CHAPTER VIII.
The inspiriting appointment which had led Grace Melbury to indulge in asix-candle illumination for the arrangement of her attire, carried herover the ground the next morning with a springy tread. Her sense ofbeing properly appreciated on her own native soil seemed to brightenthe atmosphere and herbage around her, as the glowworm's lampirradiates the grass. Thus she moved along, a vessel of emotion goingto empty itself on she knew not what.
Twenty minutes' walking through copses, over a stile, and along anupland lawn brought her to the verge of a deep glen, at the bottom ofwhich Hintock House appeared immediately beneath her eye. To describeit as standing in a hollow would not express the situation of themanor-house; it stood in a hole, notwithstanding that the hole was fullof beauty. From the spot which Grace had reached a stone could easilyhave been thrown over or into, the birds'-nested chimneys of themansion. Its walls were surmounted by a battlemented parapet; but thegray lead roofs were quite visible behind it, with their gutters, laps,rolls, and skylights, together with incised letterings andshoe-patterns cut by idlers thereon.
The front of the house exhibited an ordinary manorial presentation ofElizabethan windows, mullioned and hooded, worked in rich snuff-coloredfreestone from local quarries. The ashlar of the walls, where notovergrown with ivy and other creepers, was coated with lichen of everyshade, 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 whosetrees were above the level of the chimneys. The corresponding highground on which Grace stood was richly grassed, with only an old treehere 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 accountan endless shearing of the heavy-armed ivy was necessary, and acontinual lopping of trees and shrubs. It was an edifice built intimes when human constitutions were damp-proof, when shelter from theboisterous was all that men thought of in choosing a dwelling-place,the insidious being beneath their notice; and its hollow site was anocular reminder, by its unfitness for modern lives, of the fragility towhich these have declined. The highest architectural cunning couldhave done nothing to make Hintock House dry and salubrious; andruthless ignorance could have done little to make it unpicturesque. Itwas vegetable nature's own home; a spot to inspire the painter and poetof still life--if they did not suffer too much from the relaxingatmosphere--and to draw groans from the gregariously disposed. Gracedescended the green escarpment by a zigzag path into the drive, whichswept round beneath the slope. The exterior of the house had beenfamiliar to her from her childhood, but she had never been inside, andthe approach to knowing an old thing in a new way was a livelyexperience. It was with a little flutter that she was shown in; butshe recollected that Mrs. Charmond would probably be alone. Up to afew days before this time that lady had been accompanied in hercomings, stayings, and goings by a relative believed to be her aunt;latterly, however, these two ladies had separated, owing, it wassupposed, to a quarrel, and Mrs. Charmond had been left desolate. Beingpresumably a woman who did not care for solitude, this deprivationmight possibly account for her sudden interest in Grace.
Mrs. Charmond was at the end of a gallery opening from the hall whenMiss Melbury was announced, and saw her through the glass doors betweenthem. She came forward with a smile on her face, and told the younggirl it was good of her to come.
"Ah! you have noticed those," she said, seeing that Grace's eyes wereattracted by some curious objects against the walls. "They areman-traps. My husband was a connoisseur in man-traps and spring-gunsand such articles, collecting them from all his neighbors. He knew thehistories of all these--which gin had broken a man's leg, which gun hadkilled a man. That one, I remember his saying, had been set by agame-keeper in the track of a notorious poacher; but the keeper,forgetting what he had done, went that way himself, received the chargein the lower part of his body, and died of the wound. I don't likethem here, but I've never yet given directions for them to be takenaway." She added, playfully, "Man-traps are of rather ominoussignificance where a person of our sex lives, are they not?"
Grace was bound to smile; but that side of womanliness was one whichher inexperience had no great zest in contemplating.
"They are interesting, no doubt, as relics of a barbarous time happilypast," she said, looking thoughtfully at the varied designs of theseinstruments of torture--some with semi-circular jaws, some withrectangular; 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, withan indolent turn of her head, and they moved on inward. When she hadshown her visitor different articles in cabinets that she deemed likelyto interest her, some tapestries, wood-carvings, ivories, miniatures,and so on--always with a mien of listlessness which might either havebeen constitutional, or partly owing to the situation of theplace--they sat down to an early cup of tea.
