CHAPTER XXV.
The chief hotel at Sherton-Abbas was an old stone-fronted inn with ayawning arch, under which vehicles were driven by stooping coachmen toback premises of wonderful commodiousness. The windows to the streetwere mullioned into narrow lights, and only commanded a view of theopposite houses; hence, perhaps, it arose that the best and mostluxurious private sitting-room that the inn could afford over-lookedthe nether parts of the establishment, where beyond the yard were to beseen gardens and orchards, now bossed, nay incrusted, with scarlet andgold fruit, stretching to infinite distance under a luminous lavendermist. 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 ofthe identical stretch of country which the youthful Chatterton had inhis mind.
In this room sat she who had been the maiden Grace Melbury till thefinger of fate touched her and turned her to a wife. It was two monthsafter the wedding, and she was alone. Fitzpiers had walked out to seethe abbey by the light of sunset, but she had been too fatigued toaccompany 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 scenenatural to the locality at this time of the year. An apple-mill andpress had been erected on the spot, to which some men were bringingfruit from divers points in mawn-baskets, while others were grindingthem, and others wringing down the pomace, whose sweet juice gushedforth into tubs and pails. The superintendent of these proceedings, towhom the others spoke as master, was a young yeoman of prepossessingmanner and aspect, whose form she recognized in a moment. He had hunghis coat to a nail of the out-house wall, and wore his shirt-sleevesrolled up beyond his elbows, to keep them unstained while he rammed thepomace into the bags of horse-hair. Fragments of apple-rind hadalighted upon the brim of his hat--probably from the bursting of abag--while brown pips of the same fruit were sticking among the downupon his fine, round arms.
She realized in a moment how he had come there. Down in the heart ofthe apple country nearly every farmer kept up a cider-making apparatusand 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'splain, was a debatable land neither orchard nor sylvan exclusively,where the apple produce was hardly sufficient to warrant eachproprietor in keeping a mill of his own. This was the field of thetravelling cider-maker. His press and mill were fixed to wheelsinstead of being set up in a cider-house; and with a couple of horses,buckets, tubs, strainers, and an assistant or two, he wandered fromplace to place, deriving very satisfactory returns for his trouble insuch a prolific season as the present.
The back parts of the town were just now abounding withapple-gatherings. They stood in the yards in carts, baskets, and looseheaps; and the blue, stagnant air of autumn which hung over everythingwas heavy with a sweet cidery smell. Cakes of pomace lay against thewalls 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 standardcrop came in there accumulated, in abundant times like this, a largesuperfluity of early apples, and windfalls from the trees of laterharvest, which would not keep long. Thus, in the baskets, andquivering 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 ravenousyouth.
Grace watched the head-man with interest. The slightest sigh escapedher. Perhaps she thought of the day--not so far distant--when thatfriend of her childhood had met her by her father's arrangement in thissame town, warm with hope, though diffident, and trusting in a promiserather implied than given. Or she might have thought of days earlieryet--days of childhood--when her mouth was somewhat more ready toreceive a kiss from his than was his to bestow one. However, all thatwas over. She had felt superior to him then, and she felt superior tohim now.
She wondered why he never looked towards her open window. She did notknow that in the slight commotion caused by their arrival at the innthat afternoon Winterborne had caught sight of her through the archway,had turned red, and was continuing his work with more concentratedattention on the very account of his discovery. Robert Creedle, too,who travelled with Giles, had been incidentally informed by the hostlerthat Dr. Fitzpiers and his young wife were in the hotel, after whichnews Creedle kept shaking his head and saying to himself, "Ah!" veryaudibly, between his thrusts at the screw of the cider-press.
"Why the deuce do you sigh like that, Robert?" asked Winterborne, atlast.
"Ah, maister--'tis my thoughts--'tis my thoughts!...Yes, ye've lost ahundred load o' timber well seasoned; ye've lost five hundred pound ingood money; ye've lost the stone-windered house that's big enough tohold a dozen families; ye've lost your share of half a dozen goodwagons and their horses--all lost!--through your letting slip she thatwas once yer own!"
