The Woodlanders

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  Winterborne's house had been pulled down. On this account his face hadbeen seen but fitfully in Hintock; and he would probably havedisappeared from the place altogether but for his slight businessconnection with Melbury, on whose premises Giles kept his cider-makingapparatus, now that he had no place of his own to stow it in. Cominghere one evening on his way to a hut beyond the wood where he nowslept, he noticed that the familiar brown-thatched pinion of hispaternal roof had vanished from its site, and that the walls werelevelled. In present circumstances he had a feeling for the spot thatmight have been called morbid, and when he had supped in the hutaforesaid he made use of the spare hour before bedtime to return toLittle Hintock in the twilight and ramble over the patch of ground onwhich he had first seen the day.

  He repeated this evening visit on several like occasions. Even in thegloom he could trace where the different rooms had stood; could markthe shape of the kitchen chimney-corner, in which he had roasted applesand potatoes in his boyhood, cast his bullets, and burned his initialson articles that did and did not belong to him. The apple-trees stillremained to show where the garden had been, the oldest of them even nowretaining the crippled slant to north-east given them by the greatNovember gale of 1824, which carried a brig bodily over the ChesilBank. They were at present bent to still greater obliquity by theheaviness of their produce. Apples bobbed against his head, and in thegrass beneath he crunched scores of them as he walked. There wasnobody to gather them now.

  It was on the evening under notice that, half sitting, half leaningagainst one of these inclined trunks, Winterborne had become lost inhis thoughts, as usual, till one little star after another had taken upa position in the piece of sky which now confronted him where his wallsand chimneys had formerly raised their outlines. The house had juttedawkwardly into the road, and the opening caused by its absence was verydistinct.

  In the silence the trot of horses and the spin of carriage-wheelsbecame audible; and the vehicle soon shaped itself against the blanksky, bearing down upon him with the bend in the lane which hereoccurred, and of which the house had been the cause. He could discernthe figure of a woman high up on the driving-seat of a phaeton, a groombeing just visible behind. Presently there was a slight scrape, then ascream. Winterborne went across to the spot, and found the phaetonhalf overturned, its driver sitting on the heap of rubbish which hadonce been his dwelling, and the man seizing the horses' heads. Theequipage was Mrs. Charmond's, and the unseated charioteer that ladyherself.

  To his inquiry if she were hurt she made some incoherent reply to theeffect that she did not know. The damage in other respects was littleor none: the phaeton was righted, Mrs. Charmond placed in it, and thereins given to the servant. It appeared that she had been deceived bythe removal of the house, imagining the gap caused by the demolition tobe the opening of the road, so that she turned in upon the ruinsinstead of at the bend a few yards farther on.

  "Drive home--drive home!" cried the lady, impatiently; and they startedon their way. They had not, however, gone many paces when, the airbeing still, Winterborne heard her say "Stop; tell that man to call thedoctor--Mr. Fitzpiers--and send him on to the House. I find I am hurtmore seriously than I thought."

  Winterborne took the message from the groom and proceeded to thedoctor's at once. Having delivered it, he stepped back into thedarkness, and waited till he had seen Fitzpiers leave the door. Hestood for a few minutes looking at the window which by its lightrevealed the room where Grace was sitting, and went away under thegloomy trees.

  Fitzpiers duly arrived at Hintock House, whose doors he now saw openfor the first time. Contrary to his expectation there was visible nosign of that confusion or alarm which a serious accident to themistress of the abode would have occasioned. He was shown into a roomat the top of the staircase, cosily and femininely draped, where, bythe light of the shaded lamp, he saw a woman of full round figurereclining upon a couch in such a position as not to disturb a pile ofmagnificent hair on the crown of her head. A deep purple dressing-gownformed an admirable foil to the peculiarly rich brown of herhair-plaits; her left arm, which was naked nearly up to the shoulder,was thrown upward, and between the fingers of her right hand she held acigarette, while she idly breathed from her plump lips a thin stream ofsmoke towards the ceiling.

  The doctor's first feeling was a sense of his exaggerated prevision inhaving brought appliances for a serious case; the next, something morecurious. While the scene and the moment were new to him andunanticipated, the sentiment and essence of the moment wereindescribably familiar. What could be the cause of it? Probably adream.

