A chill to counterbalance all the glowing promise of the day was prompt
enough in coming. No sooner had he followed the timber-merchant in at
the door than he heard Grammer inform him that Mrs. Fitzpiers was still
more unwell than she had been in the morning. Old Dr. Jones being in
the neighborhood they had called him in, and he had instantly directed
them to get her to bed. They were not, however, to consider her
illness serious--a feverish, nervous attack the result of recent
events, was what she was suffering from, and she would doubtless be
well in a few days.
Winterborne, therefore, did not remain, and his hope of seeing her that
evening was disappointed. Even this aggravation of her morning
condition did not greatly depress Melbury. He knew, he said, that his
daughter's constitution was sound enough. It was only these domestic
troubles that were pulling her down. Once free she would be blooming
again. Melbury diagnosed rightly, as parents usually do.
He set out for London the next morning, Jones having paid another visit
and assured him that he might leave home without uneasiness, especially
on an errand of that sort, which would the sooner put an end to her
suspense.
The timber-merchant had been away only a day or two when it was told in
Hintock that Mr. Fitzpiers's hat had been found in the wood. Later on
in the afternoon the hat was brought to Melbury, and, by a piece of
ill-fortune, into Grace's presence. It had doubtless lain in the wood
ever since his fall from the horse, but it looked so clean and
uninjured--the summer weather and leafy shelter having much favored its
preservation--that Grace could not believe it had remained so long
concealed. A very little of fact was enough to set her fevered fancy
at work at this juncture; she thought him still in the neighborhood;
she feared his sudden appearance; and her nervous malady developed
consequences so grave that Dr. Jones began to look serious, and the
household was alarmed.
It was the beginning of June, and the cuckoo at this time of the summer
scarcely ceased his cry for more than two or three hours during the
night. The bird's note, so familiar to her ears from infancy, was now
absolute torture to the poor girl. On the Friday following the
Wednesday of Melbury's departure, and the day after the discovery of
Fitzpiers's hat, the cuckoo began at two o'clock in the morning with a
sudden cry from one of Melbury's apple-trees, not three yards from the
window of Grace's room.
"Oh, he is coming!" she cried, and in her terror sprang clean from the
bed out upon the floor.