"Good God, Creedle, you'll drive me mad!" said Giles, sternly. "Don'tspeak of that any more!"
Thus the subject had ended in the yard. Meanwhile, the passive causeof all this loss still regarded the scene. She was beautifullydressed; she was seated in the most comfortable room that the innafforded; her long journey had been full of variety, and almostluxuriously performed--for Fitzpiers did not study economy wherepleasure was in question. Hence it perhaps arose that Giles and allhis belongings seemed sorry and common to her for the moment--moving ina plane so far removed from her own of late that she could scarcelybelieve she had ever found congruity therein. "No--I could never havemarried him!" she said, gently shaking her head. "Dear father wasright. It would have been too coarse a life for me." And she looked atthe rings of sapphire and opal upon her white and slender fingers thathad been gifts from Fitzpiers.
Seeing that Giles still kept his back turned, and with a little of theabove-described pride of life--easily to be understood, and possiblyexcused, in a young, inexperienced woman who thought she had marriedwell--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 tosee the expression of his face might have doubted it; and she said athird time, with a timid loudness, "Mr. Winterborne! What, have youforgotten my voice?" She remained with her lips parted in a welcomingsmile.
He turned without surprise, and came deliberately towards the window."Why do you call me?" he said, with a sternness that took hercompletely unawares, his face being now pale. "Is it not enough thatyou see me here moiling and muddling for my daily bread while you aresitting there in your success, that you can't refrain from opening oldwounds by calling out my name?"
She flushed, and was struck dumb for some moments; but she forgave hisunreasoning anger, knowing so well in what it had its root. "I am sorryI offended you by speaking," she replied, meekly. "Believe me, I didnot intend to do that. I could hardly sit here so near you without aword of recognition."
Winterborne's heart had swollen big, and his eyes grown moist by thistime, so much had the gentle answer of that familiar voice moved him.He assured her hurriedly, and without looking at her, that he was notangry. He then managed to ask her, in a clumsy, constrained way, ifshe had had a pleasant journey, and seen many interesting sights. Shespoke of a few places that she had visited, and so the time passed tillhe withdrew to take his place at one of the levers which pulled roundthe screw.
Forgotten her voice! Indeed, he had not forgotten her voice, as hisbitterness showed. But though in the heat of the moment he hadreproached her keenly, his second mood was a far more tender one--thatwhich could regard her renunciation of such as he as her glory and herprivilege, his own fidelity notwithstanding. He could have declaredwith 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 himof what he ought to have remembered; that not herself but the pressureof events had dissipated the dreams of their early youth. Grace wasthus unexpectedly worsted in her encounter with her old friend. Shehad opened the window with a faint sense of triumph, but he had turnedit into sadness; she did not quite comprehend the reason why. In truthit was because she was not cruel enough in her cruelty. If you have touse the knife, use it, say the great surgeons; and for her own peaceGrace should have contemned Winterborne thoroughly or not at all. Asit was, on closing the window an indescribable, some might have saiddangerous, pity quavered in her bosom for him.
Presently her husband entered the room, and told her what a wonderfulsunset there was to be seen.
"I have not noticed it. But I have seen somebody out there that weknow," she replied, looking into the court.
Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes, and said he did notrecognize anybody.
"Why, Mr. Winterborne--there he is, cider-making. He combines thatwith his other business, you know."
"Oh--that fellow," said Fitzpiers, his curiosity becoming extinct.
She, reproachfully: "What, call Mr. Winterborne a fellow, Edgar? It istrue 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, andsupercilious, and contemptibly proud of my poor old ramshackle family;but I do honestly confess to you that I feel as if I belonged to adifferent 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, astartling anomaly that this woman of the tribe without should bestanding there beside him as his wife, if his sentiments were as he hadsaid. In their travels together she had ranged so unerringly at hislevel in ideas, tastes, and habits that he had almost forgotten how hisheart 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. "AndI think you underestimate Giles Winterborne. Remember, I was broughtup with him till I was sent away to school, so I cannot be radicallydifferent. 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 nowgetting on for dusk, they prepared to perform the last stage of theirjourney, so as to arrive at Hintock before it grew very late.
