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diff --git a/old/woodl10.txt b/old/woodl10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e84a82 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/woodl10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16195 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Woodlanders, by Thomas Hardy +#7 in our series by Thomas Hardy + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +THE WOODLANDERS +by Thomas Hardy + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +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 way- +side 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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." + +He mounted and sat beside her, with his feet outside, where they +were ever and anon brushed over by the horse's tail. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"'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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +He replied, "You should shut your door--then you'd hear folk open +it." + +"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--" + +"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." + +"Don't press me--it worries me. I was in hopes you had thought no +more of it. I can NOT part with it--so there!" + +"Now, look here, Marty," said the barber, sitting down on the +coffin-stool table. "How much do you get for making these spars?" + +"Hush--father's up-stairs awake, and he don't know that I am doing +his work." + +"Well, now tell me," said the man, more softly. "How much do you +get?" + +"Eighteenpence a thousand," she said, reluctantly. + +"Who are you making them for?" + +"Mr. Melbury, the timber-dealer, just below here." + +"And how many can you make in a day?" + +"In a day and half the night, three bundles--that's a thousand and +a half." + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"I say I won't sell it--to you or anybody." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Bad for me? Who is she, then?" + +The barber held his tongue, and the girl repeated the question. + +"I am not at liberty to tell you. And as she is going abroad soon +it makes no difference who she is at all." + +"She wants it to go abroad wi'?" + +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!" + +"That's my secret. However, if you agree to let me have it, I'll +tell you in confidence." + +"I'll certainly not let you have it unless you tell me the truth. +It is Mrs. Charmond." + +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?" + +"I don't wish to tell upon her," said Marty, coolly. "But my hair +is my own, and I'm going to keep it." + +"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." + +"I've nothing more to say," she answered. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"She's not going to get him through me." + +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, "YOU'VE GOT A LOVER +YOURSELF, and that's why you won't let it go!" + +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. + +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?" + +A weak voice inside answered in the negative; adding, "I should be +all right by to-morrow if it were not for the tree!" + +"The tree again--always the tree! Oh, father, don't worry so about +that. You know it can do you no harm." + +"Who have ye had talking to ye down-stairs?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Nonsense, you know better. How can it be?" She refrained from +further speech, and descended to the ground-floor again. + +"Thank Heaven, then," she said to herself, "what belongs to me I +keep." + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +"'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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"A plan for her not to marry well?" said his wife, surprised. + +"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." + +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." + +Marty South appeared startled, and could not tear herself away. + +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 "wasting her" to give her to +a man of no higher standing than the young man in question. + +"That's what I have been thinking," said Mrs. Melbury. + +"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." + +"Wronged his father?" asked Mrs. Melbury. + +"Yes, grievously wronged him," said her husband. + +"Well, don't think of it to-night," she urged. "Come indoors." + +"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. + +"Then do," said she. + +"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." + +"Look at what?" asked his wife. + +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?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"That's all uncertain. Better stick to what's sure." + +"True, true," said Melbury; "and I hope it will be for the best. +Yes, let me get 'em married up as soon as I can, so as to have it +over and done with." He continued looking at the imprint, while he +added, "Suppose she should be dying, and never make a track on +this path any more?" + +"She'll write soon, depend upon't. Come, 'tis wrong to stay here +and brood so." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Are folk astir here yet?" inquired a voice she knew well. + +"Yes, Mr. Winterborne," said Marty, throwing on a tilt bonnet, +which completely hid the recent ravages of the scissors. "Come +in!" + +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. + +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. + +"They are done," said Marty, "and lying in the cart-house." + +"Done!" he repeated. "Your father has not been too ill to work +after all, then?" + +She made some evasive reply. "I'll show you where they be, if you +are going down," she added. + +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. + +The shed was reached, and she pointed out the spars. Winterborne +regarded them silently, then looked at her. + +"Now, Marty, I believe--" he said, and shook his head. + +"What?" + +"That you've done the work yourself." + +"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." + +"But how could you learn to do it? 'Tis a trade." + +"Trade!" said she. "I'd be bound to learn it in two hours." + +"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!" + +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. + +"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." + +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!" + +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!" + +"No, no," he answered. "You've only cut your hair--I see now. + +"Then why must you needs say that about apples and gate-posts?" + +"Let me see." + +"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. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Did she do it in her husband's time?" + +"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." + +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 up- +stairs; the other, with stiff lines and corners, when she was +bustling among the men in the spar-house or out-of-doors. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Mr. Melbury is late this morning," said the bottom-sawyer. + +"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." + +When the old woman had gone Creedle said, + +"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." + +"It seems no time ago that she was a little playward girl," said +young Timothy Tangs. + +"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." + +The hollow-turner pronounced the days with emphasis, as if, +considering their number, they were a rather more remarkable fact +than the years. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +Accompanied by Winterborne, he now turned towards the door of the +spar-house, when his footsteps were heard by the men as aforesaid. + +"Well, John, and Lot," he said, nodding as he entered. "A rimy +morning." + +"'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." + +"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." + +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. + +"You'll be, then, ready, Giles?" Melbury continued, awaking from a +reverie. "Well, what was the latest news at Shottsford yesterday, +Mr. Bawtree?" + +"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." + +"'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." + +"I won't praise the doctor's wisdom till I hear what sort of +bargain he's made," said the top-sawyer. + +"'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." + +"He must be a curious young man," mused the hollow-turner. + +"He must," said Timothy Tangs. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Why not let Giles fetch her by himself? 'Twill bring 'em together +all the quicker." + +"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." + +"Yon may be disappointed, but I don't think she will, if you send +Giles," said Mrs. Melbury, dryly. + +"Very well--I'll send him." + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +"That she will," said Giles. + +"And scorn us if we don't mind." + +"Not scorn us." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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-- + +"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." + +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." + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Why do you wear pattens, Marty? The turnpike is clean enough, +although the lanes are muddy." + +"They save my boots." + +"But twelve miles in pattens--'twill twist your feet off. Come, +get up and ride with me." + +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. + +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. + +Giles asked, with some hesitation, how her father was getting on. + +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. + +"You know why I don't ask for him so often as I might, I suppose?" +said Winterborne. "Or don't you know?" + +"I think I do." + +"Because of the houses?" + +She nodded. + +"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." + +"After father's death they will be Mrs. Charmond's?" + +"They'll be hers." + +"They are going to keep company with my hair," she thought. + +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." + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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." + +She turned aside, while a tear welled up and stood in each eye at +this reminder. + +"Nothing of what I told you," he whispered, there being others in +the shop. "But I can trust you, I see." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +reductio ad absurdum 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +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 tete-a-tete 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +At last she said, "Who has been so kind as to ask me to ride?" + +"Mrs. Charmond," replied her statuesque companion. + +Marty was stirred at the name, so closely connected with her last +night's experiences. "Is this her carriage?" she whispered. + +"Yes; she's inside." + +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. + +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. + +"'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." + +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. + +"What's that?" she whispered. + +"Mis'ess yawning." + +"Why should she yawn?" + +"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." + +"So rich and so powerful, and yet to yawn!" the girl murmured. +"Then things don't fay with she any more than with we!" + +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." + +"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. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +Meanwhile, Winterborne and Grace Melbury had also undergone their +little experiences of the same homeward journey. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +She admitted that they did, though she should not have seen any +difference in them if he had not pointed it out. + +"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). + +She said "Yes," but looking at another orchard. + +"Why, you are looking at John-apple-trees! You know bitter-sweets-- +you used to well enough!" + +"I am afraid I have forgotten, and it is getting too dark to +distinguish." + +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. + +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. + +"'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--" + +"It was child's tattle." + +"H'm!" said Giles, suddenly. + +"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. + +"Yes....I beg your pardon, Miss Melbury; your father SENT me to +meet you to-day." + +"I know it, and I am glad of it." + +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?" + +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. + +"Come now, Miss Melbury, that won't do! Short frocks, indeed! You +know better, as well as I." + +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. + +"I can't say that I do," answered Giles, his eyes lingering far +ahead upon a dark spot, which proved to be a brougham. + +"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?" + +"With all my heart." + +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." + +"Anything to keep the conversation away from her and me," said +Giles within him. + +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. + +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. + +Winterborne, although he had seen it, had not taken it into +account. On examination, he said it was Mrs. Charmond's. + +Grace watched the vehicle and its easy roll, and seemed to feel +more nearly akin to it than to the one she was in. + +"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. + +"There's Marty South Sitting up with the coachman," said he, +discerning her by her dress. + +"Ah, poor Marty! I must ask her to come to see me this very +evening. How does she happen to be riding there?" + +"I don't know. It is very singular." + +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. + +"Let us look at the dear place for a moment before we call them," +she said. + +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. + +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 step- +mother came out to welcome her. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I am afraid 'tis not her regard for you, but her dislike of +Hintock, that makes her so easy about the trees," said Mrs. +Melbury. + +When dinner was over, Grace took a candle and began to ramble +pleasurably through the rooms of her old home, from which she had +latterly become wellnigh an alien. Each nook and each object +revived a memory, and simultaneously modified it. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"I want you to tell me what light that is I see on the hill-side," +said Grace. + +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?" + +Grace admitted that she had not heard of him. + +"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." + +"Indeed." + +"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!" + +"Why?" + +"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." + +"Was he really made for higher things, do you think? I mean, is he +clever?" + +"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." + +"He will soon go away, no doubt." + +"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." + +Grace gave the required promise. + +"Well, he talks of buying me; so he won't go away just yet." + +"Buying you!