  Mrs. Charmond did not move more than to raise her eyes to him, and hecame and stood by her. She glanced up at his face across her brows andforehead, and then he observed a blush creep slowly over her decidedlyhandsome cheeks. Her eyes, which had lingered upon him with aninquiring, conscious expression, were hastily withdrawn, and shemechanically applied the cigarette again to her lips.

  For a moment he forgot his errand, till suddenly arousing himself headdressed her, formally condoled with her, and made the usualprofessional inquiries about what had happened to her, and where shewas hurt.

  "That's what I want you to tell me," she murmured, in tones ofindefinable reserve. "I quite believe in you, for I know you are veryaccomplished, because you study so hard."

  "I'll do my best to justify your good opinion," said the young man,bowing. "And none the less that I am happy to find the accident hasnot been serious."

  "I am very much shaken," she said.

  "Oh yes," he replied; and completed his examination, which convincedhim that there was really nothing the matter with her, and more thanever puzzled him as to why he had been fetched, since she did notappear to be a timid woman. "You must rest a while, and I'll sendsomething," he said.

  "Oh, I forgot," she returned. "Look here." And she showed him a littlescrape on her arm--the full round arm that was exposed. "Put somecourt-plaster on that, please."

  He obeyed. "And now," she said, "before you go I want to put aquestion to you. Sit round there in front of me, on that low chair,and bring the candles, or one, to the little table. Do you smoke? Yes?That's right--I am learning. Take one of these; and here's a light."She threw a matchbox across.

  Fitzpiers caught it, and having lit up, regarded her from his newposition, which, with the shifting of the candles, for the first timeafforded him a full view of her face. "How many years have passedsince first we met!" she resumed, in a voice which she mainlyendeavored to maintain at its former pitch of composure, and eying himwith daring bashfulness.

  "WE met, do you say?"

  She nodded. "I saw you recently at an hotel in London, when you werepassing through, I suppose, with your bride, and I recognized you asone I had met in my girlhood. Do you remember, when you were studyingat Heidelberg, an English family that was staying there, who used towalk--"

  "And the young lady who wore a long tail of rare-colored hair--ah, Isee it before my eyes!--who lost her gloves on the Great Terrace--whowas going back in the dusk to find them--to whom I said, 'I'll go forthem,' and you said, 'Oh, they are not worth coming all the way upagain for.' I DO remember, and how very long we stayed talking there! Iwent next morning while the dew was on the grass: there they lay--thelittle fingers sticking out damp and thin. I see them now! I pickedthem up, and then--"

  "Well?"

  "I kissed them," he rejoined, rather shamefacedly.

  "But you had hardly ever seen me except in the dusk?"

  "Never mind. I was young then, and I kissed them. I wondered how Icould make the most of my trouvaille, and decided that I would call atyour hotel with them that afternoon. It rained, and I waited till nextday. I called, and you were gone."

  "Yes," answered she, with dry melancholy. "My mother, knowing mydisposition, said she had no wish for such a chit as me to go fallingin love with an impecunious student, and spirited me away to Baden. Asit is all over and pa
st I'll tell you one thing: I should have sent youa line passing warm had I known your name. That name I never knew tillmy maid said, as you passed up the hotel stairs a month ago, 'There'sDr. Fitzpiers.'"

  "Good Heaven!" said Fitzpiers, musingly. "How the time comes back tome! The evening, the morning, the dew, the spot. When I found thatyou really were gone it was as if a cold iron had been passed down myback. I went up to where you had stood when I last saw you--I flungmyself on the grass, and--being not much more than a boy--my eyes wereliterally blinded with tears. Nameless, unknown to me as you were, Icouldn't forget your voice."

  "For how long?"

  "Oh--ever so long. Days and days."

  "Days and days! ONLY days and days? Oh, the heart of a man! Days anddays!"

  "But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It wasnot a full-blown love--it was the merest bud--red, fresh, vivid, butsmall. It was a colossal passion in posse, a giant in embryo. Itnever matured."

  "So much the better, perhaps."

