CHAPTER XXXIII.
There was agitation to-day in the lives of all whom these mattersconcerned. It was not till the Hintock dinner-time--one o'clock--thatGrace discovered her father's absence from the house after a departurein the morning under somewhat unusual conditions. By a littlereasoning and inquiry she was able to come to a conclusion on hisdestination, and to divine his errand.
Her husband was absent, and her father did not return. He had, intruth, gone on to Sherton after the interview, but this Grace did notknow. In an indefinite dread that something serious would arise out ofMelbury's visit by reason of the inequalities of temper and nervousirritation to which he was subject, something possibly that would bringher much more misery than accompanied her present negative state ofmind, she left the house about three o'clock, and took a loitering walkin the woodland track by which she imagined he would come home. Thistrack under the bare trees and over the cracking sticks, screened androofed in from the outer world of wind and cloud by a net-work ofboughs, led her slowly on till in time she had left the larger treesbehind her and swept round into the coppice where Winterborne and hismen were clearing the undergrowth.
Had Giles's attention been concentrated on his hurdles he would nothave seen her; but ever since Melbury's passage across the oppositeglade in the morning he had been as uneasy and unsettled as Graceherself; and her advent now was the one appearance which, since herfather's avowal, could arrest him more than Melbury's return with histidings. Fearing that something might be the matter, he hastened up toher.
She had not seen her old lover for a long time, and, too conscious ofthe late pranks of her heart, she could not behold him calmly. "I amonly looking for my father," she said, in an unnecessarily apologeticintonation.
"I was looking for him too," said Giles. "I think he may perhaps havegone on farther."
"Then you knew he was going to the House, Giles?" she said, turning herlarge tender eyes anxiously upon him. "Did he tell you what for?"
Winterborne glanced doubtingly at her, and then softly hinted that herfather had visited him the evening before, and that their oldfriendship was quite restored, on which she guessed the rest.
"Oh, I am glad, indeed, that you two are friends again!" she cried.And then they stood facing each other, fearing each other, troublingeach other's souls. Grace experienced acute misery at the sight ofthese wood-cutting scenes, because she had estranged herself from them,craving, even to its defects and inconveniences, that homely sylvanlife of her father which in the best probable succession of eventswould shortly be denied her.
At a little distance, on the edge of the clearing, Marty South wasshaping spar-gads to take home for manufacture during the evenings.While Winterborne and Mrs. Fitzpiers stood looking at her in theirmutual embarrassment at each other's presence, they beheld approachingthe girl a lady in a dark fur mantle and a black hat, having a whiteveil tied picturesquely round it. She spoke to Marty, who turned andcourtesied, and the lady fell into conversation with her. It was Mrs.Charmond.
On leaving her house, Mrs. Charmond had walked on and onward under thefret and fever of her mind with more vigor than she was accustomed toshow in her normal moods--a fever which the solace of a cigarette didnot entirely allay. Reaching the coppice, she listlessly observedMarty at work, threw away her cigarette, and came near. Chop, chop,chop, went Marty's little billhook with never more assiduity, till Mrs.Charmond spoke.
"Who is that young lady I see talking to the woodman yonder?" she asked.
"Mrs. Fitzpiers, ma'am," said Marty.
"Oh," said Mrs. Charmond, with something like a start; for she had notrecognized Grace at that distance. "And the man she is talking to?"
"That's Mr. Winterborne."
A redness stole into Marty's face as she mentioned Giles's name, whichMrs. Charmond did not fail to notice informed her of the state of thegirl's heart. "Are you engaged to him?" she asked, softly.
"No, ma'am," said Marty. "SHE was once; and I think--"
But Marty could not possibly explain the complications of her thoughtson this matter--which were nothing less than one of extraordinaryacuteness for a girl so young and inexperienced--namely, that she sawdanger to two hearts naturally honest in Grace being thrown back intoWinterborne's society by the neglect of her husband. Mrs. Charmond,however, with the almost supersensory means to knowledge which womenhave on such occasions, quite understood what Marty had intended toconvey, and the picture thus exhibited to her of lives drifting away,involving the wreck of poor Marty's hopes, prompted her to moregenerous resolves than all Melbury's remonstrances had been able tostimulate.
Full of the new feeling, she bade the girl good-afternoon, and went onover the stumps of hazel to where Grace and Winterborne were standing.They saw her approach, and Winterborne said, "She is coming to you; itis a good omen. She dislikes me, so I'll go away." He accordinglyretreated to where he had been working before Grace came, and Grace'sformidable rival approached her, each woman taking the other's measureas she came near.
