The Woodlanders Page 3

  CHAPTER III.

  The lights in the village went out, house after house, till there onlyremained two in the darkness. One of these came from a residence onthe hill-side, of which there is nothing to say at present; the othershone from the window of Marty South. Precisely the same outward effectwas produced here, however, by her rising when the clock struck ten andhanging up a thick cloth curtain. The door it was necessary to keepajar in hers, as in most cottages, because of the smoke; but sheobviated the effect of the ribbon of light through the chink by hanginga cloth over that also. She was one of those people who, if they haveto work harder than their neighbors, prefer to keep the necessity asecret as far as possible; and but for the slight sounds ofwood-splintering which came from within, no wayfarer would haveperceived that here the cottager did not sleep as elsewhere.

  Eleven, twelve, one o'clock struck; the heap of spars grew higher, andthe pile of chips and ends more bulky. Even the light on the hill hadnow been extinguished; but still she worked on. When the temperatureof the night without had fallen so low as to make her chilly, sheopened a large blue umbrella to ward off the draught from the door.The two sovereigns confronted her from the looking-glass in such amanner as to suggest a pair of jaundiced eyes on the watch for anopportunity. Whenever she sighed for weariness she lifted her gazetowards them, but withdrew it quickly, stroking her tresses with herfingers for a moment, as if to assure herself that they were stillsecure. When the clock struck three she arose and tied up the sparsshe had last made in a bundle resembling those that lay against thewall.

  She wrapped round her a long red woollen cravat and opened the door.The night in all its fulness met her flatly on the threshold, like thevery brink of an absolute void, or the antemundane Ginnung-Gap believedin by her Teuton forefathers. For her eyes were fresh from the blaze,and here there was no street-lamp or lantern to form a kindlytransition between the inner glare and the outer dark. A lingeringwind brought to her ear the creaking sound of two over-crowded branchesin the neighboring wood which were rubbing each other into wounds, andother vocalized sorrows of the trees, together with the screech ofowls, and the fluttering tumble of some awkward wood-pigeonill-balanced on its roosting-bough.

  But the pupils of her young eyes soon expanded, and she could see wellenough for her purpose. Taking a bundle of spars under each arm, andguided by the serrated line of tree-tops against the sky, she went somehundred yards or more down the lane till she reached a long open shed,carpeted around with the dead leaves that lay about everywhere. Night,that strange personality, which within walls brings ominousintrospectiveness and self-distrust, but under the open sky banishessuch subjective anxieties as too trivial for thought, inspired MartySouth with a less perturbed and brisker manner now. She laid the sparson the ground within the shed and returned for more, going to and frotill her whole manufactured stock were deposited here.

  This erection was the wagon-house of the chief man of businesshereabout, Mr. George Melbury, the timber, bark, and copse-waremerchant for whom Marty's father did work of this sort by the piece.It formed one of the many rambling out-houses which surrounded hisdwelling, an equally irregular block of building, whose immensechimneys could just be discerned even now. The four huge wagons underthe shed were built on those ancient lines whose proportions have beenousted by modern patterns, their shapes bulging and curving at the baseand ends like Trafalgar line-of-battle ships, with which venerablehulks, indeed, these vehicles evidenced a constructed spirit curiouslyin harmony. One was laden with sheep-cribs, another with hurdles,another with ash poles, and the fourth, at the foot of which she hadplaced her thatching-spars was half full of similar bundles.

  She was pausing a moment with that easeful sense of accomplishmentwhich follows work done that has been a hard struggle in the doing,when she heard a woman's voice on the other side of the hedge say,anxiously, "George!" In a moment the name was repeated, with "Do comeindoors! What are you doing there?"

  The cart-house adjoined the garden, and before Marty had moved she sawenter the latter from the timber-merchant's back door an elderly womansheltering a candle with her hand, the light from which cast a movingthorn-pattern of shade on Marty's face. Its rays soon fell upon a manwhose clothes were roughly thrown on, standing in advance of thespeaker. He was a thin, slightly stooping figure, with a small nervousmouth and a face cleanly shaven; and he walked along the path with hiseyes bent on the ground. In the pair Marty South recognized heremployer Melbury and his wife. She was the second Mrs. Melbury, thefirst having died shortly after the birth of the timber-merchant's onlychild.

  "'Tis no use to stay in bed," he said, as soon as she came up to wherehe was pacing restlessly about. "I can't sleep--I keep thinking ofthings, and worrying about the girl, till I'm quite in a fever ofanxiety." He went on to say that he could not think why "she (Martyknew he was speaking of his daughter) did not answer his letter. Shemust be ill--she must, certainly," he said.

  "No, no. 'Tis all right, George," said his wife; and she assured himthat such things always did appear so gloomy in the night-time, ifpeople allowed their minds to run on them; that when morning came itwas seen that such fears were nothing but shadows. "Grace is as well asyou or I," she declared.

