CHAPTER XXXVIII.
At these warm words Winterborne was not less dazed than he was moved inheart. The novelty of the avowal rendered what it carried with itinapprehensible by him in its entirety.
Only a few short months ago completely estranged from thisfamily--beholding Grace going to and fro in the distance, clothed withthe alienating radiance of obvious superiority, the wife of the thenpopular and fashionable Fitzpiers, hopelessly outside his socialboundary down to so recent a time that flowers then folded were hardlyfaded yet--he was now asked by that jealously guarding father of hersto take courage--to get himself ready for the day when he should beable to claim her.
The old times came back to him in dim procession. How he had beensnubbed; how Melbury had despised his Christmas party; how that sweet,coy Grace herself had looked down upon him and his householdarrangements, and poor Creedle's contrivances!
Well, he could not believe it. Surely the adamantine barrier ofmarriage with another could not be pierced like this! It did violenceto custom. Yet a new law might do anything. But was it at all withinthe bounds of probability that a woman who, over and above her ownattainments, had been accustomed to those of a cultivated professionalman, could ever be the wife of such as he?
Since the date of his rejection he had almost grown to see thereasonableness of that treatment. He had said to himself again andagain that her father was right; that the poor ceorl, GilesWinterborne, would never have been able to make such a dainty girlhappy. Yet, now that she had stood in a position farther removed fromhis own than at first, he was asked to prepare to woo her. He was fullof doubt.
Nevertheless, it was not in him to show backwardness. To act sopromptly as Melbury desired him to act seemed, indeed, scarcely wise,because of the uncertainty of events. Giles knew nothing of legalprocedure, but he did know that for him to step up to Grace as a loverbefore the bond which bound her was actually dissolved was simply anextravagant dream of her father's overstrained mind. He pitied Melburyfor his almost childish enthusiasm, and saw that the aging man musthave suffered acutely to be weakened to this unreasoning desire.
Winterborne was far too magnanimous to harbor any cynical conjecturethat the timber-merchant, in his intense affection for Grace, wascourting him now because that young lady, when disunited, would be leftin an anomalous position, to escape which a bad husband was better thannone. He felt quite sure that his old friend was simply on tenterhooksof anxiety to repair the almost irreparable error of dividing two whomNature had striven to join together in earlier days, and that in hisardor to do this he was oblivious of formalities. The cautioussupervision of his past years had overleaped itself at last. Hence,Winterborne perceived that, in this new beginning, the necessary carenot to compromise Grace by too early advances must be exercised byhimself.
Perhaps Winterborne was not quite so ardent as heretofore. There is nosuch thing as a stationary love: men are either loving more or lovingless. But Giles himself recognized no decline in his sense of herdearness. If the flame did indeed burn lower now than when he hadfetched her from Sherton at her last return from school, the marvel wassmall. He had been laboring ever since his rejection and her marriageto reduce his former passion to a docile friendship, out of pure regardto its expediency; and their separation may have helped him to apartial success.
A week and more passed, and there was no further news of Melbury. Butthe effect of the intelligence he had already transmitted upon theelastic-nerved daughter of the woods had been much what the old surgeonJones had surmised. It had soothed her perturbed spirit better thanall the opiates in the pharmacopoeia. She had slept unbrokenly a wholenight and a day. The "new law" was to her a mysterious, beneficent,godlike entity, lately descended upon earth, that would make her as sheonce had been without trouble or annoyance. Her position fretted her,its abstract features rousing an aversion which was even greater thanher aversion to the personality of him who had caused it. It wasmortifying, 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; andperhaps on that account her fancy wove about him a more romantic tissuethan it could have done if he had stood before her with all the specksand flaws inseparable from corporeity. He rose upon her memory as thefruit-god and the wood-god in alternation sometimes leafy, and smearedwith green lichen, as she had seen him among the sappy boughs of theplantations; sometimes cider-stained, and with apple-pips in the hairof his arms, as she had met him on his return from cider-making inWhite Hart Vale, with his vats and presses beside him. In her secretheart she almost approximated to her father's enthusiasm in wishing toshow Giles once for all how she still regarded him. The questionwhether the future would indeed bring them together for life was astanding wonder with her. She knew that it could not with anypropriety do so just yet. But reverently believing in her father'ssound judgment and knowledge, as good girls are wont to do, sheremembered what he had written about her giving a hint to Winterbornelest there should be risk in delay, and her feelings were not averse tosuch a step, so far as it could be done without danger at this earlystage of the proceedings.
From being a frail phantom of her former equable self she returned inbounds to a condition of passable philosophy. She bloomed again in theface in the course of a few days, and was well enough to go about asusual. One day Mrs. Melbury proposed that for a change she should bedriven in the gig to Sherton market, whither Melbury's man was going onother errands. Grace had no business whatever in Sherton but itcrossed her mind that Winterborne would probably be there, and thismade the thought of such a drive interesting.
