recognized, or thought she recognized, in the gray arm stretching +from the porch, the sleeve of a dressing-gown which Mr. Fitzpiers had been +wearing on her own memorable visit to him. Her face fired red. She had just +before thought of dressing herself and taking a lonely walk under the trees, so +coolly green this early morning; but she now sat down on her bed and fell into +reverie. It seemed as if hardly any time had passed when she heard the +household moving briskly about, and breakfast preparing down-stairs; though, on +rousing herself to robe and descend, she found that the sun was throwing his +rays completely over the tree-tops, a progress of natural phenomena denoting +that at least three hours had elapsed since she last looked out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +When attired she searched about the house for her father; she found him at last +in the garden, stooping to examine the potatoes for signs of disease. Hearing +her rustle, he stood up and stretched his back and arms, saying, “Morning +t’ye, Gracie. I congratulate ye. It is only a month to-day to the +time!” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, but, without lifting her dress, waded between the dewy rows +of tall potato-green into the middle of the plot where he was. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been thinking very much about my position this morning—ever +since it was light,” she began, excitedly, and trembling so that she +could hardly stand. “And I feel it is a false one. I wish not to marry +Mr. Fitzpiers. I wish not to marry anybody; but I’ll marry Giles +Winterborne if you say I must as an alternative.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father’s face settled into rigidity, he turned pale, and came +deliberately out of the plot before he answered her. She had never seen him +look so incensed before. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, hearken to me,” he said. “There’s a time for a +woman to alter her mind; and there’s a time when she can no longer alter +it, if she has any right eye to her parents’ honor and the seemliness of +things. That time has come. I won’t say to ye, you <i>shall</i> marry +him. But I will say that if you refuse, I shall forever be ashamed and a-weary +of ye as a daughter, and shall look upon you as the hope of my life no more. +What do you know about life and what it can bring forth, and how you ought to +act to lead up to best ends? Oh, you are an ungrateful maid, Grace; +you’ve seen that fellow Giles, and he has got over ye; that’s where +the secret lies, I’ll warrant me!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, father, no! It is not Giles—it is something I cannot tell you +of—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, make fools of us all; make us laughing-stocks; break it off; have +your own way.” +</p> + +<p> +“But who knows of the engagement as yet? how can breaking it disgrace +you?” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury then by degrees admitted that he had mentioned the engagement to this +acquaintance and to that, till she perceived that in his restlessness and pride +he had published it everywhere. She went dismally away to a bower of laurel at +the top of the garden. Her father followed her. +</p> + +<p> +“It is that Giles Winterborne!” he said, with an upbraiding gaze at +her. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it is not; though for that matter you encouraged him once,” +she said, troubled to the verge of despair. “It is not Giles, it is Mr. +Fitzpiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve had a tiff—a lovers’ tiff—that’s +all, I suppose!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is some woman—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay; you are jealous. The old story. Don’t tell me. Now do you +bide here. I’ll send Fitzpiers to you. I saw him smoking in front of his +house but a minute by-gone.” +</p> + +<p> +He went off hastily out of the garden-gate and down the lane. But she would not +stay where she was; and edging through a slit in the garden-fence, walked away +into the wood. Just about here the trees were large and wide apart, and there +was no undergrowth, so that she could be seen to some distance; a sylph-like, +greenish-white creature, as toned by the sunlight and leafage. She heard a +foot-fall crushing dead leaves behind her, and found herself reconnoitered by +Fitzpiers himself, approaching gay and fresh as the morning around them. +</p> + +<p> +His remote gaze at her had been one of mild interest rather than of rapture. +But she looked so lovely in the green world about her, her pink cheeks, her +simple light dress, and the delicate flexibility of her movement acquired such +rarity from their wild-wood setting, that his eyes kindled as he drew near. +</p> + +<p> +“My darling, what is it? Your father says you are in the pouts, and +jealous, and I don’t know what. Ha! ha! ha! as if there were any rival to +you, except vegetable nature, in this home of recluses! We know better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jealous; oh no, it is not so,” said she, gravely. +“That’s a mistake of his and yours, sir. I spoke to him so closely +about the question of marriage with you that he did not apprehend my state of +mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s something wrong—eh?” he asked, eying her +narrowly, and bending to kiss her. She shrank away, and his purposed kiss +miscarried. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” he said, more seriously for this little defeat. +</p> + +<p> +She made no answer beyond, “Mr. Fitzpiers, I have had no breakfast, I +must go in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” he insisted, fixing his eyes upon her. “Tell me at +once, I say.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the greater strength against the smaller; but she was mastered less by +his manner than by her own sense of the unfairness of silence. “I looked +out of the window,” she said, with hesitation. “I’ll tell you +by-and-by. I must go in-doors. I have had no breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +By a sort of divination his conjecture went straight to the fact. “Nor +I,” said he, lightly. “Indeed, I rose late to-day. I have had a +broken night, or rather morning. A girl of the village—I don’t know +her name—came and rang at my bell as soon as it was light—between +four and five, I should think it was—perfectly maddened with an aching +tooth. As no-body heard her ring, she threw some gravel at my window, till at +last I heard her and slipped on my dressing-gown and went down. The poor thing +begged me with tears in her eyes to take out her tormentor, if I dragged her +head off. Down she sat and out it came—a lovely molar, not a speck upon +it; and off she went with it in her handkerchief, much contented, though it +would have done good work for her for fifty years to come.” +</p> + +<p> +It was all so plausible—so completely explained. Knowing nothing of the +incident in the wood on old Midsummer-eve, Grace felt that her suspicions were +unworthy and absurd, and with the readiness of an honest heart she jumped at +the opportunity of honoring his word. At the moment of her mental liberation +the bushes about the garden had moved, and her father emerged into the shady +glade. “Well, I hope it is made up?” he said, cheerily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” said Fitzpiers, with his eyes fixed on Grace, whose eyes +were shyly bent downward. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said her father, “tell me, the pair of ye, that you +still mean to take one another for good and all; and on the strength o’t +you shall have another couple of hundred paid down. I swear it by the +name.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers took her hand. “We declare it, do we not, my dear Grace?” +said he. +</p> + +<p> +Relieved of her doubt, somewhat overawed, and ever anxious to please, she was +disposed to settle the matter; yet, womanlike, she would not relinquish her +opportunity of asking a concession of some sort. “If our wedding can be +at church, I say yes,” she answered, in a measured voice. “If not, +I say no.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers was generous in his turn. “It shall be so,” he rejoined, +gracefully. “To holy church we’ll go, and much good may it do +us.” +</p> + +<p> +They returned through the bushes indoors, Grace walking, full of thought +between the other two, somewhat comforted, both by Fitzpiers’s ingenious +explanation and by the sense that she was not to be deprived of a religious +ceremony. “So let it be,” she said to herself. “Pray God it +is for the best.” +</p> + +<p> +From this hour there was no serious attempt at recalcitration on her part. +Fitzpiers kept himself continually near her, dominating any rebellious impulse, +and shaping her will into passive concurrence with all his desires. Apart from +his lover-like anxiety to possess her, the few golden hundreds of the +timber-dealer, ready to hand, formed a warm background to Grace’s lovely +face, and went some way to remove his uneasiness at the prospect of endangering +his professional and social chances by an alliance with the family of a simple +countryman. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The interim closed up its perspective surely and silently. Whenever Grace had +any doubts of her position, the sense of contracting time was like a shortening +chamber: at other moments she was comparatively blithe. Day after day waxed and +waned; the one or two woodmen who sawed, shaped, spokeshaved on her +father’s premises at this inactive season of the year, regularly came and +unlocked the doors in the morning, locked them in the evening, supped, leaned +over their garden-gates for a whiff of evening air, and to catch any last and +farthest throb of news from the outer world, which entered and expired at +Little Hintock like the exhausted swell of a wave in some innermost cavern of +some innermost creek of an embayed sea; yet no news interfered with the nuptial +purpose at their neighbor’s house. The sappy green twig-tips of the +season’s growth would not, she thought, be appreciably woodier on the day +she became a wife, so near was the time; the tints of the foliage would hardly +have changed. Everything was so much as usual that no itinerant stranger would +have supposed a woman’s fate to be hanging in the balance at that +summer’s decline. +</p> + +<p> +But there were preparations, imaginable readily enough by those who had special +knowledge. In the remote and fashionable town of Sandbourne something was +growing up under the hands of several persons who had never seen Grace Melbury, +never would see her, or care anything about her at all, though their creation +had such interesting relation to her life that it would enclose her very heart +at a moment when that heart would beat, if not with more emotional ardor, at +least with more emotional turbulence than at any previous time. +</p> + +<p> +Why did Mrs. Dollery’s van, instead of passing along at the end of the +smaller village to Great Hintock direct, turn one Saturday night into Little +Hintock Lane, and never pull up till it reached Mr. Melbury’s gates? The +gilding shine of evening fell upon a large, flat box not less than a yard +square, and safely tied with cord, as it was handed out from under the tilt +with a great deal of care. But it was not heavy for its size; Mrs. Dollery +herself carried it into the house. Tim Tangs, the hollow-turner, Bawtree, Suke +Damson, and others, looked knowing, and made remarks to each other as they +watched its entrance. Melbury stood at the door of the timber-shed in the +attitude of a man to whom such an arrival was a trifling domestic detail with +which he did not condescend to be concerned. Yet he well divined the contents +of that box, and was in truth all the while in a pleasant exaltation at the +proof that thus far, at any rate, no disappointment had supervened. While Mrs. +Dollery remained—which was rather long, from her sense of the importance +of her errand—he went into the out-house; but as soon as she had had her +say, been paid, and had rumbled away, he entered the dwelling, to find there +what he knew he should find—his wife and daughter in a flutter of +excitement over the wedding-gown, just arrived from the leading dress-maker of +Sandbourne watering-place aforesaid. +</p> + +<p> +During these weeks Giles Winterborne was nowhere to be seen or heard of. At the +close of his tenure in Hintock he had sold some of his furniture, packed up the +rest—a few pieces endeared by associations, or necessary to his +occupation—in the house of a friendly neighbor, and gone away. People +said that a certain laxity had crept into his life; that he had never gone near +a church latterly, and had been sometimes seen on Sundays with unblacked boots, +lying on his elbow under a tree, with a cynical gaze at surrounding objects. He +was likely to return to Hintock when the cider-making season came round, his +apparatus being stored there, and travel with his mill and press from village +to village. +</p> + +<p> +The narrow interval that stood before the day diminished yet. There was in +Grace’s mind sometimes a certain anticipative satisfaction, the +satisfaction of feeling that she would be the heroine of an hour; moreover, she +was proud, as a cultivated woman, to be the wife of a cultivated man. It was an +opportunity denied very frequently to young women in her position, nowadays not +a few; those in whom parental discovery of the value of education has implanted +tastes which parental circles fail to gratify. But what an attenuation was this +cold pride of the dream of her youth, in which she had pictured herself walking +in state towards the altar, flushed by the purple light and bloom of her own +passion, without a single misgiving as to the sealing of the bond, and +fervently receiving as her due +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The homage of a thousand hearts; the fond, deep love of one.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Everything had been clear then, in imagination; now something was undefined. +She had little carking anxieties; a curious fatefulness seemed to rule her, and +she experienced a mournful want of some one to confide in. +</p> + +<p> +The day loomed so big and nigh that her prophetic ear could, in fancy, catch +the noise of it, hear the murmur of the villagers as she came out of church, +imagine the jangle of the three thin-toned Hintock bells. The dialogues seemed +to grow louder, and the ding-ding-dong of those three crazed bells more +persistent. She awoke: the morning had come. +</p> + +<p> +Five hours later she was the wife of Fitzpiers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<p> +The chief hotel at Sherton-Abbas was an old stone-fronted inn with a yawning +arch, under which vehicles were driven by stooping coachmen to back premises of +wonderful commodiousness. The windows to the street were mullioned into narrow +lights, and only commanded a view of the opposite houses; hence, perhaps, it +arose that the best and most luxurious private sitting-room that the inn could +afford over-looked the nether parts of the establishment, where beyond the yard +were to be seen gardens and orchards, now bossed, nay incrusted, with scarlet +and gold fruit, stretching to infinite distance under a luminous lavender mist. +The time was early autumn, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“When the fair apples, red as evening sky,<br /> +Do bend the tree unto the fruitful ground,<br /> +When juicy pears, and berries of black dye,<br /> +Do dance in air, and call the eyes around.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The landscape confronting the window might, indeed, have been part of the +identical stretch of country which the youthful Chatterton had in his mind. +</p> + +<p> +In this room sat she who had been the maiden Grace Melbury till the finger of +fate touched her and turned her to a wife. It was two months after the wedding, +and she was alone. Fitzpiers had walked out to see the abbey by the light of +sunset, but she had been too fatigued to accompany him. They had reached the +last stage of a long eight-weeks’ tour, and were going on to Hintock that +night. +</p> + +<p> +In the yard, between Grace and the orchards, there progressed a scene natural +to the locality at this time of the year. An apple-mill and press had been +erected on the spot, to which some men were bringing fruit from divers points +in mawn-baskets, while others were grinding them, and others wringing down the +pomace, whose sweet juice gushed forth into tubs and pails. The superintendent +of these proceedings, to whom the others spoke as master, was a young yeoman of +prepossessing manner and aspect, whose form she recognized in a moment. He had +hung his coat to a nail of the out-house wall, and wore his shirt-sleeves +rolled up beyond his elbows, to keep them unstained while he rammed the pomace +into the bags of horse-hair. Fragments of apple-rind had alighted upon the brim +of his hat—probably from the bursting of a bag—while brown pips of +the same fruit were sticking among the down upon his fine, round arms. +</p> + +<p> +She realized in a moment how he had come there. Down in the heart of the apple +country nearly every farmer kept up a cider-making apparatus and wring-house +for his own use, building up the pomace in great straw “cheeses,” +as they were called; but here, on the margin of Pomona’s plain, was a +debatable land neither orchard nor sylvan exclusively, where the apple produce +was hardly sufficient to warrant each proprietor in keeping a mill of his own. +This was the field of the travelling cider-maker. His press and mill were fixed +to wheels instead of being set up in a cider-house; and with a couple of +horses, buckets, tubs, strainers, and an assistant or two, he wandered from +place to place, deriving very satisfactory returns for his trouble in such a +prolific season as the present. +</p> + +<p> +The back parts of the town were just now abounding with apple-gatherings. They +stood in the yards in carts, baskets, and loose heaps; and the blue, stagnant +air of autumn which hung over everything was heavy with a sweet cidery smell. +Cakes of pomace lay against the walls in the yellow sun, where they were drying +to be used as fuel. Yet it was not the great make of the year as yet; before +the standard crop came in there accumulated, in abundant times like this, a +large superfluity of early apples, and windfalls from the trees of later +harvest, which would not keep long. Thus, in the baskets, and quivering in the +hopper of the mill, she saw specimens of mixed dates, including the mellow +countenances of streaked-jacks, codlins, costards, stubbards, ratheripes, and +other well-known friends of her ravenous youth. +</p> + +<p> +Grace watched the head-man with interest. The slightest sigh escaped her. +Perhaps she thought of the day—not so far distant—when that friend +of her childhood had met her by her father’s arrangement in this same +town, warm with hope, though diffident, and trusting in a promise rather +implied than given. Or she might have thought of days earlier yet—days of +childhood—when her mouth was somewhat more ready to receive a kiss from +his than was his to bestow one. However, all that was over. She had felt +superior to him then, and she felt superior to him now. +</p> + +<p> +She wondered why he never looked towards her open window. She did not know that +in the slight commotion caused by their arrival at the inn that afternoon +Winterborne had caught sight of her through the archway, had turned red, and +was continuing his work with more concentrated attention on the very account of +his discovery. Robert Creedle, too, who travelled with Giles, had been +incidentally informed by the hostler that Dr. Fitzpiers and his young wife were +in the hotel, after which news Creedle kept shaking his head and saying to +himself, “Ah!” very audibly, between his thrusts at the screw of +the cider-press. +</p> + +<p> +“Why the deuce do you sigh like that, Robert?” asked Winterborne, +at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, maister—’tis my thoughts—’tis my +thoughts!...Yes, ye’ve lost a hundred load o’ timber well seasoned; +ye’ve lost five hundred pound in good money; ye’ve lost the +stone-windered house that’s big enough to hold a dozen families; +ye’ve lost your share of half a dozen good wagons and their +horses—all lost!—through your letting slip she that was once yer +own!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good God, Creedle, you’ll drive me mad!” said Giles, +sternly. “Don’t speak of that any more!” +</p> + +<p> +Thus the subject had ended in the yard. Meanwhile, the passive cause of all +this loss still regarded the scene. She was beautifully dressed; she was seated +in the most comfortable room that the inn afforded; her long journey had been +full of variety, and almost luxuriously performed—for Fitzpiers did not +study economy where pleasure was in question. Hence it perhaps arose that Giles +and all his belongings seemed sorry and common to her for the +moment—moving in a plane so far removed from her own of late that she +could scarcely believe she had ever found congruity therein. “No—I +could never have married him!” she said, gently shaking her head. +“Dear father was right. It would have been too coarse a life for +me.” And she looked at the rings of sapphire and opal upon her white and +slender fingers that had been gifts from Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing that Giles still kept his back turned, and with a little of the +above-described pride of life—easily to be understood, and possibly +excused, in a young, inexperienced woman who thought she had married +well—she said at last, with a smile on her lips, “Mr. +Winterborne!” +</p> + +<p> +He appeared to take no heed, and she said a second time, “Mr. +Winterborne!” +</p> + +<p> +Even now he seemed not to hear, though a person close enough to him to see the +expression of his face might have doubted it; and she said a third time, with a +timid loudness, “Mr. Winterborne! What, have you forgotten my +voice?” She remained with her lips parted in a welcoming smile. +</p> + +<p> +He turned without surprise, and came deliberately towards the window. +“Why do you call me?” he said, with a sternness that took her +completely unawares, his face being now pale. “Is it not enough that you +see me here moiling and muddling for my daily bread while you are sitting there +in your success, that you can’t refrain from opening old wounds by +calling out my name?” +</p> + +<p> +She flushed, and was struck dumb for some moments; but she forgave his +unreasoning anger, knowing so well in what it had its root. “I am sorry I +offended you by speaking,” she replied, meekly. “Believe me, I did +not intend to do that. I could hardly sit here so near you without a word of +recognition.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne’s heart had swollen big, and his eyes grown moist by this +time, so much had the gentle answer of that familiar voice moved him. He +assured her hurriedly, and without looking at her, that he was not angry. He +then managed to ask her, in a clumsy, constrained way, if she had had a +pleasant journey, and seen many interesting sights. She spoke of a few places +that she had visited, and so the time passed till he withdrew to take his place +at one of the levers which pulled round the screw. +</p> + +<p> +Forgotten her voice! Indeed, he had not forgotten her voice, as his bitterness +showed. But though in the heat of the moment he had reproached her keenly, his +second mood was a far more tender one—that which could regard her +renunciation of such as he as her glory and her privilege, his own fidelity +notwithstanding. He could have declared with a contemporary poet— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +                    “If I forget,<br /> +The salt creek may forget the ocean;<br /> +                    If I forget<br /> +The heart whence flows my heart’s bright motion,<br /> +May I sink meanlier than the worst<br /> +Abandoned, outcast, crushed, accurst,<br /> +                    If I forget. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +                    “Though you forget,<br /> +No word of mine shall mar your pleasure;<br /> +                    Though you forget,<br /> +You filled my barren life with treasure,<br /> +You may withdraw the gift you gave;<br /> +You still are queen, I still am slave,<br /> +                    Though you forget.” +</p> + +<p> +She had tears in her eyes at the thought that she could not remind him of what +he ought to have remembered; that not herself but the pressure of events had +dissipated the dreams of their early youth. Grace was thus unexpectedly worsted +in her encounter with her old friend. She had opened the window with a faint +sense of triumph, but he had turned it into sadness; she did not quite +comprehend the reason why. In truth it was because she was not cruel enough in +her cruelty. If you have to use the knife, use it, say the great surgeons; and +for her own peace Grace should have contemned Winterborne thoroughly or not at +all. As it was, on closing the window an indescribable, some might have said +dangerous, pity quavered in her bosom for him. +</p> + +<p> +Presently her husband entered the room, and told her what a wonderful sunset +there was to be seen. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not noticed it. But I have seen somebody out there that we +know,” she replied, looking into the court. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes, and said he did not recognize +anybody. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mr. Winterborne—there he is, cider-making. He combines that +with his other business, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—that fellow,” said Fitzpiers, his curiosity becoming +extinct. +</p> + +<p> +She, reproachfully: “What, call Mr. Winterborne a fellow, Edgar? It is +true I was just saying to myself that I never could have married him; but I +have much regard for him, and always shall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, do by all means, my dear one. I dare say I am inhuman, and +supercilious, and contemptibly proud of my poor old ramshackle family; but I do +honestly confess to you that I feel as if I belonged to a different species +from the people who are working in that yard.” +</p> + +<p> +“And from me too, then. For my blood is no better than theirs.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her with a droll sort of awakening. It was, indeed, a startling +anomaly that this woman of the tribe without should be standing there beside +him as his wife, if his sentiments were as he had said. In their travels +together she had ranged so unerringly at his level in ideas, tastes, and habits +that he had almost forgotten how his heart had played havoc with his principles +in taking her to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah YOU—you are refined and educated into something quite +different,” he said, self-assuringly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite like to think that,” she murmured with soft +regret. “And I think you underestimate Giles Winterborne. Remember, I was +brought up with him till I was sent away to school, so I cannot be radically +different. At any rate, I don’t feel so. That is, no doubt, my fault, and +a great blemish in me. But I hope you will put up with it, Edgar.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers said that he would endeavor to do so; and as it was now getting on +for dusk, they prepared to perform the last stage of their journey, so as to +arrive at Hintock before it grew very late. +</p> + +<p> +In less than half an hour they started, the cider-makers in the yard having +ceased their labors and gone away, so that the only sounds audible there now +were the trickling of the juice from the tightly screwed press, and the buzz of +a single wasp, which had drunk itself so tipsy that it was unconscious of +nightfall. Grace was very cheerful at the thought of being soon in her sylvan +home, but Fitzpiers sat beside her almost silent. An indescribable +oppressiveness had overtaken him with the near approach of the journey’s +end and the realities of life that lay there. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t say a word, Edgar,” she observed. +“Aren’t you glad to get back? I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have friends here. I have none.” +</p> + +<p> +“But my friends are yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—in that sense.” +</p> + +<p> +The conversation languished, and they drew near the end of Hintock Lane. It had +been decided that they should, at least for a time, take up their abode in her +father’s roomy house, one wing of which was quite at their service, being +almost disused by the Melburys. Workmen had been painting, papering, and +whitewashing this set of rooms in the wedded pair’s absence; and so +scrupulous had been the timber-dealer that there should occur no hitch or +disappointment on their arrival, that not the smallest detail remained undone. +To make it all complete a ground-floor room had been fitted up as a surgery, +with an independent outer door, to which Fitzpiers’s brass plate was +screwed—for mere ornament, such a sign being quite superfluous where +everybody knew the latitude and longitude of his neighbors for miles round. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury and his wife welcomed the twain with affection, and all the house with +deference. They went up to explore their rooms, that opened from a passage on +the left hand of the staircase, the entrance to which could be shut off on the +landing by a door that Melbury had hung for the purpose. A friendly fire was +burning in the grate, although it was not cold. Fitzpiers said it was too soon +for any sort of meal, they only having dined shortly before leaving +Sherton-Abbas. He would walk across to his old lodging, to learn how his locum +tenens had got on in his absence. +</p> + +<p> +In leaving Melbury’s door he looked back at the house. There was economy +in living under that roof, and economy was desirable, but in some way he was +dissatisfied with the arrangement; it immersed him so deeply in son-in-lawship +to Melbury. He went on to his former residence. His deputy was out, and +Fitzpiers fell into conversation with his former landlady. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mrs. Cox, what’s the best news?” he asked of her, with +cheery weariness. +</p> + +<p> +She was a little soured at losing by his marriage so profitable a tenant as the +surgeon had proved to be during his residence under her roof; and the more so +in there being hardly the remotest chance of her getting such another settler +in the Hintock solitudes. “’Tis what I don’t wish to repeat, +sir; least of all to you,” she mumbled. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind me, Mrs. Cox; go ahead.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is what people say about your hasty marrying, Dr. Fitzpiers. Whereas +they won’t believe you know such clever doctrines in physic as they once +supposed of ye, seeing as you could marry into Mr. Melbury’s family, +which is only Hintock-born, such as me.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are kindly welcome to their opinion,” said Fitzpiers, not +allowing himself to recognize that he winced. “Anything else?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; <i>she’s</i> come home at last.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Charmond.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, indeed!” said Fitzpiers, with but slight interest. +“I’ve never seen her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She has seen you, sir, whether or no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; she saw you in some hotel or street for a minute or two while you +were away travelling, and accidentally heard your name; and when she made some +remark about you, Miss Ellis—that’s her maid—told her you was +on your wedding-tower with Mr. Melbury’s daughter; and she said, +‘He ought to have done better than that. I fear he has spoiled his +chances,’ she says.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers did not talk much longer to this cheering housewife, and walked home +with no very brisk step. He entered the door quietly, and went straight +up-stairs to the drawing-room extemporized for their use by Melbury in his and +his bride’s absence, expecting to find her there as he had left her. The +fire was burning still, but there were no lights. He looked into the next +apartment, fitted up as a little dining-room, but no supper was laid. He went +to the top of the stairs, and heard a chorus of voices in the +timber-merchant’s parlor below, Grace’s being occasionally +intermingled. +</p> + +<p> +Descending, and looking into the room from the door-way, he found quite a large +gathering of neighbors and other acquaintances, praising and congratulating +Mrs. Fitzpiers on her return, among them being the dairyman, Farmer Bawtree, +and the master-blacksmith from Great Hintock; also the cooper, the +hollow-turner, the exciseman, and some others, with their wives, who lived hard +by. Grace, girl that she was, had quite forgotten her new dignity and her +husband’s; she was in the midst of them, blushing, and receiving their +compliments with all the pleasure of old-comradeship. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers experienced a profound distaste for the situation. Melbury was +nowhere in the room, but Melbury’s wife, perceiving the doctor, came to +him. “We thought, Grace and I,” she said, “that as they have +called, hearing you were come, we could do no less than ask them to supper; and +then Grace proposed that we should all sup together, as it is the first night +of your return.” +</p> + +<p> +By this time Grace had come round to him. “Is it not good of them to +welcome me so warmly?” she exclaimed, with tears of friendship in her +eyes. “After so much good feeling I could not think of our shutting +ourselves up away from them in our own dining-room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not—certainly not,” said Fitzpiers; and he entered +the room with the heroic smile of a martyr. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as they sat down to table Melbury came in, and seemed to see at once +that Fitzpiers would much rather have received no such demonstrative reception. +He thereupon privately chid his wife for her forwardness in the matter. Mrs. +Melbury declared that it was as much Grace’s doing as hers, after which +there was no more to be said by that young woman’s tender father. By this +time Fitzpiers was making the best of his position among the wide-elbowed and +genial company who sat eating and drinking and laughing and joking around him; +and getting warmed himself by the good cheer, was obliged to admit that, after +all, the supper was not the least enjoyable he had ever known. +</p> + +<p> +At times, however, the words about his having spoiled his opportunities, +repeated to him as those of Mrs. Charmond, haunted him like a handwriting on +the wall. Then his manner would become suddenly abstracted. At one moment he +would mentally put an indignant query why Mrs. Charmond or any other woman +should make it her business to have opinions about his opportunities; at +another he thought that he could hardly be angry with her for taking an +interest in the doctor of her own parish. Then he would drink a glass of grog +and so get rid of the misgiving. These hitches and quaffings were soon +perceived by Grace as well as by her father; and hence both of them were much +relieved when the first of the guests to discover that the hour was growing +late rose and declared that he must think of moving homeward. At the words +Melbury rose as alertly as if lifted by a spring, and in ten minutes they were +gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Grace,” said her husband as soon as he found himself alone +with her in their private apartments, “we’ve had a very pleasant +evening, and everybody has been very kind. But we must come to an understanding +about our way of living here. If we continue in these rooms there must be no +mixing in with your people below. I can’t stand it, and that’s the +truth.” +</p> + +<p> +She had been sadly surprised at the suddenness of his distaste for those +old-fashioned woodland forms of life which in his courtship he had professed to +regard with so much interest. But she assented in a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“We must be simply your father’s tenants,” he continued, +“and our goings and comings must be as independent as if we lived +elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, Edgar—I quite see that it must be so.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you joined in with all those people in my absence, without knowing +whether I should approve or disapprove. When I came I couldn’t help +myself at all.” +</p> + +<p> +She, sighing: “Yes—I see I ought to have waited; though they came +unexpectedly, and I thought I had acted for the best.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus the discussion ended, and the next day Fitzpiers went on his old rounds as +usual. But it was easy for so super-subtle an eye as his to discern, or to +think he discerned, that he was no longer regarded as an extrinsic, unfathomed +gentleman of limitless potentiality, scientific and social; but as Mr. +Melbury’s compeer, and therefore in a degree only one of themselves. The +Hintock woodlandlers held with all the strength of inherited conviction to the +aristocratic principle, and as soon as they had discovered that Fitzpiers was +one of the old Buckbury Fitzpierses they had accorded to him for nothing a +touching of hat-brims, promptness of service, and deference of approach, which +Melbury had to do without, though he paid for it over and over. But now, having +proved a traitor to his own cause by this marriage, Fitzpiers was believed in +no more as a superior hedged by his own divinity; while as doctor he began to +be rated no higher than old Jones, whom they had so long despised. +</p> + +<p> +His few patients seemed in his two months’ absence to have dwindled +considerably in number, and no sooner had he returned than there came to him +from the Board of Guardians a complaint that a pauper had been neglected by his +substitute. In a fit of pride Fitzpiers resigned his appointment as one of the +surgeons to the union, which had been the nucleus of his practice here. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of a fortnight he came in-doors one evening to Grace more briskly +than usual. “They have written to me again about that practice in +Budmouth that I once negotiated for,” he said to her. “The premium +asked is eight hundred pounds, and I think that between your father and myself +it ought to be raised. Then we can get away from this place forever.” +</p> + +<p> +The question had been mooted between them before, and she was not unprepared to +consider it. They had not proceeded far with the discussion when a knock came +to the door, and in a minute Grammer ran up to say that a message had arrived +from Hintock House requesting Dr. Fitzpiers to attend there at once. Mrs. +Charmond had met with a slight accident through the overturning of her +carriage. +</p> + +<p> +“This is something, anyhow,” said Fitzpiers, rising with an +interest which he could not have defined. “I have had a presentiment that +this mysterious woman and I were to be better acquainted.” +</p> + +<p> +The latter words were murmured to himself alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night,” said Grace, as soon as he was ready. “I shall +be asleep, probably, when you return.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night,” he replied, inattentively, and went down-stairs. It +was the first time since their marriage that he had left her without a kiss. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<p> +Winterborne’s house had been pulled down. On this account his face had +been seen but fitfully in Hintock; and he would probably have disappeared from +the place altogether but for his slight business connection with Melbury, on +whose premises Giles kept his cider-making apparatus, now that he had no place +of his own to stow it in. Coming here one evening on his way to a hut beyond +the wood where he now slept, he noticed that the familiar brown-thatched pinion +of his paternal roof had vanished from its site, and that the walls were +levelled. In present circumstances he had a feeling for the spot that might +have been called morbid, and when he had supped in the hut aforesaid he made +use of the spare hour before bedtime to return to Little Hintock in the +twilight and ramble over the patch of ground on which he had first seen the +day. +</p> + +<p> +He repeated this evening visit on several like occasions. Even in the gloom he +could trace where the different rooms had stood; could mark the shape of the +kitchen chimney-corner, in which he had roasted apples and potatoes in his +boyhood, cast his bullets, and burned his initials on articles that did and did +not belong to him. The apple-trees still remained to show where the garden had +been, the oldest of them even now retaining the crippled slant to north-east +given them by the great November gale of 1824, which carried a brig bodily over +the Chesil Bank. They were at present bent to still greater obliquity by the +heaviness of their produce. Apples bobbed against his head, and in the grass +beneath he crunched scores of them as he walked. There was nobody to gather +them now. +</p> + +<p> +It was on the evening under notice that, half sitting, half leaning against one +of these inclined trunks, Winterborne had become lost in his thoughts, as +usual, till one little star after another had taken up a position in the piece +of sky which now confronted him where his walls and chimneys had formerly +raised their outlines. The house had jutted awkwardly into the road, and the +opening caused by its absence was very distinct. +</p> + +<p> +In the silence the trot of horses and the spin of carriage-wheels became +audible; and the vehicle soon shaped itself against the blank sky, bearing down +upon him with the bend in the lane which here occurred, and of which the house +had been the cause. He could discern the figure of a woman high up on the +driving-seat of a phaeton, a groom being just visible behind. Presently there +was a slight scrape, then a scream. Winterborne went across to the spot, and +found the phaeton half overturned, its driver sitting on the heap of rubbish +which had once been his dwelling, and the man seizing the horses’ heads. +The equipage was Mrs. Charmond’s, and the unseated charioteer that lady +herself. +</p> + +<p> +To his inquiry if she were hurt she made some incoherent reply to the effect +that she did not know. The damage in other respects was little or none: the +phaeton was righted, Mrs. Charmond placed in it, and the reins given to the +servant. It appeared that she had been deceived by the removal of the house, +imagining the gap caused by the demolition to be the opening of the road, so +that she turned in upon the ruins instead of at the bend a few yards farther +on. +</p> + +<p> +“Drive home—drive home!” cried the lady, impatiently; and +they started on their way. They had not, however, gone many paces when, the air +being still, Winterborne heard her say “Stop; tell that man to call the +doctor—Mr. Fitzpiers—and send him on to the House. I find I am hurt +more seriously than I thought.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne took the message from the groom and proceeded to the doctor’s +at once. Having delivered it, he stepped back into the darkness, and waited +till he had seen Fitzpiers leave the door. He stood for a few minutes looking +at the window which by its light revealed the room where Grace was sitting, and +went away under the gloomy trees. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Fitzpiers duly arrived at Hintock House, whose doors he now saw open for the +first time. Contrary to his expectation there was visible no sign of that +confusion or alarm which a serious accident to the mistress of the abode would +have occasioned. He was shown into a room at the top of the staircase, cosily +and femininely draped, where, by the light of the shaded lamp, he saw a woman +of full round figure reclining upon a couch in such a position as not to +disturb a pile of magnificent hair on the crown of her head. A deep purple +dressing-gown formed an admirable foil to the peculiarly rich brown of her +hair-plaits; her left arm, which was naked nearly up to the shoulder, was +thrown upward, and between the fingers of her right hand she held a cigarette, +while she idly breathed from her plump lips a thin stream of smoke towards the +ceiling. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor’s first feeling was a sense of his exaggerated prevision in +having brought appliances for a serious case; the next, something more curious. +While the scene and the moment were new to him and unanticipated, the sentiment +and essence of the moment were indescribably familiar. What could be the cause +of it? Probably a dream. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond did not move more than to raise her eyes to him, and he came and +stood by her. She glanced up at his face across her brows and forehead, and +then he observed a blush creep slowly over her decidedly handsome cheeks. Her +eyes, which had lingered upon him with an inquiring, conscious expression, were +hastily withdrawn, and she mechanically applied the cigarette again to her +lips. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment he forgot his errand, till suddenly arousing himself he addressed +her, formally condoled with her, and made the usual professional inquiries +about what had happened to her, and where she was hurt. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I want you to tell me,” she murmured, in tones +of indefinable reserve. “I quite believe in you, for I know you are very +accomplished, because you study so hard.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do my best to justify your good opinion,” said the +young man, bowing. “And none the less that I am happy to find the +accident has not been serious.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very much shaken,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” he replied; and completed his examination, which +convinced him that there was really nothing the matter with her, and more than +ever puzzled him as to why he had been fetched, since she did not appear to be +a timid woman. “You must rest a while, and I’ll send +something,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I forgot,” she returned. “Look here.” And she +showed him a little scrape on her arm—the full round arm that was +exposed. “Put some court-plaster on that, please.” +</p> + +<p> +He obeyed. “And now,” she said, “before you go I want to put +a question to you. Sit round there in front of me, on that low chair, and bring +the candles, or one, to the little table. Do you smoke? Yes? That’s +right—I am learning. Take one of these; and here’s a light.” +She threw a matchbox across. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers caught it, and having lit up, regarded her from his new position, +which, with the shifting of the candles, for the first time afforded him a full +view of her face. “How many years have passed since first we met!” +she resumed, in a voice which she mainly endeavored to maintain at its former +pitch of composure, and eying him with daring bashfulness. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>We</i> met, do you say?” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. “I saw you recently at an hotel in London, when you were +passing through, I suppose, with your bride, and I recognized you as one I had +met in my girlhood. Do you remember, when you were studying at Heidelberg, an +English family that was staying there, who used to walk—” +</p> + +<p> +“And the young lady who wore a long tail of rare-colored hair—ah, I +see it before my eyes!—who lost her gloves on the Great Terrace—who +was going back in the dusk to find them—to whom I said, ‘I’ll +go for them,’ and you said, ‘Oh, they are not worth coming all the +way up again for.’ I <i>do</i> remember, and how very long we stayed +talking there! I went next morning while the dew was on the grass: there they +lay—the little fingers sticking out damp and thin. I see them now! I +picked them up, and then—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“I kissed them,” he rejoined, rather shamefacedly. +</p> + +<p> +“But you had hardly ever seen me except in the dusk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind. I was young then, and I kissed them. I wondered how I could +make the most of my <i>trouvaille</i>, and decided that I would call at your +hotel with them that afternoon. It rained, and I waited till next day. I +called, and you were gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” answered she, with dry melancholy. “My mother, knowing +my disposition, said she had no wish for such a chit as me to go falling in +love with an impecunious student, and spirited me away to Baden. As it is all +over and past I’ll tell you one thing: I should have sent you a line +passing warm had I known your name. That name I never knew till my maid said, +as you passed up the hotel stairs a month ago, ‘There’s Dr. +Fitzpiers.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Heaven!” said Fitzpiers, musingly. “How the time comes +back to me! The evening, the morning, the dew, the spot. When I found that you +really were gone it was as if a cold iron had been passed down my back. I went +up to where you had stood when I last saw you—I flung myself on the +grass, and—being not much more than a boy—my eyes were literally +blinded with tears. Nameless, unknown to me as you were, I couldn’t +forget your voice.” +</p> + +<p> +“For how long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—ever so long. Days and days.” +</p> + +<p> +“Days and days! <i>Only</i> days and days? Oh, the heart of a man! Days +and days!” +</p> + +<p> +“But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It was +not a full-blown love—it was the merest bud—red, fresh, vivid, but +small. It was a colossal passion in posse, a giant in embryo. It never +matured.” +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps. But see how powerless is the human will against predestination. +We were prevented meeting; we have met. One feature of the case remains the +same amid many changes. You are still rich, and I am still poor. Better than +that, you have (judging by your last remark) outgrown the foolish, impulsive +passions of your early girl-hood. I have not outgrown mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” said she, with vibrations of strong feeling in +her words. “I have been placed in a position which hinders such +outgrowings. Besides, I don’t believe that the genuine subjects of +emotion do outgrow them; I believe that the older such people get the worse +they are. Possibly at ninety or a hundred they may feel they are cured; but a +mere threescore and ten won’t do it—at least for me.” +</p> + +<p> +He gazed at her in undisguised admiration. Here was a soul of souls! +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Charmond, you speak truly,” he exclaimed. “But you +speak sadly as well. Why is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I always am sad when I come here,” she said, dropping to a low +tone with a sense of having been too demonstrative. +</p> + +<p> +“Then may I inquire why you came?” +</p> + +<p> +“A man brought me. Women are always carried about like corks upon the +waves of masculine desires....I hope I have not alarmed you; but Hintock has +the curious effect of bottling up the emotions till one can no longer hold +them; I am often obliged to fly away and discharge my sentiments somewhere, or +I should die outright.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is very good society in the county for those who have the +privilege of entering it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps so. But the misery of remote country life is that your neighbors +have no toleration for difference of opinion and habit. My neighbors think I am +an atheist, except those who think I am a Roman Catholic; and when I speak +disrespectfully of the weather or the crops they think I am a +blasphemer.” +</p> + +<p> +She broke into a low musical laugh at the idea. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t wish me to stay any longer?” he inquired, when he +found that she remained musing. +</p> + +<p> +“No—I think not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then tell me that I am to be gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Cannot you go without?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may consult my own feelings only, if left to myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if you do, what then? Do you suppose you’ll be in my +way?” +</p> + +<p> +“I feared it might be so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then fear no more. But good-night. Come to-morrow and see if I am going +on right. This renewal of acquaintance touches me. I have already a friendship +for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it depends upon myself it shall last forever.” +</p> + +<p> +“My best hopes that it may. Good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers went down the stairs absolutely unable to decide whether she had sent +for him in the natural alarm which might have followed her mishap, or with the +single view of making herself known to him as she had done, for which the +capsize had afforded excellent opportunity. Outside the house he mused over the +spot under the light of the stars. It seemed very strange that he should have +come there more than once when its inhabitant was absent, and observed the +house with a nameless interest; that he should have assumed off-hand before he +knew Grace that it was here she lived; that, in short, at sundry times and +seasons the individuality of Hintock House should have forced itself upon him +as appertaining to some existence with which he was concerned. +</p> + +<p> +The intersection of his temporal orbit with Mrs. Charmond’s for a day or +two in the past had created a sentimental interest in her at the time, but it +had been so evanescent that in the ordinary onward roll of affairs he would +scarce ever have recalled it again. To find her here, however, in these +somewhat romantic circumstances, magnified that by-gone and transitory +tenderness to indescribable proportions. +</p> + +<p> +On entering Little Hintock he found himself regarding it in a new +way—from the Hintock House point of view rather than from his own and the +Melburys’. The household had all gone to bed, and as he went up-stairs he +heard the snore of the timber-merchant from his quarter of the building, and +turned into the passage communicating with his own rooms in a strange access of +sadness. A light was burning for him in the chamber; but Grace, though in bed, +was not asleep. In a moment her sympathetic voice came from behind the +curtains. +</p> + +<p> +“Edgar, is she very seriously hurt?” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers had so entirely lost sight of Mrs. Charmond as a patient that he was +not on the instant ready with a reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” he said. “There are no bones broken, but she is +shaken. I am going again to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Another inquiry or two, and Grace said, +</p> + +<p> +“Did she ask for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—I think she did—I don’t quite remember; but I am +under the impression that she spoke of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cannot you recollect at all what she said?