With this in view he took her out for a walk, a custom of his when he
wished to say anything specially impressive. Their way was over the top
of that lofty ridge dividing their woodland from the cider district,
whence they had in the spring beheld the miles of apple-trees in bloom.
All was now deep green. The spot recalled to Grace’s mind the last
occasion of her presence there, and she said, “The promise of an
enormous apple-crop is fulfilling itself, is it not? I suppose Giles is
getting his mills and presses ready.”
This was just what her father had not come there to talk about. Without
replying he raised his arm, and moved his finger till he fixed it at a
point. “There,” he said, “you see that plantation reaching over the
hill like a great slug, and just behind the hill a particularly green
sheltered bottom? That’s where Mr. Fitzpiers’s family were lords of the
manor for I don’t know how many hundred years, and there stands the
village of Buckbury Fitzpiers. A wonderful property ’twas—wonderful!”
“But they are not lords of the manor there now.”
“Why, no. But good and great things die as well as little and foolish.
The only ones representing the family now, I believe, are our doctor
and a maiden lady living I don’t know where. You can’t help being
happy, Grace, in allying yourself with such a romantical family. You’ll
feel as if you’ve stepped into history.”
“We’ve been at Hintock as long as they’ve been at Buckbury; is it not
so? You say our name occurs in old deeds continually.”
“Oh yes—as yeomen, copyholders, and such like. But think how much
better this will be for ’ee. You’ll be living a high intellectual life,
such as has now become natural to you; and though the doctor’s practice
is small here, he’ll no doubt go to a dashing town when he’s got his
hand in, and keep a stylish carriage, and you’ll be brought to know a
good many ladies of excellent society. If you should ever meet me then,
Grace, you can drive past me, looking the other way. I shouldn’t expect
you to speak to me, or wish such a thing, unless it happened to be in
some lonely, private place where ’twouldn’t lower ye at all. Don’t
think such men as neighbor Giles your equal. He and I shall be good
friends enough, but he’s not for the like of you. He’s lived our rough
and homely life here, and his wife’s life must be rough and homely
likewise.”
So much pressure could not but produce some displacement. As Grace was
left very much to herself, she took advantage of one fine day before
Fitzpiers’s return to drive into the aforesaid vale where stood the
village of Buckbury Fitzpiers. Leaving her father’s man at the inn with
the horse and gig, she rambled onward to the ruins of a castle, which
stood in a field hard by. She had no doubt that it represented the
ancient stronghold of the Fitzpiers family.
The remains were few, and consisted mostly of remnants of the lower
vaulting, supported on low stout columns surmounted by the _crochet_
capital of the period. The two or three arches of these vaults that
were still in position were utilized by the adjoining farmer as shelter
for his calves, the floor being spread with straw, amid which the young
creatures rustled, cooling their thirsty tongues by licking the quaint
Norman carving, which glistened with the moisture. It was a degradation
of even such a rude form of art as this to be treatad so grossly, she
thought, and for the first time the family of Fitzpiers assumed in her
imagination the hues of a melancholy romanticism.
It was soon time to drive home, and she traversed the distance with a
preoccupied mind. The idea of so modern a man in science and aesthetics
as the young surgeon springing out of relics so ancient was a kind of
novelty she had never before experienced. The combination lent him a
social and intellectual interest which she dreaded, so much weight did
it add to the strange influence he exercised upon her whenever he came
near her.
In an excitement which was not love, not ambition, rather a fearful
consciousness of hazard in the air, she awaited his return.
Meanwhile her father was awaiting him also. In his house there was an
old work on medicine, published towards the end of the last century,
and to put himself in harmony with events Melbury spread this work on
his knees when he had done his day’s business, and read about Galen,
Hippocrates, and Herophilus—of the dogmatic, the empiric, the
hermetical, and other sects of practitioners that have arisen in
history; and thence proceeded to the classification of maladies and the
rules for their treatment, as laid down in this valuable book with
absolute precision. Melbury regretted that the treatise was so old,
fearing that he might in consequence be unable to hold as complete a
conversation as he could wish with Mr. Fitzpiers, primed, no doubt,
with more recent discoveries.
The day of Fitzpiers’s return arrived, and he sent to say that he would
call immediately. In the little time that was afforded for putting the
house in order the sweeping of Melbury’s parlor was as the sweeping of
the parlor at the Interpreter’s which wellnigh choked the Pilgrim. At
the end of it Mrs. Melbury sat down, folded her hands and lips, and
waited. Her husband restlessly walked in and out from the timber-yard,
stared at the interior of the room, jerked out “ay, ay,” and retreated
again. Between four and five Fitzpiers arrived, hitching his horse to
the hook outside the door.
As soon as he had walked in and perceived that Grace was not in the
room, he seemed to have a misgiving. Nothing less than her actual
presence could long keep him to the level of this impassioned
enterprise, and that lacking he appeared as one who wished to retrace
his steps.
He mechanically talked at what he considered a woodland matron’s level
of thought till a rustling was heard on the stairs, and Grace came in.
Fitzpiers was for once as agitated as she. Over and above the genuine
emotion which she raised in his heart there hung the sense that he was
casting a die by impulse which he might not have thrown by judgment.
Mr. Melbury was not in the room. Having to attend to matters in the
yard, he had delayed putting on his afternoon coat and waistcoat till
the doctor’s appearance, when, not wishing to be backward in receiving
him, he entered the parlor hastily buttoning up those garments. Grace’s
fastidiousness was a little distressed that Fitzpiers should see by
this action the strain his visit was putting upon her father; and to
make matters worse for her just then, old Grammer seemed to have a
passion for incessantly pumping in the back kitchen, leaving the doors
open so that the banging and splashing were distinct above the parlor
conversation.