In less than half an hour they started, the cider-makers in the yardhaving ceased their labors and gone away, so that the only soundsaudible there now were the trickling of the juice from the tightlyscrewed press, and the buzz of a single wasp, which had drunk itself sotipsy that it was unconscious of nightfall. Grace was very cheerful atthe thought of being soon in her sylvan home, but Fitzpiers sat besideher almost silent. An indescribable oppressiveness had overtaken himwith the near approach of the journey's end and the realities of lifethat lay there.
"You don't say a word, Edgar," she observed. "Aren't you glad to getback? 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 HintockLane. It had been decided that they should, at least for a time, takeup their abode in her father's roomy house, one wing of which was quiteat their service, being almost disused by the Melburys. Workmen hadbeen painting, papering, and whitewashing this set of rooms in thewedded pair's absence; and so scrupulous had been the timber-dealerthat there should occur no hitch or disappointment on their arrival,that not the smallest detail remained undone. To make it all complete aground-floor room had been fitted up as a surgery, with an independentouter door, to which Fitzpiers's brass plate was screwed--for mereornament, such a sign being quite superfluous where everybody knew thelatitude and longitude of his neighbors for miles round.
Melbury and his wife welcomed the twain with affection, and all thehouse with deference. They went up to explore their rooms, that openedfrom a passage on the left hand of the staircase, the entrance to whichcould be shut off on the landing by a door that Melbury had hung forthe purpose. A friendly fire was burning in the grate, although it wasnot cold. Fitzpiers said it was too soon for any sort of meal, theyonly having dined shortly before leaving Sherton-Abbas. He would walkacross to his old lodging, to learn how his locum tenens had got on inhis absence.
In leaving Melbury's door he looked back at the house. There waseconomy in living under that roof, and economy was desirable, but insome way he was dissatisfied with the arrangement; it immersed him sodeeply in son-in-lawship to Melbury. He went on to his formerresidence. His deputy was out, and Fitzpiers fell into conversationwith his former landlady.
"Well, Mrs. Cox, what's the best news?" he asked of her, with cheeryweariness.
She was a little soured at losing by his marriage so profitable atenant as the surgeon had proved to be during his residence under herroof; and the more so in there being hardly the remotest chance of hergetting such another settler in the Hintock solitudes. "'Tis what Idon'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 asthey once supposed of ye, seeing as you could marry into Mr. Melbury'sfamily, which is only Hintock-born, such as me."
"They are kindly welcome to their opinion," said Fitzpiers, notallowing 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 neverseen 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 youwere away travelling, and accidentally heard your name; and when shemade some remark about you, Miss Ellis--that's her maid--told her youwas 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 hischances,' she says."
Fitzpiers did not talk much longer to this cheering housewife, andwalked home with no very brisk step. He entered the door quietly, andwent straight up-stairs to the drawing-room extemporized for their useby Melbury in his and his bride's absence, expecting to find her thereas he had left her. The fire was burning still, but there were nolights. He looked into the next apartment, fitted up as a littledining-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 quitea large gathering of neighbors and other acquaintances, praising andcongratulating Mrs. Fitzpiers on her return, among them being thedairyman, 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, hadquite forgotten her new dignity and her husband's; she was in the midstof them, blushing, and receiving their compliments with all thepleasure of old-comradeship.
; Fitzpiers experienced a profound distaste for the situation. Melburywas nowhere in the room, but Melbury's wife, perceiving the doctor,came to him. "We thought, Grace and I," she said, "that as they havecalled, hearing you were come, we could do no less than ask them tosupper; and then Grace proposed that we should all sup together, as itis the first night of your return."
By this time Grace had come round to him. "Is it not good of them towelcome me so warmly?" she exclaimed, with tears of friendship in hereyes. "After so much good feeling I could not think of our shuttingourselves up away from them in our own dining-room."