  But he persisted that she did not see all--that she did not see as muchas he. His daughter's not writing was only one part of his worry. Onaccount of her he was anxious concerning money affairs, which he wouldnever alarm his mind about otherwise. The reason he gave was that, asshe had nobody to depend upon for a provision but himself, he wishedher, when he was gone, to be securely out of risk of poverty.

  To this Mrs. Melbury replied that Grace would be sure to marry well,and that hence a hundred pounds more or less from him would not makemuch difference.

  Her husband said that that was what she, Mrs. Melbury, naturallythought; but there she was wrong, and in that lay the source of histrouble. "I have a plan in my head about her," he said; "and accordingto my plan she won't marry a rich man."

  "A plan for her not to marry well?" said his wife, surprised.

  "Well, in one sense it is that," replied Melbury. "It is a plan forher to marry a particular person, and as he has not so much money asshe might expect, it might be called as you call it. I may not be ableto carry it out; and even if I do, it may not be a good thing for her.I want her to marry Giles Winterborne."

  His companion repeated the name. "Well, it is all right," she said,presently. "He adores the very ground she walks on only he's close,and won't show it much."

  Marty South appeared startled, and could not tear herself away.

  Yes, the timber-merchant asserted, he knew that well enough.Winterborne had been interested in his daughter for years; that waswhat had led him into the notion of their union. And he knew that sheused to have no objection to him. But it was not any difficulty aboutthat which embarrassed him. It was that, since he had educated her sowell, and so long, and so far above the level of daughters thereabout,it was "wasting her" to give her to a man of no higher standing thanthe young man in question.

  "That's what I have been thinking," said Mrs. Melbury.

  "Well, then, Lucy, now you've hit it," answered the timber-merchant,with feeling. "There lies my trouble. I vowed to let her marry him,and to make her as valuable as I could to him by schooling her as manyyears and as thoroughly as possible. I mean to keep my vow. I made itbecause I did his father a terrible wrong; and it was a weight on myconscience ever since that time till this scheme of making amendsoccurred to me through seeing that Giles liked her."

  "Wronged his father?" asked Mrs. Melbury.

  "Yes, grievously wronged him," said her husband.

  "Well, don't think of it to-night," she urged. "Come indoors."

  "No, no, the air cools my head. I shall not stay long." He was silenta while; then he told her, as nearly as Marty could gather, that hisfirst wife, his daughter Grace's mother, was first the sweetheart ofWinterborne's father, who loved her tenderly, till he, the
speaker, wonher away from him by a trick, because he wanted to marry her himself.He sadly went on to say that the other man's happiness was ruined byit; that though he married Winterborne's mother, it was but ahalf-hearted business with him. Melbury added that he was afterwardsvery miserable at what he had done; but that as time went on, and thechildren grew up, and seemed to be attached to each other, hedetermined to do all he could to right the wrong by letting hisdaughter marry the lad; not only that, but to give her the besteducation he could afford, so as to make the gift as valuable a one asit lay in his power to bestow. "I still mean to do it," said Melbury.

  "Then do," said she.

  "But all these things trouble me," said he; "for I feel I amsacrificing her for my own sin; and I think of her, and often come downhere and look at this."

  "Look at what?" asked his wife.

  He took the candle from her hand, held it to the ground, and removed atile which lay in the garden-path. "'Tis the track of her shoe thatshe made when she ran down here the day before she went away all thosemonths ago. I covered it up when she was gone; and when I come hereand look at it, I ask myself again, why should she be sacrificed to apoor man?"

  "It is not altogether a sacrifice," said the woman. "He is in lovewith her, and he's honest and upright. If she encourages him, what canyou wish for more?"

  "I wish for nothing definite. But there's a lot of things possible forher. Why, Mrs. Charmond is wanting some refined young lady, I hear, togo abroad with her--as companion or something of the kind. She'd jumpat Grace."

  "That's all uncertain. Better stick to what's sure."

  "True, true," said Melbury; "and I hope it will be for the best. Yes,let me get 'em married up as soon as I can, so as to have it over anddone with." He continued looking at the imprint, while he added,"Suppose she should be dying, and never make a track on this path anymore?"

  "She'll write soon, depend upon't. Come, 'tis wrong to stay here andbrood so."

  He admitted it, but said he could not help it. "Whether she write orno, I shall fetch her in a few days." And thus speaking, he covered thetrack, and preceded his wife indoors.

  Melbury, perhaps, was an unlucky man in having within him the sentimentwhich could indulge in this foolish fondness about the imprint of adaughter's footstep. Nature does not carry on her government with aview to such feelings, and when advancing years render the open heartsof those who possess them less dexterous than formerly in shuttingagainst the blast, they must suffer "buffeting at will by rain andstorm" no less than Little Celandines.

  But her own existence, and not Mr. Melbury's, was the centre of Marty'sconsciousness, and it was in relation to this that the matter struckher as she slowly withdrew.

  "That, then, is the secret of it all," she said. "And GilesWinterborne is not for me, and the less I think of him the better."