Whenever the chat over the tea sank into pleasant desultoriness Mr.
Melbury broke in with speeches of labored precision on very remote
topics, as if he feared to let Fitzpiers’s mind dwell critically on the
subject nearest the hearts of all. In truth a constrained manner was
natural enough in Melbury just now, for the greatest interest of his
life was reaching its crisis. Could the real have been beheld instead
of the corporeal merely, the corner of the room in which he sat would
have been filled with a form typical of anxious suspense, large-eyed,
tight-lipped, awaiting the issue. That paternal hopes and fears so
intense should be bound up in the person of one child so peculiarly
circumstanced, and not have dispersed themselves over the larger field
of a whole family, involved dangerous risks to future happiness.
Fitzpiers did not stay more than an hour, but that time had apparently
advanced his sentiments towards Grace, once and for all, from a vaguely
liquescent to an organic shape. She would not have accompanied him to
the door in response to his whispered “Come!” if her mother had not
said in a matter-of-fact way, “Of course, Grace; go to the door with
Mr. Fitzpiers.” Accordingly Grace went, both her parents remaining in
the room. When the young pair were in the great brick-floored hall the
lover took the girl’s hand in his, drew it under his arm, and thus led
her on to the door, where he stealthily kissed her.
She broke from him trembling, blushed and turned aside, hardly knowing
how things had advanced to this. Fitzpiers drove off, kissing his hand
to her, and waving it to Melbury who was visible through the window.
Her father returned the surgeon’s action with a great flourish of his
own hand and a satisfied smile.
The intoxication that Fitzpiers had, as usual, produced in Grace’s
brain during the visit passed off somewhat with his withdrawal. She
felt like a woman who did not know what she had been doing for the
previous hour, but supposed with trepidation that the afternoon’s
proceedings, though vague, had amounted to an engagement between
herself and the handsome, coercive, irresistible Fitzpiers.
This visit was a type of many which followed it during the long summer
days of that year. Grace was borne along upon a stream of reasonings,
arguments, and persuasions, supplemented, it must be added, by
inclinations of her own at times. No woman is without aspirations,
which may be innocent enough within certain limits; and Grace had been
so trained socially, and educated intellectually, as to see clearly
enough a pleasure in the position of wife to such a man as Fitzpiers.
His material standing of itself, either present or future, had little
in it to give her ambition, but the possibilities of a refined and
cultivated inner life, of subtle psychological intercourse, had their
charm. It was this rather than any vulgar idea of marrying well which
caused her to float with the current, and to yield to the immense
influence which Fitzpiers exercised over her whenever she shared his
society.
Any observer would shrewdly have prophesied that whether or not she
loved him as yet in the ordinary sense, she was pretty sure to do so in
time.
One evening just before dusk they had taken a rather long walk
together, and for a short cut homeward passed through the shrubberies
of Hintock House—still deserted, and still blankly confronting with its
sightless shuttered windows the surrounding foliage and slopes. Grace
was tired, and they approached the wall, and sat together on one of the
stone sills—still warm with the sun that had been pouring its rays upon
them all the afternoon.
“This place would just do for us, would it not, dearest,” said her
betrothed, as they sat, turning and looking idly at the old facade.
“Oh yes,” said Grace, plainly showing that no such fancy had ever
crossed her mind. “She is away from home still,” Grace added in a
minute, rather sadly, for she could not forget that she had somehow
lost the valuable friendship of the lady of this bower.
“Who is?—oh, you mean Mrs. Charmond. Do you know, dear, that at one
time I thought you lived here.”
“Indeed!” said Grace. “How was that?”
He explained, as far as he could do so without mentioning his
disappointment at finding it was otherwise; and then went on: “Well,
never mind that. Now I want to ask you something. There is one detail
of our wedding which I am sure you will leave to me. My inclination is
not to be married at the horrid little church here, with all the yokels
staring round at us, and a droning parson reading.”
“Where, then, can it be? At a church in town?”
“No. Not at a church at all. At a registry office. It is a quieter,
snugger, and more convenient place in every way.”
“Oh,” said she, with real distress. “How can I be married except at
church, and with all my dear friends round me?”
“Yeoman Winterborne among them.”
“Yes—why not? You know there was nothing serious between him and me.”
“You see, dear, a noisy bell-ringing marriage at church has this
objection in our case: it would be a thing of report a long way round.
Now I would gently, as gently as possible, indicate to you how
inadvisable such publicity would be if we leave Hintock, and I purchase
the practice that I contemplate purchasing at Budmouth—hardly more than
twenty miles off. Forgive my saying that it will be far better if
nobody there knows where you come from, nor anything about your
parents. Your beauty and knowledge and manners will carry you anywhere
if you are not hampered by such retrospective criticism.”
“But could it not be a quiet ceremony, even at church?” she pleaded.
“I don’t see the necessity of going there!” he said, a trifle
impatiently. “Marriage is a civil contract, and the shorter and simpler
it is made the better. People don’t go to church when they take a
house, or even when they make a will.”
“Oh, Edgar—I don’t like to hear you speak like that.”
“Well, well—I didn’t mean to. But I have mentioned as much to your
father, who has made no objection; and why should you?”
She gave way, deeming the point one on which she ought to allow
sentiment to give way to policy—if there were indeed policy in his
plan. But she was indefinably depressed as they walked homeward.