The Woodlanders: Chapter 33

Chapter 33

CHAPTER XXXIII.


There was agitation to-day in the lives of all whom these matters
concerned.  It was not till the Hintock dinner-time--one o'clock--
that Grace discovered her father's absence from the house after a
departure in the morning under somewhat unusual conditions.  By a
little reasoning and inquiry she was able to come to a conclusion
on his destination, and to divine his errand.

Her husband was absent, and her father did not return.  He had, in
truth, gone on to Sherton after the interview, but this Grace did
not know.  In an indefinite dread that something serious would
arise out of Melbury's visit by reason of the inequalities of
temper and nervous irritation to which he was subject, something
possibly that would bring her much more misery than accompanied
her present negative state of mind, she left the house about three
o'clock, and took a loitering walk in the woodland track by which
she imagined he would come home.  This track under the bare trees
and over the cracking sticks, screened and roofed in from the
outer world of wind and cloud by a net-work of boughs, led her
slowly on till in time she had left the larger trees behind her
and swept round into the coppice where Winterborne and his men
were clearing the undergrowth.

Had Giles's attention been concentrated on his hurdles he would
not have seen her; but ever since Melbury's passage across the
opposite glade in the morning he had been as uneasy and unsettled
as Grace herself; and her advent now was the one appearance which,
since her father's avowal, could arrest him more than Melbury's
return with his tidings.  Fearing that something might be the
matter, he hastened up to her.

She had not seen her old lover for a long time, and, too conscious
of the late pranks of her heart, she could not behold him calmly.
"I am only looking for my father," she said, in an unnecessarily
apologetic intonation.

"I was looking for him too," said Giles.  "I think he may perhaps
have gone on farther."

"Then you knew he was going to the House, Giles?" she said,
turning her large tender eyes anxiously upon him.  "Did he tell
you what for?"

Winterborne glanced doubtingly at her, and then softly hinted that
her father had visited him the evening before, and that their old
friendship 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,
troubling each other's souls.  Grace experienced acute misery at
the sight of these wood-cutting scenes, because she had estranged
herself from them, craving, even to its defects and
inconveniences, that homely sylvan life of her father which in the
best probable succession of events would shortly be denied her.

At a little distance, on the edge of the clearing, Marty South was
shaping spar-gads to take home for manufacture during the
evenings.  While Winterborne and Mrs. Fitzpiers stood looking at
her in their mutual embarrassment at each other's presence, they
beheld approaching the girl a lady in a dark fur mantle and a
black hat, having a white veil tied picturesquely round it.  She
spoke to Marty, who turned and courtesied, and the lady fell into
conversation with her.  It was Mrs. Charmond.

On leaving her house, Mrs. Charmond had walked on and onward under
the fret and fever of her mind with more vigor than she was
accustomed to show in her normal moods--a fever which the solace
of a cigarette did not entirely allay.  Reaching the coppice, she
listlessly observed Marty 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
not recognized 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,
which Mrs. Charmond did not fail to notice informed her of the
state of the girl'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
thoughts on this matter--which were nothing less than one of
extraordinary acuteness for a girl so young and inexperienced--
namely, that she saw danger to two hearts naturally honest in
Grace being thrown back into Winterborne's society by the neglect
of her husband.  Mrs. Charmond, however, with the almost
supersensory means to knowledge which women have on such
occasions, quite understood what Marty had intended to convey, and
the picture thus exhibited to her of lives drifting away,
involving the wreck of poor Marty's hopes, prompted her to more
generous resolves than all Melbury's remonstrances had been able
to stimulate.

Full of the new feeling, she bade the girl good-afternoon, and
went on over the stumps of hazel to where Grace and Winterborne
were standing.  They saw her approach, and Winterborne said, "She
is coming to you; it is a good omen.  She dislikes me, so I'll go
away."  He accordingly retreated to where he had been working
before Grace came, and Grace's formidable rival approached her,
each woman taking the other's measure as she came near.

"Dear--Mrs. Fitzpiers," said Felice Charmond, with some inward
turmoil which stopped her speech.  "I have not seen you for a long
time."

She held out her hand tentatively, while Grace stood like a wild
animal on first confronting a mirror or other puzzling product of
civilization.  Was it really Mrs. Charmond speaking to her thus?
If it was, she could no longer form any guess as to what it
signified.

"I want to talk with you," said Mrs. Charmond, imploringly, for
the gaze of the young woman had chilled her through.  "Can you
walk on with me till we are quite alone?"

Sick with distaste, Grace nevertheless complied, as by clockwork
and they moved evenly side by side into the deeper recesses of the
woods.  They went farther, much farther than Mrs. Charmond had
meant to go; but she could not begin her conversation, and in
default of it kept walking.

"I have seen your father," she at length resumed.  "And--I am much
troubled by what he told me."

"What did he tell you? I have not been admitted to his confidence
on anything 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
what we both know to be in our minds already?"