On the way she saw nothing of him; but when the horse was walkingslowly through the obstructions of Sheep Street, she discerned theyoung man on the pavement. She thought of that time when he had beenstanding under his apple-tree on her return from school, and of thetender opportunity then missed through her fastidiousness. Her heartrose in her throat. She abjured all such fastidiousness now. Nor didshe 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 shewas figuring as a fine lady in the balcony above.
Grace directed the man to set her down there in the midst, andimmediately went up to her lover. Giles had not before observed her,and his eyes now suppressedly looked his pleasure, without theembarrassment that had formerly marked him at such meetings.
When a few words had been spoken, she said, archly, "I have nothing todo. Perhaps you are deeply engaged?"
"I? Not a bit. My business now at the best of times is small, I amsorry 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 timehad elapsed for the extinction of curiosity; but it was quiteotherwise. The people looked at her with tender interest as thedeserted girl-wife--without obtrusiveness, and without vulgarity; butshe was ill prepared for scrutiny in any shape.
They walked about the Abbey aisles, and presently sat down. Not a soulwas in the building save themselves. She regarded a stained window,with her head sideways, and tentatively asked him if he remembered thelast 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 ofme," she answered, impressively. "Perhaps I am too far the other waynow." As there was something lurking in this that she could notexplain, 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 beenbidden to take the hint as to the future which she had been bidden
togive. The unexpected discovery sent a scarlet pulsation through Gracefor the moment. However, it was only Giles who stood there, of whomshe 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 beenput on this track by herself, he was not disposed to abandon it in ahurry.
They had been children together, and there was between them thatfamiliarity as to personal affairs which only such acquaintanceship cangive. "You know, Giles," she answered, speaking in a very practicaltone, "that that is all very well; but I am in a very anomalousposition at present, and I cannot say anything to the point about suchthings as those."
"No?" he said, with a stray air as regarded the subject. He waslooking at her with a curious consciousness of discovery. He had notbeen imagining that their renewed intercourse would show her to himthus. For the first time he realized an unexpectedness in her, which,after all, should not have been unexpected. She before him was not thegirl Grace Melbury whom he used to know. Of course, he might easilyhave prefigured as much; but it had never occurred to him. She was awoman who had been married; she had moved on and without having losther girlish modesty, she had lost her girlish shyness. The inevitablechange, though known to him, had not been heeded; and it struck himinto a momentary fixity. The truth was that he had never come intoclose comradeship with her since her engagement to Fitzpiers, with thebrief exception of the evening encounter on Rubdown Hill, when she methim with his cider apparatus; and that interview had been of toocursory a kind for insight.
Winterborne had advanced, too. He could criticise her. Times had beenwhen to criticise a single trait in Grace Melbury would have lain asfar beyond his powers as to criticise a deity. This thing was sure: itwas a new woman in many ways whom he had come out to see; a creature ofmore ideas, more dignity, and, above all, more assurance, than theoriginal Grace had been capable of. He could not at first decidewhether he were pleased or displeased at this. But upon the whole thenovelty attracted him.
She was so sweet and sensitive that she feared his silence betokenedsomething in his brain of the nature of an enemy to her. "What are youthinking of that makes those lines come in your forehead?" she asked."I did not mean to offend you by speaking of the time being prematureas yet."
Touched by the genuine loving-kindness which had lain at the foundationof these words, and much moved, Winterborne turned his face aside, ashe 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 arebetter, 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 thenremained still holding her right hand in his own right, so that theyfaced in opposite ways; and as he did not let go, she ventured upon atender remonstrance.
"I think we have gone as far as we ought to go at present--and farenough 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 getfree!--there should be any hitch or informality!"
She drew a catching breath, and turned pale. The dialogue had beenaffectionate comedy up to this point. The gloomy atmosphere of thepast, and the still gloomy horizon of the present, had been for theinterval forgotten. Now the whole environment came back, the duebalance 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 beclearer. But the legal part is not yet quite done and finished, as isnatural."
"Oh no--of course not," she said, sunk in meek thought. "But fathersaid it was ALMOST--did he not? Do you know anything about the new lawthat makes these things so easy?"
"Nothing--except the general fact that it enables ill-assorted husbandsand wives to part in a way they could not formerly do without an Act ofParliament."
"Have you to sign a paper, or swear anything? Is it something likethat?"
"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 wouldhave made a humane person weep who should have known what a dangerousstructure they were building up on their supposed knowledge. Theyremained in thought, like children in the presence of theincomprehensible.
"Giles," she said, at last, "it makes me quite weary when I think howserious my situation is, or has been. Shall we not go out from herenow, as it may seem rather fast of me--our being so long together, Imean--if anybody were to see us? I am almost sure," she added,uncertainly, "that I ought not to let you hold my hand yet, knowingthat the documents--or whatever it may be--have not been signed; sothat I--am still as married as ever--or almost. My dear father hasforgotten himself. Not that I feel morally bound to any one else,after what has taken place--no woman of spirit could--now, too, thatseveral months have passed. But I wish to keep the proprieties as wellas I can."
