CHAPTER VII
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
Billy Blee, who has appeared thus far as a disinterested spectator of other people’s affairs, had yet his own active and personal interests in life. Them he pursued, at odd times, and in odd ways, with admirable pertinacity; and as a crisis is now upon him and chance knits the outcome of it into the main fabric of this narrative, Billy and his actions command attention.
Allusion has already been made, and that frequently, to one Widow Coomstock, whose attractions of income, and the ancillary circumstance of an ample though elderly person, had won for her certain admirers more ancient than herself. Once butt-woman, or sextoness, of Chagford Church, the lady had dwelt alone, as Miss Mary Reed, for fifty-five years—not because opportunity to change her state was denied her, but owing to the fact that experience of life rendered her averse to all family responsibilities. Mary Reed had seen her sister, the present Mrs. Hicks, take a husband, had watched the result of that step; and this, with a hundred parallel instances of misery following on matrimony, had determined her against it. But when old Benjamin Coomstock, the timber merchant and coal-dealer, became a widower, this ripe maiden, long known to him, was approached before his wife’s grave became ready for a stone. To Chagford’s amazement he so far bemeaned himself as to offer the sextoness his hand, and she accepted it. Then, left a widow after two years with her husband, Mary Coomstock languished a while, and changed her methods of life somewhat. The roomy dwelling-house of her late partner became her property and a sufficient income went with it. Mr. Coomstock’s business had been sold in his lifetime; the money was invested, and its amount no man knew, though rumour, which usually magnifies such matters, spoke of a very handsome figure; and Mrs. Coomstock’s lavish manner of life lent confirmation to the report. But though mundane affairs had thus progressed with her, the woman’s marriage was responsible for very grave mental and moral deterioration. Prosperity, and the sudden exchange of a somewhat laborious life for the ease and comfort of independence, played havoc with Widow Coomstock. She grew lax, gross in habit and mind, self-indulgent, and ill-tempered. When her husband died her old friends lost sight of her, while only those who had reason to hope for a reward still kept in touch with her, and indeed forced themselves upon her notice. Everybody predicted she would take another husband; but, though it was now nearly eight years since Mr. Coomstock’s death, his widow still remained one. Gaffer Lezzard and Billy Blee had long pursued her with varying advantage, and the latter, though his proposals were declined, yet saw in each refusal an indication to encourage future hope.
Now, urged thereto by whispers that Mr. Lezzard had grown the richer by three hundred pounds on the death of a younger brother in Australia, Billy determined upon another attack. He also was worth something—less indeed than three hundred pounds; though, seeing that he had been earning reasonably good wages for half a century, the fact argued but poor thrift in Mr. Blee. Of course Gaffer Lezzard’s alleged legacy could hardly be a sum to count with Mrs. Coomstock, he told himself; yet his rival was a man of wide experience and an oily tongue: while, apart from any question of opposition, he felt that another offer of marriage might now be made with decorum, seeing that it was a full year since the last. Mr. Blee therefore begged for a half-holiday, put on his broadcloth, blacked his boots, anointed his lion-monkey fringe and scanty locks with pomatum, and set forth. Mrs. Coomstock’s house stood on the hill rising into the village from Chagford Bridge. A kitchen garden spread behind it; in front pale purple poppies had the ill-kept garden to themselves.
As he approached, Mr. Blee felt a leaden weight about his newly polished boots, and a distinct flutter at the heart, or in a less poetical portion of his frame.
“Same auld feeling,” he reflected. “Gormed if I ban’t gettin’ sweaty ’fore the plaace comes in sight! ’Tis just the sinkin’ at the navel, like what I had when I smoked my first pipe, five-and-forty years agone!”
The approach of another man steadied Billy, and on recognising him Mr. Blee forgot all about his former emotions and gasped in the clutch of a new one. It was Mr. Lezzard, evidently under some impulse of genial exhilaration. There hung an air of aggression about him, but, though he moved like a conqueror, his gait was unsteady and his progress slow. He had wit to guess Billy’s errand, however, for he grinned, and leaning against the hedge waved his stick in the air above his head.
“Aw, Jimmery! if it ban’t Blee; an’ prinked out for a weddin’, tu, by the looks of it!”
“Not yourn, anyway,” snapped back the suitor.
“Well, us caan’t say ’zactly—world ’s full o’ novelties.”
“Best pull yourself together, Gaffer, or bad-hearted folks might say you was bosky-eyed.10 That ban’t no novelty anyway, but ’t is early yet to be drunk—just three o’clock by the church.”
Mr. Blee marched on without waiting for a reply. He knew Lezzard to be more than seventy years old and usually regarded the ancient man’s rivalry with contempt; but he felt uneasy for a few moments, until the front door of Mrs. Coomstock’s dwelling was opened to him by the lady herself.
“My stars! You? What a terrible coorious thing!” she said.
“Why for?”
“Come in the parlour. Theer! coorious ban’t the word!”
She laughed, a silly laugh and loud. Then she shambled before him to the sitting-room, and Billy, familiar enough with the apartment, noticed a bottle of gin in an unusual position upon the table. The liquor stood, with two glasses and a jug of water, between the Coomstock family Bible, on its green worsted mat, and a glass shade containing the stuffed carcass of a fox-terrier. The animal was moth-eaten and its eyes had fallen out. It could be considered in no sense decorative; but sentiment allowed the corpse this central position in a sorry scheme of adornment, for the late timber merchant had loved it. Upon Mrs. Coomstock’s parlour walls hung Biblical German prints in frames of sickly yellow wood; along the window-ledge geraniums and begonias flourished, though gardeners had wondered to see their luxuriance, for the windows were seldom opened.
“’It never rains but it pours,’” said Widow Coomstock. She giggled again and looked at Billy. She was very fat, and the red of her face deepened to purple unevenly about the sides of her nose. Her eyes were bright and black. She had opened a button or two at the top of her dress, and her general appearance, from her grey hair to her slattern heels, was disordered. Her cap had fallen off on to the ground, and Mr. Blee noticed that her parting was as a broad turnpike road much tramped upon by Time. The room smelt stuffy beyond its wont and reeked not only of spirits but tobacco. This Billy sniffed inquiringly, and Mrs. Coomstock observed the action. “’Twas Lezzard,” she said. “I like to see a man in comfort. You can smoke if you mind to. Coomstock always done it, and a man’s no man without, though a dirty habit wheer they doan’t use a spittoon.”
She smiled, but to herself, and was lost in thought a moment. He saw her eyes very bright and her head wagging. Then she looked at him and laughed again.
“You’m a fine figure of a man, tu,” she said, apropos of nothing in particular. But the newcomer understood. He rumpled his hair and snorted and frowned at the empty glasses.
“Have a drop?” suggested Mrs. Coomstock; but Billy, of opinion that his love had already enjoyed refreshment sufficient for the time, refused and answered her former remark.
“A fine figure?—yes, Mary Coomstock, though not so fine for a man as you for a woman. Still, a warm-blooded chap an’ younger than my years.”
“I’ve got my share o’ warm blood, tu, Billy.”
It was apparent. Mrs. Coomstock’s plump neck bulged in creases over the dirty scrap of white linen that represented a collar, while her massive bust seemed bursting through her apparel.
“Coourse,” said Mr. Blee, “an’ your share, an’ more ’n your share o’ brains, tu. He had bad luck—Coomstock—the worse fortune as ever fell to a Chaggyford man, I reckon.”
“How do ’e come at that, then?”
“To get ’e, an’ lose ’e again inside two year. That’s ill luck if ever I seen it. Death’s a envious twoad. Two short year of you; an’ then up comes a tumour on his neck unbeknawnst, an’ off he goes, like a spring lamb.”
“An’ so he did. I waked from sleep an’ bid un rise, but theer weern’t no more risin’ for him till the Judgment.”
