Book: The Woodlanders

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"If you was a full-sized man, John, people might take notice of
your scornful meanings. But your growing up was such a scrimped
and scanty business that really a woman couldn't feel hurt if you
were to spit fire and brimstone itself at her. Here," she added,
holding out a spar-gad to one of the workmen, from which dangled a
long black-pudding--"here's something for thy breakfast, and if
you want tea you must fetch it from in-doors."

"Mr. Melbury is late this morning," said the bottom-sawyer.

"Yes. 'Twas a dark dawn," said Mrs. Oliver. "Even when I opened
the door, so late as I was, you couldn't have told poor men from
gentlemen, or John from a reasonable-sized object. And I don't
think maister's slept at all well to-night. He's anxious about
his daughter; and I know what that is, for I've cried bucketfuls
for my own."

When the old woman had gone Creedle said,

"He'll fret his gizzard green if he don't soon hear from that maid
of his. Well, learning is better than houses and lands. But to
keep a maid at school till she is taller out of pattens than her
mother was in 'em--'tis tempting Providence."

"It seems no time ago that she was a little playward girl," said
young Timothy Tangs.

"I can mind her mother," said the hollow-turner. "Always a teuny,
delicate piece; her touch upon your hand was as soft and cool as
wind. She was inoculated for the small-pox and had it beautifully
fine, just about the time that I was out of my apprenticeship--ay,
and a long apprenticeship 'twas. I served that master of mine six
years and three hundred and fourteen days."

The hollow-turner pronounced the days with emphasis, as if,
considering their number, they were a rather more remarkable fact
than the years.

"Mr. Winterborne's father walked with her at one time," said old
Timothy Tangs. "But Mr. Melbury won her. She was a child of a
woman, and would cry like rain if so be he huffed her. Whenever
she and her husband came to a puddle in their walks together he'd
take her up like a half-penny doll and put her over without
dirting her a speck. And if he keeps the daughter so long at
boarding-school, he'll make her as nesh as her mother was. But
here he comes."

Just before this moment Winterborne had seen Melbury crossing the
court from his door. He was carrying an open letter in his hand,
and came straight to Winterborne. His gloom of the preceding
night had quite gone.

"I'd no sooner made up my mind, Giles, to go and see why Grace
didn't come or write than I get a letter from her--'Clifton:
Wednesday. My dear father,' says she, 'I'm coming home to-morrow'
(that's to-day), 'but I didn't think it worth while to write long
beforehand.' The little rascal, and didn't she! Now, Giles, as you
are going to Sherton market to-day with your apple-trees, why not
join me and Grace there, and we'll drive home all together?"

He made the proposal with cheerful energy; he was hardly the same
man as the man of the small dark hours. Ever it happens that even
among the moodiest the tendency to be cheered is stronger than the
tendency to be cast down; and a soul's specific gravity stands
permanently less than that of the sea of troubles into which it is
thrown.

Winterborne, though not demonstrative, replied to this suggestion
with something like alacrity. There was not much doubt that
Marty's grounds for cutting off her hair were substantial enough,
if Ambrose's eyes had been a reason for keeping it on. As for the
timber-merchant, it was plain that his invitation had been given
solely in pursuance of his scheme for uniting the pair. He had
made up his mind to the course as a duty, and was strenuously bent
upon following it out.

Accompanied by Winterborne, he now turned towards the door of the
spar-house, when his footsteps were heard by the men as aforesaid.

"Well, John, and Lot," he said, nodding as he entered. "A rimy
morning."

"'Tis, sir!" said Creedle, energetically; for, not having as yet
been able to summon force sufficient to go away and begin work, he
felt the necessity of throwing some into his speech. "I don't
care who the man is, 'tis the rimiest morning we've had this
fall."

"I heard you wondering why I've kept my daughter so long at
boarding-school," resumed Mr. Melbury, looking up from the letter
which he was reading anew by the fire, and turning to them with
the suddenness that was a trait in him. "Hey?" he asked, with
affected shrewdness. "But you did, you know. Well, now, though
it is my own business more than anybody else's, I'll tell ye.
When I was a boy, another boy--the pa'son's son--along with a lot
of others, asked me 'Who dragged Whom round the walls of What?'
and I said, 'Sam Barrett, who dragged his wife in a chair round
the tower corner when she went to be churched.' They laughed at me
with such torrents of scorn that I went home ashamed, and couldn't
sleep for shame; and I cried that night till my pillow was wet:
till at last I thought to myself there and then--'They may laugh
at me for my ignorance, but that was father's fault, and none o'
my making, and I must bear it. But they shall never laugh at my
children, if I have any: I'll starve first!' Thank God, I've been
able to keep her at school without sacrifice; and her scholarship
is such that she stayed on as governess for a time. Let 'em laugh
now if they can: Mrs. Charmond herself is not better informed than
my girl Grace."

