Part 11 (2/2)
That all' these marks' are thirt'-y two!”
accompanied by rapping strokes with the chalk on the table; then an exclamation, an argument, a dealing of the cards; then the commencement of the rhymes anew.
The timber-merchant showed his feelings by talking with a satisfied sense of weight in his words, and by praising the party in a patronizing tone, when Winterborne expressed his fear that he and his were not enjoying themselves.
”Oh yes, yes; pretty much. What handsome gla.s.ses those are! I didn't know you had such gla.s.ses in the house. Now, Lucy” (to his wife), ”you ought to get some like them for ourselves.” And when they had abandoned cards, and Winterborne was talking to Melbury by the fire, it was the timber-merchant who stood with his back to the mantle in a proprietary att.i.tude, from which post of vantage he critically regarded Giles's person, rather as a superficies than as a solid with ideas and feelings inside it, saying, ”What a splendid coat that one is you have on, Giles! I can't get such coats. You dress better than I.”
After supper there was a dance, the bandsmen from Great Hintock having arrived some time before. Grace had been away from home so long that she had forgotten the old figures, and hence did not join in the movement. Then Giles felt that all was over. As for her, she was thinking, as she watched the gyrations, of a very different measure that she had been accustomed to tread with a bevy of sylph-like creatures in muslin, in the music-room of a large house, most of whom were now moving in scenes widely removed from this, both as regarded place and character.
A woman she did not know came and offered to tell her fortune with the abandoned cards. Grace a.s.sented to the proposal, and the woman told her tale unskilfully, for want of practice, as she declared.
Mr. Melbury was standing by, and exclaimed, contemptuously, ”Tell her fortune, indeed! Her fortune has been told by men of science--what do you call 'em? Phrenologists. You can't teach her anything new. She's been too far among the wise ones to be astonished at anything she can hear among us folks in Hintock.”
At last the time came for breaking up, Melbury and his family being the earliest to leave, the two card-players still pursuing their game doggedly in the corner, where they had completely covered Giles's mahogany table with chalk scratches. The three walked home, the distance being short and the night clear.
”Well, Giles is a very good fellow,” said Mr. Melbury, as they struck down the lane under boughs which formed a black filigree in which the stars seemed set.
”Certainly he is,” said Grace, quickly, and in such a tone as to show that he stood no lower, if no higher, in her regard than he had stood before.
When they were opposite an opening through which, by day, the doctor's house could be seen, they observed a light in one of his rooms, although it was now about two o'clock.
”The doctor is not abed yet,” said Mrs. Melbury.
”Hard study, no doubt,” said her husband.
”One would think that, as he seems to have nothing to do about here by day, he could at least afford to go to bed early at night. 'Tis astonis.h.i.+ng how little we see of him.”
Melbury's mind seemed to turn with much relief to the contemplation of Mr. Fitzpiers after the scenes of the evening. ”It is natural enough,”
he replied. ”What can a man of that sort find to interest him in Hintock? I don't expect he'll stay here long.”
His mind reverted to Giles's party, and when they were nearly home he spoke again, his daughter being a few steps in advance: ”It is hardly the line of life for a girl like Grace, after what she's been accustomed to. I didn't foresee that in sending her to boarding-school and letting her travel, and what not, to make her a good bargain for Giles, I should be really spoiling her for him. Ah, 'tis a thousand pities! But he ought to have her--he ought!”
At this moment the two exclusive, chalk-mark men, having at last really finished their play, could be heard coming along in the rear, vociferously singing a song to march-time, and keeping vigorous step to the same in far-reaching strides--
”She may go, oh!
She may go, oh!
She may go to the d---- for me!”
The timber-merchant turned indignantly to Mrs. Melbury. ”That's the sort of society we've been asked to meet,” he said. ”For us old folk it didn't matter; but for Grace--Giles should have known better!”
Meanwhile, in the empty house from which the guests had just cleared out, the subject of their discourse was walking from room to room surveying the general displacement of furniture with no ecstatic feeling; rather the reverse, indeed. At last he entered the bakehouse, and found there Robert Creedle sitting over the embers, also lost in contemplation. Winterborne sat down beside him.
”Well, Robert, you must be tired. You'd better get on to bed.”
”Ay, ay, Giles--what do I call ye? Maister, I would say. But 'tis well to think the day IS done, when 'tis done.”
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