“Death’s no courtier. He’ll let a day-labourer go so peaceful an’ butivul as a child full o’ milk goes to sleep; while he’ll take a gert lord or dook, wi’ lands an’ moneys, an’ strangle un by inches, an’ give un the hell of a twistin’. You caan’t buy a easy death seemin’ly.”
“A gude husband he was, but jealous,” said Mrs. Coomstock, her thoughts busy among past years; and Billy immediately fell in with this view.
“Then you’m well rid of un. Theer’s as gude in the world alive any minute as ever was afore or will be again.”
“Let ’em stop in the world then. I doan’t want ’em.”
This sentiment amused the widow herself more than Billy. She laughed uproariously, raised her glass to her lips unconsciously, found it empty, grew instantly grave upon the discovery, set it down again, and sighed.
“It’s a wicked world,” she said. “Sure as men’s in a plaace they brings trouble an’ wickedness. An’ yet I’ve heard theer’s more women than men on the airth when all’s said.”
“God A’mighty likes ’em best, I reckon,” declared Mr. Blee.
“Not but what ’t would be a lonesome plaace wi’out the lords of creation,” conceded the widow.
“Ess fay, you ’m right theer; but the beauty of things is that none need n’t be lonely, placed same as you be.”
“‘Once bit twice shy,’” said Mrs. Coomstock. Then she laughed again. “I said them very words to Lezzard not an hour since.”
“An’ what might he have answered?” inquired Billy without, however, showing particular interest to know.
“He said he wasn’t bit. His wife was a proper creature.”
“Bah! second-hand gudes—that’s what Lezzard be—a widow-man an’ eighty if a day. A poor, coffin-ripe auld blid, wi’ wan leg in the graave any time this twenty year.”
Mrs. Coomstock’s frame heaved at this tremendous criticism. She gurgled and gazed at Billy with her eyes watering and her mouth open.
“You say that! Eighty an’ coffin-ripe!”
“Ban’t no ontruth, neither. A man ’s allus ready for his elm overcoat arter threescore an’ ten. I heard the noise of his breathin’ paarts when he had brown kitty in the fall three years ago, an’ awnly thrawed it off thanks to the gracious gudeness of Miller Lyddon, who sent rich stock for soup by my hand. But to hear un, you might have thought theer was a wapsies’ nest in the man’s lungs.”
“I doan’t want to be nuss to a chap at my time of life, in coourse.”
“No fay; ’t is the man’s paart to look arter his wife, if you ax me. I be a plain bachelor as never thought of a female serious ’fore I seed you. An’ I’ve got a heart in me, tu. Ban’t no auld, rubbishy, worn-out thing, neither, but a tough, love-tight heart—at least so ’t was till I seed you in your weeds eight year agone.”
“Eight year a widow! An’ so I have been. Well, Blee, you’ve got a powerful command of words, anyways. That I’ll grant you.”
“’T is the gert subject, Mary.”
He moved nearer and put down his hat and stick; she exhibited trepidation, not wholly assumed. Then she helped herself to more spirits.
“A drop I must have to steady me. You men make a woman’s heart go flutterin’ all over her buzzom, like a flea under her—”
She stopped and laughed, then drank. Presently setting down the glass again, she leered in a manner frankly animal at Mr. Blee, and told him to say what he might have to say and be quick about it. He fired a little at this invitation, licked his lips, cleared his throat, and cast a nervous glance or two at the window. But nobody appeared; no thunder-visaged Lezzard frowned over the geraniums. Gaffer indeed was sound asleep, half a mile off, upon one of those seats set in the open air for the pleasure and convenience of wayfarers about the village. So Billy rose, crossed to the large sofa whereon Mrs. Coomstock sat, plumped down boldly beside her and endeavoured to get his arm round the wide central circumference of her person. She suffered this courageous attempt without objection. Then Billy gently squeezed her, and she wriggled and opened her mouth and shut her eyes.
“Say the word and do a wise thing,” he urged. “Say the word, Mary, an’ think o’ me here as master, a-keeping all your damn relations off by word of command.”
She laughed.
“When I be gone you’ll see some sour looks, I reckon.”
“Nothing doan’t matter then; ’t is while you ’m here I’d protect ’e ’gainst ’em. Look, see! ban’t often I goes down on my knees, ’cause a man risin’ in years, same as me, can pray to God more dignified sittin’; but now I will.” He slid gingerly down, and only a tremor showed the stab his gallantry cost him.
“You ’m a masterful auld shaver, sure ’nough!” said Mrs. Coomstock, regarding Billy with a look half fish like, half affectionate.
“Rise me up, then,” he said. “Rise me up, an’ do it quick. If you love me, as I see you do by the faace of you, rise me up, Mary, an’ say the word wance for all time. I’ll be a gude husband to ’e an’ you’ll bless the day you took me, though I sez it as shouldn’t.”
She allowed her fat left hand, with the late Mr. Coomstock’s wedding-ring almost buried in her third finger, to remain with Billy’s; and by the aid of it and the sofa he now got on his legs again. Then he sat down beside her once more and courageously set his yellow muzzle against her red cheek. The widow remained passive under this caress, and Mr. Blee, having kissed her thrice, rubbed his mouth and spoke.
“Theer! ’T is signed and sealed, an’ I’ll have no drawin’ back now.”
“But—but—Lezzard, Billy. I do like ’e—I caan’t hide it from ’e, try as I will—but him—”
“I knawed he was t’other. I tell you, forget un. His marryin’ days be awver. Dammy, the man’s ’most chuckle headed wi’ age! Let un go his way an’ say his prayers ’gainst the trump o’ God. An’ it’ll take un his time to pass Peter when all ’s done—a bad auld chap in his day. Not that I’d soil your ears with it.”
“He said much the same ’bout you. When you was at Drewsteignton, twenty year agone—”
“A lie—a wicked, strammin’, gert lie, with no more truth to it than a auld song! He ’m a venomous beast to call home such a thing arter all these years.”
“If I did take ’e, you’d be a gude an’ faithful husband, Billy, not a gad-about?”
“Cut my legs off if I go gaddin’ further than to do your errands.”
“An’ you’ll keep these here buzzin’ parties off me? Cuss ’em! They make my life a burden.”
“Doan’t fear that. I’ll larn ’em!”
“Theer ’s awnly wan I can bide of the whole lot—an’ that’s my awn nephew, Clem Hicks. He’ll drink his drop o’ liquor an’ keep his mouth shut, an’ listen to me a-talkin’ as a young man should. T’others are allus yelpin’ out how fond they be of me, and how they’d go to the world’s end for me. I hate the sight of ’em.”
“A time-servin’ crew, Mary; an’ Clement Hicks no better ’n the rest, mark my word, though your sister’s son. ’T is cupboard love wi’ all. But money ban’t nothin’ to me. I’ve been well contented with enough all my life, though ’t is few can say with truth that enough satisfies ’em.”
“Lezzard said money was nothin’ to him neither, having plenty of his awn. ’T was my pusson, not my pocket, as he’d falled in love with.”
“Burnish it all! Theer ’s a shameful speech! ‘Your pusson’! Him! I’ll tell you what Lezzard is—just a damn evil disposition kep’ in by skin an’ bones—that’s Lezzard. ‘Your pusson’!”
“I’m afraid I’ve encouraged him a little. You’ve been so backward in mentioning the subject of late. But I’m sure I didn’t knaw as he’d got a evil disposition.”
“Well, ’t is so. An’ ’t is awnly your bigness of heart, as wouldn’t hurt a beetle, makes you speak kind of the boozy auld sweep. I’ll soon shaw un wheer he’s out if he thinks you ’m tinkering arter him!”
“He couldn’t bring an action for breach, or anything o’ that, could he?”
“At his time of life! What Justice would give ear to un? An’ the shame of it!”
“Perhaps he misunderstood. You men jump so at a conclusion.”
“Leave that to me. I’ll clear his brains double-quick; aye, an’ make un jump for somethin’!”