"Yes, yes. Still, your father reminds us that life is short. I myselffeel that it is; that is why I wished to understand you in this that wehave begun. At times, dear Grace, since receiving your father'sletter, I am as uneasy and fearful as a child at what he said. If oneof us were to die before the formal signing and sealing that is torelease you have been done--if we should drop out of the world andnever have made the most of this little, short, but real opportunity, Ishould think to myself as I sunk down dying, 'Would to my God that Ihad spoken out my whole heart--given her one poor little kiss when Ihad the chance to give it! But I never did, although she had promisedto 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 mournfulregard, as though their passage were visible; but as he went on shedropped her glance. "Yes," she said, "I have thought that, too. And,because I have thought it, I by no means meant, in speaking of theproprieties, 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 tooquick--surely!" Her eyes filled with tears of bewildered, alarmedemotion.
Winterborne was too straightforward to influence her further againsther better judgment. "Yes--I suppose it is," he said, repentantly."I'll wait till all is settled. What did your father say in that lastletter?"
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 furtherto-day. Come, let us go now." She gently slid her hand from his, andwent in front of him out of the Abbey.
"I was thinking of getting some dinner," said Winterborne, changing tothe 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'shouse; her life with Fitzpiers had brought her no society; hadsometimes, indeed, brought her deeper solitude and inconsideration thanany she had ever known before. Hence it was a treat to her to findherself again the object of thoughtful care. But she questioned if togo publicly to dine with Giles Winterborne were not a proposal, duerather to his unsophistication than to his discretion. She said gentlythat she would much prefer his ordering her lunch at some place andthen coming to tell her it was ready, while she remained in the Abbeyporch. Giles saw her secret reasoning, thought how hopelessly blind topropriety he was beside her, and went to do as she wished.
He was not absent more than ten minutes, and found Grace where he hadleft her. "It will be q
uite 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. Ishall 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 thoughther lunch ended, and that he might fairly take advantage of herinvitation to start her on her way home. He went straight to The ThreeTuns--a little tavern in a side street, scrupulously clean, but humbleand inexpensive. On his way he had an occasional misgiving as towhether the place had been elegant enough for her; and as soon as heentered it, and saw her ensconced there, he perceived that he hadblundered.
Grace was seated in the only dining-room that the simple old hostelrycould 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. Gracehad retreated to the end of the room looking out upon the latter, thefront part being full of a mixed company which had dropped in since hewas there.
She was in a mood of the greatest depression. On arriving, and seeingwhat the tavern was like, she had been taken by surprise; but havinggone too far to retreat, she had heroically entered and sat down on thewell-scrubbed settle, opposite the narrow table with its knives andsteel forks, tin pepper-boxes, blue salt-cellars, and postersadvertising the sale of bullocks against the wall. The last time thatshe had taken any meal in a public place it had been with Fitzpiers atthe grand new Earl of Wessex Hotel in that town, after a two months'roaming and sojourning at the gigantic hotels of the Continent. Howcould she have expected any other kind of accommodation in presentcircumstances than such as Giles had provided? And yet how unpreparedshe was for this change! The tastes that she had acquired fromFitzpiers had been imbibed so subtly that she hardly knew she possessedthem till confronted by this contrast. The elegant Fitzpiers, in fact,at that very moment owed a long bill at the above-mentioned hotel forthe luxurious style in which he used to put her up there whenever theydrove to Sherton. But such is social sentiment, that she had beenquite comfortable under those debt-impending conditions, while she felthumiliated by her present situation, which Winterborne had paid forhonestly on the nail.
He had noticed in a moment that she shrunk from her position, and allhis pleasure was gone. It was the same susceptibility over again whichhad spoiled his Christmas party long ago.
But he did not know that this recrudescence was only the casual resultof Grace's apprenticeship to what she was determined to learn in spiteof it--a consequence of one of those sudden surprises which confronteverybody bent upon turning over a new leaf. She had finished herlunch, which he saw had been a very mincing performance; and he broughther out of the house as soon as he could.
"Now," he said, with great sad eyes, "you have not finished at allwell, I know. Come round to the Earl of Wessex. I'll order a teathere. I did not remember that what was good enough for me was notgood enough for you."
Her face faded into an aspect of deep distress when she saw what hadhappened. "Oh no, Giles," she said, with extreme pathos; "certainlynot. Why do you--say that when you know better? You EVER willmisunderstand me."
"Indeed, that's not so, Mrs. Fitzpiers. Can you deny that you felt outof 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 husbandused always to take you to the Earl of Wessex, did he not?"
"Yes," she reluctantly admitted. How could she explain in the streetof a market-town that it was her superficial and transitory taste whichhad been offended, and not her nature or her affection? Fortunately, orunfortunately, at that moment they saw Melbury's man driving vacantlyalong the street in search of her, the hour having passed at which hehad been told to take her up. Winterborne hailed him, and she waspowerless then to prolong the discourse. She entered the vehiclesadly, and the horse trotted away.