There was something between high indifference and humble emotion
in his delivery, which made it difficult for them to reply.
Winterborne's interest was of a kind which did not show itself in
words; listening, he stood by the fire, mechanically stirring the
embers with a spar-gad.

"You'll be, then, ready, Giles?" Melbury continued, awaking from a
reverie. "Well, what was the latest news at Shottsford yesterday,
Mr. Bawtree?"

"Well, Shottsford is Shottsford still--you can't victual your
carcass there unless you've got money; and you can't buy a cup of
genuine there, whether or no....But as the saying is, 'Go abroad
and you'll hear news of home.' It seems that our new neighbor,
this young Dr. What's-his-name, is a strange, deep, perusing
gentleman; and there's good reason for supposing he has sold his
soul to the wicked one."

"'Od name it all," murmured the timber-merchant, unimpressed by
the news, but reminded of other things by the subject of it; "I've
got to meet a gentleman this very morning? and yet I've planned to
go to Sherton Abbas for the maid."

"I won't praise the doctor's wisdom till I hear what sort of
bargain he's made," said the top-sawyer.

"'Tis only an old woman's tale," said Bawtree. "But it seems that
he wanted certain books on some mysterious science or black-art,
and in order that the people hereabout should not know anything
about his dark readings, he ordered 'em direct from London, and
not from the Sherton book-seller. The parcel was delivered by
mistake at the pa'son's, and he wasn't at home; so his wife opened
it, and went into hysterics when she read 'em, thinking her
husband had turned heathen, and 'twould be the ruin of the
children. But when he came he said he knew no more about 'em than
she; and found they were this Mr. Fitzpier's property. So he
wrote 'Beware!' outside, and sent 'em on by the sexton."

"He must be a curious young man," mused the hollow-turner.

"He must," said Timothy Tangs.

"Nonsense," said Mr. Melbury, authoritatively, "he's only a
gentleman fond of science and philosophy and poetry, and, in fact,
every kind of knowledge; and being lonely here, he passes his time
in making such matters his hobby."

"Well," said old Timothy, "'tis a strange thing about doctors that
the worse they be the better they be. I mean that if you hear
anything of this sort about 'em, ten to one they can cure ye as
nobody else can."

"True," said Bawtree, emphatically. "And for my part I shall take
my custom from old Jones and go to this one directly I've anything
the matter with me. That last medicine old Jones gave me had no
taste in it at all."

Mr. Melbury, as became a well-informed man, did not listen to
these recitals, being moreover preoccupied with the business
appointment which had come into his head. He walked up and down,
looking on the floor--his usual custom when undecided. That
stiffness about the arm, hip, and knee-joint which was apparent
when he walked was the net product of the divers sprains and over-
exertions that had been required of him in handling trees and
timber when a young man, for he was of the sort called self-made,
and had worked hard. He knew the origin of every one of these
cramps: that in his left shoulder had come of carrying a pollard,
unassisted, from Tutcombe Bottom home; that in one leg was caused
by the crash of an elm against it when they were felling; that in
the other was from lifting a bole. On many a morrow after
wearying himself by these prodigious muscular efforts, he had
risen from his bed fresh as usual; his lassitude had departed,
apparently forever; and confident in the recuperative power of his
youth, he had repeated the strains anew. But treacherous Time had
been only hiding ill results when they could be guarded against,
for greater accumulation when they could not. In his declining
years the store had been unfolded in the form of rheumatisms,
pricks, and spasms, in every one of which Melbury recognized some
act which, had its consequence been contemporaneously made known,
he would wisely have abstained from repeating.

On a summons by Grammer Oliver to breakfast, he left the shed.
Reaching the kitchen, where the family breakfasted in winter to
save house-labor, he sat down by the fire, and looked a long time
at the pair of dancing shadows cast by each fire-iron and dog-knob
on the whitewashed chimney-corner--a yellow one from the window,
and a blue one from the fire.