"Certainly not--certainly not," said Fitzpiers; and he entered the roomwith the heroic smile of a martyr.
As soon as they sat down to table Melbury came in, and seemed to see atonce that Fitzpiers would much rather have received no suchdemonstrative reception. He thereupon privately chid his wife for herforwardness in the matter. Mrs. Melbury declared that it was as muchGrace's doing as hers, after which there was no more to be said by thatyoung woman's tender father. By this time Fitzpiers was making thebest of his position among the wide-elbowed and genial company who sateating and drinking and laughing and joking around him; and gettingwarmed 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 hisopportunities, repeated to him as those of Mrs. Charmond, haunted himlike a handwriting on the wall. Then his manner would become suddenlyabstracted. At one moment he would mentally put an indignant query whyMrs. Charmond or any other woman should make it her business to haveopinions about his opportunities; at another he thought that he couldhardly be angry with her for taking an interest in the doctor of herown parish. Then he would drink a glass of grog and so get rid of themisgiving. These hitches and quaffings were soon perceived by Grace aswell as by her father; and hence both of them were much relieved whenthe first of the guests to discover that the hour was growing late roseand declared that he must think of moving homeward. At the wordsMelbury rose as alertly as if lifted by a spring, and in ten minutesthey were gone.
"Now, Grace," said her husband as soon as he found himself alone withher in their private apartments, "we've had a very pleasant evening,and everybody has been very kind. But we must come to an understandingabout our way of living here. If we continue in these rooms there mustbe no mixing in with your people below. I can't stand it, and that'sthe truth."
She had been sadly surprised at the suddenness of his distaste forthose old-fashioned woodland forms of life which in his courtship hehad professed to regard with so much interest. But she assented in amoment.
"We must be simply your father's tenants," he continued, "and ourgoings 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 knowingwhether I should approve or disapprove. When I came I couldn't helpmyself at all."
She, sighing: "Yes--I see I ought to have waited; though they cameunexpectedly, and I thought I had acted for the best."
Thus the discussion ended, and the next day Fitzpiers went on his oldrounds as usual. But it was easy for so super-subtle an eye as his todiscern, or to think he discerned, that he was no longer regarded as anextrinsic, unfathomed gentleman of limitless potentiality, scientificand social; but as Mr. Melbury's compeer, and therefore in a degreeonly one of themselves. The Hintock woodlandlers held with all thestrength of inherited conviction to the aristocratic principle, and assoon as they had discovered that Fitzpiers was one of the old BuckburyFitzpierses they had accorded to him for nothing a touching ofhat-brims, promptness of service, and deference of approach, whichMelbury had to do without, though he paid for it over and over. Butnow, having proved a traitor to his own cause by this marriage,Fitzpiers was believed in no more as a superior hedged by his owndivinity; while as doctor he began to be rated no higher than oldJones, whom they had so long despised.
His few patients seemed in his two months' absence to have dwindledconsiderably in number, and no sooner had he returned than there cameto him from the Board of Guardians a complaint that a pauper had beenneglected by his substitute. In a fit of pride Fitzpiers resigned hisappointment as one of the surgeons to the union, which had been thenucleus of his practice here.
At the end of a fortnight he came in-doors one evening to Grace morebriskly than usual. "They have written to me again about that practicein Budmouth that I once negotiated for," he said to her. "The premiumasked is eight hundred pounds, and I think that between your father andmyself it ought to be raised. Then we can get away from this placeforever."
The question had been mooted between them before, and she was notunprepared to consider it. They had not proceeded far with thediscussion when a knock came to the door, and in a minute Grammer ranup to say that a message had arrived from Hintock House requesting Dr.Fitzpiers to attend there at once. Mrs. Charmond had met with a slightaccident through the overturning of her carriage.
"This is something, anyhow," said Fitzpiers, rising with an interestwhich he could not have defined. "I have had a presentiment that thismysterious 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 wasthe first time since their marriage that he had left her without a kiss.