by Thomas Hardy
CHAPTER XXXIV.
It was at the beginning of April, a few days after the meeting betweenGrace and Mrs. Charmond in the wood, that Fitzpiers, just returned fromLondon, was travelling from Sherton-Abbas to Hintock in a hiredcarriage. In his eye there was a doubtful light, and the lines of hisrefined face showed a vague disquietude. He appeared now like one ofthose who impress the beholder as having suffered wrong in being born.
His position was in truth gloomy, and to his appreciative mind itseemed even gloomier than it was. His practice had been slowlydwindling of late, and now threatened to die out altogether, theirrepressible old Dr. Jones capturing patients up to Fitzpiers's verydoor. Fitzpiers knew only too well the latest and greatest cause ofhis unpopularity; and yet, so illogical is man, the second branch ofhis sadness grew out of a remedial measure proposed for the first--aletter from Felice Charmond imploring him not to see her again. Tobring about their severance still more effectually, she added, she haddecided during his absence upon almost immediate departure for theContinent.
The time was that dull interval in a woodlander's life which coincideswith great activity in the life of the woodland itself--a periodfollowing the close of the winter tree-cutting, and preceding thebarking season, when the saps are just beginning to heave with theforce of hydraulic lifts inside all the trunks of the forest.
Winterborne's contract was completed, and the plantations weredeserted. It was dusk; there were no leaves as yet; the nightingaleswould 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 bowedskeleton, which glided along behind the bare twigs in Fitzpiers'scompany.
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 forhis return; nevertheless, he wondered why she was not there waiting toreceive him. On descending to the other wing of the house andinquiring of Mrs. Melbury, he learned with much surprise that Grace hadgone on a visit to an acquaintance at Shottsford-Forum three daysearlier; that tidings had on this morning reached her father of herbeing very unwell there, in consequence of which he had ridden over tosee her.
Fitzpiers went up-stairs again, and the little drawing-room, nowlighted by a solitary candle, was not rendered more cheerful by theentrance of Grammer Oliver with an apronful of wood, which she threw onthe hearth while she raked out the grate and rattled about thefire-irons, with a view to making things comfortable. Fitzpiersconsidered that Grace ought to have let him know her plans moreaccurately before leaving home in a freak like this. He wentdesultorily 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 ofsmoke rising from the top of Suke Damson's chimney, signifying that theyoung woman had just lit her fire to prepare supper.
He became conscious of a discussion in progress on the opposite side ofthe 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 surgeonat which Grammer reared herself upon her knees and held the fuelsuspended in her hand, while Fitzpiers half opened the casement.
"She is off to foreign lands again at last--hev made up her mind quitesudden-like--and it is thoughted she'll leave in a day or two. She'sbeen all as if her mind were low for some days past--with a sort ofsorrow in her face, as if she reproached her own soul. She's the wrongsort of woman for Hintock--hardly knowing a beech from a woak--that Iown. But I don't care who the man is, she's been a very kind friend tome.
"Well, the day after to-morrow is the Sabbath day, and without charitywe are but tinkling simples; but this I do say, that her going will bea blessed thing for a certain married couple who remain."
The fire was lighted, and Fitzpiers sat down in front of it, restlessas the last leaf upon a tree. "A sort of sorrow in her face, as if shereproached her own soul." Poor Felice. How Felice's frame must bepulsing under the conditions of which he had just heard the caricature;how her fair temples must ache; what a mood of wretchedness she must bein! But for the mixing up of his name with hers, and her determinationto sunder their too close acquaintance on that account, she wouldprobably 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 themeal which was in course of preparation, he made himself ready forriding, descended to the yard, stood by the stable-door while Darlingwas being saddled, and rode off down the lane. He would have preferredwalking, but was weary with his day's travel.
As he approached the door of Marty South's cottage, which it wasnecessary to pass on his way, she came from the porch as if she hadbeen awaiting him, and met him in the middle of the road, holding up aletter. Fitzpiers took it without stopping, and asked over hisshoulder from whom it came.
Marty hesitated. "From me," she said, shyly, though with noticeablefirmness.
This letter contained, in fact, Marty's declaration that she was theoriginal owner of Mrs. Charmond's supplementary locks, and enclosed asample from the native stock, which had grown considerably by thistime. It was her long contemplated apple of discord, and much her handtrembled as she handed the document up to him.