"I don't quite know what to do to-day," he said to his wife at
last. "I've recollected that I promised to meet Mrs. Charmond's
steward in Round Wood at twelve o'clock, and yet I want to go for
Grace."

"Why not let Giles fetch her by himself? 'Twill bring 'em together
all the quicker."

"I could do that--but I should like to go myself. I always have
gone, without fail, every time hitherto. It has been a great
pleasure to drive into Sherton, and wait and see her arrive; and
perhaps she'll be disappointed if I stay away."

"Yon may be disappointed, but I don't think she will, if you send
Giles," said Mrs. Melbury, dryly.

"Very well--I'll send him."

Melbury was often persuaded by the quietude of his wife's words
when strenuous argument would have had no effect. This second
Mrs. Melbury was a placid woman, who had been nurse to his child
Grace before her mother's death. After that melancholy event
little Grace had clung to the nurse with much affection; and
ultimately Melbury, in dread lest the only woman who cared for the
girl should be induced to leave her, persuaded the mild Lucy to
marry him. The arrangement--for it was little more--had worked
satisfactorily enough; Grace had thriven, and Melbury had not
repented.

He returned to the spar-house and found Giles near at hand, to
whom he explained the change of plan. "As she won't arrive till
five o'clock, you can get your business very well over in time to
receive her," said Melbury. "The green gig will do for her;
you'll spin along quicker with that, and won't be late upon the
road. Her boxes can be called for by one of the wagons."

Winterborne, knowing nothing of the timber-merchant's restitutory
aims, quietly thought all this to be a kindly chance. Wishing
even more than her father to despatch his apple-tree business in
the market before Grace's arrival, he prepared to start at once.

Melbury was careful that the turnout should be seemly. The gig-
wheels, for instance, were not always washed during winter-time
before a journey, the muddy roads rendering that labor useless;
but they were washed to-day. The harness was blacked, and when
the rather elderly white horse had been put in, and Winterborne
was in his seat ready to start, Mr. Melbury stepped out with a
blacking-brush, and with his own hands touched over the yellow
hoofs of the animal.

"You see, Giles," he said, as he blacked, "coming from a
fashionable school, she might feel shocked at the homeliness of
home; and 'tis these little things that catch a dainty woman's eye
if they are neglected. We, living here alone, don't notice how
the whitey-brown creeps out of the earth over us; but she, fresh
from a city--why, she'll notice everything!"

"That she will," said Giles.

"And scorn us if we don't mind."

"Not scorn us."

"No, no, no--that's only words. She's too good a girl to do that.
But when we consider what she knows, and what she has seen since
she last saw us, 'tis as well to meet her views as nearly as
possible. Why, 'tis a year since she was in this old place, owing
to her going abroad in the summer, which I agreed to, thinking it
best for her; and naturally we shall look small, just at first--I
only say just at first."

Mr. Melbury's tone evinced a certain exultation in the very sense
of that inferiority he affected to deplore; for this advanced and
refined being, was she not his own all the time? Not so Giles; he
felt doubtful--perhaps a trifle cynical--for that strand was wound
into him with the rest. He looked at his clothes with misgiving,
then with indifference.

It was his custom during the planting season to carry a specimen
apple-tree to market with him as an advertisement of what he dealt
in. This had been tied across the gig; and as it would be left
behind in the town, it would cause no inconvenience to Miss Grace
Melbury coming home.

He drove away, the twigs nodding with each step of the horse; and
Melbury went in-doors. Before the gig had passed out of sight,
Mr. Melbury reappeared and shouted after--

"Here, Giles, "he said, breathlessly following with some wraps,
"it may be very chilly to-night, and she may want something extra
about her. And, Giles," he added, when the young man, having
taken the articles, put the horse in motion once more, "tell her
that I should have come myself, but I had particular business with
Mrs. Charmond's agent, which prevented me. Don't forget."

He watched Winterborne out of sight, saying, with a jerk--a shape
into which emotion with him often resolved itself--"There, now, I
hope the two will bring it to a point and have done with it! 'Tis
a pity to let such a girl throw herself away upon him--a thousand
pities!...And yet 'tis my duty for his father's sake."



CHAPTER V.