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot, just this minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“At any rate she did not talk much about me?” said Grace with +disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you did, perhaps,” she added, innocently fishing for a +compliment. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—you may depend upon that!” replied he, warmly, though +scarcely thinking of what he was saying, so vividly was there present to his +mind the personality of Mrs. Charmond. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<p> +The doctor’s professional visit to Hintock House was promptly repeated +the next day and the next. He always found Mrs. Charmond reclining on a sofa, +and behaving generally as became a patient who was in no great hurry to lose +that title. On each occasion he looked gravely at the little scratch on her +arm, as if it had been a serious wound. +</p> + +<p> +He had also, to his further satisfaction, found a slight scar on her temple, +and it was very convenient to put a piece of black plaster on this conspicuous +part of her person in preference to gold-beater’s skin, so that it might +catch the eyes of the servants, and make his presence appear decidedly +necessary, in case there should be any doubt of the fact. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—you hurt me!” she exclaimed one day. +</p> + +<p> +He was peeling off the bit of plaster on her arm, under which the scrape had +turned the color of an unripe blackberry previous to vanishing altogether. +“Wait a moment, then—I’ll damp it,” said Fitzpiers. He +put his lips to the place and kept them there till the plaster came off easily. +“It was at your request I put it on,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“I know it,” she replied. “Is that blue vein still in my +temple that used to show there? The scar must be just upon it. If the cut had +been a little deeper it would have spilt my hot blood indeed!” Fitzpiers +examined so closely that his breath touched her tenderly, at which their eyes +rose to an encounter—hers showing themselves as deep and mysterious as +interstellar space. She turned her face away suddenly. “Ah! none of that! +none of that—I cannot coquet with you!” she cried. +“Don’t suppose I consent to for one moment. Our poor, brief, +youthful hour of love-making was too long ago to bear continuing now. It is as +well that we should understand each other on that point before we go +further.” +</p> + +<p> +“Coquet! Nor I with you. As it was when I found the historic gloves, so +it is now. I might have been and may be foolish; but I am no trifler. I +naturally cannot forget that little space in which I flitted across the field +of your vision in those days of the past, and the recollection opens up all +sorts of imaginings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose my mother had not taken me away?” she murmured, her dreamy +eyes resting on the swaying tip of a distant tree. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have seen you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the fire would have burned higher and higher. What would have +immediately followed I know not; but sorrow and sickness of heart at +last.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—that’s the end of all love, according to Nature’s +law. I can give no other reason.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t speak like that,” she exclaimed. “Since we +are only picturing the possibilities of that time, don’t, for +pity’s sake, spoil the picture.” Her voice sank almost to a whisper +as she added, with an incipient pout upon her full lips, “Let me think at +least that if you had really loved me at all seriously, you would have loved me +for ever and ever!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right—think it with all your heart,” said he. +“It is a pleasant thought, and costs nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +She weighed that remark in silence a while. “Did you ever hear anything +of me from then till now?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word.” +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better. I had to fight the battle of life as well as you. I +may tell you about it some day. But don’t ever ask me to do it, and +particularly do not press me to tell you now.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus the two or three days that they had spent in tender acquaintance on the +romantic slopes above the Neckar were stretched out in retrospect to the length +and importance of years; made to form a canvas for infinite fancies, idle +dreams, luxurious melancholies, and sweet, alluring assertions which could +neither be proved nor disproved. Grace was never mentioned between them, but a +rumor of his proposed domestic changes somehow reached her ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor, you are going away,” she exclaimed, confronting him with +accusatory reproach in her large dark eyes no less than in her rich cooing +voice. “Oh yes, you are,” she went on, springing to her feet with +an air which might almost have been called passionate. “It is no use +denying it. You have bought a practice at Budmouth. I don’t blame you. +Nobody can live at Hintock—least of all a professional man who wants to +keep abreast of recent discovery. And there is nobody here to induce such a one +to stay for other reasons. That’s right, that’s right—go +away!” +</p> + +<p> +“But no, I have not actually bought the practice as yet, though I am +indeed in treaty for it. And, my dear friend, if I continue to feel about the +business as I feel at this moment—perhaps I may conclude never to go at +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you hate Hintock, and everybody and everything in it that you +don’t mean to take away with you?” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers contradicted this idea in his most vibratory tones, and she lapsed +into the frivolous archness under which she hid passions of no mean +strength—strange, smouldering, erratic passions, kept down like a stifled +conflagration, but bursting out now here, now there—the only certain +element in their direction being its unexpectedness. If one word could have +expressed her it would have been Inconsequence. She was a woman of +perversities, delighting in frequent contrasts. She liked mystery, in her life, +in her love, in her history. To be fair to her, there was nothing in the latter +which she had any great reason to be ashamed of, and many things of which she +might have been proud; but it had never been fathomed by the honest minds of +Hintock, and she rarely volunteered her experiences. As for her capricious +nature, the people on her estates grew accustomed to it, and with that +marvellous subtlety of contrivance in steering round odd tempers, that is found +in sons of the soil and dependants generally, they managed to get along under +her government rather better than they would have done beneath a more equable +rule. +</p> + +<p> +Now, with regard to the doctor’s notion of leaving Hintock, he had +advanced further towards completing the purchase of the Budmouth +surgeon’s good-will than he had admitted to Mrs. Charmond. The whole +matter hung upon what he might do in the ensuing twenty-four hours. The evening +after leaving her he went out into the lane, and walked and pondered between +the high hedges, now greenish-white with wild clematis—here called +“old-man’s beard,” from its aspect later in the year. +</p> + +<p> +The letter of acceptance was to be written that night, after which his +departure from Hintock would be irrevocable. But could he go away, remembering +what had just passed? The trees, the hills, the leaves, the grass—each +had been endowed and quickened with a subtle charm since he had discovered the +person and history, and, above all, mood of their owner. There was every +temporal reason for leaving; it would be entering again into a world which he +had only quitted in a passion for isolation, induced by a fit of Achillean +moodiness after an imagined slight. His wife herself saw the awkwardness of +their position here, and cheerfully welcomed the purposed change, towards which +every step had been taken but the last. But could he find it in his +heart—as he found it clearly enough in his conscience—to go away? +</p> + +<p> +He drew a troubled breath, and went in-doors. Here he rapidly penned a letter, +wherein he withdrew once for all from the treaty for the Budmouth practice. As +the postman had already left Little Hintock for that night, he sent one of +Melbury’s men to intercept a mail-cart on another turnpike-road, and so +got the letter off. +</p> + +<p> +The man returned, met Fitzpiers in the lane, and told him the thing was done. +Fitzpiers went back to his house musing. Why had he carried out this +impulse—taken such wild trouble to effect a probable injury to his own +and his young wife’s prospects? His motive was fantastic, glowing, +shapeless as the fiery scenery about the western sky. Mrs. Charmond could +overtly be nothing more to him than a patient now, and to his wife, at the +outside, a patron. In the unattached bachelor days of his first sojourning here +how highly proper an emotional reason for lingering on would have appeared to +troublesome dubiousness. Matrimonial ambition is such an honorable thing. +</p> + +<p> +“My father has told me that you have sent off one of the men with a late +letter to Budmouth,” cried Grace, coming out vivaciously to meet him +under the declining light of the sky, wherein hung, solitary, the folding star. +“I said at once that you had finally agreed to pay the premium they ask, +and that the tedious question had been settled. When do we go, Edgar?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have altered my mind,” said he. “They want too +much—seven hundred and fifty is too large a sum—and in short, I +have declined to go further. We must wait for another opportunity. I fear I am +not a good business-man.” He spoke the last words with a momentary +faltering at the great foolishness of his act; for, as he looked in her fair +and honorable face, his heart reproached him for what he had done. +</p> + +<p> +Her manner that evening showed her disappointment. Personally she liked the +home of her childhood much, and she was not ambitious. But her husband had +seemed so dissatisfied with the circumstances hereabout since their marriage +that she had sincerely hoped to go for his sake. +</p> + +<p> +It was two or three days before he visited Mrs. Charmond again. The morning had +been windy, and little showers had sowed themselves like grain against the +walls and window-panes of the Hintock cottages. He went on foot across the +wilder recesses of the park, where slimy streams of green moisture, exuding +from decayed holes caused by old amputations, ran down the bark of the oaks and +elms, the rind below being coated with a lichenous wash as green as emerald. +They were stout-trunked trees, that never rocked their stems in the fiercest +gale, responding to it entirely by crooking their limbs. Wrinkled like an old +crone’s face, and antlered with dead branches that rose above the foliage +of their summits, they were nevertheless still green—though yellow had +invaded the leaves of other trees. +</p> + +<p> +She was in a little boudoir or writing-room on the first floor, and Fitzpiers +was much surprised to find that the window-curtains were closed and a +red-shaded lamp and candles burning, though out-of-doors it was broad daylight. +Moreover, a large fire was burning in the grate, though it was not cold. +</p> + +<p> +“What does it all mean?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +She sat in an easy-chair, her face being turned away. “Oh,” she +murmured, “it is because the world is so dreary outside. Sorrow and +bitterness in the sky, and floods of agonized tears beating against the panes. +I lay awake last night, and I could hear the scrape of snails creeping up the +window-glass; it was so sad! My eyes were so heavy this morning that I could +have wept my life away. I cannot bear you to see my face; I keep it away from +you purposely. Oh! why were we given hungry hearts and wild desires if we have +to live in a world like this? Why should Death only lend what Life is compelled +to borrow—rest? Answer that, Dr. Fitzpiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must eat of a second tree of knowledge before <i>you</i> can do it, +Felice Charmond.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, when my emotions have exhausted themselves, I become full of +fears, till I think I shall die for very fear. The terrible insistencies of +society—how severe they are, and cold and inexorable—ghastly +towards those who are made of wax and not of stone. Oh, I am afraid of them; a +stab for this error, and a stab for that—correctives and regulations +framed that society may tend to perfection—an end which I don’t +care for in the least. Yet for this, all I do care for has to be stunted and +starved.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers had seated himself near her. “What sets you in this mournful +mood?” he asked, gently. (In reality he knew that it was the result of a +loss of tone from staying in-doors so much, but he did not say so.) +</p> + +<p> +“My reflections. Doctor, you must not come here any more. They begin to +think it a farce already. I say you must come no more. There—don’t +be angry with me;” and she jumped up, pressed his hand, and looked +anxiously at him. “It is necessary. It is best for both you and +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” said Fitzpiers, gloomily, “what have we done?” +</p> + +<p> +“Done—we have done nothing. Perhaps we have thought the more. +However, it is all vexation. I am going away to Middleton Abbey, near +Shottsford, where a relative of my late husband lives, who is confined to her +bed. The engagement was made in London, and I can’t get out of it. +Perhaps it is for the best that I go there till all this is past. When are you +going to enter on your new practice, and leave Hintock behind forever, with +your pretty wife on your arm?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have refused the opportunity. I love this place too well to +depart.” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>have?</i>” she said, regarding him with wild uncertainty. +“Why do you ruin yourself in that way? Great Heaven, what have I +done!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. Besides, you are going away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes; but only to Middleton Abbey for a month or two. Yet perhaps I +shall gain strength there—particularly strength of mind—I require +it. And when I come back I shall be a new woman; and you can come and see me +safely then, and bring your wife with you, and we’ll be friends—she +and I. Oh, how this shutting up of one’s self does lead to indulgence in +idle sentiments. I shall not wish you to give your attendance to me after +to-day. But I am glad that you are not going away—if your remaining does +not injure your prospects at all.” +</p> + +<p> +As soon as he had left the room the mild friendliness she had preserved in her +tone at parting, the playful sadness with which she had conversed with him, +equally departed from her. She became as heavy as lead—just as she had +been before he arrived. Her whole being seemed to dissolve in a sad +powerlessness to do anything, and the sense of it made her lips tremulous and +her closed eyes wet. His footsteps again startled her, and she turned round. +</p> + +<p> +“I returned for a moment to tell you that the evening is going to be +fine. The sun is shining; so do open your curtains and put out those lights. +Shall I do it for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Please—if you don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +He drew back the window-curtains, whereupon the red glow of the lamp and the +two candle-flames became almost invisible with the flood of late autumn +sunlight that poured in. “Shall I come round to you?” he asked, her +back being towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I am crying, and I don’t want to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +He stood a moment irresolute, and regretted that he had killed the rosy, +passionate lamplight by opening the curtains and letting in garish day. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I am going,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” she answered, stretching one hand round to him, and +patting her eyes with a handkerchief held in the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I write a line to you at—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no.” A gentle reasonableness came into her tone as she added, +“It must not be, you know. It won’t do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. Good-by.” The next moment he was gone. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening, with listless adroitness, she encouraged the maid who dressed +her for dinner to speak of Dr. Fitzpiers’s marriage. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Fitzpiers was once supposed to favor Mr. Winterborne,” said +the young woman. +</p> + +<p> +“And why didn’t she marry him?” said Mrs. Charmond. +</p> + +<p> +“Because, you see, ma’am, he lost his houses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lost his houses? How came he to do that?” +</p> + +<p> +“The houses were held on lives, and the lives dropped, and your agent +wouldn’t renew them, though it is said that Mr. Winterborne had a very +good claim. That’s as I’ve heard it, ma’am, and it was +through it that the match was broke off.” +</p> + +<p> +Being just then distracted by a dozen emotions, Mrs. Charmond sunk into a mood +of dismal self-reproach. “In refusing that poor man his reasonable +request,” she said to herself, “I foredoomed my rejuvenated +girlhood’s romance. Who would have thought such a business matter could +have nettled my own heart like this? Now for a winter of regrets and agonies +and useless wishes, till I forget him in the spring. Oh! I am glad I am going +away.” +</p> + +<p> +She left her chamber and went down to dine with a sigh. On the stairs she stood +opposite the large window for a moment, and looked out upon the lawn. It was +not yet quite dark. Half-way up the steep green slope confronting her stood old +Timothy Tangs, who was shortening his way homeward by clambering here where +there was no road, and in opposition to express orders that no path was to be +made there. Tangs had momentarily stopped to take a pinch of snuff; but +observing Mrs. Charmond gazing at him, he hastened to get over the top out of +hail. His precipitancy made him miss his footing, and he rolled like a barrel +to the bottom, his snuffbox rolling in front of him. +</p> + +<p> +Her indefinite, idle, impossible passion for Fitzpiers; her constitutional +cloud of misery; the sorrowful drops that still hung upon her eyelashes, all +made way for the incursive mood started by the spectacle. She burst into an +immoderate fit of laughter, her very gloom of the previous hour seeming to +render it the more uncontrollable. It had not died out of her when she reached +the dining-room; and even here, before the servants, her shoulders suddenly +shook as the scene returned upon her; and the tears of her hilarity mingled +with the remnants of those engendered by her grief. +</p> + +<p> +She resolved to be sad no more. She drank two glasses of champagne, and a +little more still after those, and amused herself in the evening with singing +little amatory songs. +</p> + +<p> +“I must do something for that poor man Winterborne, however,” she +said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + +<p> +A week had passed, and Mrs. Charmond had left Hintock House. Middleton Abbey, +the place of her sojourn, was about twenty miles distant by road, eighteen by +bridle-paths and footways. +</p> + +<p> +Grace observed, for the first time, that her husband was restless, that at +moments he even was disposed to avoid her. The scrupulous civility of mere +acquaintanceship crept into his manner; yet, when sitting at meals, he seemed +hardly to hear her remarks. Her little doings interested him no longer, while +towards her father his bearing was not far from supercilious. It was plain that +his mind was entirely outside her life, whereabouts outside it she could not +tell; in some region of science, possibly, or of psychological literature. But +her hope that he was again immersing himself in those lucubrations which before +her marriage had made his light a landmark in Hintock, was founded simply on +the slender fact that he often sat up late. +</p> + +<p> +One evening she discovered him leaning over a gate on Rub-Down Hill, the gate +at which Winterborne had once been standing, and which opened on the brink of a +steep, slanting down directly into Blackmoor Vale, or the Vale of the White +Hart, extending beneath the eye at this point to a distance of many miles. His +attention was fixed on the landscape far away, and Grace’s approach was +so noiseless that he did not hear her. When she came close she could see his +lips moving unconsciously, as to some impassioned visionary theme. +</p> + +<p> +She spoke, and Fitzpiers started. “What are you looking at?” she +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I was contemplating our old place of Buckbury, in my idle +way,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It had seemed to her that he was looking much to the right of that cradle and +tomb of his ancestral dignity; but she made no further observation, and taking +his arm walked home beside him almost in silence. She did not know that +Middleton Abbey lay in the direction of his gaze. “Are you going to have +out Darling this afternoon?” she asked, presently. Darling being the +light-gray mare which Winterborne had bought for Grace, and which Fitzpiers now +constantly used, the animal having turned out a wonderful bargain, in combining +a perfect docility with an almost human intelligence; moreover, she was not too +young. Fitzpiers was unfamiliar with horses, and he valued these qualities. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he replied, “but not to drive. I am riding her. I +practise crossing a horse as often as I can now, for I find that I can take +much shorter cuts on horseback.” +</p> + +<p> +He had, in fact, taken these riding exercises for about a week, only since Mrs. +Charmond’s absence, his universal practice hitherto having been to drive. +</p> + +<p> +Some few days later, Fitzpiers started on the back of this horse to see a +patient in the aforesaid Vale. It was about five o’clock in the evening +when he went away, and at bedtime he had not reached home. There was nothing +very singular in this, though she was not aware that he had any patient more +than five or six miles distant in that direction. The clock had struck one +before Fitzpiers entered the house, and he came to his room softly, as if +anxious not to disturb her. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning she was stirring considerably earlier than he. +</p> + +<p> +In the yard there was a conversation going on about the mare; the man who +attended to the horses, Darling included, insisted that the latter was +“hag-rid;” for when he had arrived at the stable that morning she +was in such a state as no horse could be in by honest riding. It was true that +the doctor had stabled her himself when he got home, so that she was not looked +after as she would have been if he had groomed and fed her; but that did not +account for the appearance she presented, if Mr. Fitzpiers’s journey had +been only where he had stated. The phenomenal exhaustion of Darling, as thus +related, was sufficient to develop a whole series of tales about riding witches +and demons, the narration of which occupied a considerable time. +</p> + +<p> +Grace returned in-doors. In passing through the outer room she picked up her +husband’s overcoat which he had carelessly flung down across a chair. A +turnpike ticket fell out of the breast-pocket, and she saw that it had been +issued at Middleton Gate. He had therefore visited Middleton the previous +night, a distance of at least five-and-thirty miles on horseback, there and +back. +</p> + +<p> +During the day she made some inquiries, and learned for the first time that +Mrs. Charmond was staying at Middleton Abbey. She could not resist an +inference—strange as that inference was. +</p> + +<p> +A few days later he prepared to start again, at the same time and in the same +direction. She knew that the state of the cottager who lived that way was a +mere pretext; she was quite sure he was going to Mrs. Charmond. Grace was +amazed at the mildness of the passion which the suspicion engendered in her. +She was but little excited, and her jealousy was languid even to death. It told +tales of the nature of her affection for him. In truth, her antenuptial regard +for Fitzpiers had been rather of the quality of awe towards a superior being +than of tender solicitude for a lover. It had been based upon mystery and +strangeness—the mystery of his past, of his knowledge, of his +professional skill, of his beliefs. When this structure of ideals was +demolished by the intimacy of common life, and she found him as merely human as +the Hintock people themselves, a new foundation was in demand for an enduring +and stanch affection—a sympathetic interdependence, wherein mutual +weaknesses were made the grounds of a defensive alliance. Fitzpiers had +furnished none of that single-minded confidence and truth out of which alone +such a second union could spring; hence it was with a controllable emotion that +she now watched the mare brought round. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll walk with you to the hill if you are not in a great +hurry,” she said, rather loath, after all, to let him go. +</p> + +<p> +“Do; there’s plenty of time,” replied her husband. +Accordingly he led along the horse, and walked beside her, impatient enough +nevertheless. Thus they proceeded to the turnpike road, and ascended Rub-Down +Hill to the gate he had been leaning over when she surprised him ten days +before. This was the end of her excursion. Fitzpiers bade her adieu with +affection, even with tenderness, and she observed that he looked weary-eyed. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you go to-night?” she said. “You have been called up +two nights in succession already.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must go,” he answered, almost gloomily. “Don’t wait +up for me.” With these words he mounted his horse, passed through the +gate which Grace held open for him, and ambled down the steep bridle-track to +the valley. +</p> + +<p> +She closed the gate and watched his descent, and then his journey onward. His +way was east, the evening sun which stood behind her back beaming full upon him +as soon as he got out from the shade of the hill. Notwithstanding this untoward +proceeding she was determined to be loyal if he proved true; and the +determination to love one’s best will carry a heart a long way towards +making that best an ever-growing thing. The conspicuous coat of the active +though blanching mare made horse and rider easy objects for the vision. Though +Darling had been chosen with such pains by Winterborne for Grace, she had never +ridden the sleek creature; but her husband had found the animal exceedingly +convenient, particularly now that he had taken to the saddle, plenty of staying +power being left in Darling yet. Fitzpiers, like others of his character, while +despising Melbury and his station, did not at all disdain to spend +Melbury’s money, or appropriate to his own use the horse which belonged +to Melbury’s daughter. +</p> + +<p> +And so the infatuated young surgeon went along through the gorgeous autumn +landscape of White Hart Vale, surrounded by orchards lustrous with the reds of +apple-crops, berries, and foliage, the whole intensified by the gilding of the +declining sun. The earth this year had been prodigally bountiful, and now was +the supreme moment of her bounty. In the poorest spots the hedges were bowed +with haws and blackberries; acorns cracked underfoot, and the burst husks of +chestnuts lay exposing their auburn contents as if arranged by anxious sellers +in a fruit-market. In all this proud show some kernels were unsound as her own +situation, and she wondered if there were one world in the universe where the +fruit had no worm, and marriage no sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +Herr Tannhäuser still moved on, his plodding steed rendering him distinctly +visible yet. Could she have heard Fitzpiers’s voice at that moment she +would have found him murmuring— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“...Towards the loadstar of my one desire<br /> +I flitted, even as a dizzy moth in the owlet light.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But he was a silent spectacle to her now. Soon he rose out of the valley, and +skirted a high plateau of the chalk formation on his right, which rested +abruptly upon the fruity district of loamy clay, the character and herbage of +the two formations being so distinct that the calcareous upland appeared but as +a deposit of a few years’ antiquity upon the level vale. He kept along +the edge of this high, unenclosed country, and the sky behind him being deep +violet, she could still see white Darling in relief upon it—a mere speck +now—a Wouvermans eccentricity reduced to microscopic dimensions. Upon +this high ground he gradually disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +Thus she had beheld the pet animal purchased for her own use, in pure love of +her, by one who had always been true, impressed to convey her husband away from +her to the side of a new-found idol. While she was musing on the vicissitudes +of horses and wives, she discerned shapes moving up the valley towards her, +quite near at hand, though till now hidden by the hedges. Surely they were +Giles Winterborne, with his two horses and cider-apparatus, conducted by Robert +Creedle. Up, upward they crept, a stray beam of the sun alighting every now and +then like a star on the blades of the pomace-shovels, which had been converted +to steel mirrors by the action of the malic acid. She opened the gate when he +came close, and the panting horses rested as they achieved the ascent. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do, Giles?” said she, under a sudden impulse to be +familiar with him. +</p> + +<p> +He replied with much more reserve. “You are going for a walk, Mrs. +Fitzpiers?” he added. “It is pleasant just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I am returning,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +The vehicles passed through, the gate slammed, and Winterborne walked by her +side in the rear of the apple-mill. +</p> + +<p> +He looked and smelt like Autumn’s very brother, his face being sunburnt +to wheat-color, his eyes blue as corn-flowers, his boots and leggings dyed with +fruit-stains, his hands clammy with the sweet juice of apples, his hat +sprinkled with pips, and everywhere about him that atmosphere of cider which at +its first return each season has such an indescribable fascination for those +who have been born and bred among the orchards. Her heart rose from its late +sadness like a released spring; her senses revelled in the sudden lapse back to +nature unadorned. The consciousness of having to be genteel because of her +husband’s profession, the veneer of artificiality which she had acquired +at the fashionable schools, were thrown off, and she became the crude, country +girl of her latent, earliest instincts. +</p> + +<p> +Nature was bountiful, she thought. No sooner had she been starved off by Edgar +Fitzpiers than another being, impersonating bare and undiluted manliness, had +arisen out of the earth, ready to hand. This was an excursion of the +imagination which she did not encourage, and she said suddenly, to disguise the +confused regard which had followed her thoughts, “Did you meet my +husband?” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne, with some hesitation, “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you meet him?” +</p> + +<p> +“At Calfhay Cross. I come from Middleton Abbey; I have been making there +for the last week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t they a mill of their own?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but it’s out of repair.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think—I heard that Mrs. Charmond had gone there to stay?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I have seen her at the windows once or twice.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace waited an interval before she went on: “Did Mr. Fitzpiers take the +way to Middleton?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes...I met him on Darling.” As she did not reply, he added, with +a gentler inflection, “You know why the mare was called that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—of course,” she answered, quickly. +</p> + +<p> +They had risen so far over the crest of the hill that the whole west sky was +revealed. Between the broken clouds they could see far into the recesses of +heaven, the eye journeying on under a species of golden arcades, and past fiery +obstructions, fancied cairns, logan-stones, stalactites and stalagmite of +topaz. Deeper than this their gaze passed thin flakes of incandescence, till it +plunged into a bottomless medium of soft green fire. +</p> + +<p> +Her abandonment to the luscious time after her sense of ill-usage, her revolt +for the nonce against social law, her passionate desire for primitive life, may +have showed in her face. Winterborne was looking at her, his eyes lingering on +a flower that she wore in her bosom. Almost with the abstraction of a +somnambulist he stretched out his hand and gently caressed the flower. +</p> + +<p> +She drew back. “What are you doing, Giles Winterborne!” she +exclaimed, with a look of severe surprise. The evident absence of all +premeditation from the act, however, speedily led her to think that it was not +necessary to stand upon her dignity here and now. “You must bear in mind, +Giles,” she said, kindly, “that we are not as we were; and some +people might have said that what you did was taking a liberty.” +</p> + +<p> +It was more than she need have told him; his action of forgetfulness had made +him so angry with himself that he flushed through his tan. “I don’t +know what I am coming to!” he exclaimed, savagely. “Ah—I was +not once like this!” Tears of vexation were in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“No, now—it was nothing. I was too reproachful.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would not have occurred to me if I had not seen something like it +done elsewhere—at Middleton lately,” he said, thoughtfully, after a +while. +</p> + +<p> +“By whom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ask it.” +</p> + +<p> +She scanned him narrowly. “I know quite well enough,” she returned, +indifferently. “It was by my husband, and the woman was Mrs. Charmond. +Association of ideas reminded you when you saw me....Giles—tell me all +you know about that—please do, Giles! But no—I won’t hear it. +Let the subject cease. And as you are my friend, say nothing to my +father.” +</p> + +<p> +They reached a place where their ways divided. Winterborne continued along the +highway which kept outside the copse, and Grace opened a gate that entered it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + +<p> +She walked up the soft grassy ride, screened on either hand by nut-bushes, just +now heavy with clusters of twos and threes and fours. A little way on, the +track she pursued was crossed by a similar one at right angles. Here Grace +stopped; some few yards up the transverse ride the buxom Suke Damson was +visible—her gown tucked up high through her pocket-hole, and no bonnet on +her head—in the act of pulling down boughs from which she was gathering +and eating nuts with great rapidity, her lover Tim Tangs standing near her +engaged in the same pleasant meal. +</p> + +<p> +Crack, crack went Suke’s jaws every second or two. By an automatic chain +of thought Grace’s mind reverted to the tooth-drawing scene described by +her husband; and for the first time she wondered if that narrative were really +true, Susan’s jaws being so obviously sound and strong. Grace turned up +towards the nut-gatherers, and conquered her reluctance to speak to the girl +who was a little in advance of Tim. “Good-evening, Susan,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening, Miss Melbury” (crack). +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Fitzpiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, ma’am—Mrs. Fitzpiers,” said Suke, with a +peculiar smile. +</p> + +<p> +Grace, not to be daunted, continued: “Take care of your teeth, Suke. That +accounts for the toothache.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what an ache is, either in tooth, ear, or head, thank +the Lord” (crack). +</p> + +<p> +“Nor the loss of one, either?” +</p> + +<p> +“See for yourself, ma’am.” She parted her red lips, and +exhibited the whole double row, full up and unimpaired. +</p> + +<p> +“You have never had one drawn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never.” +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better for your stomach,” said Mrs. Fitzpiers, in an +altered voice. And turning away quickly, she went on. +</p> + +<p> +As her husband’s character thus shaped itself under the touch of time, +Grace was almost startled to find how little she suffered from that jealous +excitement which is conventionally attributed to all wives in such +circumstances. But though possessed by none of that feline wildness which it +was her moral duty to experience, she did not fail to know that she had made a +frightful mistake in her marriage. Acquiescence in her father’s wishes +had been degradation to herself. People are not given premonitions for nothing; +she should have obeyed her impulse on that early morning, and steadfastly +refused her hand. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, that plausible tale which her then betrothed had told her about +Suke—the dramatic account of her entreaties to him to draw the aching +enemy, and the fine artistic touch he had given to the story by explaining that +it was a lovely molar without a flaw! +</p> + +<p> +She traced the remainder of the woodland track dazed by the complications of +her position. If his protestations to her before their marriage could be +believed, her husband had felt affection of some sort for herself and this +woman simultaneously; and was now again spreading the same emotion over Mrs. +Charmond and herself conjointly, his manner being still kind and fond at times. +But surely, rather than that, he must have played the hypocrite towards her in +each case with elaborate completeness; and the thought of this sickened her, +for it involved the conjecture that if he had not loved her, his only motive +for making her his wife must have been her little fortune. Yet here Grace made +a mistake, for the love of men like Fitzpiers is unquestionably of such quality +as to bear division and transference. He had indeed, once declared, though not +to her, that on one occasion he had noticed himself to be possessed by five +distinct infatuations at the same time. Therein it differed from the highest +affection as the lower orders of the animal world differ from advanced +organisms, partition causing, not death, but a multiplied existence. He had +loved her sincerely, and had by no means ceased to love her now. But such +double and treble barrelled hearts were naturally beyond her conception. +</p> + +<p> +Of poor Suke Damson, Grace thought no more. She had had her day. +</p> + +<p> +“If he does not love me I will not love him!” said Grace, proudly. +And though these were mere words, it was a somewhat formidable thing for +Fitzpiers that her heart was approximating to a state in which it might be +possible to carry them out. That very absence of hot jealousy which made his +courses so easy, and on which, indeed, he congratulated himself, meant, unknown +to either wife or husband, more mischief than the inconvenient watchfulness of +a jaundiced eye. +</p> + +<p> +Her sleep that night was nervous. The wing allotted to her and her husband had +never seemed so lonely. At last she got up, put on her dressing-gown, and went +down-stairs. Her father, who slept lightly, heard her descend, and came to the +stair-head. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Grace? What’s the matter?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing more than that I am restless. Edgar is detained by a case at +Owlscombe in White Hart Vale.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how’s that? I saw the woman’s husband at Great Hintock +just afore bedtime; and she was going on well, and the doctor gone then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then he’s detained somewhere else,” said Grace. “Never +mind me; he will soon be home. I expect him about one.” +</p> + +<p> +She went back to her room, and dozed and woke several times. One o’clock +had been the hour of his return on the last occasion; but it passed now by a +long way, and Fitzpiers did not come. Just before dawn she heard the men +stirring in the yard; and the flashes of their lanterns spread every now and +then through her window-blind. She remembered that her father had told her not +to be disturbed if she noticed them, as they would be rising early to send off +four loads of hurdles to a distant sheep-fair. Peeping out, she saw them +bustling about, the hollow-turner among the rest; he was loading his +wares—wooden-bowls, dishes, spigots, spoons, cheese-vats, funnels, and so +on—upon one of her father’s wagons, who carried them to the fair +for him every year out of neighborly kindness. +</p> + +<p> +The scene and the occasion would have enlivened her but that her husband was +still absent; though it was now five o’clock. She could hardly suppose +him, whatever his infatuation, to have prolonged to a later hour than ten an +ostensibly professional call on Mrs. Charmond at Middleton; and he could have +ridden home in two hours and a half. What, then, had become of him? That he had +been out the greater part of the two preceding nights added to her uneasiness. +</p> + +<p> +She dressed herself, descended, and went out, the weird twilight of advancing +day chilling the rays from the lanterns, and making the men’s faces wan. +As soon as Melbury saw her he came round, showing his alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“Edgar is not come,” she said. “And I have reason to know +that he’s not attending anybody. He has had no rest for two nights before +this. I was going to the top of the hill to look for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come with you,” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +She begged him not to hinder himself; but he insisted, for he saw a peculiar +and rigid gloom in her face over and above her uneasiness, and did not like the +look of it. Telling the men he would be with them again soon, he walked beside +her into the turnpike-road, and partly up the hill whence she had watched +Fitzpiers the night before across the Great White Hart or Blackmoor Valley. +They halted beneath a half-dead oak, hollow, and disfigured with white tumors, +its roots spreading out like accipitrine claws grasping the ground. A chilly +wind circled round them, upon whose currents the seeds of a neighboring +lime-tree, supported parachute-wise by the wing attached, flew out of the +boughs downward like fledglings from their nest. The vale was wrapped in a dim +atmosphere of unnaturalness, and the east was like a livid curtain edged with +pink. There was no sign nor sound of Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +“It is no use standing here,” said her father. “He may come +home fifty ways...why, look here!—here be Darling’s +tracks—turned homeward and nearly blown dry and hard! He must have come +in hours ago without your seeing him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has not done that,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +They went back hastily. On entering their own gates they perceived that the men +had left the wagons, and were standing round the door of the stable which had +been appropriated to the doctor’s use. “Is there anything the +matter?” cried Grace. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, ma’am. All’s well that ends well,” said old +Timothy Tangs. “I’ve heard of such things before—among +workfolk, though not among your gentle people—that’s true.” +</p> + +<p> +They entered the stable, and saw the pale shape of Darling standing in the +middle of her stall, with Fitzpiers on her back, sound asleep. Darling was +munching hay as well as she could with the bit in her month, and the reins, +which had fallen from Fitzpiers’s hand, hung upon her neck. +</p> + +<p> +Grace went and touched his hand; shook it before she could arouse him. He +moved, started, opened his eyes, and exclaimed, “Ah, Felice!...Oh, +it’s Grace. I could not see in the gloom. What—am I in the +saddle?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said she. “How do you come here?” +</p> + +<p> +He collected his thoughts, and in a few minutes stammered, “I was riding +along homeward through the vale, very, very sleepy, having been up so much of +late. When I came opposite Holywell spring the mare turned her head that way, +as if she wanted to drink. I let her go in, and she drank; I thought she would +never finish. While she was drinking, the clock of Owlscombe Church struck +twelve. I distinctly remember counting the strokes. From that moment I +positively recollect nothing till I saw you here by my side.” +</p> + +<p> +“The name! If it had been any other horse he’d have had a broken +neck!” murmured Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis wonderful, sure, how a quiet hoss will bring a man home at +such times!” said John Upjohn. “And what’s more wonderful +than keeping your seat in a deep, slumbering sleep? I’ve knowed men +drowze off walking home from randies where the mead and other liquors have gone +round well, and keep walking for more than a mile on end without waking. Well, +doctor, I don’t care who the man is, ’tis a mercy you wasn’t +a drownded, or a splintered, or a hanged up to a tree like Absalom—also a +handsome gentleman like yerself, as the prophets say.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” murmured old Timothy. “From the soul of his foot to +the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or leastwise you might ha’ been a-wownded into tatters +a’most, and no doctor to jine your few limbs together within seven +mile!” +</p> + +<p> +While this grim address was proceeding, Fitzpiers had dismounted, and taking +Grace’s arm walked stiffly in-doors with her. Melbury stood staring at +the horse, which, in addition to being very weary, was spattered with mud. +There was no mud to speak of about the Hintocks just now—only in the +clammy hollows of the vale beyond Owlscombe, the stiff soil of which retained +moisture for weeks after the uplands were dry. While they were rubbing down the +mare, Melbury’s mind coupled with the foreign quality of the mud the name +he had heard unconsciously muttered by the surgeon when Grace took his +hand—“Felice.” Who was Felice? Why, Mrs. Charmond; and she, +as he knew, was staying at Middleton. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury had indeed pounced upon the image that filled Fitzpiers’s +half-awakened soul—wherein there had been a picture of a recent interview +on a lawn with a capriciously passionate woman who had begged him not to come +again in tones whose vibration incited him to disobey. “What are you +doing here? Why do you pursue me? Another belongs to you. If they were to see +you they would seize you as a thief!” And she had turbulently admitted to +his wringing questions that her visit to Middleton had been undertaken less +because of the invalid relative than in shamefaced fear of her own weakness if +she remained near his home. A triumph then it was to Fitzpiers, poor and +hampered as he had become, to recognize his real conquest of this beauty, +delayed so many years. His was the selfish passion of Congreve’s +Millamont, to whom love’s supreme delight lay in “that heart which +others bleed for, bleed for me.” +</p> + +<p> +When the horse had been attended to Melbury stood uneasily here and there about +his premises; he was rudely disturbed in the comfortable views which had lately +possessed him on his domestic concerns. It is true that he had for some days +discerned that Grace more and more sought his company, preferred supervising +his kitchen and bakehouse with her step-mother to occupying herself with the +lighter details of her own apartments. She seemed no longer able to find in her +own hearth an adequate focus for her life, and hence, like a weak queen-bee +after leading off to an independent home, had hovered again into the parent +hive. But he had not construed these and other incidents of the kind till now. +</p> + +<p> +Something was wrong in the dove-cot. A ghastly sense that he alone would be +responsible for whatever unhappiness should be brought upon her for whom he +almost solely lived, whom to retain under his roof he had faced the numerous +inconveniences involved in giving up the best part of his house to Fitzpiers. +There was no room for doubt that, had he allowed events to take their natural +course, she would have accepted Winterborne, and realized his old dream of +restitution to that young man’s family. +</p> + +<p> +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. What could he +and his simple Grace do to countervail the passions of such as those two +sophisticated beings—versed in the world’s ways, armed with every +apparatus for victory? In such an encounter the homely timber-dealer felt as +inferior as a bow-and-arrow savage before the precise weapons of modern +warfare. +</p> + +<p> +Grace came out of the house as the morning drew on. The village was silent, +most of the folk having gone to the fair. Fitzpiers had retired to bed, and was +sleeping off his fatigue. She went to the stable and looked at poor Darling: in +all probability Giles Winterborne, by obtaining for her a horse of such +intelligence and docility, had been the means of saving her husband’s +life. She paused over the strange thought; and then there appeared her father +behind her. She saw that he knew things were not as they ought to be, from the +troubled dulness of his eye, and from his face, different points of which had +independent motions, twitchings, and tremblings, unknown to himself, and +involuntary. +</p> + +<p> +“He was detained, I suppose, last night?” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes; a bad case in the vale,” she replied, calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless, he should have stayed at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he couldn’t, father.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father turned away. He could hardly bear to see his whilom truthful girl +brought to the humiliation of having to talk like that. +</p> + +<p> +That night carking care sat beside Melbury’s pillow, and his stiff limbs +tossed at its presence. “I can’t lie here any longer,” he +muttered. Striking a light, he wandered about the room. “What have I +done—what have I done for her?” he said to his wife, who had +anxiously awakened. “I had long planned that she should marry the son of +the man I wanted to make amends to; do ye mind how I told you all about it, +Lucy, the night before she came home? Ah! but I was not content with doing +right, I wanted to do more!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t raft yourself without good need, George,” she replied. +“I won’t quite believe that things are so much amiss. I won’t +believe that Mrs. Charmond has encouraged him. Even supposing she has +encouraged a great many, she can have no motive to do it now. What so likely as +that she is not yet quite well, and doesn’t care to let another doctor +come near her?” +</p> + +<p> +He did not heed. “Grace used to be so busy every day, with fixing a +curtain here and driving a tin-tack there; but she cares for no employment +now!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know anything of Mrs. Charmond’s past history? Perhaps that +would throw some light upon things. Before she came here as the wife of old +Charmond four or five years ago, not a soul seems to have heard aught of her. +Why not make inquiries? And then do ye wait and see more; there’ll be +plenty of opportunity. Time enough to cry when you know ’tis a crying +matter; and ’tis bad to meet troubles half-way.” +</p> + +<p> +There was some good-sense in the notion of seeing further. Melbury resolved to +inquire and wait, hoping still, but oppressed between-whiles with much fear. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + +<p> +Examine Grace as her father might, she would admit nothing. For the present, +therefore, he simply watched. +</p> + +<p> +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. He knew that a woman once given to a man for life +took, as a rule, her lot as it came and made the best of it, without external +interference; but for the first time he asked himself why this so generally +should be so. Moreover, this case was not, he argued, like ordinary cases. +Leaving out the question of Grace being anything but an ordinary woman, her +peculiar situation, as it were in mid-air between two planes of society, +together with the loneliness of Hintock, made a husband’s neglect a far +more tragical matter to her than it would be to one who had a large circle of +friends to fall back upon. Wisely or unwisely, and whatever other fathers did, +he resolved to fight his daughter’s battle still. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond had returned. But Hintock House scarcely gave forth signs of +life, so quietly had she reentered it. He went to church at Great Hintock one +afternoon as usual, there being no service at the smaller village. A few +minutes before his departure, he had casually heard Fitzpiers, who was no +church-goer, tell his wife that he was going to walk in the wood. Melbury +entered the building and sat down in his pew; the parson came in, then Mrs. +Charmond, then Mr. Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +The service proceeded, and the jealous father was quite sure that a mutual +consciousness was uninterruptedly maintained between those two; he fancied that +more than once their eyes met. At the end, Fitzpiers so timed his movement into +the aisle that it exactly coincided with Felice Charmond’s from the +opposite side, and they walked out with their garments in contact, the surgeon +being just that two or three inches in her rear which made it convenient for +his eyes to rest upon her cheek. The cheek warmed up to a richer tone. +</p> + +<p> +This was a worse feature in the flirtation than he had expected. If she had +been playing with him in an idle freak the game might soon have wearied her; +but the smallest germ of passion—and women of the world do not change +color for nothing—was a threatening development. The mere presence of +Fitzpiers in the building, after his statement, was wellnigh conclusive as far +as he was concerned; but Melbury resolved yet to watch. +</p> + +<p> +He had to wait long. Autumn drew shiveringly to its end. One day something +seemed to be gone from the gardens; the tenderer leaves of vegetables had +shrunk under the first smart frost, and hung like faded linen rags; then the +forest leaves, which had been descending at leisure, descended in haste and in +multitudes, and all the golden colors that had hung overhead were now crowded +together in a degraded mass underfoot, where the fallen myriads got redder and +hornier, and curled themselves up to rot. The only suspicious features in Mrs. +Charmond’s existence at this season were two: the first, that she lived +with no companion or relative about her, which, considering her age and +attractions, was somewhat unusual conduct for a young widow in a lonely +country-house; the other, that she did not, as in previous years, start from +Hintock to winter abroad. In Fitzpiers, the only change from his last +autumn’s habits lay in his abandonment of night study—his lamp +never shone from his new dwelling as from his old. +</p> + +<p> +If the suspected ones met, it was by such adroit contrivances that even +Melbury’s vigilance could not encounter them together. A simple call at +her house by the doctor had nothing irregular about it, and that he had paid +two or three such calls was certain. What had passed at those interviews was +known only to the parties themselves; but that Felice Charmond was under some +one’s influence Melbury soon had opportunity of perceiving. +</p> + +<p> +Winter had come on. Owls began to be noisy in the mornings and evenings, and +flocks of wood-pigeons made themselves prominent again. One day in February, +about six months after the marriage of Fitzpiers, Melbury was returning from +Great Hintock on foot through the lane, when he saw before him the surgeon also +walking. Melbury would have overtaken him, but at that moment Fitzpiers turned +in through a gate to one of the rambling drives among the trees at this side of +the wood, which led to nowhere in particular, and the beauty of whose +serpentine curves was the only justification of their existence. Felice almost +simultaneously trotted down the lane towards the timber-dealer, in a little +basket-carriage which she sometimes drove about the estate, unaccompanied by a +servant. She turned in at the same place without having seen either Melbury or +apparently Fitzpiers. Melbury was soon at the spot, despite his aches and his +sixty years. Mrs. Charmond had come up with the doctor, who was standing +immediately behind the carriage. She had turned to him, her arm being thrown +carelessly over the back of the seat. They looked in each other’s faces +without uttering a word, an arch yet gloomy smile wreathing her lips. Fitzpiers +clasped her hanging hand, and, while she still remained in the same listless +attitude, looking volumes into his eyes, he stealthily unbuttoned her glove, +and stripped her hand of it by rolling back the gauntlet over the fingers, so +that it came off inside out. He then raised her hand to his month, she still +reclining passively, watching him as she might have watched a fly upon her +dress. At last she said, “Well, sir, what excuse for this +disobedience?” +</p> + +<p> +“I make none.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then go your way, and let me go mine.” She snatched away her hand, +touched the pony with the whip, and left him standing there, holding the +reversed glove. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury’s first impulse was to reveal his presence to Fitzpiers, and +upbraid him bitterly. But a moment’s thought was sufficient to show him +the futility of any such simple proceeding. There was not, after all, so much +in what he had witnessed as in what that scene might be the surface and froth +of—probably a state of mind on which censure operates as an aggravation +rather than as a cure. Moreover, he said to himself that the point of attack +should be the woman, if either. He therefore kept out of sight, and musing +sadly, even tearfully—for he was meek as a child in matters concerning +his daughter—continued his way towards Hintock. +</p> + +<p> +The insight which is bred of deep sympathy was never more finely exemplified +than in this instance. Through her guarded manner, her dignified speech, her +placid countenance, he discerned the interior of Grace’s life only too +truly, hidden as were its incidents from every outer eye. +</p> + +<p> +These incidents had become painful enough. Fitzpiers had latterly developed an +irritable discontent which vented itself in monologues when Grace was present +to hear them. The early morning of this day had been dull, after a night of +wind, and on looking out of the window Fitzpiers had observed some of +Melbury’s men dragging away a large limb which had been snapped off a +beech-tree. Everything was cold and colorless. +</p> + +<p> +“My good Heaven!” he said, as he stood in his dressing-gown. +“This is life!” He did not know whether Grace was awake or not, and +he would not turn his head to ascertain. “Ah, fool,” he went on to +himself, “to clip your own wings when you were free to soar!...But I +could not rest till I had done it. Why do I never recognize an opportunity till +I have missed it, nor the good or ill of a step till it is irrevocable!...I +fell in love....Love, indeed!— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Love’s but the frailty of the mind<br /> +When ’tis not with ambition joined;<br /> +A sickly flame which if not fed, expires,<br /> +And feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires!’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ah, old author of ‘The Way of the World,’ you knew—you +knew!” Grace moved. He thought she had heard some part of his soliloquy. +He was sorry—though he had not taken any precaution to prevent her. +</p> + +<p> +He expected a scene at breakfast, but she only exhibited an extreme reserve. It +was enough, however, to make him repent that he should have done anything to +produce discomfort; for he attributed her manner entirely to what he had said. +But Grace’s manner had not its cause either in his sayings or in his +doings. She had not heard a single word of his regrets. Something even nearer +home than her husband’s blighted prospects—if blighted they +were—was the origin of her mood, a mood that was the mere continuation of +what her father had noticed when he would have preferred a passionate jealousy +in her, as the more natural. +</p> + +<p> +She had made a discovery—one which to a girl of honest nature was almost +appalling. She had looked into her heart, and found that her early interest in +Giles Winterborne had become revitalized into luxuriant growth by her widening +perceptions of what was great and little in life. His homeliness no longer +offended her acquired tastes; his comparative want of so-called culture did not +now jar on her intellect; his country dress even pleased her eye; his exterior +roughness fascinated her. Having discovered by marriage how much that was +humanly not great could co-exist with attainments of an exceptional order, +there was a revulsion in her sentiments from all that she had formerly clung to +in this kind: honesty, goodness, manliness, tenderness, devotion, for her only +existed in their purity now in the breasts of unvarnished men; and here was one +who had manifested them towards her from his youth up. +</p> + +<p> +There was, further, that never-ceasing pity in her soul for Giles as a man whom +she had wronged—a man who had been unfortunate in his worldly +transactions; while, not without a touch of sublimity, he had, like Horatio, +borne himself throughout his scathing +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +It was these perceptions, and no subtle catching of her husband’s +murmurs, that had bred the abstraction visible in her. +</p> + +<p> +When her father approached the house after witnessing the interview between +Fitzpiers and Mrs. Charmond, Grace was looking out of her sitting-room window, +as if she had nothing to do, or think of, or care for. He stood still. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Grace,” he said, regarding her fixedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, father,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Waiting for your dear husband?” he inquired, speaking with the +sarcasm of pitiful affection. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—not especially. He has a great many patients to see this +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury came quite close. “Grace, what’s the use of talking like +that, when you know—Here, come down and walk with me out in the garden, +child.” +</p> + +<p> +He unfastened the door in the ivy-laced wall, and waited. This apparent +indifference alarmed him. He would far rather that she had rushed in all the +fire of jealousy to Hintock House, regardless of conventionality, confronted +and attacked Felice Charmond <i>unguibus et rostro</i>, and accused her even in +exaggerated shape of stealing away her husband. Such a storm might have cleared +the air. +</p> + +<p> +She emerged in a minute or two, and they went inside together. “You know +as well as I do,” he resumed, “that there is something threatening +mischief to your life; and yet you pretend you do not. Do you suppose I +don’t see the trouble in your face every day? I am very sure that this +quietude is wrong conduct in you. You should look more into matters.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am quiet because my sadness is not of a nature to stir me to +action.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury wanted to ask her a dozen questions—did she not feel jealous? was +she not indignant? but a natural delicacy restrained him. “You are very +tame and let-alone, I am bound to say,” he remarked, pointedly. +</p> + +<p> +“I am what I feel, father,” she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at her, and there returned upon his mind the scene of her offering +to wed Winterborne instead of Fitzpiers in the last days before her marriage; +and he asked himself if it could be the fact that she loved Winterborne, now +that she had lost him, more than she had ever done when she was comparatively +free to choose him. +</p> + +<p> +“What would you have me do?” she asked, in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +He recalled his mind from the retrospective pain to the practical matter before +them. “I would have you go to Mrs. Charmond,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Go to Mrs. Charmond—what for?” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—if I must speak plain, dear Grace—to ask her, appeal to +her in the name of your common womanhood, and your many like sentiments on +things, not to make unhappiness between you and your husband. It lies with her +entirely to do one or the other—that I can see.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—don’t ’ee want to be happier than you be at +present?” said Melbury, more moved on her account than she was herself. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish to be more humiliated. If I have anything to bear I +can bear it in silence.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” said her amazed father. +</p> + +<p> +“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 he saw that she was not far from crying. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury was much grieved. “What, and would you like to have grown up as +we be here in Hintock—knowing no more, and with no more chance of seeing +good life than we have here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I have never got any happiness outside Hintock that I know of, and +I have suffered many a heartache at being sent away. Oh, the misery of those +January days when I had got back to school, and left you all here in the wood +so happy. I used to wonder why I had to bear it. And I was always a little +despised by the other girls at school, because they knew where I came from, and +that my parents were not in so good a station as theirs.” +</p> + +<p> +Her poor father was much hurt at what he thought her ingratitude and +intractability. He had admitted to himself bitterly enough that he should have +let young hearts have their way, or rather should have helped on her affection +for Winterborne, and given her to him according to his original plan; but he +was not prepared for her deprecation of those attainments whose completion had +been a labor of years, and a severe tax upon his purse. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” he said, with much heaviness of spirit. “If you +don’t like to go to her I don’t wish to force you.” +</p> + +<p> +And so the question remained for him still: how should he remedy this perilous +state of things? For days he sat in a moody attitude over the fire, a pitcher +of cider standing on the hearth beside him, and his drinking-horn inverted upon +the top of it. He spent a week and more thus composing a letter to the chief +offender, which he would every now and then attempt to complete, and suddenly +crumple up in his hand. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + +<p> +As February merged in March, and lighter evenings broke the gloom of the +woodmen’s homeward journey, the Hintocks Great and Little began to have +ears for a rumor of the events out of which had grown the timber-dealer’s +troubles. It took the form of a wide sprinkling of conjecture, wherein no man +knew the exact truth. Tantalizing phenomena, at once showing and concealing the +real relationship of the persons concerned, caused a diffusion of excited +surprise. Honest people as the woodlanders were, it was hardly to be expected +that they could remain immersed in the study of their trees and gardens amid +such circumstances, or sit with their backs turned like the good burghers of +Coventry at the passage of the beautiful lady. +</p> + +<p> +Rumor, for a wonder, exaggerated little. There were, in fact, in this case as +in thousands, the well-worn incidents, old as the hills, which, with individual +variations, made a mourner of Ariadne, a by-word of Vashti, and a corpse of the +Countess Amy. There were rencounters accidental and contrived, stealthy +correspondence, sudden misgivings on one side, sudden self-reproaches on the +other. The inner state of the twain was one as of confused noise that would not +allow the accents of calmer reason to be heard. Determinations to go in this +direction, and headlong plunges in that; dignified safeguards, undignified +collapses; not a single rash step by deliberate intention, and all against +judgment. +</p> + +<p> +It was all that Melbury had expected and feared. It was more, for he had +overlooked the publicity that would be likely to result, as it now had done. +What should he do—appeal to Mrs. Charmond himself, since Grace would not? +He bethought himself of Winterborne, and resolved to consult him, feeling the +strong need of some friend of his own sex to whom he might unburden his mind. +</p> + +<p> +He had entirely lost faith in his own judgment. That judgment on which he had +relied for so many years seemed recently, like a false companion unmasked, to +have disclosed unexpected depths of hypocrisy and speciousness where all had +seemed solidity. He felt almost afraid to form a conjecture on the weather, or +the time, or the fruit-promise, so great was his self-abasement. +</p> + +<p> +It was a rimy evening when he set out to look for Giles. The woods seemed to be +in a cold sweat; beads of perspiration hung from every bare twig; the sky had +no color, and the trees rose before him as haggard, gray phantoms, whose days +of substantiality were passed. Melbury seldom saw Winterborne now, but he +believed him to be occupying a lonely hut just beyond the boundary of Mrs. +Charmond’s estate, though still within the circuit of the woodland. The +timber-merchant’s thin legs stalked on through the pale, damp scenery, +his eyes on the dead leaves of last year; while every now and then a hasty +“Ay?” escaped his lips in reply to some bitter proposition. +</p> + +<p> +His notice was attracted by a thin blue haze of smoke, behind which arose +sounds of voices and chopping: bending his steps that way, he saw Winterborne +just in front of him. It just now happened that Giles, after being for a long +time apathetic and unemployed, had become one of the busiest men in the +neighborhood. It is often thus; fallen friends, lost sight of, we expect to +find starving; we discover them going on fairly well. Without any solicitation, +or desire for profit on his part, he had been asked to execute during that +winter a very large order for hurdles and other copse-ware, for which purpose +he had been obliged to buy several acres of brushwood standing. He was now +engaged in the cutting and manufacture of the same, proceeding with the work +daily like an automaton. +</p> + +<p> +The hazel-tree did not belie its name to-day. The whole of the copse-wood where +the mist had cleared returned purest tints of that hue, amid which Winterborne +himself was in the act of making a hurdle, the stakes being driven firmly into +the ground in a row, over which he bent and wove the twigs. Beside him was a +square, compact pile like the altar of Cain, formed of hurdles already +finished, which bristled on all sides with the sharp points of their stakes. At +a little distance the men in his employ were assisting him to carry out his +contract. Rows of copse-wood lay on the ground as it had fallen under the axe; +and a shelter had been constructed near at hand, in front of which burned the +fire whose smoke had attracted him. The air was so dank that the smoke hung +heavy, and crept away amid the bushes without rising from the ground. +</p> + +<p> +After wistfully regarding Winterborne a while, Melbury drew nearer, and briefly +inquired of Giles how he came to be so busily engaged, with an undertone of +slight surprise that Winterborne could seem so thriving after being deprived of +Grace. Melbury was not without emotion at the meeting; for Grace’s +affairs had divided them, and ended their intimacy of old times. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne explained just as briefly, without raising his eyes from his +occupation of chopping a bough that he held in front of him. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twill be up in April before you get it all cleared,” said +Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, there or thereabouts,” said Winterborne, a chop of the +billhook jerking the last word into two pieces. +</p> + +<p> +There was another interval; Melbury still looked on, a chip from +Winterborne’s hook occasionally flying against the waistcoat and legs of +his visitor, who took no heed. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Giles—you should have been my partner. You should have been my +son-in-law,” the old man said at last. “It would have been far +better for her and for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne saw that something had gone wrong with his former friend, and +throwing down the switch he was about to interweave, he responded only too +readily to the mood of the timber-dealer. “Is she ill?” he said, +hurriedly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no.” Melbury stood without speaking for some minutes, and +then, as though he could not bring himself to proceed, turned to go away. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne told one of his men to pack up the tools for the night and walked +after Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven forbid that I should seem too inquisitive, sir,” he said, +“especially since we don’t stand as we used to stand to one +another; but I hope it is well with them all over your way?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Melbury—“no.” He stopped, and struck +the smooth trunk of a young ash-tree with the flat of his hand. “I would +that his ear had been where that rind is!” he exclaimed; “I should +have treated him to little compared wi what he deserves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Winterborne, “don’t be in a hurry to go +home. I’ve put some cider down to warm in my shelter here, and +we’ll sit and drink it and talk this over.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury turned unresistingly as Giles took his arm, and they went back to where +the fire was, and sat down under the screen, the other woodmen having gone. He +drew out the cider-mug from the ashes and they drank together. +</p> + +<p> +“Giles, you ought to have had her, as I said just now,” repeated +Melbury. “I’ll tell you why for the first time.” +</p> + +<p> +He thereupon told Winterborne, as with great relief, the story of how he won +away Giles’s father’s chosen one—by nothing worse than a +lover’s cajoleries, it is true, but by means which, except in love, would +certainly have been pronounced cruel and unfair. He explained how he had always +intended to make reparation to Winterborne the father by giving Grace to +Winterborne the son, till the devil tempted him in the person of Fitzpiers, and +he broke his virtuous vow. +</p> + +<p> +“How highly I thought of that man, to be sure! Who’d have supposed +he’d have been so weak and wrong-headed as this! You ought to have had +her, Giles, and there’s an end on’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne knew how to preserve his calm under this unconsciously cruel +tearing of a healing wound to which Melbury’s concentration on the more +vital subject had blinded him. The young man endeavored to make the best of the +case for Grace’s sake. +</p> + +<p> +“She would hardly have been happy with me,” he said, in the dry, +unimpassioned voice under which he hid his feelings. “I was not well +enough educated: too rough, in short. I couldn’t have surrounded her with +the refinements she looked for, anyhow, at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense—you are quite wrong there,” said the unwise old +man, doggedly. “She told me only this day that she hates refinements and +such like. All that my trouble and money bought for her in that way is thrown +away upon her quite. She’d fain be like Marty South—think o’ +that! That’s the top of her ambition! Perhaps she’s right. Giles, +she loved you—under the rind; and, what’s more, she loves ye +still—worse luck for the poor maid!” +</p> + +<p> +If Melbury only had known what fires he was recklessly stirring up he might +have held his peace. Winterborne was silent a long time. The darkness had +closed in round them, and the monotonous drip of the fog from the branches +quickened as it turned to fine rain. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she never cared much for me,” Giles managed to say, as he +stirred the embers with a brand. +</p> + +<p> +“She did, and does, I tell ye,” said the other, obstinately. +“However, all that’s vain talking now. What I come to ask you about +is a more practical matter—how to make the best of things as they are. I +am thinking of a desperate step—of calling on the woman Charmond. I am +going to appeal to her, since Grace will not. ’Tis she who holds the +balance in her hands—not he. While she’s got the will to lead him +astray he will follow—poor, unpractical, lofty-notioned dreamer—and +how long she’ll do it depends upon her whim. Did ye ever hear anything +about her character before she came to Hintock?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s been a bit of a charmer in her time, I believe,” +replied Giles, with the same level quietude, as he regarded the red coals. +“One who has smiled where she has not loved and loved where she has not +married. Before Mr. Charmond made her his wife she was a play-actress.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hey? But how close you have kept all this, Giles! What besides?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Charmond was a rich man, engaged in the iron trade in the north, +twenty or thirty years older than she. He married her and retired, and came +down here and bought this property, as they do nowadays.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes—I know all about that; but the other I did not know. I +fear it bodes no good. For how can I go and appeal to the forbearance of a +woman in this matter who has made cross-loves and crooked entanglements her +trade for years? I thank ye, Giles, for finding it out; but it makes my plan +the harder that she should have belonged to that unstable tribe.” +</p> + +<p> +Another pause ensued, and they looked gloomily at the smoke that beat about the +hurdles which sheltered them, through whose weavings a large drop of rain fell +at intervals and spat smartly into the fire. Mrs. Charmond had been no friend +to Winterborne, but he was manly, and it was not in his heart to let her be +condemned without a trial. +</p> + +<p> +“She is said to be generous,” he answered. “You might not +appeal to her in vain.” +</p> + +<p> +“It shall be done,” said Melbury, rising. “For good or for +evil, to Mrs. Charmond I’ll go.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + +<p> +At nine o’clock the next morning Melbury dressed himself up in shining +broadcloth, creased with folding and smelling of camphor, and started for +Hintock House. He was the more impelled to go at once by the absence of his +son-in-law in London for a few days, to attend, really or ostensibly, some +professional meetings. He said nothing of his destination either to his wife or +to Grace, fearing that they might entreat him to abandon so risky a project, +and went out unobserved. He had chosen his time with a view, as he supposed, of +conveniently catching Mrs. Charmond when she had just finished her breakfast, +before any other business people should be about, if any came. Plodding +thoughtfully onward, he crossed a glade lying between Little Hintock Woods and +the plantation which abutted on the park; and the spot being open, he was +discerned there by Winterborne from the copse on the next hill, where he and +his men were working. Knowing his mission, the younger man hastened down from +the copse and managed to intercept the timber-merchant. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been thinking of this, sir,” he said, “and I am of +opinion that it would be best to put off your visit for the present.” +</p> + +<p> +But Melbury would not even stop to hear him. His mind was made up, the appeal +was to be made; and Winterborne stood and watched him sadly till he entered the +second plantation and disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury rang at the tradesmen’s door of the manor-house, and was at once +informed that the lady was not yet visible, as indeed he might have guessed had +he been anybody but the man he was. Melbury said he would wait, whereupon the +young man informed him in a neighborly way that, between themselves, she was in +bed and asleep. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” said Melbury, retreating into the court, +“I’ll stand about here.” Charged so fully with his mission, +he shrank from contact with anybody. +</p> + +<p> +But he walked about the paved court till he was tired, and still nobody came to +him. At last he entered the house and sat down in a small waiting-room, from +which he got glimpses of the kitchen corridor, and of the white-capped maids +flitting jauntily hither and thither. They had heard of his arrival, but had +not seen him enter, and, imagining him still in the court, discussed freely the +possible reason of his calling. They marvelled at his temerity; for though most +of the tongues which had been let loose attributed the chief blame-worthiness +to Fitzpiers, these of her household preferred to regard their mistress as the +deeper sinner. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury sat with his hands resting on the familiar knobbed thorn walking-stick, +whose growing he had seen before he enjoyed its use. The scene to him was not +the material environment of his person, but a tragic vision that travelled with +him like an envelope. Through this vision the incidents of the moment but +gleamed confusedly here and there, as an outer landscape through the +high-colored scenes of a stained window. He waited thus an hour, an hour and a +half, two hours. He began to look pale and ill, whereupon the butler, who came +in, asked him to have a glass of wine. Melbury roused himself and said, +“No, no. Is she almost ready?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is just finishing breakfast,” said the butler. “She will +soon see you now. I am just going up to tell her you are here.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! haven’t you told her before?” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” said the other. “You see you came so very +early.” +</p> + +<p> +At last the bell rang: Mrs. Charmond could see him. She was not in her private +sitting-room when he reached it, but in a minute he heard her coming from the +front staircase, and she entered where he stood. +</p> + +<p> +At this time of the morning Mrs. Charmond looked her full age and more. She +might almost have been taken for the typical <i>femme de trente ans</i>, though +she was really not more than seven or eight and twenty. There being no fire in +the room, she came in with a shawl thrown loosely round her shoulders, and +obviously without the least suspicion that Melbury had called upon any other +errand than timber. Felice was, indeed, the only woman in the parish who had +not heard the rumor of her own weaknesses; she was at this moment living in a +fool’s paradise in respect of that rumor, though not in respect of the +weaknesses themselves, which, if the truth be told, caused her grave +misgivings. +</p> + +<p> +“Do sit down, Mr. Melbury. You have felled all the trees that were to be +purchased by you this season, except the oaks, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“How very nice! It must be so charming to work in the woods just +now!” +</p> + +<p> +She was too careless to affect an interest in an extraneous person’s +affairs so consummately as to deceive in the manner of the perfect social +machine. Hence her words “very nice,” “so charming,” +were uttered with a perfunctoriness that made them sound absurdly unreal. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” said Melbury, in a reverie. He did not take a chair, +and she also remained standing. Resting upon his stick, he began: “Mrs. +Charmond, I have called upon a more serious matter—at least to +me—than tree-throwing. And whatever mistakes I make in my manner of +speaking upon it to you, madam, do me the justice to set ’em down to my +want of practice, and not to my want of care.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. For her sake entirely I married as second wife a +homespun woman who had been kind as a mother to her. In due time the question +of her education came on, and I said, ‘I will educate the maid well, if I +live upon bread to do it.’ Of her possible marriage I could not bear to +think, for it seemed like a death that she should cleave to another man, and +grow to think his house her home rather than mine. But I saw it was the law of +nature that this should be, and that it was for the maid’s happiness that +she should have a home when I was gone; and I made up my mind without a murmur +to help it on for her sake. In my youth I had wronged my dead friend, and to +make amends I determined to give her, my most precious possession, to my +friend’s son, seeing that they liked each other well. Things came about +which made me doubt if it would be for my daughter’s happiness to do +this, inasmuch as the young man was poor, and she was delicately reared. +Another man came and paid court to her—one her equal in breeding and +accomplishments; in every way it seemed to me that he only could give her the +home which her training had made a necessity almost. I urged her on, and she +married him. But, ma’am, a fatal mistake was at the root of my reckoning. +I found that this well-born gentleman I had calculated on so surely was not +stanch of heart, and that therein lay a danger of great sorrow for my daughter. +Madam, he saw you, and you know the rest....I have come to make no +demands—to utter no threats; I have come simply as a father in great +grief about this only child, and I beseech you to deal kindly with my daughter, +and to do nothing which can turn her husband’s heart away from her +forever. Forbid him your presence, ma’am, and speak to him on his duty as +one with your power over him well can do, and I am hopeful that the rent +between them may be patched up. For it is not as if you would lose by so doing; +your course is far higher than the courses of a simple professional man, and +the gratitude you would win from me and mine by your kindness is more than I +can say.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond had first rushed into a mood of indignation on comprehending +Melbury’s story; hot and cold by turns, she had murmured, “Leave +me, leave me!” But as he seemed to take no notice of this, his words +began to influence her, and when he ceased speaking she said, with hurried, hot +breath, “What has led you to think this of me? Who says I have won your +daughter’s husband away from her? Some monstrous calumnies are +afloat—of which I have known nothing until now!” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury started, and looked at her simply. “But surely, ma’am, you +know the truth better than I?” +</p> + +<p> +Her features became a little pinched, and the touches of powder on her handsome +face for the first time showed themselves as an extrinsic film. “Will you +leave me to myself?” she said, with a faintness which suggested a guilty +conscience. “This is so utterly unexpected—you obtain admission to +my presence by misrepresentation—” +</p> + +<p> +“As God’s in heaven, ma’am, that’s not true. I made no +pretence; and I thought in reason you would know why I had come. This +gossip—” +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard nothing of it. Tell me of it, I say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell you, ma’am—not I. What the gossip is, no matter. What +really is, you know. Set facts right, and the scandal will right of itself. But +pardon me—I speak roughly; and I came to speak gently, to coax you, beg +you to be my daughter’s friend. She loved you once, ma’am; you +began by liking her. Then you dropped her without a reason, and it hurt her +warm heart more than I can tell ye. But you were within your right as the +superior, no doubt. But if you would consider her position now—surely, +surely, you would do her no harm!” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I would do her no harm—I—” Melbury’s +eye met hers. It was curious, but the allusion to Grace’s former love for +her seemed to touch her more than all Melbury’s other arguments. +“Oh, Melbury,” she burst out, “you have made me so unhappy! +How could you come to me like this! It is too dreadful! Now go away—go, +go!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” he said, in a husky tone. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as he was out of the room she went to a corner and there sat and +writhed under an emotion in which hurt pride and vexation mingled with better +sentiments. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond’s mobile spirit was subject to these fierce periods of +stress and storm. She had never so clearly perceived till now that her soul was +being slowly invaded by a delirium which had brought about all this; that she +was losing judgment and dignity under it, becoming an animated impulse only, a +passion incarnate. A fascination had led her on; it was as if she had been +seized by a hand of velvet; and this was where she found +herself—overshadowed with sudden night, as if a tornado had passed by. +</p> + +<p> +While she sat, or rather crouched, unhinged by the interview, lunch-time came, +and then the early afternoon, almost without her consciousness. Then “a +strange gentleman who says it is not necessary to give his name,” was +suddenly announced. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot see him, whoever he may be. I am not at home to anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +She heard no more of her visitor; and shortly after, in an attempt to recover +some mental serenity by violent physical exercise, she put on her hat and cloak +and went out-of-doors, taking a path which led her up the slopes to the nearest +spur of the wood. She disliked the woods, but they had the advantage of being a +place in which she could walk comparatively unobserved. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap33"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + +<p> +There was agitation to-day in the lives of all whom these matters concerned. It +was not till the Hintock dinner-time—one o’clock—that Grace +discovered her father’s absence from the house after a departure in the +morning under somewhat unusual conditions. By a little reasoning and inquiry +she was able to come to a conclusion on his destination, and to divine his +errand. +</p> + +<p> +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. This track under the bare trees and over the +cracking sticks, screened and roofed in from the outer world of wind and cloud +by a net-work of boughs, led her slowly on till in time she had left the larger +trees behind her and swept round into the coppice where Winterborne and his men +were clearing the undergrowth. +</p> + +<p> +Had Giles’s attention been concentrated on his hurdles he would not have +seen her; but ever since Melbury’s passage across the opposite glade in +the morning he had been as uneasy and unsettled as Grace herself; and her +advent now was the one appearance which, since her father’s avowal, could +arrest him more than Melbury’s return with his tidings. Fearing that +something might be the matter, he hastened up to her. +</p> + +<p> +She had not seen her old lover for a long time, and, too conscious of the late +pranks of her heart, she could not behold him calmly. “I am only looking +for my father,” she said, in an unnecessarily apologetic intonation. +</p> + +<p> +“I was looking for him too,” said Giles. “I think he may +perhaps have gone on farther.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you knew he was going to the House, Giles?” she said, turning +her large tender eyes anxiously upon him. “Did he tell you what +for?” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne glanced doubtingly at her, and then softly hinted that her father +had visited him the evening before, and that their old friendship was quite +restored, on which she guessed the rest. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am glad, indeed, that you two are friends again!” she cried. +And then they stood facing each other, fearing each other, troubling each +other’s souls. Grace experienced acute misery at the sight of these +wood-cutting scenes, because she had estranged herself from them, craving, even +to its defects and inconveniences, that homely sylvan life of her father which +in the best probable succession of events would shortly be denied her. +</p> + +<p> +At a little distance, on the edge of the clearing, Marty South was shaping +spar-gads to take home for manufacture during the evenings. While Winterborne +and Mrs. Fitzpiers stood looking at her in their mutual embarrassment at each +other’s presence, they beheld approaching the girl a lady in a dark fur +mantle and a black hat, having a white veil tied picturesquely round it. She +spoke to Marty, who turned and courtesied, and the lady fell into conversation +with her. It was Mrs. Charmond. +</p> + +<p> +On leaving her house, Mrs. Charmond had walked on and onward under the fret and +fever of her mind with more vigor than she was accustomed to show in her normal +moods—a fever which the solace of a cigarette did not entirely allay. +Reaching the coppice, she listlessly observed Marty at work, threw away her +cigarette, and came near. Chop, chop, chop, went Marty’s little billhook +with never more assiduity, till Mrs. Charmond spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is that young lady I see talking to the woodman yonder?” she +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Fitzpiers, ma’am,” said Marty. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Mrs. Charmond, with something like a start; for she had +not recognized Grace at that distance. “And the man she is talking +to?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s Mr. Winterborne.” +</p> + +<p> +A redness stole into Marty’s face as she mentioned Giles’s name, +which Mrs. Charmond did not fail to notice informed her of the state of the +girl’s heart. “Are you engaged to him?” she asked, softly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am,” said Marty. “<i>She</i> was once; and I +think—” +</p> + +<p> +But Marty could not possibly explain the complications of her thoughts on this +matter—which were nothing less than one of extraordinary acuteness for a +girl so young and inexperienced—namely, that she saw danger to two hearts +naturally honest in Grace being thrown back into Winterborne’s society by +the neglect of her husband. Mrs. Charmond, however, with the almost +supersensory means to knowledge which women have on such occasions, quite +understood what Marty had intended to convey, and the picture thus exhibited to +her of lives drifting away, involving the wreck of poor Marty’s hopes, +prompted her to more generous resolves than all Melbury’s remonstrances +had been able to stimulate. +</p> + +<p> +Full of the new feeling, she bade the girl good-afternoon, and went on over the +stumps of hazel to where Grace and Winterborne were standing. They saw her +approach, and Winterborne said, “She is coming to you; it is a good omen. +She dislikes me, so I’ll go away.” He accordingly retreated to +where he had been working before Grace came, and Grace’s formidable rival +approached her, each woman taking the other’s measure as she came near. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear—Mrs. Fitzpiers,” said Felice Charmond, with some inward +turmoil which stopped her speech. “I have not seen you for a long +time.” +</p> + +<p> +She held out her hand tentatively, while Grace stood like a wild animal on +first confronting a mirror or other puzzling product of civilization. Was it +really Mrs. Charmond speaking to her thus? If it was, she could no longer form +any guess as to what it signified. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to talk with you,” said Mrs. Charmond, imploringly, for the +gaze of the young woman had chilled her through. “Can you walk on with me +till we are quite alone?” +</p> + +<p> +Sick with distaste, Grace nevertheless complied, as by clockwork and they moved +evenly side by side into the deeper recesses of the woods. They went farther, +much farther than Mrs. Charmond had meant to go; but she could not begin her +conversation, and in default of it kept walking. +</p> + +<p> +“I have seen your father,” she at length resumed. +“And—I am much troubled by what he told me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did he tell you? I have not been admitted to his confidence on +anything he may have said to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless, why should I repeat to you what you can easily +divine?” +</p> + +<p> +“True—true,” returned Grace, mournfully. “Why should +you repeat what we both know to be in our minds already?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Fitzpiers, your husband—” The moment that the +speaker’s tongue touched the dangerous subject a vivid look of +self-consciousness flashed over her, in which her heart revealed, as by a +lightning gleam, what filled it to overflowing. So transitory was the +expression that none but a sensitive woman, and she in Grace’s position, +would have had the power to catch its meaning. Upon her the phase was not lost. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you <i>do</i> love him!” she exclaimed, in a tone of much +surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean, my young friend?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” cried Grace, “I thought till now that you had only +been cruelly flirting with my husband, to amuse your idle moments—a rich +lady with a poor professional gentleman whom in her heart she despised not much +less than her who belongs to him. But I guess from your manner that you love +him desperately, and I don’t hate you as I did before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, indeed,” continued Mrs. Fitzpiers, with a trembling tongue, +“since it is not playing in your case at all, but <i>real</i>. Oh, I do +pity you, more than I despise you, for <i>you</i> will s-s-suffer most!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond was now as much agitated as Grace. “I ought not to allow +myself to argue with you,” she exclaimed. “I demean myself by doing +it. But I liked you once, and for the sake of that time I try to tell you how +mistaken you are!” Much of her confusion resulted from her wonder and +alarm at finding herself in a sense dominated mentally and emotionally by this +simple school-girl. “I do not love him,” she went on, with +desperate untruth. “It was a kindness—my making somewhat more of +him than one usually does of one’s doctor. I was lonely; I +talked—well, I trifled with him. I am very sorry if such child’s +playing out of pure friendship has been a serious matter to you. Who could have +expected it? But the world is so simple here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s affectation,” said Grace, shaking her head. +“It is no use—you <i>love</i> him. I can see in your face that in +this matter of my husband you have not let your acts belie your feelings. +During these last four or six months you have been terribly indiscreet; but you +have not been insincere, and that almost disarms me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>have</i> been insincere—if you will have the word—I +mean I <i>have</i> coquetted, and do <i>not</i> love him!” +</p> + +<p> +But Grace clung to her position like a limpet. “You may have trifled with +others, but him you love as you never loved another man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well—I won’t argue,” said Mrs. Charmond, laughing +faintly. “And you come to reproach me for it, child.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Grace, magnanimously. “You may go on loving him if +you like—I don’t mind at all. You’ll find it, let me tell +you, a bitterer business for yourself than for me in the end. He’ll get +tired of you soon, as tired as can be—you don’t know him so well as +I—and then you may wish you had never seen him!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond had grown quite pale and weak under this prophecy. It was +extraordinary that Grace, whom almost every one would have characterized as a +gentle girl, should be of stronger fibre than her interlocutor. “You +exaggerate—cruel, silly young woman,” she reiterated, writhing with +little agonies. “It is nothing but playful friendship—nothing! It +will be proved by my future conduct. I shall at once refuse to see him +more—since it will make no difference to my heart, and much to my +name.” +</p> + +<p> +“I question if you will refuse to see him again,” said Grace, +dryly, as with eyes askance she bent a sapling down. “But I am not +incensed against you as you are against me,” she added, abandoning the +tree to its natural perpendicular. “Before I came I had been despising +you for wanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When Edgar +has gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonable hours and +unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and miles across the country +at midnight, and risking his life, and getting covered with mud, to get a +glimpse of you, I have called him a foolish man—the plaything of a +finished coquette. I thought that what was getting to be a tragedy to me was a +comedy to you. But now I see that tragedy lies on YOUR side of the situation no +less than on mine, and more; that if I have felt trouble at my position, you +have felt anguish at yours; that if I have had disappointments, you have had +despairs. Heaven may fortify <i>me</i>—God help <i>you!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot attempt to reply to your raving eloquence,” returned the +other, struggling to restore a dignity which had completely collapsed. +“My acts will be my proofs. In the world which you have seen nothing of, +friendships between men and women are not unknown, and it would have been +better both for you and your father if you had each judged me more +respectfully, and left me alone. As it is I wish never to see or speak to you, +madam, any more.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace bowed, and Mrs. Charmond turned away. The two went apart in directly +opposite courses, and were soon hidden from each other by their umbrageous +surroundings and by the shadows of eve. +</p> + +<p> +In the excitement of their long argument they had walked onward and zigzagged +about without regarding direction or distance. All sound of the woodcutters had +long since faded into remoteness, and even had not the interval been too great +for hearing them they would have been silent and homeward bound at this +twilight hour. But Grace went on her course without any misgiving, though there +was much underwood here, with only the narrowest passages for walking, across +which brambles hung. She had not, however, traversed this the wildest part of +the wood since her childhood, and the transformation of outlines had been +great; old trees which once were landmarks had been felled or blown down, and +the bushes which then had been small and scrubby were now large and +overhanging. She soon found that her ideas as to direction were +vague—that she had indeed no ideas as to direction at all. If the evening +had not been growing so dark, and the wind had not put on its night moan so +distinctly, Grace would not have minded; but she was rather frightened now, and +began to strike across hither and thither in random courses. +</p> + +<p> +Denser grew the darkness, more developed the wind-voices, and still no +recognizable spot or outlet of any kind appeared, nor any sound of the Hintocks +floated near, though she had wandered probably between one and two hours, and +began to be weary. She was vexed at her foolishness, since the ground she had +covered, if in a straight line, must inevitably have taken her out of the wood +to some remote village or other; but she had wasted her forces in +countermarches; and now, in much alarm, wondered if she would have to pass the +night here. She stood still to meditate, and fancied that between the soughing +of the wind she heard shuffling footsteps on the leaves heavier than those of +rabbits or hares. Though fearing at first to meet anybody on the chance of his +being a friend, she decided that the fellow night-rambler, even if a poacher, +would not injure her, and that he might possibly be some one sent to search for +her. She accordingly shouted a rather timid “Hoi!” +</p> + +<p> +The cry was immediately returned by the other person; and Grace running at once +in the direction whence it came beheld an indistinct figure hastening up to her +as rapidly. They were almost in each other’s arms when she recognized in +her vis-a-vis the outline and white veil of her whom she had parted from an +hour and a half before—Mrs. Charmond. +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost my way, I have lost my way,” cried that lady. +“Oh—is it indeed you? I am so glad to meet you or anybody. I have +been wandering up and down ever since we parted, and am nearly dead with terror +and misery and fatigue!” +</p> + +<p> +“So am I,” said Grace. “What <i>shall</i> we, <i>shall</i> we +do?” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t go away from me?” asked her companion, anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed. Are you very tired?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can scarcely move, and I am scratched dreadfully about the +ankles.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace reflected. “Perhaps, as it is dry under foot, the best thing for us +to do would be to sit down for half an hour, and then start again when we have +thoroughly rested. By walking straight we must come to a track leading +somewhere before the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +They found a clump of bushy hollies which afforded a shelter from the wind, and +sat down under it, some tufts of dead fern, crisp and dry, that remained from +the previous season forming a sort of nest for them. But it was cold, +nevertheless, on this March night, particularly for Grace, who with the +sanguine prematureness of youth in matters of dress, had considered it +spring-time, and hence was not so warmly clad as Mrs. Charmond, who still wore +her winter fur. But after sitting a while the latter lady shivered no less than +Grace as the warmth imparted by her hasty walking began to go off, and they +felt the cold air drawing through the holly leaves which scratched their backs +and shoulders. Moreover, they could hear some drops of rain falling on the +trees, though none reached the nook in which they had ensconced themselves. +</p> + +<p> +“If we were to cling close together,” said Mrs. Charmond, “we +should keep each other warm. But,” she added, in an uneven voice, +“I suppose you won’t come near me for the world!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because—well, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I will—I don’t hate you at all.” +</p> + +<p> +They consequently crept up to one another, and being in the dark, lonely and +weary, did what neither had dreamed of doing beforehand, clasped each other +closely, Mrs. Charmond’s furs consoling Grace’s cold face, and each +one’s body as she breathed alternately heaving against that of her +companion. +</p> + +<p> +When a few minutes had been spent thus, Mrs. Charmond said, “I am so +wretched!” in a heavy, emotional whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“You are frightened,” said Grace, kindly. “But there is +nothing to fear; I know these woods well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not at all frightened at the wood, but I am at other things.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond embraced Grace more and more tightly, and the younger woman could +feel her neighbor’s breathings grow deeper and more spasmodic, as though +uncontrollable feelings were germinating. +</p> + +<p> +“After I had left you,” she went on, “I regretted something I +had said. I have to make a confession—I must make it!” she +whispered, brokenly, the instinct to indulge in warmth of sentiment which had +led this woman of passions to respond to Fitzpiers in the first place leading +her now to find luxurious comfort in opening her heart to his wife. “I +said to you I could give him up without pain or deprivation—that he had +only been my pastime. That was untrue—it was said to deceive you. I could +not do it without much pain; and, what is more dreadful, I <i>cannot</i> give +him up—even if I would—of myself alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Because you love him, you mean.” +</p> + +<p> +Felice Charmond denoted assent by a movement. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew I was right!” said Grace, exaltedly. “But that should +not deter you,” she presently added, in a moral tone. “Oh, do +struggle against it, and you will conquer!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are so simple, so simple!” cried Felice. “You think, +because you guessed my assumed indifference to him to be a sham, that you know +the extremes that people are capable of going to! But a good deal more may have +been going on than you have fathomed with all your insight. I <i>cannot</i> +give him up until he chooses to give up me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely you are the superior in station and in every way, and the cut +must come from you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tchut! Must I tell verbatim, you simple child? Oh, I suppose I must! I +shall eat away my heart if I do not let out all, after meeting you like this +and finding how guileless you are.” She thereupon whispered a few words +in the girl’s ear, and burst into a violent fit of sobbing. +</p> + +<p> +Grace started roughly away from the shelter of the fur, and sprang to her feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, thunderstruck at a revelation +transcending her utmost suspicion. “Can it be—can it be!” +</p> + +<p> +She turned as if to hasten away. But Felice Charmond’s sobs came to her +ear: deep darkness circled her about, the funereal trees rocked and chanted +their diriges and placebos around her, and she did not know which way to go. +After a moment of energy she felt mild again, and turned to the motionless +woman at her feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you rested?” she asked, in what seemed something like her own +voice grown ten years older. +</p> + +<p> +Without an answer Mrs. Charmond slowly rose. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean to betray me!” she said from the bitterest depths of her +soul. “Oh fool, fool I!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Grace, shortly. “I mean no such thing. But let us +be quick now. We have a serious undertaking before us. Think of nothing but +going straight on.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked on in profound silence, pulling back boughs now growing wet, and +treading down woodbine, but still keeping a pretty straight course. Grace began +to be thoroughly worn out, and her companion too, when, on a sudden, they broke +into the deserted highway at the hill-top on which the Sherton man had waited +for Mrs. Dollery’s van. Grace recognized the spot as soon as she looked +around her. +</p> + +<p> +“How we have got here I cannot tell,” she said, with cold civility. +“We have made a complete circuit of Little Hintock. The hazel copse is +quite on the other side. Now we have only to follow the road.” +</p> + +<p> +They dragged themselves onward, turned into the lane, passed the track to +Little Hintock, and so reached the park. +</p> + +<p> +“Here I turn back,” said Grace, in the same passionless voice. +“You are quite near home.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond stood inert, seeming appalled by her late admission. +</p> + +<p> +“I have told you something in a moment of irresistible desire to unburden +my soul which all but a fool would have kept silent as the grave,” she +said. “I cannot help it now. Is it to be a secret—or do you mean +war?” +</p> + +<p> +“A secret, certainly,” said Grace, mournfully. “How can you +expect war from such a helpless, wretched being as I!” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ll do my best not to see him. I am his slave; but I’ll +try.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace was naturally kind; but she could not help using a small dagger now. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t distress yourself,” she said, with exquisitely +fine scorn. “You may keep him—for me.” Had she been wounded +instead of mortified she could not have used the words; but Fitzpiers’s +hold upon her heart was slight. +</p> + +<p> +They parted thus and there, and Grace went moodily homeward. Passing +Marty’s cottage she observed through the window that the girl was writing +instead of chopping as usual, and wondered what her correspondence could be. +Directly afterwards she met people in search of her, and reached the house to +find all in serious alarm. She soon explained that she had lost her way, and +her general depression was attributed to exhaustion on that account. +</p> + +<p> +Could she have known what Marty was writing she would have been surprised. +</p> + +<p> +The rumor which agitated the other folk of Hintock had reached the young girl, +and she was penning a letter to Fitzpiers, to tell him that Mrs. Charmond wore +her hair. It was poor Marty’s only card, and she played it, knowing +nothing of fashion, and thinking her revelation a fatal one for a lover. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap34"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + +<p> +It was at the beginning of April, a few days after the meeting between Grace +and Mrs. Charmond in the wood, that Fitzpiers, just returned from London, was +travelling from Sherton-Abbas to Hintock in a hired carriage. In his eye there +was a doubtful light, and the lines of his refined face showed a vague +disquietude. He appeared now like one of those who impress the beholder as +having suffered wrong in being born. +</p> + +<p> +His position was in truth gloomy, and to his appreciative mind it seemed even +gloomier than it was. His practice had been slowly dwindling of late, and now +threatened to die out altogether, the irrepressible old Dr. Jones capturing +patients up to Fitzpiers’s very door. Fitzpiers knew only too well the +latest and greatest cause of his unpopularity; and yet, so illogical is man, +the second branch of his sadness grew out of a remedial measure proposed for +the first—a letter from Felice Charmond imploring him not to see her +again. To bring about their severance still more effectually, she added, she +had decided during his absence upon almost immediate departure for the +Continent. +</p> + +<p> +The time was that dull interval in a woodlander’s life which coincides +with great activity in the life of the woodland itself—a period following +the close of the winter tree-cutting, and preceding the barking season, when +the saps are just beginning to heave with the force of hydraulic lifts inside +all the trunks of the forest. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne’s contract was completed, and the plantations were deserted. +It was dusk; there were no leaves as yet; the nightingales would not begin to +sing for a fortnight; and “the Mother of the Months” was in her +most attenuated phase—starved and bent to a mere bowed skeleton, which +glided along behind the bare twigs in Fitzpiers’s company. +</p> + +<p> +When he reached home he went straight up to his wife’s sitting-room. He +found it deserted, and without a fire. He had mentioned no day for his return; +nevertheless, he wondered why she was not there waiting to receive him. On +descending to the other wing of the house and inquiring of Mrs. Melbury, he +learned with much surprise that Grace had gone on a visit to an acquaintance at +Shottsford-Forum three days earlier; that tidings had on this morning reached +her father of her being very unwell there, in consequence of which he had +ridden over to see her. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers went up-stairs again, and the little drawing-room, now lighted by a +solitary candle, was not rendered more cheerful by the entrance of Grammer +Oliver with an apronful of wood, which she threw on the hearth while she raked +out the grate and rattled about the fire-irons, with a view to making things +comfortable. Fitzpiers considered that Grace ought to have let him know her +plans more accurately before leaving home in a freak like this. He went +desultorily to the window, the blind of which had not been pulled down, and +looked out at the thin, fast-sinking moon, and at the tall stalk of smoke +rising from the top of Suke Damson’s chimney, signifying that the young +woman had just lit her fire to prepare supper. +</p> + +<p> +He became conscious of a discussion in progress on the opposite side of the +court. Somebody had looked over the wall to talk to the sawyers, and was +telling them in a loud voice news in which the name of Mrs. Charmond soon +arrested his ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Grammer, don’t make so much noise with that grate,” said the +surgeon; at which Grammer reared herself upon her knees and held the fuel +suspended in her hand, while Fitzpiers half opened the casement. +</p> + +<p> +“She is off to foreign lands again at last—hev made up her mind +quite sudden-like—and it is thoughted she’ll leave in a day or two. +She’s been all as if her mind were low for some days past—with a +sort of sorrow in her face, as if she reproached her own soul. She’s the +wrong sort of woman for Hintock—hardly knowing a beech from a +woak—that I own. But I don’t care who the man is, she’s been +a very kind friend to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the day after to-morrow is the Sabbath day, and without charity we +are but tinkling simples; but this I do say, that her going will be a blessed +thing for a certain married couple who remain.” +</p> + +<p> +The fire was lighted, and Fitzpiers sat down in front of it, restless as the +last leaf upon a tree. “A sort of sorrow in her face, as if she +reproached her own soul.” Poor Felice. How Felice’s frame must be +pulsing under the conditions of which he had just heard the caricature; how her +fair temples must ache; what a mood of wretchedness she must be in! But for the +mixing up of his name with hers, and her determination to sunder their too +close acquaintance on that account, she would probably have sent for him +professionally. She was now sitting alone, suffering, perhaps wishing that she +had not forbidden him to come again. +</p> + +<p> +Unable to remain in this lonely room any longer, or to wait for the meal which +was in course of preparation, he made himself ready for riding, descended to +the yard, stood by the stable-door while Darling was being saddled, and rode +off down the lane. He would have preferred walking, but was weary with his +day’s travel. +</p> + +<p> +As he approached the door of Marty South’s cottage, which it was +necessary to pass on his way, she came from the porch as if she had been +awaiting him, and met him in the middle of the road, holding up a letter. +Fitzpiers took it without stopping, and asked over his shoulder from whom it +came. +</p> + +<p> +Marty hesitated. “From me,” she said, shyly, though with noticeable +firmness. +</p> + +<p> +This letter contained, in fact, Marty’s declaration that she was the +original owner of Mrs. Charmond’s supplementary locks, and enclosed a +sample from the native stock, which had grown considerably by this time. It was +her long contemplated apple of discord, and much her hand trembled as she +handed the document up to him. +</p> + +<p> +But it was impossible on account of the gloom for Fitzpiers to read it then, +while he had the curiosity to do so, and he put it in his pocket. His +imagination having already centred itself on Hintock House, in his pocket the +letter remained unopened and forgotten, all the while that Marty was hopefully +picturing its excellent weaning effect upon him. +</p> + +<p> +He was not long in reaching the precincts of the Manor House. He drew rein +under a group of dark oaks commanding a view of the front, and reflected a +while. His entry would not be altogether unnatural in the circumstances of her +possible indisposition; but upon the whole he thought it best to avoid riding +up to the door. By silently approaching he could retreat unobserved in the +event of her not being alone. Thereupon he dismounted, hitched Darling to a +stray bough hanging a little below the general browsing line of the trees, and +proceeded to the door on foot. +</p> + +<p> +In the mean time Melbury had returned from Shottsford-Forum. The great court or +quadrangle of the timber-merchant’s house, divided from the shady lane by +an ivy-covered wall, was entered by two white gates, one standing near each +extremity of the wall. It so happened that at the moment when Fitzpiers was +riding out at the lower gate on his way to the Manor House, Melbury was +approaching the upper gate to enter it. Fitzpiers being in front of Melbury was +seen by the latter, but the surgeon, never turning his head, did not observe +his father-in-law, ambling slowly and silently along under the trees, though +his horse too was a gray one. +</p> + +<p> +“How is Grace?” said his wife, as soon as he entered. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury looked gloomy. “She is not at all well,” he said. “I +don’t like the looks of her at all. I couldn’t bear the notion of +her biding away in a strange place any longer, and I begged her to let me get +her home. At last she agreed to it, but not till after much persuading. I was +then sorry that I rode over instead of driving; but I have hired a nice +comfortable carriage—the easiest-going I could get—and she’ll +be here in a couple of hours or less. I rode on ahead to tell you to get her +room ready; but I see her husband has come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mrs. Melbury. She expressed her concern that her +husband had hired a carriage all the way from Shottsford. “What it will +cost!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care what it costs!” he exclaimed, testily. “I +was determined to get her home. Why she went away I can’t think! She acts +in a way that is not at all likely to mend matters as far as I can see.” +(Grace had not told her father of her interview with Mrs. Charmond, and the +disclosure that had been whispered in her startled ear.) “Since Edgar is +come,” he continued, “he might have waited in till I got home, to +ask me how she was, if only for a compliment. I saw him go out; where is he +gone?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Melbury did not know positively; but she told her husband that there was +not much doubt about the place of his first visit after an absence. She had, in +fact, seen Fitzpiers take the direction of the Manor House. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury said no more. It was exasperating to him that just at this moment, when +there was every reason for Fitzpiers to stay indoors, or at any rate to ride +along the Shottsford road to meet his ailing wife, he should be doing despite +to her by going elsewhere. The old man went out-of-doors again; and his horse +being hardly unsaddled as yet, he told Upjohn to retighten the girths, when he +again mounted, and rode off at the heels of the surgeon. +</p> + +<p> +By the time that Melbury reached the park, he was prepared to go any lengths in +combating this rank and reckless errantry of his daughter’s husband. He +would fetch home Edgar Fitzpiers to-night by some means, rough or fair: in his +view there could come of his interference nothing worse than what existed at +present. And yet to every bad there is a worse. +</p> + +<p> +He had entered by the bridle-gate which admitted to the park on this side, and +cantered over the soft turf almost in the tracks of Fitzpiers’s horse, +till he reached the clump of trees under which his precursor had halted. The +whitish object that was indistinctly visible here in the gloom of the boughs he +found to be Darling, as left by Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +“D—n him! why did he not ride up to the house in an honest +way?” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +He profited by Fitzpiers’s example; dismounting, he tied his horse under +an adjoining tree, and went on to the house on foot, as the other had done. He +was no longer disposed to stick at trifles in his investigation, and did not +hesitate to gently open the front door without ringing. +</p> + +<p> +The large square hall, with its oak floor, staircase, and wainscot, was lighted +by a dim lamp hanging from a beam. Not a soul was visible. He went into the +corridor and listened at a door which he knew to be that of the drawing-room; +there was no sound, and on turning the handle he found the room empty. A fire +burning low in the grate was the sole light of the apartment; its beams flashed +mockingly on the somewhat showy Versaillese furniture and gilding here, in +style as unlike that of the structural parts of the building as it was possible +to be, and probably introduced by Felice to counteract the fine old-English +gloom of the place. Disappointed in his hope of confronting his son-in-law +here, he went on to the dining-room; this was without light or fire, and +pervaded by a cold atmosphere, which signified that she had not dined there +that day. +</p> + +<p> +By this time Melbury’s mood had a little mollified. Everything here was +so pacific, so unaggressive in its repose, that he was no longer incited to +provoke a collision with Fitzpiers or with anybody. The comparative stateliness +of the apartments influenced him to an emotion, rather than to a belief, that +where all was outwardly so good and proper there could not be quite that +delinquency within which he had suspected. It occurred to him, too, that even +if his suspicion were justified, his abrupt, if not unwarrantable, entry into +the house might end in confounding its inhabitant at the expense of his +daughter’s dignity and his own. Any ill result would be pretty sure to +hit Grace hardest in the long-run. He would, after all, adopt the more rational +course, and plead with Fitzpiers privately, as he had pleaded with Mrs. +Charmond. +</p> + +<p> +He accordingly retreated as silently as he had come. Passing the door of the +drawing-room anew, he fancied that he heard a noise within which was not the +crackling of the fire. Melbury gently reopened the door to a distance of a few +inches, and saw at the opposite window two figures in the act of stepping +out—a man and a woman—in whom he recognized the lady of the house +and his son-in-law. In a moment they had disappeared amid the gloom of the +lawn. +</p> + +<p> +He returned into the hall, and let himself out by the carriage-entrance door, +coming round to the lawn front in time to see the two figures parting at the +railing which divided the precincts of the house from the open park. Mrs. +Charmond turned to hasten back immediately that Fitzpiers had left her side, +and he was speedily absorbed into the duskiness of the trees. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury waited till Mrs. Charmond had re-entered the drawing-room, and then +followed after Fitzpiers, thinking that he would allow the latter to mount and +ride ahead a little way before overtaking him and giving him a piece of his +mind. His son-in-law might possibly see the second horse near his own; but that +would do him no harm, and might prepare him for what he was to expect. +</p> + +<p> +The event, however, was different from the plan. On plunging into the thick +shade of the clump of oaks, he could not perceive his horse Blossom anywhere; +but feeling his way carefully along, he by-and-by discerned Fitzpiers’s +mare Darling still standing as before under the adjoining tree. For a moment +Melbury thought that his own horse, being young and strong, had broken away +from her fastening; but on listening intently he could hear her ambling +comfortably along a little way ahead, and a creaking of the saddle which showed +that she had a rider. Walking on as far as the small gate in the corner of the +park, he met a laborer, who, in reply to Melbury’s inquiry if he had seen +any person on a gray horse, said that he had only met Dr. Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +It was just what Melbury had begun to suspect: Fitzpiers had mounted the mare +which did not belong to him in mistake for his own—an oversight easily +explicable, in a man ever unwitting in horse-flesh, by the darkness of the spot +and the near similarity of the animals in appearance, though Melbury’s +was readily enough seen to be the grayer horse by day. He hastened back, and +did what seemed best in the circumstances—got upon old Darling, and rode +rapidly after Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury had just entered the wood, and was winding along the cart-way which led +through it, channelled deep in the leaf-mould with large ruts that were formed +by the timber-wagons in fetching the spoil of the plantations, when all at once +he descried in front, at a point where the road took a turning round a large +chestnut-tree, the form of his own horse Blossom, at which Melbury quickened +Darling’s pace, thinking to come up with Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +Nearer view revealed that the horse had no rider. At Melbury’s approach +it galloped friskily away under the trees in a homeward direction. Thinking +something was wrong, the timber-merchant dismounted as soon as he reached the +chestnut, and after feeling about for a minute or two discovered Fitzpiers +lying on the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Here—help!” cried the latter as soon as he felt +Melbury’s touch; “I have been thrown off, but there’s not +much harm done, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +Since Melbury could not now very well read the younger man the lecture he had +intended, and as friendliness would be hypocrisy, his instinct was to speak not +a single word to his son-in-law. He raised Fitzpiers into a sitting posture, +and found that he was a little stunned and stupefied, but, as he had said, not +otherwise hurt. How this fall had come about was readily conjecturable: +Fitzpiers, imagining there was only old Darling under him, had been taken +unawares by the younger horse’s sprightliness. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury was a traveller of the old-fashioned sort; having just come from +Shottsford-Forum, he still had in his pocket the pilgrim’s flask of rum +which he always carried on journeys exceeding a dozen miles, though he seldom +drank much of it. He poured it down the surgeon’s throat, with such +effect that he quickly revived. Melbury got him on his legs; but the question +was what to do with him. He could not walk more than a few steps, and the other +horse had gone away. +</p> + +<p> +With great exertion Melbury contrived to get him astride Darling, mounting +himself behind, and holding Fitzpiers round his waist with one arm. Darling +being broad, straight-backed, and high in the withers, was well able to carry +double, at any rate as far as Hintock, and at a gentle pace. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap35"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> + +<p> +The mare paced along with firm and cautious tread through the copse where +Winterborne had worked, and into the heavier soil where the oaks grew; past +Great Willy, the largest oak in the wood, and thence towards Nellcombe Bottom, +intensely dark now with overgrowth, and popularly supposed to be haunted by the +spirits of the fratricides exorcised from Hintock House. +</p> + +<p> +By this time Fitzpiers was quite recovered as to physical strength. But he had +eaten nothing since making a hasty breakfast in London that morning, his +anxiety about Felice having hurried him away from home before dining; as a +consequence, the old rum administered by his father-in-law flew to the young +man’s head and loosened his tongue, without his ever having recognized +who it was that had lent him a kindly hand. He began to speak in desultory +sentences, Melbury still supporting him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve come all the way from London to-day,” said Fitzpiers. +“Ah, that’s the place to meet your equals. I live at +Hintock—worse, at Little Hintock—and I am quite lost there. +There’s not a man within ten miles of Hintock who can comprehend me. I +tell you, Farmer What’s-your-name, that I’m a man of education. I +know several languages; the poets and I are familiar friends; I used to read +more in metaphysics than anybody within fifty miles; and since I gave that up +there’s nobody can match me in the whole county of Wessex as a scientist. +Yet I an doomed to live with tradespeople in a miserable little hole like +Hintock!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” muttered Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers, increasingly energized by the alcohol, here reared himself up +suddenly from the bowed posture he had hitherto held, thrusting his shoulders +so violently against Melbury’s breast as to make it difficult for the old +man to keep a hold on the reins. “People don’t appreciate me +here!” the surgeon exclaimed; lowering his voice, he added, softly and +slowly, “except one—except one!...A passionate soul, as warm as she +is clever, as beautiful as she is warm, and as rich as she is beautiful. I say, +old fellow, those claws of yours clutch me rather tight—rather like the +eagle’s, you know, that ate out the liver of Pro—Pre—the man +on Mount Caucasus. People don’t appreciate me, I say, except <i>her!</i> +Ah, gods, I am an unlucky man! She would have been mine, she would have taken +my name; but unfortunately it cannot be so. I stooped to mate beneath me, and +now I rue it.” +</p> + +<p> +The position was becoming a very trying one for Melbury, corporeally and +mentally. He was obliged to steady Fitzpiers with his left arm, and he began to +hate the contact. He hardly knew what to do. It was useless to remonstrate with +Fitzpiers, in his intellectual confusion from the rum and from the fall. He +remained silent, his hold upon his companion, however, being stern rather than +compassionate. +</p> + +<p> +“You hurt me a little, farmer—though I am much obliged to you for +your kindness. People don’t appreciate me, I say. Between ourselves, I am +losing my practice here; and why? Because I see matchless attraction where +matchless attraction is, both in person and position. I mention no names, so +nobody will be the wiser. But I have lost her, in a legitimate sense, that is. +If I were a free man now, things have come to such a pass that she could not +refuse me; while with her fortune (which I don’t covet for itself) I +should have a chance of satisfying an honorable ambition—a chance I have +never had yet, and now never, never shall have, probably!” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury, his heart throbbing against the other’s backbone, and his brain +on fire with indignation, ventured to mutter huskily, “Why?” +</p> + +<p> +The horse ambled on some steps before Fitzpiers replied, “Because I am +tied and bound to another by law, as tightly as I am to you by your +arm—not that I complain of your arm—I thank you for helping me. +Well, where are we? Not nearly home yet?...Home, say I. It <i>is</i> a home! +When I might have been at the other house over there.” In a stupefied way +he flung his hand in the direction of the park. “I was just two months +too early in committing myself. Had I only seen the other first—” +</p> + +<p> +Here the old man’s arm gave Fitzpiers a convulsive shake. “What are +you doing?” continued the latter. “Keep still, please, or put me +down. I was saying that I lost her by a mere little two months! There is no +chance for me now in this world, and it makes me reckless—reckless! +Unless, indeed, anything should happen to the other one. She is amiable enough; +but if anything should happen to her—and I hear she is ill—well, if +it <i>should</i>, I should be free—and my fame, my happiness, would be +insured.” +</p> + +<p> +These were the last words that Fitzpiers uttered in his seat in front of the +timber-merchant. Unable longer to master himself, Melbury, the skin of his face +compressed, whipped away his spare arm from Fitzpiers’s waist, and seized +him by the collar. +</p> + +<p> +“You heartless villain—after all that we have done for ye!” +he cried, with a quivering lip. “And the money of hers that you’ve +had, and the roof we’ve provided to shelter ye! It is to me, George +Melbury, that you dare to talk like that!” The exclamation was +accompanied by a powerful swing from the shoulder, which flung the young man +head-long into the road, Fitzpiers fell with a heavy thud upon the stumps of +some undergrowth which had been cut during the winter preceding. Darling +continued her walk for a few paces farther and stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“God forgive me!” Melbury murmured, repenting of what he had done. +“He tried me too sorely; and now perhaps I’ve murdered him!” +</p> + +<p> +He turned round in the saddle and looked towards the spot on which Fitzpiers +had fallen. To his great surprise he beheld the surgeon rise to his feet with a +bound, as if unhurt, and walk away rapidly under the trees. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury listened till the rustle of Fitzpiers’s footsteps died away. +“It might have been a crime, but for the mercy of Providence in providing +leaves for his fall,” he said to himself. And then his mind reverted to +the words of Fitzpiers, and his indignation so mounted within him that he +almost wished the fall had put an end to the young man there and then. +</p> + +<p> +He had not ridden far when he discerned his own gray mare standing under some +bushes. Leaving Darling for a moment, Melbury went forward and easily caught +the younger animal, now disheartened at its freak. He then made the pair of +them fast to a tree, and turning back, endeavored to find some trace of +Fitzpiers, feeling pitifully that, after all, he had gone further than he +intended with the offender. +</p> + +<p> +But though he threaded the wood hither and thither, his toes ploughing layer +after layer of the little horny scrolls that had once been leaves, he could not +find him. He stood still listening and looking round. The breeze was oozing +through the network of boughs as through a strainer; the trunks and larger +branches stood against the light of the sky in the forms of writhing men, +gigantic candelabra, pikes, halberds, lances, and whatever besides the fancy +chose to make of them. Giving up the search, Melbury came back to the horses, +and walked slowly homeward, leading one in each hand. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It happened that on this self-same evening a boy had been returning from Great +to Little Hintock about the time of Fitzpiers’s and Melbury’s +passage home along that route. A horse-collar that had been left at the +harness-mender’s to be repaired was required for use at five +o’clock next morning, and in consequence the boy had to fetch it +overnight. He put his head through the collar, and accompanied his walk by +whistling the one tune he knew, as an antidote to fear. +</p> + +<p> +The boy suddenly became aware of a horse trotting rather friskily along the +track behind him, and not knowing whether to expect friend or foe, prudence +suggested that he should cease his whistling and retreat among the trees till +the horse and his rider had gone by; a course to which he was still more +inclined when he found how noiselessly they approached, and saw that the horse +looked pale, and remembered what he had read about Death in the Revelation. He +therefore deposited the collar by a tree, and hid himself behind it. The +horseman came on, and the youth, whose eyes were as keen as telescopes, to his +great relief recognized the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +As Melbury surmised, Fitzpiers had in the darkness taken Blossom for Darling, +and he had not discovered his mistake when he came up opposite the boy, though +he was somewhat surprised at the liveliness of his usually placid mare. The +only other pair of eyes on the spot whose vision was keen as the young +carter’s were those of the horse; and, with that strongly conservative +objection to the unusual which animals show, Blossom, on eying the collar under +the tree—quite invisible to Fitzpiers—exercised none of the +patience of the older horse, but shied sufficiently to unseat so second-rate an +equestrian as the surgeon. +</p> + +<p> +He fell, and did not move, lying as Melbury afterwards found him. The boy ran +away, salving his conscience for the desertion by thinking how vigorously he +would spread the alarm of the accident when he got to Hintock—which he +uncompromisingly did, incrusting the skeleton event with a load of dramatic +horrors. +</p> + +<p> +Grace had returned, and the fly hired on her account, though not by her +husband, at the Crown Hotel, Shottsford-Forum, had been paid for and dismissed. +The long drive had somewhat revived her, her illness being a feverish +intermittent nervousness which had more to do with mind than body, and she +walked about her sitting-room in something of a hopeful mood. Mrs. Melbury had +told her as soon as she arrived that her husband had returned from London. He +had gone out, she said, to see a patient, as she supposed, and he must soon be +back, since he had had no dinner or tea. Grace would not allow her mind to +harbor any suspicion of his whereabouts, and her step-mother said nothing of +Mrs. Charmond’s rumored sorrows and plans of departure. +</p> + +<p> +So the young wife sat by the fire, waiting silently. She had left Hintock in a +turmoil of feeling after the revelation of Mrs. Charmond, and had intended not +to be at home when her husband returned. But she had thought the matter over, +and had allowed her father’s influence to prevail and bring her back; and +now somewhat regretted that Edgar’s arrival had preceded hers. +</p> + +<p> +By-and-by Mrs. Melbury came up-stairs with a slight air of flurry and +abruptness. +</p> + +<p> +“I have something to tell—some bad news,” she said. +“But you must not be alarmed, as it is not so bad as it might have been. +Edgar has been thrown off his horse. We don’t think he is hurt much. It +happened in the wood the other side of Nellcombe Bottom, where ’tis said +the ghosts of the brothers walk.” +</p> + +<p> +She went on to give a few of the particulars, but none of the invented horrors +that had been communicated by the boy. “I thought it better to tell you +at once,” she added, “in case he should not be very well able to +walk home, and somebody should bring him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Melbury really thought matters much worse than she represented, and Grace +knew that she thought so. She sat down dazed for a few minutes, returning a +negative to her step-mother’s inquiry if she could do anything for her. +“But please go into the bedroom,” Grace said, on second thoughts, +“and see if all is ready there—in case it is serious.” Mrs. +Melbury thereupon called Grammer, and they did as directed, supplying the room +with everything they could think of for the accommodation of an injured man. +</p> + +<p> +Nobody was left in the lower part of the house. Not many minutes passed when +Grace heard a knock at the door—a single knock, not loud enough to reach +the ears of those in the bedroom. She went to the top of the stairs and said, +faintly, “Come up,” knowing that the door stood, as usual in such +houses, wide open. +</p> + +<p> +Retreating into the gloom of the broad landing she saw rise up the stairs a +woman whom at first she did not recognize, till her voice revealed her to be +Suke Damson, in great fright and sorrow. A streak of light from the partially +closed door of Grace’s room fell upon her face as she came forward, and +it was drawn and pale. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Miss Melbury—I would say Mrs. Fitzpiers,” she said, +wringing her hands. “This terrible news. Is he dead? Is he hurted very +bad? Tell me; I couldn’t help coming; please forgive me, Miss +Melbury—Mrs. Fitzpiers I would say!” +</p> + +<p> +Grace sank down on the oak chest which stood on the landing, and put her hands +to her now flushed face and head. Could she order Suke Damson down-stairs and +out of the house? Her husband might be brought in at any moment, and what would +happen? But could she order this genuinely grieved woman away? +</p> + +<p> +There was a dead silence of half a minute or so, till Suke said, “Why +don’t ye speak? Is he here? Is he dead? If so, why can’t I see +him—would it be so very wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +Before Grace had answered somebody else came to the door below—a +foot-fall light as a roe’s. There was a hurried tapping upon the panel, +as if with the impatient tips of fingers whose owner thought not whether a +knocker were there or no. Without a pause, and possibly guided by the stray +beam of light on the landing, the newcomer ascended the staircase as the first +had done. Grace was sufficiently visible, and the lady, for a lady it was, came +to her side. +</p> + +<p> +“I could make nobody hear down-stairs,” said Felice Charmond, with +lips whose dryness could almost be heard, and panting, as she stood like one +ready to sink on the floor with distress. “What is—the +matter—tell me the worst! Can he live?” She looked at Grace +imploringly, without perceiving poor Suke, who, dismayed at such a presence, +had shrunk away into the shade. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Charmond’s little feet were covered with mud; she was quite +unconscious of her appearance now. “I have heard such a dreadful +report,” she went on; “I came to ascertain the truth of it. Is +he—killed?” +</p> + +<p> +“She won’t tell us—he’s dying—he’s in that +room!” burst out Suke, regardless of consequences, as she heard the +distant movements of Mrs. Melbury and Grammer in the bedroom at the end of the +passage. +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” said Mrs. Charmond; and on Suke pointing out the +direction, she made as if to go thither. +</p> + +<p> +Grace barred the way. “He is not there,” she said. “I have +not seen him any more than you. I have heard a report only—not so bad as +you think. It must have been exaggerated to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please do not conceal anything—let me know all!” said +Felice, doubtingly. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall know all I know—you have a perfect right to +know—who can have a better than either of you?” said Grace, with a +delicate sting which was lost upon Felice Charmond now. “I repeat, I have +only heard a less alarming account than you have heard; how much it means, and +how little, I cannot say. I pray God that it means not much—in common +humanity. You probably pray the same—<i>for other reasons</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +She regarded them both there in the dim light a while. +</p> + +<p> +They stood dumb in their trouble, not stinging back at her; not heeding her +mood. A tenderness spread over Grace like a dew. It was well, very well, +conventionally, to address either one of them in the wife’s regulation +terms of virtuous sarcasm, as woman, creature, or thing, for losing their +hearts to her husband. But life, what was it, and who was she? She had, like +the singer of the psalm of Asaph, been plagued and chastened all the day long; +but could she, by retributive words, in order to please herself—the +individual—“offend against the generation,” as he would not? +</p> + +<p> +“He is dying, perhaps,” blubbered Suke Damson, putting her apron to +her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +In their gestures and faces there were anxieties, affection, agony of heart, +all for a man who had wronged them—had never really behaved towards +either of them anyhow but selfishly. Neither one but would have wellnigh +sacrificed half her life to him, even now. The tears which his possibly +critical situation could not bring to her eyes surged over at the contemplation +of these fellow-women. She turned to the balustrade, bent herself upon it, and +wept. +</p> + +<p> +Thereupon Felice began to cry also, without using her handkerchief, and letting +the tears run down silently. While these three poor women stood together thus, +pitying another though most to be pitied themselves, the pacing of a horse or +horses became audible in the court, and in a moment Melbury’s voice was +heard calling to his stableman. Grace at once started up, ran down the stairs +and out into the quadrangle as her father crossed it towards the door. +“Father, what is the matter with him?” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Who—Edgar?” said Melbury, abruptly. “Matter? Nothing. +What, my dear, and have you got home safe? Why, you are better already! But you +ought not to be out in the air like this.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he has been thrown off his horse!” +</p> + +<p> +“I know; I know. I saw it. He got up again, and walked off as well as +ever. A fall on the leaves didn’t hurt a spry fellow like him. He did not +come this way,” he added, significantly. “I suppose he went to look +for his horse. I tried to find him, but could not. But after seeing him go away +under the trees I found the horse, and have led it home for safety. So he must +walk. Now, don’t you stay out here in this night air.” +</p> + +<p> +She returned to the house with her father. When she had again ascended to the +landing and to her own rooms beyond it was a great relief to her to find that +both Petticoat the First and Petticoat the Second of her <i>Bien-aimé</i> had +silently disappeared. They had, in all probability, heard the words of her +father, and departed with their anxieties relieved. +</p> + +<p> +Presently her parents came up to Grace, and busied themselves to see that she +was comfortable. Perceiving soon that she would prefer to be left alone they +went away. +</p> + +<p> +Grace waited on. The clock raised its voice now and then, but her husband did +not return. At her father’s usual hour for retiring he again came in to +see her. “Do not stay up,” she said, as soon as he entered. +“I am not at all tired. I will sit up for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it will be useless, Grace,” said Melbury, slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have had a bitter quarrel with him; and on that account I hardly think +he will return to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“A quarrel? Was that after the fall seen by the boy?” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury nodded an affirmative, without taking his eyes off the candle. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; it was as we were coming home together,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Something had been swelling up in Grace while her father was speaking. +“How could you want to quarrel with him?” she cried, suddenly. +“Why could you not let him come home quietly if he were inclined to? He +is my husband; and now you have married me to him surely you need not provoke +him unnecessarily. First you induce me to accept him, and then you do things +that divide us more than we should naturally be divided!” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you speak so unjustly to me, Grace?” said Melbury, with +indignant sorrow. “<i>I</i> divide you from your husband, indeed! You +little think—” +</p> + +<p> +He was inclined to say more—to tell her the whole story of the encounter, +and that the provocation he had received had lain entirely in hearing her +despised. But it would have greatly distressed her, and he forbore. “You +had better lie down. You are tired,” he said, soothingly. +“Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +The household went to bed, and a silence fell upon the dwelling, broken only by +the occasional skirr of a halter in Melbury’s stables. Despite her +father’s advice Grace still waited up. But nobody came. +</p> + +<p> +It was a critical time in Grace’s emotional life that night. She thought +of her husband a good deal, and for the nonce forgot Winterborne. +</p> + +<p> +“How these unhappy women must have admired Edgar!” she said to +herself. “How attractive he must be to everybody; and, indeed, he is +attractive.” The possibility is that, piqued by rivalry, these ideas +might have been transformed into their corresponding emotions by a show of the +least reciprocity in Fitzpiers. There was, in truth, a love-bird yearning to +fly from her heart; and it wanted a lodging badly. +</p> + +<p> +But no husband came. The fact was that Melbury had been much mistaken about the +condition of Fitzpiers. People do not fall headlong on stumps of underwood with +impunity. Had the old man been able to watch Fitzpiers narrowly enough, he +would have observed that on rising and walking into the thicket he dropped +blood as he went; that he had not proceeded fifty yards before he showed signs +of being dizzy, and, raising his hands to his head, reeled and fell down. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap36"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> + +<p> +Grace was not the only one who watched and meditated in Hintock that night. +Felice Charmond was in no mood to retire to rest at a customary hour; and over +her drawing-room fire at the Manor House she sat as motionless and in as deep a +reverie as Grace in her little apartment at the homestead. +</p> + +<p> +Having caught ear of Melbury’s intelligence while she stood on the +landing at his house, and been eased of much of her mental distress, her sense +of personal decorum returned upon her with a rush. She descended the stairs and +left the door like a ghost, keeping close to the walls of the building till she +got round to the gate of the quadrangle, through which she noiselessly passed +almost before Grace and her father had finished their discourse. Suke Damson +had thought it well to imitate her superior in this respect, and, descending +the back stairs as Felice descended the front, went out at the side door and +home to her cottage. +</p> + +<p> +Once outside Melbury’s gates Mrs. Charmond ran with all her speed to the +Manor House, without stopping or turning her head, and splitting her thin boots +in her haste. She entered her own dwelling, as she had emerged from it, by the +drawing-room window. In other circumstances she would have felt some timidity +at undertaking such an unpremeditated excursion alone; but her anxiety for +another had cast out her fear for herself. +</p> + +<p> +Everything in her drawing-room was just as she had left it—the candles +still burning, the casement closed, and the shutters gently pulled to, so as to +hide the state of the window from the cursory glance of a servant entering the +apartment. She had been gone about three-quarters of an hour by the clock, and +nobody seemed to have discovered her absence. Tired in body but tense in mind, +she sat down, palpitating, round-eyed, bewildered at what she had done. +</p> + +<p> +She had been betrayed by affrighted love into a visit which, now that the +emotion instigating it had calmed down under her belief that Fitzpiers was in +no danger, was the saddest surprise to her. This was how she had set about +doing her best to escape her passionate bondage to him! Somehow, in declaring +to Grace and to herself the unseemliness of her infatuation, she had grown a +convert to its irresistibility. If Heaven would only give her strength; but +Heaven never did! One thing was indispensable; she must go away from Hintock if +she meant to withstand further temptation. The struggle was too wearying, too +hopeless, while she remained. It was but a continual capitulation of conscience +to what she dared not name. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees, as she sat, Felice’s mind—helped perhaps by the +anticlimax of learning that her lover was unharmed after all her fright about +him—grew wondrously strong in wise resolve. For the moment she was in a +mood, in the words of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, “to run mad with +discretion;” and was so persuaded that discretion lay in departure that +she wished to set about going that very minute. Jumping up from her seat, she +began to gather together some small personal knick-knacks scattered about the +room, to feel that preparations were really in train. +</p> + +<p> +While moving here and there she fancied that she heard a slight noise +out-of-doors, and stood still. Surely it was a tapping at the window. A thought +entered her mind, and burned her cheek. He had come to that window before; yet +was it possible that he should dare to do so now! All the servants were in bed, +and in the ordinary course of affairs she would have retired also. Then she +remembered that on stepping in by the casement and closing it, she had not +fastened the window-shutter, so that a streak of light from the interior of the +room might have revealed her vigil to an observer on the lawn. How all things +conspired against her keeping faith with Grace! +</p> + +<p> +The tapping recommenced, light as from the bill of a little bird; her +illegitimate hope overcame her vow; she went and pulled back the shutter, +determining, however, to shake her head at him and keep the casement securely +closed. +</p> + +<p> +What she saw outside might have struck terror into a heart stouter than a +helpless woman’s at midnight. In the centre of the lowest pane of the +window, close to the glass, was a human face, which she barely recognized as +the face of Fitzpiers. It was surrounded with the darkness of the night +without, corpse-like in its pallor, and covered with blood. As disclosed in the +square area of the pane it met her frightened eyes like a replica of the +Sudarium of St. Veronica. +</p> + +<p> +He moved his lips, and looked at her imploringly. Her rapid mind pieced +together in an instant a possible concatenation of events which might have led +to this tragical issue. She unlatched the casement with a terrified hand, and +bending down to where he was crouching, pressed her face to his with passionate +solicitude. She assisted him into the room without a word, to do which it was +almost necessary to lift him bodily. Quickly closing the window and fastening +the shutters, she bent over him breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you hurt much—much?” she cried, faintly. “Oh, oh, +how is this!” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather much—but don’t be frightened,” he answered in a +difficult whisper, and turning himself to obtain an easier position if +possible. “A little water, please.” +</p> + +<p> +She ran across into the dining-room, and brought a bottle and glass, from which +he eagerly drank. He could then speak much better, and with her help got upon +the nearest couch. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you dying, Edgar?” she said. “Do speak to me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am half dead,” said Fitzpiers. “But perhaps I shall get +over it....It is chiefly loss of blood.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I thought your fall did not hurt you,” said she. “Who +did this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Felice—my father-in-law!...I have crawled to you more than a mile +on my hands and knees—God, I thought I should never have got here!...I +have come to you—be-cause you are the only friend—I have in the +world now....I can never go back to Hintock—never—to the roof of +the Melburys! Not poppy nor mandragora will ever medicine this bitter +feud!...If I were only well again—” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me bind your head, now that you have rested.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—but wait a moment—it has stopped bleeding, fortunately, +or I should be a dead man before now. While in the wood I managed to make a +tourniquet of some half-pence and my handkerchief, as well as I could in the +dark....But listen, dear Felice! Can you hide me till I am well? Whatever +comes, I can be seen in Hintock no more. My practice is nearly gone, you +know—and after this I would not care to recover it if I could.” +</p> + +<p> +By this time Felice’s tears began to blind her. Where were now her +discreet plans for sundering their lives forever? To administer to him in his +pain, and trouble, and poverty, was her single thought. The first step was to +hide him, and she asked herself where. A place occurred to her mind. +</p> + +<p> +She got him some wine from the dining-room, which strengthened him much. Then +she managed to remove his boots, and, as he could now keep himself upright by +leaning upon her on one side and a walking-stick on the other, they went thus +in slow march out of the room and up the stairs. At the top she took him along +a gallery, pausing whenever he required rest, and thence up a smaller staircase +to the least used part of the house, where she unlocked a door. Within was a +lumber-room, containing abandoned furniture of all descriptions, built up in +piles which obscured the light of the windows, and formed between them nooks +and lairs in which a person would not be discerned even should an eye gaze in +at the door. The articles were mainly those that had belonged to the previous +owner of the house, and had been bought in by the late Mr. Charmond at the +auction; but changing fashion, and the tastes of a young wife, had caused them +to be relegated to this dungeon. +</p> + +<p> +Here Fitzpiers sat on the floor against the wall till she had hauled out +materials for a bed, which she spread on the floor in one of the aforesaid +nooks. She obtained water and a basin, and washed the dried blood from his face +and hands; and when he was comfortably reclining, fetched food from the larder. +While he ate her eyes lingered anxiously on his face, following its every +movement with such loving-kindness as only a fond woman can show. +</p> + +<p> +He was now in better condition, and discussed his position with her. +</p> + +<p> +“What I fancy I said to Melbury must have been enough to enrage any man, +if uttered in cold blood, and with knowledge of his presence. But I did not +know him, and I was stupefied by what he had given me, so that I hardly was +aware of what I said. Well—the veil of that temple is rent in twain!...As +I am not going to be seen again in Hintock, my first efforts must be directed +to allay any alarm that may be felt at my absence, before I am able to get +clear away. Nobody must suspect that I have been hurt, or there will be a +country talk about me. Felice, I must at once concoct a letter to check all +search for me. I think if you can bring me a pen and paper I may be able to do +it now. I could rest better if it were done. Poor thing! how I tire her with +running up and down!” +</p> + +<p> +She fetched writing materials, and held up the blotting-book as a support to +his hand, while he penned a brief note to his nominal wife. +</p> + +<p> +“The animosity shown towards me by your father,” he wrote, in this +coldest of marital epistles, “is such that I cannot return again to a +roof which is his, even though it shelters you. A parting is unavoidable, as +you are sure to be on his side in this division. I am starting on a journey +which will take me a long way from Hintock, and you must not expect to see me +there again for some time.” +</p> + +<p> +He then gave her a few directions bearing upon his professional engagements and +other practical matters, concluding without a hint of his destination, or a +notion of when she would see him again. He offered to read the note to Felice +before he closed it up, but she would not hear or see it; that side of his +obligations distressed her beyond endurance. She turned away from Fitzpiers, +and sobbed bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“If you can get this posted at a place some miles away,” he +whispered, exhausted by the effort of writing—“at Shottsford or +Port-Bredy, or still better, Budmouth—it will divert all suspicion from +this house as the place of my refuge.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will drive to one or other of the places myself—anything to keep +it unknown,” she murmured, her voice weighted with vague foreboding, now +that the excitement of helping him had passed away. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers told her that there was yet one thing more to be done. “In +creeping over the fence on to the lawn,” he said, “I made the rail +bloody, and it shows rather much on the white paint—I could see it in the +dark. At all hazards it should be washed off. Could you do that also, +Felice?” +</p> + +<p> +What will not women do on such devoted occasions? weary as she was she went all +the way down the rambling staircases to the ground-floor, then to search for a +lantern, which she lighted and hid under her cloak; then for a wet sponge, and +next went forth into the night. The white railing stared out in the darkness at +her approach, and a ray from the enshrouded lantern fell upon the +blood—just where he had told her it would be found. She shuddered. It was +almost too much to bear in one day—but with a shaking hand she sponged +the rail clean, and returned to the house. +</p> + +<p> +The time occupied by these several proceedings was not much less than two +hours. When all was done, and she had smoothed his extemporized bed, and placed +everything within his reach that she could think of, she took her leave of him, +and locked him in. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap37"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> + +<p> +When her husband’s letter reached Grace’s hands, bearing upon it +the postmark of a distant town, it never once crossed her mind that Fitzpiers +was within a mile of her still. She felt relieved that he did not write more +bitterly of the quarrel with her father, whatever its nature might have been; +but the general frigidity of his communication quenched in her the incipient +spark that events had kindled so shortly before. +</p> + +<p> +From this centre of information it was made known in Hintock that the doctor +had gone away, and as none but the Melbury household was aware that he did not +return on the night of his accident, no excitement manifested itself in the +village. +</p> + +<p> +Thus the early days of May passed by. None but the nocturnal birds and animals +observed that late one evening, towards the middle of the month, a closely +wrapped figure, with a crutch under one arm and a stick in his hand, crept out +from Hintock House across the lawn to the shelter of the trees, taking thence a +slow and laborious walk to the nearest point of the turnpike-road. The +mysterious personage was so disguised that his own wife would hardly have known +him. Felice Charmond was a practised hand at make-ups, as well she might be; +and she had done her utmost in padding and painting Fitzpiers with the old +materials of her art in the recesses of the lumber-room. +</p> + +<p> +In the highway he was met by a covered carriage, which conveyed him to +Sherton-Abbas, whence he proceeded to the nearest port on the south coast, and +immediately crossed the Channel. +</p> + +<p> +But it was known to everybody that three days after this time Mrs. Charmond +executed her long-deferred plan of setting out for a long term of travel and +residence on the Continent. She went off one morning as unostentatiously as +could be, and took no maid with her, having, she said, engaged one to meet her +at a point farther on in her route. After that, Hintock House, so frequently +deserted, was again to be let. Spring had not merged in summer when a clinching +rumor, founded on the best of evidence, reached the parish and neighborhood. +Mrs. Charmond and Fitzpiers had been seen together in Baden, in relations which +set at rest the question that had agitated the little community ever since the +winter. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury had entered the Valley of Humiliation even farther than Grace. His +spirit seemed broken. +</p> + +<p> +But once a week he mechanically went to market as usual, and here, as he was +passing by the conduit one day, his mental condition expressed largely by his +gait, he heard his name spoken by a voice formerly familiar. He turned and saw +a certain Fred Beaucock—once a promising lawyer’s clerk and local +dandy, who had been called the cleverest fellow in Sherton, without whose +brains the firm of solicitors employing him would be nowhere. But later on +Beaucock had fallen into the mire. He was invited out a good deal, sang songs +at agricultural meetings and burgesses’ dinners; in sum, victualled +himself with spirits more frequently than was good for the clever brains or +body either. He lost his situation, and after an absence spent in trying his +powers elsewhere, came back to his native town, where, at the time of the +foregoing events in Hintock, he gave legal advice for astonishingly small +fees—mostly carrying on his profession on public-house settles, in whose +recesses he might often have been overheard making country-people’s wills +for half a crown; calling with a learned voice for pen-and-ink and a halfpenny +sheet of paper, on which he drew up the testament while resting it in a little +space wiped with his hand on the table amid the liquid circles formed by the +cups and glasses. An idea implanted early in life is difficult to uproot, and +many elderly tradespeople still clung to the notion that Fred Beaucock knew a +great deal of law. +</p> + +<p> +It was he who had called Melbury by name. “You look very down, Mr. +Melbury—very, if I may say as much,” he observed, when the +timber-merchant turned. “But I know—I know. A very sad +case—very. I was bred to the law, as you know, and am professionally no +stranger to such matters. Well, Mrs. Fitzpiers has her remedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“How—what—a remedy?” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Under the new law, sir. A new court was established last year, and under +the new statute, twenty and twenty-one Vic., cap. eighty-five, unmarrying is as +easy as marrying. No more Acts of Parliament necessary; no longer one law for +the rich and another for the poor. But come inside—I was just going to +have a nibleykin of rum hot—I’ll explain it all to you.” +</p> + +<p> +The intelligence amazed Melbury, who saw little of newspapers. And though he +was a severely correct man in his habits, and had no taste for entering a +tavern with Fred Beaucock—nay, would have been quite uninfluenced by such +a character on any other matter in the world—such fascination lay in the +idea of delivering his poor girl from bondage, that it deprived him of the +critical faculty. He could not resist the ex-lawyer’s clerk, and entered +the inn. +</p> + +<p> +Here they sat down to the rum, which Melbury paid for as a matter of course, +Beaucock leaning back in the settle with a legal gravity which would hardly +allow him to be conscious of the spirits before him, though they nevertheless +disappeared with mysterious quickness. +</p> + +<p> +How much of the exaggerated information on the then new divorce laws which +Beaucock imparted to his listener was the result of ignorance, and how much of +dupery, was never ascertained. But he related such a plausible story of the +ease with which Grace could become a free woman that her father was irradiated +with the project; and though he scarcely wetted his lips, Melbury never knew +how he came out of the inn, or when or where he mounted his gig to pursue his +way homeward. But home he found himself, his brain having all the way seemed to +ring sonorously as a gong in the intensity of its stir. Before he had seen +Grace, he was accidentally met by Winterborne, who found his face shining as if +he had, like the Law-giver, conversed with an angel. +</p> + +<p> +He relinquished his horse, and took Winterborne by the arm to a heap of +rendlewood—as barked oak was here called—which lay under a +privet-hedge. +</p> + +<p> +“Giles,” he said, when they had sat down upon the logs, +“there’s a new law in the land! Grace can be free quite easily. I +only knew it by the merest accident. I might not have found it out for the next +ten years. She can get rid of him—d’ye hear?—get rid of him. +Think of that, my friend Giles!” +</p> + +<p> +He related what he had learned of the new legal remedy. A subdued tremulousness +about the mouth was all the response that Winterborne made; and Melbury added, +“My boy, you shall have her yet—if you want her.” His +feelings had gathered volume as he said this, and the articulate sound of the +old idea drowned his sight in mist. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure—about this new law?” asked Winterborne, so +disquieted by a gigantic exultation which loomed alternately with fearful doubt +that he evaded the full acceptance of Melbury’s last statement. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury said that he had no manner of doubt, for since his talk with Beaucock +it had come into his mind that he had seen some time ago in the weekly paper an +allusion to such a legal change; but, having no interest in those desperate +remedies at the moment, he had passed it over. “But I’m not going +to let the matter rest doubtful for a single day,” he continued. “I +am going to London. Beaucock will go with me, and we shall get the best advice +as soon as we possibly can. Beaucock is a thorough lawyer—nothing the +matter with him but a fiery palate. I knew him as the stay and refuge of +Sherton in knots of law at one time.” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne’s replies were of the vaguest. The new possibility was almost +unthinkable by him at the moment. He was what was called at Hintock “a +solid-going fellow;” he maintained his abeyant mood, not from want of +reciprocity, but from a taciturn hesitancy, taught by life as he knew it. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” continued the timber-merchant, a temporary crease or two of +anxiety supplementing those already established in his forehead by time and +care, “Grace is not at all well. Nothing constitutional, you know; but +she has been in a low, nervous state ever since that night of fright. I +don’t doubt but that she will be all right soon....I wonder how she is +this evening?” He rose with the words, as if he had too long forgotten +her personality in the excitement of her previsioned career. +</p> + +<p> +They had sat till the evening was beginning to dye the garden brown, and now +went towards Melbury’s house, Giles a few steps in the rear of his old +friend, who was stimulated by the enthusiasm of the moment to outstep the +ordinary walking of Winterborne. He felt shy of entering Grace’s presence +as her reconstituted lover—which was how her father’s manner would +be sure to present him—before definite information as to her future state +was forthcoming; it seemed too nearly like the act of those who rush in where +angels fear to tread. +</p> + +<p> +A chill to counterbalance all the glowing promise of the day was prompt enough +in coming. No sooner had he followed the timber-merchant in at the door than he +heard Grammer inform him that Mrs. Fitzpiers was still more unwell than she had +been in the morning. Old Dr. Jones being in the neighborhood they had called +him in, and he had instantly directed them to get her to bed. They were not, +however, to consider her illness serious—a feverish, nervous attack the +result of recent events, was what she was suffering from, and she would +doubtless be well in a few days. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne, therefore, did not remain, and his hope of seeing her that evening +was disappointed. Even this aggravation of her morning condition did not +greatly depress Melbury. He knew, he said, that his daughter’s +constitution was sound enough. It was only these domestic troubles that were +pulling her down. Once free she would be blooming again. Melbury diagnosed +rightly, as parents usually do. +</p> + +<p> +He set out for London the next morning, Jones having paid another visit and +assured him that he might leave home without uneasiness, especially on an +errand of that sort, which would the sooner put an end to her suspense. +</p> + +<p> +The timber-merchant had been away only a day or two when it was told in Hintock +that Mr. Fitzpiers’s hat had been found in the wood. Later on in the +afternoon the hat was brought to Melbury, and, by a piece of ill-fortune, into +Grace’s presence. It had doubtless lain in the wood ever since his fall +from the horse, but it looked so clean and uninjured—the summer weather +and leafy shelter having much favored its preservation—that Grace could +not believe it had remained so long concealed. A very little of fact was enough +to set her fevered fancy at work at this juncture; she thought him still in the +neighborhood; she feared his sudden appearance; and her nervous malady +developed consequences so grave that Dr. Jones began to look serious, and the +household was alarmed. +</p> + +<p> +It was the beginning of June, and the cuckoo at this time of the summer +scarcely ceased his cry for more than two or three hours during the night. The +bird’s note, so familiar to her ears from infancy, was now absolute +torture to the poor girl. On the Friday following the Wednesday of +Melbury’s departure, and the day after the discovery of Fitzpiers’s +hat, the cuckoo began at two o’clock in the morning with a sudden cry +from one of Melbury’s apple-trees, not three yards from the window of +Grace’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he is coming!” she cried, and in her terror sprang clean from +the bed out upon the floor. +</p> + +<p> +These starts and frights continued till noon; and when the doctor had arrived +and had seen her, and had talked with Mrs. Melbury, he sat down and meditated. +That ever-present terror it was indispensable to remove from her mind at all +hazards; and he thought how this might be done. +</p> + +<p> +Without saying a word to anybody in the house, or to the disquieted Winterborne +waiting in the lane below, Dr. Jones went home and wrote to Mr. Melbury at the +London address he had obtained from his wife. The gist of his communication was +that Mrs. Fitzpiers should be assured as soon as possible that steps were being +taken to sever the bond which was becoming a torture to her; that she would +soon be free, and was even then virtually so. “If you can say it <i>at +once</i> it may be the means of averting much harm,” he said. +“Write to herself; not to me.” +</p> + +<p> +On Saturday he drove over to Hintock, and assured her with mysterious +pacifications that in a day or two she might expect to receive some assuring +news. So it turned out. When Sunday morning came there was a letter for Grace +from her father. It arrived at seven o’clock, the usual time at which the +toddling postman passed by Hintock; at eight Grace awoke, having slept an hour +or two for a wonder, and Mrs. Melbury brought up the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you open it yourself?” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, yes!” said Grace, with feeble impatience. She tore the +envelope, unfolded the sheet, and read; when a creeping blush tinctured her +white neck and cheek. +</p> + +<p> +Her father had exercised a bold discretion. He informed her that she need have +no further concern about Fitzpiers’s return; that she would shortly be a +free woman; and therefore, if she should desire to wed her old +lover—which he trusted was the case, since it was his own deep +wish—she would be in a position to do so. In this Melbury had not written +beyond his belief. But he very much stretched the facts in adding that the +legal formalities for dissolving her union were practically settled. The truth +was that on the arrival of the doctor’s letter poor Melbury had been much +agitated, and could with difficulty be prevented by Beaucock from returning to +her bedside. What was the use of his rushing back to Hintock? Beaucock had +asked him. The only thing that could do her any good was a breaking of the +bond. Though he had not as yet had an interview with the eminent solicitor they +were about to consult, he was on the point of seeing him; and the case was +clear enough. Thus the simple Melbury, urged by his parental alarm at her +danger by the representations of his companion, and by the doctor’s +letter, had yielded, and sat down to tell her roundly that she was virtually +free. +</p> + +<p> +“And you’d better write also to the gentleman,” suggested +Beaucock, who, scenting notoriety and the germ of a large practice in the case, +wished to commit Melbury to it irretrievably; to effect which he knew that +nothing would be so potent as awakening the passion of Grace for Winterborne, +so that her father might not have the heart to withdraw from his attempt to +make her love legitimate when he discovered that there were difficulties in the +way. +</p> + +<p> +The nervous, impatient Melbury was much pleased with the idea of +“starting them at once,” as he called it. To put his long-delayed +reparative scheme in train had become a passion with him now. He added to the +letter addressed to his daughter a passage hinting that she ought to begin to +encourage Winterborne, lest she should lose him altogether; and he wrote to +Giles that the path was virtually open for him at last. Life was short, he +declared; there were slips betwixt the cup and the lip; her interest in him +should be reawakened at once, that all might be ready when the good time came +for uniting them. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap38"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2> + +<p> +At these warm words Winterborne was not less dazed than he was moved in heart. +The novelty of the avowal rendered what it carried with it inapprehensible by +him in its entirety. +</p> + +<p> +Only a few short months ago completely estranged from this +family—beholding Grace going to and fro in the distance, clothed with the +alienating radiance of obvious superiority, the wife of the then popular and +fashionable Fitzpiers, hopelessly outside his social boundary down to so recent +a time that flowers then folded were hardly faded yet—he was now asked by +that jealously guarding father of hers to take courage—to get himself +ready for the day when he should be able to claim her. +</p> + +<p> +The old times came back to him in dim procession. How he had been snubbed; how +Melbury had despised his Christmas party; how that sweet, coy Grace herself had +looked down upon him and his household arrangements, and poor Creedle’s +contrivances! +</p> + +<p> +Well, he could not believe it. Surely the adamantine barrier of marriage with +another could not be pierced like this! It did violence to custom. Yet a new +law might do anything. But was it at all within the bounds of probability that +a woman who, over and above her own attainments, had been accustomed to those +of a cultivated professional man, could ever be the wife of such as he? +</p> + +<p> +Since the date of his rejection he had almost grown to see the reasonableness +of that treatment. He had said to himself again and again that her father was +right; that the poor ceorl, Giles Winterborne, would never have been able to +make such a dainty girl happy. Yet, now that she had stood in a position +farther removed from his own than at first, he was asked to prepare to woo her. +He was full of doubt. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, it was not in him to show backwardness. 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. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne was far too magnanimous to harbor any cynical conjecture that the +timber-merchant, in his intense affection for Grace, was courting him now +because that young lady, when disunited, would be left in an anomalous +position, to escape which a bad husband was better than none. He felt quite +sure that his old friend was simply on tenterhooks of anxiety to repair the +almost irreparable error of dividing two whom Nature had striven to join +together in earlier days, and that in his ardor to do this he was oblivious of +formalities. The cautious supervision of his past years had overleaped itself +at last. Hence, Winterborne perceived that, in this new beginning, the +necessary care not to compromise Grace by too early advances must be exercised +by himself. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps Winterborne was not quite so ardent as heretofore. There is no such +thing as a stationary love: men are either loving more or loving less. But +Giles himself recognized no decline in his sense of her dearness. If the flame +did indeed burn lower now than when he had fetched her from Sherton at her last +return from school, the marvel was small. He had been laboring ever since his +rejection and her marriage to reduce his former passion to a docile friendship, +out of pure regard to its expediency; and their separation may have helped him +to a partial success. +</p> + +<p> +A week and more passed, and there was no further news of Melbury. But the +effect of the intelligence he had already transmitted upon the elastic-nerved +daughter of the woods had been much what the old surgeon Jones had surmised. It +had soothed her perturbed spirit better than all the opiates in the +pharmacopoeia. She had slept unbrokenly a whole night and a day. The “new +law” was to her a mysterious, beneficent, godlike entity, lately +descended upon earth, that would make her as she once had been without trouble +or annoyance. Her position fretted her, its abstract features rousing an +aversion which was even greater than her aversion to the personality of him who +had caused it. It was mortifying, productive of slights, undignified. Him she +could forget; her circumstances she had always with her. +</p> + +<p> +She saw nothing of Winterborne during the days of her recovery; and perhaps on +that account her fancy wove about him a more romantic tissue than it could have +done if he had stood before her with all the specks and flaws inseparable from +corporeity. He rose upon her memory as the fruit-god and the wood-god in +alternation; sometimes leafy, and smeared with green lichen, as she had seen +him among the sappy boughs of the plantations; sometimes cider-stained, and +with apple-pips in the hair of his arms, as she had met him on his return from +cider-making in White Hart Vale, with his vats and presses beside him. In her +secret heart she almost approximated to her father’s enthusiasm in +wishing to show Giles once for all how she still regarded him. The question +whether the future would indeed bring them together for life was a standing +wonder with her. She knew that it could not with any propriety do so just yet. +But reverently believing in her father’s sound judgment and knowledge, as +good girls are wont to do, she remembered what he had written about her giving +a hint to Winterborne lest there should be risk in delay, and her feelings were +not averse to such a step, so far as it could be done without danger at this +early stage of the proceedings. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +On the way she saw nothing of him; but when the horse was walking slowly +through the obstructions of Sheep Street, she discerned the young man on the +pavement. She thought of that time when he had been standing under his +apple-tree on her return from school, and of the tender opportunity then missed +through her fastidiousness. Her heart rose in her throat. She abjured all such +fastidiousness now. Nor did she forget the last occasion on which she had +beheld him in that town, making cider in the court-yard of the Earl of Wessex +Hotel, while she was figuring as a fine lady in the balcony above. +</p> + +<p> +Grace directed the man to set her down there in the midst, and immediately went +up to her lover. Giles had not before observed her, and his eyes now +suppressedly looked his pleasure, without the embarrassment that had formerly +marked him at such meetings. +</p> + +<p> +When a few words had been spoken, she said, archly, “I have nothing to +do. Perhaps you are deeply engaged?” +</p> + +<p> +“I? Not a bit. My business now at the best of times is small, I am sorry +to say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, I am going into the Abbey. Come along with me.” +</p> + +<p> +The proposition had suggested itself as a quick escape from publicity, for many +eyes were regarding her. She had hoped that sufficient time had elapsed for the +extinction of curiosity; but it was quite otherwise. The people looked at her +with tender interest as the deserted girl-wife—without obtrusiveness, and +without vulgarity; but she was ill prepared for scrutiny in any shape. +</p> + +<p> +They walked about the Abbey aisles, and presently sat down. Not a soul was in +the building save themselves. She regarded a stained window, with her head +sideways, and tentatively asked him if he remembered the last time they were in +that town alone. +</p> + +<p> +He remembered it perfectly, and remarked, “You were a proud miss then, +and as dainty as you were high. Perhaps you are now?” +</p> + +<p> +Grace slowly shook her head. “Affliction has taken all that out of +me,” she answered, impressively. “Perhaps I am too far the other +way now.” As there was something lurking in this that she could not +explain, she added, so quickly as not to allow him time to think of it, +“Has my father written to you at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Winterborne. +</p> + +<p> +She glanced ponderingly up at him. “Not about me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +His mouth was lined with charactery which told her that he had been bidden to +take the hint as to the future which she had been bidden to give. The +unexpected discovery sent a scarlet pulsation through Grace for the moment. +However, it was only Giles who stood there, of whom she had no fear; and her +self-possession returned. +</p> + +<p> +“He said I was to sound you with a view to—what you will +understand, if you care to,” continued Winterborne, in a low voice. +Having been put on this track by herself, he was not disposed to abandon it in +a hurry. +</p> + +<p> +They had been children together, and there was between them that familiarity as +to personal affairs which only such acquaintanceship can give. “You know, +Giles,” she answered, speaking in a very practical tone, “that that +is all very well; but I am in a very anomalous position at present, and I +cannot say anything to the point about such things as those.” +</p> + +<p> +“No?” he said, with a stray air as regarded the subject. He was +looking at her with a curious consciousness of discovery. He had not been +imagining that their renewed intercourse would show her to him thus. For the +first time he realized an unexpectedness in her, which, after all, should not +have been unexpected. She before him was not the girl Grace Melbury whom he +used to know. Of course, he might easily have prefigured as much; but it had +never occurred to him. She was a woman who had been married; she had moved on; +and without having lost her girlish modesty, she had lost her girlish shyness. +The inevitable change, though known to him, had not been heeded; and it struck +him into a momentary fixity. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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; a creature of more ideas, more dignity, and, +above all, more assurance, than the original Grace had been capable of. He +could not at first decide whether he were pleased or displeased at this. But +upon the whole the novelty attracted him. +</p> + +<p> +She was so sweet and sensitive that she feared his silence betokened something +in his brain of the nature of an enemy to her. “What are you thinking of +that makes those lines come in your forehead?” she asked. “I did +not mean to offend you by speaking of the time being premature as yet.” +</p> + +<p> +Touched by the genuine loving-kindness which had lain at the foundation of +these words, and much moved, Winterborne turned his face aside, as he took her +by the hand. He was grieved that he had criticised her. +</p> + +<p> +“You are very good, dear Grace,” he said, in a low voice. +“You are better, much better, than you used to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” +</p> + +<p> +He could not very well tell her how, and said, with an evasive smile, +“You are prettier;” which was not what he really had meant. He then +remained still holding her right hand in his own right, so that they faced in +opposite ways; and as he did not let go, she ventured upon a tender +remonstrance. +</p> + +<p> +“I think we have gone as far as we ought to go at present—and far +enough to satisfy my poor father that we are the same as ever. You see, Giles, +my case is not settled yet, and if—Oh, suppose I <i>never</i> get +free!—there should be any hitch or informality!” +</p> + +<p> +She drew a catching breath, and turned pale. The dialogue had been affectionate +comedy up to this point. The gloomy atmosphere of the past, and the still +gloomy horizon of the present, had been for the interval forgotten. Now the +whole environment came back, the due balance of shade among the light was +restored. +</p> + +<p> +“It is sure to be all right, I trust?” she resumed, in uneasy +accents. “What did my father say the solicitor had told him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—that all is sure enough. The case is so clear—nothing +could be clearer. But the legal part is not yet quite done and finished, as is +natural.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—of course not,” she said, sunk in meek thought. +“But father said it was <i>almost</i>—did he not? Do you know +anything about the new law that makes these things so easy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing—except the general fact that it enables ill-assorted +husbands and wives to part in a way they could not formerly do without an Act +of Parliament.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you to sign a paper, or swear anything? Is it something like +that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I believe so.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long has it been introduced?” +</p> + +<p> +“About six months or a year, the lawyer said, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +To hear these two poor Arcadian innocents talk of imperial law would have made +a humane person weep who should have known what a dangerous structure they were +building up on their supposed knowledge. They remained in thought, like +children in the presence of the incomprehensible. +</p> + +<p> +“Giles,” she said, at last, “it makes me quite weary when I +think how serious my situation is, or has been. Shall we not go out from here +now, as it may seem rather fast of me—our being so long together, I +mean—if anybody were to see us? I am almost sure,” she added, +uncertainly, “that I ought not to let you hold my hand yet, knowing that +the documents—or whatever it may be—have not been signed; so that +I—am still as married as ever—or almost. My dear father has +forgotten himself. Not that I feel morally bound to any one else, after what +has taken place—no woman of spirit could—now, too, that several +months have passed. But I wish to keep the proprieties as well as I can.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes. Still, your father reminds us that life is short. I myself +feel that it is; that is why I wished to understand you in this that we have +begun. At times, dear Grace, since receiving your father’s letter, I am +as uneasy and fearful as a child at what he said. If one of us were to die +before the formal signing and sealing that is to release you have been +done—if we should drop out of the world and never have made the most of +this little, short, but real opportunity, I should think to myself as I sunk +down dying, ‘Would to my God that I had spoken out my whole +heart—given her one poor little kiss when I had the chance to give it! +But I never did, although she had promised to be mine some day; and now I never +can.’ That’s what I should think.” +</p> + +<p> +She had begun by watching the words from his lips with a mournful regard, as +though their passage were visible; but as he went on she dropped her glance. +“Yes,” she said, “I have thought that, too. And, because I +have thought it, I by no means meant, in speaking of the proprieties, to be +reserved and cold to you who loved me so long ago, or to hurt your heart as I +used to do at that thoughtless time. Oh, not at all, indeed! But—ought I +to allow you?—oh, it is too quick—surely!” Her eyes filled +with tears of bewildered, alarmed emotion. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne was too straightforward to influence her further against her better +judgment. “Yes—I suppose it is,” he said, repentantly. +“I’ll wait till all is settled. What did your father say in that +last letter?” +</p> + +<p> +He meant about his progress with the petition; but she, mistaking him, frankly +spoke of the personal part. “He said—what I have implied. Should I +tell more plainly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—don’t, if it is a secret.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. I will tell every word, straight out, Giles, if you wish. He +said I was to encourage you. There. But I cannot obey him further to-day. Come, +let us go now.” She gently slid her hand from his, and went in front of +him out of the Abbey. +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking of getting some dinner,” said Winterborne, changing +to the prosaic, as they walked. “And you, too, must require something. Do +let me take you to a place I know.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace was almost without a friend in the world outside her father’s +house; her life with Fitzpiers had brought her no society; had sometimes, +indeed, brought her deeper solitude and inconsideration than any she had ever +known before. Hence it was a treat to her to find herself again the object of +thoughtful care. But she questioned if to go publicly to dine with Giles +Winterborne were not a proposal, due rather to his unsophistication than to his +discretion. She said gently that she would much prefer his ordering her lunch +at some place and then coming to tell her it was ready, while she remained in +the Abbey porch. Giles saw her secret reasoning, thought how hopelessly blind +to propriety he was beside her, and went to do as she wished. +</p> + +<p> +He was not absent more than ten minutes, and found Grace where he had left her. +“It will be quite ready by the time you get there,” he said, and +told her the name of the inn at which the meal had been ordered, which was one +that she had never heard of. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll find it by inquiry,” said Grace, setting out. +</p> + +<p> +“And shall I see you again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—come to me there. It will not be like going together. I +shall want you to find my father’s man and the gig for me.” +</p> + +<p> +He waited on some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, till he thought her +lunch ended, and that he might fairly take advantage of her invitation to start +her on her way home. He went straight to The Three Tuns—a little tavern +in a side street, scrupulously clean, but humble and inexpensive. On his way he +had an occasional misgiving as to whether the place had been elegant enough for +her; and as soon as he entered it, and saw her ensconced there, he perceived +that he had blundered. +</p> + +<p> +Grace was seated in the only dining-room that the simple old hostelry could +boast of, which was also a general parlor on market-days; a long, low +apartment, with a sanded floor herring-boned with a broom; a wide, +red-curtained window to the street, and another to the garden. Grace had +retreated to the end of the room looking out upon the latter, the front part +being full of a mixed company which had dropped in since he was there. +</p> + +<p> +She was in a mood of the greatest depression. On arriving, and seeing what the +tavern was like, she had been taken by surprise; but having gone too far to +retreat, she had heroically entered and sat down on the well-scrubbed settle, +opposite the narrow table with its knives and steel forks, tin pepper-boxes, +blue salt-cellars, and posters advertising the sale of bullocks against the +wall. The last time that she had taken any meal in a public place it had been +with Fitzpiers at the grand new Earl of Wessex Hotel in that town, after a two +months’ roaming and sojourning at the gigantic hotels of the Continent. +How could she have expected any other kind of accommodation in present +circumstances than such as Giles had provided? And yet how unprepared she was +for this change! The tastes that she had acquired from Fitzpiers had been +imbibed so subtly that she hardly knew she possessed them till confronted by +this contrast. The elegant Fitzpiers, in fact, at that very moment owed a long +bill at the above-mentioned hotel for the luxurious style in which he used to +put her up there whenever they drove to Sherton. But such is social sentiment, +that she had been quite comfortable under those debt-impending conditions, +while she felt humiliated by her present situation, which Winterborne had paid +for honestly on the nail. +</p> + +<p> +He had noticed in a moment that she shrunk from her position, and all his +pleasure was gone. It was the same susceptibility over again which had spoiled +his Christmas party long ago. +</p> + +<p> +But he did not know that this recrudescence was only the casual result of +Grace’s apprenticeship to what she was determined to learn in spite of +it—a consequence of one of those sudden surprises which confront +everybody bent upon turning over a new leaf. She had finished her lunch, which +he saw had been a very mincing performance; and he brought her out of the house +as soon as he could. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” he said, with great sad eyes, “you have not finished +at all well, I know. Come round to the Earl of Wessex. I’ll order a tea +there. I did not remember that what was good enough for me was not good enough +for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Her face faded into an aspect of deep distress when she saw what had happened. +“Oh no, Giles,” she said, with extreme pathos; “certainly +not. Why do you—say that when you know better? You <i>ever</i> will +misunderstand me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, that’s not so, Mrs. Fitzpiers. Can you deny that you felt +out of place at The Three Tuns?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. Well, since you make me speak, I do not deny +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet I have felt at home there these twenty years. Your husband used +always to take you to the Earl of Wessex, did he not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she reluctantly admitted. How could she explain in the +street of a market-town that it was her superficial and transitory taste which +had been offended, and not her nature or her affection? Fortunately, or +unfortunately, at that moment they saw Melbury’s man driving vacantly +along the street in search of her, the hour having passed at which he had been +told to take her up. Winterborne hailed him, and she was powerless then to +prolong the discourse. She entered the vehicle sadly, and the horse trotted +away. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap39"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2> + +<p> +All night did Winterborne think over that unsatisfactory ending of a pleasant +time, forgetting the pleasant time itself. He feared anew that they could never +be happy together, even should she be free to choose him. She was accomplished; +he was unrefined. It was the original difficulty, which he was too sensitive to +recklessly ignore, as some men would have done in his place. +</p> + +<p> +He was one of those silent, unobtrusive beings who want little from others in +the way of favor or condescension, and perhaps on that very account scrutinize +those others’ behavior too closely. He was not versatile, but one in whom +a hope or belief which had once had its rise, meridian, and decline seldom +again exactly recurred, as in the breasts of more sanguine mortals. He had once +worshipped her, laid out his life to suit her, wooed her, and lost her. Though +it was with almost the same zest, it was with not quite the same hope, that he +had begun to tread the old tracks again, and allowed himself to be so charmed +with her that day. +</p> + +<p> +Move another step towards her he would not. He would even repulse her—as +a tribute to conscience. It would be sheer sin to let her prepare a pitfall for +her happiness not much smaller than the first by inveigling her into a union +with such as he. Her poor father was now blind to these subtleties, which he +had formerly beheld as in noontide light. It was his own duty to declare +them—for her dear sake. +</p> + +<p> +Grace, too, had a very uncomfortable night, and her solicitous embarrassment +was not lessened the next morning when another letter from her father was put +into her hands. Its tenor was an intenser strain of the one that had preceded +it. After stating how extremely glad he was to hear that she was better, and +able to get out-of-doors, he went on: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“This is a wearisome business, the solicitor we have come to see being +out of town. I do not know when I shall get home. My great anxiety in this +delay is still lest you should lose Giles Winterborne. I cannot rest at night +for thinking that while our business is hanging fire he may become estranged, +or go away from the neighborhood. I have set my heart upon seeing him your +husband, if you ever have another. Do, then, Grace, give him some temporary +encouragement, even though it is over-early. For when I consider the past I do +think God will forgive me and you for being a little forward. I have another +reason for this, my dear. I feel myself going rapidly downhill, and late +affairs have still further helped me that way. And until this thing is done I +cannot rest in peace.” +</p> + +<p> +He added a postscript: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“I have just heard that the solicitor is to be seen to-morrow. Possibly, +therefore, I shall return in the evening after you get this.” +</p> + +<p> +The paternal longing ran on all fours with her own desire; and yet in +forwarding it yesterday she had been on the brink of giving offence. While +craving to be a country girl again just as her father requested; to put off the +old Eve, the fastidious miss—or rather madam—completely, her first +attempt had been beaten by the unexpected vitality of that fastidiousness. Her +father on returning and seeing the trifling coolness of Giles would be sure to +say that the same perversity which had led her to make difficulties about +marrying Fitzpiers was now prompting her to blow hot and cold with poor +Winterborne. +</p> + +<p> +If the latter had been the most subtle hand at touching the stops of her +delicate soul instead of one who had just bound himself to let her drift away +from him again (if she would) on the wind of her estranging education, he could +not have acted more seductively than he did that day. He chanced to be +superintending some temporary work in a field opposite her windows. She could +not discover what he was doing, but she read his mood keenly and truly: she +could see in his coming and going an air of determined abandonment of the whole +landscape that lay in her direction. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, how she longed to make it up with him! Her father coming in the +evening—which meant, she supposed, that all formalities would be in +train, her marriage virtually annulled, and she be free to be won +again—how could she look him in the face if he should see them estranged +thus? +</p> + +<p> +It was a fair green evening in June. She was seated in the garden, in the +rustic chair which stood under the laurel-bushes—made of peeled +oak-branches that came to Melbury’s premises as refuse after +barking-time. The mass of full-juiced leafage on the heights around her was +just swayed into faint gestures by a nearly spent wind which, even in its +enfeebled state, did not reach her shelter. All day she had expected Giles to +call—to inquire how she had got home, or something or other; but he had +not come. And he still tantalized her by going athwart and across that orchard +opposite. She could see him as she sat. +</p> + +<p> +A slight diversion was presently created by Creedle bringing him a letter. She +knew from this that Creedle had just come from Sherton, and had called as usual +at the post-office for anything that had arrived by the afternoon post, of +which there was no delivery at Hintock. She pondered on what the letter might +contain—particularly whether it were a second refresher for Winterborne +from her father, like her own of the morning. +</p> + +<p> +But it appeared to have no bearing upon herself whatever. Giles read its +contents; and almost immediately turned away to a gap in the hedge of the +orchard—if that could be called a hedge which, owing to the drippings of +the trees, was little more than a bank with a bush upon it here and there. He +entered the plantation, and was no doubt going that way homeward to the +mysterious hut he occupied on the other side of the woodland. +</p> + +<p> +The sad sands were running swiftly through Time’s glass; she had often +felt it in these latter days; and, like Giles, she felt it doubly now after the +solemn and pathetic reminder in her father’s communication. Her freshness +would pass, the long-suffering devotion of Giles might suddenly end—might +end that very hour. Men were so strange. The thought took away from her all her +former reticence, and made her action bold. She started from her seat. If the +little breach, quarrel, or whatever it might be called, of yesterday, was to be +healed up it must be done by her on the instant. She crossed into the orchard, +and clambered through the gap after Giles, just as he was diminishing to a +faun-like figure under the green canopy and over the brown floor. +</p> + +<p> +Grace had been wrong—very far wrong—in assuming that the letter had +no reference to herself because Giles had turned away into the wood after its +perusal. It was, sad to say, because the missive had so much reference to +herself that he had thus turned away. He feared that his grieved discomfiture +might be observed. The letter was from Beaucock, written a few hours later than +Melbury’s to his daughter. It announced failure. +</p> + +<p> +Giles had once done that thriftless man a good turn, and now was the moment +when Beaucock had chosen to remember it in his own way. During his absence in +town with Melbury, the lawyer’s clerk had naturally heard a great deal of +the timber-merchant’s family scheme of justice to Giles, and his +communication was to inform Winterborne at the earliest possible moment that +their attempt had failed, in order that the young man should not place himself +in a false position towards Grace in the belief of its coming success. The news +was, in sum, that Fitzpiers’s conduct had not been sufficiently cruel to +Grace to enable her to snap the bond. She was apparently doomed to be his wife +till the end of the chapter. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne quite forgot his superficial differences with the poor girl under +the warm rush of deep and distracting love for her which the almost tragical +information engendered. +</p> + +<p> +To renounce her forever—that was then the end of it for him, after all. +There was no longer any question about suitability, or room for tiffs on petty +tastes. The curtain had fallen again between them. She could not be his. The +cruelty of their late revived hope was now terrible. How could they all have +been so simple as to suppose this thing could be done? +</p> + +<p> +It was at this moment that, hearing some one coming behind him, he turned and +saw her hastening on between the thickets. He perceived in an instant that she +did not know the blighting news. +</p> + +<p> +“Giles, why didn’t you come across to me?” she asked, with +arch reproach. “Didn’t you see me sitting there ever so +long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” he said, in unprepared, extemporized tones, for her +unexpected presence caught him without the slightest plan of behavior in the +conjuncture. His manner made her think that she had been too chiding in her +speech; and a mild scarlet wave passed over her as she resolved to soften it. +</p> + +<p> +“I have had another letter from my father,” she hastened to +continue. “He thinks he may come home this evening. And—in view of +his hopes—it will grieve him if there is any little difference between +us, Giles.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is none,” he said, sadly regarding her from the face +downward as he pondered how to lay the cruel truth bare. +</p> + +<p> +“Still—I fear you have not quite forgiven me about my being +uncomfortable at the inn.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have, Grace, I’m sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you speak in quite an unhappy way,” she returned, coming up +close to him with the most winning of the many pretty airs that appertained to +her. “Don’t you think you will ever be happy, Giles?” +</p> + +<p> +He did not reply for some instants. “When the sun shines on the north +front of Sherton Abbey—that’s when my happiness will come to +me!” said he, staring as it were into the earth. +</p> + +<p> +“But—then that means that there is something more than my offending +you in not liking The Three Tuns. If it is because I—did not like to let +you kiss me in the Abbey—well, you know, Giles, that it was not on +account of my cold feelings, but because I did certainly, just then, think it +was rather premature, in spite of my poor father. That was the true +reason—the sole one. But I do not want to be hard—God knows I do +not,” she said, her voice fluctuating. “And perhaps—as I am +on the verge of freedom—I am not right, after all, in thinking there is +any harm in your kissing me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh God!” said Winterborne within himself. His head was turned +askance as he still resolutely regarded the ground. For the last several +minutes he had seen this great temptation approaching him in regular siege; and +now it had come. The wrong, the social sin, of now taking advantage of the +offer of her lips had a magnitude, in the eyes of one whose life had been so +primitive, so ruled by purest household laws, as Giles’s, which can +hardly be explained. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you say anything?” she asked, timidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—only that—” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that it must <i>be already</i> settled, since my father is +coming home?” she said, gladly. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne, though fighting valiantly against himself all this +while—though he would have protected Grace’s good repute as the +apple of his eye—was a man; and, as Desdemona said, men are not gods. In +face of the agonizing seductiveness shown by her, in her unenlightened +school-girl simplicity about the laws and ordinances, he betrayed a man’s +weakness. Since it was so—since it had come to this, that Grace, deeming +herself free to do it, was virtually asking him to demonstrate that he loved +her—since he could demonstrate it only too truly—since life was +short and love was strong—he gave way to the temptation, notwithstanding +that he perfectly well knew her to be wedded irrevocably to Fitzpiers. Indeed, +he cared for nothing past or future, simply accepting the present and what it +brought, desiring once in his life to clasp in his arms her he had watched over +and loved so long. +</p> + +<p> +She started back suddenly from his embrace, influenced by a sort of +inspiration. “Oh, I suppose,” she stammered, “that I am +really free?—that this is right? Is there <i>really</i> a new law? Father +cannot have been too sanguine in saying—” +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer, and a moment afterwards Grace burst into tears in spite of +herself. “Oh, why does not my father come home and explain,” she +sobbed, “and let me know clearly what I am? It is too trying, this, to +ask me to—and then to leave me so long in so vague a state that I do not +know what to do, and perhaps do wrong!” +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne felt like a very Cain, over and above his previous sorrow. How he +had sinned against her in not telling her what he knew. He turned aside; the +feeling of his cruelty mounted higher and higher. How could he have dreamed of +kissing her? He could hardly refrain from tears. Surely nothing more pitiable +had ever been known than the condition of this poor young thing, now as +heretofore the victim of her father’s well-meant but blundering policy. +</p> + +<p> +Even in the hour of Melbury’s greatest assurance Winterborne had harbored +a suspicion that no law, new or old, could undo Grace’s marriage without +her appearance in public; though he was not sufficiently sure of what might +have been enacted to destroy by his own words her pleasing idea that a mere +dash of the pen, on her father’s testimony, was going to be sufficient. +But he had never suspected the sad fact that the position was irremediable. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Grace, perhaps feeling that she had indulged in too much fluster for a +mere kiss, calmed herself at finding how grave he was. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad we are friends again anyhow,” she said, smiling through +her tears. “Giles, if you had only shown half the boldness before I +married that you show now, you would have carried me off for your own first +instead of second. If we do marry, I hope you will never think badly of me for +encouraging you a little, but my father is <i>so</i> impatient, you know, as +his years and infirmities increase, that he will wish to see us a little +advanced when he comes. That is my only excuse.” +</p> + +<p> +To Winterborne all this was sadder than it was sweet. How could she so trust +her father’s conjectures? He did not know how to tell her the truth and +shame himself. And yet he felt that it must be done. “We may have been +wrong,” he began, almost fearfully, “in supposing that it can all +be carried out while we stay here at Hintock. I am not sure but that people may +have to appear in a public court even under the new Act; and if there should be +any difficulty, and we cannot marry after all—” +</p> + +<p> +Her cheeks became slowly bloodless. “Oh, Giles,” she said, grasping +his arm, “you have heard something! What—cannot my father conclude +it there and now? Surely he has done it? Oh, Giles, Giles, don’t deceive +me. What terrible position am I in?” +</p> + +<p> +He could not tell her, try as he would. The sense of her implicit trust in his +honor absolutely disabled him. “I cannot inform you,” he murmured, +his voice as husky as that of the leaves underfoot. “Your father will +soon be here. Then we shall know. I will take you home.” +</p> + +<p> +Inexpressibly dear as she was to him, he offered her his arm with the most +reserved air, as he added, correctingly, “I will take you, at any rate, +into the drive.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus they walked on together. Grace vibrating between happiness and misgiving. +It was only a few minutes’ walk to where the drive ran, and they had +hardly descended into it when they heard a voice behind them cry, “Take +out that arm!” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment they did not heed, and the voice repeated, more loudly and +hoarsely, +</p> + +<p> +“Take out that arm!” +</p> + +<p> +It was Melbury’s. He had returned sooner than they expected, and now came +up to them. Grace’s hand had been withdrawn like lightning on her hearing +the second command. “I don’t blame you—I don’t blame +you,” he said, in the weary cadence of one broken down with scourgings. +“But you two must walk together no more—I have been +surprised—I have been cruelly deceived—Giles, don’t say +anything to me; but go away!” +</p> + +<p> +He was evidently not aware that Winterborne had known the truth before he +brought it; and Giles would not stay to discuss it with him then. When the +young man had gone Melbury took his daughter in-doors to the room he used as +his office. There he sat down, and bent over the slope of the bureau, her +bewildered gaze fixed upon him. +</p> + +<p> +When Melbury had recovered a little he said, “You are now, as ever, +Fitzpiers’s wife. I was deluded. He has not done you <i>enough</i> harm. +You are still subject to his beck and call.” +</p> + +<p> +“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; I cannot +help that; and I have gone further with him than I should have done if I had +known exactly how things were. But I do not reproach you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then Giles did not tell you?” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said she. “He could not have known it. His behavior to +me proved that he did not know.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father said nothing more, and Grace went away to the solitude of her +chamber. +</p> + +<p> +Her heavy disquietude had many shapes; and for a time she put aside the +dominant fact to think of her too free conduct towards Giles. His love-making +had been brief as it was sweet; but would he on reflection contemn her for +forwardness? How could she have been so simple as to suppose she was in a +position to behave as she had done! Thus she mentally blamed her ignorance; and +yet in the centre of her heart she blessed it a little for what it had +momentarily brought her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap40"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2> + +<p> +Life among the people involved in these events seemed to be suppressed and +hide-bound for a while. Grace seldom showed herself outside the house, never +outside the garden; for she feared she might encounter Giles Winterborne; and +that she could not bear. +</p> + +<p> +This pensive intramural existence of the self-constituted nun appeared likely +to continue for an indefinite time. She had learned that there was one +possibility in which her formerly imagined position might become real, and only +one; that her husband’s absence should continue long enough to amount to +positive desertion. But she never allowed her mind to dwell much upon the +thought; still less did she deliberately hope for such a result. Her regard for +Winterborne had been rarefied by the shock which followed its avowal into an +ethereal emotion that had little to do with living and doing. +</p> + +<p> +As for Giles, he was lying—or rather sitting—ill at his hut. A +feverish indisposition which had been hanging about him for some time, the +result of a chill caught the previous winter, seemed to acquire virulence with +the prostration of his hopes. But not a soul knew of his languor, and he did +not think the case serious enough to send for a medical man. After a few days +he was better again, and crept about his home in a great coat, attending to his +simple wants as usual with his own hands. So matters stood when the limpid +inertion of Grace’s pool-like existence was disturbed as by a geyser. She +received a letter from Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +Such a terrible letter it was in its import, though couched in the gentlest +language. In his absence Grace had grown to regard him with toleration, and her +relation to him with equanimity, till she had almost forgotten how trying his +presence would be. He wrote briefly and unaffectedly; he made no excuses, but +informed her that he was living quite alone, and had been led to think that +they ought to be together, if she would make up her mind to forgive him. He +therefore purported to cross the Channel to Budmouth by the steamer on a day he +named, which she found to be three days after the time of her present reading. +</p> + +<p> +He said that he could not come to Hintock for obvious reasons, which her father +would understand even better than herself. As the only alternative she was to +be on the quay to meet the steamer when it arrived from the opposite coast, +probably about half an hour before midnight, bringing with her any luggage she +might require; join him there, and pass with him into the twin vessel, which +left immediately the other entered the harbor; returning thus with him to his +continental dwelling-place, which he did not name. He had no intention of +showing himself on land at all. +</p> + +<p> +The troubled Grace took the letter to her father, who now continued for long +hours by the fireless summer chimney-corner, as if he thought it were winter, +the pitcher of cider standing beside him, mostly untasted, and coated with a +film of dust. After reading it he looked up. +</p> + +<p> +“You sha’n’t go,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“I had felt I would not,” she answered. “But I did not know +what you would say.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he comes and lives in England, not too near here and in a respectable +way, and wants you to come to him, I am not sure that I’ll oppose him in +wishing it,” muttered Melbury. “I’d stint myself to keep you +both in a genteel and seemly style. But go abroad you never shall with my +consent.” +</p> + +<p> +There the question rested that day. Grace was unable to reply to her husband in +the absence of an address, and the morrow came, and the next day, and the +evening on which he had requested her to meet him. Throughout the whole of it +she remained within the four walls of her room. +</p> + +<p> +The sense of her harassment, carking doubt of what might be impending, hung +like a cowl of blackness over the Melbury household. They spoke almost in +whispers, and wondered what Fitzpiers would do next. It was the hope of every +one that, finding she did not arrive, he would return again to France; and as +for Grace, she was willing to write to him on the most kindly terms if he would +only keep away. +</p> + +<p> +The night passed, Grace lying tense and wide awake, and her relatives, in great +part, likewise. When they met the next morning they were pale and anxious, +though neither speaking of the subject which occupied all their thoughts. The +day passed as quietly as the previous ones, and she began to think that in the +rank caprice of his moods he had abandoned the idea of getting her to join him +as quickly as it was formed. All on a sudden, some person who had just come +from Sherton entered the house with the news that Mr. Fitzpiers was on his way +home to Hintock. He had been seen hiring a carriage at the Earl of Wessex +Hotel. +</p> + +<p> +Her father and Grace were both present when the intelligence was announced. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Melbury, “we must make the best of what has been +a very bad matter. The man is repenting; the partner of his shame, I hear, is +gone away from him to Switzerland, so that chapter of his life is probably +over. If he chooses to make a home for ye I think you should not say him nay, +Grace. Certainly he cannot very well live at Hintock without a blow to his +pride; but if he can bear that, and likes Hintock best, why, there’s the +empty wing of the house as it was before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, father!” said Grace, turning white with dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” said he, a little of his former doggedness returning. He +was, in truth, disposed to somewhat more leniency towards her husband just now +than he had shown formerly, from a conviction that he had treated him +over-roughly in his anger. “Surely it is the most respectable thing to +do?” he continued. “I don’t like this state that you are +in—neither married nor single. It hurts me, and it hurts you, and it will +always be remembered against us in Hintock. There has never been any scandal +like it in the family before.” +</p> + +<p> +“He will be here in less than an hour,” murmured Grace. The +twilight of the room prevented her father seeing the despondent misery of her +face. The one intolerable condition, the condition she had deprecated above all +others, was that of Fitzpiers’s reinstatement there. “Oh, I +won’t, I won’t see him,” she said, sinking down. She was +almost hysterical. +</p> + +<p> +“Try if you cannot,” he returned, moodily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I will, I will,” she went on, inconsequently. +“I’ll try;” and jumping up suddenly, she left the room. +</p> + +<p> +In the darkness of the apartment to which she flew nothing could have been seen +during the next half-hour; but from a corner a quick breathing was audible from +this impressible creature, who combined modern nerves with primitive emotions, +and was doomed by such coexistence to be numbered among the distressed, and to +take her scourgings to their exquisite extremity. +</p> + +<p> +The window was open. On this quiet, late summer evening, whatever sound arose +in so secluded a district—the chirp of a bird, a call from a voice, the +turning of a wheel—extended over bush and tree to unwonted distances. +Very few sounds did arise. But as Grace invisibly breathed in the brown glooms +of the chamber, the small remote noise of light wheels came in to her, +accompanied by the trot of a horse on the turnpike-road. There seemed to be a +sudden hitch or pause in the progress of the vehicle, which was what first drew +her attention to it. She knew the point whence the sound proceeded—the +hill-top over which travellers passed on their way hitherward from Sherton +Abbas—the place at which she had emerged from the wood with Mrs. +Charmond. Grace slid along the floor, and bent her head over the window-sill, +listening with open lips. The carriage had stopped, and she heard a man use +exclamatory words. Then another said, “What the devil is the matter with +the horse?” She recognized the voice as her husband’s. +</p> + +<p> +The accident, such as it had been, was soon remedied, and the carriage could be +heard descending the hill on the Hintock side, soon to turn into the lane +leading out of the highway, and then into the “drong” which led out +of the lane to the house where she was. +</p> + +<p> +A spasm passed through Grace. The Daphnean instinct, exceptionally strong in +her as a girl, had been revived by her widowed seclusion; and it was not +lessened by her affronted sentiments towards the comer, and her regard for +another man. She opened some little ivory tablets that lay on the +dressing-table, scribbled in pencil on one of them, “I am gone to visit +one of my school-friends,” gathered a few toilet necessaries into a +hand-bag, and not three minutes after that voice had been heard, her slim form, +hastily wrapped up from observation, might have been seen passing out of the +back door of Melbury’s house. Thence she skimmed up the garden-path, +through the gap in the hedge, and into the mossy cart-track under the trees +which led into the depth of the woods. +</p> + +<p> +The leaves overhead were now in their latter green—so opaque, that it was +darker at some of the densest spots than in winter-time, scarce a crevice +existing by which a ray could get down to the ground. But in open places she +could see well enough. Summer was ending: in the daytime singing insects hung +in every sunbeam; vegetation was heavy nightly with globes of dew; and after +showers creeping damps and twilight chills came up from the hollows. The +plantations were always weird at this hour of eve—more spectral far than +in the leafless season, when there were fewer masses and more minute lineality. +The smooth surfaces of glossy plants came out like weak, lidless eyes; there +were strange faces and figures from expiring lights that had somehow wandered +into the canopied obscurity; while now and then low peeps of the sky between +the trunks were like sheeted shapes, and on the tips of boughs sat faint cloven +tongues. +</p> + +<p> +But Grace’s fear just now was not imaginative or spiritual, and she +heeded these impressions but little. She went on as silently as she could, +avoiding the hollows wherein leaves had accumulated, and stepping upon +soundless moss and grass-tufts. She paused breathlessly once or twice, and +fancied that she could hear, above the beat of her strumming pulse, the vehicle +containing Fitzpiers turning in at the gate of her father’s premises. She +hastened on again. +</p> + +<p> +The Hintock woods owned by Mrs. Charmond were presently left behind, and those +into which she next plunged were divided from the latter by a bank, from whose +top the hedge had long ago perished—starved for want of sun. It was with +some caution that Grace now walked, though she was quite free from any of the +commonplace timidities of her ordinary pilgrimages to such spots. She feared no +lurking harms, but that her effort would be all in vain, and her return to the +house rendered imperative. +</p> + +<p> +She had walked between three and four miles when that prescriptive comfort and +relief to wanderers in woods—a distant light—broke at last upon her +searching eyes. It was so very small as to be almost sinister to a stranger, +but to her it was what she sought. She pushed forward, and the dim outline of a +dwelling was disclosed. +</p> + +<p> +The house was a square cot of one story only, sloping up on all sides to a +chimney in the midst. It had formerly been the home of a charcoal-burner, in +times when that fuel was still used in the county houses. Its only appurtenance +was a paled enclosure, there being no garden, the shade of the trees preventing +the growth of vegetables. She advanced to the window whence the rays of light +proceeded, and the shutters being as yet unclosed, she could survey the whole +interior through the panes. +</p> + +<p> +The room within was kitchen, parlor, and scullery all in one; the natural +sandstone floor was worn into hills and dales by long treading, so that none of +the furniture stood level, and the table slanted like a desk. A fire burned on +the hearth, in front of which revolved the skinned carcass of a rabbit, +suspended by a string from a nail. Leaning with one arm on the mantle-shelf +stood Winterborne, his eyes on the roasting animal, his face so rapt that +speculation could build nothing on it concerning his thoughts, more than that +they were not with the scene before him. She thought his features had changed a +little since she saw them last. The fire-light did not enable her to perceive +that they were positively haggard. +</p> + +<p> +Grace’s throat emitted a gasp of relief at finding the result so nearly +as she had hoped. She went to the door and tapped lightly. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to be accustomed to the noises of woodpeckers, squirrels, and such +small creatures, for he took no notice of her tiny signal, and she knocked +again. This time he came and opened the door. When the light of the room fell +upon her face he started, and, hardly knowing what he did, crossed the +threshold to her, placing his hands upon her two arms, while surprise, joy, +alarm, sadness, chased through him by turns. With Grace it was the same: even +in this stress there was the fond fact that they had met again. Thus they +stood, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Long tears upon their faces, waxen white<br /> +With extreme sad delight.” +</p> + +<p> +He broke the silence by saying in a whisper, “Come in.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, Giles!” she answered, hurriedly, stepping yet farther back +from the door. “I am passing by—and I have called on you—I +won’t enter. Will you help me? I am afraid. I want to get by a roundabout +way to Sherton, and so to Exbury. I have a school-fellow there—but I +cannot get to Sherton alone. Oh, if you will only accompany me a little way! +Don’t condemn me, Giles, and be offended! I was obliged to come to you +because—I have no other help here. Three months ago you were my lover; +now you are only my friend. The law has stepped in, and forbidden what we +thought of. It must not be. But we can act honestly, and yet you can be my +friend for one little hour? I have no other—” +</p> + +<p> +She could get no further. Covering her eyes with one hand, by an effort of +repression she wept a silent trickle, without a sigh or sob. Winterborne took +her other hand. “What has happened?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“He has come.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a stillness as of death, till Winterborne asked, “You mean +this, Grace—that I am to help you to get away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said she. “Appearance is no matter, when the reality +is right. I have said to myself I can trust you.” +</p> + +<p> +Giles knew from this that she did not suspect his treachery—if it could +be called such—earlier in the summer, when they met for the last time as +lovers; and in the intensity of his contrition for that tender wrong, he +determined to deserve her faith now at least, and so wipe out that reproach +from his conscience. “I’ll come at once,” he said. +“I’ll light a lantern.” +</p> + +<p> +He unhooked a dark-lantern from a nail under the eaves and she did not notice +how his hand shook with the slight strain, or dream that in making this offer +he was taxing a convalescence which could ill afford such self-sacrifice. The +lantern was lit, and they started. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap41"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2> + +<p> +The first hundred yards of their course lay under motionless trees, whose upper +foliage began to hiss with falling drops of rain. By the time that they emerged +upon a glade it rained heavily. +</p> + +<p> +“This is awkward,” said Grace, with an effort to hide her concern. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne stopped. “Grace,” he said, preserving a strictly +business manner which belied him, “you cannot go to Sherton +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I must!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? It is nine miles from here. It is almost an impossibility in this +rain.” +</p> + +<p> +“True—<i>why?</i>” she replied, mournfully, at the end of a +silence. “What is reputation to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now hearken,” said Giles. “You won’t—go back to +your—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no! Don’t make me!” she cried, piteously. +</p> + +<p> +“Then let us turn.” They slowly retraced their steps, and again +stood before his door. “Now, this house from this moment is yours, and +not mine,” he said, deliberately. “I have a place near by where I +can stay very well.” +</p> + +<p> +Her face had drooped. “Oh!” she murmured, as she saw the dilemma. +“What have I done!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a smell of something burning within, and he looked through the +window. The rabbit that he had been cooking to coax a weak appetite was +beginning to char. “Please go in and attend to it,” he said. +“Do what you like. Now I leave. You will find everything about the hut +that is necessary.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Giles—your supper,” she exclaimed. “An out-house +would do for me—anything—till to-morrow at day-break!” +</p> + +<p> +He signified a negative. “I tell you to go in—you may catch agues +out here in your delicate state. You can give me my supper through the window, +if you feel well enough. I’ll wait a while.” +</p> + +<p> +He gently urged her to pass the door-way, and was relieved when he saw her +within the room sitting down. Without so much as crossing the threshold +himself, he closed the door upon her, and turned the key in the lock. Tapping +at the window, he signified that she should open the casement, and when she had +done this he handed in the key to her. +</p> + +<p> +“You are locked in,” he said; “and your own mistress.” +</p> + +<p> +Even in her trouble she could not refrain from a faint smile at his +scrupulousness, as she took the door-key. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you feel better?” he went on. “If so, and you wish to +give me some of your supper, please do. If not, it is of no importance. I can +get some elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +The grateful sense of his kindness stirred her to action, though she only knew +half what that kindness really was. At the end of some ten minutes she again +came to the window, pushed it open, and said in a whisper, “Giles!” +He at once emerged from the shade, and saw that she was preparing to hand him +his share of the meal upon a plate. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like to treat you so hardly,” she murmured, with +deep regret in her words as she heard the rain pattering on the leaves. +“But—I suppose it is best to arrange like this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” he said, quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel that I could never have reached Sherton.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was impossible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure you have a snug place out there?” (With renewed +misgiving.) +</p> + +<p> +“Quite. Have you found everything you want? I am afraid it is rather +rough accommodation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can I notice defects? I have long passed that stage, and you know it, +Giles, or you ought to.” +</p> + +<p> +His eyes sadly contemplated her face as its pale responsiveness modulated +through a crowd of expressions that showed only too clearly to what a pitch she +was strung. If ever Winterborne’s heart fretted his bosom it was at this +sight of a perfectly defenceless creature conditioned by such circumstances. He +forgot his own agony in the satisfaction of having at least found her a +shelter. He took his plate and cup from her hands, saying, “Now +I’ll push the shutter to, and you will find an iron pin on the inside, +which you must fix into the bolt. Do not stir in the morning till I come and +call you.” +</p> + +<p> +She expressed an alarmed hope that he would not go very far away. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—I shall be quite within hail,” said Winterborne. +</p> + +<p> +She bolted the window as directed, and he retreated. His snug place proved to +be a wretched little shelter of the roughest kind, formed of four hurdles +thatched with brake-fern. Underneath were dry sticks, hay, and other litter of +the sort, upon which he sat down; and there in the dark tried to eat his meal. +But his appetite was quite gone. He pushed the plate aside, and shook up the +hay and sacks, so as to form a rude couch, on which he flung himself down to +sleep, for it was getting late. +</p> + +<p> +But sleep he could not, for many reasons, of which not the least was thought of +his charge. He sat up, and looked towards the cot through the damp obscurity. +With all its external features the same as usual, he could scarcely believe +that it contained the dear friend—he would not use a warmer +name—who had come to him so unexpectedly, and, he could not help +admitting, so rashly. +</p> + +<p> +He had not ventured to ask her any particulars; but the position was pretty +clear without them. Though social law had negatived forever their opening +paradise of the previous June, it was not without stoical pride that he +accepted the present trying conjuncture. There was one man on earth in whom she +believed absolutely, and he was that man. That this crisis could end in nothing +but sorrow was a view for a moment effaced by this triumphant thought of her +trust in him; and the purity of the affection with which he responded to that +trust rendered him more than proof against any frailty that besieged him in +relation to her. +</p> + +<p> +The rain, which had never ceased, now drew his attention by beginning to drop +through the meagre screen that covered him. He rose to attempt some remedy for +this discomfort, but the trembling of his knees and the throbbing of his pulse +told him that in his weakness he was unable to fence against the storm, and he +lay down to bear it as best he might. He was angry with himself for his +feebleness—he who had been so strong. It was imperative that she should +know nothing of his present state, and to do that she must not see his face by +daylight, for its color would inevitably betray him. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning, accordingly, when it was hardly light, he rose and dragged +his stiff limbs about the precincts, preparing for her everything she could +require for getting breakfast within. On the bench outside the window-sill he +placed water, wood, and other necessaries, writing with a piece of chalk beside +them, “It is best that I should not see you. Put my breakfast on the +bench.” +</p> + +<p> +At seven o’clock he tapped at her window, as he had promised, retreating +at once, that she might not catch sight of him. But from his shelter under the +boughs he could see her very well, when, in response to his signal, she opened +the window and the light fell upon her face. The languid largeness of her eyes +showed that her sleep had been little more than his own, and the pinkness of +their lids, that her waking hours had not been free from tears. +</p> + +<p> +She read the writing, seemed, he thought, disappointed, but took up the +materials he had provided, evidently thinking him some way off. Giles waited +on, assured that a girl who, in spite of her culture, knew what country life +was, would find no difficulty in the simple preparation of their food. +</p> + +<p> +Within the cot it was all very much as he conjectured, though Grace had slept +much longer than he. After the loneliness of the night, she would have been +glad to see him; but appreciating his feeling when she read the writing, she +made no attempt to recall him. She found abundance of provisions laid in, his +plan being to replenish his buttery weekly, and this being the day after the +victualling van had called from Sherton. When the meal was ready, she put what +he required outside, as she had done with the supper; and, notwithstanding her +longing to see him, withdrew from the window promptly, and left him to himself. +</p> + +<p> +It had been a leaden dawn, and the rain now steadily renewed its fall. As she +heard no more of Winterborne, she concluded that he had gone away to his daily +work, and forgotten that he had promised to accompany her to Sherton; an +erroneous conclusion, for he remained all day, by force of his condition, +within fifty yards of where she was. The morning wore on; and in her doubt when +to start, and how to travel, she lingered yet, keeping the door carefully +bolted, lest an intruder should discover her. Locked in this place, she was +comparatively safe, at any rate, and doubted if she would be safe elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +The humid gloom of an ordinary wet day was doubled by the shade and drip of the +leafage. Autumn, this year, was coming in with rains. Gazing, in her enforced +idleness, from the one window of the living-room, she could see various small +members of the animal community that lived unmolested there—creatures of +hair, fluff, and scale, the toothed kind and the billed kind; underground +creatures, jointed and ringed—circumambulating the hut, under the +impression that, Giles having gone away, nobody was there; and eying it +inquisitively with a view to winter-quarters. Watching these neighbors, who +knew neither law nor sin, distracted her a little from her trouble; and she +managed to while away some portion of the afternoon by putting Giles’s +home in order and making little improvements which she deemed that he would +value when she was gone. +</p> + +<p> +Once or twice she fancied that she heard a faint noise amid the trees, +resembling a cough; but as it never came any nearer she concluded that it was a +squirrel or a bird. +</p> + +<p> +At last the daylight lessened, and she made up a larger fire for the evenings +were chilly. As soon as it was too dark—which was comparatively +early—to discern the human countenance in this place of shadows, there +came to the window to her great delight, a tapping which she knew from its +method to be Giles’s. +</p> + +<p> +She opened the casement instantly, and put out her hand to him, though she +could only just perceive his outline. He clasped her fingers, and she noticed +the heat of his palm and its shakiness. +</p> + +<p> +“He has been walking fast, in order to get here quickly,” she +thought. How could she know that he had just crawled out from the straw of the +shelter hard by; and that the heat of his hand was feverishness? +</p> + +<p> +“My dear, good Giles!” she burst out, impulsively. +</p> + +<p> +“Anybody would have done it for you,” replied Winterborne, with as +much matter-of-fact as he could summon. +</p> + +<p> +“About my getting to Exbury?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been thinking,” responded Giles, with tender deference, +“that you had better stay where you are for the present, if you wish not +to be caught. I need not tell you that the place is yours as long as you like; +and perhaps in a day or two, finding you absent, he will go away. At any rate, +in two or three days I could do anything to assist—such as make +inquiries, or go a great way towards Sherton-Abbas with you; for the cider +season will soon be coming on, and I want to run down to the Vale to see how +the crops are, and I shall go by the Sherton road. But for a day or two I am +busy here.” He was hoping that by the time mentioned he would be strong +enough to engage himself actively on her behalf. “I hope you do not feel +over-much melancholy in being a prisoner?” +</p> + +<p> +She declared that she did not mind it; but she sighed. +</p> + +<p> +From long acquaintance they could read each other’s heart-symptoms like +books of large type. “I fear you are sorry you came,” said Giles, +“and that you think I should have advised you more firmly than I did not +to stay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, dear, dear friend,” answered Grace, with a heaving bosom. +“Don’t think that that is what I regret. What I regret is my +enforced treatment of you—dislodging you, excluding you from your own +house. Why should I not speak out? You know what I feel for you—what I +have felt for no other living man, what I shall never feel for a man again! But +as I have vowed myself to somebody else than you, and cannot be released, I +must behave as I do behave, and keep that vow. I am not bound to him by any +divine law, after what he has done; but I have promised, and I will pay.” +</p> + +<p> +The rest of the evening was passed in his handing her such things as she would +require the next day, and casual remarks thereupon, an occupation which +diverted her mind to some degree from pathetic views of her attitude towards +him, and of her life in general. The only infringement—if infringement it +could be called—of his predetermined bearing towards her was an +involuntary pressing of her hand to his lips when she put it through the +casement to bid him good-night. He knew she was weeping, though he could not +see her tears. +</p> + +<p> +She again entreated his forgiveness for so selfishly appropriating the cottage. +But it would only be for a day or two more, she thought, since go she must. +</p> + +<p> +He replied, yearningly, “I—I don’t like you to go +away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Giles,” said she, “I know—I know! But—I am a +woman, and you are a man. I cannot speak more plainly. ‘Whatsoever things +are pure, whatsoever things are of good report’—you know what is in +my mind, because you know me so well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Grace, yes. I do not at all mean that the question between us has +not been settled by the fact of your marriage turning out hopelessly +unalterable. I merely meant—well, a feeling no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“In a week, at the outside, I should be discovered if I stayed here: and +I think that by law he could compel me to return to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; perhaps you are right. Go when you wish, dear Grace.” +</p> + +<p> +His last words that evening were a hopeful remark that all might be well with +her yet; that Mr. Fitzpiers would not intrude upon her life, if he found that +his presence cost her so much pain. Then the window was closed, the shutters +folded, and the rustle of his footsteps died away. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner had she retired to rest that night than the wind began to rise, and, +after a few prefatory blasts, to be accompanied by rain. The wind grew more +violent, and as the storm went on, it was difficult to believe that no opaque +body, but only an invisible colorless thing, was trampling and climbing over +the roof, making branches creak, springing out of the trees upon the chimney, +popping its head into the flue, and shrieking and blaspheming at every corner +of the walls. As in the old story, the assailant was a spectre which could be +felt but not seen. She had never before been so struck with the devilry of a +gusty night in a wood, because she had never been so entirely alone in spirit +as she was now. She seemed almost to be apart from herself—a vacuous +duplicate only. The recent self of physical animation and clear intentions was +not there. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes a bough from an adjoining tree was swayed so low as to smite the roof +in the manner of a gigantic hand smiting the mouth of an adversary, to be +followed by a trickle of rain, as blood from the wound. To all this weather +Giles must be more or less exposed; how much, she did not know. +</p> + +<p> +At last Grace could hardly endure the idea of such a hardship in relation to +him. Whatever he was suffering, it was she who had caused it; he vacated his +house on account of her. She was not worth such self-sacrifice; she should not +have accepted it of him. And then, as her anxiety increased with increasing +thought, there returned upon her mind some incidents of her late intercourse +with him, which she had heeded but little at the time. The look of his +face—what had there been about his face which seemed different from its +appearance as of yore? Was it not thinner, less rich in hue, less like that of +ripe autumn’s brother to whom she had formerly compared him? And his +voice; she had distinctly noticed a change in tone. And his gait; surely it had +been feebler, stiffer, more like the gait of a weary man. That slight +occasional noise she had heard in the day, and attributed to squirrels, it +might have been his cough after all. +</p> + +<p> +Thus conviction took root in her perturbed mind that Winterborne was ill, or +had been so, and that he had carefully concealed his condition from her that +she might have no scruples about accepting a hospitality which by the nature of +the case expelled her entertainer. +</p> + +<p> +“My own, own, true l——, my dear kind friend!” she cried +to herself. “Oh, it shall not be—it shall not be!” +</p> + +<p> +She hastily wrapped herself up, and obtained a light, with which she entered +the adjoining room, the cot possessing only one floor. Setting down the candle +on the table here, she went to the door with the key in her hand, and placed it +in the lock. Before turning it she paused, her fingers still clutching it; and +pressing her other hand to her forehead, she fell into agitating thought. +</p> + +<p> +A tattoo on the window, caused by the tree-droppings blowing against it, +brought her indecision to a close. She turned the key and opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +The darkness was intense, seeming to touch her pupils like a substance. She +only now became aware how heavy the rainfall had been and was; the dripping of +the eaves splashed like a fountain. She stood listening with parted lips, and +holding the door in one hand, till her eyes, growing accustomed to the +obscurity, discerned the wild brandishing of their boughs by the adjoining +trees. At last she cried loudly with an effort, “Giles! you may come +in!” +</p> + +<p> +There was no immediate answer to her cry, and overpowered by her own temerity, +Grace retreated quickly, shut the door, and stood looking on the floor. But it +was not for long. She again lifted the latch, and with far more determination +than at first. +</p> + +<p> +“Giles, Giles!” she cried, with the full strength of her voice, and +without any of the shamefacedness that had characterized her first cry. +“Oh, come in—come in! Where are you? I have been wicked. I have +thought too much of myself! Do you hear? I don’t want to keep you out any +longer. I cannot bear that you should suffer so. Gi-i-iles!” +</p> + +<p> +A reply! It was a reply! Through the darkness and wind a voice reached her, +floating upon the weather as though a part of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Here I am—all right. Don’t trouble about me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you want to come in? Are you not wet? <i>Come to me! I +don’t mind what they say, or what they think any more.</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“I am all right,” he repeated. “It is not necessary for me to +come. Good-night! good-night!” +</p> + +<p> +Grace sighed, turned and shut the door slowly. Could she have been mistaken +about his health? Perhaps, after all, she had perceived a change in him because +she had not seen him for so long. Time sometimes did his ageing work in jerks, +as she knew. Well, she had done all she could. He would not come in. She +retired to rest again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap42"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2> + +<p> +The next morning Grace was at the window early. She felt determined to see him +somehow that day, and prepared his breakfast eagerly. Eight o’clock +struck, and she had remembered that he had not come to arouse her by a +knocking, as usual, her own anxiety having caused her to stir. +</p> + +<p> +The breakfast was set in its place without. But he did not arrive to take it; +and she waited on. Nine o’clock arrived, and the breakfast was cold; and +still there was no Giles. A thrush, that had been repeating itself a good deal +on an opposite bush for some time, came and took a morsel from the plate and +bolted it, waited, looked around, and took another. At ten o’clock she +drew in the tray, and sat down to her own solitary meal. He must have been +called away on business early, the rain having cleared off. +</p> + +<p> +Yet she would have liked to assure herself, by thoroughly exploring the +precincts of the hut, that he was nowhere in its vicinity; but as the day was +comparatively fine, the dread lest some stray passenger or woodman should +encounter her in such a reconnoitre paralyzed her wish. The solitude was +further accentuated to-day by the stopping of the clock for want of winding, +and the fall into the chimney-corner of flakes of soot loosened by the rains. +At noon she heard a slight rustling outside the window, and found that it was +caused by an eft which had crept out of the leaves to bask in the last sun-rays +that would be worth having till the following May. +</p> + +<p> +She continually peeped out through the lattice, but could see little. In front +lay the brown leaves of last year, and upon them some yellowish-green ones of +this season that had been prematurely blown down by the gale. Above stretched +an old beech, with vast armpits, and great pocket-holes in its sides where +branches had been amputated in past times; a black slug was trying to climb it. +Dead boughs were scattered about like ichthyosauri in a museum, and beyond them +were perishing woodbine stems resembling old ropes. +</p> + +<p> +From the other window all she could see were more trees, jacketed with lichen +and stockinged with moss. At their roots were stemless yellow fungi like lemons +and apricots, and tall fungi with more stem than stool. Next were more trees +close together, wrestling for existence, their branches disfigured with wounds +resulting from their mutual rubbings and blows. It was the struggle between +these neighbors that she had heard in the night. Beneath them were the rotting +stumps of those of the group that had been vanquished long ago, rising from +their mossy setting like decayed teeth from green gums. Farther on were other +tufts of moss in islands divided by the shed leaves—variety upon variety, +dark green and pale green; moss-like little fir-trees, like plush, like +malachite stars, like nothing on earth except moss. +</p> + +<p> +The strain upon Grace’s mind in various ways was so great on this the +most desolate day she had passed there that she felt it would be well-nigh +impossible to spend another in such circumstances. The evening came at last; +the sun, when its chin was on the earth, found an opening through which to +pierce the shade, and stretched irradiated gauzes across the damp atmosphere, +making the wet trunks shine, and throwing splotches of such ruddiness on the +leaves beneath the beech that they were turned to gory hues. When night at last +arrived, and with it the time for his return, she was nearly broken down with +suspense. +</p> + +<p> +The simple evening meal, partly tea, partly supper, which Grace had prepared, +stood waiting upon the hearth; and yet Giles did not come. It was now nearly +twenty-four hours since she had seen him. As the room grew darker, and only the +firelight broke against the gloom of the walls, she was convinced that it would +be beyond her staying power to pass the night without hearing from him or from +somebody. Yet eight o’clock drew on, and his form at the window did not +appear. +</p> + +<p> +The meal remained untasted. Suddenly rising from before the hearth of +smouldering embers, where she had been crouching with her hands clasped over +her knees, she crossed the room, unlocked the door, and listened. Every breath +of wind had ceased with the decline of day, but the rain had resumed the steady +dripping of the night before. Grace might have stood there five minutes when +she fancied she heard that old sound, a cough, at no great distance; and it was +presently repeated. If it were Winterborne’s, he must be near her; why, +then, had he not visited her? +</p> + +<p> +A horrid misgiving that he could not visit her took possession of Grace, and +she looked up anxiously for the lantern, which was hanging above her head. To +light it and go in the direction of the sound would be the obvious way to solve +the dread problem; but the conditions made her hesitate, and in a moment a cold +sweat pervaded her at further sounds from the same quarter. +</p> + +<p> +They were low mutterings; at first like persons in conversation, but gradually +resolving themselves into varieties of one voice. It was an endless monologue, +like that we sometimes hear from inanimate nature in deep secret places where +water flows, or where ivy leaves flap against stones; but by degrees she was +convinced that the voice was Winterborne’s. Yet who could be his +listener, so mute and patient; for though he argued so rapidly and +persistently, nobody replied. +</p> + +<p> +A dreadful enlightenment spread through the mind of Grace. “Oh,” +she cried, in her anguish, as she hastily prepared herself to go out, +“how selfishly correct I am always—too, too correct! Cruel +propriety is killing the dearest heart that ever woman clasped to her +own.” +</p> + +<p> +While speaking thus to herself she had lit the lantern, and hastening out +without further thought, took the direction whence the mutterings had +proceeded. The course was marked by a little path, which ended at a distance of +about forty yards in a small erection of hurdles, not much larger than a shock +of corn, such as were frequent in the woods and copses when the cutting season +was going on. It was too slight even to be called a hovel, and was not high +enough to stand upright in; appearing, in short, to be erected for the +temporary shelter of fuel. The side towards Grace was open, and turning the +light upon the interior, she beheld what her prescient fear had pictured in +snatches all the way thither. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the straw within, Winterborne lay in his clothes, just as she had seen him +during the whole of her stay here, except that his hat was off, and his hair +matted and wild. +</p> + +<p> +Both his clothes and the straw were saturated with rain. His arms were flung +over his head; his face was flushed to an unnatural crimson. His eyes had a +burning brightness, and though they met her own, she perceived that he did not +recognize her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my Giles,” she cried, “what have I done to you!” +</p> + +<p> +But she stopped no longer even to reproach herself. She saw that the first +thing to be thought of was to get him indoors. +</p> + +<p> +How Grace performed that labor she never could have exactly explained. But by +dint of clasping her arms round him, rearing him into a sitting posture, and +straining her strength to the uttermost, she put him on one of the hurdles that +was loose alongside, and taking the end of it in both her hands, dragged him +along the path to the entrance of the hut, and, after a pause for breath, in at +the door-way. +</p> + +<p> +It was somewhat singular that Giles in his semi-conscious state acquiesced +unresistingly in all that she did. But he never for a moment recognized +her—continuing his rapid conversation to himself, and seeming to look +upon her as some angel, or other supernatural creature of the visionary world +in which he was mentally living. The undertaking occupied her more than ten +minutes; but by that time, to her great thankfulness, he was in the inner room, +lying on the bed, his damp outer clothing removed. +</p> + +<p> +Then the unhappy Grace regarded him by the light of the candle. There was +something in his look which agonized her, in the rush of his thoughts, +accelerating their speed from minute to minute. He seemed to be passing through +the universe of ideas like a comet—erratic, inapprehensible, untraceable. +</p> + +<p> +Grace’s distraction was almost as great as his. In a few moments she +firmly believed he was dying. Unable to withstand her impulse, she knelt down +beside him, kissed his hands and his face and his hair, exclaiming, in a low +voice, “How could I? How could I?” +</p> + +<p> +Her timid morality had, indeed, underrated his chivalry till now, though she +knew him so well. The purity of his nature, his freedom from the grosser +passions, his scrupulous delicacy, had never been fully understood by Grace +till this strange self-sacrifice in lonely juxtaposition to her own person was +revealed. The perception of it added something that was little short of +reverence to the deep affection for him of a woman who, herself, had more of +Artemis than of Aphrodite in her constitution. +</p> + +<p> +All that a tender nurse could do, Grace did; and the power to express her +solicitude in action, unconscious though the sufferer was, brought her mournful +satisfaction. She bathed his hot head, wiped his perspiring hands, moistened +his lips, cooled his fiery eyelids, sponged his heated skin, and administered +whatever she could find in the house that the imagination could conceive as +likely to be in any way alleviating. That she might have been the cause, or +partially the cause, of all this, interfused misery with her sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +Six months before this date a scene, almost similar in its mechanical parts, +had been enacted at Hintock House. It was between a pair of persons most +intimately connected in their lives with these. Outwardly like as it had been, +it was yet infinite in spiritual difference, though a woman’s devotion +had been common to both. +</p> + +<p> +Grace rose from her attitude of affection, and, bracing her energies, saw that +something practical must immediately be done. Much as she would have liked, in +the emotion of the moment, to keep him entirely to herself, medical assistance +was necessary while there remained a possibility of preserving him alive. Such +assistance was fatal to her own concealment; but even had the chance of +benefiting him been less than it was, she would have run the hazard for his +sake. The question was, where should she get a medical man, competent and near? +</p> + +<p> +There was one such man, and only one, within accessible distance; a man who, if +it were possible to save Winterborne’s life, had the brain most likely to +do it. If human pressure could bring him, that man ought to be brought to the +sick Giles’s side. The attempt should be made. +</p> + +<p> +Yet she dreaded to leave her patient, and the minutes raced past, and yet she +postponed her departure. At last, when it was after eleven o’clock, +Winterborne fell into a fitful sleep, and it seemed to afford her an +opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +She hastily made him as comfortable as she could, put on her things, cut a new +candle from the bunch hanging in the cupboard, and having set it up, and placed +it so that the light did not fall upon his eyes, she closed the door and +started. +</p> + +<p> +The spirit of Winterborne seemed to keep her company and banish all sense of +darkness from her mind. The rains had imparted a phosphorescence to the pieces +of touchwood and rotting leaves that lay about her path, which, as scattered by +her feet, spread abroad like spilt milk. She would not run the hazard of losing +her way by plunging into any short, unfrequented track through the denser parts +of the woodland, but followed a more open course, which eventually brought her +to the highway. Once here, she ran along with great speed, animated by a +devoted purpose which had much about it that was stoical; and it was with +scarcely any faltering of spirit that, after an hour’s progress, she +passed over Rubdown Hill, and onward towards that same Hintock, and that same +house, out of which she had fled a few days before in irresistible alarm. But +that had happened which, above all other things of chance and change, could +make her deliberately frustrate her plan of flight and sink all regard of +personal consequences. +</p> + +<p> +One speciality of Fitzpiers’s was respected by Grace as much as +ever—his professional skill. In this she was right. Had his persistence +equalled his insight, instead of being the spasmodic and fitful thing it was, +fame and fortune need never have remained a wish with him. His freedom from +conventional errors and crusted prejudices had, indeed, been such as to retard +rather than accelerate his advance in Hintock and its neighborhood, where +people could not believe that nature herself effected cures, and that the +doctor’s business was only to smooth the way. +</p> + +<p> +It was past midnight when Grace arrived opposite her father’s house, now +again temporarily occupied by her husband, unless he had already gone away. +Ever since her emergence from the denser plantations about Winterborne’s +residence a pervasive lightness had hung in the damp autumn sky, in spite of +the vault of cloud, signifying that a moon of some age was shining above its +arch. The two white gates were distinct, and the white balls on the pillars, +and the puddles and damp ruts left by the recent rain, had a cold, corpse-eyed +luminousness. She entered by the lower gate, and crossed the quadrangle to the +wing wherein the apartments that had been hers since her marriage were situate, +till she stood under a window which, if her husband were in the house, gave +light to his bedchamber. +</p> + +<p> +She faltered, and paused with her hand on her heart, in spite of herself. Could +she call to her presence the very cause of all her foregoing troubles? +Alas!—old Jones was seven miles off; Giles was possibly dying—what +else could she do? +</p> + +<p> +It was in a perspiration, wrought even more by consciousness than by exercise, +that she picked up some gravel, threw it at the panes, and waited to see the +result. The night-bell which had been fixed when Fitzpiers first took up his +residence there still remained; but as it had fallen into disuse with the +collapse of his practice, and his elopement, she did not venture to pull it +now. +</p> + +<p> +Whoever slept in the room had heard her signal, slight as it was. In half a +minute the window was opened, and a voice said “Yes?” inquiringly. +Grace recognized her husband in the speaker at once. Her effort was now to +disguise her own accents. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor,” she said, in as unusual a tone as she could command, +“a man is dangerously ill in One-chimney Hut, out towards Delborough, and +you must go to him at once—in all mercy!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will, readily.” +</p> + +<p> +The alacrity, surprise, and pleasure expressed in his reply amazed her for a +moment. But, in truth, they denoted the sudden relief of a man who, having got +back in a mood of contrition, from erratic abandonment to fearful joys, found +the soothing routine of professional practice unexpectedly opening anew to him. +The highest desire of his soul just now was for a respectable life of +painstaking. If this, his first summons since his return, had been to attend +upon a cat or dog, he would scarcely have refused it in the circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know the way?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“One-chimney Hut,” she repeated. +“And—immediately!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” said Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +Grace remained no longer. She passed out of the white gate without slamming it, +and hastened on her way back. Her husband, then, had re-entered her +father’s house. How he had been able to effect a reconciliation with the +old man, what were the terms of the treaty between them, she could not so much +as conjecture. Some sort of truce must have been entered into, that was all she +could say. But close as the question lay to her own life, there was a more +urgent one which banished it; and she traced her steps quickly along the +meandering track-ways. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Fitzpiers was preparing to leave the house. The state of his mind, +over and above his professional zeal, was peculiar. At Grace’s first +remark he had not recognized or suspected her presence; but as she went on, he +was awakened to the great resemblance of the speaker’s voice to his +wife’s. He had taken in such good faith the statement of the household on +his arrival, that she had gone on a visit for a time because she could not at +once bring her mind to be reconciled to him, that he could not quite actually +believe this comer to be she. It was one of the features of Fitzpiers’s +repentant humor at this date that, on receiving the explanation of her absence, +he had made no attempt to outrage her feelings by following her; though nobody +had informed him how very shortly her departure had preceded his entry, and of +all that might have been inferred from her precipitancy. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury, after much alarm and consideration, had decided not to follow her +either. He sympathized with her flight, much as he deplored it; moreover, the +tragic color of the antecedent events that he had been a great means of +creating checked his instinct to interfere. He prayed and trusted that she had +got into no danger on her way (as he supposed) to Sherton, and thence to +Exbury, if that were the place she had gone to, forbearing all inquiry which +the strangeness of her departure would have made natural. A few months before +this time a performance by Grace of one-tenth the magnitude of this would have +aroused him to unwonted investigation. +</p> + +<p> +It was in the same spirit that he had tacitly assented to Fitzpiers’s +domicilation there. The two men had not met face to face, but Mrs. Melbury had +proposed herself as an intermediary, who made the surgeon’s re-entrance +comparatively easy to him. Everything was provisional, and nobody asked +questions. Fitzpiers had come in the performance of a plan of penitence, which +had originated in circumstances hereafter to be explained; his self-humiliation +to the very bass-string was deliberate; and as soon as a call reached him from +the bedside of a dying man his desire was to set to work and do as much good as +he could with the least possible fuss or show. He therefore refrained from +calling up a stableman to get ready any horse or gig, and set out for +One-chimney Hut on foot, as Grace had done. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap43"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2> + +<p> +She re-entered the hut, flung off her bonnet and cloak, and approached the +sufferer. He had begun anew those terrible mutterings, and his hands were cold. +As soon as she saw him there returned to her that agony of mind which the +stimulus of her journey had thrown off for a time. +</p> + +<p> +Could he really be dying? She bathed him, kissed him, forgot all things but the +fact that lying there before her was he who had loved her more than the mere +lover would have loved; had martyred himself for her comfort, cared more for +her self-respect than she had thought of caring. This mood continued till she +heard quick, smart footsteps without; she knew whose footsteps they were. +</p> + +<p> +Grace sat on the inside of the bed against the wall, holding Giles’s +hand, so that when her husband entered the patient lay between herself and him. +He stood transfixed at first, noticing Grace only. Slowly he dropped his glance +and discerned who the prostrate man was. Strangely enough, though Grace’s +distaste for her husband’s company had amounted almost to dread, and +culminated in actual flight, at this moment her last and least feeling was +personal. Sensitive femininity was eclipsed by self-effacing purpose, and that +it was a husband who stood there was forgotten. The first look that possessed +her face was relief; satisfaction at the presence of the physician obliterated +thought of the man, which only returned in the form of a sub-consciousness that +did not interfere with her words. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he dying—is there any hope?” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Grace!” said Fitzpiers, in an indescribable whisper—more +than invocating, if not quite deprecatory. +</p> + +<p> +He was arrested by the spectacle, not so much in its intrinsic +character—though that was striking enough to a man who called himself the +husband of the sufferer’s friend and nurse—but in its character as +the counterpart of one that had its hour many months before, in which he had +figured as the patient, and the woman had been Felice Charmond. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he in great danger—can you save him?” she cried again. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers aroused himself, came a little nearer, and examined Winterborne as he +stood. His inspection was concluded in a mere glance. Before he spoke he looked +at her contemplatively as to the effect of his coming words. +</p> + +<p> +“He is dying,” he said, with dry precision. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing can be done, by me or any other man. It will soon be all over. +The extremities are dead already.” His eyes still remained fixed on her; +the conclusion to which he had come seeming to end his interest, professional +and otherwise, in Winterborne forever. +</p> + +<p> +“But it cannot be! He was well three days ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not well, I suspect. This seems like a secondary attack, which has +followed some previous illness—possibly typhoid—it may have been +months ago, or recently.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—he was not well—you are right. He was ill—he was +ill when I came.” +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing more to do or say. She crouched down at the side of the bed, +and Fitzpiers took a seat. Thus they remained in silence, and long as it lasted +she never turned her eyes, or apparently her thoughts, at all to her husband. +He occasionally murmured, with automatic authority, some slight directions for +alleviating the pain of the dying man, which she mechanically obeyed, bending +over him during the intervals in silent tears. +</p> + +<p> +Winterborne never recovered consciousness of what was passing; and that he was +going became soon perceptible also to her. In less than an hour the delirium +ceased; then there was an interval of somnolent painlessness and soft +breathing, at the end of which Winterborne passed quietly away. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Then Fitzpiers broke the silence. “Have you lived here long?” said +he. +</p> + +<p> +Grace was wild with sorrow—with all that had befallen her—with the +cruelties that had attacked her—with life—with Heaven. She answered +at random. “Yes. By what right do you ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think I claim any right,” said Fitzpiers, sadly. +“It is for you to do and say what you choose. I admit, quite as much as +you feel, that I am a vagabond—a brute—not worthy to possess the +smallest fragment of you. But here I am, and I have happened to take sufficient +interest in you to make that inquiry.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is everything to me!” said Grace, hardly heeding her husband, +and laying her hand reverently on the dead man’s eyelids, where she kept +it a long time, pressing down their lashes with gentle touches, as if she were +stroking a little bird. +</p> + +<p> +He watched her a while, and then glanced round the chamber where his eyes fell +upon a few dressing necessaries that she had brought. +</p> + +<p> +“Grace—if I may call you so,” he said, “I have been +already humiliated almost to the depths. I have come back since you refused to +join me elsewhere—I have entered your father’s house, and borne all +that that cost me without flinching, because I have felt that I deserved +humiliation. But is there a yet greater humiliation in store for me? You say +you have been living here—that he is everything to you. Am I to draw from +that the obvious, the extremest inference?” +</p> + +<p> +Triumph at any price is sweet to men and women—especially the latter. It +was her first and last opportunity of repaying him for the cruel contumely +which she had borne at his hands so docilely. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she answered; and there was that in her subtly compounded +nature which made her feel a thrill of pride as she did so. +</p> + +<p> +Yet the moment after she had so mightily belied her character she half +repented. Her husband had turned as white as the wall behind him. It seemed as +if all that remained to him of life and spirit had been abstracted at a stroke. +Yet he did not move, and in his efforts at self-control closed his mouth +together as a vice. His determination was fairly successful, though she saw how +very much greater than she had expected her triumph had been. Presently he +looked across at Winterborne. +</p> + +<p> +“Would it startle you to hear,” he said, as if he hardly had breath +to utter the words, “that she who was to me what he was to you is dead +also?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead—<i>she</i> dead?” exclaimed Grace. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Felice Charmond is where this young man is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” said Grace, vehemently. +</p> + +<p> +He went on without heeding the insinuation: “And I came back to try to +make it up with you—but—” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers rose, and moved across the room to go away, looking downward with the +droop of a man whose hope was turned to apathy, if not despair. In going round +the door his eye fell upon her once more. She was still bending over the body +of Winterborne, her face close to the young man’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been kissing him during his illness?” asked her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since his fevered state set in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“On his lips?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you will do well to take a few drops of this in water as soon as +possible.” He drew a small phial from his pocket and returned to offer it +to her. +</p> + +<p> +Grace shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t do as I tell you you may soon be like him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care. I wish to die.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll put it here,” said Fitzpiers, placing the bottle on a +ledge beside him. “The sin of not having warned you will not be upon my +head at any rate, among my other sins. I am now going, and I will send somebody +to you. Your father does not know that you are here, so I suppose I shall be +bound to tell him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers left the cot, and the stroke of his feet was soon immersed in the +silence that pervaded the spot. Grace remained kneeling and weeping, she hardly +knew how long, and then she sat up, covered poor Giles’s features, and +went towards the door where her husband had stood. No sign of any other comer +greeted her ear, the only perceptible sounds being the tiny cracklings of the +dead leaves, which, like a feather-bed, had not yet done rising to their normal +level where indented by the pressure of her husband’s receding footsteps. +It reminded her that she had been struck with the change in his aspect; the +extremely intellectual look that had always been in his face was wrought to a +finer phase by thinness, and a care-worn dignity had been superadded. She +returned to Winterborne’s side, and during her meditations another tread +drew near the door, entered the outer room, and halted at the entrance of the +chamber where Grace was. +</p> + +<p> +“What—Marty!” said Grace. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I have heard,” said Marty, whose demeanor had lost all its +girlishness under the stroke that seemed almost literally to have bruised her. +</p> + +<p> +“He died for me!” murmured Grace, heavily. +</p> + +<p> +Marty did not fully comprehend; and she answered, “He belongs to neither +of us now, and your beauty is no more powerful with him than my plainness. I +have come to help you, ma’am. He never cared for me, and he cared much +for you; but he cares for us both alike now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh don’t, don’t, Marty!” +</p> + +<p> +Marty said no more, but knelt over Winterborne from the other side. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you meet my hus—Mr. Fitzpiers?” +</p> <p> +“No!” +</p> <p> +“Then what brought you here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I come this way sometimes. I have got to go to the farther side of the +wood this time of the year, and am obliged to get there before four +o’clock in the morning, to begin heating the oven for the early baking. I +have passed by here often at this time.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace looked at her quickly. “Then did you know I was here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you tell anybody?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I knew you lived in the hut, that he had gied it up to ye, and +lodged out himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you know where he lodged?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. That I couldn’t find out. Was it at Delborough?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. It was not there, Marty. Would it had been! It would have +saved—saved—” To check her tears she turned, and seeing a +book on the window-bench, took it up. “Look, Marty, this is a Psalter. He +was not an outwardly religious man, but he was pure and perfect in his heart. +Shall we read a psalm over him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—we will—with all my heart!” +</p> + +<p> +Grace opened the thin brown book, which poor Giles had kept at hand mainly for +the convenience of whetting his pen-knife upon its leather covers. She began to +read in that rich, devotional voice peculiar to women only on such occasions. +When it was over, Marty said, “I should like to pray for his soul.” +</p> + +<p> +“So should I,” said her companion. “But we must not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Nobody would know.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace could not resist the argument, influenced as she was by the sense of +making amends for having neglected him in the body; and their tender voices +united and filled the narrow room with supplicatory murmurs that a Calvinist +might have envied. They had hardly ended when now and more numerous foot-falls +were audible, also persons in conversation, one of whom Grace recognized as her +father. +</p> + +<p> +She rose, and went to the outer apartment, in which there was only such light +as beamed from the inner one. Melbury and Mrs. Melbury were standing there. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. Go and tell +him—what you have told me—what you saw—that he gave up his +house to me.” +</p> + +<p> +She sat down, her face buried in her hands, and Marty went, and after a short +absence returned. Then Grace rose, and going out asked her father if he had met +her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“And you know all that has happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do. Forgive me, Grace, for suspecting ye of worse than +rashness—I ought to know ye better. Are you coming with me to what was +once your home?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I stay here with HIM. Take no account of me any more.” +</p> + +<p> +The unwonted, perplexing, agitating relations in which she had stood to +Winterborne quite lately—brought about by Melbury’s own +contrivance—could not fail to soften the natural anger of a parent at her +more recent doings. “My daughter, things are bad,” he rejoined. +“But why do you persevere to make ’em worse? What good can you do +to Giles by staying here with him? Mind, I ask no questions. I don’t +inquire why you decided to come here, or anything as to what your course would +have been if he had not died, though I know there’s no deliberate harm in +ye. As for me, I have lost all claim upon you, and I make no complaint. But I +do say that by coming back with me now you will show no less kindness to him, +and escape any sound of shame. +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t wish to escape it.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t on your own account, cannot you wish to on mine and +hers? Nobody except our household knows that you have left home. Then why +should you, by a piece of perverseness, bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to +the grave?” +</p> + +<p> +“If it were not for my husband—” she began, moved by his +words. “But how can I meet him there? How can any woman who is not a mere +man’s creature join him after what has taken place?” +</p> + +<p> +“He would go away again rather than keep you out of my house.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know that, father?” +</p> + +<p> +“We met him on our way here, and he told us so,” said Mrs. Melbury. +“He had said something like it before. He seems very much upset +altogether.” +</p> + +<p> +“He declared to her when he came to our house that he would wait for time +and devotion to bring about his forgiveness,” said her husband. +“That was it, wasn’t it, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. That he would not intrude upon you, Grace, till you gave him +absolute permission,” Mrs. Melbury added. +</p> + +<p> +This antecedent considerateness in Fitzpiers was as welcome to Grace as it was +unexpected; and though she did not desire his presence, she was sorry that by +her retaliatory fiction she had given him a different reason for avoiding her. +She made no further objections to accompanying her parents, taking them into +the inner room to give Winterborne a last look, and gathering up the two or +three things that belonged to her. While she was doing this the two women came +who had been called by Melbury, and at their heels poor Creedle. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me, but I can’t rule my mourning nohow as a man should, +Mr. Melbury,” he said. “I ha’n’t seen him since +Thursday se’night, and have wondered for days and days where he’s +been keeping. There was I expecting him to come and tell me to wash out the +cider-barrels against the making, and here was he— Well, I’ve +knowed him from table-high; I knowed his father—used to bide about upon +two sticks in the sun afore he died!—and now I’ve seen the end of +the family, which we can ill afford to lose, wi’ such a scanty lot of +good folk in Hintock as we’ve got. And now Robert Creedle will be nailed +up in parish boards ’a b’lieve; and noboby will glutch down a sigh +for he!” +</p> + +<p> +They started for home, Marty and Creedle remaining behind. For a time Grace and +her father walked side by side without speaking. It was just in the blue of the +dawn, and the chilling tone of the sky was reflected in her cold, wet face. The +whole wood seemed to be a house of death, pervaded by loss to its uttermost +length and breadth. Winterborne was gone, and the copses seemed to show the +want of him; those young trees, so many of which he had planted, and of which +he had spoken so truly when he said that he should fall before they fell, were +at that very moment sending out their roots in the direction that he had given +them with his subtle hand. +</p> + +<p> +“One thing made it tolerable to us that your husband should come back to +the house,” said Melbury at last—“the death of Mrs. +Charmond.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes,” said Grace, arousing slightly to the recollection, +“he told me so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he tell you how she died? It was no such death as Giles’s. She +was shot—by a disappointed lover. It occurred in Germany. The unfortunate +man shot himself afterwards. He was that South Carolina gentleman of very +passionate nature who used to haunt this place to force her to an interview, +and followed her about everywhere. So ends the brilliant Felice +Charmond—once a good friend to me—but no friend to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can forgive her,” said Grace, absently. “Did Edgar tell +you of this?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; but he put a London newspaper, giving an account of it, on the hall +table, folded in such a way that we should see it. It will be in the Sherton +paper this week, no doubt. To make the event more solemn still to him, he had +just before had sharp words with her, and left her. He told Lucy this, as +nothing about him appears in the newspaper. And the cause of the quarrel was, +of all people, she we’ve left behind us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean Marty?” Grace spoke the words but perfunctorily. For, +pertinent and pointed as Melbury’s story was, she had no heart for it +now. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Marty South.” Melbury persisted in his narrative, to divert +her from her present grief, if possible. “Before he went away she wrote +him a letter, which he kept in his, pocket a long while before reading. He +chanced to pull it out in Mrs. Charmond’s, presence, and read it out +loud. It contained something which teased her very much, and that led to the +rupture. She was following him to make it up when she met with her terrible +death.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury did not know enough to give the gist of the incident, which was that +Marty South’s letter had been concerning a certain personal adornment +common to herself and Mrs. Charmond. Her bullet reached its billet at last. The +scene between Fitzpiers and Felice had been sharp, as only a scene can be which +arises out of the mortification of one woman by another in the presence of a +lover. True, Marty had not effected it by word of mouth; the charge about the +locks of hair was made simply by Fitzpiers reading her letter to him aloud to +Felice in the playfully ironical tones of one who had become a little weary of +his situation, and was finding his friend, in the phrase of George Herbert, a +“flat delight.” He had stroked those false tresses with his hand +many a time without knowing them to be transplanted, and it was impossible when +the discovery was so abruptly made to avoid being finely satirical, despite her +generous disposition. +</p> + +<p> +That was how it had begun, and tragedy had been its end. On his abrupt +departure she had followed him to the station but the train was gone; and in +travelling to Baden in search of him she had met his rival, whose reproaches +led to an altercation, and the death of both. Of that precipitate scene of +passion and crime Fitzpiers had known nothing till he saw an account of it in +the papers, where, fortunately for himself, no mention was made of his prior +acquaintance with the unhappy lady; nor was there any allusion to him in the +subsequent inquiry, the double death being attributed to some gambling losses, +though, in point of fact, neither one of them had visited the tables. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury and his daughter drew near their house, having seen but one living +thing on their way, a squirrel, which did not run up its tree, but, dropping +the sweet chestnut which it carried, cried chut-chut-chut, and stamped with its +hind legs on the ground. When the roofs and chimneys of the homestead began to +emerge from the screen of boughs, Grace started, and checked herself in her +abstracted advance. +</p> + +<p> +“You clearly understand,” she said to her step-mother some of her +old misgiving returning, “that I am coming back only on condition of his +leaving as he promised? Will you let him know this, that there may be no +mistake?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Melbury, who had some long private talks with Fitzpiers, assured Grace +that she need have no doubts on that point, and that he would probably be gone +by the evening. Grace then entered with them into Melbury’s wing of the +house, and sat down listlessly in the parlor, while her step-mother went to +Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +The prompt obedience to her wishes which the surgeon showed did honor to him, +if anything could. Before Mrs. Melbury had returned to the room Grace, who was +sitting on the parlor window-bench, saw her husband go from the door under the +increasing light of morning, with a bag in his hand. While passing through the +gate he turned his head. The firelight of the room she sat in threw her figure +into dark relief against the window as she looked through the panes, and he +must have seen her distinctly. In a moment he went on, the gate fell to, and he +disappeared. At the hut she had declared that another had displaced him; and +now she had banished him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap44"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2> + +<p> +Fitzpiers had hardly been gone an hour when Grace began to sicken. The next day +she kept her room. Old Jones was called in; he murmured some statements in +which the words “feverish symptoms” occurred. Grace heard them, and +guessed the means by which she had brought this visitation upon herself. +</p> + +<p> +One day, while she still lay there with her head throbbing, wondering if she +were really going to join him who had gone before, Grammer Oliver came to her +bedside. “I don’t know whe’r this is meant for you to take, +ma’am,” she said, “but I have found it on the table. It was +left by Marty, I think, when she came this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace turned her hot eyes upon what Grammer held up. It was the phial left at +the hut by her husband when he had begged her to take some drops of its +contents if she wished to preserve herself from falling a victim to the malady +which had pulled down Winterborne. She examined it as well as she could. The +liquid was of an opaline hue, and bore a label with an inscription in Italian. +He had probably got it in his wanderings abroad. She knew but little Italian, +but could understand that the cordial was a febrifuge of some sort. Her father, +her mother, and all the household were anxious for her recovery, and she +resolved to obey her husband’s directions. Whatever the risk, if any, she +was prepared to run it. A glass of water was brought, and the drops dropped in. +</p> + +<p> +The effect, though not miraculous, was remarkable. In less than an hour she +felt calmer, cooler, better able to reflect—less inclined to fret and +chafe and wear herself away. She took a few drops more. From that time the +fever retreated, and went out like a damped conflagration. +</p> + +<p> +“How clever he is!” she said, regretfully. “Why could he not +have had more principle, so as to turn his great talents to good account? +Perhaps he has saved my useless life. But he doesn’t know it, and +doesn’t care whether he has saved it or not; and on that account will +never be told by me! Probably he only gave it to me in the arrogance of his +skill, to show the greatness of his resources beside mine, as Elijah drew down +fire from heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she had quite recovered from this foiled attack upon her life, Grace +went to Marty South’s cottage. The current of her being had again set +towards the lost Giles Winterborne. +</p> + +<p> +“Marty,” she said, “we both loved him. We will go to his +grave together.” +</p> + +<p> +Great Hintock church stood at the upper part of the village, and could be +reached without passing through the street. In the dusk of the late September +day they went thither by secret ways, walking mostly in silence side by side, +each busied with her own thoughts. Grace had a trouble exceeding +Marty’s—that haunting sense of having put out the light of his life +by her own hasty doings. She had tried to persuade herself that he might have +died of his illness, even if she had not taken possession of his house. +Sometimes she succeeded in her attempt; sometimes she did not. +</p> + +<p> +They stood by the grave together, and though the sun had gone down, they could +see over the woodland for miles, and down to the vale in which he had been +accustomed to descend every year, with his portable mill and press, to make +cider about this time. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps Grace’s first grief, the discovery that if he had lived he could +never have claimed her, had some power in softening this, the second. On +Marty’s part there was the same consideration; never would she have been +his. As no anticipation of gratified affection had been in existence while he +was with them, there was none to be disappointed now that he had gone. +</p> + +<p> +Grace was abased when, by degrees, she found that she had never understood +Giles as Marty had done. Marty South alone, of all the women in Hintock and the +world, had approximated to Winterborne’s level of intelligent intercourse +with nature. In that respect she had formed the complement to him in the other +sex, had lived as his counterpart, had subjoined her thought to his as a +corollary. +</p> + +<p> +The casual glimpses which the ordinary population bestowed upon that wondrous +world of sap and leaves called the Hintock woods had been with these two, Giles +and Marty, a clear gaze. They had been possessed of its finer mysteries as of +commonplace knowledge; had been able to read its hieroglyphs as ordinary +writing; to them the sights and sounds of night, winter, wind, storm, amid +those dense boughs, which had to Grace a touch of the uncanny, and even the +supernatural, were simple occurrences whose origin, continuance, and laws they +foreknew. They had planted together, and together they had felled; together +they had, with the run of the years, mentally collected those remoter signs and +symbols which, seen in few, were of runic obscurity, but all together made an +alphabet. From the light lashing of the twigs upon their faces, when brushing +through them in the dark, they could pronounce upon the species of the tree +whence they stretched; from the quality of the wind’s murmur through a +bough they could in like manner name its sort afar off. They knew by a glance +at a trunk if its heart were sound, or tainted with incipient decay, and by the +state of its upper twigs, the stratum that had been reached by its roots. The +artifices of the seasons were seen by them from the conjuror’s own point +of view, and not from that of the spectator’s. +</p> + +<p> +“He ought to have married <i>you</i>, Marty, and nobody else in the +world!” said Grace, with conviction, after thinking somewhat in the above +strain. +</p> + +<p> +Marty shook her head. “In all our out-door days and years together, +ma’am,” she replied, “the one thing he never spoke of to me +was love; nor I to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet you and he could speak in a tongue that nobody else knew—not +even my father, though he came nearest knowing—the tongue of the trees +and fruits and flowers themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +She could indulge in mournful fancies like this to Marty; but the hard core to +her grief—which Marty’s had not—remained. Had she been sure +that Giles’s death resulted entirely from his exposure, it would have +driven her well-nigh to insanity; but there was always that bare possibility +that his exposure had only precipitated what was inevitable. She longed to +believe that it had not done even this. +</p> + +<p> +There was only one man whose opinion on the circumstances she would be at all +disposed to trust. Her husband was that man. Yet to ask him it would be +necessary to detail the true conditions in which she and Winterborne had lived +during these three or four critical days that followed her flight; and in +withdrawing her original defiant announcement on that point, there seemed a +weakness she did not care to show. She never doubted that Fitzpiers would +believe her if she made a clean confession of the actual situation; but to +volunteer the correction would seem like signalling for a truce, and that, in +her present frame of mind, was what she did not feel the need of. +</p> + +<p> +It will probably not appear a surprising statement, after what has been already +declared of Fitzpiers, that the man whom Grace’s fidelity could not keep +faithful was stung into passionate throbs of interest concerning her by her +avowal of the contrary. +</p> + +<p> +He declared to himself that he had never known her dangerously full compass if +she were capable of such a reprisal; and, melancholy as it may be to admit the +fact, his own humiliation and regret engendered a smouldering admiration of +her. +</p> + +<p> +He passed a month or two of great misery at Exbury, the place to which he had +retired—quite as much misery indeed as Grace, could she have known of it, +would have been inclined to inflict upon any living creature, how much soever +he might have wronged her. Then a sudden hope dawned upon him; he wondered if +her affirmation were true. He asked himself whether it were not the act of a +woman whose natural purity and innocence had blinded her to the contingencies +of such an announcement. His wide experience of the sex had taught him that, in +many cases, women who ventured on hazardous matters did so because they lacked +an imagination sensuous enough to feel their full force. In this light +Grace’s bold avowal might merely have denoted the desperation of one who +was a child to the realities of obliquity. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers’s mental sufferings and suspense led him at last to take a +melancholy journey to the neighborhood of Little Hintock; and here he hovered +for hours around the scene of the purest emotional experiences that he had ever +known in his life. He walked about the woods that surrounded Melbury’s +house, keeping out of sight like a criminal. It was a fine evening, and on his +way homeward he passed near Marty South’s cottage. As usual she had +lighted her candle without closing her shutters; he saw her within as he had +seen her many times before. +</p> + +<p> +She was polishing tools, and though he had not wished to show himself, he could +not resist speaking in to her through the half-open door. “What are you +doing that for, Marty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I want to clean them. They are not mine.” He could see, +indeed, that they were not hers, for one was a spade, large and heavy, and +another was a bill-hook which she could only have used with both hands. The +spade, though not a new one, had been so completely burnished that it was +bright as silver. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers somehow divined that they were Giles Winterborne’s, and he put +the question to her. +</p> + +<p> +She replied in the affirmative. “I am going to keep ’em,” she +said, “but I can’t get his apple-mill and press. I wish could; it +is going to be sold, they say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I will buy it for you,” said Fitzpiers. “That will be +making you a return for a kindness you did me.” His glance fell upon the +girl’s rare-colored hair, which had grown again. “Oh, Marty, those +locks of yours—and that letter! But it was a kindness to send it, +nevertheless,” he added, musingly. +</p> + +<p> +After this there was confidence between them—such confidence as there had +never been before. Marty was shy, indeed, of speaking about the letter, and her +motives in writing it; but she thanked him warmly for his promise of the +cider-press. She would travel with it in the autumn season, as he had done, she +said. She would be quite strong enough, with old Creedle as an assistant. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! there was one nearer to him than you,” said Fitzpiers, +referring to Winterborne. “One who lived where he lived, and was with him +when he died.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Marty, suspecting that he did not know the true circumstances, from the +fact that Mrs. Fitzpiers and himself were living apart, told him of +Giles’s generosity to Grace in giving up his house to her at the risk, +and possibly the sacrifice, of his own life. When the surgeon heard it he +almost envied Giles his chivalrous character. He expressed a wish to Marty that +his visit to her should be kept secret, and went home thoughtful, feeling that +in more that one sense his journey to Hintock had not been in vain. +</p> + +<p> +He would have given much to win Grace’s forgiveness then. But whatever he +dared hope for in that kind from the future, there was nothing to be done yet, +while Giles Winterborne’s memory was green. To wait was imperative. A +little time might melt her frozen thoughts, and lead her to look on him with +toleration, if not with love. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap45"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2> + +<p> +Weeks and months of mourning for Winterborne had been passed by Grace in the +soothing monotony of the memorial act to which she and Marty had devoted +themselves. Twice a week the pair went in the dusk to Great Hintock, and, like +the two mourners in <i>Cymbeline</i>, sweetened his sad grave with their +flowers and their tears. Sometimes Grace thought that it was a pity neither one +of them had been his wife for a little while, and given the world a copy of him +who was so valuable in their eyes. Nothing ever had brought home to her with +such force as this death how little acquirements and culture weigh beside +sterling personal character. While her simple sorrow for his loss took a softer +edge with the lapse of the autumn and winter seasons, her self-reproach at +having had a possible hand in causing it knew little abatement. +</p> + +<p> +Little occurred at Hintock during these months of the fall and decay of the +leaf. Discussion of the almost contemporaneous death of Mrs. Charmond abroad +had waxed and waned. Fitzpiers had had a marvellous escape from being dragged +into the inquiry which followed it, through the accident of their having parted +just before under the influence of Marty South’s letter—the tiny +instrument of a cause deep in nature. +</p> + +<p> +Her body was not brought home. It seemed to accord well with the fitful fever +of that impassioned woman’s life that she should not have found a native +grave. She had enjoyed but a life-interest in the estate, which, after her +death, passed to a relative of her husband’s—one who knew not +Felice, one whose purpose seemed to be to blot out every vestige of her. +</p> + +<p> +On a certain day in February—the cheerful day of St. Valentine, in +fact—a letter reached Mrs. Fitzpiers, which had been mentally promised +her for that particular day a long time before. +</p> + +<p> +It announced that Fitzpiers was living at some midland town, where he had +obtained a temporary practice as assistant to some local medical man, whose +curative principles were all wrong, though he dared not set them right. He had +thought fit to communicate with her on that day of tender traditions to inquire +if, in the event of his obtaining a substantial practice that he had in view +elsewhere, she could forget the past and bring herself to join him. +</p> + +<p> +There the practical part ended; he then went on— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“My last year of experience has added ten years to my age, dear Grace and +dearest wife that ever erring man undervalued. You may be absolutely +indifferent to what I say, but let me say it: I have never loved any woman +alive or dead as I love, respect, and honor you at this present moment. What +you told me in the pride and haughtiness of your heart I never believed [this, +by the way, was not strictly true]; but even if I had believed it, it could +never have estranged me from you. Is there any use in telling you—no, +there is not—that I dream of your ripe lips more frequently than I say my +prayers; that the old familiar rustle of your dress often returns upon my mind +till it distracts me? If you could condescend even only to see me again you +would be breathing life into a corpse. My pure, pure Grace, modest as a +turtledove, how came I ever to possess you? For the sake of being present in +your mind on this lovers’ day, I think I would almost rather have you +hate me a little than not think of me at all. You may call my fancies +whimsical; but remember, sweet, lost one, that ‘nature is one in love, +and where ’tis fine it sends some instance of itself.’ I will not +intrude upon you further now. Make me a little bit happy by sending back one +line to say that you will consent, at any rate, to a short interview. I will +meet you and leave you as a mere acquaintance, if you will only afford me this +slight means of making a few explanations, and of putting my position before +you. Believe me, in spite of all you may do or feel, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Your lover always (once your husband),<br /> +<br /> +“E.F.” +</p> + +<p> +It was, oddly enough, the first occasion, or nearly the first on which Grace +had ever received a love-letter from him, his courtship having taken place +under conditions which rendered letter-writing unnecessary. Its perusal, +therefore, had a certain novelty for her. She thought that, upon the whole, he +wrote love-letters very well. But the chief rational interest of the letter to +the reflective Grace lay in the chance that such a meeting as he proposed would +afford her of setting her doubts at rest, one way or the other, on her actual +share in Winterborne’s death. The relief of consulting a skilled mind, +the one professional man who had seen Giles at that time, would be immense. As +for that statement that she had uttered in her disdainful grief, which at the +time she had regarded as her triumph, she was quite prepared to admit to him +that his belief was the true one; for in wronging herself as she did when she +made it, she had done what to her was a far more serious thing, wronged +Winterborne’s memory. +</p> + +<p> +Without consulting her father, or any one in the house or out of it, Grace +replied to the letter. She agreed to meet Fitzpiers on two conditions, of which +the first was that the place of meeting should be the top of Rubdown Hill, the +second that he would not object to Marty South accompanying her. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever part, much or little, there may have been in Fitzpiers’s +so-called valentine to his wife, he felt a delight as of the bursting of spring +when her brief reply came. It was one of the few pleasures that he had +experienced of late years at all resembling those of his early youth. He +promptly replied that he accepted the conditions, and named the day and hour at +which he would be on the spot she mentioned. +</p> + +<p> +A few minutes before three on the appointed day found him climbing the +well-known hill, which had been the axis of so many critical movements in their +lives during his residence at Hintock. +</p> + +<p> +The sight of each homely and well-remembered object swelled the regret that +seldom left him now. Whatever paths might lie open to his future, the soothing +shades of Hintock were forbidden him forever as a permanent dwelling-place. +</p> + +<p> +He longed for the society of Grace. But to lay offerings on her slighted altar +was his first aim, and until her propitiation was complete he would constrain +her in no way to return to him. The least reparation that he could make, in a +case where he would gladly have made much, would be to let her feel herself +absolutely free to choose between living with him and without him. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, a subtlist in emotions, he cultivated as under glasses strange and +mournful pleasures that he would not willingly let die just at present. To show +any forwardness in suggesting a <i>modus vivendi</i> to Grace would be to put +an end to these exotics. To be the vassal of her sweet will for a time, he +demanded no more, and found solace in the contemplation of the soft miseries +she caused him. +</p> + +<p> +Approaching the hill-top with a mind strung to these notions, Fitzpiers +discerned a gay procession of people coming over the crest, and was not long in +perceiving it to be a wedding-party. +</p> + +<p> +Though the wind was keen the women were in light attire, and the flowered +waistcoats of the men had a pleasing vividness of pattern. Each of the gentler +ones clung to the arm of her partner so tightly as to have with him one step, +rise, swing, gait, almost one centre of gravity. In the buxom bride Fitzpiers +recognized no other than Suke Damson, who in her light gown looked a giantess; +the small husband beside her he saw to be Tim Tangs. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers could not escape, for they had seen him; though of all the beauties +of the world whom he did not wish to meet Suke was the chief. But he put the +best face on the matter that he could and came on, the approaching company +evidently discussing him and his separation from Mrs. Fitzpiers. As the couples +closed upon him he expressed his congratulations. +</p> + +<p> +“We be just walking round the parishes to show ourselves a bit,” +said Tim. “First we het across to Delborough, then athwart to here, and +from here we go to Rubdown and Millshot, and then round by the cross-roads +home. Home says I, but it won’t be that long! We be off next +month.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed. Where to?” +</p> + +<p> +Tim informed him that they were going to New Zealand. Not but that he would +have been contented with Hintock, but his wife was ambitious and wanted to +leave, so he had given way. +</p> + +<p> +“Then good-by,” said Fitzpiers; “I may not see you +again.” He shook hands with Tim and turned to the bride. “Good-by, +Suke,” he said, taking her hand also. “I wish you and your husband +prosperity in the country you have chosen.” With this he left them, and +hastened on to his appointment. +</p> + +<p> +The wedding-party re-formed and resumed march likewise. But in restoring his +arm to Suke, Tim noticed that her full and blooming countenance had undergone a +change. “Holloa! me dear—what’s the matter?” said Tim. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing to speak o’,” said she. But to give the lie to her +assertion she was seized with lachrymose twitches, that soon produced a +dribbling face. +</p> + +<p> +“How—what the devil’s this about!” exclaimed the +bridegroom. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a little wee bit overcome, poor dear!” said the first +bridesmaid, unfolding her handkerchief and wiping Suke’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I never did like parting from people!” said Suke, as soon as she +could speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Why him in particular?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—he’s such a clever doctor, that ’tis a thousand +pities we sha’n’t see him any more! There’ll be no such +clever doctor as he in New Zealand, if I should require one; and the thought +o’t got the better of my feelings!” +</p> + +<p> +They walked on, but Tim’s face had grown rigid and pale, for he recalled +slight circumstances, disregarded at the time of their occurrence. The former +boisterous laughter of the wedding-party at the groomsman’s jokes was +heard ringing through the woods no more. +</p> + +<p> +By this time Fitzpiers had advanced on his way to the top of the hill, where he +saw two figures emerging from the bank on the right hand. These were the +expected ones, Grace and Marty South, who had evidently come there by a short +and secret path through the wood. Grace was muffled up in her winter dress, and +he thought that she had never looked so seductive as at this moment, in the +noontide bright but heatless sun, and the keen wind, and the purplish-gray +masses of brushwood around. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers continued to regard the nearing picture, till at length their glances +met for a moment, when she demurely sent off hers at a tangent and gave him the +benefit of her three-quarter face, while with courteous completeness of conduct +he lifted his hat in a large arc. Marty dropped behind; and when Fitzpiers held +out his hand, Grace touched it with her fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“I have agreed to be here mostly because I wanted to ask you something +important,” said Mrs. Fitzpiers, her intonation modulating in a direction +that she had not quite wished it to take. +</p> + +<p> +“I am most attentive,” said her husband. “Shall we take to +the wood for privacy?” +</p> + +<p> +Grace demurred, and Fitzpiers gave in, and they kept the public road. +</p> + +<p> +At any rate she would take his arm? This also was gravely negatived, the +refusal being audible to Marty. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Fitzpiers—how can you ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“Right, right,” said he, his effusiveness shrivelled up. +</p> + +<p> +As they walked on she returned to her inquiry. “It is about a matter that +may perhaps be unpleasant to you. But I think I need not consider that too +carefully.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said Fitzpiers, heroically. +</p> + +<p> +She then took him back to the time of poor Winterborne’s death, and +related the precise circumstances amid which his fatal illness had come upon +him, particularizing the dampness of the shelter to which he had betaken +himself, his concealment from her of the hardships that he was undergoing, all +that he had put up with, all that he had done for her in his scrupulous +considerateness. The retrospect brought her to tears as she asked him if he +thought that the sin of having driven him to his death was upon her. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers could hardly help showing his satisfaction at what her narrative +indirectly revealed, the actual harmlessness of an escapade with her lover, +which had at first, by her own showing, looked so grave, and he did not care to +inquire whether that harmlessness had been the result of aim or of accident. +With regard to her question, he declared that in his judgment no human being +could answer it. He thought that upon the whole the balance of probabilities +turned in her favor. Winterborne’s apparent strength, during the last +months of his life, must have been delusive. It had often occurred that after a +first attack of that insidious disease a person’s apparent recovery was a +physiological mendacity. +</p> + +<p> +The relief which came to Grace lay almost as much in sharing her knowledge of +the particulars with an intelligent mind as in the assurances Fitzpiers gave +her. “Well, then, to put this case before you, and obtain your +professional opinion, was chiefly why I consented to come here to-day,” +said she, when he had reached the aforesaid conclusion. +</p> + +<p> +“For no other reason at all?” he asked, ruefully. +</p> + +<p> +“It was nearly the whole.” +</p> + +<p> +They stood and looked over a gate at twenty or thirty starlings feeding in the +grass, and he started the talk again by saying, in a low voice, “And yet +I love you more than ever I loved you in my life.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace did not move her eyes from the birds, and folded her delicate lips as if +to keep them in subjection. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a different kind of love altogether,” said he. “Less +passionate; more profound. It has nothing to do with the material conditions of +the object at all; much to do with her character and goodness, as revealed by +closer observation. ‘Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with +dearer love.’” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s out of <i>Measure for Measure</i>,” said she, +slyly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—I meant it as a citation,” blandly replied Fitzpiers. +“Well, then, why not give me a very little bit of your heart +again?” +</p> + +<p> +The crash of a felled tree in the remote depths of the wood recalled the past +at that moment, and all the homely faithfulness of Winterborne. +“Don’t ask it! My heart is in the grave with Giles,” she +replied, stanchly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mine is with you—in no less deep a grave, I fear, according to +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very sorry; but it cannot be helped.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you be sorry for me, when you wilfully keep open the +grave?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—that’s not so,” returned Grace, quickly, and +moved to go away from him. +</p> + +<p> +“But, dearest Grace,” said he, “you have condescended to +come; and I thought from it that perhaps when I had passed through a long state +of probation you would be generous. But if there can be no hope of our getting +completely reconciled, treat me gently—wretch though I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not say you were a wretch, nor have I ever said so.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you have such a contemptuous way of looking at me that I fear you +think so.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace’s heart struggled between the wish not to be harsh and the fear +that she might mislead him. “I cannot look contemptuous unless I feel +contempt,” she said, evasively. “And all I feel is +lovelessness.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been very bad, I know,” he returned. “But unless you +can really love me again, Grace, I would rather go away from you forever. I +don’t want you to receive me again for duty’s sake, or anything of +that sort. If I had not cared more for your affection and forgiveness than my +own personal comfort, I should never have come back here. I could have obtained +a practice at a distance, and have lived my own life without coldness or +reproach. But I have chosen to return to the one spot on earth where my name is +tarnished—to enter the house of a man from whom I have had worse +treatment than from any other man alive—all for you!” +</p> + +<p> +This was undeniably true, and it had its weight with Grace, who began to look +as if she thought she had been shockingly severe. +</p> + +<p> +“Before you go,” he continued, “I want to know your pleasure +about me—what you wish me to do, or not to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are independent of me, and it seems a mockery to ask that. Far be it +from me to advise. But I will think it over. I rather need advice myself than +stand in a position to give it.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i> don’t need advice, wisest, dearest woman that ever +lived. If you did—” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you give it to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you act upon what I gave?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not a fair inquiry,” said she, smiling despite her +gravity. “I don’t mind hearing it—what you do really think +the most correct and proper course for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is so easy for me to say, and yet I dare not, for it would be +provoking you to remonstrances.” +</p> + +<p> +Knowing, of course, what the advice would be, she did not press him further, +and was about to beckon Marty forward and leave him, when he interrupted her +with, “Oh, one moment, dear Grace—you will meet me again?” +</p> + +<p> +She eventually agreed to see him that day fortnight. Fitzpiers expostulated at +the interval, but the half-alarmed earnestness with which she entreated him not +to come sooner made him say hastily that he submitted to her will—that he +would regard her as a friend only, anxious for his reform and well-being, till +such time as she might allow him to exceed that privilege. +</p> + +<p> +All this was to assure her; it was only too clear that he had not won her +confidence yet. It amazed Fitzpiers, and overthrew all his deductions from +previous experience, to find that this girl, though she had been married to +him, could yet be so coy. Notwithstanding a certain fascination that it carried +with it, his reflections were sombre as he went homeward; he saw how deep had +been his offence to produce so great a wariness in a gentle and once +unsuspicious soul. +</p> + +<p> +He was himself too fastidious to care to coerce her. To be an object of +misgiving or dislike to a woman who shared his home was what he could not +endure the thought of. Life as it stood was more tolerable. +</p> + +<p> +When he was gone, Marty joined Mrs. Fitzpiers. She would fain have consulted +Marty on the question of Platonic relations with her former husband, as she +preferred to regard him. But Marty showed no great interest in their affairs, +so Grace said nothing. They came onward, and saw Melbury standing at the scene +of the felling which had been audible to them, when, telling Marty that she +wished her meeting with Mr. Fitzpiers to be kept private, she left the girl to +join her father. At any rate, she would consult him on the expediency of +occasionally seeing her husband. +</p> + +<p> +Her father was cheerful, and walked by her side as he had done in earlier days. +“I was thinking of you when you came up,” he said. “I have +considered that what has happened is for the best. Since your husband is gone +away, and seems not to wish to trouble you, why, let him go, and drop out of +your life. Many women are worse off. You can live here comfortably enough, and +he can emigrate, or do what he likes for his good. I wouldn’t mind +sending him the further sum of money he might naturally expect to come to him, +so that you may not be bothered with him any more. He could hardly have gone on +living here without speaking to me, or meeting me; and that would have been +very unpleasant on both sides.” +</p> + +<p> +These remarks checked her intention. There was a sense of weakness in following +them by saying that she had just met her husband by appointment. “Then +you would advise me not to communicate with him?” she observed. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never advise ye again. You are your own mistress—do as you +like. But my opinion is that if you don’t live with him, you had better +live without him, and not go shilly-shallying and playing bopeep. You sent him +away; and now he’s gone. Very well; trouble him no more.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace felt a guiltiness—she hardly knew why—and made no confession. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap46"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2> + +<p> +The woods were uninteresting, and Grace stayed in-doors a great deal. She +became quite a student, reading more than she had done since her marriage But +her seclusion was always broken for the periodical visit to Winterborne’s +grave with Marty, which was kept up with pious strictness, for the purpose of +putting snow-drops, primroses, and other vernal flowers thereon as they came. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon at sunset she was standing just outside her father’s +garden, which, like the rest of the Hintock enclosures, abutted into the wood. +A slight foot-path led along here, forming a secret way to either of the houses +by getting through its boundary hedge. Grace was just about to adopt this mode +of entry when a figure approached along the path, and held up his hand to +detain her. It was her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“I am delighted,” he said, coming up out of breath; and there +seemed no reason to doubt his words. “I saw you some way off—I was +afraid you would go in before I could reach you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a week before the time,” said she, reproachfully. “I +said a fortnight from the last meeting.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear, you don’t suppose I could wait a fortnight without trying +to get a glimpse of you, even though you had declined to meet me! Would it make +you angry to know that I have been along this path at dusk three or four times +since our last meeting? Well, how are you?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not refuse her hand, but when he showed a wish to retain it a moment +longer than mere formality required, she made it smaller, so that it slipped +away from him, with again that same alarmed look which always followed his +attempts in this direction. He saw that she was not yet out of the elusive +mood; not yet to be treated presumingly; and he was correspondingly careful to +tranquillize her. +</p> + +<p> +His assertion had seemed to impress her somewhat. “I had no idea you came +so often,” she said. “How far do you come from?” +</p> + +<p> +“From Exbury. I always walk from Sherton-Abbas, for if I hire, people +will know that I come; and my success with you so far has not been great enough +to justify such overtness. Now, my dear one—as I <i>must</i> call +you—I put it to you: will you see me a little oftener as the spring +advances?” +</p> + +<p> +Grace lapsed into unwonted sedateness, and avoiding the question, said, +“I wish you would concentrate on your profession, and give up those +strange studies that used to distract you so much. I am sure you would get +on.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is the very thing I am doing. I was going to ask you to +burn—or, at least, get rid of—all my philosophical literature. It +is in the bookcases in your rooms. The fact is, I never cared much for abstruse +studies.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am so glad to hear you say that. And those other books—those +piles of old plays—what good are they to a medical man?” +</p> + +<p> +“None whatever!” he replied, cheerfully. “Sell them at +Sherton for what they will fetch.” +</p> + +<p> +“And those dreadful old French romances, with their horrid spellings of +‘filz’ and ‘ung’ and ‘ilz’ and +‘mary’ and ‘ma foy?’” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t been reading them, Grace?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—I just looked into them, that was all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Make a bonfire of ’em directly you get home. I meant to do it +myself. I can’t think what possessed me ever to collect them. I have only +a few professional hand-books now, and am quite a practical man. I am in hopes +of having some good news to tell you soon, and then do you think you +could—come to me again?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather you did not press me on that just now,” she +replied, with some feeling. “You have said you mean to lead a new, +useful, effectual life; but I should like to see you put it in practice for a +little while before you address that query to me. Besides—I could not +live with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +Grace was silent a few instants. “I go with Marty to Giles’s grave. +We swore we would show him that devotion. And I mean to keep it up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I wouldn’t mind that at all. I have no right to expect +anything else, and I will not wish you to keep away. I liked the man as well as +any I ever knew. In short, I would accompany you a part of the way to the +place, and smoke a cigar on the stile while I waited till you came back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you haven’t given up smoking?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—ahem—no. I have thought of doing so, but—” +</p> + +<p> +His extreme complacence had rather disconcerted Grace, and the question about +smoking had been to effect a diversion. Presently she said, firmly, and with a +moisture in her eye that he could not see, as her mind returned to poor +Giles’s “frustrate ghost,” “I don’t like +you—to speak lightly on that subject, if you did speak lightly. To be +frank with you—quite frank—I think of him as my betrothed lover +still. I cannot help it. So that it would be wrong for me to join you.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers was now uneasy. “You say your betrothed lover still,” he +rejoined. “When, then, were you betrothed to him, or engaged, as we +common people say?” +</p> + +<p> +“When you were away.” +</p> + +<p> +“How could that be?” +</p> + +<p> +Grace would have avoided this; but her natural candor led her on. “It was +when I was under the impression that my marriage with you was about to be +annulled, and that he could then marry me. So I encouraged him to love +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers winced visibly; and yet, upon the whole, she was right in telling it. +Indeed, his perception that she was right in her absolute sincerity kept up his +affectionate admiration for her under the pain of the rebuff. Time had been +when the avowal that Grace had deliberately taken steps to replace him would +have brought him no sorrow. But she so far dominated him now that he could not +bear to hear her words, although the object of her high regard was no more. +</p> + +<p> +“It is rough upon me—that!” he said, bitterly. “Oh, +Grace—I did not know you—tried to get rid of me! I suppose it is of +no use, but I ask, cannot you hope to—find a little love in your heart +for me again?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I could I would oblige you; but I fear I cannot!” she replied, +with illogical ruefulness. “And I don’t see why you should mind my +having had one lover besides yourself in my life, when you have had so +many.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I can tell you honestly that I love you better than all of them put +together, and that’s what you will not tell me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry; but I fear I cannot,” she said, sighing again. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if you ever will?” He looked musingly into her indistinct +face, as if he would read the future there. “Now have pity, and tell me: +will you try?” +</p> + +<p> +“To love you again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; if you can.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know how to reply,” she answered, her embarrassment +proving her truth. “Will you promise to leave me quite free as to seeing +you or not seeing you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. Have I given any ground for you to doubt my first promise in +that respect?” +</p> + +<p> +She was obliged to admit that he had not. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I think that you might get your heart out of that grave,” +said he, with playful sadness. “It has been there a long time.” +</p> + +<p> +She faintly shook her head, but said, “I’ll try to think of you +more—if I can.” +</p> + +<p> +With this Fitzpiers was compelled to be satisfied, and he asked her when she +would meet him again. +</p> + +<p> +“As we arranged—in a fortnight.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it must be a fortnight it must!” +</p> + +<p> +“This time at least. I’ll consider by the day I see you again if I +can shorten the interval.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, be that as it may, I shall come at least twice a week to look at +your window.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must do as you like about that. Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say ‘husband.’” +</p> + +<p> +She seemed almost inclined to give him the word; but exclaiming, “No, no; +I cannot,” slipped through the garden-hedge and disappeared. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Fitzpiers did not exaggerate when he told her that he should haunt the +precincts of the dwelling. But his persistence in this course did not result in +his seeing her much oftener than at the fortnightly interval which she had +herself marked out as proper. At these times, however, she punctually appeared, +and as the spring wore on the meetings were kept up, though their character +changed but little with the increase in their number. +</p> + +<p> +The small garden of the cottage occupied by the Tangs family—father, son, +and now son’s wife—aligned with the larger one of the timber-dealer +at its upper end; and when young Tim, after leaving work at Melbury’s, +stood at dusk in the little bower at the corner of his enclosure to smoke a +pipe, he frequently observed the surgeon pass along the outside track +before-mentioned. Fitzpiers always walked loiteringly, pensively, looking with +a sharp eye into the gardens one after another as he proceeded; for Fitzpiers +did not wish to leave the now absorbing spot too quickly, after travelling so +far to reach it; hoping always for a glimpse of her whom he passionately +desired to take to his arms anew. +</p> + +<p> +Now Tim began to be struck with these loitering progresses along the garden +boundaries in the gloaming, and wondered what they boded. It was, naturally, +quite out of his power to divine the singular, sentimental revival in +Fitzpiers’s heart; the fineness of tissue which could take a deep, +emotional—almost also an artistic—pleasure in being the yearning +<i>innamorato</i> of a woman he once had deserted, would have seemed an +absurdity to the young sawyer. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers were separated; therefore +the question of affection as between them was settled. But his Suke had, since +that meeting on their marriage-day, repentantly admitted, to the urgency of his +questioning, a good deal concerning her past levities. Putting all things +together, he could hardly avoid connecting Fitzpiers’s mysterious visits +to this spot with Suke’s residence under his roof. But he made himself +fairly easy: the vessel in which they were about to emigrate sailed that month; +and then Suke would be out of Fitzpiers’s way forever. +</p> + +<p> +The interval at last expired, and the eve of their departure arrived. They were +pausing in the room of the cottage allotted to them by Tim’s father, +after a busy day of preparation, which left them weary. In a corner stood their +boxes, crammed and corded, their large case for the hold having already been +sent away. The firelight shone upon Suke’s fine face and form as she +stood looking into it, and upon the face of Tim seated in a corner, and upon +the walls of his father’s house, which he was beholding that night almost +for the last time. +</p> + +<p> +Tim Tangs was not happy. This scheme of emigration was dividing him from his +father—for old Tangs would on no account leave Hintock—and had it +not been for Suke’s reputation and his own dignity, Tim would at the last +moment have abandoned the project. As he sat in the back part of the room he +regarded her moodily, and the fire and the boxes. One thing he had particularly +noticed this evening—she was very restless; fitful in her actions, unable +to remain seated, and in a marked degree depressed. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry that you be going, after all, Suke?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She sighed involuntarily. “I don’t know but that I be,” she +answered. “’Tis natural, isn’t it, when one is going +away?” +</p> + +<p> +“But you wasn’t born here as I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s folk left behind that you’d fain have with +’ee, I reckon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you think that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen things and I’ve heard things; and, Suke, I say +’twill be a good move for me to get ’ee away. I don’t mind +his leavings abroad, but I do mind ’em at home.” +</p> + +<p> +Suke’s face was not changed from its aspect of listless indifference by +the words. She answered nothing; and shortly after he went out for his +customary pipe of tobacco at the top of the garden. +</p> + +<p> +The restlessness of Suke had indeed owed its presence to the gentleman of +Tim’s suspicions, but in a different—and it must be added in +justice to her—more innocent sense than he supposed, judging from former +doings. She had accidentally discovered that Fitzpiers was in the habit of +coming secretly once or twice a week to Hintock, and knew that this evening was +a favorite one of the seven for his journey. As she was going next day to leave +the country, Suke thought there could be no great harm in giving way to a +little sentimentality by obtaining a glimpse of him quite unknown to himself or +to anybody, and thus taking a silent last farewell. Aware that +Fitzpiers’s time for passing was at hand she thus betrayed her feeling. +No sooner, therefore, had Tim left the room than she let herself noiselessly +out of the house, and hastened to the corner of the garden, whence she could +witness the surgeon’s transit across the scene—if he had not +already gone by. +</p> + +<p> +Her light cotton dress was visible to Tim lounging in the arbor of the opposite +corner, though he was hidden from her. He saw her stealthily climb into the +hedge, and so ensconce herself there that nobody could have the least doubt her +purpose was to watch unseen for a passer-by. +</p> + +<p> +He went across to the spot and stood behind her. Suke started, having in her +blundering way forgotten that he might be near. She at once descended from the +hedge. +</p> + +<p> +“So he’s coming to-night,” said Tim, laconically. “And +we be always anxious to see our dears.” +</p> + +<p> +“He <i>is</i> coming to-night,” she replied, with defiance. +“And we <i>be</i> anxious for our dears.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then will you step in-doors, where your dear will soon jine ’ee? +We’ve to mouster by half-past three to-morrow, and if we don’t get +to bed by eight at latest our faces will be as long as clock-cases all +day.” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated for a minute, but ultimately obeyed, going slowly down the garden +to the house, where he heard the door-latch click behind her. +</p> + +<p> +Tim was incensed beyond measure. His marriage had so far been a total failure, +a source of bitter regret; and the only course for improving his case, that of +leaving the country, was a sorry, and possibly might not be a very effectual +one. Do what he would, his domestic sky was likely to be overcast to the end of +the day. Thus he brooded, and his resentment gathered force. He craved a means +of striking one blow back at the cause of his cheerless plight, while he was +still on the scene of his discomfiture. For some minutes no method suggested +itself, and then he had an idea. +</p> + +<p> +Coming to a sudden resolution, he hastened along the garden, and entered the +one attached to the next cottage, which had formerly been the dwelling of a +game-keeper. Tim descended the path to the back of the house, where only an old +woman lived at present, and reaching the wall he stopped. Owing to the slope of +the ground the roof-eaves of the linhay were here within touch, and he thrust +his arm up under them, feeling about in the space on the top of the wall-plate. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I thought my memory didn’t deceive me!” he lipped +silently. +</p> + +<p> +With some exertion he drew down a cobwebbed object curiously framed in iron, +which clanked as he moved it. It was about three feet in length and half as +wide. Tim contemplated it as well as he could in the dying light of day, and +raked off the cobwebs with his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“That will spoil his pretty shins for’n, I reckon!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was a man-trap. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap47"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2> + +<p> +Were the inventors of automatic machines to be ranged according to the +excellence of their devices for producing sound artistic torture, the creator +of the man-trap would occupy a very respectable if not a very high place. +</p> + +<p> +It should rather, however, be said, the inventor of the particular form of +man-trap of which this found in the keeper’s out-house was a specimen. +For there were other shapes and other sizes, instruments which, if placed in a +row beside one of the type disinterred by Tim, would have worn the subordinate +aspect of the bears, wild boars, or wolves in a travelling menagerie, as +compared with the leading lion or tiger. In short, though many varieties had +been in use during those centuries which we are accustomed to look back upon as +the true and only period of merry England—in the rural districts more +especially—and onward down to the third decade of the nineteenth century, +this model had borne the palm, and had been most usually followed when the +orchards and estates required new ones. +</p> + +<p> +There had been the toothless variety used by the softer-hearted +landlords—quite contemptible in their clemency. The jaws of these +resembled the jaws of an old woman to whom time has left nothing but gums. +There were also the intermediate or half-toothed sorts, probably devised by the +middle-natured squires, or those under the influence of their wives: two inches +of mercy, two inches of cruelty, two inches of mere nip, two inches of probe, +and so on, through the whole extent of the jaws. There were also, as a class +apart, the bruisers, which did not lacerate the flesh, but only crushed the +bone. +</p> + +<p> +The sight of one of these gins when set produced a vivid impression that it was +endowed with life. It exhibited the combined aspects of a shark, a crocodile, +and a scorpion. Each tooth was in the form of a tapering spine, two and a +quarter inches long, which, when the jaws were closed, stood in alternation +from this side and from that. When they were open, the two halves formed a +complete circle between two and three feet in diameter, the plate or +treading-place in the midst being about a foot square, while from beneath +extended in opposite directions the soul of the apparatus, the pair of springs, +each one being of a stiffness to render necessary a lever or the whole weight +of the body when forcing it down. +</p> + +<p> +There were men at this time still living at Hintock who remembered when the gin +and others like it were in use. Tim Tangs’s great-uncle had endured a +night of six hours in this very trap, which lamed him for life. Once a keeper +of Hintock woods set it on the track of a poacher, and afterwards, coming back +that way, forgetful of what he had done, walked into it himself. The wound +brought on lockjaw, of which he died. This event occurred during the thirties, +and by the year 1840 the use of such implements was well-nigh discontinued in +the neighborhood. But being made entirely of iron, they by no means +disappeared, and in almost every village one could be found in some nook or +corner as readily as this was found by Tim. It had, indeed, been a fearful +amusement of Tim and other Hintock lads—especially those who had a dim +sense of becoming renowned poachers when they reached their prime—to drag +out this trap from its hiding, set it, and throw it with billets of wood, which +were penetrated by the teeth to the depth of near an inch. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as he had examined the trap, and found that the hinges and springs were +still perfect, he shouldered it without more ado, and returned with his burden +to his own garden, passing on through the hedge to the path immediately outside +the boundary. Here, by the help of a stout stake, he set the trap, and laid it +carefully behind a bush while he went forward to reconnoitre. As has been +stated, nobody passed this way for days together sometimes; but there was just +a possibility that some other pedestrian than the one in request might arrive, +and it behooved Tim to be careful as to the identity of his victim. +</p> + +<p> +Going about a hundred yards along the rising ground to the right, he reached a +ridge whereon a large and thick holly grew. Beyond this for some distance the +wood was more open, and the course which Fitzpiers must pursue to reach the +point, if he came to-night, was visible a long way forward. +</p> + +<p> +For some time there was no sign of him or of anybody. Then there shaped itself +a spot out of the dim mid-distance, between the masses of brushwood on either +hand. And it enlarged, and Tim could hear the brushing of feet over the tufts +of sour-grass. The airy gait revealed Fitzpiers even before his exact outline +could be seen. +</p> + +<p> +Tim Tangs turned about, and ran down the opposite side of the hill, till he was +again at the head of his own garden. It was the work of a few moments to drag +out the man-trap, very gently—that the plate might not be disturbed +sufficiently to throw it—to a space between a pair of young oaks which, +rooted in contiguity, grew apart upward, forming a V-shaped opening between; +and, being backed up by bushes, left this as the only course for a +foot-passenger. In it he laid the trap with the same gentleness of handling, +locked the chain round one of the trees, and finally slid back the guard which +was placed to keep the gin from accidentally catching the arms of him who set +it, or, to use the local and better word, “toiled” it. +</p> + +<p> +Having completed these arrangements, Tim sprang through the adjoining hedge of +his father’s garden, ran down the path, and softly entered the house. +</p> + +<p> +Obedient to his order, Suke had gone to bed; and as soon as he had bolted the +door, Tim unlaced and kicked off his boots at the foot of the stairs, and +retired likewise, without lighting a candle. His object seemed to be to undress +as soon as possible. Before, however, he had completed the operation, a long +cry resounded without—penetrating, but indescribable. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” said Suke, starting up in bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Sounds as if somebody had caught a hare in his gin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” said she. “It was not a hare, ’twas louder. +Hark!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do ’ee get to sleep,” said Tim. “How be you going to +wake at half-past three else?” +</p> + +<p> +She lay down and was silent. Tim stealthily opened the window and listened. +Above the low harmonies produced by the instrumentation of the various species +of trees around the premises he could hear the twitching of a chain from the +spot whereon he had set the man-trap. But further human sound there was none. +</p> + +<p> +Tim was puzzled. In the haste of his project he had not calculated upon a cry; +but if one, why not more? He soon ceased to essay an answer, for Hintock was +dead to him already. In half a dozen hours he would be out of its precincts for +life, on his way to the antipodes. He closed the window and lay down. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The hour which had brought these movements of Tim to birth had been operating +actively elsewhere. Awaiting in her father’s house the minute of her +appointment with her husband, Grace Fitzpiers deliberated on many things. +Should she inform her father before going out that the estrangement of herself +and Edgar was not so complete as he had imagined, and deemed desirable for her +happiness? If she did so she must in some measure become the apologist of her +husband, and she was not prepared to go so far. +</p> + +<p> +As for him, he kept her in a mood of considerate gravity. He certainly had +changed. He had at his worst times always been gentle in his manner towards +her. Could it be that she might make of him a true and worthy husband yet? She +had married him; there was no getting over that; and ought she any longer to +keep him at a distance? His suave deference to her lightest whim on the +question of his comings and goings, when as her lawful husband he might show a +little independence, was a trait in his character as unexpected as it was +engaging. If she had been his empress, and he her thrall, he could not have +exhibited a more sensitive care to avoid intruding upon her against her will. +</p> + +<p> +Impelled by a remembrance she took down a prayer-book and turned to the +marriage-service. Reading it slowly through, she became quite appalled at her +recent off-handedness, when she rediscovered what awfully solemn promises she +had made him at those chancel steps not so very long ago. +</p> + +<p> +She became lost in long ponderings on how far a person’s conscience might +be bound by vows made without at the time a full recognition of their force. +That particular sentence, beginning “Whom God hath joined +together,” was a staggerer for a gentlewoman of strong devotional +sentiment. She wondered whether God really did join them together. Before she +had done deliberating the time of her engagement drew near, and she went out of +the house almost at the moment that Tim Tangs retired to his own. +</p> + +<p> +The position of things at that critical juncture was briefly as follows. +</p> + +<p> +Two hundred yards to the right of the upper end of Tangs’s garden +Fitzpiers was still advancing, having now nearly reached the summit of the +wood-clothed ridge, the path being the actual one which further on passed +between the two young oaks. Thus far it was according to Tim’s +conjecture. But about two hundred yards to the left, or rather less, was +arising a condition which he had not divined, the emergence of Grace as +aforesaid from the upper corner of her father’s garden, with the view of +meeting Tim’s intended victim. Midway between husband and wife was the +diabolical trap, silent, open, ready. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers’s walk that night had been cheerful, for he was convinced that +the slow and gentle method he had adopted was promising success. The very +restraint that he was obliged to exercise upon himself, so as not to kill the +delicate bud of returning confidence, fed his flame. He walked so much more +rapidly than Grace that, if they continued advancing as they had begun, he +would reach the trap a good half-minute before she could reach the same spot. +</p> + +<p> +But here a new circumstance came in; to escape the unpleasantness of being +watched or listened to by lurkers—naturally curious by reason of their +strained relations—they had arranged that their meeting for to-night +should be at the holm-tree on the ridge above named. So soon, accordingly, as +Fitzpiers reached the tree he stood still to await her. +</p> + +<p> +He had not paused under the prickly foliage more than two minutes when he +thought he heard a scream from the other side of the ridge. Fitzpiers wondered +what it could mean; but such wind as there was just now blew in an adverse +direction, and his mood was light. He set down the origin of the sound to one +of the superstitious freaks or frolicsome scrimmages between sweethearts that +still survived in Hintock from old-English times; and waited on where he stood +till ten minutes had passed. Feeling then a little uneasy, his mind reverted to +the scream; and he went forward over the summit and down the embowered incline, +till he reached the pair of sister oaks with the narrow opening between them. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers stumbled and all but fell. Stretching down his hand to ascertain the +obstruction, it came in contact with a confused mass of silken drapery and +iron-work that conveyed absolutely no explanatory idea to his mind at all. It +was but the work of a moment to strike a match; and then he saw a sight which +congealed his blood. +</p> + +<p> +The man-trap was thrown; and between its jaws was part of a woman’s +clothing—a patterned silk skirt—gripped with such violence that the +iron teeth had passed through it, skewering its tissue in a score of places. He +immediately recognized the skirt as that of one of his wife’s +gowns—the gown that she had worn when she met him on the very last +occasion. +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers had often studied the effect of these instruments when examining the +collection at Hintock House, and the conception instantly flashed through him +that Grace had been caught, taken out mangled by some chance passer, and +carried home, some of her clothes being left behind in the difficulty of +getting her free. The shock of this conviction, striking into the very current +of high hope, was so great that he cried out like one in corporal agony, and in +his misery bowed himself down to the ground. +</p> + +<p> +Of all the degrees and qualities of punishment that Fitzpiers had undergone +since his sins against Grace first began, not any even approximated in +intensity to this. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my own—my darling! Oh, cruel Heaven—it is too much, +this!” he cried, writhing and rocking himself over the sorry accessories +of her he deplored. +</p> + +<p> +The voice of his distress was sufficiently loud to be audible to any one who +might have been there to hear it; and one there was. Right and left of the +narrow pass between the oaks were dense bushes; and now from behind these a +female figure glided, whose appearance even in the gloom was, though graceful +in outline, noticeably strange. +</p> + +<p> +She was in white up to the waist, and figured above. She was, in short, Grace, +his wife, lacking the portion of her dress which the gin retained. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be grieved about me—don’t, dear Edgar!” +she exclaimed, rushing up and bending over him. “I am not hurt a bit! I +was coming on to find you after I had released myself, but I heard footsteps; +and I hid away, because I was without some of my clothing, and I did not know +who the person might be.” +</p> + +<p> +Fitzpiers had sprung to his feet, and his next act was no less unpremeditated +by him than it was irresistible by her, and would have been so by any woman not +of Amazonian strength. He clasped his arms completely round, pressed her to his +breast, and kissed her passionately. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not dead!—you are not hurt! Thank God—thank +God!” he said, almost sobbing in his delight and relief from the horror +of his apprehension. “Grace, my wife, my love, how is this—what has +happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was coming on to you,” she said as distinctly as she could in +the half-smothered state of her face against his. “I was trying to be as +punctual as possible, and as I had started a minute late I ran along the path +very swiftly—fortunately for myself. Just when I had passed between these +trees I felt something clutch at my dress from behind with a noise, and the +next moment I was pulled backward by it, and fell to the ground. I screamed +with terror, thinking it was a man lying down there to murder me, but the next +moment I discovered it was iron, and that my clothes were caught in a trap. I +pulled this way and that, but the thing would not let go, drag it as I would, +and I did not know what to do. I did not want to alarm my father or anybody, as +I wished nobody to know of these meetings with you; so I could think of no +other plan than slipping off my skirt, meaning to run on and tell you what a +strange accident had happened to me. But when I had just freed myself by +leaving the dress behind, I heard steps, and not being sure it was you, I did +not like to be seen in such a pickle, so I hid away.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was only your speed that saved you! One or both of your legs would +have been broken if you had come at ordinary walking pace.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or yours, if you had got here first,” said she, beginning to +realize the whole ghastliness of the possibility. “Oh, Edgar, there has +been an Eye watching over us to-night, and we should be thankful indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +He continued to press his face to hers. “You are mine—mine again +now.” +</p> + +<p> +She gently owned that she supposed she was. “I heard what you said when +you thought I was injured,” she went on, shyly, “and I know that a +man who could suffer as you were suffering must have a tender regard for me. +But how does this awful thing come here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it has something to do with poachers.” Fitzpiers was +still so shaken by the sense of her danger that he was obliged to sit awhile, +and it was not until Grace said, “If I could only get my skirt out nobody +would know anything about it,” that he bestirred himself. +</p> + +<p> +By their united efforts, each standing on one of the springs of the trap, they +pressed them down sufficiently to insert across the jaws a billet which they +dragged from a faggot near at hand; and it was then possible to extract the +silk mouthful from the monster’s bite, creased and pierced with many +holes, but not torn. Fitzpiers assisted her to put it on again; and when her +customary contours were thus restored they walked on together, Grace taking his +arm, till he effected an improvement by clasping it round her waist. +</p> + +<p> +The ice having been broken in this unexpected manner, she made no further +attempt at reserve. “I would ask you to come into the house,” she +said, “but my meetings with you have been kept secret from my father, and +I should like to prepare him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, dearest. I could not very well have accepted the invitation. +I shall never live here again—as much for your sake as for mine. I have +news to tell you on this very point, but my alarm had put it out of my head. I +have bought a practice, or rather a partnership, in the Midlands, and I must go +there in a week to take up permanent residence. My poor old great-aunt died +about eight months ago, and left me enough to do this. I have taken a little +furnished house for a time, till we can get one of our own.” +</p> + +<p> +He described the place, and the surroundings, and the view from the windows, +and Grace became much interested. “But why are you not there now?” +she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I cannot tear myself away from here till I have your promise. +Now, darling, you will accompany me there—will you not? To-night has +settled that.” +</p> + +<p> +Grace’s tremblings had gone off, and she did not say nay. They went on +together. +</p> + +<p> +The adventure, and the emotions consequent upon the reunion which that event +had forced on, combined to render Grace oblivious of the direction of their +desultory ramble, till she noticed they were in an encircled glade in the +densest part of the wood, whereon the moon, that had imperceptibly added its +rays to the scene, shone almost vertically. It was an exceptionally soft, balmy +evening for the time of year, which was just that transient period in the May +month when beech-trees have suddenly unfolded large limp young leaves of the +softness of butterflies’ wings. Boughs bearing such leaves hung low +around, and completely enclosed them, so that it was as if they were in a great +green vase, which had moss for its bottom and leaf sides. +</p> + +<p> +The clouds having been packed in the west that evening so as to retain the +departing glare a long while, the hour had seemed much earlier than it was. But +suddenly the question of time occurred to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I must go back,” she said; and without further delay they set +their faces towards Hintock. As they walked he examined his watch by the aid of +the now strong moonlight. +</p> + +<p> +“By the gods, I think I have lost my train!” said Fitzpiers. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me—whereabouts are we?” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Two miles in the direction of Sherton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then do you hasten on, Edgar. I am not in the least afraid. I recognize +now the part of the wood we are in and I can find my way back quite easily. +I’ll tell my father that we have made it up. I wish I had not kept our +meetings so private, for it may vex him a little to know I have been seeing +you. He is getting old and irritable, that was why I did not. Good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, as I must stay at the Earl of Wessex to-night, for I cannot +possibly catch the train, I think it would be safer for you to let me take care +of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what will my father think has become of me? He does not know in the +least where I am—he thinks I only went into the garden for a few +minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“He will surely guess—somebody has seen me for certain. I’ll +go all the way back with you to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that newly done-up place—the Earl of Wessex!” +</p> + +<p> +“If you are so very particular about the publicity I will stay at the +Three Tuns.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—it is not that I am particular—but I haven’t a +brush or comb or anything!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap48"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2> + +<p> +All the evening Melbury had been coming to his door, saying, “I wonder +where in the world that girl is! Never in all my born days did I know her bide +out like this! She surely said she was going into the garden to get some +parsley.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury searched the garden, the parsley-bed, and the orchard, but could find +no trace of her, and then he made inquiries at the cottages of such of his +workmen as had not gone to bed, avoiding Tangs’s because he knew the +young people were to rise early to leave. In these inquiries one of the +men’s wives somewhat incautiously let out the fact that she had heard a +scream in the wood, though from which direction she could not say. +</p> + +<p> +This set Melbury’s fears on end. He told the men to light lanterns, and +headed by himself they started, Creedle following at the last moment with quite +a burden of grapnels and ropes, which he could not be persuaded to leave +behind, and the company being joined by the hollow-turner and the man who kept +the cider-house as they went along. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Was he clutching her tight?” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—rather,” said the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Did she walk lame?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’tis true her head hung over towards him a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +Creedle groaned tragically. +</p> + +<p> +Melbury, not suspecting the presence of Fitzpiers, coupled this account with +the man-trap and the scream; he could not understand what it all meant; but the +sinister event of the trap made him follow on. Accordingly, they bore away +towards the town, shouting as they went, and in due course emerged upon the +highway. +</p> + +<p> +Nearing Sherton-Abbas, the previous information was confirmed by other +strollers, though the gentleman’s supporting arm had disappeared from +these later accounts. At last they were so near Sherton that Melbury informed +his faithful followers that he did not wish to drag them farther at so late an +hour, since he could go on alone and inquire if the woman who had been seen +were really Grace. But they would not leave him alone in his anxiety, and +trudged onward till the lamplight from the town began to illuminate their +fronts. At the entrance to the High Street they got fresh scent of the pursued, +but coupled with the new condition that the lady in the costume described had +been going up the street alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Faith!—I believe she’s mesmerized, or walking in her +sleep,” said Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +However, the identity of this woman with Grace was by no means certain; but +they plodded along the street. Percombe, the hair-dresser, who had despoiled +Marty of her tresses, was standing at his door, and they duly put inquiries to +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—how’s Little Hintock folk by now?” he said, before +replying. “Never have I been over there since one winter night some three +year ago—and then I lost myself finding it. How can ye live in such a +one-eyed place? Great Hintock is bad enough—hut Little Hintock—the +bats and owls would drive me melancholy-mad! It took two days to raise my +sperrits to their true pitch again after that night I went there. Mr. Melbury, +sir, as a man’s that put by money, why not retire and live here, and see +something of the world?” +</p> + +<p> +The responses at last given by him to their queries guided them to the building +that offered the best accommodation in Sherton—having been enlarged +contemporaneously with the construction of the railway—namely, the Earl +of Wessex Hotel. +</p> + +<p> +Leaving the others without, Melbury made prompt inquiry here. His alarm was +lessened, though his perplexity was increased, when he received a brief reply +that such a lady was in the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know if it is my daughter?” asked Melbury. +</p> + +<p> +The waiter did not. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know the lady’s name?” +</p> + +<p> +Of this, too, the household was ignorant, the hotel having been taken by +brand-new people from a distance. They knew the gentleman very well by sight, +and had not thought it necessary to ask him to enter his name. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the gentleman appears again now,” said Melbury to himself. +“Well, I want to see the lady,” he declared. +</p> + +<p> +A message was taken up, and after some delay the shape of Grace appeared +descending round the bend of the stair-case, looking as if she lived there, but +in other respects rather guilty and frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—what the name—” began her father. “I thought +you went out to get parsley!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes—I did—but it is all right,” said Grace, in a +flurried whisper. “I am not alone here. I am here with Edgar. It is +entirely owing to an accident, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Edgar! An accident! How does he come here? I thought he was two hundred +mile off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, so he is—I mean he has got a beautiful practice two hundred +miles off; he has bought it with his own money, some that came to him. But he +travelled here, and I was nearly caught in a man-trap, and that’s how it +is I am here. We were just thinking of sending a messenger to let you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury did not seem to be particularly enlightened by this explanation. +</p> + +<p> +“You were caught in a man-trap?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; my dress was. That’s how it arose. Edgar is up-stairs in his +own sitting-room,” she went on. “He would not mind seeing you, I am +sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, faith, I don’t want to see him! I have seen him too often +a’ready. I’ll see him another time, perhaps, if ’tis to +oblige ’ee.” +</p> + +<p> +“He came to see me; he wanted to consult me about this large partnership +I speak of, as it is very promising.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am glad to hear it,” said Melbury, dryly. +</p> + +<p> +A pause ensued, during which the inquiring faces and whity-brown clothes of +Melbury’s companions appeared in the door-way. +</p> + +<p> +“Then bain’t you coming home with us?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I think not,” said Grace, blushing. +</p> + +<p> +“H’m—very well—you are your own mistress,” he +returned, in tones which seemed to assert otherwise. “Good-night;” +and Melbury retreated towards the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be angry, father,” she said, following him a few +steps. “I have done it for the best.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not angry, though it is true I have been a little misled in this. +However, good-night. I must get home along.” +</p> + +<p> +He left the hotel, not without relief, for to be under the eyes of strangers +while he conversed with his lost child had embarrassed him much. His +search-party, too, had looked awkward there, having rushed to the task of +investigation—some in their shirt sleeves, others in their leather +aprons, and all much stained—just as they had come from their work of +barking, and not in their Sherton marketing attire; while Creedle, with his +ropes and grapnels and air of impending tragedy, had added melancholy to +gawkiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, neighbors,” said Melbury, on joining them, “as it is +getting late, we’ll leg it home again as fast as we can. I ought to tell +you that there has been some mistake—some arrangement entered into +between Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers which I didn’t quite understand—an +important practice in the Midland counties has come to him, which made it +necessary for her to join him to-night—so she says. That’s all it +was—and I’m sorry I dragged you out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the hollow-turner, “here be we six mile from +home, and night-time, and not a hoss or four-footed creeping thing to our name. +I say, we’ll have a mossel and a drop o’ summat to strengthen our +nerves afore we vamp all the way back again? My throat’s as dry as a kex. +What d’ye say so’s?” +</p> + +<p> +They all concurred in the need for this course, and proceeded to the antique +and lampless back street, in which the red curtain of the Three Tuns was the +only radiant object. As soon as they had stumbled down into the room Melbury +ordered them to be served, when they made themselves comfortable by the long +table, and stretched out their legs upon the herring-boned sand of the floor. +Melbury himself, restless as usual, walked to the door while he waited for +them, and looked up and down the street. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d gie her a good shaking if she were my maid; pretending to go +out in the garden, and leading folk a twelve-mile traipse that have got to get +up at five o’clock to morrow,” said a bark-ripper; who, not working +regularly for Melbury, could afford to indulge in strong opinions. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t speak so warm as that,” said the hollow-turner, +“but if ’tis right for couples to make a country talk about their +separating, and excite the neighbors, and then make fools of ’em like +this, why, I haven’t stood upon one leg for five-and-twenty year.” +</p> + +<p> +All his listeners knew that when he alluded to his foot-lathe in these +enigmatic terms, the speaker meant to be impressive; and Creedle chimed in +with, “Ah, young women do wax wanton in these days! Why couldn’t +she ha’ bode with her father, and been faithful?” Poor Creedle was +thinking of his old employer. +</p> + +<p> +“But this deceiving of folks is nothing unusual in matrimony,” said +Farmer Bawtree. “I knowed a man and wife—faith, I don’t mind +owning, as there’s no strangers here, that the pair were my own +relations—they’d be at it that hot one hour that you’d hear +the poker and the tongs and the bellows and the warming-pan flee across the +house with the movements of their vengeance; and the next hour you’d hear +’em singing ‘The Spotted Cow’ together as peaceable as two +holy twins; yes—and very good voices they had, and would strike in like +professional ballet-singers to one another’s support in the high +notes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I knowed a woman, and the husband o’ her went away for +four-and-twenty year,” said the bark-ripper. “And one night he came +home when she was sitting by the fire, and thereupon he sat down himself on the +other side of the chimney-corner. ‘Well,’ says she, ‘have ye +got any news?’ ‘Don’t know as I have,’ says he; +‘have you?’ ‘No,’ says she, ‘except that my +daughter by my second husband was married last month, which was a year after I +was made a widow by him.’ ‘Oh! Anything else?’ he says. +‘No,’ says she. And there they sat, one on each side of that +chimney-corner, and were found by their neighbors sound asleep in their chairs, +not having known what to talk about at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t care who the man is,” said Creedle, +“they required a good deal to talk about, and that’s true. It +won’t be the same with these.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. He is such a projick, you see. And she is a wonderful scholar +too!” +</p> + +<p> +“What women do know nowadays!” observed the hollow-turner. +“You can’t deceive ’em as you could in my time.” +</p> + +<p> +“What they knowed then was not small,” said John Upjohn. +“Always a good deal more than the men! Why, when I went courting my wife +that is now, the skilfulness that she would show in keeping me on her pretty +side as she walked was beyond all belief. Perhaps you’ve noticed that +she’s got a pretty side to her face as well as a plain one?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say I’ve noticed it particular much,” said the +hollow-turner, blandly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” continued Upjohn, not disconcerted, “she has. All +women under the sun be prettier one side than t’other. And, as I was +saying, the pains she would take to make me walk on the pretty side were +unending! I warrant that whether we were going with the sun or against the sun, +uphill or downhill, in wind or in lewth, that wart of hers was always towards +the hedge, and that dimple towards me. There was I, too simple to see her +wheelings and turnings; and she so artful, though two years younger, that she +could lead me with a cotton thread, like a blind ram; for that was in the third +climate of our courtship. No; I don’t think the women have got cleverer, +for they was never otherwise.” +</p> + +<p> +“How many climates may there be in courtship, Mr. Upjohn?” inquired +a youth—the same who had assisted at Winterborne’s Christmas party. +</p> + +<p> +“Five—from the coolest to the hottest—leastwise there was +five in mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can ye give us the chronicle of ’em, Mr. Upjohn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I could. I could certainly. But ’tis quite unnecessary. +They’ll come to ye by nater, young man, too soon for your good.” +</p> + +<p> +“At present Mrs. Fitzpiers can lead the doctor as your mis’ess +could lead you,” the hollow-turner remarked. “She’s got him +quite tame. But how long ’twill last I can’t say. I happened to be +setting a wire on the top of my garden one night when he met her on the other +side of the hedge; and the way she queened it, and fenced, and kept that poor +feller at a distance, was enough to freeze yer blood. I should never have +supposed it of such a girl.” +</p> + +<p> +Melbury now returned to the room, and the men having declared themselves +refreshed, they all started on the homeward journey, which was by no means +cheerless under the rays of the high moon. Having to walk the whole distance +they came by a foot-path rather shorter than the highway, though difficult +except to those who knew the country well. This brought them by way of Great +Hintock; and passing the church-yard they observed, as they talked, a +motionless figure standing by the gate. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it was Marty South,” said the hollow-turner, +parenthetically. +</p> + +<p> +“I think ’twas; ’a was always a lonely maid,” said +Upjohn. And they passed on homeward, and thought of the matter no more. +</p> + +<p> +It was Marty, as they had supposed. That evening had been the particular one of +the week upon which Grace and herself had been accustomed to privately deposit +flowers on Giles’s grave, and this was the first occasion since his +death, eight months earlier, on which Grace had failed to keep her appointment. +Marty had waited in the road just outside Little Hintock, where her +fellow-pilgrim had been wont to join her, till she was weary; and at last, +thinking that Grace had missed her and gone on alone, she followed the way to +Great Hintock, but saw no Grace in front of her. It got later, and Marty +continued her walk till she reached the church-yard gate; but still no Grace. +Yet her sense of comradeship would not allow her to go on to the grave alone, +and still thinking the delay had been unavoidable, she stood there with her +little basket of flowers in her clasped hands, and her feet chilled by the damp +ground, till more than two hours had passed. +</p> + +<p> +She then heard the footsteps of Melbury’s men, who presently passed on +their return from the search. In the silence of the night Marty could not help +hearing fragments of their conversation, from which she acquired a general idea +of what had occurred, and where Mrs. Fitzpiers then was. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately they had dropped down the hill she entered the church-yard, going +to a secluded corner behind the bushes, where rose the unadorned stone that +marked the last bed of Giles Winterborne. As this solitary and silent girl +stood there in the moonlight, a straight slim figure, clothed in a plaitless +gown, the contours of womanhood so undeveloped as to be scarcely perceptible, +the marks of poverty and toil effaced by the misty hour, she touched sublimity +at points, and looked almost like a being who had rejected with indifference +the attribute of sex for the loftier quality of abstract humanism. She stooped +down and cleared away the withered flowers that Grace and herself had laid +there the previous week, and put her fresh ones in their place. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, my own, own love,” she whispered, “you are mine, and +on’y mine; for she has forgot ’ee at last, although for her you +died. But I—whenever I get up I’ll think of ’ee, and whenever +I lie down I’ll think of ’ee. Whenever I plant the young larches +I’ll think that none can plant as you planted; and whenever I split a +gad, and whenever I turn the cider-wring, I’ll say none could do it like +you. If ever I forget your name, let me forget home and Heaven!—But no, +no, my love, I never can forget ’ee; for you was a <i>good</i> man, and +did good things!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOODLANDERS ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 482-h.htm or 482-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/4/8/482/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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