--how?" + +"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." + +"Of course there's no harm. But oh, Grammer, how can you think to +do it? I wish you hadn't told me." + +"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!" + +"I hope you will, I am sure." + +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 hedge- +row, 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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 pari passu +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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +As the timber-merchant spoke, as it were, down to him from a +higher moral plane than his own, Giles turned to Mrs. Melbury. + +"Grace is going to the House to-morrow," she said, quietly. "She +is looking out her things now. I dare say she is wanting me this +minute to assist her." Thereupon Mrs. Melbury left the room. + +Nothing is more remarkable than the independent personality of the +tongue now and then. Mr. Melbury knew that his words had been a +sort of boast. He decried boasting, particularly to Giles; yet +whenever the subject was Grace, his judgment resigned the ministry +of speech in spite of him. + +Winterborne felt surprise, pleasure, and also a little +apprehension at the news. He repeated Mrs. Melbury's words. + +"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." + +"No, no; don't do that, since she's busy," said Winterborne. + +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." + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +Grace was bound to smile; but that side of womanliness was one +which her inexperience had no great zest in contemplating. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"I am so sorry you do not enjoy exertion--it is quite sad! I wish +I could tend you and make you very happy." + +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 Sentimental Journey.' 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?" + +"Oh yes," said Grace. "I am almost sure they would be very glad." + +"You are so accomplished, I hear; I should be quite honored by +such intellectual company." + +Grace, modestly blushing, deprecated any such idea. + +"Do you keep up your lucubrations at Little Hintock?" + +"Oh no. Lucubrations are not unknown at Little Hintock; but they +are not carried on by me." + +"What--another student in that retreat?" + +"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." + +"Oh yes--a doctor--I believe I was told of him. It is a strange +place for him to settle in." + +"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." + +"What is his name?" + +"Fitzpiers. He represents a very old family, I believe, the +Fitzpierses of Buckbury-Fitzpiers--not a great many miles from +here." + +"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 weltburgerliche 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?" + +Grace had not. "I think he is not a very old man," she added. + +"Has he a wife?" + +"I am not aware that he has." + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Bless my soul, I'd quite forgot," said Giles. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You've a cold in the head, Marty," he said, as they walked. +"That comes of cutting off your hair." + +"I suppose it do. Yes; I've three headaches going on in my head +at the same time." + +"Three headaches!" + +"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." + +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. + +"How they sigh directly we put 'em upright, though while they are +lying down they don't sigh at all," said Marty. + +"Do they?" said Giles. "I've never noticed it." + +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. + +"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." + +"Just as we be?" He looked critically at her. "You ought not to +feel like that, Marty." + +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?" + +"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." + +"A run down the lane will be quite enough." + +"No, it won't. You ought not to have come out to-day at all." + +"But I should like to finish the--" + +"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." + +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. + +"Marty, it was for your good that I was rough, you know. But warm +yourself in your own way, I don't care." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +"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!'" + +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. + +"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. + +"Why need you not ask?" + +"Your face is like the face of Moses when he came down from the +Mount." + +She reddened a little and said, "How can you be so profane, Giles +Winterborne?" + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +"I'm a-coming, sir; I'm a-coming." + +"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 Mery, 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 Mery's +style will suit her best, because he writes in that soft, +emotional, luxurious way she has," Grace said, musingly. + +"Indeed!" said Winterborne, with mock awe. "Suppose you talk over +my head a little longer, Miss Grace Melbury?" + +"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, AND THE PEOPLE IN IT, fifty times better than all the +Continent. But the scheme; I think it an enchanting notion, don't +you, Giles?" + +"It is well enough in one sense, but it will take yon away," said +he, mollified. + +"Only for a short time. We should return in May." + +"Well, Miss Melbury, it is a question for your father." + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"Is there to be dancing?" + +"There might be, certainly." + +"Will He dance with She?" + +"Well, yes." + +"Then it might bring things to a head, one way or the other; I +won't be the one to say which." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"I dare say they are," said Winterborne. + + + +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. + +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?" + +Melbury would give no answer at once. "No, I can't tell you to- +day," he said. "I must talk it over with the women. As far as I +am concerned, my dear Giles, you know I'll come with pleasure. +But how do I know what Grace's notions may be? You see, she has +been away among cultivated folks a good while; and now this +acquaintance with Mrs. Charmond--Well, I'll ask her. I can say no +more." + +When Winterborne was gone the timber-merchant went on his way. He +knew very well that Grace, whatever her own feelings, would either +go or not go, according as he suggested; 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. + +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. + +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." + +When he reached home that evening, he said to Grace and Mrs. +Melbury, who were working at a little table by the fire, + +"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." + +They assented without demur, and accordingly the timber-merchant +sent Giles the next morning an answer in the affirmative. + + + +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. + +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. + +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 + +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. + +"Lord, Lord! if they baint come a'ready!" said Creedle. + +"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. + +"My dear Giles, I see we have made a mistake in the time," said +the timber-merchant's wife, her face lengthening with concern. + +"Oh, it is not much difference. I hope you'll come in." + +"But this means a regular randyvoo!" said Mr. Melbury, accusingly, +glancing round and pointing towards the bake-house with his stick. + +"Well, yes," said Giles. + +"And--not Great Hintock band, and dancing, surely?" + +"I told three of 'em they might drop in if they'd nothing else to +do," Giles mildly admitted. + +"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?" + +"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. + +"'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. + +"And I'll help finish the tarts," said Grace, cheerfully. + +"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." + +"Of course I couldn't let you, Grace!" said Giles, with some +distress. + +"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. + +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. + +Creedle met Giles at the pump after a while, when each of the +others was absorbed in the difficulties of a cuisine 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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"Very well, very well! I'll attend to it. You go and get 'em +comfortable in-doors." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"The oil?" + +"On the chairs, I mean; because it gets on one's dress. Still, +mine is not a new one." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Supper-time came, and with it the hot-baked 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. + +"I s'pose the time when you learned all these knowing things, Mr. +Creedle, was when you was in the militia?" + +"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." + +"I s'pose your memory can reach a long way back into history, Mr. +Creedle?" + +"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?" + +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!" + +A splash followed. Grace gave a quick, involuntary nod and blink, +and put her handkerchief to her face. + +"Good heavens! what did you do that for, Creedle?" said Giles, +sternly, and jumping up. + +"'Tis how I do it when they baint here, maister," mildly +expostulated Creedle, in an aside audible to all the company. + +"Well, yes--but--" replied Giles. He went over to Grace, and +hoped none of it had gone into her eye. + +"Oh no," she said. "Only a sprinkle on my face. It was nothing." + +"Kiss it and make it well," gallantly observed Mr. Bawtree. + +Miss Melbury blushed. + +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." + +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. + +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 Gliles'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: + + + "And I' will hold' a wa'-ger with you' + That all' these marks' are thirt'-y two!" + + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +"The doctor is not abed yet," said Mrs. Melbury. + +"Hard study, no doubt," said her husband. + +"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." + +Melbury's mind seemed to turn with much relief to the +contemplation of Mr. Fitzpiers after the scenes of the evening. +"It is natural enough," he replied. "What can a man of that sort +find to interest him in Hintock? I don't expect he'll stay here +long." + +His mind reverted to Giles's party, and when they were nearly home +he spoke again, his daughter being a few steps in advance: "It is +hardly the line of life for a girl like Grace, after what she's +been accustomed to. 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!" + +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-- + + + "She may go, oh! + She may go, oh! + She may go to the d---- for me!" + + +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!" + + + +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. + +"Well, Robert, you must be tired. You'd better get on to bed." + +"Ay, ay, Giles--what do I call ye? Maister, I would say. But 'tis +well to think the day IS done, when 'tis done." + +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. + +"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. + +"I'm afraid, too, that it was a failure there!" + +"If so, 'twere doomed to be so. Not but what that snail might as +well have come upon anybody else's plate as hers." + +"What snail?" + +"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." + +"How the deuce did a snail get there?" + +"That I don't know no more than the dead; but there my gentleman +was." + +"But, Robert, of all places, that was where he shouldn't have +been!" + +"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." + +"He wasn't alive, I suppose?" said Giles, with a shudder on +Grace's account. + +"Oh no. He was well boiled. I warrant him well boiled. God +forbid that a LIVE 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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Perhaps that's true," said Winterborne, rising and yawning a +sigh. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +"'Tis a pity--a thousand pities!" her father kept saying next +morning at breakfast, Grace being still in her bedroom. + +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. + +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. + +"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 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." + +"Yes, I believe ye. That's just it. I KNOW 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!" + +"She may shail, but she'll never wamble," replied his wife, +decisively. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Come in to breakfast, my girl," he said. "And as to Giles, use +your own mind. Whatever pleases you will please me." + +"I am promised to him, father; and I cannot help thinking that in +honor I ought to marry him, whenever I do marry." + +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?" + +"I liked it much." + +"Different from friend Winterborne's?" + +She said nothing; but he who knew her was aware that she meant by +her silence to reproach him with drawing cruel comparisons. + +"Mrs. Charmond has asked you to come again--when, did you say?" + +"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. + +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. + +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? + +Full of this post hoc 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. + +So it was settled in his mind that her sudden mingling with the +villagers at the unlucky Winterborne's was the cause of her most +grievous loss, as he deemed it, in the direction of Hintock House. + +"'Tis a thousand pities!" he would repeat to himself. "I am +ruining her for conscience' sake!" + +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!" + +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. + +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." + +Still Mr. Melbury did not brighten. Mrs. Melbury said, "And is +she quiet?" + +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." + +"Well, get off and come in," said Melbury, brusquely; and Giles +dismounted accordingly. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"H'm!" he ejaculated, turning his eyes suddenly upon her. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +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." + +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. + +"Yes," said she. "We saw him some time ago--just out there." + +"Did you cry Halloo?" + +"We said nothing." + +"Then why the d--- didn't you, or get the old buffer to do it for +you?" said the man, as he cantered away. + +She looked rather disconcerted at this reply, and observing her +father's face, saw that it was quite red. + +"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." + +"No, no, father; there's nothing in you rough or ill-mannered!" + +"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!" + +"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!" + +"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. + +"You would like to have more honor, if it pleases me?" asked her +father, in continuation of the subject. + +Despite her feeling she assented to this. His reasoning had not +been without its weight upon her. + +"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." + +He breathed heavily, and his breathing was caught up by the +breeze, which seemed to sigh a soft remonstrance. + +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." + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +"What are they?" she asked. + +"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?" + +"No, indeed, if you didn't say so." + +"'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." + +"Yes, I will, some day," said she, rising. + +"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--" + +"Don't say that, father--title-deeds; it sounds so vain!" + +"It does not. Come to that, I have title-deeds myself. There, +that piece of parchment represents houses in Sherton Abbas." + +"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." + +"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!" + +"Yes, I did say so," admitted Grace. + +"Was it true?" + +"Yes, I felt so at the time. The feeling is less strong now, +perhaps." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I, too, cost a good deal, like the horses and wagons and corn," +she said, looking up sorrily. + +"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." + +"Don't think of me like that!" she begged. "A mere chattel." + +"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. + +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." + +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!" + +Grace said nothing. + +"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." + +"I never do meet him, father, either without your knowledge or +with it." + +"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?" + +She sighed; it was a sigh of sympathy with Giles, complicated by a +sense of the intractability of circumstances. + + + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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!" + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +He accompanied her to the cottage, and she conducted him up- +stairs. John South was pillowed up in a chair between the bed and +the window exactly opposite the latter, towards which his face was +turned. + +"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?" + +"Never you mind me--that's of no consequence," said Giles. "Think +of yourself alone." + +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. + +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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"She won't allow it--a strange woman come from nobody knows where-- +she won't have it done." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You can turn if you unhitch your string-horses," said the +coachman. + +"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." + +"But I've another carriage with luggage at my back." + +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." + +"And you could see our lights." + +"We couldn't, because of the fog." + +"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." + +"Driving all the way, I suppose," said Winterborne, sarcastically. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"No, ma'am. A younger man, in a smaller way of business in Little +Hintock. Winterborne is his name." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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 tournure was a magnificent mass of +braided locks. + +"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!" + +"Nor have I, miss," said Marty, dryly, unconsciously stroking her +crown. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +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. + +After breakfast, still musing on the circumstances, he went up- +stairs, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I am sorry for your labor," she said. "It is all lost. He says +the tree seems taller than ever." + +Winterborne looked round at it. Taller the tree certainly did +seem, the gauntness of its now naked stem being more marked than +before. + +"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.'" + +"Well; can I do anything else?" asked he. + +"The doctor says the tree ought to be cut down." + +"Oh--you've had the doctor?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +His face was rather soft than stern, charming than grand, pale +than flushed; his nose--if a sketch of his features be de rigueur +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. + +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. + +"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." + +They accordingly descended, and the doctor continued, "The tree +must be cut down, or I won't answer for his life." + +"'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." + +"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." + +"'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." + +"Then we'll inaugurate a new era forthwith. How long has he +complained of the tree?" asked the doctor of Marty. + +"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." + +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!" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +The doctor signalled to Giles, who went and drew back the printed +cotton curtains. "'Tis gone, see," said Mr. Fitzpiers. + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +"D--d if my remedy hasn't killed him!" murmured the doctor. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +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. + +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." + +"Poor Giles!" murmured Grace. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +While he was sitting and thinking a step came to the door, and +Melbury appeared, looking very sorry for his position. +Winterborne welcomed him by a word and a look, and went on with +his examination of the parchments. His visitor sat down. + +"Giles," he said, "this is very awkward, and I am sorry for it. +What are you going to do?" + +Giles informed him of the real state of affairs, and how barely he +had missed availing himself of his chance of renewal. + +"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." + +"I would rather not," murmured Giles. + +"But you must," said Melbury. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The letter was not from Mrs. Charmond herself, but her agent at +Sherton. Winterborne glanced it over and looked up. + +"It's all over," he said. + +"Ah!" said they altogether. + +"Her lawyer is instructed to say that Mrs. Charmond sees no reason +for disturbing the natural course of things, particularly as she +contemplates pulling the houses down," he said, quietly. + +"Only think of that!" said several. + +Winterborne had turned away, and said vehemently to himself, "Then +let her pull 'em down, and be d--d to her!" + +Creedle looked at him with a face of seven sorrows, saying, "Ah, +'twas that sperrit that lost 'em for ye, maister!" + +Winterborne 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. + +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. + +This was the condition of affairs between Winterborne and his +neighbors after his stroke of ill-luck. He held his tongue; and +they observed him, and knew that he was discomposed. + +Mr. Melbury, in his compunction, thought more of the matter than +any one else, except his daughter. Had Winterborne been going on +in the old fashion, Grace's father could have 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. + +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." + +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." + +He would not hear of any other terms, and thus it was arranged. +They were now opposite Melbury's house, and the timber-merchant +pressed Winterborne to enter, Grace being out of the way. + +"Pull round the settle, Giles," said the timber-merchant, as soon +as they were within. "I should like to have a serious talk with +you." + +Thereupon he put the case to Winterborne 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. + +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. + +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: + + + "O Giles, you've lost your dwelling-place, + And therefore, Giles, you'll lose your Grace." + + +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. + +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. + +Melbury himself was the first to rise the next morning, and when +he had read the letter his relief was great. "Very honorable of +Giles, very honorable," he kept saying to himself. "I shall not +forget him. Now to keep her up to her own true level." + +It happened that Grace went out for an early 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. + +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. + +Having returned from her walk she sat at breakfast silently. When +her step-mother had left the room she said to her father, "I have +made up my mind that I should like my engagement to Giles to +continue, for the present at any rate, till I can see further what +I ought to do." + +Melbury looked much surprised. + +"Nonsense," he said, sharply. "You don't know what you are +talking about. Look here." + +He handed across to her the letter received from Giles. + +She read it, and said no more. Could he have seen her write on +the wall? She did not know. Fate, it seemed, would have it this +way, and there was nothing to do but to acquiesce. + +It was a few hours after this that Winterborne, who, curiously +enough, had NOT 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 WAS you, +you know." + +"Because it was the truth. I didn't mean to let it stay, Mr. +Winterborne; but when I was going to rub it out you came, and I +was obliged to run off." + +"Having prophesied one thing, why did you alter it to another? +Your predictions can't be worth much." + +"I have not altered it." + +"But you have." + +"No." + +"It is altered. Go and see." + +She went, and read that, in spite of losing his dwelling-place, he +would KEEP his Grace. Marty came back surprised. + +"Well, I never," she said. "Who can have made such nonsense of +it?" + +"Who, indeed?" said he. + +"I have rubbed it all out, as the point of it is quite gone." + +"You'd no business to rub it out. I didn't tell you to. I meant +to let it stay a little longer." + +"Some idle boy did it, no doubt," she murmured. + +As this seemed very probable, and the actual perpetrator was +unsuspected, Winterborne said no more, and dismissed the matter +from his mind. + +From this day of his life onward for a considerable time, +Winterborne, though not absolutely out of his house as yet, +retired into the background of human life and action thereabout--a +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. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Opposite the garden door and visible from the parlor window was a +swing-gate leading into a field, across which there ran a foot- +path. 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 chararter of each of these travellers exhibited +itself in a somewhat amusing manner by his or her method of +handling the gate. + +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. + +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. + +"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the doctor. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Giles seemed rather surprised at the doctor's friendliness, but +said that he had no objection, and accordingly mounted beside Mr. +Fitzpiers. + +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. + +Presently the doctor said what he had been going to say for some +time: + +"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?" + +Winterborne of course knew in a moment that Grace, whom he had +caught the doctor peering at, was represented by these +accessaries. 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." + +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." + +"She is not staying at Hintock House?" + +"No; it is closed." + +"Then perhaps she is staying at one of the cottages, or farm- +houses?" + +"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: + + + "'She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, + A power, that from its objects scarcely drew + One impulse of her being--in her lightness + Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew, + Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue, + To nourish some far desert: she did seem + Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew, + Like the bright shade of some immortal dream + Which walks, when tempests sleep, the wave of life's dark +stream.'" + + +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. + +"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. + +"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--ipsa hominis essentia--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!" + +"Well, it is what we call being in love down in these parts, +whether or no," said Winterborne. + +"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." + +"Is it part of a country doctor's duties to learn that view of +things, may I ask, sir?" said Winterborne, adopting the Socratic +{Greek word: irony} with such well-assumed simplicity that +Fitzpiers answered, readily, + +"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." + +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. + +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." + +"What difference can it make, if she's only the tree your rainbow +falls on?" + +"Ha! ha! True." + +"You have no wife, sir?" + +"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?" + +"I did. I lost in more ways than one." + +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. + +"Why, there she is!" said Fitzpiers. "How does she come there?" + +"In the most natural way in the world. It is her home. Mr. +Melbury is her father." + +"Oh, indeed--indeed--indeed! How comes he to have a daughter of +that stamp?" + +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?" + +"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." + +"And you think an inch or two less of her now." There was a little +tremor in Winterborne's voice as he spoke. + +"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!" + +"So she is," said Winterborne, "but not to me." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"I will not have him," said Grammer Oliver, decisively. + +"Then somebody to sit up with you." + +"Can't abear it! No; I wanted to see you, Miss Grace, because 'ch +have something on my mind. Dear Miss Grace, I TOOK THAT MONEY OF +THE DOCTOR, AFTER ALL!" + +"What money?" + +"The ten pounds." + +Grace did not quite understand. + +"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." + +"Why?" + +"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." + + "If you ask him to burn the paper he will, I'm sure, and think no +more of it." + + "'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!" + +"No, no. I will let you have the money to return to him." + +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!" + +"Mrs. Melbury would, I am sure." + +"Ay; but he wouldn't hearken to she! It wants a younger face than +hers to work upon such as he." + +Grace started with comprehension. "You don't think he would do it +for me?" she said. + +"Oh, wouldn't he!" + +"I couldn't go to him, Grammer, on any account. I don't know him +at all." + +"Ah, if I were a young lady," said the artful Grammer, "and could +save a poor old woman's skellington from a heathen doctor instead +of a Christian grave, I would do it, and be glad to. But nobody +will do anything for a poor old familiar friend but push her out +of the way." + +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." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 w as 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. + +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 materiel of science. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I was coming to speak one word to you, nothing more," she +replied. "And I can say it here." + +"No, no. Please do come in. Well, then, if you will not come +into the house, come as far as the porch." + +Thus pressed she went on to the porch, and they stood together +inside it, Fitzpiers closing her umbrella for her. + +"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." + +"I am sorry to hear it. You wish me to come and see her at once?" + +"No; I particularly wish you not to come." + +"Oh, indeed." + +"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." + +"Oh! Grammer Oliver, the old woman with the fine head. Seriously +ill, is she!" + +"And SO 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. + +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. + +"The rain is wetting your dress; please do come in," he said. "It +really makes my heart ache to let you stay here." + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +"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." + +"Not fiendish--strange." + +"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." + +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. + +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." + +"I am afraid you think me uncivil in showing my dislike to the +notion. But I did not mean to be." + +"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." + +Should she tell? She merely blushed. + +"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." + +He could not be acting; of that she felt assured. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +"But can it be," said he, suddenly, "that you really were here?" + +"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." + +"And you saw me asleep," he murmured, with the faintest show of +humiliation. + +"Yes--IF you were asleep, and did not deceive me." + +"Why do you say if?" + +"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. + +"Never," said Fitzpiers, fervently--"never could I deceive you." + +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. + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +She did not know. + +"That's a fragment of old John South's brain, which I am +investigating." + +She started back, not with aversion, but with wonder as to how it +should have got there. Fitzpiers laughed. + +"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!" + +"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!" + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You seem to have a better instrument than they, Marty," said +Fitzpiers. + +"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." + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Which was by no means an impossibility, and justifies any amount +of alarm." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"What were you almost in tears about just now?" he asked, softly. + +"I don't know," she said: and the words were strictly true. + +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. + +"That was Giles," said Melbury, when they had gone by. + +"Was it? Poor Giles," said she. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Now we will find it," said Fitzpiers. + +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?" + +"Oh no, I am sure it doesn't," said Grace in haste, quickly +assuming an erect posture. "Pray don't say it any more." + +"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. + +"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." + +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 ADMIRER will not have his or her feelings hurt by a +sense of your negligence after all." + +"Oh, he knows nothing of what I do now." + +"The admirer?" said Fitzpiers, slyly. + +"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." + +"He has all the cardinal virtues." + +"Perhaps--though I don't know them precisely." + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +"Miss Melbury," he said, suddenly, "I divine that this virtuous +man you mention has been refused by you?" + +She could do no otherwise than admit it. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"I'd rather not--I think I must go home at once." + +"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. + +"That's the end of what is called love!" said some one. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"Nor was he," said Grace. + +"But, Miss Melbury, I saw him." + +"No," said Grace. "It was somebody else. Giles Winterborne is +nothing to me." + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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?" + +"I don't believe in it," said Marty, shortly. + +"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." + +"Do you think I'd better?" said Marty, reluctantly. + +"Oh yes, he'll bless ye for it." + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh!" cried Grace, in her fright. + +"You are in my arms, dearest," said Fitzpiers, "and I am going to +claim you, and keep you there all our two lives!" + +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?" + +"Certainly," he said, laughing; "as soon as you have recovered." + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + + + "O come in from the foggy, foggy dew." + + +In a minute or two he uncovered her. + +"Oh, 'tis not Tim!" said she, burying her face. + +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. + +"Whom do you mean by Tim?" he asked, presently. + +"My young man, Tim Tangs," said she. + +"Now, honor bright, did you really think it was he?" + +"I did at first." + +"But you didn't at last?" + +"I didn't at last." + +"Do you much mind that it was not?" + +"No," she answered, slyly. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"The turnpike-road is over there," said Giles + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"It is about a mile to the house from here." + +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. + +So they went on, the leaf-shadows running in their usual quick +succession over the forms of the pedestrians, till the stranger +said, + +"Is it far?" + +"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?" + +"You mistake," said the other, quickly. "Mrs. Charmond has been +away for some time, but she's at home now." + +Giles did not contradict him, though he felt sure that the +gentleman was wrong. + +"You are a native of this place?" the stranger said. + +"Yes." + +"Well, you are happy in having a home. It is what I don't +possess." + +"You come from far, seemingly?" + +"I come now from the south of Europe." + +"Oh, indeed, sir. You are an Italian, or Spanish, or French +gentleman, perhaps?" + +"I am not either." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Can you tell me the time?" the gentleman asked. "My watch has +stopped." + +"It is between twelve and one," said Giles. + +His companion expressed his astonishment. "I thought it between +nine and ten at latest! Dear me--dear me!" + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +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. + +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--" + +"Send her away!" Fitzpiers's countenance had fallen. + +"Yes. And the question is, where would you advise me to send +her?" + +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. + +"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." + +"Ah!--you have noticed, too, that her health----" + +"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?" + +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. + +"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. + +"Yes," said Fitzpiers. + +"And you wish to become better acquainted with her? You mean with +a view to marriage--of course that is what you mean?" + +"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." + +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.'" + +"I am glad you don't object," said Fitzpiers, almost wishing that +Grace had not been quite so cheap for him. + +"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." + +"I'll endeavor to ascertain her mind." + +"Yes, yes. But she will be agreeable, I should think. She ought +to be." + +"I hope she may. Well, now you'll expect to see me frequently." + +"Oh yes. But, name it all--about her cough, and her going away. +I had quite forgot that that was what I came about." + +"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." + +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." + +The proposal pleased Melbury much. There could be hardly any +danger in postponing any desirable change of air as long as the +warm weather lasted, and for such a reason. Suddenly recollecting +himself, he said, "Your time must be precious, doctor. I'll get +home-along. I am much obliged to ye. As you will see her often, +you'll discover for yourself if anything serious is the matter." + +"I can assure you it is nothing," said Fitzpiers, who had seen +Grace much oftener already than her father knew of. + +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. + +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. + +"Hey?" said Melbury, looking hard at him. The man repeated the +words. + +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. + +"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, be 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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"Up in her room--what has happened!" + +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!" + +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. + +"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." + +Though accustomed to show herself instantly appreciative of her +father's meanings, Grace was fairly unable to look anyhow but at a +loss now. + +"No, no--of course you don't know what I mean, or you pretend you +don't; though, for my part, I believe women can see these things +through a double hedge. But I suppose I must tell ye. Why, +you've flung your grapnel over the doctor, and he's coming +courting forthwith." + +"Only think of that, my dear! Don't you feel it a triumph?" said +Mrs. Melbury. + +"Coming courting! I've done nothing to make him," Grace exclaimed. + +"'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." + +"You mean, to lead him on to marry me?" + +"I do. Haven't I educated you for it?" + +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?" + +"Oh yes, of course. But you see what a good thing it will be." + +She weighed the statement without speaking. + +"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." + +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." + +"He's all right, and he's coming here to see you." + +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--" + +"You know that you can't think of him. He has given up all claim +to you." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +She replied that it did not require an answer. + +"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. + +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? + +"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." + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +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." + +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!" + +"But they are not lords of the manor there now." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +The remains were few, and consisted mostly of remnants of the +lower vaulting, supported on low stout columns surmounted by the +crochet 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. + +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. + +In an excitement which was not love, not ambition, rather a +fearful consciousness of hazard in the air, she awaited his +return. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"Who is?--oh, you mean Mrs. Charmond. Do you know, dear, that at +one time I thought you lived here." + +"Indeed!" said Grace. "How was that?" + +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." + +"Where, then, can it be? At a church in town?" + +"No. Not at a church at all. At a registry office. It is a +quieter, snugger, and more convenient place in every way." + +"Oh," said she, with real distress. "How can I be married except +at church, and with all my dear friends round me?" + +"Yeoman Winterborne among them." + +"Yes--why not? You know there was nothing serious between him and +me " + +"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." + +"But could it not be a quiet ceremony, even at church?" she +pleaded. + +"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." + +"Oh, Edgar--I don't like to hear you speak like that." + +"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?" + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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 +SHALL 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!" + +"No, father, no! It is not Giles--it is something I cannot tell +you of--" + +"Well, make fools of us all; make us laughing-stocks; break it +off; have your own way." + +"But who knows of the engagement as yet? how can breaking it +disgrace you?" + +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. + +"It is that Giles Winterborne!" he said, with an upbraiding gaze +at her. + +"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." + +"You've had a tiff--a lovers' tiff--that's all, I suppose + +"It is some woman--" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"But there's something wrong--eh?" he asked, eying her narrowly, +and bending to kiss her. She shrank away, and his purposed kiss +miscarried. + +"What is it?" he said, more seriously for this little defeat. + +She made no answer beyond, "Mr. Fitzpiers, I have had no +breakfast, I must go in." + +"Come," he insisted, fixing his eyes upon her. "Tell me at once, +I say." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +"Oh yes," said Fitzpiers, with his eyes fixed on Grace, whose eyes +were shyly bent downward. + +"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." + +Fitzpiers took her hand. "We declare it, do we not, my dear +Grace?" said he. + +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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 + + +"The homage of a thousand hearts; the fond, deep love of one." + + +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. + +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. + +Five hours later she was the wife of Fitzpiers. + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +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, + + + "When the fair apples, red as evening sky, + Do bend the tree unto the fruitful ground, + When juicy pears, and berries of black dye, + Do dance in air, and call the eyes around." + + +The landscape confronting the window might, indeed, have been part +of the identical stretch of country which the youthful Chatterton +had in his mind. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Why the deuce do you sigh like that, Robert?" asked Winterborne, +at last. + +"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!" + +"Good God, Creedle, you'll drive me mad!" said Giles, sternly. +"Don't speak of that any more!" + +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. + +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!" + +He appeared to take no heed, and she said a second time, "Mr. +Winterborne!" + +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. + +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?" + +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." + +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. + +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-- + + + "If I forget, + The salt creek may forget the ocean; + If I forget + The heart whence flows my heart's bright motion, + May I sink meanlier than the worst + Abandoned, outcast, crushed, accurst, + If I forget. + + "Though you forget, + No word of mine shall mar your pleasure; + Though you forget, + You filled my barren life with treasure, + You may withdraw the gift you gave; + You still are queen, I still am slave, + Though you forget." + + +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. + +Presently her husband entered the room, and told her what a +wonderful sunset there was to be seen. + +"I have not noticed it. But I have seen somebody out there that +we know," she replied, looking into the court. + +Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes, and said he did not +recognize anybody. + +"Why, Mr. Winterborne--there he is, cider-making. He combines +that with his other business, you know." + +"Oh--that fellow," said Fitzpiers, his curiosity becoming extinct. + +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." + +"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." + +"And from me too, then. For my blood is no better than theirs." + +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. + +"Ah YOU--you are refined and educated into something quite +different," he said, self-assuringly. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"You don't say a word, Edgar," she observed. "Aren't you glad to +get back? I am." + +"You have friends here. I have none." + +"But my friends are yours." + +"Oh yes--in that sense." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Well, Mrs. Cox, what's the best news?" he asked of her, with +cheery weariness. + +She was a little soured at losing by his marriage so profitable a +tenant as the surgeon had proved to be duling 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. + +"Never mind me, Mrs. Cox; go ahead." + +"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." + +"They are kindly welcome to their opinion," said Fitzpiers, not +allowing himself to recognize that he winced. "Anything else?" + +"Yes; SHE'S come home at last." + +"Who's she?" + +"Mrs. Charmond." + +"Oh, indeed!" said Fitzpiers, with but slight interest. "I've +never seen her." + +"She has seen you, sir, whether or no." + +"Never." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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." + +"Certainly not--certainly not," said Fitzpiers; and he entered the +room with the heroic smile of a martyr. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"We must be simply your father's tenants," he continued, "and our +goings and comings must be as independent as if we lived +elsewhere." + +"Certainly, Edgar--I quite see that it must be so." + +"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." + +She, sighing: "Yes--I see I ought to have waited; though they came +unexpectedly, and I thought I had acted for the best." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +The latter words were murmured to himself alone. + +"Good-night," said Grace, as soon as he was ready. "I shall be +asleep, probably, when you return." + +"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. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I am very much shaken," she said. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"WE met, do you say?" + +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--" + +"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 DO 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--" + +"Well?" + +"I kissed them," he rejoined, rather shamefacedly. + +"But you had hardly ever seen me except in the dusk?" + +"Never mind. I was young then, and I kissed them. I wondered how +I could make the most of my trouvaille, 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." + +"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.'" + +"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." + +"For how long?" + +"Oh--ever so long. Days and days." + +"Days and days! ONLY days and days? Oh, the heart of a man! Days +and days!" + +"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." + +"So much the better, perhaps." + +"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." + +"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." + +He gazed at her in undisguised admiration. Here was a soul of +souls! + +"Mrs. Charmond, you speak truly," he exclaimed. "But you speak +sadly as well. Why is that?" + +"I always am sad when I come here," she said, dropping to a low +tone with a sense of having been too demonstrative. + +"Then may I inquire why you came?" + +"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." + +"There is very good society in the county for those who have the +privilege of entering it." + +"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." + +She broke into a low musical laugh at the idea. + +"You don't wish me to stay any longer?" he inquired, when he found +that she remained musing. + +"No--I think not." + +"Then tell me that I am to be gone." + +"Why? Cannot you go without?" + +"I may consult my own feelings only, if left to myself." + +"Well, if you do, what then? Do you suppose you'll be in my way?" + +"I feared it might be so." + +"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." + +"If it depends upon myself it shall last forever." + +"My best hopes that it may. Good-by." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Edgar, is she very seriously hurt?" + +Fitzpiers had so entirely lost sight of Mrs. Charmond as a patient +that he was not on the instant ready with a reply. + +"Oh no," he said. "There are no bones broken, but she is shaken. +I am going again to-morrow." + +Another inquiry or two, and Grace said, + +"Did she ask for me?" + +"Well--I think she did--I don't quite remember; but I am under the +impression that she spoke of you." + +"Cannot you recollect at all what she said?" + +"I cannot, just this minute." + +"At any rate she did not talk much about me?" said Grace with +disappointment. + +"Oh no." + +"But you did, perhaps," she added, innocently fishing for a +compliment. + +"Oh yes--you may depend upon that!" replied he, warmly, though +scarcely thinking of what he was saving, so vividly was there +present to his mind the personality of Mrs. Charmond. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +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. + +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. + +"Oh--you hurt me!" she exclaimed one day. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Suppose my mother had not taken me away?" she murmured, her +dreamy eyes resting on the swaying tip of a distant tree. + +"I should have seen you again." + +"And then?" + +"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." + +"Why?" + +"Well--that's the end of all love, according to Nature's law. I +can give no other reason." + +"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!" + +"You are right--think it with all your heart," said he. "It is a +pleasant thought, and costs nothing." + +She weighed that remark in silence a while. "Did you ever hear +anything of me from then till now?" she inquired. + +"Not a word." + +"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." + +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. + +"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!" + +"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." + +"But you hate Hintock, and everybody and everything in it that you +don't mean to take away with you?" + +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. + +Now, with regard to the doctor's notion of leaving Hintock, he had +advanced furthur 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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"What does it all mean?" he asked. + +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." + +"You must eat of a second tree of knowledge before you can do it, +Felice Charmond." + +"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." + +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.) + +"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." + +"But," said Fitzpiers, gloomily, "what have we done?" + +"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?" + +"I have refused the opportunity. I love this place too well to +depart." + +"You HAVE?" she said, regarding him with wild uncertainty. + +"Why do you ruin yourself in that way? Great Heaven, what have I +done!" + +"Nothing. Besides, you are going away." + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"Please--if you don't mind." + +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. + +"No," she replied. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I am crying, and I don't want to see you." + +He stood a moment irresolute, and regretted that he had killed the +rosy, passionate lamplight by opening the curtains and letting in +garish day. + +"Then I am going," he said. + +"Very well," she answered, stretching one hand round to him, and +patting her eyes with a handkerchief held in the other. + +"Shall I write a line to you at--" + +"No, no." A gentle reasonableness came into her tone as she added, +"It must not be, you know. It won't do." + +"Very well. Good-by." The next moment he was gone. + +In the evening, with listless adroitness, she encouraged the maid +who dressed her for dinner to speak of Dr. Fitzpiers's marriage. + +"Mrs. Fitzpiers was once supposed to favor Mr. Winterborne," said +the young woman. + +"And why didn't she marry him?" said Mrs. Charmond. + +"Because, you see, ma'am, he lost his houses." + +"Lost his houses? How came he to do that?" + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I must do something for that poor man Winterborne, however," she +said. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She spoke, and Fitzpiers started. "What are you looking at?" she +asked. + +"Oh! I was contemplating our old place of Buckbury, in my idle +way," he said. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +The next morning she was stirring considerably earlier than he. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"Why do you go to-night?" she said. "You have been called up two +nights in succession already." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +Herr Tannhauser 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-- + + + "...Towards the loadstar of my one desire + I flitted, even as a dizzy moth in the owlet light." + + +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. + +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. + +"How do you do, Giles?" said she, under a sudden impulse to be +familiar with him. + +He replied with much more reserve. "You are going for a walk, +Mrs. Fitzpiers?" he added. "It is pleasant just now." + +"No, I am returning," said she. + +The vehicles passed through, the gate slammed, and Winterborne +walked by her side in the rear of the apple-mill. + +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. + +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?" + +Winterborne, with some hesitation, "Yes." + +"Where did you meet him?" + +"At Calfhay Cross. I come from Middleton Abbey; I have been +making there for the last week." + +"Haven't they a mill of their own?" + +"Yes, but it's out of repair." + +"I think--I heard that Mrs. Charmond had gone there to stay?" + +"Yes. I have seen her at the windows once or twice." + +Grace waited an interval before she went on: "Did Mr. Fitzpiers +take the way to Middleton?" + +"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?" + +"Oh yes--of course," she answered, quickly. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"No, now--it was nothing. I was too reproachful." + +"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. + +"By whom?" + +"Don't ask it." + +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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +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. + +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. + +"Good-evening, Miss Melbury" (crack). + +"Mrs. Fitzpiers." + +"Oh yes, ma'am--Mrs. Fitzpiers," said Suke, with a peculiar smile. + +Grace, not to be daunted, continued: "Take care of your teeth, +Suke. That accounts for the toothache." + +"I don't know what an ache is, either in tooth, ear, or head, +thank the Lord" (crack). + +"Nor the loss of one, either?" + +"See for yourself, ma'am." She parted her red lips, and exhibited +the whole double row, full up and unimpaired. + +"You have never had one drawn?" + +"Never." + +"So much the better for your stomach," said Mrs. Fitzpiers, in an +altered voice. And turning away quickly, she went on. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +Of poor Suke Damson, Grace thought no more. She had had her day. + +"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. + +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. + +"Is that you, Grace? What's the matter?" he said. + +"Nothing more than that I am restless. Edgar is detained by a +case at Owlscombe in White Hart Vale." + +"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." + +"Then he's detained somewhere else," said Grace. "Never mind me; +he will soon be home. I expect him about one." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I'll come with you," said Melbury. + +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. + +"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." + +"He has not done that," said she. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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?" + +"Yes," said she. "How do you come here?" + +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." + +"The name! If it had been any other horse he'd have had a broken +neck!" murmured Melbury. + +"'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." + +"True," murmured old Timothy. "From the soul of his foot to the +crown of his head there was no blemish in him." + +"Or leastwise you might ha' been a-wownded into tatters a'most, +and no doctor to jine your few limbs together within seven mile!" + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"He was detained, I suppose, last night?" said Melbury. + +"Oh yes; a bad case in the vale," she replied, calmly. + +"Nevertheless, he should have stayed at home." + +"But he couldn't, father." + +Her father turned away. He could hardly bear to see his whilom +truthful girl brought to the humiliation of having to talk like +that. + +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!" + +"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?" + +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!" + +"Do you know anything of Mrs. Charmond's past history? Perhaps +that would throw some light upon things. Pefore 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 opportnnity. Time +enough to cry when you know 'tis a crying matter; and 'tis bad to +meet troubles half-way." + +There was some good-sense in the notion of seeing further. +Melbury resolved to inquire and wait, hoping still, hut oppressed +between-whiles with much fear. + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +Examine Grace as her father might, she would admit nothing. For +the present, therefore, he simply watched. + +The suspicion that his darling child was being slighted wrought +almost a miraculous change in Melbury's nature. No man so furtive +for the time as the ingenuous countryman who finds that his +ingenuousness has been abused. Melbury's heretofore confidential +candor towards his gentlemanly son-in-law was displaced by a +feline stealth that did injnry 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. + +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. + +The service proceeded, and the jealons 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. + +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. + +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 autnmn's habits lay in his abandonment of night study-- +his lamp never shone from his new dwelling as from his old. + +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. + +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?" + +"I make none." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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!-- + + + "'Love's but the frailty of the mind + When 'tis not with ambition joined; + A sickly flame which if not fed, expires, + And feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires!' + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 + + + "As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing." + + +It was these perceptions, and no subtle catching of her husband's +murmurs, that had bred the abstraction visible in her. + +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. + +"Ah, Grace," he said, regarding her fixedly. + +"Yes, father," she murmured. + +"Waiting for your dear husband?" he inquired, speaking with the +sarcasm of pitiful affection. + +"Oh no--not especially. He has a great many patients to see this +afternoon." + +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." + +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 unguibus et rostro, and accused her even in exaggerated +shape of stealing away her husband. Such a storm might have +cleared the air. + +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." + +"I am quiet because my sadness is not of a nature to stir me to +action." + +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. + +"I am what I feel, father," she repeated. + +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. + +"What would you have me do?" she asked, in a low voice. + +He recalled his mind from the retrospective pain to the practical +matter before them. "I would have you go to Mrs. Charmond," he +said. + +"Go to Mrs. Charmond--what for?" said she. + +"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." + +Grace's face had heated at her father's words, and the very rustle +of her skirts upon the box-edging bespoke hauteur. "I shall not +think of going to her, father--of course I could not!" she +answered. + +"Why--don't 'ee want to be happier than you be at present?" said +Melbury, more moved on her account than she was herself. + +"I don't wish to be more humiliated. If I have anything to bear I +can bear it in silence." + +"But, my dear maid, you are too young--you don't know what the +present state of things may lead to. Just see the harm done +a'ready! Your husband would have gone away to Budmouth to a bigger +practice if it had not been for this. Although it has gone such a +little way, it is poisoning your future even now. Mrs. Charmond +is thoughtlessly bad, not bad by calculation; and just a word to +her now might save 'ee a peck of woes." + +"Ah, I loved her once," said Grace, with a broken articulation, +"and she would not care for me then! Now I no longer love her. +Let her do her worst: I don't care." + +"You ought to care. You have got into a very good position to +start with. You have been well educated, well tended, and you +have become the wife of a professional man of unusually good +family. Surely you ought to make the best of your position." + +"I don't see that I ought. I wish I had never got into it. I +wish you had never, never thought of educating me. I wish I +worked in the woods like Marty South. I hate genteel life, and I +want to be no better than she." + +"Why?" said her amazed father. + +"Because cultivation has only brought me inconveniences and +troubles. I say again, I wish you had never sent me to those +fashionable schools you set your mind on. It all arose out of +that, father. If I had stayed at home I should have married--" +She closed up her mouth suddenly and was silent; and be saw that +she was not far from crying. + +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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Winterborne explained just as briefly, without raising his eyes +from his occupation of chopping a bough that he held in front of +him. + +"'Twill be up in April before you get it all cleared," said +Melbury. + +"Yes, there or thereabouts," said Winterborne, a chop of the +billhook jerking the last word into two pieces. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"No, no." Melbury stood without speaking for some minutes, and +then, as though he could not bring himself to proceed, turned to +go away. + +Winterborne told one of his men to pack up the tools for the night +and walked after Melbury. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"Giles, you ought to have had her, as I said just now," repeated +Melbury. "I'll tell you why for the first time." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +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. + +"Oh, she never cared much for me," Giles managed to say, as he +stirred the embers with a brand. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Hey?" But how close you have kept all this, Giles! What +besides?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"She is said to be generous," he answered. "You might not appeal +to her in vain." + +"It shall be done," said Melbury, rising. "For good or for evil, +to Mrs. Charmond I'll go." + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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?" + +"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." + +"What! haven't you told her before?" said Melbury. + +"Oh no," said the other. "You see you came so very early." + +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. + +At this time of the morning Mrs. Charmond looked her full age and +more. She might almost have been taken for the typical femme de +trente ans, 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. + +"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." + +"Yes," said Melbury. + +"How very nice! It must be so charming to work in the woods just +now!" + +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. + +"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." + +Mrs. Charmond looked ill at ease. She might have begun to guess +his meaning; but apart from that, she had such dread of contact +with anything painful, harsh, or even earnest, that his +preliminaries alone were enough to distress her. "Yes, what is +it?" she said. + +"I am an old man," said Melbury, "whom, somewhat late in life, God +thought fit to bless with one child, and she a daughter. Her +mother was a very dear wife to me, but she was taken away from us +when the child was young, and the child became precious as the +apple of my eye to me, for she was all I had left to love. 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." + +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!" + +Melbury started, and looked at her simply. "But surely, ma'am, +you know the truth better than I?" + +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--" + +"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--" + +"I have heard nothing of it. Tell me of it, I say." + +"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!" + +"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!" + +"I will," he said, in a husky tone. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I cannot see him, whoever he may be. I am not at home to +anybody." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I was looking for him too," said Giles. "I think he may perhaps +have gone on farther." + +"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?" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"Who is that young lady I see talking to the woodman yonder?" she +asked. + +"Mrs. Fitzpiers, ma'am," said Marty. + +"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?" + +"That's Mr. Winterborne." + +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. + +"No, ma'am," said Marty. "SHE was once; and I think--" + +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. + +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. + +"Dear--Mrs. Fitzpiers," said Felice Charmond, with some inward +turmoil which stopped her speech. "I have not seen you for a long +time." + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"I have seen your father," she at length resumed. "And--I am much +troubled by what he told me." + +"What did he tell you? I have not been admitted to his confidence +on anything he may have said to you." + +"Nevertheless, why should I repeat to you what you can easily +divine?" + +"True--true," returned Grace, mournfully. "Why should you repeat +what we both know to be in our minds already?" + +"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. + +"Then you DO love him!" she exclaimed, in a tone of much surprise. + +"What do you mean, my young friend?" + +"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." + +"Yes, indeed," continued Mrs. Fitzpiers, with a trembling tongue, +"since it is not playing in your case at all, but REAL. Oh, I do +pity you, more than I despise you, for you will s-s-suffer most!" + +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." + +"Oh, that's affectation," said Grace, shaking her head. "It is no +use--you love 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." + +"I HAVE been insincere--if you will have the word--I mean I HAVE +coquetted, and do NOT love him!" + +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." + +"Oh, well--I won't argue," said Mrs. Charmond, laughing faintly. +"And you come to reproach me for it, child." + +"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!" + +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." + +"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 me--God help you!" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +"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!" + +"So am I," said Grace. "What shall we, shall we do?" + +"You won't go away from me?" asked her companion, anxiously. + +"No, indeed. Are you very tired?" + +"I can scarcely move, and I am scratched dreadfully about the +ankles." + +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." + +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. + +"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!" + +"Why not?" + +"Because--well, you know." + +"Yes. I will--I don't hate you at all." + +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. + +When a few minutes had been spent thus, Mrs. Charmond said, "I am +so wretched!" in a heavy, emotional whisper. + +"You are frightened," said Grace, kindly. "But there is nothing +to fear; I know these woods well." + +"I am not at all frightened at the wood, but I am at other +things." + +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. + +"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 cannot +give him up--even if I would--of myself alone." + +"Why? Because you love him, you mean." + +Felice Charmond denoted assent by a movement. + +"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!" + +"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 CANNOT give him up until he chooses to give up +me." + +"But surely you are the superior in station and in every way, and +the cut must come from you." + +"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. + +Grace started roughly away from the shelter of the fur, and sprang +to her feet. + +"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, thunderstruck at a revelation +transcending her utmost suspicion. "Can it be--can it be!" + +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. + +"Are you rested?" she asked, in what seemed something like her own +voice grown ten years older. + +Without an answer Mrs. Charmond slowly rose. + +"You mean to betray me!" she said from the bitterest depths of her +soul. "Oh fool, fool I!" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +They dragged themselves onward, turned into the lane, passed the +track to Little Hintock, and so reached the park. + +"Here I turn back," said Grace, in the same passionless voice. +"You are quite near home." + +Mrs. Charmond stood inert, seeming appalled by her late admission. + +"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?" + +"A secret, certainly," said Grace, mournfully. "How can you +expect war from such a helpless, wretched being as I!" + +"And I'll do my best not to see him. I am his slave; but I'll +try." + +Grace was naturally kind; but she could not help using a small +dagger now. + +"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. + +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. + +Could she have known what Marty was writing she would have been +surprised. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Marty hesitated. "From me," she said, shyly, though with +noticeable firmness. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"How is Grace?" said his wife, as soon as he entered. + +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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"D--n him! why did he not ride up to the house in an honest way?" +said Melbury. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +"Indeed!" muttered Melbury. + +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 HER. +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." + +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. + +"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!" + +Melbury, his heart throbbing against the other's backbone, and his +brain on fire with indignation, ventured to mutter huskily, "Why?" + +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 is 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--" + +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 should, I should +be free--and my fame, my happiness, would be insured." + +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. + +"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. + +"God forgive me!" Melbury murmured, repenting of what he had done. +"He tried me too sorely; and now perhaps I've murdered him!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +By-and-by Mrs. Melbury came up-stairs with a slight air of flurry +and abruptness. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +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? + +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?" + +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. + +"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. + +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?" + +"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. + +"Where?" said Mrs. Charmond; and on Suke pointing out the +direction, she made as if to go thither. + +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." + +"Please do not conceal anything--let me know all!" said Felice, +doubtingly. + +"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--for +other reasons." + +She regarded them both there in the dim light a while. + +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? + +"He is dying, perhaps," blubbered Suke Damson, putting her apron +to her eyes. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"But he has been thrown off his horse!" + +"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. + +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 Bien-aime had silently disappeared. They had, +in all probability, heard the words of her father, and departed +with their anxieties relieved. + +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. + +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." + +"I think it will be useless, Grace," said Melbury, slowly. + +"Why?" + +"I have had a bitter quarrel with him; and on that account I +hardly think he will return to-night." + +"A quarrel? Was that after the fall seen by the boy?" + +Melbury nodded an affirmative, without taking his eyes off the +candle. + +"Yes; it was as we were coming home together," he said. + +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!" + +"How can you speak so unjustly to me, Grace?" said Melbury, with +indignant sorrow. "I divide you from your husband, indeed! You +little think--" + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Are you hurt much--much?" she cried, faintly. "Oh, oh, how is +this!" + +"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." + +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. + +"Are you dying, Edgar?" she said. "Do speak to me!" + +"I am half dead," said Fitzpiers. "But perhaps I shall get over +it....It is chiefly loss of blood." + +"But I thought your fall did not hurt you," said she. "Who did +this?" + +"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--" + +"Let me bind your head, now that you have rested." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +He was now in better condition, and discussed his position with +her. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +Fitzpiers told her that there was yet one thing more to he 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?" + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Melbury had entered the Valley of Humiliation even farther than +Grace. His spirit seemed broken. + +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. + +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." + +"How--what--a remedy?" said Melbury. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, he is coming!" she cried, and in her terror sprang clean from +the bed out upon the floor. + +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. + +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 AT ONCE it may be the means of averting much +harm," he said. "Write to herself; not to me." + +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. + +"Can you open it yourself?" said she. + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +When a few words had been spoken, she said, archly, "I have +nothing to do. Perhaps you are deeply engaged?" + +"I? Not a bit. My business now at the best of times is small, I +am sorry to say." + +"Well, then, I am going into the Abbey. Come along with me." + +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. + +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. + +He remembered it perfectly, and remarked, "You were a proud miss +then, and as dainty as you were high. Perhaps you are now?" + +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?" + +"Yes," said Winterborne. + +She glanced ponderingly up at him. "Not about me?" + +"Yes." + +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. + +"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. + +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." + +"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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"You are very good, dear Grace," he said, in a low voice. "You +are better, much better, than you used to be." + +"How?" + +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. + +"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 +NEVER get free!--there should be any hitch or informality!" + +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. + +"It is sure to be all right, I trust?" she resumed, in uneasy +accents. "What did my father say the solicitor had told him?" + +"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." + +"Oh no--of course not," she said, sunk in meek thought. "But +father said it was ALMOST--did he not? Do you know anything about +the new law that makes these things so easy?" + +"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." + +"Have you to sign a paper, or swear anything? Is it something like +that?" + +"Yes, I believe so." + +"How long has it been introduced?" + +"About six months or a year, the lawyer said, I think." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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?" + +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?" + +"Oh no--don't, if it is a secret." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"I'll find it by inquiry," said Grace, setting out. + +"And shall I see you again?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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 +EVER will misunderstand me." + +"Indeed, that's not so, Mrs. Fitzpiers. Can you deny that you +felt out of place at The Three Tuns?" + +"I don't know. Well, since you make me speak, I do not deny it." + +"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?" + +"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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +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: + +"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." + +He added a postscript: + +"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." + + + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +"Giles, why didn't you come across to me?" she asked, with arch +reproach. "Didn't you see me sitting there ever so long?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"There is none," he said, sadly regarding her from the face +downward as he pondered how to lay the cruel truth bare. + +"Still--I fear you have not quite forgiven me about my being +uncomfortable at the inn." + +"I have, Grace, I'm sure." + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Did you say anything?" she asked, timidly. + +"Oh no--only that--" + +"You mean that it must BE settled, since my father is coming +home?" she said, gladly. + +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. + +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 REALLY a new law? Father +cannot have been too sanguine in saying--" + +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!" + +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. + +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. + +Poor Grace, perhaps feeling that she had indulged in too much +fluster for a mere kiss, calmed herself at finding how grave he +was. "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 SO 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." + +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--" + +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?" + +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." + +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." + +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!" + +For a moment they did not heed, and the voice repeated, more +loudly and hoarsely, + +"Take out that arm!" + +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!" + +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. + +When Melbury had recovered a little he said, "You are now, as +ever, Fitzpiers's wife. I was deluded. He has not done you +ENOUGH harm. You are still subject to his beck and call." + +"Then let it be, and never mind, father," she said, with dignified +sorrow. "I can bear it. It is your trouble that grieves me +most." She stooped over him, and put her arm round his neck, which +distressed Melbury still more. "I don't mind at all what comes to +me," Grace continued; "whose wife I am, or whose I am not. I do +love Giles; 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." + +"Then Giles did not tell you?" said Melbury. + +"No," said she. "He could not have known it. His behavior to me +proved that he did not know." + +Her father said nothing more, and Grace went away to the solitude +of her chamber. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XL. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You sha'n't go," said he. + +"I had felt I would not," she answered. "But I did not know what +you would say." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Her father and Grace were both present when the intelligence was +announced. + +"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." + +"Oh, father!" said Grace, turning white with dismay. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Try if you cannot," he returned, moodily. + +"Oh yes, I will, I will," she went on, inconsequently. "I'll +try;" and jumping up suddenly, she left the room. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, + + + "Long tears upon their faces, waxen white + With extreme sad delight." + + +He broke the silence by saying in a whisper, "Come in." + +"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--" + +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. + +"He has come." + +There was a stillness as of death, till Winterborne asked, "You +mean this, Grace--that I am to help you to get away?" + +"Yes," said she. "Appearance is no matter, when the reality is +right. I have said to myself I can trust you." + +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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + + +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. + +"This is awkward," said Grace, with an effort to hide her concern. + +Winterborne stopped. "Grace," he said, preserving a strictly +business manner which belied him, "you cannot go to Sherton to- +night." + +"But I must!" + +"Why? It is nine miles from here. It is almost an impossibility +in this rain." + +"True--WHY?" she replied, mournfully, at the end of a silence. +"What is reputation to me?" + +"Now hearken," said Giles. "You won't--go back to your--" + +"No, no, no! Don't make me!" she cried, piteously. + +"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." + +Her face had drooped. "Oh!" she murmured, as she saw the dilemma. +"What have I done!" + +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." + +"But, Giles--your supper," she exclaimed. "An out-house would do +for me--anything--till to-morrow at day-break!" + +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." + +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. + +"You are locked in," he said; "and your own mistress." + +Even in her trouble she could not refrain from a faint smile at +his scrupulousness, as she took the door-key. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"Oh yes," he said, quickly. + +"I feel that I could never have reached Sherton." + +"It was impossible." + +"Are you sure you have a snug place out there?" (With renewed +misgiving.) + +"Quite. Have you found everything you want? I am afraid it is +rather rough accommodation." + +"Can I notice defects? I have long passed that stage, and you +know it, Giles, or you ought to." + +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." + +She expressed an alarmed hope that he would not go very far away. + +"Oh no--I shall be quite within hail," said Winterborne. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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? + +"My dear, good Giles!" she burst out, impulsively. + +"Anybody would have done it for you," replied Winterborne, with as +much matter-of-fact as he could summon. + +"About my getting to Exbury?" she said. + +"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?" + +She declared that she did not mind it; but she sighed. + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +He replied, yearningly, "I--I don't like you to go away." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Yes; perhaps you are right. Go when you wish, dear Grace." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"My own, own, true l---, my dear kind friend!" she cried to +herself. "Oh, it shall not be--it shall not be!" + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"Here I am--all right. Don't trouble about me." + +"Don't you want to come in? Are you not ill? I don't mind what +they say, or what they think any more." + +"I am all right," he repeated. "It is not necessary for me to +come. Good-night! good-night!" + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, my Giles," she cried, "what have I done to you!" + +But she stopped no longer even to reproach herself. She saw that +the first thing to be thought of was to get him indoors. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +"I will, readily." + +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. + +"Do you know the way?" she asked. + +"Yes," said he. + +"One-chimney Hut," she repeated. "And--immediately!" + +"Yes, yes," said Fitzpiers. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Is he dying--is there any hope?" she cried. + +"Grace!" said Fitzpiers, in an indescribable whisper--more than +invocating, if not quite deprecatory. + +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. + +"Is he in great danger--can you save him?" she cried again. + +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. + +"He is dying," he said, with dry precision. + +"What?" said she. + +"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. + +"But it cannot be! He was well three days ago." + +"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." + +"Ah--he was not well--you are right. He was ill--he was ill when +I came." + +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. + +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. + + + +Then Fitzpiers broke the silence. "Have you lived here long?" +said he. + +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?" + +"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." + +"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. + +He watched her a while, and then glanced round the chamber where +his eyes fell upon a few dressing necessaries that she had +brought. + +"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?" + +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. + +"Yes," she answered; and there was that in her subtly compounded +nature which made her feel a thrill of pride as she did so. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Dead--SHE dead?" exclaimed Grace. + +"Yes. Felice Charmond is where this young man is." + +"Never!" said Grace, vehemently. + +He went on without heeding the insinuation: "And I came back to +try to make it up with you--but--" + +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. + +"Have you been kissing him during his illness?" asked her husband. + +"Yes." + +"Since his fevered state set in?" + +"Yes." + +"On his lips?" + +"Yes." + +"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. + +Grace shook her head. + +"If you don't do as I tell you you may soon be like him." + +"I don't care. I wish to die." + +"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?" + +"Certainly." + +Fitzpiers left the cot, and the stroke of his feet was soon +immersed in the silence that prevaded 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. + +"What--Marty!" said Grace. + +"Yes. I have heard," said Marty, whose demeanor had lost all its +girlishness under the stroke that seemed almost literally to have +bruised her. + +"He died for me!" murmured Grace, heavily. + +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." + +"Oh don't, don't, Marty!" + +Marty said no more, but knelt over Winterborne from the other +side. + +"Did you meet my hus--Mr. Fitzpiers?" + +"Then what brought you here?" + +"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." + +Grace looked at her quickly. "Then did you know I was here?