Winterborne sped on his way to Sherton Abbas without elation and
without discomposure. Had he regarded his inner self
spectacularly, as lovers are now daily more wont to do, he might
have felt pride in the discernment of a somewhat rare power in
him--that of keeping not only judgment but emotion suspended in
difficult cases. But he noted it not. Neither did he observe
what was also the fact, that though he cherished a true and warm
feeling towards Grace Melbury, he was not altogether her fool just
now. It must be remembered that he had not seen her for a year.

Arrived at the entrance to a long flat lane, which had taken the
spirit out of many a pedestrian in times when, with the majority,
to travel meant to walk, he saw before him the trim figure of a
young woman in pattens, journeying with that steadfast
concentration which means purpose and not pleasure. He was soon
near enough to see that she was Marty South. Click, click, click
went the pattens; and she did not turn her head.

She had, however, become aware before this that the driver of the
approaching gig was Giles. She had shrunk from being overtaken by
him thus; but as it was inevitable, she had braced herself up for
his inspection by closing her lips so as to make her mouth quite
unemotional, and by throwing an additional firmness into her
tread.

"Why do you wear pattens, Marty? The turnpike is clean enough,
although the lanes are muddy."

"They save my boots."

"But twelve miles in pattens--'twill twist your feet off. Come,
get up and ride with me."

She hesitated, removed her pattens, knocked the gravel out of them
against the wheel, and mounted in front of the nodding specimen
apple-tree. She had so arranged her bonnet with a full border and
trimmings that her lack of long hair did not much injure her
appearance; though Giles, of course, saw that it was gone, and may
have guessed her motive in parting with it, such sales, though
infrequent, being not unheard of in that locality.

But nature's adornment was still hard by--in fact, within two feet
of him, though he did not know it. In Marty's basket was a brown
paper packet, and in the packet the chestnut locks, which, by
reason of the barber's request for secrecy, she had not ventured
to intrust to other hands.

Giles asked, with some hesitation, how her father was getting on.

He was better, she said; he would be able to work in a day or two;
he would be quite well but for his craze about the tree falling on
him.

"You know why I don't ask for him so often as I might, I suppose?"
said Winterborne. "Or don't you know?"

"I think I do."

"Because of the houses?"

She nodded.

"Yes. I am afraid it may seem that my anxiety is about those
houses, which I should lose by his death, more than about him.
Marty, I do feel anxious about the houses, since half my income
depends upon them; but I do likewise care for him; and it almost
seems wrong that houses should be leased for lives, so as to lead
to such mixed feelings."

"After father's death they will be Mrs. Charmond's?"

"They'll be hers."

"They are going to keep company with my hair," she thought.

Thus talking, they reached the town. By no pressure would she
ride up the street with him. "That's the right of another woman,"
she said, with playful malice, as she put on her pattens. "I
wonder what you are thinking of! Thank you for the lift in that
handsome gig. Good-by."

He blushed a little, shook his head at her, and drove on ahead
into the streets--the churches, the abbey, and other buildings on
this clear bright morning having the liny distinctness of
architectural drawings, as if the original dream and vision of the
conceiving master-mason, some mediaeval Vilars or other unknown to
fame, were for a few minutes flashed down through the centuries to
an unappreciative age. Giles saw their eloquent look on this day
of transparency, but could not construe it. He turned into the
inn-yard.

Marty, following the same track, marched promptly to the hair-
dresser's, Mr. Percombe's. Percombe was the chief of his trade in
Sherton Abbas. He had the patronage of such county offshoots as
had been obliged to seek the shelter of small houses in that
ancient town, of the local clergy, and so on, for some of whom he
had made wigs, while others among them had compensated for
neglecting him in their lifetime by patronizing him when they were
dead, and letting him shave their corpses. On the strength of all
this he had taken down his pole, and called himself "Perruquier to
the aristocracy."

Nevertheless, this sort of support did not quite fill his
children's mouths, and they had to be filled. So, behind his
house there was a little yard, reached by a passage from the back
street, and in that yard was a pole, and under the pole a shop of
quite another description than the ornamental one in the front
street. Here on Saturday nights from seven till ten he took an
almost innumerable succession of twopences from the farm laborers
who flocked thither in crowds from the country. And thus he
lived.

Marty, of course, went to the front shop, and handed her packet to
him silently. "Thank you," said the barber, quite joyfully. "I
hardly expected it after what you said last night."

