Children of the Mist Part 44

John Grimbal, actuated by some whim, or else conscious that under the circ.u.mstances decorum demanded his attendance, was present at the funeral of Clement Hicks. Some cynic interest he derived from the spectacle of young Blanchard among the bearers; and indeed, as may be supposed, few had felt this tragic termination of his friend's life more than Will. Very genuine remorse darkened his days, and he blamed himself bitterly enough for all past differences with the dead. It was in a mood at once contrite and sorrowful that he listened to the echo of falling clod, and during that solemn sound mentally traversed the whole course of his relations with his sister's lover. Of himself he thought not at all, and no shadowy suspicion of relief crossed his mind upon the reflection that the knowledge of those fateful weeks long past was now unshared. In all his quarrels with Clement, no possibility of the man breaking his oath once troubled Will's mind; and now profound sorrow at his friend's death and deep sympathy with Chris were the emotions that entirely filled the young farmer's heart.

Grimbal watched his enemy as the service beside the grave proceeded.

Once a malignant thought darkened his face, and he mused on what the result might be if he hinted to Blanchard the nature of his frustrated business with Hicks at Oke Tor. All Chagford had heard was that the master of the Red House intended to accept Clement Hicks as tenant of his home farm. The fact surprised many, but none looked behind it for any mystery, and Will least of all. Grimbal's thoughts developed upon his first idea; and he asked himself the consequence if, instead of telling Blanchard that he had gone to learn his secret, he should pretend that it was already in his possession. The notion shone for a moment only, then went out. First it showed itself absolutely futile, for he could do no more than threaten, and the other must speedily discover that in reality he knew nothing; and secondly, some shadow of feeling made Grimbal hesitate. His desire for revenge was now developing on new lines, and while his purpose remained unshaken, his last defeat had taught him patience. Partly from motives of policy, partly, strange as it may seem, from his instincts as a sportsman, he determined to let the matter of Hicks lie buried. For the dead man's good name he cared nothing, however, and victory over Will was only the more desired for this postponement. His black tenacity of purpose won strength from the repulse, but the problem for the time being was removed from its former sphere of active hatred towards his foe. How long this att.i.tude would last, and what idiosyncrasy of character led to it, matters little. The fact remained that Grimbal's mental posture towards Blanchard now more nearly resembled that which he wore to his other interests in life. The circ.u.mstance still stood first, but partook of the nature of his emotions towards matters of sport. When a heavy trout had beaten him more than once, Grimbal would repair again and again to its particular haunt and leave no legitimate plan for its destruction untried. But any unsportsmanlike method of capturing or slaying bird, beast, or fish enraged him. So he left the churchyard with a sullen determination to pursue his sinister purpose straightforwardly.

All interested in Clement Hicks attended the funeral, including his mother and Chris. The last had yielded to Mrs. Blanchard's desire and promised to stop at home; but she changed her mind and conducted herself at the ceremony with a stoic fort.i.tude. This she achieved only by an effort of will which separated her consciousness entirely from her environment and alike blinded her eyes and deafened her ears to the mournful sights and sounds around her. With her own future every fibre of her mind was occupied; and as they lowered her lover's coffin into the earth a line of action leapt into her brain.

Less than four-and-twenty hours later it seemed that the last act of the tragedy had begun. Then, hoa.r.s.e as the raven that croaked Duncan's coming, Mr. Blee returned to Monks Barton from an early visit to the village. Phoebe was staying with her father for a fortnight, and it was she who met the old man as he paddled breathlessly home.

"More gert news!" he gasped; "if it ban't too much for wan in your way o' health."

"Nothing wrong at Newtake?" cried Phoebe, turning pale.

"No, no; but family news for all that."

The girl raised her hand to her heart, and Miller Lyddon, attracted by Billy's excited voice, hastened to his daughter and put his arm round her.

"Out with it," he said. "I see news in 'e. What's the worst or best?"

"Bad, bad as heart can wish. A peck o' trouble, by the looks of it.

Chris Blanchard be gone--vanished like a dream! Mother Blanchard called her this marnin', an' found her bed not so much as creased. She've flown, an' there's a braave upstore 'bout it, for every Blanchard's wrong in the head more or less, beggin' your pardon, missis, as be awnly wan by marriage."

"But no sign? No word or anything left?"

"Nothing; an' theer's a purty strong faith she'm in the river, poor lamb. Theer's draggin' gwaine to be done in the ugly bits. I heard tell of it to the village, wheer I'd just stepped up to see auld Lezzard moved to the work'ouse. A wonnerful coorious, rackety world, sure 'nough! Do make me giddy."