"Will you pour it out, please? Do," she said, leaning back in herchair, and placing her hand above her forehead, while her almondeyes--those long eyes so common to the angelic legions of early Italianart--became longer, and her voice more languishing. She showed thatoblique-mannered softness which is perhaps most frequent in women ofdarker complexion and more lymphatic temperament than Mrs. Charmond'swas; who lingeringly smile their meanings to men rather than speakthem, who inveigle rather than prompt, and take advantage of currentsrather than steer.
"I am the most inactive woman when I am here," she said. "I thinksometimes I was born to live and do nothing, nothing, nothing but floatabout, as we fancy we do sometimes in dreams. But that cannot bereally my destiny, and I must struggle against such fancies."
"I am so sorry you do not enjoy exertion--it is quite sad! I wish Icould tend you and make you very happy."
There was something so sympathetic, so appreciative, in the sound ofGrace's voice, that it impelled people to play havoc with theircustomary reservations in talking to her. "It is tender and kind ofyou to feel that," said Mrs. Charmond. "Perhaps I have given you thenotion that my languor is more than it really is. But this placeoppresses me, and I have a plan of going abroad a good deal. I used togo with a relative, but that arrangement has dropped through."Regarding Grace with a final glance of criticism, she seemed to make upher mind to consider the young girl satisfactory, and continued: "Now Iam often impelled to record my impressions of times and places. I haveoften thought of writing a 'New Sentimental Journey.' But I cannotfind energy enough to do it alone. When I am at different places inthe south of Europe I feel a crowd of ideas and fancies thronging uponme continually, but to unfold writing-materials, take up a cold steelpen, and put these impressions down systematically on cold, smoothpaper--that I cannot do. So I have thought that if I always could havesomebody at my elbow with whom I am in sympathy, I might dictate anyideas that come into my head. And directly I had made youracquaintance 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, ifdesirable. Will you think it over, and ask your parents if they arewilling?"
"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 suchintellectual 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 arenot carried on by me."
"What--another student in that retreat?"
"There is a surgeon lately come, and I have heard that he reads a greatdeal--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 placefor 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 theologyand metaphysics and all sorts of subjects."
"What is his name?"
"Fitzpiers. He represents a very old family, I believe, theFitzpierses of Buckbury-Fitzpiers--not a great many miles from here."
"I am not sufficiently local to know the history of the family. I wasnever in the county till my husband brought me here." Mrs. Charmond didnot care to pursue this line of investigation. Whatever mysteriousmerit might attach to family antiquity, it was one which, though sheherself could claim it, her adaptable, wandering weltburgerliche naturehad grown tired of caring about--a peculiarity that made her a contrastto her neighbors. "It is of rather more importance to know what theman is himself than what his family is," she said, "if he is going topractise 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 Icome back. It will be very convenient to have a medical man--if he isclever--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-placelife."
"I do. But it is home. It has its advantages and its disadvantages."Grace was thinking less of the solitude than of the attendantcircumstances.
They chatted on for some time, Grace being set quite at her ease by herentertainer. Mrs. Charmond was far too well-practised a woman not toknow that to show a marked patronage to a sensitive young girl whowould probably be very quick to discern it, was to demolish her dignityrather than to establish it in that young girl's eyes. So, beingviolently possessed with her idea of making use of this gentleacquaintance, ready and waiting at her own door, she took great painsto win her confidence at starting.
Just before Grace's departure the two chanced to pause before a mirrorwhich reflected their faces in immediate juxtaposition, so as to bringinto prominence their resemblances and their contrasts. Both lookedattractive as glassed back by the faithful reflector; but Grace'scountenance had the effect of making Mrs. Charmond appear more than herfull age. There are complexions which set off each other to greatadvantage, and there are those which antagonize, the one killing ordamaging its neighbor unmercifully. This was unhappily the case here.Mrs. Charmond fell into a meditation, and replied abstractedly to acursory remark of her companion's. However, she parted from her youngfriend in the kindliest tones, promising to send and let her know assoon as her mind was made up on the arrangement she had suggested.
When Grace had ascended nearly to the top of the adjoining slope shelooked 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 HintockHouse. Why could he not have proposed to walk with her part of theway? Something told him that she might not, on such an occasion, carefor his company.
