Children of the Mist Part 36

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 G.o.d; 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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sion.

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 pa.s.sed 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, 'G.o.d 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, pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sed 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.

Happiness returned indoors and Phoebe, all blushes and praises, inspected her new home and the preparations made within it for her pleasure. Perhaps she simulated more joy than the moment brought, for such a day, dreamed of through years, was sure in its realisation to prove something of an anti-climax after the cruel nature of all such events. Despite Chris and her ceaseless efforts to keep joy at the flood, a listlessness stole over the little party as the day wore on.

Phoebe found her voice not to be relied upon and felt herself drifting into that state between laughter and tears which craves solitude for its exhibition. The cows came home to be milked, and there seemed but few of them after the great procession at Monks Barton. Yet Will demanded her separate praises for each beast. In the little garden he had made, budding flowers, untimely transplanted, hung their heads. But she admired with extravagant adjectives, and picked a blossom and set it in her dress. Anon the sun set, with no soft lights and shadows amidst the valley trees she knew, when sunset and twilight played hide-and-seek beside the river, but slowly, solemnly, in hard, clean, illimitable glory upon horizons of granite and heather. The peat glowed as though it were red-hot, and night brooded on the eastern face of every hill. Only a jangling bell broke the startling stillness then, and, through long weeks afterwards the girl yearned for the song of the river, as one who has long slept by another's side sadly yearns for the sound of their breathing by night, when they are taken away. Phoebe had little imagination, but she guessed already that the life before her must differ widely from that spent under her father's roof. Despite the sunshine of the time and the real joy of being united to her husband at last, she saw on every side more evidences of practical life than she had before antic.i.p.ated. But these braced her rather than not, and she told herself truly that the sadness at bottom of her heart just then was wholly begotten of the past and her departure from home. Deep unrest came upon her as she walked with her husband and listened to his glad voice. She longed greatly to be alone with him that her heart might be relieved. She wanted his arms round her; she wanted to cry and let him kiss the tears away.

Damaris Blanchard very fully understood much that was pa.s.sing through her daugher-in-law's mind, and she hastened her departure after an early cup of tea. She took a last look at all the good things she had provided for the wedding supper--a meal she declared must not be shared with Will and Phoebe--and so made ready to depart. It was then her turn, and her bosom throbbed with just one dumb, fleeting shadow of fear that found words before her second thought had time to suppress them.

"You won't love me no less, eh, Will?" she whispered, holding his hand between hers; and he saw her grey eyes almost frightened in the gloaming.

"My G.o.d, no! No, mother; a man must have a dirty li'l heart in un if it ban't big enough to hold mother an' wife."

She gripped his hand tighter.

"Ess fay, I knaw, I knaw; but doan't 'e put your mother first now,--ban't nature. G.o.d bless an' keep the both of 'e. 'Twill allus be my prayer."

The cart rattled away, Chris driving, and such silence as Phoebe had never known held the darkening land. She noted a yellow star against the sombre ridge of the world, felt Will's arm round her and turned to him, seeking that comfort and support her nature cried out for.

Infinitely tender and loving was her husband then, and jubilant, too, at first; but a little later, when Chown had been packed off to his own apartment, with not a few delicacies he had never bargained for, the conversation flagged and the banquet also.

The table was laden with two capons, a ham, a great sugared cake, a whole Dutch cheese, an old-fashioned cut-gla.s.s decanter containing brown sherry, and two green wine-gla.s.ses for its reception; yet these luxuries tempted neither husband nor wife to much enjoyment of them. Indeed Phoebe's obvious lowness of spirits presently found its echo in Will.

The silences grew longer and longer; then the husband set down his knife and fork, and leaving the head of the table went round to his wife's side and took her hand and squeezed it, but did not speak. She turned to him and he saw her shut her eyes and give a little shiver. Then a tear flashed upon her lashes and twinkled boldly down, followed by another.

"Phoebe! My awn li'l wummon! This be a wisht home-comin'! What the plague's the matter wi' us?"

"Doan't 'e mind, dear heart. I'm happy as a bird under these silly tears. But 'twas the leavin' o' faither, an' him so hard, an' me lovin'

him so dear, an'--an'--"

"Doan't 'e break your heart 'bout him. He'll come round right enough.

'Twas awnly the pang o' your gwaine away, like the drawin' of a tooth."

"Everybody else in the world knaws I ought to be here," sobbed Phoebe, "but faither, he won't see it. An' I caan't get un out of my mind to-night, sitting that mournfui an' desolate, wi' his ear deaf to Billy's noise an' his thoughts up here."

"If he won't onderstand the ways of marriage, blessed if I see how we can make him. Surely to G.o.d, 'twas time I had my awn?"

"Ess, dear Will, but coming to-day, 'pon top of my gert joy, faither's sorrow seemed so terrible-like."

"He'll get awver it, an' so will you, bless you. Drink up some of this braave stuff mother left. Sherry 't is, real wine, as will comfort 'e, my li'l love. 'Tis I be gwaine to make your happiness henceforward, mind; an' as for Miller, he belongs to an auld-fashioned generation of mankind, and it's our place to make allowances. Auld folk doan't knaw an' won't larn. But he'll come to knaw wan solid thing, if no more; an'

that is as his darter'll have so gude a husband as she've got faither, though I sez it."

"'Tis just what he said I shouldn't, Will."

"Nevermind, forgive un, an' drink up your wine; 'twill hearten 'e."

A dog barked, a gate clinked, and there came the sound of a horse's hoofs, then of a man dismounting.

Will told the rest of the story afterwards to Mrs. Blanchard.

"''Tis faither,' cries Phoebe, an' turns so pale as a whitewashed wall in moonlight. 'Never!' I sez. But she knawed the step of un, an'

twinkled up from off her chair, an' 'fore ever the auld man reached the door, 't was awpen. In he comed, like a lamb o' gentleness, an' said never a word for a bit, then fetched out a little purse wi' twenty gawld sovereigns in it. An' us all had some fine talk for more'n an hour, an'

he was proper faither to me, if you'll credit it; an' he drinked a gla.s.s o' your wine, mother, an' said he never tasted none better and not much so gude. Then us seed un off, an' Phoebe cried again, poor twoad, but for sheer happiness this time. So now the future's clear as sunlight, an' we'm all friends--'cept here an' theer."