  She returned to her cottage. The sovereigns were staring at her fromthe looking-glass as she had left them. With a preoccupiedcountenance, and with tears in her eyes, she got a pair of scissors,and began mercilessly cutting off the long locks of her hair, arrangingand tying them with their points all one way, as the barber haddirected. Upon the pale scrubbed deal of the coffin-stool table theystretched like waving and ropy weeds over the washed gravel-bed of aclear stream.

  She would not turn again to the little looking-glass, out of humanityto herself, knowing what a deflowered visage would look back at her,and almost break her heart; she dreaded it as much as did her ownancestral goddess Sif the reflection in the pool after the rape of herlocks by Loke the malicious. She steadily stuck to business, wrappedthe hair in a parcel, and sealed it up, after which she raked out thefire and went to bed, having first set up an alarum made of a candleand piece of thread, with a stone attached.

  But such a reminder was unnecessary to-night. Having tossed till aboutfive o'clock, Marty heard the sparrows walking down their long holes inthe thatch above her sloping ceiling to their orifice at the eaves;whereupon she also arose, and descended to the ground-floor again.

  It was still dark, but she began moving about the house in thoseautomatic initiatory acts and touches which represent among housewivesthe installation of another day. While thus engaged she heard therumbling of Mr. Melbury's wagons, and knew that there, too, the day'stoil had begun.

  An armful of gads thrown on the still hot embers caused them to blazeup cheerfully and bring her diminished head-gear into sudden prominenceas a shadow. At this a step approached the door.

  "Are folk astir here yet?" inquired a voice she knew well.

  "Yes, Mr. Winterborne," said Marty, throwing on a tilt bonnet, whichcompletely hid the recent ravages of the scissors. "Come in!"

  The door was flung back, and there stepped in upon the mat a man notparticularly young for a lover, nor particularly mature for a person ofaffairs. There was reserve in his glance, and restraint upon hismouth. He carried a horn lantern which hung upon a swivel, andwheeling as it dangled marked grotesque shapes upon the shadier part ofthe walls.

  He said that he had looked in on his way down, to tell her that theydid not expect her father to make up his contract if he was not well.Mr. Melbury would give him another week, and they would go theirjourney with a short load that day.

  "They are done," said Marty, "and lying in the cart-house."

  "Done!" he repeated. "Your father has not been too ill to work afterall, then?"

  She made some evasive reply. "I'll show you where they be, if you aregoing down," she added.

  They went out and walked together, the pattern of the air-holes in thetop of the lantern being thrown upon the mist overhead, where theyappeared of giant size, as if reaching the tent-shaped sky. They had noremarks to make to each other, and they uttered none. Hardly anythingcould be more isolated or more self-contained than the lives of thesetwo walking here in the lonely antelucan hour, when gray shades,material and mental, are so very gray. And yet, looked at in a certainway, their lonely courses formed no detached design at all, but werepart of the pattern in the great web of human doings then weaving inboth hemispheres, from the White Sea to Cape Horn.

  The shed was reached, and she pointed out the spars. Winterborneregarded them silently, then looked at her.

  "Now, Marty, I believe--" he said, and shook his head.

  "What?"

  "That you've done the work yourself."

  "Don't you tell anybody, will you, Mr. Winterborne?" she pleaded, byway of answer. "Because I am afraid Mr. Melbury may refuse my work ifhe knows it is mine."

  "But how could you learn to do it? 'Tis a trade."

  "Trade!" said she. "I'd be bound to learn it in two hours."

  "Oh no, you wouldn't, Mrs. Marty." Winterborne held down his lantern,and examined the cleanly split hazels as they lay. "Marty," he said,with dry admiration, "your father with his forty years of practicenever made a spar better than that. They are too good for thethatching of houses--they are good enough for the furniture. But Iwon't tell. Let me look at your hands--your poor hands!"

  He had a kindly manner of a quietly severe tone; and when she seemedreluctant to show her hands, he took hold of one and examined it as ifit were his own. Her fingers were blistered.

  "They'll get harder in time," she said. "For if father continues ill,I shall have to go on wi' it. Now I'll help put 'em up in wagon."

  Winterborne without speaking set down his lantern, lifted her as shewas about to stoop over the bundles, placed her behind him, and beganthrowing up the bundles himself. "Rather than you should do it Iwill," he said. "But the men will be here directly. Why,Marty!--whatever has happened to your head? Lord, it has shrunk tonothing--it looks an apple upon a gate-post!"

  Her heart swelled, and she could not speak. At length she managed togroan, looking on the ground, "I've made myself ugly--andhateful--that's what I've done!"

  "No, no," he answered. "You've only cut your hair--I see now.

  "Then why must you needs say that about apples and gate-posts?"
<
br />   "Let me see."

  "No, no!" She ran off into the gloom of the sluggish dawn. He did notattempt to follow her. When she reached her father's door she stood onthe step and looked back. Mr. Melbury's men had arrived, and wereloading up the spars, and their lanterns appeared from the distance atwhich she stood to have wan circles round them, like eyes weary withwatching. She observed them for a few seconds as they set aboutharnessing the horses, and then went indoors.