“Then I suppose it’s got to be. I’m yourn, Billy, an’ theer needn’t be any long waitin’ neither. To think of another weddin’ an’ another husband! Just a drop or I shall cry. It’s such a supporting thing to a lone female.”
Whether Mrs. Coomstock meant marriage or Plymouth gin, Billy did not stop to inquire. He helped her, filled Lezzard’s empty glass for himself, and then, finding his future wife thick of speech, bleared of eye, and evidently disposed to slumber, he departed and left her to sleep off her varied emotions.
“I’ll mighty soon change all that,” thought Mr. Blee. “To note a fine woman in liquor ’s the frightfullest sight in all nature, so to say. Not but what with Lezzard a-pawin’ of her ’t was enough to drive her to it.”
That night the lover announced his triumph, whereon Phoebe congratulated him and Miller Lyddon shook his head.
“’T is an awful experiment, Billy, at your age,” he declared.
“Why, so ’t is; but I’ve weighed the subject in my mind for years and years, an ’t wasn’t till Mary Coomstock comed to be widowed that I thought I’d found the woman at last. ’T was lookin’ tremendous high, I knaw, but theer ’t is; she’ll have me. She ’m no young giglet neither, as would lead me a devil’s dance, but a pusson in full blooth with ripe mind.”
“She drinks. I doan’t want to hurt your feelings; but everybody says it is so,” declared the miller.
“What everybody sez, nobody did ought to believe,” returned Mr. Blee stoutly. “She ’m a gude, lonely sawl, as wants a man round the house to keep off her relations, same as us has a dog to keep down varmints in general. Theer ’s the Hickses, an’ Chowns, an’ Coomstocks all a-stickin’ up theer tails an’ a-purrin’ an’ a-rubbin’ theerselves against the door-posts of the plaace like cats what smells feesh. I won’t have none of it. I’ll dwell along wi’ she an’ play a husband’s part, an’ comfort the decline of her like a man, I warn ’e.”
“Why, Mrs. Coomstock ’s not so auld as all that, Billy,” said Phoebe. “Chris has often told me she’s only sixty-two or three.”
But he shook his head.
“Ban’t a subject for a loving man to say much on, awnly truth ’s truth. I seed it written in the Coomstock Bible wan day. Fifty-five she were when she married first. Well, ban’t in reason she twald the naked truth ’bout it, an’ who’d blame her on such a delicate point? No, I’d judge her as near my awn age as possible; an’ to speak truth, not so well preserved as what I be.”
“How’s Monks Barton gwaine to fare without ’e, Blee?” whined the miller.
“As to that, be gormed if I knaw how I’ll fare wi’out the farm. But love—well, theer ’t is. Theer ’s money to it, I knaw, but what do that signify? Nothin’ to me. You’ll see me frequent as I ride here an’ theer—horse, saddle, stirrups, an’ all complete; though God He knaws wheer my knees’ll go when my boots be fixed in stirrups. But a man must use ’em if theer ’s the dignity of money to be kept up. ’T is just wan of them oncomfortable things riches brings with it.”
While Miller Lyddon still argued with Billy against the step he now designed, there arrived from Chagford the stout Mr. Chappie, with his mouth full of news.
“More weddin’s,” he said. “I comed down-long to tell ’e, lest you shouldn’t knaw till to-morrow an’ so fall behind the times. Widow Coomstock ’s thrawed up the sponge and gived herself to that importuneous auld Lezzard. To think o’ such a Methuselah as him—aulder than the century—fillin’ the eye o’ that full-bodied—”
“It’s a black lie—blacker ’n hell—an’ if’t was anybody but you brought the news I’d hit un awver the jaw!” burst out Mr. Blee, in a fury.
“He tawld me hisself. He’s tellin’ everybody hisself. It comed to a climax to-day. The auld bird’s hoppin’ all awver the village so proud as a jackdaw as have stole a shiny button. He’m bustin’ wi’ it in fact.”
“I’ll bust un! An’ his news, tu. An’ you can say, when you’m axed, ’t is the foulest lie ever falled out of wicked lips.”
Billy now took his hat and stick from their corner and marched to the door without more words.
“No violence, mind now, no violence,” begged Mr. Lyddon. “This love-making ’s like to wreck the end of my life, wan way or another, yet. ’T is bad enough with the young; but when it comes to auld, bald-headed fules like you an’ Lezzard—”
“As to violence, I wouldn’t touch un wi’ the end of a dung-fork—I wouldn’t. But I’m gwaine to lay his lie wance an’ for all. I be off to parson this instant moment. An’ when my banns of marriage be hollered out next Sunday marnin’, then us’ll knaw who ’m gwaine to marry Mother Coomstock an’ who ban’t. I can work out my awn salvation wi’ fear an’ tremblin’ so well as any other man; an’ you’ll see what that God-forsaken auld piece looks like come Sunday when he hears what’s done an’ caan’t do nought but just swallow his gall an’ chew ’pon it.”
CHAPTER VIII
MR. BLEE FORGETS HIMSELF
The Rev. James Shorto-Champernowne made no difficulty about Billy’s banns of marriage, although he doubtless held a private opinion upon the wisdom of such a step, and also knew that Mrs. Coomstock was now a very different woman from the sextoness of former days. He expressed a hope, however, that Mr. Blee would make his future wife become a regular church-goer again after the ceremony; and Billy took it upon himself to promise as much for her. There the matter ended until the following Sunday, when a sensation, unparalleled in the archives of St. Michael’s, awaited the morning worshippers.
Under chiming of bells the customary congregation arrived, and a perceptible wave of sensation swept from pew to pew at the appearance of more than one unfamiliar face. Of regular attendants we may note Mrs. Blanchard and Chris, Martin Grimbal, Mr. Lyddon, and his daughter. Mr. Blee usually sat towards the back of the church at a point immediately behind those benches devoted to the boys. Here he kept perfect order among the lads, and had done so for many years. Occasionally it became necessary to turn a youngster out of church, and Billy’s procedure at such a time was masterly; but of opinion to-day that he was a public character, he chose a more conspicuous position, and accepted Mr. Lyddon’s invitation to take a seat in the miller’s own pew. He felt he owed this prominence, not only to himself, but to Mrs. Coomstock. She, good soul, had been somewhat evasive and indefinite in her manner since accepting Billy, and her condition of nerves on Sunday morning proved such that she found herself quite unable to attend the house of prayer, although she had promised to do so. She sent her two servants, however, and, spending the time in private between spirtual and spirituous consolations of Bible and bottle, the widow soon passed into a temporary exaltation ending in unconsciousness. Thus her maids found her on returning from church.
Excitement within the holy edifice reached fever-heat when a most unwonted worshipper appeared in the venerable shape of Mr. Lezzard. He was supported by his married daughter and his grandson. They sought and found a very prominent position under the lectern, and it was immediately apparent that no mere conventional attendance for the purpose of praising their Maker had drawn Mr. Lezzard and his relations. Indeed he had long been of the Baptist party, though it derived but little lustre from him. Much whispering passed among the trio. Then his daughter, having found the place she sought in a prayer-book, handed it to Mr. Lezzard, and he made a big cross in pencil upon the page and bent the volume backwards so that its binding cracked very audibly. Gaffer then looked about him with a boldness he was far from feeling; but the spectacle of Mr. Blee, hard by, fortified his spirit. He glared across the aisle and Billy glared back.
Then the bells stopped, the organ droned, and there came a clatter of iron nails on the tiled floor. Boys and men proceeded to the choir stalls and Mr. Shorto-Champernowne fluttered behind, with his sermon in his hand. Like a stately galleon of the olden time he swept along the aisle, then reached his place, cast one keen glance over the assembled congregation, and slowly sinking upon his hassock enveloped his face and whiskers in snowy lawn and prayed a while.
The service began and that critical moment after the second lesson was reached with dreadful celerity. Doctor Parsons, having read a chapter from the New Testament, which he emerged from the congregation to do, and which he did ill, though he prided himself upon his elocution, returned to his seat as the Vicar rose, adjusted his double eyeglasses and gave out a notice as follows:
“I publish the banns of marriage between William Blee, Bachelor, and Mary Coomstock, Widow, both of this parish. If any of you know cause, or just impediment, why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is for the first time of asking.”
