The Woodlanders

by Thomas Hardy

  CHAPTER XXII.

  The sunny, leafy week which followed the tender doings of Midsummer Evebrought a visitor to Fitzpiers's door; a voice that he knew sounded inthe passage. Mr. Melbury had called. At first he had a particularobjection to enter the parlor, because his boots were dusty, but as thesurgeon insisted he waived the point and came in.

  Looking neither to the right nor to the left, hardly at Fitzpiershimself, he put his hat under his chair, and with a preoccupied gaze atthe floor, he said, "I've called to ask you, doctor, quite privately, aquestion that troubles me. I've a daughter, Grace, an only daughter,as you may have heard. Well, she's been out in the dew--on MidsummerEve in particular she went out in thin slippers to watch some vagary ofthe Hintock maids--and she's got a cough, a distinct hemming andhacking, that makes me uneasy. Now, I have decided to send her away tosome seaside place for a change--"

  "Send her away!" Fitzpiers's countenance had fallen.

  "Yes. And the question is, where would you advise me to send her?"

  The timber-merchant had happened to call at a moment when Fitzpiers wasat the spring-tide of a sentiment that Grace was a necessity of hisexistence. The sudden pressure of her form upon his breast as she cameheadlong round the bush had never ceased to linger with him, ever sincehe adopted the manoeuvre for which the hour and the moonlight and theoccasion had been the only excuse. Now she was to be sent away.Ambition? it could be postponed. Family? culture and reciprocity oftastes had taken the place of family nowadays. He allowed himself tobe carried forward on the wave of his desire.

  "How strange, how very strange it is," he said, "that you should havecome to me about her just now. I have been thinking every day ofcoming to you on the very same errand."

  "Ah!--you have noticed, too, that her health----"

  "I have noticed nothing the matter with her health, because there isnothing. But, Mr. Melbury, I have seen your daughter several times byaccident. I have admired her infinitely, and I was coming to ask youif I may become better acquainted with her--pay my addresses to her?"

  Melbury was looking down as he listened, and did not see the air ofhalf-misgiving at his own rashness that spread over Fitzpiers's face ashe made this declaration.

  "You have--got to know her?" said Melbury, a spell of dead silencehaving preceded his utterance, during which his emotion rose withalmost visible effect.

  "Yes," said Fitzpiers.

  "And you wish to become better acquainted with her? You mean with aview to marriage--of course that is what you mean?"

  "Yes," said the young man. "I mean, get acquainted with her, with aview to being her accepted lover; and if we suited each other, whatwould naturally follow."

  The timber-merchant was much surprised, and fairly agitated; his handtrembled as he laid by his walking-stick. "This takes me unawares,"said he, his voice wellnigh breaking down. "I don't mean that there isanything unexpected in a gentleman being attracted by her; but it didnot occur to me that it would be you. I always said," continued he,with a lump in his throat, "that my Grace would make a mark at her ownlevel some day. That was why I educated her. I said to myself, 'I'lldo it, cost what it may;' though her mother-law was pretty frightenedat my paying out so much money year after year. I knew it would tellin the end. 'Where you've not good material to work on, such doingswould be waste and vanity,' I said. 'But where you have that materialit is sure to be worth while.'"

  "I am glad you don't object," said Fitzpiers, almost wishing that Gracehad not been quite so cheap for him.

  "If she is willing I don't object, certainly. Indeed," added thehonest man, "it would be deceit if I were to pretend to feel anythingelse than highly honored personally; and it is a great credit to her tohave drawn to her a man of such good professional station and venerableold family. That huntsman-fellow little thought how wrong he was abouther! Take her and welcome, sir."

  "I'll endeavor to ascertain her mind."

  "Yes, yes. But she will be agreeable, I should think. She ought tobe."

  "I hope she may. Well, now you'll expect to see me frequently."

  "Oh yes. But, name it all--about her cough, and her going away. I hadquite forgot that that was what I came about."

  "I assure you," said the surgeon, "that her cough can only be theresult of a slight cold, and it is not necessary to banish her to anyseaside place at all."

  Melbury looked unconvinced, doubting whether he ought to takeFitzpiers's professional opinion in circumstances which naturally ledhim to wish to keep her there. The doctor saw this, and honestlydreading to lose sight of her, he said, eagerly, "Between ourselves, ifI am successful with her I will take her away myself for a month ortwo, as soon as we are married, which I hope will be before the chillyweather comes on. This will be so very much better than letting her gonow."

  The proposal pleased Melbury much. There could be hardly any danger inpostponing any desirable change of air as long as the warm weatherlasted, and for such a reason. Suddenly recollecting himself, he said,"Your time must be precious, doctor. I'll get home-along. I am muchobliged to ye. As you will see her often, you'll discover for yourselfif anything serious is the matter."

  "I can assure you it is nothing," said Fitzpiers, who had seen Gracemuch oftener already than her father knew of.

  When he was gone Fitzpiers paused, silent, registering his sensations,like a man who has made a plunge for a pearl into a medium of which heknows not the density or temperature. But he had done it, and Gracewas the sweetest girl alive.

  As for the departed visitor, his own last words lingered in Melbury'sears as he walked homeward; he felt that what he had said in theemotion of the moment was very stupid, ungenteel, and unsuited to adialogue with an educated gentleman, the smallness of whose practicewas more than compensated by the former greatness of his family. Hehad uttered thoughts before they were weighed, and almost before theywere shaped. They had expressed in a certain sense his feeling atFitzpiers's news, but yet they were not right. Looking on the ground,and planting his stick at each tread as if it were a flag-staff, hereached his own precincts, where, as he passed through the court, heautomatically stopped to look at the men working in the shed andaround. One of them asked him a question about wagon-spokes.