"Dear--Mrs. Fitzpiers," said Felice Charmond, with some inward turmoilwhich stopped her speech. "I have not seen you for a long time."
She held out her hand tentatively, while Grace stood like a wild animalon first confronting a mirror or other puzzling product ofcivilization. Was it really Mrs. Charmond speaking to her thus? If itwas, she could no longer form any guess as to what it signified.
"I want to talk with you," said Mrs. Charmond, imploringly, for thegaze of the young woman had chilled her through. "Can you walk on withme till we are quite alone?"
Sick with distaste, Grace nevertheless complied, as by clockwork andthey moved evenly side by side into the deeper recesses of the woods.They went farther, much farther than Mrs. Charmond had meant to go; butshe could not begin her conversation, and in default of it kept walking.
"I have seen your father," she at length resumed. "And--I am muchtroubled by what he told me."
"What did he tell you? I have not been admitted to his confidence onanything he may have said to you."
"Nevertheless, why should I repeat to you what you can easily divine?"
"True--true," returned Grace, mournfully. "Why should you repeat whatwe both know to be in our minds already?"
"Mrs. Fitzpiers, your husband--" The moment that the speaker's tonguetouched the dangerous subject a vivid look of self-consciousnessflashed over her, in which her heart revealed, as by a lightning gleam,what filled it to overflowing. So transitory was the expression thatnone but a sensitive woman, and she in Grace's position, would have hadthe power to catch its meaning. Upon her the phase was not lost.
"Then you DO love him!" she exclaimed, in a tone of much surprise.
"What do you mean, my young friend?"
"Why," cried Grace, "I thought till now that you had only been cruellyflirting with my husband, to amuse your idle moments--a rich lady witha poor professional gentleman whom in her heart she despised not muchless than her who belongs to him. But I guess from your manner thatyou love him desperately, and I don't hate you as I did before."
"Yes, indeed," continued Mrs. Fitzpiers, with a trembling tongue,"since it is not playing in your case at all, but REAL. Oh, I do pityyou, more than I despise you, for you will s-s-suffer most!"
Mrs. Charmond was now as much agitated as Grace. "I ought not to allowmyself to argue with you," she exclaimed. "I demean myself by doingit. But I liked you once, and for the sake of that time I try to tellyou how mistaken you are!" Much of her confusion resulted from herwonder and alarm at finding herself in a sense dominated mentally andemotionally by this simple school-girl. "I do not love him," she wenton, with desperate untruth. "It was a kindness--my making somewhatmore of him than one usually does of one's doctor. I was lonely; Italked--well, I trifled with him. I am very sorry if such child'splaying out of pure friendship has been a serious matter to you. Whocould have expected it? But the world is so simple here."
"Oh, that's affectation," said Grace, sh
aking her head. "It is nouse--you love him. I can see in your face that in this matter of myhusband you have not let your acts belie your feelings. During theselast four or six months you have been terribly indiscreet; but you havenot been insincere, and that almost disarms me."
"I HAVE been insincere--if you will have the word--I mean I HAVEcoquetted, and do NOT love him!"
But Grace clung to her position like a limpet. "You may have trifledwith others, but him you love as you never loved another man."
"Oh, well--I won't argue," said Mrs. Charmond, laughing faintly. "Andyou come to reproach me for it, child."
"No," said Grace, magnanimously. "You may go on loving him if youlike--I don't mind at all. You'll find it, let me tell you, a bittererbusiness for yourself than for me in the end. He'll get tired of yousoon, as tired as can be--you don't know him so well as I--and then youmay wish you had never seen him!"
Mrs. Charmond had grown quite pale and weak under this prophecy. It wasextraordinary that Grace, whom almost every one would havecharacterized as a gentle girl, should be of stronger fibre than herinterlocutor. "You exaggerate--cruel, silly young woman," shereiterated, writhing with little agonies. "It is nothing but playfulfriendship--nothing! It will be proved by my future conduct. I shallat once refuse to see him more--since it will make no difference to myheart, and much to my name."
"I question if you will refuse to see him again," said Grace, dryly, aswith eyes askance she bent a sapling down. "But I am not incensedagainst you as you are against me," she added, abandoning the tree toits natural perpendicular. "Before I came I had been despising you forwanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. WhenEdgar has gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonablehours and unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and milesacross the country at midnight, and risking his life, and gettingcovered with mud, to get a glimpse of you, I have called him a foolishman--the plaything of a finished coquette. I thought that what wasgetting to be a tragedy to me was a comedy to you. But now I see thattragedy lies on YOUR side of the situation no less than on MINE, andmore; that if I have felt trouble at my position, you have felt anguishat yours; that if I have had disappointments, you have had despairs.Heaven may fortify me--God help you!"
