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.