There was a momentary pause. Then, nudged by his daughter, who had grown very pale, Gaffer Lezzard rose. His head shook and he presented the appearance of a man upon the verge of palsy. He held up his hand, struggled with his vocal organs and at last exploded these words, sudden, tremulous, and shrill:
“I deny it an’ I defy it! The wummon be mine!”
Mr. Lezzard succumbed instantly after this effort. Indeed, he went down as though shot through the head. He wagged and gasped and whispered to his grandson,—
“Wheer’s the brandy to?”
Whereupon this boy produced a medicine bottle half full of spirits, and his grandfather, with shaking fingers, removed the cork and drank the contents. Meantime the Vicar had begun to speak; but he suffered another interruption. Billy, tearing himself from the miller’s restraining hand, leapt to his feet, literally shaking with rage. He was dead to his position, oblivious of every fact save that his banns of marriage had been forbidden before the assembled Christians of Chagford. He had waited to find a wife until he was sixty years old—for this!
“You—you to do it! You to get up afore this rally o’ gentlefolks an’ forbid my holy banns, you wrinkled, crinkled, baggering auld lizard! Gormed if I doan’t wring your—”
“Silence in the house of God!” thundered Mr. Shorto-Champernowne, with tones so resonant that they woke rafter echoes the organ itself had never roused. “Silence, and cease this sacrilegious brawling, or the consequences will be unutterably serious! Let those involved,” he concluded more calmly, “appear before me in the vestry after divine service is at an end.”
Having frowned, in a very tragic manner, both on Mr. Blee and Mr. Lezzard, the Vicar proceeded with the service; but though Gaffer remained in his place Billy did not. He rose, jammed on his hat, glared at everybody, and assumed an expression curiously similar to that of a stone demon which grinned from the groining of two arches immediately above him. He then departed, growling to himself and shaking his fists, in another awful silence; for the Vicar ceased when he rose, and not until Billy disappeared and his footfall was heard no more did the angry clergyman proceed.
A buzz and hubbub, mostly of laughter, ascended when presently Mr. Shorto-Champernowne’s parishioners returned to the air; and any chance spectator beholding them had certainly judged he stood before an audience now dismissed from a theatre rather than the congregation of a church.
“Glad Will weern’t theer, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Blanchard. “He’d ’a’ laughed out loud an’ made bad worse. Chris did as ’t was, awnly parson’s roarin’ luckily drowned it. And Mr. Martin Grimbal, whose eye I catched, was put to it to help smilin’.”
“Ban’t often he laughs, anyway,” said Phoebe, who walked homewards with her father and the Blanchards; whereon Chris, from being in a boisterous vein of merriment, grew grave. Together all returned to the valley. Will was due in half an hour from Newtake, and Phoebe, as a special favour, had been permitted to dine at Mrs. Blanchard’s cottage with her husband and his family. Clement Hicks had also promised to be of the party; but that was before the trouble of the previous week, and Chris knew he would not come.
Meantime, Gaffer Lezzard, supported by two generations of his family, explained his reasons for objecting to Mr. Blee’s proposed marriage.
“Mrs. Coomstock be engaged, right and reg’lar, to me,” he declared. “She’d gived me her word ’fore ever Blee axed her. I seed her essterday, to hear final ’pon the subjec’, an’ she tawld me straight, bein’ sober as you at the time, as ’t was me she wanted an’ meant for to have. She was excited t’ other day an’ not mistress of herself ezacally; an’ the crafty twoad took advantage of it, an’ jawed, an’ made her drink an’ drink till her didn’t knaw what her was sayin’ or doin’. But she’m mine, an’ she’ll tell ’e same as what I do; so theer’s an end on ’t.”
“I’ll see Mrs. Coomstock,” said the Vicar. “I, myself will visit her to-morrow.”
“Canst punish this man for tryin’ to taake her from me?”
“Permit yourself no mean desires in the direction of revenge. For the present I decline to say more upon the subject. If it were possible to punish, and I am not prepared to say it is not, it would be for brawling in the house of God. After an experience extending over forty years, I may declare that I never saw any such disreputable and horrifying spectacle.”
So the Lezzard family withdrew and, on the following day, Mrs. Coomstock passed through most painful experiences.
To the clergyman, with many sighs and tears, she explained that Mr. Lezzard’s character had been maligned by Mr. Blee, that before the younger veteran she had almost feared for her life, and been driven to accept him out of sheer terror at his importunity. But when facts came to her ears afterwards, she found that Mr. Lezzard was in reality all he had declared himself to be, and therefore returned to him, threw over Mr. Blee, and begged the other to forbid the banns, if as she secretly learnt, though not from Billy himself, they were to be called on that Sunday. The poor woman’s ears tingled under Mr. Shorto-Champernowne’s sonorous reproof; but he departed at last, and by the time that Billy called, during the same day, she had imbibed Dutch courage sufficient to face him and tell him she had changed her mind. She had erred—she confessed it. She had been far from well at the time and, upon reconsideration of the proposal, had felt she would never be able to make Mr. Blee happy, or enjoy happiness with him.
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Coomstock had accepted both suitors on one and the same afternoon. First Gaffer, who had made repeated but rather vague allusion to a sum of three hundred pounds in ready money, was taken definitely; while upon his departure, the widow, only dimly conscious of what was settled with her former admirer, said, “Yes” to Billy in his turn. Had a third suitor called on that event-ful afternoon, it is quite possible Mrs. Coomstock would have accepted him also.
The conversation with Mr. Blee was of short duration, and ended by Billy calling down a comprehensive curse on the faithless one and returning to Monks Barton. He had attached little importance to Lezzard’s public protest, upon subsequent consideration and after the first shock of hearing it; but there was no possibility of doubting what he now learned from Mrs. Coomstock’s own lips. That she had in reality changed her mind appeared only too certain.
So he went home again in the last extremity of fury, and Phoebe, who was alone at the time, found herself swept by the hurricane of his wrath. He entered snorting and puffing, flung his hat on the settle, his stick into the corner; then, dropping into a seat by the fire, he began taking off his gaiters with much snuffling and mumbling and repeated inarticulate explosions of breath. This cat-like splutter always indicated deep feeling in Mr. Blee, and Phoebe asked with concern what was the matter now.
“Matter? Tchut—Tchut—Theer ban’t no God—that’s what’s the matter!”
“Billy! How can you?”
“She’m gwaine to marry t’other, arter all! From her awn lips I’ve heard it! That’s what I get for being a church member from the womb! That’s my reward! God, indeed! Be them the ways o’ a plain-dealin’ God, who knaws what’s doin’ in human hearts? No fay! Bunkum an’ rot! I’ll never lift my voice in hymn nor psalm no more, nor pray a line o’ prayer again. Who be I to be treated like that? Drunken auld cat! I cussed her—I cussed her! Wouldn’t marry her now if she axed wi’ her mouth in the dirt. Wheer’s justice to? Tell me that. Me in church, keepin’ order ’mong the damn boys generation arter generation, and him never inside the door since he buried his wife. An’ parson siding wi’ un, I’ll wager. Mother Coomstock ’ll give un hell’s delights, that’s wan gude thought. A precious pair of ’em! Tchut! Gar!”
“I doan’t really think you could have loved Mrs. Coomstock overmuch, Billy, if you can talk so ugly an’ crooked ’bout her,” said Phoebe.
“I did, I tell ’e—for years an’ years. I went down on my knees to the bitch—I wish I hadn’t; I’ll be sorry for that to my dying day. I kissed her, tu,—s’ elp me, I did. You mightn’t think it, but I did—a faace like a frost-bitten beetroot, as ’t is!”