He was still more of that opinion when, standing in his garden nextday, he saw her go past on the journey with such a pretty pride in theevent. He wondered if her father's ambition, which had purchased forher the means of intellectual light and culture far beyond those of anyother native of the village, would conduce to the flight of her futureinterests above and away from the local life which was once to her themovement 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 forhim, he could let her go and make the best of his loss; but until hehad really tested her he could not say that she despised his suit. Thequestion was how to quicken events towards an issue.
He thought and thought, and at last decided that as good a way as anywould be to give a Christmas party, and ask Grace and her parents tocome as chief guests.
These ruminations were occupying him when there became audible a slightknocking at his front door. He descended the path and looked out, andbeheld Marty South, dressed for out-door work.
"Why didn't you come, Mr. Winterborne?" she said. "I've been waitingthere 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 tobe planted in a neighboring spot which had been cleared by thewood-cutters, and that he had arranged to plant them with his ownhands. He had a marvellous power of making trees grow. Although hewould seem to shovel in the earth quite carelessly, there was a sort ofsympathy between himself and the fir, oak, or beech that he wasoperating 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 theyseemed to go through an identically similar process, one quarter of thetrees 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 nopersonal interest. Marty, who turned her hand to anything, was usuallythe one who performed the part of keeping the trees in a perpendicularposition while he threw in the mould.
He accompanied her towards the spot, being stimulated yet further toproceed with the work by the knowledge that the ground was close to theway-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. "Thatcomes of cutting off your hair."
"I suppose it do. Yes; I've three headaches going on in my head at thesame 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 wasnot there."
The holes were already dug, and they set to work. Winterborne'sfingers were endowed with a gentle conjuror's touch in spreading theroots of each little tree, resulting in a sort of caress, under whichthe delicate fibres all laid themselves out in their proper directionsfor growth. He put most of these roots towards the south-west; for, hesaid, in forty years' time, when some great gale is blowing from thatquarter, the trees will require the strongest holdfast on that side tostand against it and not fall.
"How they sigh directly we put 'em upright, though while they are lyingdown 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 herfinger; the soft musical breathing instantly set in, which was not tocease night or day till the grown tree should be felled--probably longafter the two planters should be felled themselves.
"It seems to me," the girl continued, "as if they sigh because they arevery sorry to begin life in earnest--just as we be."
"Just as we be?" He looked critically at her. "You ought not to feellike that, Marty."
Her only reply was turning to take up the next tree; and they plantedon through a great part of the day, almost without another word.Winterborne's mind ran on his contemplated evening-party, hisabstraction being such that he hardly was conscious of Marty's presencebeside him. From the nature of their employment, in which he handledthe spade and she merely held the tree, it followed that he got goodexercise and she got none. But she was an heroic girl, and though herout-stretched hand was chill as a stone, and her cheeks blue, and hercold worse than ever, she would not complain while he was disposed tocontinue work. But when he paused she said, "Mr. Winterborne, can Irun 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 Iwarrant that cold of yours is twice as bad as it was. You had nobusiness to chop that hair off, Marty; it serves you almost right.Look here, cut off home at o
nce."
"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 manageto keep the rest of them upright with a stick or something."
She went away without saying any more. When she had gone down theorchard a little distance she looked back. Giles suddenly went afterher.
"Marty, it was for your good that I was rough, you know. But warmyourself in your own way, I don't care."
When she had run off he fancied he discerned a woman's dress throughthe holly-bushes which divided the coppice from the road. It was Graceat last, on her way back from the interview with Mrs. Charmond. Hethrew down the tree he was planting, and was about to break through thebelt of holly when he suddenly became aware of the presence of anotherman, who was looking over the hedge on the opposite side of the wayupon the figure of the unconscious Grace. He appeared as a handsomeand gentlemanly personage of six or eight and twenty, and was quizzingher through an eye-glass. Seeing that Winterborne was noticing him, helet his glass drop with a click upon the rail which protected thehedge, and walked away in the opposite direction. Giles knew in amoment that this must be Mr. Fitzpiers. When he was gone, Winterbornepushed through the hollies, and emerged close beside the interestingobject of their contemplation.