"Does Will know?" asked Mr. Lyddon.

"His mother's sent post-haste for un. I doubt he 'm to the cottage by now. Such a gude, purty gal as she was, tu! An' so mute as a twoad at the buryin', wi' never a tear to soften the graave dust. For why? She knawed she'd be alongside her man again 'fore the moon waned. An' I hope she may be. But 't was cross-roads an' a hawthorn stake in my young days. Them barbarous ancient fashions be awver, thank G.o.d, though whether us lives in more religious times is a question, when you see the things what happens every hour on the twenty-four."

"I must go to them," cried Phoebe.

"I'll go; you stop at home quietly, and don't fret your mind," answered her father.

"Us must all do what us can--every manjack. I be gwaine corpse-searchin'

down valley wi' Chapple, an' that 'mazin' water-dog of hisn; an' if 't is my hand brings her out the Teign, 't will be done in a kind, Christian manner, for she's in G.o.d's image yet, same as us; an' ugly though a drownin' be, it won't turn me from my duty."

BOOK III

HIS GRANITE CROSS

CHAPTER I

BABY

Succeeding upon the tumultuous incidents of Clement's death and Chris Blanchard's disappearance, there followed a period of calm in the lives of those from whom this narrative is gleaned. Such transient peace proved the greater in so far as Damaris and her son were concerned, by reason of an incident which befell Will on the evening of his sister's departure. Dead she certainly was not, nor did she mean to die; for, upon returning to Newtake after hours of fruitless searching, Blanchard found a communication awaiting him there, though no shadow of evidence was forthcoming to show how it had reached the farm. Upon the ledge of the window he discovered it when he returned, and read the message at a glance:

"Don't you nor mother fear nothing for me, nor seek me out, for it would be vain. I'm well, and I'm so happy as ever I shall be, and perhaps I'll come home-along some day.--CHRIS."

On this challenge Will acted, ignored his sister's entreaty to attempt no such thing, and set out upon a resolute search of nearly two months'

duration. He toiled amain into the late autumn, but no hint or shadow of her rewarded the quest, and sustained failure in an enterprise where his heart was set, for his mother's sake and his own, acted upon the man's character, and indeed wrought marked changes in him. Despite the letter of Chris, hope died in Will, and he openly held his sister dead; but Mrs. Blanchard, while sufficiently distressed before her daughter's flight, never feared for her life, and doubted not that she would return in such time as it pleased her to do so.

"Her nature be same as yours an' your faither's afore you. When he'd got the black monkey on his shoulder he'd oftentimes leave the vans for a week and tramp the very heart o' the Moor alone. Fatigue of body often salves a sore mind. He loved thunder o' dark nights--my husband did--and was better for it seemin'ly. Chris be safe, I do think, though it's a heart-deep stroke this for me, 'cause I judge she caan't 'zactly love me as I thought, or else she'd never have left me. Still, the cold world, what she knaws so little 'bout, will drive her back to them as love her, come presently."

So, with greater philosophy than her son could muster, Damaris practised patience; while Will, after a perambulation of the country from north to south, from west to east, after weeks on the lonely heaths and hiding-places of the ultimate Moor, after visits to remote hamlets and inquiries at a hundred separate farmhouses, returned to Newtake, worn, disappointed, and gloomy to a degree beyond the experience of those who knew him. Neither did the cloud speedily evaporate, as was most usual with his transient phases of depression. Circ.u.mstances combined to deepen it, and as the winter crowded down more quickly than usual, its leaden months of scanty daylight and cold rains left their mark on Will as time had never done before.

During those few and sombre days which represented the epact of the dying year, Martin Grimbal returned to Chagford. He had extended his investigations beyond the time originally allotted to them, and now came back to his home with plenty of fresh material, and even one or two new theories for his book. He had received no communications during his absence, and the news of the bee-keeper's death and his sweetheart's disappearance, suddenly delivered by his housekeeper, went far to overwhelm him. It danced joy up again through the grey granite. For a brief hour splendid vistas of happiness reopened, and his laborious life swept suddenly into a bright region that he had gazed into longingly aforetime and lost for ever. He fought with himself to keep down this rosy-fledged hope; but it leapt in him, a young giant born at a word.

The significance of the freedom of Chris staggered him. To find her was the cry of his heart, and, as Will had done before him, he straightway set out upon a systematic attempt to discover the missing girl. Of such uncertain temper was Blanchard's mind at this season, however, that he picked a quarrel out of Martin's design, and questioned the antiquary's right to busy himself upon an undertaking which the brother of Chris had already failed to accomplish.

