CHAPTER XXXI.
As February merged in March, and lighter evenings broke the gloom ofthe woodmen's homeward journey, the Hintocks Great and Little began tohave ears for a rumor of the events out of which had grown thetimber-dealer's troubles. It took the form of a wide sprinkling ofconjecture, wherein no man knew the exact truth. Tantalizing phenomena,at once showing and concealing the real relationship of the personsconcerned, caused a diffusion of excited surprise. Honest people asthe woodlanders were, it was hardly to be expected that they couldremain immersed in the study of their trees and gardens amid suchcircumstances, or sit with their backs turned like the good burghers ofCoventry at the passage of the beautiful lady.
Rumor, for a wonder, exaggerated little. There were, in fact, in thiscase as in thousands, the well-worn incidents, old as the hills, which,with individual variations, made a mourner of Ariadne, a by-word ofVashti, and a corpse of the Countess Amy. There were rencountersaccidental and contrived, stealthy correspondence, sudden misgivings onone side, sudden self-reproaches on the other. The inner state of thetwain was one as of confused noise that would not allow the accents ofcalmer reason to be heard. Determinations to go in this direction, andheadlong plunges in that; dignified safeguards, undignified collapses;not a single rash step by deliberate intention, and all againstjudgment.
It was all that Melbury had expected and feared. It was more, for hehad overlooked the publicity that would be likely to result, as it nowhad done. What should he do--appeal to Mrs. Charmond himself, sinceGrace would not? He bethought himself of Winterborne, and resolved toconsult him, feeling the strong need of some friend of his own sex towhom he might unburden his mind.
He had entirely lost faith in his own judgment. That judgment on whichhe had relied for so many years seemed recently, like a false companionunmasked, to have disclosed unexpected depths of hypocrisy andspeciousness where all had seemed solidity. He felt almost afraid toform a conjecture on the weather, or the time, or the fruit-promise, sogreat was his self-abasement.
It was a rimy evening when he set out to look for Giles. The woodsseemed to be in a cold sweat; beads of perspiration hung from everybare twig; the sky had no color, and the trees rose before him ashaggard, gray phantoms, whose days of substantiality were passed.Melbury seldom saw Winterborne now, but he believed him to be occupyinga lonely hut just beyond the boundary of Mrs. Charmond's estate, thoughstill within the circuit of the woodland. The timber-merchant's thinlegs stalked on through the pale, damp scenery, his eyes on the deadleaves of last year; while every now and then a hasty "Ay?" escaped hislips in reply to some bitter proposition.
His notice was attracted by a thin blue haze of smoke, behind whicharose sounds of voices and chopping: bending his steps that way, he sawWinterborne just in front of him. It just now happened that Giles,after being for a long time apathetic and unemployed, had become one ofthe busiest men in the neighborhood. It is often thus; fallen friends,lost sight of, we expect to find starving; we discover them going onfairly well. Without any solicitation, or desire for profit on hispart, he had been asked to execute during that winter a very largeorder for hurdles and other copse-ware, for which purpose he had beenobliged to buy several acres of brushwood standing. He was now engagedin the cutting and manufacture of the same, proceeding with the workdaily like an automaton.
The hazel-tree did not belie its name to-day. The whole of thecopse-wood where the mist had cleared returned purest tints of thathue, 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 hebent and wove the twigs. Beside him was a square, compact pile likethe altar of Cain, formed of hurdles already finished, which bristledon all sides with the sharp points of their stakes. At a littledistance the men in his employ were assisting him to carry out hiscontract. Rows of copse-wood lay on the ground as it had fallen underthe axe; and a shelter had been constructed near at hand, in front ofwhich burned the fire whose smoke had attracted him. The air was sodank that the smoke hung heavy, and crept away amid the bushes withoutrising from the ground.
After wistfully regarding Winterborne a while, Melbury drew nearer, andbriefly inquired of Giles how he came to be so busily engaged, with anundertone of slight surprise that Winterborne could seem so thrivingafter being deprived of Grace. Melbury was not without emotion at themeeting; for Grace's affairs had divided them, and ended their intimacyof old times.
Winterborne explained just as briefly, without raising his eyes fromhis 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 billhookjerking the last word into two pieces.
There was another interval; Melbury still looked on, a chip fromWinterborne's hook occasionally flying against the waistcoat and legsof his visitor, who took no heed.
"Ah, Giles--you should have been my partner. You should have been myson-in-law," the old man said at last. "It would have been far betterfor 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 respondedonly too readily to the mood of the timber-dealer. "Is she ill?" hesaid, hurriedly.
"No, no." Melbury stood without speaking for some minutes, and then, asthough 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 andwalked 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 ayoung ash-tree with the flat of his hand. "I would that his ear hadbeen where that rind is!" he exclaimed; "I should have treated him tolittle compared wi what he deserves."
"Now," said Winterborne, "don't be in a hurry to go home. I've putsome cider down to warm in my shelter here, and we'll sit and drink itand talk this over."
Melbury turned unresistingly as Giles took his arm, and they went backto where the fire was, and sat down under the screen, the other woodmenhaving gone. He drew out the cider-mug from the ashes and they dranktogether.
"Giles, you ought to have had her, as I said just now," repeatedMelbury. "I'll tell you why for the first time."
He thereupon told Winterborne, as with great relief, the story of howhe won away Giles's father's chosen one--by nothing worse than alover's cajoleries, it is true, but by means which, except in love,would certainly have been pronounced cruel and unfair. He explainedhow he had always intended to make reparation to Winterborne the fatherby giving Grace to Winterborne the son, till the devil tempted him inthe person of Fitzpiers, and he broke his virtuous vow.
"How highly I thought of that man, to be sure! Who'd have supposed he'dhave 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 unconsciouslycruel tearing of a healing wound to which Melbury's concentration onthe more vital subject had blinded him. The young man endeavored tomake 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 wellenough educated: too rough, in short. I couldn't have surrounded herwith 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 andsuch like. All that my trouble and money bought for her in that way isthrown 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, sheloved you--under the rind; and, what's more, she loves ye still--worseluck for the poor maid!"
If Melbury only had known what fires he was recklessly sti
rring up hemight have held his peace. Winterborne was silent a long time. Thedarkness had closed in round them, and the monotonous drip of the fogfrom the branches quickened as it turned to fine rain.
"Oh, she never cared much for me," Giles managed to say, as he stirredthe 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 morepractical matter--how to make the best of things as they are. I amthinking of a desperate step--of calling on the woman Charmond. I amgoing to appeal to her, since Grace will not. 'Tis she who holds thebalance in her hands--not he. While she's got the will to lead himastray he will follow--poor, unpractical, lofty-notioned dreamer--andhow long she'll do it depends upon her whim. Did ye ever hear anythingabout 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 whohas 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, andcame 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 fearit bodes no good. For how can I go and appeal to the forbearance of awoman in this matter who has made cross-loves and crooked entanglementsher trade for years? I thank ye, Giles, for finding it out; but itmakes my plan the harder that she should have belonged to that unstabletribe."
Another pause ensued, and they looked gloomily at the smoke that beatabout the hurdles which sheltered them, through whose weavings a largedrop of rain fell at intervals and spat smartly into the fire. Mrs.Charmond had been no friend to Winterborne, but he was manly, and itwas not in his heart to let her be condemned without a trial.
"She is said to be generous," he answered. "You might not appeal toher in vain."
"It shall be done," said Melbury, rising. "For good or for evil, toMrs. Charmond I'll go."