"Mrs. Fitzpiers, your husband--" The moment that the speaker's
tongue touched the dangerous subject a vivid look of self-
consciousness flashed over her, in which her heart revealed, as by
a lightning gleam, what filled it to overflowing.  So transitory
was the expression that none but a sensitive woman, and she in
Grace's position, would have had the 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
cruelly flirting with my husband, to amuse your idle moments--a
rich lady with a poor professional gentleman whom in her heart she
despised not much less than her who belongs to him.  But I guess
from your manner that you 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
pity you, 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
allow myself to argue with you," she exclaimed.  "I demean myself
by doing it.  But I liked you once, and for the sake of that time
I try to tell you how mistaken you are!" Much of her confusion
resulted from her wonder and alarm at finding herself in a sense
dominated mentally and emotionally by this simple school-girl.  "I
do not love him," she went on, with desperate untruth.  "It was a
kindness--my making somewhat more of him than one usually does of
one's doctor.  I was lonely; I talked--well, I trifled with him.
I am very sorry if such child's playing out of pure friendship has
been a serious matter to you.  Who could have expected it? But the
world is so simple here."

"Oh, that's affectation," said Grace, shaking her head.  "It is no
use--you love him.  I can see in your face that in this matter of
my husband you have not let your acts belie your feelings.  During
these last four or six months you have been terribly indiscreet;
but you have not been insincere, and that almost disarms me."

"I HAVE been insincere--if you will have the word--I mean I HAVE
coquetted, and do NOT love him!"

But Grace clung to her position like a limpet.  "You may have
trifled with others, but him you love as you never loved another
man."

"Oh, well--I won't argue," said Mrs. Charmond, laughing faintly.
"And you come to reproach me for it, child."

"No," said Grace, magnanimously.  "You may go on loving him if you
like--I don't mind at all.  You'll find it, let me tell you, a
bitterer business for yourself than for me in the end.  He'll get
tired of you soon, as tired as can be--you don't know him so well
as I--and then you may wish you had never seen him!"

Mrs. Charmond had grown quite pale and weak under this prophecy.
It was extraordinary that Grace, whom almost every one would have
characterized as a gentle girl, should be of stronger fibre than
her interlocutor.  "You exaggerate--cruel, silly young woman," she
reiterated, writhing with little agonies.  "It is nothing but
playful friendship--nothing! It will be proved by my future
conduct.  I shall at once refuse to see him more--since it will
make no difference to my heart, and much to my name."

"I question if you will refuse to see him again," said Grace,
dryly, as with eyes askance she bent a sapling down.  "But I am
not incensed against you as you are against me," she added,
abandoning the tree to its natural perpendicular.  "Before I came
I had been despising you for wanton cruelty; now I only pity you
for misplaced affection.  When Edgar has gone out of the house in
hope of seeing you, at seasonable hours and unseasonable; when I
have found him riding miles and miles across the country at
midnight, and risking his life, and getting covered with mud, to
get a glimpse of you, I have called him a foolish man--the
plaything of a finished coquette.  I thought that what was getting
to be a tragedy to me was a comedy to you.  But now I see that
tragedy lies on YOUR side of the situation no less than on MINE,
and more; that if I have felt trouble at my position, you have
felt anguish at 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 the
other, struggling to restore a dignity which had completely
collapsed.  "My acts will be my proofs.  In the world which you
have seen nothing of, friendships between men and women are not
unknown, and it would have been better both for you and your
father if you had each judged me more respectfully, and left me
alone.  As it is I wish never to see or speak to you, madam, any
more."

Grace bowed, and Mrs. Charmond turned away.  The two went apart in
directly opposite courses, and were soon hidden from each other by
their umbrageous surroundings and by the shadows of eve.

In the excitement of their long argument they had walked onward
and zigzagged about without regarding direction or distance.  All
sound of the woodcutters had long since faded into remoteness, and
even had not the interval been too great for hearing them they
would have been silent and homeward bound at this twilight hour.
But Grace went on her course without any misgiving, though there
was much underwood here, with only the narrowest passages for
walking, across which brambles hung.  She had not, however,
traversed this the wildest part of the wood since her childhood,
and the transformation of outlines had been great; old trees which
once were landmarks had been felled or blown down, and the bushes
which then had been small and scrubby were now large and
overhanging.  She soon found that her ideas as to direction were
vague--that she had indeed no ideas as to direction at all.  If
the evening had not been growing so dark, and the wind had not put
on its night moan so distinctly, Grace would not have minded; but
she was rather frightened now, and began to strike across hither
and thither in random courses.

Denser grew the darkness, more developed the wind-voices, and
still no recognizable spot or outlet of any kind appeared, nor any
sound of the Hintocks floated near, though she had wandered
probably between one and two hours, and began to be weary.  She
was vexed at her foolishness, since the ground she had covered, if
in a straight line, must inevitably have taken her out of the wood
to some remote village or other; but she had wasted her forces in
countermarches; and now, in much alarm, wondered if she would have
to pass the night here.  She stood still to meditate, and fancied
that between the soughing of the wind she heard shuffling
footsteps on the leaves heavier than those of rabbits or hares.
Though fearing at first to meet anybody on the chance of his being
a friend, she decided that the fellow night-rambler, even if a
poacher, would not injure her, and that he might possibly be some
one sent to search for her.  She accordingly shouted a rather
timid "Hoi!"

