CHAPTER IX.
"I heard the bushes move long before I saw you," she began. "I saidfirst, 'it is some terrible beast;' next, 'it is a poacher;' next, 'itis a friend!'"
He regarded her with a slight smile, weighing, not her speech, but thequestion whether he should tell her that she had been watched. Hedecided in the negative.
"You have been to the house?" he said. "But I need not ask." The factwas that there shone upon Miss Melbury's face a species of exaltation,which saw no environing details nor his own occupation nothing morethan his bare presence.
"Why need you not ask?"
"Your face is like the face of Moses when he came down from the Mount."
She reddened a little and said, "How can you be so profane, GilesWinterborne?"
"How can you think so much of that class of people? Well, I beg pardonI didn't mean to speak so freely. How do you like her house and her?"
"Exceedingly. I had not been inside the walls since I was a child,when it used to be let to strangers, before Mrs. Charmond's latehusband bought the property. She is SO nice!" And Grace fell into suchan abstracted gaze at the imaginary image of Mrs. Charmond and herniceness that it almost conjured up a vision of that lady in mid-airbefore them.
"She has only been here a month or two, it seems, and cannot stay muchlonger, because she finds it so lonely and damp in winter. She is goingabroad. Only think, she would like me to go with her."
Giles's features stiffened a little at the news. "Indeed; what for?But I won't keep you standing here. Hoi, Robert!" he cried to aswaying collection of clothes in the distance, which was the figure ofCreedle his man. "Go on filling in there till I come back."
"I'm a-coming, sir; I'm a-coming."
"Well, the reason is this," continued she, as they went ontogether--"Mrs. Charmond has a delightful side to her character--adesire to record her impressions of travel, like Alexandre Dumas, andMery, and Sterne, and others. But she cannot find energy enough to doit herself." And Grace proceeded to explain Mrs. Charmond's proposal atlarge. "My notion is that Mery's style will suit her best, because hewrites in that soft, emotional, luxurious way she has," Grace said,musingly.
"Indeed!" said Winterborne, with mock awe. "Suppose you talk over myhead a little longer, Miss Grace Melbury?"
"Oh, I didn't mean it!" she said, repentantly, looking into his eyes."And as for myself, I hate French books. And I love dear old Hintock,AND THE PEOPLE IN IT, fifty times better than all the Continent. Butthe scheme; I think it an enchanting notion, don't you, Giles?"
"It is well enough in one sense, but it will take you away," said he,mollified.
"Only for a short time. We should return in May."
"Well, Miss Melbury, it is a question for your father."
Winterborne walked with her nearly to her house. He had awaited hercoming, mainly with the view of mentioning to her his proposal to havea Christmas party; but homely Christmas gatherings in the venerable andjovial Hintock style seemed so primitive and uncouth beside the loftymatters of her converse and thought that he refrained.
As soon as she was gone he turned back towards the scene of hisplanting, and could not help saying to himself as he walked, that thisengagement of his was a very unpromising business. Her outing to-dayhad not improved it. A woman who could go to Hintock House and befriendly with its mistress, enter into the views of its mistress, talklike her, and dress not much unlike her, why, she would hardly becontented with him, a yeoman, now immersed in tree-planting, eventhough he planted them well. "And yet she's a true-hearted girl," hesaid, thinking of her words about Hintock. "I must bring matters to apoint, and there's an end of it."
When he reached the plantation he found that Marty had come back, anddismissing Creedle, he went on planting silently with the girl asbefore.
"Suppose, Marty," he said, after a while, looking at her extended arm,upon which old scratches from briers showed themselves purple in thecold wind--"suppose you know a person, and want to bring that person toa good understanding with you, do you think a Christmas party of somesort is a warming-up thing, and likely to be useful in hastening on thematter?"
"Is there to be dancing?"
"There might be, certainly."
"Will He dance with She?"
"Well, yes."
"Then it might bring things to a head, one way or the other; I won't bethe one to say which."
"It shall be done," said Winterborne, not to her, though he spoke thewords quite loudly. And as the day was nearly ended, he added, "Here,Marty, I'll send up a man to plant the rest to-morrow. I've otherthings to think of just now."
She did not inquire what other things, for she had seen him walkingwith Grace Melbury. She looked towards the western sky, which was nowaglow like some vast foundery wherein new worlds were being cast.Across it the bare bough of a tree stretched horizontally, revealingevery twig against the red, and showing in dark profile every beck andmovement of three pheasants that were settling themselves down on it ina row to roost.
"It will be fine to-morrow," said Marty, observing them with thevermilion light of the sun in the pupils of her eyes, "for they area-croupied down nearly at the end of the bough. If it were going to bestormy they'd squeeze close to the trunk. The weather is almost allthey have to think of, isn't it, Mr. Winterborne? and so they must belighter-hearted than we."
"I dare say they are," said Winterborne.
Before taking a single step in the preparations, Winterborne, with nogreat hopes, went across that evening to the timber-merchant's toascertain if Grace and her parents would honor him with their presence.Having first to set his nightly gins in the garden, to catch therabbits that ate his winter-greens, his call was delayed till justafter the rising of the moon, whose rays reached the Hintock houses butfitfully as yet, on account of the trees. Melbury was crossing his yardon his way to call on some one at the larger village, but he readilyturned and walked up and down the path with the young man.
Giles, in his self-deprecatory sense of living on a much smaller scalethan the Melburys did, would not for the world imply that hisinvitation was to a gathering of any importance. So he put it in themild form of "Can you come in for an hour, when you have done business,the day after to-morrow; and Mrs. and Miss Melbury, if they havenothing more pressing to do?"
Melbury would give no answer at once. "No, I can't tell you to-day,"he said. "I must talk it over with the women. As far as I amconcerned, my dear Giles, you know I'll come with pleasure. But how doI know what Grace's notions may be? You see, she has been away amongcultivated folks a good while; and now this acquaintance with Mrs.Charmond--Well, I'll ask her. I can say no more."
When Winterborne was gone the timber-merchant went on his way. He knewvery well that Grace, whatever her own feelings, would either go or notgo, according as he suggested; and his instinct was, for the moment, tosuggest the negative. His errand took him past the church, and the wayto his destination was either across the church-yard or along-side it,the distances being the same. For some reason or other he chose theformer way.
The moon was faintly lighting up the gravestones, and the path, and thefront of the building. Suddenly Mr. Melbury paused, turned ill uponthe grass, and approached a particular headstone, where he read, "Inmemory of John Winterborne," with the subjoined date and age. It wasthe grave of Giles's father.
The timber-merchant laid his hand upon the stone, and was humanized."Jack, my wronged friend!" he said. "I'll be faithful to my plan ofmaking amends to 'ee."
When he reached home that evening, he said to Grace and Mrs. Melbury,who were working at a little table by the fire,
"Giles wants us to go down and spend an hour with him the day afterto-morrow; and I'm thinking, that as 'tis Giles who asks us, we'll go."
They assented without demur, and accordingly the timber-merchant sentGiles the next morning an answer in the affirmative.