“Doan’t ’e, please, say such horrible things. You must be wise about it. You see, they say Mr. Lezzard has more money than you. At least, so Mrs. Coomstock told her nephew, Clement Hicks. Every one of her relations is savage about it.”
“Well they may be. Why doan’t they lock her up? If she ban’t mad, nobody ever was. ’Money’! Lezzard! Lying auld—auld—Tchut! Not money enough to pay for a graave to hide his rotten bones, I lay. Oh, ’t is enough to—theer, what ’s the use of talkin’? Tchut—Tchut!”
At this point Phoebe, fearing even greater extravagances in Mr. Blee’s language, left him to consider his misfortunes alone. Long he continued in the profoundest indignation, and it was not until Miller Lyddon returned, heard the news, and heartily congratulated Billy on a merciful escape, that the old man grew a little calmer under his disappointment, and moderated the bitterness and profanity of his remarks.
CHAPTER IX
A DIFFERENCE WITH THE DUCHY
Newtake Farm, by reason of Will’s recent occupancy, could offer no very considerable return during his first year as tenant; but that he understood and accepted, and the tribulation which now fell upon him was of his own making. To begin with, Sam Bonus vanished from the scene. On learning, soon after the event, that Bonus had discussed Hicks and himself at Chagford, and detailed his private conversation with Martin Grimbal, Blanchard, in a fury, swept off to the loft where his man slept, roused him from rest, threw down the balance of his wages, and dismissed him on the spot. He would hear no word in explanation, and having administered a passionate rebuke, departed as he had come, like a whirlwind. Sam, smarting under this injustice, found the devil wake in him through that sleepless night, and had there stood rick or stack within reach of revenge, he might have dealt his master a return blow before morning. As usual, after the lapse of hours, Will cooled down, modified his first fiery indignation, and determined, yet without changing his mind, to give Bonus an opportunity of explaining the thing he had done. Chris had brought the news from Clement himself, and Will, knowing that his personal relations with Clement were already strained, felt that in justice to his servant he must be heard upon the question. But, when he sought Sam Bonus, though still the dawn was only grey, he found the world fuller for him by another enemy, for the man had taken him at his word and departed. During that day and the next Will made some effort to see Bonus, but nothing came of it, so, dismissing the matter from his mind, he hired a new labourer—one Teddy Chown, son of Abraham Chown, the Inspector of Police—and pursued his way.
Then his unbounded energy led him into difficulties of a graver sort. Will had long cast covetous eyes on a tract of moorland immediately adjoining Newtake, and there being little to do at the moment, he conceived the adventurous design of reclaiming it. The patch was an acre and a half in extent—a beggarly, barren region, where the heather thinned away and the black earth shone with water and disintegrated granite. Quartz particles glimmered over it; at the centre black pools of stagnant water marked an abandoned peat cutting; any spot less calculated to attract an agricultural eye would have been hard to imagine; but Blanchard set to work, began to fill the greedy quag in the midst with tons of soil, and soon caused the place to look business-like—at least in his own estimation. As for the Duchy, he did not trouble himself. The Duchy itself was always reclaiming land without considering the rights and wrongs of the discontented Venville tenants, and Will knew of many a “newtake” besides this he contemplated. Indeed, had not the whole farm, of which he was now master, been rescued from the Moor in time past? He worked hard, therefore, and his new assistant, though not a Bonus, proved stout and active. Chris, who still dwelt with her brother, was sworn to secrecy respecting Will’s venture; and so lonely a region did the farm occupy that not until he had put a good month of work into the adjacent waste were any of those in authority aware of the young farmer’s performance.
A day came when the new land was cleaned, partly ploughed, and wholly surrounded by a fence of split stumps, presently to be connected by wires. At these Chown was working, while Will had just arrived with a load of earth to add to the many tons already poured upon that hungry central patch. He held the tailboard of the cart in his hand and was about to remove it; when, looking up, his heart fluttered a moment despite his sturdy consciousness of right. On the moor above him rode grey old Vogwell, the Duchy’s man. His long beard fluttered in the wind, and Will heard the thud of his horse’s hoofs as he cantered quickly to the scene, passed between two of the stakes, and drew up alongside Blanchard.
“Marnin’, Mr. Vogwell! Fine weather, to be sure, an’ gude for the peat next month; but bad for roots, an’ no mistake. Will ’e have a drink?”
Mr. Vogwell gazed sternly about him, then fixed his little bright eyes on the culprit.
“What do this mean, Will Blanchard?”
“Well, why not? Duchy steals all the gude land from Venwell men; why for shouldn’t us taake a little of the bad? This here weern’t no gude to man or mouse. Ban’t ’nough green stuff for a rabbit ’pon it. So I just thought I’d give it a lick an’ a promise o’ more later on.”
“‘A lick an’ a promise’! You’ve wasted a month’s work on it, to the least.”
“Well, p’raps I have—though ban’t wasted. Do ’e think, Mr. Vogwell, as the Duchy might be disposed to give me a hand?”
Will generally tackled difficulties in this audacious fashion, and a laugh already began to brighten his eye; but the other quenched it.
“You fool! You knawed you was doin’ wrong better’n I can tell you—an’ such a plaace! A babe could see you ’m workin’ awver living springs. You caan’t fill un even now in the drouth, an’ come autumn an’ rain ’t will all be bog again.”
“Nothing of the sort,” flamed out Will, quite forgetting his recent assertion as to the poverty of the place. “Do ’e think, you, as awnly rides awver the Moor, knaws more about soil than I as works on it? ’Twill be gude proofy land bimebye—so good as any Princetown way, wheer the prison men reclaim, an’ wheer theer’s grass this minute as carries a bullock to the acre. First I’ll plant rye, then swedes, then maybe more swedes, then barley; an’, with the barley, I’ll sow the permanent grass to follow. That’s gude rotation of crops for Dartymoor, as I knaw an’ you doan’t; an’ if the Duchy encloses the best to rob our things11, why for shouldn’t we—”
“That’ll do. I caan’t bide here listenin’ to your child’s-talk all the marnin’. What Duchy does an’ doan’t do is for higher ’n you or me to decide. If this was any man’s work but yours I’d tell Duchy this night; but bein’ you, I’ll keep mute. Awnly mind, when I comes this way a fortnight hence, let me see these postes gone an’ your plough an’ cart t’ other side that wall. An’ you’ll thank me, when you’ve come to more sense, for stoppin’ this wild-goose chase. Now I’ll have a drop o’ cider, if it’s all the same to you.”
Will opened a stone jar which lay under his coat at hand, and answered as he poured cider into a horn mug for Mr. Vogwell—
“Here’s your drink; but I won’t take your orders, so I tell ’e. Damn the Duchy, as steals moor an’ common wheer it pleases an’ then grudges a man his toil.”
“That’s the spirit as’ll land ’e in the poorhouse, Will Blanchard,” said Mr. Vogwell calmly; “and that’s such a job as might send ’e to the County Asylum,” he added, pointing to the operations around him. “As to damning Duchy,” he continued, “you might as well damn the sun or moon. They’d care as little. Theer ’m some varmints so small that, though they bite ’e with all their might, you never knaw it; an’ so ’t is wi’ you an’ Duchy. Mind now, a fortnight. Thank ’e—so gude cider as ever I tasted; an’ doan’t ’e tear an’ rage, my son. What’s the use?”
“’Twould be use, though, if us all raged together.”
“But you won’t get none to follow. ’Tis all talk. Duchy haven’t got no bones to break or sawl to lose; an’ moormen haven’t got brains enough to do aught in the matter but jaw.”
“An’ all for a royal prince, as doan’t knaw difference between yether an’ fuzz, I lay,” growled Will. “Small blame to moormen for being radical-minded these days. Who wouldn’t, treated same as us?”
“Best not talk on such high subjects, Will Blanchard, or you might get in trouble. A fortnight, mind. Gude marnin’ to ’e.”