But it was impossible on account of the gloom for Fitzpiers to read itthen, 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 hispocket the letter remained unopened and forgotten, all the while thatMarty was hopefully picturing its excellent weaning effect upon him.
He was not long in reaching the precincts of the Manor House. He drewrein under a group of dark oaks commanding a view of the front, andreflected a while. His entry would not be altogether unnatural in thecircumstances of her possible indisposition but upon the whole hethought it best to avoid riding up to the door. By silently approachinghe could retreat unobserved in the event of her not being alone.Thereupon he dismounted, hitched Darling to a stray bough hanging alittle below the general browsing line of the trees, and proceeded tothe door on foot.
In the mean time Melbury had returned from Shottsford-Forum. The greatcourt or quadrangle of the timber-merchant's house, divided from theshady lane by an ivy-covered wall, was entered by two white gates, onestanding near each extremity of the wall. It so happened that at themoment when Fitzpiers was riding out at the lower gate on his way tothe Manor House, Melbury was approaching the upper gate to enter it.Fitzpiers being in front of Melbury was seen by the latter, but thesurgeon, never turning his head, did not observe his father-in-law,ambling slowly and silently along under the trees, though his horse toowas 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'tlike the looks of her at all. I couldn't bear the notion of her bidingaway in a strange place any longer, and I begged her to let me get herhome. At last she agreed to it, but not till after much persuading. Iwas then sorry that I rode over instead of driving; but I have hired anice comfortable carriage--the easiest-going I could get--and she'll behere in a couple of hours or less. I rode on ahead to tell you to gether room ready; but I see her husband has come back."
"Yes," said Mrs. Melbury. She expressed her concern that her husbandhad 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 determinedto get her home. Why she went away I can't think! She acts in a waythat is not at all likely to mend matters as far as I can see." (Gracehad not told her father of her interview with Mrs. Charmond, and thedisclosure that had been whispered in her startled ear.) "Since Edgaris come," he continued, "he might have waited in till I got home, toask me how she was, if only for a compliment. I saw him go out; whereis he gone?"
Mrs. Melbury di
d not know positively; but she told her husband thatthere was not much doubt about the place of his first visit after anabsence. She had, in fact, seen Fitzpiers take the direction of theManor House.
Melbury said no more. It was exasperating to him that just at thismoment, when there was every reason for Fitzpiers to stay indoors, orat 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 wentout-of-doors again; and his horse being hardly unsaddled as yet, hetold Upjohn to retighten the girths, when he again mounted, and rodeoff at the heels of the surgeon.
By the time that Melbury reached the park, he was prepared to go anylengths in combating this rank and reckless errantry of his daughter'shusband. He would fetch home Edgar Fitzpiers to-night by some means,rough or fair: in his view there could come of his interference nothingworse than what existed at present. And yet to every bad there is aworse.
He had entered by the bridle-gate which admitted to the park on thisside, and cantered over the soft turf almost in the tracks ofFitzpiers's horse, till he reached the clump of trees under which hisprecursor had halted. The whitish object that was indistinctly visiblehere in the gloom of the boughs he found to be Darling, as left byFitzpiers.
"D--n him! why did he not ride up to the house in an honest way?" saidMelbury.
He profited by Fitzpiers's example; dismounting, he tied his horseunder an adjoining tree, and went on to the house on foot, as the otherhad done. He was no longer disposed to stick at trifles in hisinvestigation, and did not hesitate to gently open the front doorwithout ringing.
The large square hall, with its oak floor, staircase, and wainscot, waslighted by a dim lamp hanging from a beam. Not a soul was visible. Hewent into the corridor and listened at a door which he knew to be thatof the drawing-room; there was no sound, and on turning the handle hefound the room empty. A fire burning low in the grate was the solelight of the apartment; its beams flashed mockingly on the somewhatshowy Versaillese furniture and gilding here, in style as unlike thatof the structural parts of the building as it was possible to be, andprobably introduced by Felice to counteract the fine old-English gloomof the place. Disappointed in his hope of confronting his son-in-lawhere, he went on to the dining-room; this was without light or fire,and pervaded by a cold atmosphere, which signified that she had notdined there that day.