The cry was immediately returned by the other person; and Grace
running at once in the direction whence it came beheld an
indistinct figure hastening up to her as rapidly.  They were
almost in each other's arms when she recognized in her vis-a-vis
the outline and white veil of her whom 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 it indeed you? I am so glad to meet you or anybody.  I have
been wandering up and down ever since we parted, and am nearly
dead with terror and misery 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 for us to do would be to sit down for half an hour, and then
start again when we have thoroughly rested.  By walking straight
we must come to a track leading somewhere before the morning."

They found a clump of bushy hollies which afforded a shelter from
the wind, 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 for Grace, who with the sanguine prematureness
of youth in matters of dress, had considered it spring-time, and
hence was not so warmly clad as Mrs. Charmond, who still wore her
winter fur.  But after sitting a while the latter lady shivered no
less than Grace as the warmth imparted by her hasty walking began
to go off, and they felt the cold air drawing through the holly
leaves which scratched their backs and shoulders.  Moreover, they
could hear some drops of rain falling on the trees, though none
reached the nook in which they had ensconced themselves.

"If we were to cling close together," said Mrs. Charmond, "we
should keep each other warm.  But," she added, in an uneven voice,
"I suppose you 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 cold face, and each one's body as she breathed
alternately heaving against that of her companion.

When a few minutes had been spent thus, Mrs. Charmond said, "I am
so wretched!" in a heavy, emotional whisper.

"You are frightened," said Grace, kindly.  "But there is nothing
to fear; 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
younger woman could feel her neighbor's breathings grow deeper and
more spasmodic, 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 woman of passions to respond to
Fitzpiers in the first place leading her now to find luxurious
comfort in opening her heart to his wife.  "I said to you I could
give him up without pain or deprivation--that he had only been my
pastime.  That was untrue--it was said to deceive you.  I could
not do it without much pain; and, what is more dreadful, I cannot
give him 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 not
deter you," she presently added, in a moral tone.  "Oh, do
struggle against it, and you will conquer!"

"You are so simple, so simple!" cried Felice.  "You think, because
you guessed my assumed indifference to him to be a sham, that you
know the extremes that people are capable of going to! But a good
deal more may have been going on than you have fathomed with all
your insight.  I CANNOT give him up until he chooses to give up
me."

"But surely you are the superior in station and in every way, and
the cut must come from you."

"Tchut! Must I tell verbatim, you simple child? Oh, I suppose I
must! I shall eat away my heart if I do not let out all, after
meeting you like this and finding how guileless you are." She
thereupon whispered a few words 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
to her feet.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, thunderstruck at a revelation
transcending her utmost suspicion.  "Can it be--can it be!"

She turned as if to hasten away.  But Felice Charmond's sobs came
to her ear: deep darkness circled her about, the funereal trees
rocked and chanted their diriges and placebos around her, and she
did not know which way to go.  After a moment of energy she felt
mild again, and turned to the motionless woman at her feet.

"Are you rested?" she asked, in what seemed something like her own
voice grown ten years older.

Without an answer Mrs. Charmond slowly rose.

"You mean to betray me!" she said from the bitterest depths of her
soul.  "Oh fool, fool I!"

"No," said Grace, shortly.  "I mean no such thing.  But let us be
quick now.  We have a serious undertaking before us.  Think of
nothing but going straight on."

They walked on in profound silence, pulling back boughs now
growing wet, and treading down woodbine, but still keeping a
pretty straight course.  Grace began to be thoroughly worn out,
and her companion too, when, on a sudden, they broke into the
deserted highway at the hill-top on which the Sherton man had
waited for Mrs. Dollery's van.  Grace recognized 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 is quite on the other side.  Now we have only to
follow the road."

They dragged themselves onward, turned into the lane, passed the
track to Little Hintock, and so reached the park.

"Here I turn back," said Grace, in the same passionless voice.
"You are quite near home."

Mrs. Charmond stood inert, seeming appalled by her late admission.

"I have told you something in a moment of irresistible desire to
unburden my soul which all but a fool would have kept silent as
the grave," she said.  "I cannot help it now.  Is it to be a
secret--or do you mean war?"

"A secret, certainly," said Grace, mournfully.  "How can you
expect war from 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
dagger now.

"Pray don't distress yourself," she said, with exquisitely fine
scorn.  "You may keep him--for me." Had she been wounded instead
of mortified she could not have used the words; but Fitzpiers's
hold upon her heart was slight.

They parted thus and there, and Grace went moodily homeward.
Passing Marty's cottage she observed through the window that the
girl was writing instead of chopping as usual, and wondered what
her correspondence could be.  Directly afterwards she met people
in search of her, and reached the house to find all in serious
alarm.  She soon explained that she had lost her way, and her
general depression was attributed to exhaustion on that account.

Could she have known what Marty was writing she would have been
surprised.

The rumor which agitated the other folk of Hintock had reached the
young girl, and she was penning a letter to Fitzpiers, to tell him
that Mrs. Charmond wore her hair.  It was poor Marty's only card,
and she played it, knowing nothing of fashion, and thinking her
revelation a fatal one for a lover.

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