The Duchy’s man rode off and Will stood angry and irresolute. Then, seeing Mr. Vogwell was still observing him, he ostentatiously turned to the cart and tipped up his load of earth. But when the representative of power had disappeared—his horse and himself apparently sinking into rather than behind a heather ridge—Will’s energy died and his mood changed. He had fooled himself about this enterprise until the present, but he could no longer do so. Now he sat down on the earth he had brought, let his horse drag the cart after it, as it wandered in search of some green thing, and suffered a storm of futile indignation to darken his spirit.
Blanchard’s unseasoned mind had, in truth, scarcely reached the second milestone upon the road of man’s experience. Some arrive early at the mental standpoint where the five senses meet and merge in that sixth or common sense, which may be defined as an integral of the others, and which is manifested by those who possess it in a just application of all the experience won from life. But of common sense Will had none. He could understand laziness and wickedness being made to suffer; he could read Nature’s more self-evident lessons blazoned across every meadow, displayed in every living organism—that error is instantly punished, that poor food starves the best seed, that too much water is as bad as too little, that the race is to the strong, and so forth; but he could not understand why hard work should go unrewarded, why good intentions should breed bad results, why the effect of energy, self-denial, right ambitions, and other excellent qualities is governed by chance; why the prizes in the great lottery fall to the wise, not to the well-meaning. He knew himself for a hard worker and a man who accomplished, in all honesty, the best within his power. What his hand found to do he did with his might; and the fact that his head, as often as not, prompted his hand to the wrong thing escaped him. He regarded his life as exemplary, felt that he was doing all that might in reason be demanded, and confidently looked towards Providence to do the rest. To find Providence unwilling to help him brought a wave of riotous indignation through his mind on each occasion of making that discovery. These waves, sweeping at irregular intervals over Will, left the mark of their high tides, and his mind, now swinging like a pendulum before this last buffet dealt by Fate in semblance of the Duchy’s man, plunged him into a huge discontent with all things. He was ripe for mischief and would have quarrelled with his shadow; but he did worse—he quarrelled with his mother.
She visited him that afternoon, viewed his shattered scheme, and listened as Will poured the great outrage upon her ear. Coming up at his express invitation to learn the secret, which he had kept from her that her joy might be the greater, Mrs. Blanchard only arrived in time to see his disappointment. She knew the Duchy for a bad enemy, and perhaps at the bottom of her conservative heart felt no particular delight at the spectacle of Newtake enlarging its borders. She therefore held that everything was for the best, and counselled patience; whereupon her son, with a month’s wasted toil staring him in the face, rebelled and took her unconcerned demeanour ill. Damaris also brought a letter from Phoebe, and this added fuel to the flame. Will dwelt upon his wife’s absence bitterly.
“Job’s self never suffered that, for I read ’bout what he went through awnly last night, for somethin’ to kill an hour in the evenin’. An’ I won’t suffer it. It’s contrary to nature, an’ if Phoebe ban’t here come winter I’ll go down an’ bring her, willy-nilly.”
“Time’ll pass soon enough, my son. Next summer will be here quick. Then her’ll have grawin’ corn to look at and fine crops risin’, an’ more things feedin’ on the Moor in sight of her eyes. You see, upland farms do look a little thin to them who have lived all their time in the fatness of the valleys.”
“If I was bidin’ in one of them stone roundy-poundies, with nothin’ but a dog-kennel for a home, she ought to be shoulder to shoulder wi’ me. Did you leave my faither cause other people didn’t love un?”
“That was differ’nt. Theer s Miller Lyddon. I could much wish you seed more of him an’ let un come by a better ’pinion of ’e. ’T s awnly worldly wisdom, true; but—”
“I’m sick to death o’ worldly wisdom! What’s it done for me? I stand to work nine an’ ten hour a day, an’ not wi’out my share o’ worldly wisdom, neither. Then I’m played with an’ left to whistle, I ban’t gwaine to think so much, I tell ’e. It awnly hurts a man’s head, an’ keeps him wakin’ o’ nights. Life’s guess-work, by the looks of it, an’ a fule’s so like to draw a prize as the wisest.”
“That’s not the talk as’ll make Newtake pay, Will. You ’m worse than poor Blee to Monks Barton. He’s gwaine round givin’ out theer ban’t no God ’t all, ’cause Mrs. Coomstock took auld Lezzard ’stead of him.”
“You may laugh if you like, mother. ’Tis the fashion to laugh at me seemin’ly. But I doan’t care. Awnly you’ll be sorry some day, so sure as you sit in thicky chair. Now, as you’ve nothin’ but blame, best to go back home. I’ll put your pony in the shafts. ’Twas a pity you corned so far for so little.”
He went off, his breast heaving, while the woman followed him with her eyes and smiled when he was out of sight. She knew him so well, and already pictured her repentant son next Sunday. Then Will would be at his mother’s cottage, and cut the bit of beef at dinner, and fuss over her comfort according to his custom.
She went into the farmyard and took the pony from him and led it back into the stall. Then she returned to him and put her arm through his and spoke.
“Light your pipe, lovey, an’ walk a li’l way along down to the stones on the hill, wheer you was born. Your auld mother wants to talk to ’e.”
CHAPTER X
CONNECTING LINKS
Spaces of time extending over rather more than a year may now be dismissed in a chapter.
Chris Blanchard, distracted between Will and her lover, stayed on at Newtake after the estrangement, with a hope that she might succeed in healing the breach between them; but her importunity failed of its good object, and there came an August night when she found her own position at her brother’s farm grow no longer tenable.
The blinds were up, and rays from the lamp shot a broad band of light into the farmyard, while now and again great white moths struck soft blows against the closed window, then vanished again into the night. Will smoked and Chris pleaded until a point, beyond which her brother’s patience could not go, was reached. Irritation grew and grew before her ceaseless entreaty on Clement’s behalf; for the thousandth time she begged him to write a letter of apology and explanation of the trouble bred by Sam Bonus; and he, suddenly rising, smashed down his clay pipe and swore by all his gods he would hear the name of Hicks mentioned in his house no more. Thus challenged to choose between her lover and her brother, the girl did not hesitate. Something of Will’s own spirit informed her; she took him at his word and returned home next morning, leaving him to manage his own household affairs henceforth as best he might.
Upon the way to Chagford Chris chanced to meet with Martin Grimbal, and, having long since accepted his offer of friendship, she did not hesitate to tell him of her present sorrow and invite his sympathy. From ignorance rather than selfishness did Chris take Martin literally when he had hoped in the past they might remain friends, and their intercourse was always maintained by her when chance put one in the other’s way—at a cost to the man beyond her power to guess.
Now he walked beside her, and she explained how only a word was wanting between Will and Clement which neither would speak. Hicks had forgiven Will, but he refused to visit Newtake until he received an apology from the master of it; and Blanchard bore no ill-will to Clement, but declined to apologise for the past. These facts Martin listened to, while the blood beat like a tide within his temples, and a mist dimmed his eyes as the girl laid her brown hand upon his arm now and again, to accentuate a point. At such moments the truth tightened upon his soul and much distressed him.
The antiquary had abandoned any attempt to forget Chris, or cease from worshipping her with all his heart and soul; but the emotion now muzzled and chained out of sight he held of nobler composition than that earlier love which yearned for possession. Those dreary months that dragged between the present and his first disappointment had served as foundations for new developments of character in the man. He existed through a period of unutterable despair and loneliness; then the fruits of bygone battles fought and won came to his aid, and long-past years of self-denial and self-control fortified his spirit. The reasonableness of Martin Grimbal lifted him slowly but steadily from the ashes of disappointment; even his natural humility helped him, and he told himself he had no more than his desert. Presently, with efforts the very vigour of which served as tonic to character, he began to wrestle at the granite again and resume his archaeologic studies. Speaking in general terms, his mind was notably sweetened and widened by his experience; and, resulting from his own failure to reach happiness, there awoke in him a charity and sympathy for others, a fellow-feeling with humanity, remarkable in one whose enthusiasm for human nature was not large, whose ruling passion, until the circumstance of love tinctured it, had led him by ways which the bulk of men had pronounced arid and unsatisfying. Now this larger insight was making a finer character of him and planting, even at the core of his professional pursuits, something deeper than is generally to be found there. His experience, in fact, was telling upon his work, and he began slowly to combine with the labour of the yard-measure and the pencil, the spade and the camera, just thoughts on the subject of those human generations who ruled the Moor aforetime, who lived and loved and laboured there full many a day before Saxon keel first grated on British shingle.