"She belonged to me, not to you," he said, "an' I done all a man could do to find her. See her again we sha'n't, that's my feelin', despite what she wrote to me and left so mysterious on the window. Madness comed awver her, I reckon, an' she've taken her life, an' theer ban't no call for you or any other man to rip up the matter again. Let it bide as 't is. Such black doin's be best set to rest."

But, while Martin did not seek or desire Will's advice in the matter, he was surprised at the young farmer's att.i.tude, and it extracted something in the nature of a confession from him, for there was little, he told himself, that need longer be hidden from the woman's brother.

"I can speak now, at least to you, Will," he said. "I can tell you, at any rate. Chris was all the world to me--all the world, and accident kept me from knowing she belonged to another man until too late. Now that he has gone, poor fellow, she almost seems within reach again. You know what it is to love. I can't and won't believe she has taken her life. Something tells me she lives, and I am not going to take any man's word about it. I must satisfy myself."

Thereupon Blanchard became more reasonable, withdrew his objections and expressed a very heartfelt hope that Martin might succeed where he had failed. The lover entered methodically upon his quest and conducted the inquiry with a rigorous closeness and scrupulous patience quite beyond Will's power despite his equally earnest intentions. For six months Martin pursued his hope, and few saw or heard anything of him during that period.

Once, during the early summer, Will chanced upon John Grimbal at the first meeting of the otter hounds in Teign Vale; but though the younger purposely edged near his enemy where he stood, and hoped that some word might fall to indicate their ancient enmity dead, John said nothing, and his blue eyes were hard and as devoid of all emotion as turquoise beads when they met the farmer's face for one fraction of time.

Before this incident, however, there had arisen upon Will's life the splendour of paternity. A time came when, through one endless night and silver April morning, he had tramped his kitchen floor as a tiger its cage, and left a scratched pathway on the stones. Then his mother hasted from aloft and reported the arrival of a rare baby boy.

"Phoebe 's doin' braave, an' she prays of 'e to go downlong fust thing an' tell Miller all 's well. Doctor Parsons hisself says 't is a 'mazing fine cheel, so it ban't any mere word of mine as wouldn't weigh, me bein' the gran'mother."

They talked a little while of the newcomer, then, thankful for an opportunity to be active after his long suspense, the father hurried away, mounted a horse, and soon rattled down the valleys into Chagford, at a pace which found his beast dead lame on the following day. Mighty was the exhilaration of that wild gallop as he sped past cot and farm under morning sunshine with his great news. Labouring men and chance wayfarers were overtaken from time to time. Some Will knew, some he had never seen, but to the ear of each and all without discrimination he shouted his intelligence. Not a few waved their hats and nodded and remembered the great day in their own lives; one laughed and cried "Bravo!" sundry, who knew him not, marvelled and took him for a lunatic.

Arrived at Chagford, familiar forms greeted Will in the market-place, and again he bawled his information without dismounting.

"A son 'tis, Chapple--comed an hour ago--a brave li'l bwoy, so they tell!"

"Gude luck to it, then! An' now you'm a parent, you must--"

But Will was out of earshot, and Mr. Chapple wasted no more breath.

Into Monks Barton the farmer presently clattered, threw himself off his horse, tramped indoors, and shouted for his father-in-law in tones that made the oak beams ring. Then the miller, with Mr. Blee behind him, hastened to hear what Will had come to tell.

"All right, all right with Phoebe?" were Mr. Lyddon's first words, and he was white and shaking as he put the question.

"Right as ninepence, faither--gran'faither, I should say. A butivul li'l man she've got--out o' the common fine, Parsons says, as ought to knaw--fat as a slug wi' 'mazin' dark curls on his wee head, though my mother says 'tis awnly a sort o' catch-crop, an' not the lasting hair as'll come arter."

"A bwoy! Glory be!" said Mr. Blee. "If theer's awnly a bit o' the gracious gudeness of his gran'faither in un, 'twill prove a prosperous infant."

"Thank G.o.d for a happy end to all my prayers," said Mr. Lyddon. "Billy, get Will something to eat an' drink. I guess he's hungry an' starved."

"Caan't eat, Miller; but I'll have a drop of the best, if it's all the same to you. Us must drink their healths, both of 'em. As for me 'tis a gert thing to be the faither of a cheel as'll graw into a man some day, an' may even be a historical character, awnly give un time."