The Woodlanders Page 4

  CHAPTER IV.

  There was now a distinct manifestation of morning in the air, andpresently the bleared white visage of a sunless winter day emerged likea dead-born child. The villagers everywhere had already bestirredthemselves, rising at this time of the year at the far less dreary hourof absolute darkness. It had been above an hour earlier, before asingle bird had untucked his head, that twenty lights were struck in asmany bedrooms, twenty pairs of shutters opened, and twenty pairs ofeyes stretched to the sky to forecast the weather for the day.

  Owls that had been catching mice in the out-houses, rabbits that hadbeen eating the wintergreens in the gardens, and stoats that had beensucking the blood of the rabbits, discerning that their human neighborswere on the move, discreetly withdrew from publicity, and were seen andheard no more that day.

  The daylight revealed the whole of Mr. Melbury's homestead, of whichthe wagon-sheds had been an outlying erection. It formed three sidesof an open quadrangle, and consisted of all sorts of buildings, thelargest and central one being the dwelling itself. The fourth side ofthe quadrangle was the public road.

  It was a dwelling-house of respectable, roomy, almost dignified aspect;which, taken with the fact that there were the remains of other suchbuildings thereabout, indicated that Little Hintock had at some time orother been of greater importance than now, as its old name of HintockSt. Osmond also testified. The house was of no marked antiquity, yetof well-advanced age; older than a stale novelty, but no canonizedantique; faded, not hoary; looking at you from the still distinctmiddle-distance of the early Georgian time, and awakening on thataccount the instincts of reminiscence more decidedly than the remoterand far grander memorials which have to speak from the misty reaches ofmediaevalism. The faces, dress, passions, gratitudes, and revenues ofthe great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers who had been the first togaze from those rectangular windows, and had stood under thatkey-stoned doorway, could be divined and measured by homely standardsof to-day. It was a house in whose reverberations queer old personaltales were yet audible if properly listened for; and not, as with thoseof the castle and cloister, silent beyond the possibility of echo.

  The garden-front remained much as it had always been, and there was aporch and entrance that way. But the principal house-door opened onthe square yard or quadrangle towards the road, formerly a regularcarriage entrance, though the middle of the area was now made use offor stacking timber, fagots, bundles, and other products of the wood.It was divided from the lane by a lichen-coated wall, in which hung apair of gates, flanked by piers out of the perpendicular, with a roundwhite ball on the top of each.

  The building on the left of the enclosure was a long-backed erection,now used for spar-making, sawing, crib-framing, and copse-waremanufacture in general. Opposite were the wagon-sheds where Marty haddeposited her spars.

  Here Winterborne had remained after the girl's abrupt departure, to seethat the wagon-loads were properly made up. Winterborne was connectedwith the Melbury family in various ways. In addition to thesentimental relationship which arose from his father having been thefirst Mrs. Melbury's lover, Winterborne's aunt had married andemigrated with the brother of the timber-merchant many years before--analliance that was sufficient to place Winterborne, though the poorer,on a footing of social intimacy with the Melburys. As in most villagesso secluded as this, intermarriages were of Hapsburgian frequency amongthe inhabitants, and there were hardly two houses in Little Hintockunrelated by some matrimonial tie or other.

  For this reason a curious kind of partnership existed between Melburyand the younger man--a partnership based upon an unwritten code, bywhich each acted in the way he thought fair towards the other, on agive-and-take principle. Melbury, with his timber and copse-warebusiness, found that the weight of his labor came in winter and spring.Winterborne was in the apple and cider trade, and his requirements incartage and other work came in the autumn of each year. Hence horses,wagons, and in some degree men, were handed over to him when the applesbegan to fall; he, in return, lending his assistance to Melbury in thebusiest wood-cutting season, as now.

  Before he had left the shed a boy came from the house to ask him toremain till Mr. Melbury had seen him. Winterborne thereupon crossedover to the spar-house where two or three men were already at work, twoof them being travelling spar-makers from White-hart Lane, who, whenthis kind of work began, made their appearance regularly, and when itwas over disappeared in silence till the season came again.

  Firewood was the one thing abundant in Little Hintock; and a blaze ofgad-cuds made the outhouse gay with its light, which vied with that ofthe day as yet. In the hollow shades of the roof could be seendangling etiolated arms of ivy which had crept through the joints ofthe tiles and were groping in vain for some support, their leaves beingdwarfed and sickly for want of sunlight; others were pushing in withsuch force at the eaves as to lift from their supports the shelves thatwere fixed there.