She turned aside, while a tear welled up and stood in each eye at
this reminder.

"Nothing of what I told you," he whispered, there being others in
the shop. "But I can trust you, I see."

She had now reached the end of this distressing business, and went
listlessly along the street to attend to other errands. These
occupied her till four o'clock, at which time she recrossed the
market-place. It was impossible to avoid rediscovering
Winterborne every time she passed that way, for standing, as he
always did at this season of the year, with his specimen apple-
tree in the midst, the boughs rose above the heads of the crowd,
and brought a delightful suggestion of orchards among the crowded
buildings there. When her eye fell upon him for the last time he
was standing somewhat apart, holding the tree like an ensign, and
looking on the ground instead of pushing his produce as he ought
to have been doing. He was, in fact, not a very successful seller
either of his trees or of his cider, his habit of speaking his
mind, when he spoke at all, militating against this branch of his
business.

While she regarded him he suddenly lifted his eyes in a direction
away from Marty, his face simultaneously kindling with recognition
and surprise. She followed his gaze, and saw walking across to
him a flexible young creature in whom she perceived the features
of her she had known as Miss Grace Melbury, but now looking
glorified and refined above her former level. Winterborne, being
fixed to the spot by his apple-tree, could not advance to meet
her; he held out his spare hand with his hat in it, and with some
embarrassment beheld her coming on tiptoe through the mud to the
middle of the square where he stood.

Miss Melbury's arrival so early was, as Marty could see,
unexpected by Giles, which accounted for his not being ready to
receive her. Indeed, her father had named five o'clock as her
probable time, for which reason that hour had been looming out all
the day in his forward perspective, like an important edifice on a
plain. Now here she was come, he knew not how, and his arranged
welcome stultified.

His face became gloomy at her necessity for stepping into the
road, and more still at the little look of embarrassment which
appeared on hers at having to perform the meeting with him under
an apple-tree ten feet high in the middle of the market-place.
Having had occasion to take off the new gloves she had bought to
come home in, she held out to him a hand graduating from pink at
the tips of the fingers to white at the palm; and the reception
formed a scene, with the tree over their heads, which was not by
any means an ordinary one in Sherton Abbas streets.

Nevertheless, the greeting on her looks and lips was of a
restrained type, which perhaps was not unnatural. For true it was
that Giles Winterborne, well-attired and well-mannered as he was
for a yeoman, looked rough beside her. It had sometimes dimly
occurred to him, in his ruminating silence at Little Hintock, that
external phenomena--such as the lowness or height or color of a
hat, the fold of a coat, the make of a boot, or the chance
attitude or occupation of a limb at the instant of view--may have
a great influence upon feminine opinion of a man's worth--so
frequently founded on non-essentials; but a certain causticity of
mental tone towards himself and the world in general had prevented
to-day, as always, any enthusiastic action on the strength of that
reflection; and her momentary instinct of reserve at first sight
of him was the penalty he paid for his laxness.

He gave away the tree to a by-stander, as soon as he could find
one who would accept the cumbersome gift, and the twain moved on
towards the inn at which he had put up. Marty made as if to step
forward for the pleasure of being recognized by Miss Melbury; but
abruptly checking herself, she glided behind a carrier's van,
saying, dryly, "No; I baint wanted there," and critically regarded
Winterborne's companion.

It would have been very difficult to describe Grace Melbury with
precision, either now or at any time. Nay, from the highest point
of view, to precisely describe a human being, the focus of a
universe--how impossible! But, apart from transcendentalism, there
never probably lived a person who was in herself more completely a
reductio ad absurdum of attempts to appraise a woman, even
externally, by items of face and figure. Speaking generally, it
may be said that she was sometimes beautiful, at other times not
beautiful, according to the state of her health and spirits.

In simple corporeal presentment she was of a fair and clear
complexion, rather pale than pink, slim in build and elastic in
movement. Her look expressed a tendency to wait for others'
thoughts before uttering her own; possibly also to wait for
others' deeds before her own doing. In her small, delicate mouth,
which had perhaps hardly settled down to its matured curves, there
was a gentleness that might hinder sufficient self-assertion for
her own good. She had well-formed eyebrows which, had her
portrait been painted, would probably have been done in Prout's or
Vandyke brown.

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