  "Hey?" said Melbury, looking hard at him. The man repeated the words.

  Melbury stood; then turning suddenly away without answering, he went upthe court and entered the house. As time was no object with thejourneymen, except as a thing to get past, they leisurely surveyed thedoor through which he had disappeared.

  "What maggot has the gaffer got in his head now?" said Tangs the elder."Sommit to do with that chiel of his! When you've got a maid of yerown, John Upjohn, that costs ye what she costs him, that will take thesqueak out of your Sunday shoes, John! But you'll never be tall enoughto accomplish such as she; and 'tis a lucky thing for ye, John, asthings be. Well, he ought to have a dozen--that would bring him toreason. I see 'em walking together last Sunday, and when they came toa puddle he lifted her over like a halfpenny doll. He ought to have adozen; he'd let 'em walk through puddles for themselves then."

  Meanwhile Melbury had entered the house with the look of a man who seesa vision before him. His wife was in the room. Without taking off hishat he sat down at random.

  "Luce--we've done it!" he said. "Yes--the thing is as I expected. Thespell, that I foresaw might be worked, has worked. She's done it, anddone it well. Where is she--Grace, I mean?"

  "Up in her room--what has happened!"

  Mr. Melbury explained the circumstances as coherently as he could. "Itold you so," he said. "A maid like her couldn't stay hid long, evenin a place like this. But where is Grace? Let's have her down.Here--Gra-a-ace!"

  She appeared after a reasonable interval, for she was sufficientlyspoiled by this father of hers not to put herself in a hurry, howeverimpatient his tones. "What is it, father?" said she, with a smile.

  "Why, you scamp, what's this you've been doing? Not home here
more thansix months, yet, instead of confining yourself to your father's rank,making havoc in the educated classes."

  Though accustomed to show herself instantly appreciative of herfather's meanings, Grace was fairly unable to look anyhow but at a lossnow.

  "No, no--of course you don't know what I mean, or you pretend youdon't; though, for my part, I believe women can see these thingsthrough a double hedge. But I suppose I must tell ye. Why, you'veflung your grapnel over the doctor, and he's coming courting forthwith."

  "Only think of that, my dear! Don't you feel it a triumph?" said Mrs.Melbury.

  "Coming courting! I've done nothing to make him," Grace exclaimed.

  "'Twasn't necessary that you should, 'Tis voluntary that rules in thesethings....Well, he has behaved very honorably, and asked my consent.You'll know what to do when he gets here, I dare say. I needn't tellyou to make it all smooth for him."

  "You mean, to lead him on to marry me?"

  "I do. Haven't I educated you for it?"

  Grace looked out of the window and at the fireplace with no animationin her face. "Why is it settled off-hand in this way?" said she,coquettishly. "You'll wait till you hear what I think of him, Isuppose?"

  "Oh yes, of course. But you see what a good thing it will be."

  She weighed the statement without speaking.

  "You will be restored to the society you've been taken away from,"continued her father; "for I don't suppose he'll stay here long."

  She admitted the advantage; but it was plain that though Fitzpiersexercised a certain fascination over her when he was present, or evenmore, an almost psychic influence, and though his impulsive act in thewood had stirred her feelings indescribably, she had never regarded himin the light of a destined husband. "I don't know what to answer," shesaid. "I have learned that he is very clever."

  "He's all right, and he's coming here to see you."

  A premonition that she could not resist him if he came strangely movedher. "Of course, father, you remember that it is only lately thatGiles--"

  "You know that you can't think of him. He has given up all claim toyou."

  She could not explain the subtleties of her feeling as he could statehis opinion, even though she had skill in speech, and her father hadnone. That Fitzpiers acted upon her like a dram, exciting her,throwing her into a novel atmosphere which biassed her doings until theinfluence was over, when she felt something of the nature of regret forthe mood she had experienced--still more if she reflected on thesilent, almost sarcastic, criticism apparent in Winterborne's airtowards her--could not be told to this worthy couple in words.

  It so happened that on this very day Fitzpiers was called away fromHintock by an engagement to attend some medical meetings, and hisvisits, therefore, did not begin at once. A note, however, arrivedfrom him addressed to Grace, deploring his enforced absence. As amaterial object this note was pretty and superfine, a note of a sortthat she had been unaccustomed to see since her return to Hintock,except when a school friend wrote to her--a rare instance, for thegirls were respecters of persons, and many cooled down towards thetimber-dealer's daughter when she was out of sight. Thus the receiptof it pleased her, and she afterwards walked about with a reflectiveair.

  In the evening her father, who knew that the note had come, said, "Whybe ye not sitting down to answer your letter? That's what young folksdid in my time."

  She replied that it did not require an answer.

  "Oh, you know best," he said. Nevertheless, he went about his businessdoubting if she were right in not replying; possibly she might be somismanaging matters as to risk the loss of an alliance which wouldbring her much happiness.

  Melbury's respect for Fitzpiers was based less on his professionalposition, which was not much, than on the standing of his family in thecounty in by-gone days. That implicit faith in members oflong-established families, as such, irrespective of their personalcondition or character, which is still found among old-fashioned peoplein the rural districts reached its full intensity in Melbury. Hisdaughter's suitor was descended from a family he had heard of in hisgrandfather's time as being once great, a family which had conferredits name upon a neighboring village; how, then, could anything be amissin this betrothal?

  "I must keep her up to this," he said to his wife. "She sees it is forher happiness; but still she's young, and may want a little promptingfrom an older tongue."