CHAPTER XXXII.

At nine o’clock the next morning Melbury dressed himself up in shining

broadcloth, creased with folding and smelling of camphor, and started

for Hintock House. He was the more impelled to go at once by the

absence of his son-in-law in London for a few days, to attend, really

or ostensibly, some professional meetings. He said nothing of his

destination either to his wife or to Grace, fearing that they might

entreat him to abandon so risky a project, and went out unobserved. He

had chosen his time with a view, as he supposed, of conveniently

catching Mrs. Charmond when she had just finished her breakfast, before

any other business people should be about, if any came. Plodding

thoughtfully onward, he crossed a glade lying between Little Hintock

Woods and the plantation which abutted on the park; and the spot being

open, he was discerned there by Winterborne from the copse on the next

hill, where he and his men were working. Knowing his mission, the

younger man hastened down from the copse and managed to intercept the

timber-merchant.

“I have been thinking of this, sir,” he said, “and I am of opinion that

it would be best to put off your visit for the present.”

But Melbury would not even stop to hear him. His mind was made up, the

appeal was to be made; and Winterborne stood and watched him sadly till

he entered the second plantation and disappeared.

Melbury rang at the tradesmen’s door of the manor-house, and was at

once informed that the lady was not yet visible, as indeed he might

have guessed had he been anybody but the man he was. Melbury said he

would wait, whereupon the young man informed him in a neighborly way

that, between themselves, she was in bed and asleep.

“Never mind,” said Melbury, retreating into the court, “I’ll stand

about here.” Charged so fully with his mission, he shrank from contact

with anybody.

But he walked about the paved court till he was tired, and still nobody

came to him. At last he entered the house and sat down in a small

waiting-room, from which he got glimpses of the kitchen corridor, and

of the white-capped maids flitting jauntily hither and thither. They

had heard of his arrival, but had not seen him enter, and, imagining

him still in the court, discussed freely the possible reason of his

calling. They marvelled at his temerity; for though most of the tongues

which had been let loose attributed the chief blame-worthiness to

Fitzpiers, these of her household preferred to regard their mistress as

the deeper sinner.

Melbury sat with his hands resting on the familiar knobbed thorn

walking-stick, whose growing he had seen before he enjoyed its use. The

scene to him was not the material environment of his person, but a

tragic vision that travelled with him like an envelope. Through this

vision the incidents of the moment but gleamed confusedly here and

there, as an outer landscape through the high-colored scenes of a

stained window. He waited thus an hour, an hour and a half, two hours.

He began to look pale and ill, whereupon the butler, who came in, asked

him to have a glass of wine. Melbury roused himself and said, “No, no.

Is she almost ready?”

“She is just finishing breakfast,” said the butler. “She will soon see

you now. I am just going up to tell her you are here.”

“What! haven’t you told her before?” said Melbury.

“Oh no,” said the other. “You see you came so very early.”

At last the bell rang: Mrs. Charmond could see him. She was not in her

private sitting-room when he reached it, but in a minute he heard her

coming from the front staircase, and she entered where he stood.

At this time of the morning Mrs. Charmond looked her full age and more.

She might almost have been taken for the typical _femme de trente ans_,

though she was really not more than seven or eight and twenty. There

being no fire in the room, she came in with a shawl thrown loosely

round her shoulders, and obviously without the least suspicion that

Melbury had called upon any other errand than timber. Felice was,

indeed, the only woman in the parish who had not heard the rumor of her

own weaknesses; she was at this moment living in a fool’s paradise in

respect of that rumor, though not in respect of the weaknesses

themselves, which, if the truth be told, caused her grave misgivings.

“Do sit down, Mr. Melbury. You have felled all the trees that were to

be purchased by you this season, except the oaks, I believe.”

“Yes,” said Melbury.

“How very nice! It must be so charming to work in the woods just now!”

She was too careless to affect an interest in an extraneous person’s

affairs so consummately as to deceive in the manner of the perfect

social machine. Hence her words “very nice,” “so charming,” were

uttered with a perfunctoriness that made them sound absurdly unreal.

“Yes, yes,” said Melbury, in a reverie. He did not take a chair, and

she also remained standing. Resting upon his stick, he began: “Mrs.

Charmond, I have called upon a more serious matter—at least to me—than

tree-throwing. And whatever mistakes I make in my manner of speaking

upon it to you, madam, do me the justice to set ’em down to my want of

practice, and not to my want of care.”

Mrs. Charmond looked ill at ease. She might have begun to guess his

meaning; but apart from that, she had such dread of contact with

anything painful, harsh, or even earnest, that his preliminaries alone

were enough to distress her. “Yes, what is it?” she said.