"I cannot attempt to reply to your raving eloquence," returned theother, struggling to restore a dignity which had completely collapsed."My acts will be my proofs. In the world which you have seen nothingof, friendships between men and women are not unknown, and it wouldhave been better both for you and your father if you had each judged memore respectfully, and left me alone. As it is I wish never to see orspeak to you, madam, any more."
Grace bowed, and Mrs. Charmond turned away. The two went apart indirectly opposite courses, and were soon hidden from each other bytheir umbrageous surroundings and by the shadows of eve.
In the excitement of their long argument they had walked onward andzigzagged about without regarding direction or distance. All sound ofthe woodcutters had long since faded into remoteness, and even had notthe interval been too great for hearing them they would have beensilent and homeward bound at this twilight hour. But Grace went on hercourse without any misgiving, though there was much underwood here,with only the narrowest passages for walking, across which brambleshung. She had not, however, traversed this the wildest part of thewood since her childhood, and the transformation of outlines had beengreat; old trees which once were landmarks had been felled or blowndown, and the bushes which then had been small and scrubby were nowlarge and overhanging. She soon found that her ideas as to directionwere vague--that she had indeed no ideas as to direction at all. Ifthe evening had not been growing so dark, and the wind had not put onits night moan so distinctly, Grace would not have minded; but she wasrather frightened now, and began to strike across hither and thither inrandom courses.
Denser grew the darkness, more developed the wind-voices, and still norecognizable spot or outlet of any kind appeared, nor any sound of theHintocks floated near, though she had wandered probably between one andtwo hours, and began to be weary. She was vexed at her foolishness,since the ground she had covered, if in a straight line, mustinevitably have taken her out of the wood to some remote village orother; but she had wasted her forces in countermarches; and now, inmuch alarm, wondered if she would have to pass the night here. Shestood still to meditate, and fancied that between the soughing of thewind she heard shuffling footsteps on the leaves heavier than those ofrabbits or hares. Though fearing at first to meet anybody on the chanceof his being a friend, she decided that the fellow night-rambler, evenif a poacher, would not injure her, and that he might possibly be someone sent to search for her. She accordingly shouted a rather timid"Hoi!"
The cry was immediately returned by the other person and Grace runningat once in the direction whence it came beheld an indistinct figurehastening up to her as rapidly. They were almost in each other's armswhen she recognized in her vis-a-vis the outline and white veil of herwhom she had parted from an hour and a half before--Mrs. Charmond.
"I have lost my way, I have lost my way," cried that lady. "Oh--is itindeed you? I am so glad to meet you or anybody. I have been wanderingup and down ever since we parted, and am nearly dead with terror andmisery and fatigue!"
"So am I," said Grace. "What shall we, shall we do?"
"You won't go away from me?" asked her companion, anxiously.
"No, indeed. Are you very tired?"
"I can scarcely move, and I am scratched dreadfully about the ankles."
Grace reflected. "Perhaps, as it is dry under foot, the best thing forus to do would be to sit down for half an hour, and then start againwhen we have thoroughly rested. By walking straight we must come to atrack leading somewhere before the morning."
They found a clump of bushy hollies which afforded a shelter from thewind, and sat down under it, some tufts of dead fern, crisp and dry,that remained from the previous season forming a sort of nest for them.But it was cold, nevertheless, on this March night, particularly forGrace, who with the sanguine prematureness of youth in matters ofdress, had considered it spring-time, and hence was not so warmly cladas Mrs. Charmond, who still wore her winter fur. But after sitting awhile the latter lady shivered no less than Grace as the warmthimparted by her hasty walking began to go off, and they felt the coldair drawing through the holly leaves which scratched their backs andshoulders. Moreover, they could hear some drops of rain falling on thetrees, though none reached the nook in which they had ensconcedthemselves.
"If we were to cling close together," said Mrs. Charmond, "we shouldkeep each other warm. But," she added, in an uneven voice, "I supposeyou won't come near me for the world!"
"Why not?"
"Because--well, you know."
"Yes. I will--I don't hate you at all."
They consequently crept up to one another, and being in the dark,lonely and weary, did what neither had dreamed of doing beforehand,clasped each other closely, Mrs. Charmond's furs consoling Grace's coldface, and each one's body as she breathed alternately heaving againstthat of her companion.
When a few minutes had been spent thus, Mrs. Charmond said, "I am sowretched!" in a heavy, emotional whisper.