  Besides the itinerant journey-workers there were also present JohnUpjohn, engaged in the hollow-turnery trade, who lived hard by; oldTimothy Tangs and young Timothy Tangs, top and bottom sawyers, at workin Mr. Melbury's pit outside; Farmer Bawtree, who kept the cider-house,and Robert Creedle, an old man who worked for Winterborne, and stoodwarming his hands; these latter being enticed in by the ruddy blaze,though they had no particular business there. None of them call forany remark except, perhaps, Creedle. To have completely described himit would have been necessary to write a military memoir, for he woreunder his smock-frock a cast-off soldier's jacket that had seen hotservice, its collar showing just above the flap of the frock; also ahunting memoir, to include the top-boots that he had picked up bychance; also chronicles of voyaging and shipwreck, for his pocket-knifehad been given him by a weather-beaten sailor. But Creedle carriedabout with him on his uneventful rounds these silent testimonies ofwar, sport, and adventure, and thought nothing of their associations ortheir stories.

  Copse-work, as it was called, being an occupation which the secondaryintelligence of the hands and arms could carry on without requiring thesovereign attention of the head, the minds of its professors wanderedconsiderably from the objects before them; hence the tales, chronicles,and ramifications of family history which were recounted here were of avery exhaustive kind, and sometimes so interminable as to defydescription.

  Winterborne, seeing that Melbury had not arrived, stepped back againoutside the door; and the conversation interrupted by his momentarypresence flowed anew, reaching his ears as an accompaniment to theregular dripping of the fog from the plantation boughs around.

  The topic at present handled was a highly popular and frequent one--thepersonal character of Mrs. Charmond, the owner of the surrounding woodsand groves.

  "My brother-in-law told me, and I have no reason to doubt it," saidCreedle, "that she'd sit down to her dinner with a frock hardly higherthan her elbows. 'Oh, you wicked woman!' he said to himself when hefirst see her, 'you go to your church, and sit, and kneel, as if yourknee-jints were greased with very saint's anointment, and tell off yourHear-us-good-Lords like a business man counting money; and yet you caneat your victuals such a figure as that!' Whether she's a reformedcharacter by this time I can't say; but I don't care who the man is,that's how she went on when my brother-in-law lived there."

  "Did she do it in her husband's time?"

  "That I don't know--hardly, I should think, considering his temper.Ah!" Here Creedle threw grieved remembrance into physical form byslowly resigning his head to obliquity and letting his eyes water."That man! 'Not if the angels of heaven come down, Creedle,' he said,'shall you do another day's work for me!' Yes--he'd sayanything--anything; and would as soon take a winged creature's name invain as yours or mine! Well, now I must get these spars home-along, andto-morrow, thank God, I must see about using 'em."

  An old woman now entered upon the scene. She was Mr. Melbury'sservant, and passed a great part of her time in crossing the yardbetween the house-door and the spar-shed, whither she had
come now forfuel. She had two facial aspects--one, of a soft and flexible kind,she used indoors when assisting about the parlor or upstairs; theother, with stiff lines and corners, when she was bustling among themen in the spar-house or out-of-doors.

  "Ah, Grammer Oliver," said John Upjohn, "it do do my heart good to seea old woman like you so dapper and stirring, when I bear in mind thatafter fifty one year counts as two did afore! But your smoke didn'trise this morning till twenty minutes past seven by my beater; andthat's late, Grammer Oliver."

  "If you was a full-sized man, John, people might take notice of yourscornful meanings. But your growing up was such a scrimped and scantybusiness that really a woman couldn't feel hurt if you were to spitfire and brimstone itself at her. Here," she added, holding out aspar-gad to one of the workmen, from which dangled a longblack-pudding--"here's something for thy breakfast, and if you want teayou 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 thedoor, 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'sslept at all well to-night. He's anxious about his daughter; and Iknow 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 ofhis. Well, learning is better than houses and lands. But to keep amaid 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 youngTimothy 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, justabout the time that I was out of my apprenticeship--ay, and a longapprenticeship 'twas. I served that master of mine six years and threehundred and fourteen days."

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

  "Mr. Winterborne's father walked with her at one time," said oldTimothy 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 herhusband came to a puddle in their walks together he'd take her up likea half-penny doll and put her over without dirting her a speck. And ifhe keeps the daughter so long at boarding-school, he'll make her asnesh as her mother was. But here he comes."

  Just before this moment Winterborne had seen Melbury crossing the courtfrom his door. He was carrying an open letter in his hand, and camestraight to Winterborne. His gloom of the preceding night had quitegone.

  "I'd no sooner made up my mind, Giles, to go and see why Grace didn'tcome or write than I get a letter from her--'Clifton: Wednesday. Mydear 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.' Thelittle rascal, and didn't she! Now, Giles, as you are going to Shertonmarket 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 manas the man of the small dark hours. Ever it happens that even amongthe moodiest the tendency to be cheered is stronger than the tendencyto be cast down; and a soul's specific gravity stands permanently lessthan that of the sea of troubles into which it is thrown.