“I am an old man,” said Melbury, “whom, somewhat late in life, God

thought fit to bless with one child, and she a daughter. Her mother was

a very dear wife to me, but she was taken away from us when the child

was young, and the child became precious as the apple of my eye to me,

for she was all I had left to love. For her sake entirely I married as

second wife a homespun woman who had been kind as a mother to her. In

due time the question of her education came on, and I said, ‘I will

educate the maid well, if I live upon bread to do it.’ Of her possible

marriage I could not bear to think, for it seemed like a death that she

should cleave to another man, and grow to think his house her home

rather than mine. But I saw it was the law of nature that this should

be, and that it was for the maid’s happiness that she should have a

home when I was gone; and I made up my mind without a murmur to help it

on for her sake. In my youth I had wronged my dead friend, and to make

amends I determined to give her, my most precious possession, to my

friend’s son, seeing that they liked each other well. Things came about

which made me doubt if it would be for my daughter’s happiness to do

this, inasmuch as the young man was poor, and she was delicately

reared. Another man came and paid court to her—one her equal in

breeding and accomplishments; in every way it seemed to me that he only

could give her the home which her training had made a necessity almost.

I urged her on, and she married him. But, ma’am, a fatal mistake was at

the root of my reckoning. I found that this well-born gentleman I had

calculated on so surely was not stanch of heart, and that therein lay a

danger of great sorrow for my daughter. Madam, he saw you, and you know

the rest....I have come to make no demands—to utter no threats; I have

come simply as a father in great grief about this only child, and I

beseech you to deal kindly with my daughter, and to do nothing which

can turn her husband’s heart away from her forever. Forbid him your

presence, ma’am, and speak to him on his duty as one with your power

over him well can do, and I am hopeful that the rent between them may

be patched up. For it is not as if you would lose by so doing; your

course is far higher than the courses of a simple professional man, and

the gratitude you would win from me and mine by your kindness is more

than I can say.”

Mrs. Charmond had first rushed into a mood of indignation on

comprehending Melbury’s story; hot and cold by turns, she had murmured,

“Leave me, leave me!” But as he seemed to take no notice of this, his

words began to influence her, and when he ceased speaking she said,

with hurried, hot breath, “What has led you to think this of me? Who

says I have won your daughter’s husband away from her? Some monstrous

calumnies are afloat—of which I have known nothing until now!”

Melbury started, and looked at her simply. “But surely, ma’am, you know

the truth better than I?”

Her features became a little pinched, and the touches of powder on her

handsome face for the first time showed themselves as an extrinsic

film. “Will you leave me to myself?” she said, with a faintness which

suggested a guilty conscience. “This is so utterly unexpected—you

obtain admission to my presence by misrepresentation—”

“As God’s in heaven, ma’am, that’s not true. I made no pretence; and I

thought in reason you would know why I had come. This gossip—”

“I have heard nothing of it. Tell me of it, I say.”

“Tell you, ma’am—not I. What the gossip is, no matter. What really is,

you know. Set facts right, and the scandal will right of itself. But

pardon me—I speak roughly; and I came to speak gently, to coax you, beg

you to be my daughter’s friend. She loved you once, ma’am; you began by

liking her. Then you dropped her without a reason, and it hurt her warm

heart more than I can tell ye. But you were within your right as the

superior, no doubt. But if you would consider her position now—surely,

surely, you would do her no harm!”

“Certainly I would do her no harm—I—” Melbury’s eye met hers. It was

curious, but the allusion to Grace’s former love for her seemed to

touch her more than all Melbury’s other arguments. “Oh, Melbury,” she

burst out, “you have made me so unhappy! How could you come to me like

this! It is too dreadful! Now go away—go, go!”

“I will,” he said, in a husky tone.

As soon as he was out of the room she went to a corner and there sat

and writhed under an emotion in which hurt pride and vexation mingled

with better sentiments.

Mrs. Charmond’s mobile spirit was subject to these fierce periods of

stress and storm. She had never so clearly perceived till now that her

soul was being slowly invaded by a delirium which had brought about all

this; that she was losing judgment and dignity under it, becoming an

animated impulse only, a passion incarnate. A fascination had led her

on; it was as if she had been seized by a hand of velvet; and this was

where she found herself—overshadowed with sudden night, as if a tornado

had passed by.

While she sat, or rather crouched, unhinged by the interview,

lunch-time came, and then the early afternoon, almost without her

consciousness. Then “a strange gentleman who says it is not necessary

to give his name,” was suddenly announced.

“I cannot see him, whoever he may be. I am not at home to anybody.”

She heard no more of her visitor; and shortly after, in an attempt to

recover some mental serenity by violent physical exercise, she put on

her hat and cloak and went out-of-doors, taking a path which led her up

the slopes to the nearest spur of the wood. She disliked the woods, but

they had the advantage of being a place in which she could walk

comparatively unobserved.