By this time Melbury's mood had a little mollified. Everything herewas so pacific, so unaggressive in its repose, that he was no longerincited to provoke a collision with Fitzpiers or with anybody. Thecomparative stateliness of the apartments influenced him to an emotion,rather than to a belief, that where all was outwardly so good andproper there could not be quite that delinquency within which he hadsuspected. It occurred to him, too, that even if his suspicion werejustified, his abrupt, if not unwarrantable, entry into the house mightend in confounding its inhabitant at the expense of his daughter'sdignity and his own. Any ill result would be pretty sure to hit Gracehardest in the long-run. He would, after all, adopt the more rationalcourse, and plead with Fitzpiers privately, as he had pleaded with Mrs.Charmond.
He accordingly retreated as silently as he had come. Passing the doorof the drawing-room anew, he fancied that he heard a noise within whichwas not the crackling of the fire. Melbury gently reopened the door toa distance of a few inches, and saw at the opposite window two figuresin the act of stepping out--a man and a woman--in whom he recognizedthe lady of the house and his son-in-law. In a moment they haddisappeared amid the gloom of the lawn.
He returned into the hall, and let himself out by the carriage-entrancedoor, coming round to the lawn front in time to see the two figuresparting at the railing which divided the precincts of the house fromthe open park. Mrs. Charmond turned to hasten back immediately thatFitzpiers had left her side, and he was speedily absorbed into theduskiness of the trees.
Melbury waited till Mrs. Charmond had re-entered the drawing-room, andthen followed after Fitzpiers, thinking that he would allow the latterto mount and ride ahead a little way before overtaking him and givinghim a piece of his mind. His son-in-law might possibly see the secondhorse near his own; but that would do him no harm, and might preparehim for what he was to expect.
The event, however, was different from the plan. On plunging into thethick shade of the clump of oaks, he could not perceive his horseBlossom anywhere; but feeling his way carefully along, he by-and-bydiscerned Fitzpiers's mare Darling still standing as before under theadjoining tree. For a moment Melbury thought that his own horse, beingyoung and strong, had broken away from her fastening; but on listeningintently he could hear her ambling comfortably along a little wayahead, 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 alaborer, who, in reply to Melbury's inquiry if he had seen any personon a gray horse, said that he had only met Dr. Fitzpiers.
It was just what Melbury had begun to suspect: Fitzpiers had mountedthe mare which did not belong to him in mistake for his own--anoversight easily explicable, in a man ever unwitting in horse-flesh, bythe darkness of the spot and the near similarity of the animals inappearance, though Melbury's was readily enough seen to be the grayerhorse by day. He hastened back, and did what seemed best in thecircumstances--got upon old Darling, and rode rapidly after Fitzpiers.
Melbury had just entered the wood, and was winding along the cart-waywhich led through it, channelled deep in the leaf-mould with large rutsthat were formed by the timber-wagons in fetching the spoil of theplantations, when all at once he descried in front, at a point wherethe road took a turning round a large chestnut-tree, the form of hisown horse Blossom, at which Melbury quickened Darling's pace, thinkingto come up with Fitzpiers.
Nearer view revealed that the horse had no rider. At Melbury'sapproach it galloped friskily away under the trees in a homewarddirection. Thinking something was wrong, the timber-merchantdismounted as soon as he reached the chestnut, and after feeling aboutfor a minute or two discovered Fitzpiers lying on the ground.
"Here--help!" cried the latter as soon as he felt Melbury's touch; "Ihave been thrown off, but there's not much harm done, I think."
Since Melbury could not now very well read the younger man the lecturehe had intended, and as friendliness would be hypocrisy, his instinctwas to speak not a single word to his son-in-law. He raised Fitzpiersinto a sitting posture, and found that he was a little stunned andstupefied, but, as he had said, not otherwise hurt. How this fall hadcome about was readily conjecturable: Fitzpiers, imagining there wasonly old Darling under him, had been taken unawares by the youngerhorse's sprightliness.
Melbury was a traveller of the old-fashioned sort; having just comefrom Shottsford-Forum, he still had in his pocket the pilgrim's flaskof rum which he always carried on journeys exceeding a dozen miles,though he seldom drank much of it. He poured it down the surgeon'sthroat, with such effect that he quickly revived. Melbury got him onhis legs; but the question was what to do with him. He could not walkmore 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 onearm. 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 agentle pace.