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

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

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

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

  "I heard you wondering why I've kept my daughter so long atboarding-school," resumed Mr. Melbury, looking up from the letter whichhe was reading anew by the fire, and turning to them with thesuddenness that was a trait in him. "Hey?" he asked, with affectedshrewdness. "But you did, you know. Well, now, though it is my ownbusiness 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 tobe churched.' They laughed at me with such torrents of scorn that Iwent home ashamed, and couldn't sleep for shame; and I cried that nighttill my pillow was wet: till at last I thought to myself there andthen--'They may laugh at me for my ignorance, but that was father'sfault, and none o' my making, and I must bear it. But they shall neverlaugh 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 herscholarship is such that she stayed on as governess for a time. Let'em laugh now if they can: Mrs. Charmond herself is not better informedthan my girl Grace."

  There was something between high indifference and humble emotion in hisdelivery, which made it difficult for them to reply. Winterborne'sinterest 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 areverie. "Well, what was the latest news at Shottsford yesterday, Mr.Bawtree?"

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

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

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

  "'Tis only an old woman's tale," said Bawtree. "But it seems that hewanted certain books on some mysterious science or black-art, and inorder that the people hereabout should not know anything about his darkreadings, he ordered 'em direct from London, and not from the Shertonbook-seller. The parcel was delivered by mistake at the pa'son's, andhe wasn't at home; so his wife opened it, and went into hysterics whenshe read 'em, thinking her husband had turned heathen, and 'twould bethe ruin of the children. But when he came he said he knew no moreabout '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 gentlemanfond of science and philosophy and poetry, and, in fact, every kind ofknowledge; and being lonely here, he passes his time in making suchmatters his hobby."

  "Well," said old Timothy, "'tis a strange thing about doctors that theworse they be the better they be. I mean that if you hear anything ofthis 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 mycustom from old Jones and go to this one directly I've anything thematter 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 theserecitals, being moreover preoccupied with the business appointmentwhich had come into his head. He walked up and down, looking on thefloor--his usual custom when undecided. That stiffness about the arm,hip, and knee-joint which was apparent when he walked was the netproduct of the divers sprains and over-exertions that had been requiredof him in handling trees and timber when a young man, for he was of thesort called self-made, and had worked hard. He knew the origin ofevery one of these cramps: that in his left shoulder had come ofcarrying a pollard, unassisted, from Tutcombe Bottom home; that in oneleg was caused by the crash of an elm against it when they werefelling; that in the other was from lifting a bole. On many a morrowafter wearying himself by these prodigious muscular efforts, he hadrisen from his bed fresh as usual; his lassitude had departed,apparently forever; and confident in the recuperative power of hisyouth, he had repeated the strains anew. But treacherous Time had beenonly hiding ill results when they could be guarded against, for greateraccumulation when they could not. In his declining years the store hadbeen unfolded in the form of rheumatisms, pricks, and spasms, in everyone of which Melbury recognized some act which, had its consequencebeen contemporaneously made known, he would wisely have abstained fromrepeating.

  On a summons by Grammer Oliver to breakfast, he left the shed. Reachingthe kitchen, where the family breakfasted in winter to savehouse-labor, he sat down by the fire, and looked a long time at thepair of dancing shadows cast by each fire-iron and dog-knob on thewhitewashed chimney-corner--a yellow one from the window, and a blueone 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 inRound 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 allthe 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 todrive into Sherton, and wait and see her arrive; and perhaps she'll bedisappointed if I stay away."

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

  "Very well--I'll send him."

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

  He returned to the spar-house and found Giles near at hand, to whom heexplained 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," saidMelbury. "The green gig will do for her; you'll spin along quickerwith that, and won't be late upon the road. Her boxes can be calledfor 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 thanher father to despatch his apple-tree business in the market beforeGrace'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 ajourney, the muddy roads rendering that labor useless; but they werewashed to-day. The harness was blacked, and when the rather elderlywhite horse had been put in, and Winterborne was in his seat ready tostart, Mr. Melbury stepped out with a blacking-brush, and with his ownhands touched over the yellow hoofs of the animal.

  "You see, Giles," he said, as he blacked, "coming from a fashionableschool, she might feel shocked at the homeliness of home; and 'tisthese little things that catch a dainty woman's eye if they areneglected. We, living here alone, don't notice how the whitey-browncreeps 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. Butwhen we consider what she knows, and what she has seen since she lastsaw 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 abroadin the summer, which I agreed to, thinking it best for her; andnaturally 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 ofthat inferiority he affected to deplore; for this advanced and refinedbeing, was she not his own all the time? Not so Giles; he feltdoubtful--perhaps a trifle cynical--for that strand was wound into himwith the rest. He looked at his clothes with misgiving, then withindifference.

  It was his custom during the planting season to carry a specimenapple-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 inthe town, it would cause no inconvenience to Miss Grace Melbury cominghome.

  He drove away, the twigs nodding with each step of the horse; andMelbury 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 maybe 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 comemyself, but I had particular business with Mrs. Charmond's agent, whichprevented me. Don't forget."

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