To Chris did Martin listen attentively. Until the present time he had taken Will’s advice and made no offer of work to Clement; but now he determined to do so, although he knew this action must mean speedy marriage for Chris. Love, that often enough can shake a lifetime of morality, that can set ethics and right conduct and duty playing a devil’s dance in the victim’s soul, that can change the practised customs of a man’s life and send cherished opinions, accepted beliefs, and approved dogmas spinning into chaos before its fiery onslaught—love did not thus overpower Martin Grimbal. His old-fashioned mind was no armour against it, and in that the passion proved true; religion appeared similarly powerless to influence him; yet now his extreme humility, his natural sense of justice and the dimensions of his passion itself combined to lead him by a lofty road. Chris desired another man, and Martin Grimbal, loving her to that point where her perfect happiness dominated and, indeed, became his own, determined that his love should bear fruit worthy of its object.
This kindly design was frustrated, however, and the antiquary himself denied power to achieve the good action that he proposed, for on visiting Clement in person and inviting his aid in the clerical portions of a considerable work on moorland antiquities, the poet refused to assist.
“You come too late,” he said coldly. “I would not help you now if I could, Martin Grimbal. Don’t imagine pride or any such motive keeps me from doing so. The true reason you may guess.”
“Indeed! I can do nothing of the sort. What reason is there against your accepting an offer to do remunerative and intellectual work in your leisure hours—work that may last ten years for all I can see to the contrary?”
“The reason is that you invited another man’s judgment upon me, instead of taking your own. Better follow Will Blanchard’s advice still. Don’t think I’m blind. It is Chris who has made you do this.”
“You’re a very difficult man to deal with, really. Consider my suggestion, Hicks, and all it might mean. I desire nothing but your welfare.”
“Which is only to say you are offering me charity.”
Martin looked at the other quietly, then took his hat and departed. At the door he said a last word.
“I don’t want to think this is final. You would be very useful to me, or I should not have asked you to aid my labour. Let me hear from you within a week.”
But Clement was firm in his folly; while, although they met on more than one occasion, and John Grimbal repeated his offer of regular work, the bee-keeper refused that proposal, also. He made some small sums out of the Red House hives, but would not undertake any regular daily labour there. Clement’s refusal of Martin resulted from his own weak pride and self-conscious stupidity; but a more subtle tangle of conflicting motives was responsible for his action in respect of the elder Grimbal’s invitation. Some loyalty to the man whom he so cordially disliked still inhabited his mind, and with it a very considerable distrust of himself. He partly suspected the reason of John Grimbal’s offer of work, and the possibility of sudden temptation provoking from him utterance of words best left unsaid could not be ignored after his former experience at the hiving of the swarm.
So he went his way and told nobody—not even Chris—of these opportunities and his action concerning them. Such reticence made two women sad. Chris, after her conversation with Martin, doubted not but that he would make some effort, and, hearing nothing as time passed, assumed he had changed his mind; while Mrs. Hicks, who had greatly hoped that Clement’s visit to the Red House might result in regular employment, felt disappointed when no such thing occurred.
The union of Mr. Lezzard and Mrs. Coomstock was duly accomplished to a chorus of frantic expostulation on the part of those interested in the widow’s fortune. Mr. Shorto-Champernowne, having convinced himself that the old woman was in earnest, could find no sufficient reason for doing otherwise than he was asked, and finally united the couple. To Newton Abbot they went for their honeymoon, and tribulation haunted them from the first. Mrs. Lezzard refused her husband permission to inquire any particulars of her affairs from her lawyer—a young man who had succeeded Mr. Joel Ford—while the Gaffer, on his side, parried all his lady’s endeavours to learn more of the small fortune concerning which he had spoken not seldom before marriage. Presently they returned to Chagford, and life resolved itself into an unlovely thing for both of them. Time brought no better understanding or mutual confidence; on the contrary, they never ceased from wrangling over money and Mrs. Lezzard’s increasing propensity towards drink. The old man suffered most, and as his alleged three hundred pounds did not appear, being, indeed, a mere lover’s effort of imagination, his wife bitterly resented marriage under such false pretences, and was never weary of protesting. Of her own affairs she refused to tell her husband anything, but as Mr. Lezzard was found to possess no money at all, it became necessary to provide him with a bare competence for the credit of the family. He did his best to win a little more regard and consideration, in the hope that when his wife passed away the reward of devotion might be reaped; but she never forgave him, expressed the conviction that she would outlive him by many years, and exhausted her ingenuity to make the old man rue his bargain. Only one experience, and that repeated as surely as Mr. Blee met Mr. Lezzard, was more trying to the latter than all the accumulated misfortune of his sorry state—Gaffer’s own miseries appeared absolutely trivial by comparison with Mr. Blee’s comments upon them.
With another year Blanchard and Hicks became in some sort reconciled, though the former friendship was never renewed. The winter proved a severe one, and Will experienced a steady drain on his capital, but he comforted himself in thoughts of the spring, watched his wheat dapple the dark ground with green, and also foretold exceptional crops of hay when summer should return. The great event of his wife’s advent at Newtake occupied most of his reflections; while as for Phoebe herself the matter was never out of her mind. She lived for the day in June that should see her by her husband’s side; but Miller Lyddon showed no knowledge of the significance of Phoebe’s twenty-first birthday; and when Will brought up the matter, upon an occasion of meeting with his father-in-law, the miller deprecated any haste.
“Time enough—time enough,” he said. “You doan’t want no wife to Newtake these years to come, while I do want a darter to home.”
So Phoebe, albeit the course of operations was fully planned, forbore to tell her father anything, and suffered the day to drift nearer and nearer without expressly indicating the event it was to witness.
CHAPTER XI
TOGETHER
Though not free from various temporal problems that daily demanded solution, Will very readily allowed his mind a holiday from all affairs of business during the fortnight that preceded his wife’s arrival at Newtake. What whitewash could do was done; a carpet, long since purchased but not laid down till now, adorned the miniature parlour; while out of doors, becoming suddenly conscious that not a blossom would greet Phoebe’s eyes, Will set about the manufacture of a flower-bed under the kitchen window, bound the plat with neat red tiles, and planted therein half a dozen larkspurs—Phoebe’s favourite flower—with other happy beauties of early summer. The effort looked raw and unhappy, however, and as ill luck would have it, these various plants did not take kindly to their changed life, and greeted Phoebe with hanging heads.
But the great morning came at last, and Will, rising, with the curious thought that he would never sleep in the middle of his bed again, donned his best dark-brown velveteens and a new pair of leathern gaiters, then walked out into the air, where Chown was milking the cows. The day dawned as brightly as the events it heralded, and Will, knowing that his mother and Chris would be early at Newtake, strolled out to meet them. Over against the farm rose moorland crowned by stone, and from off their granite couches grey mists blushing to red now rose with lazy deliberation and vanished under the sun’s kiss. A vast, sweet, diamond-twinkling freshness filled the Moor; blue shadows lay in the dewy coombs, and sun-fires gleamed along the heather ridges. No heath-bell as yet had budded, but the flame of the whins splashed many undulations, and the tender foliage of the whortleberry, where it grew on exposed granite, was nearly scarlet and flashed jewel-bright in the rich texture of the waste. Will saw his cattle pass to their haunts, sniffed the savour of them on the wind, and enjoyed the thought of being their possessor; then his eyes turned to the valley and the road which wound upwards from it under great light. A speck at length appeared three parts of a mile distant and away started Blauchard, springing down the hillside to intercept it. His heart sang within him; here was a glorious day that could never come again, and he meant to live it gloriously.