  "Perhaps. But see how powerless is the human will againstpredestination. We were prevented meeting; we have met. One featureof the case remains the same amid many changes. You are still rich,and I am still poor. Better than that, you have (judging by your lastremark) outgrown the foolish, impulsive passions of your earlygirl-hood. I have not outgrown mine."

  "I beg your pardon," said she, with vibrations of strong feeling in herwords. "I have been placed in a position which hinders suchoutgrowings. Besides, I don't believe that the genuine subjects ofemotion do outgrow them; I believe that the older such people get theworse they are. Possibly at ninety or a hundred they may feel they arecured; but a mere threescore and ten won't do it--at least for me."

  He gazed at her in undisguised admiration. Here was a soul of souls!

  "Mrs. Charmond, you speak truly," he exclaimed. "But you speak sadlyas well. Why is that?"

  "I always am sad when I come here," she said, dropping to a low tonewith a sense of having been too demonstrative.

  "Then may I inquire why you came?"

  "A man brought me. Women are always carried about like corks upon thewaves of masculine desires....I hope I have not alarmed you; butHintock has the curious effect of bottling up the emotions till one canno longer hold them; I am often obliged to fly away and discharge mysentiments somewhere, or I should die outright."

  "There is very good society in the county for those who have theprivilege of entering it."

  "Perhaps so. But the misery of remote country life is that yourneighbors have no toleration for difference of opinion and habit. Myneighbors think I am an atheist, except those who think I am a RomanCatholic; and when I speak disrespectfully of the weather or the cropsthey think I am a blasphemer."

  She broke into a low musical laugh at the idea.

  "You don't wish me to stay any longer?" he inquired, when he found thatshe remained musing.

  "No--I think not."

  "Then tell me that I am to be gone."

  "Why? Cannot you go without?"

  "I may consult my own feelings only, if left to myself."

  "Well, if you do, what then? Do you suppose you'll be in my way?"

  "I feared it might be so."

  "Then fear no more. But good-night. Come to-morrow and see if I amgoing on right. This renewal of acquaintance touches me. I havealready a friendship for you."

  "If it depends upon myself it shall last forever."

  "My best hopes that it may. Good-by."

  Fitzpiers went down the stairs absolutely unable to decide whether shehad sent for him in the natural alarm which might have followed hermishap, or with the single view of making herself known to him as shehad done, for which the capsize had afforded excellent opportunity.Outside the house he mused over the spot under the light of the stars.It seemed very strange that he should have come there more than oncewhen its inhabitant was absent, and observed the house with a namelessinterest; that he should have assumed off-hand before he knew Gracethat it was here she lived; that, in short, at sundry times and seasonsthe individuality of Hintock House should have forced itself upon himas appertaining to some existence with which he was concerned.

  The intersection of his temporal orbit with Mrs. Charmond's for a dayor two in the past had created a sentimental interest in her at thetime, but it had been so evanescent that in the ordinary onward roll ofaffairs he would scarce ever have recalled it again. To find her here,however, in these somewhat romantic circumstances, magnified thatby-gone and transitory tenderness to indescribable proportions.

  On entering Little Hintock he found himself regarding it in a newway--from the Hintock House point of view rather than from his own andthe Melburys'. The household had all gone to bed, and as he wentup-stairs he heard the snore of the timber-merchant from his quarter ofthe building, and turned into the passage communicating with his ownrooms in a strange access of sadness. A light was burning for him inthe chamber; but Grace, though in bed, was not asleep. In a moment hersympathetic voice came from behind the curtains.

  "Edgar, is she very seriously hurt?"

  Fitzpiers had so entirely lost sight of Mrs. Charmond as a patient thathe was not on the instant ready with a reply.

  "Oh no," he said. "There are no bones broken, but she is shaken. I amgoing again to-morrow."

  Another inquiry or two, and Grace said,

  "Did she ask for me?"

  "Well--I think she did--I don't quite remember; but I am under theimpression that she spoke of you."

  "Cannot you recollect at all what she said?"

  "I cannot, just this minute."

  "At any rate she did not talk much about me?" said Grace withdisappointment.

  "Oh no."

  "But you did, perhaps," she added, innocently fishing for a compliment.

  "Oh yes--you may depend upon that!" replied he, warmly, though scarcelythinking of what he was saying, so vividly was there present to hismind the personality of Mrs. Charmond.