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Did you tell anybody?" + +"No. I knew you lived in the hut, that he had gied it up to ye, +and lodged out himself." + +"Did you know where he lodged?" + +"No. That I couldn't find out. Was it at Delborough?" + +"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?" + +"Oh yes--we will--with all my heart!" + +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." + +"So should I," said her companion. "But we must not." + +"Why? Nobody would know." + +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. + +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. + +"I don't reproach you, Grace," said her father, with an estranged +manner, and in a voice not at all like his old voice. "What has +come upon you and us is beyond reproach, beyond weeping, and +beyond wailing. Perhaps I drove you to it. But I am hurt; I am +scourged; I am astonished. In the face of this there is nothing +to be said." + +Without replying, Grace turned and glided back to the inner +chamber. "Marty," she said, quickly, "I cannot look my father in +the face until he knows the true circumstances of my life here. +Go and tell him--what you have told me--what you saw--that he gave +up his house to me." + +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. + +"Yes," said Melbury. + +"And you know all that has happened?" + +"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?" + +"No. I stay here with HIM. Take no account of me any more." + +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. + +"But I don't wish to escape it." + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"He would go away again rather than keep you out of my house." + +"How do you know that, father?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Yes. That he would not intrude upon you, Grace, till you gave +him absolute permission," Mrs. Melbury added. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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." + +"Ah, yes," said Grace, arousing slightly to the recollection, "he +told me so." + +"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." + +"I can forgive her," said Grace, absently. "Did Edgar tell you of +this?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Marty," she said, "we both loved him. We will go to his grave +together." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"He ought to have married YOU, Marty, and nobody else in the +world!" said Grace, with conviction, after thinking somewhat in +the above strain. + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +"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. + +Fitzpiers somehow divined that they were Giles Winterborne's, and +he put the question to her. + +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." + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + + +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 +Cymbeline, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +There the practical part ended; he then went on-- + + +"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, Your lover +always (once your husband), + + "E." + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 modus +vivendi 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Indeed. Where to?" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +"How--what the devil's this about!" exclaimed the bridegroom. + +"She's a little wee bit overcome, poor dear!" said the first +bridesmaid, unfolding her handkerchief and wiping Suke's eyes. + +"I never did like parting from people!" said Suke, as soon as she +could speak. + +"Why him in particular?" + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"I am most attentive," said her husband. "Shall we take to the +wood for privacy?" + +Grace demurred, and Fitzpiers gave in, and they kept the public +road. + +At any rate she would take his arm? This also was gravely +negatived, the refusal being audible to Marty. + +"Why not?" he inquired. + +"Oh, Mr. Fitzpiers--how can you ask?" + +"Right, right," said he, his effusiveness shrivelled up. + +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." + +"Not at all," said Fitzpiers, heroically. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"For no other reason at all?" he asked, ruefully. + +"It was nearly the whole." + +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." + +Grace did not move her eyes from the birds, and folded her +delicate lips as if to keep them in subjection. + +"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.'" + +"That's out of 'Measure for Measure,'" said she, slyly. + +"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?" + +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. + +"Mine is with you--in no less deep a grave, I fear, according to +that." + +"I am very sorry; but it cannot be helped." + +"How can you be sorry for me, when you wilfully keep open the +grave?" + +"Oh no--that's not so," returned Grace, quickly, and moved to go +away from him. + +"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." + +"I did not say you were a wretch, nor have I ever said so." + +"But you have such a contemptuous way of looking at me that I fear +you think so." + +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." + +"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!" + +This was undeniably true, and it had its weight with Grace, who +began to look as if she thought she had been shockingly severe. + +"Before you go," he continued, "I want to know your pleasure about +me--what you wish me to do, or not to do." + +"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." + +"YOU don't need advice, wisest, dearest woman that ever lived. If +you did--" + +"Would you give it to me?" + +"Would you act upon what I gave?" + +"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." + +"It is so easy for me to say, and yet I dare not, for it would be +provoking you to remonstrances." + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +Grace felt a guiltiness--she hardly knew why--and made no +confession. + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"It is a week before the time," said she, reproachfully. "I said +a fortnight from the last meeting." + +"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?" + +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. + +His assertion had seemed to impress her somewhat. "I had no idea +you came so often," she said. "How far do you come from?" + +"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 MUST call you--I put it to you: will you see me a little +oftener as the spring advances?" + +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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"None whatever!" he replied, cheerfully. "Sell them at Sherton +for what they will fetch." + +"And those dreadful old French romances, with their horrid +spellings of 'filz' and 'ung' and 'ilz' and 'mary' and 'ma foy?'" + +"You haven't been reading them, Grace?" + +"Oh no--I just looked into them, that was all." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Why not?" + +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." + +"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." + +"Then you haven't given up smoking?" + +"Well--ahem--no. I have thought of doing so, but--" + +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." + +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?" + +"When you were away." + +"How could that be?" + +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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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!" + +"I am sorry; but I fear I cannot," she said, sighing again. + +"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?" + +"To love you again?" + +"Yes; if you can." + +"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?" + +"Certainly. Have I given any ground for you to doubt my first +promise in that respect?" + +She was obliged to admit that he had not. + +"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." + +She faintly shook her head, but said, "I'll try to think of you +more--if I can." + +With this Fitzpiers was compelled to be satisfied, and he asked +her when she would meet him again. + +"As we arranged--in a fortnight." + +"If it must be a fortnight it must!" + +"This time at least. I'll consider by the day I see you again if +I can shorten the interval." + +"Well, be that as it may, I shall come at least twice a week to +look at your window." + +"You must do as you like about that. Good-night." + +"Say 'husband.'" + +She seemed almost inclined to give him the word; but exclaiming, +"No, no; I cannot," slipped through the garden-hedge and +disappeared. + + + +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. + +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. + +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 inamorato 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. + +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. + +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. + +"Sorry that you be going, after all, Suke?" he said. + +She sighed involuntarily. "I don't know but that I be," she +answered. "'Tis natural, isn't it, when one is going away?" + +"But you wasn't born here as I was." + +"No." + +"There's folk left behind that you'd fain have with 'ee, I +reckon?" + +"Why do you think that?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"So he's coming to-night," said Tim, laconically. "And we be +always anxious to see our dears." + +"He IS coming to-night," she replied, with defiance. "And we BE +anxious for our dears." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Ah, I thought my memory didn't deceive me!" he lipped silently. + +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. + +"That will spoil his pretty shins for'n, I reckon!" he said. + +It was a man-trap. + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + + +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. + +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. + +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 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Having completed these arrangements, Tim sprang through the +adjoining hedge of his father's garden, ran down the path, and +softly entered the house. + +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. + +"What's that?" said Suke, starting up in bed. + +"Sounds as if somebody had caught a hare in his gin." + +"Oh no," said she. "It was not a hare, 'twas louder. Hark!" + +"Do 'ee get to sleep," said Tim. "How be you going to wake at +half-past three else?" + +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. + +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. + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The position of things at that critical juncture was briefly as +follows. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, my own--my darling! Oh, cruel Heaven--it is too much, this!" +he cried, writhing and rocking himself over the sorry accessaries +of her he deplored. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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!" + +He continued to press his face to hers. "You are mine--mine again +now." + +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?" + +"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. + +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. + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Grace's tremblings had gone off, and she did not say nay. They +went on together. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"By the gods, I think I have lost my train!" said Fitzpiers. + +"Dear me--whereabouts are we?" said she. + +"Two miles in the direction of Sherton." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"He will surely guess--somebody has seen me for certain. I'll go +all the way back with you to-morrow." + +"But that newly done-up place--the Earl of Wessex!" + +"If you are so very particular about the publicity I will stay at +the Three Tuns." + +"Oh no--it is not that I am particular--but I haven't a brush or +comb or anything!" + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Was he clutching her tight?" said Melbury. + +"Well--rather," said the man. + +"Did she walk lame?" + +"Well, 'tis true her head hung over towards him a bit." + +Creedle groaned tragically. + +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. + +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. + +"Faith!--I believe she's mesmerized, or walking in her sleep," +said Melbury. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +"Do you know if it is my daughter?" asked Melbury. + +The waiter did not. + +"Do you know the lady's name?" + +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. + +"Oh, the gentleman appears again now," said Melbury to himself. +"Well, I want to see the lady," he declared. + +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. + +"Why--what the name--" began her father. "I thought you went out +to get parsley!" + +"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." + +"Edgar! An accident! How does he come here? I thought he was two +hundred mile off." + +"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." + +Melbury did not seem to be particularly enlightened by this +explanation. + +"You were caught in a man-trap?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"He came to see me; he wanted to consult me about this large +partnership I speak of, as it is very promising." + +"Oh, I am glad to hear it," said Melbury, dryly. + +A pause ensued, during which the inquiring faces and whity-brown +clothes of Melbury's companions appeared in the door-way. + +"Then bain't you coming home with us?" he asked. + +"I--I think not," said Grace, blushing. + +"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. + +"Don't be angry, father," she said, following him a few steps. "I +have done it for the best." + +"I am not angry, though it is true I have been a little misled in +this. However, good-night. I must get home along." + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"No. He is such a projick, you see. And she is a wonderful +scholar too!" + +"What women do know nowadays!" observed the hollow-turner. "You +can't deceive 'em as you could in my time." + +"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?" + +"I can't say I've noticed it particular much," said the hollow- +turner, blandly. + +"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." + +"How many climates may there be in courtship, Mr. Upjohn?" +inquired a youth--the same who had assisted at Winterborne's +Christmas party. + +"Five--from the coolest to the hottest--leastwise there was five +in mine." + +"Can ye give us the chronicle of 'em, Mr. Upjohn?" + +"Yes--I could. I could certainly. But 'tis quite unnecessary. +They'll come to ye by nater, young man, too soon for your good." + +"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." + +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. + +"I think it was Marty South," said the hollow-turner, +parenthetically. + +"I think 'twas; 'a was always a lonely maid," said Upjohn. And +they passed on homeward, and thought of the matter no more. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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 GOOD man, and did good things!" + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Woodlanders, by Thomas Hardy + + |