"You are frightened," said Grace, kindly. "But there is nothing tofear; I know these woods well."
"I am not at all frightened at the wood, but I am at other things."
Mrs. Charmond embraced Grace more and more tightly, and the youngerwoman could feel her neighbor's breathings grow deeper and morespasmodic, as though uncontrollable feelings were germinating.
"After I had left you," she went on, "I regretted something I had said.I have to make a confession--I must make it!" she whispered, brokenly,the instinct to indulge in warmth of sentiment which had led this womanof passions to respond to Fitzpiers in the first place leading her nowto find luxurious comfort in opening her heart to his wife. "I said toyou I could give him up without pain or deprivation--that he had onlybeen my pastime.
That was untrue--it was said to deceive you. I couldnot do it without much pain; and, what is more dreadful, I cannot givehim up--even if I would--of myself alone."
"Why? Because you love him, you mean."
Felice Charmond denoted assent by a movement.
"I knew I was right!" said Grace, exaltedly. "But that should notdeter you," she presently added, in a moral tone. "Oh, do struggleagainst it, and you will conquer!"
"You are so simple, so simple!" cried Felice. "You think, because youguessed my assumed indifference to him to be a sham, that you know theextremes that people are capable of going to! But a good deal more mayhave been going on than you have fathomed with all your insight. ICANNOT give him up until he chooses to give up me."
"But surely you are the superior in station and in every way, and thecut must come from you."
"Tchut! Must I tell verbatim, you simple child? Oh, I suppose I must! Ishall eat away my heart if I do not let out all, after meeting you likethis and finding how guileless you are." She thereupon whispered a fewwords in the girl's ear, and burst into a violent fit of sobbing.
Grace started roughly away from the shelter of the fur, and sprang toher feet.
"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, thunderstruck at a revelation transcendingher utmost suspicion. "Can it be--can it be!"
She turned as if to hasten away. But Felice Charmond's sobs came toher ear: deep darkness circled her about, the funereal trees rocked andchanted their diriges and placebos around her, and she did not knowwhich way to go. After a moment of energy she felt mild again, andturned to the motionless woman at her feet.
"Are you rested?" she asked, in what seemed something like her ownvoice grown ten years older.
Without an answer Mrs. Charmond slowly rose.
"You mean to betray me!" she said from the bitterest depths of hersoul. "Oh fool, fool I!"
"No," said Grace, shortly. "I mean no such thing. But let us be quicknow. We have a serious undertaking before us. Think of nothing butgoing straight on."
They walked on in profound silence, pulling back boughs now growingwet, and treading down woodbine, but still keeping a pretty straightcourse. Grace began to be thoroughly worn out, and her companion too,when, on a sudden, they broke into the deserted highway at the hill-topon which the Sherton man had waited for Mrs. Dollery's van. Gracerecognized the spot as soon as she looked around her.
"How we have got here I cannot tell," she said, with cold civility."We have made a complete circuit of Little Hintock. The hazel copse isquite on the other side. Now we have only to follow the road."
They dragged themselves onward, turned into the lane, passed the trackto Little Hintock, and so reached the park.
"Here I turn back," said Grace, in the same passionless voice. "You arequite near home."
Mrs. Charmond stood inert, seeming appalled by her late admission.
"I have told you something in a moment of irresistible desire tounburden my soul which all but a fool would have kept silent as thegrave," she said. "I cannot help it now. Is it to be a secret--or doyou mean war?"
"A secret, certainly," said Grace, mournfully. "How can you expect warfrom such a helpless, wretched being as I!"
"And I'll do my best not to see him. I am his slave; but I'll try."
Grace was naturally kind; but she could not help using a small daggernow.
"Pray don't distress yourself," she said, with exquisitely fine scorn."You may keep him--for me." Had she been wounded instead of mortifiedshe could not have used the words; but Fitzpiers's hold upon her heartwas slight.
They parted thus and there, and Grace went moodily homeward. PassingMarty's cottage she observed through the window that the girl waswriting instead of chopping as usual, and wondered what hercorrespondence could be. Directly afterwards she met people in searchof her, and reached the house to find all in serious alarm. She soonexplained that she had lost her way, and her general depression wasattributed to exhaustion on that account.
Could she have known what Marty was writing she would have beensurprised.
The rumor which agitated the other folk of Hintock had reached theyoung girl, and she was penning a letter to Fitzpiers, to tell him thatMrs. Charmond wore her hair. It was poor Marty's only card, and sheplayed it, knowing nothing of fashion, and thinking her revelation afatal one for a lover.