“Marnin’, mother! Marnin’, Chris! Let me get in between ’e. Breakfast will be most ready by time we’m home. I knawed you d keep your word such a rare fashion day!”
Will soon sat between the two women, while Mrs. Blanchard’s pony regulated its own pace and three tongues chattered behind it. A dozen brown paper parcels occupied the body of the little cart, for Damaris had insisted that the wedding feast should be of her providing. It was proposed that Chris and her mother should spend the day at Newtake and depart after drinking tea; while Phoebe was to arrive in a fly at one o’clock.
After breakfast Chris busied herself indoors and occupied her quick fingers in putting a dozen finishing touches; while Mrs. Blanchard walked round the farm beside Will, viewed with outspoken approval or secret distrust those evidences of success and failure spread about her, and passed the abandoned attempt to reclaim land without a word or sign that she remembered. Will crowed like a happy child; his mother poured advice into his unheeding ears; and then a cart lumbered up with a great surprise in it. True to her intention Mrs. Blanchard had chosen the day of Phoebe ’s arrival to send the old piano to Newtake, and now it was triumphantly trundled into the parlour, while Will protested and admired. It added not a little to the solid splendour of the apartment, and Mrs. Blanchard viewed it with placid but genuine satisfaction. Its tarnished veneer and red face looked like an old honest friend, so Will declared, and he doubted not that his wife would rejoice as he did.
Presently the cart destined to bring Phoebe’s boxes started for Chagford under Ted Chown’s direction. It was a new cart, and the owner hoped that sight of it, with “William Blanchard, Newtake,” nobly displayed on the tail-board, would please his father-in-law.
Meantime, at Monks Barton the great day had likewise dawned, but Phoebe, from cowardice rather than philosophy, did not mention what was to happen until the appearance of Chown made it necessary to do so.
Mr. Blee was the first to stand bewildered before Ted’s blunt announcement that he had come for Mrs. Blanchard’s luggage.
“What luggage? What the douce be talkin’ ’bout?” he asked.
“Why, everything, I s’pose. She ’m comin’ home to-day—that’s knawn, ban’t it?”
“Gormed if ’tis! Not by me, anyways—nor Miller, neither.”
Then Phoebe appeared and Billy heard the truth.
“My! An’ to keep it that quiet! Theer’ll be a tidy upstore when Miller comes to hear tell—”
But Mr. Lyddon was at the door and Phoebe answered his questioning eyes.
“My birthday, dear faither. You must remember—why, you was the first to give me joy of it! Twenty-one to-day, an’ I must go—I must—’tis my duty afore everything.”
The old man’s jaw fell and he looked the picture of sorrowful surprise.
“But—but to spring it like this! Why to-day? Why to-day? It’s madness and it’s cruelty to fly from your home the first living moment you’ve got the power. I’d counted on a merry evenin,’ tu, an’ axed more ’n wan to drink your gude health.”
“Many’s the merry evenings us’ll have, dear faither, please God; but a husband’s a husband. He’ve been that wonnerful patient, tu, for such as him. ’T was my fault for not remindin’ you. An’ yet I did, now an’ again, but you wouldn’t see it. Yet you knawed in your heart, an’ I didn’t like to pain ’e dwellin’ on it overmuch.”
“How did I knaw? I didn’t knaw nothin’ ’t all ’bout it. How should I? Me grawin’ aulder an’ aulder, an’ leanin’ more an’ more ’pon ’e at every turn. An’ him no friend to me—he ’s never sought to win me—he ’s—”
“Doan’t ’e taake on ’bout Will, dearie; you’ll come to knaw un better bimebye. I ban’t gwaine so far arter all; an’ it’s got to be.”
Then the miller worked himself into a passion, dared Chown to take his daughter’s boxes, and made a scene very painful to witness and quite futile in its effect. Phoebe could be strong at times, and a life’s knowledge of her father helped her now. She told Chown to get the boxes and bade Billy help him; she then followed Mr. Lyddon, who was rambling away, according to his custom at moments of great sorrow, to pour his troubles into any ear that would listen. She put her arm through his, drew him to the riverside and spoke words that showed she had developed mentally of late. She was a woman with her father, cooed pleasantly to him, foretold good things, and implored him to have greater care of his health and her love than to court illness by this display of passion. Such treatment had sufficed to calm the miller in many of his moods, for she possessed great power to soothe him, and Mr. Lyddon now set increased store upon his daughter’s judgment; but to-day, before this dreadful calamity, every word and affectionate device was fruitless and only made the matter worse. He stormed on, and Phoebe’s superior manner vanished as he did so, for she could only play such a part if quite unopposed in it. Now her father silenced her, frightened her, and dared her to leave him; but his tragic temper changed when they returned to the farm and he found his daughter’s goods were really gone. Then the old man grew very silent, for the inexorable certainty of the thing about to happen was brought home to him at last.
Before a closed hackney carriage from the hotel arrived to carry Phoebe to Newtake, Miller Lyddon passed through a variety of moods, and another outburst succeeded his sentimental silence. When the vehicle was at the gate, however, his daughter found tears in his eyes upon entering the kitchen suddenly to wish him “good-by.” But he brushed them away at sight of her, and spoke roughly and told her to be gone and find the difference between a good father and a bad husband.
“Go to the misery of your awn choosin’; go to him an’ the rubbish-heap he calls a farm! Thankless an’ ontrue,—go,—an’ look to me in the future to keep you out of the poorhouse and no more. An’ that for your mother’s sake—not yourn.”
“Oh, Faither!” she cried, “doan’t let them be the last words I hear ’pon your lips. ’T is cruel, for sure I’ve been a gude darter to ’e, or tried to be—an’—an’—please, dear faither, just say you wish us well—me an’ my husband. Please say that much. I doan’t ax more.”
But he rose and left her without any answer. It was then Phoebe’s turn to weep, and blinded with tears she slipped and hurt her knee getting into the coach. Billy thereupon offered his aid, helped her, handed her little white fox terrier m after her, and saw that the door was properly closed.
“Be o’ good cheer,” he said, “though I caan’t offer ’e much prospects of easy life in double harness wi’ Will Blanchard. But, as I used to say in my church-gwaine days, ‘God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.’ Be it as ’twill, I dare say theer ’s many peaceful years o’ calm, black-wearin’ widowhood afore ’e yet, for chaps like him do shorten theer days a deal by such a tearin’, high-coloured, passionate way of life.”
Mr. Blee opened the gate, the maids waved their handkerchiefs and wept, and not far distant, as he heard the vehicle containing his daughter depart, Mr. Lyddon would have given half that he had to recall the spoken word. Phoebe once gone, his anger vanished and his love for her won on him like sunshine after storm. Angry, indeed, he still was, but with himself.
For Phoebe, curiosity and love dried her tears as she passed upward towards the Moor. Then, the wild land reached, she put her head out of the window and saw Newtake beech trees in the distance. Already the foliage of them seemed a little tattered and thin, and their meagreness of vesture and solitary appearance depressed the spectator again before she arrived at them.
But the gate, thrown widely open, was reached at last, and there stood Will and Mrs. Blanchard, Chris, Ted Chown, and the great bobtailed sheep-dog, “Ship,” to welcome her. With much emotion poor Phoebe alighted, tottered and fell into the bear-hug of her husband, while the women also kissed her and murmured over her in their sweet, broad Devon tongue. Then something made Will laugh, and his merriment struck the right note; but Ship fell foul of Phoebe’s little terrier and there was a growl, then a yelp and a scuffling, dusty battle amid frightened fowls, whose protests added to the tumult. Upon this conflict descended Will’s sapling with sounding thuds administered impartially, and from the skirmish the smaller beast emerged lame and crying, while the sheep-dog licked the blood off his nose and went to heel with a red light glimmering through his pale blue eyes.