Chapter 14

THE BRINGING OF THE NEWS

Phoebe meantime returned to Chagford, withdrew herself into her chamber, and feverishly busied brains and hands with a task commended that morning by Will when she had mentioned it to him. The various trinkets and objects of value lavished of late upon her by John Grimbal she made into a neat packet, and tied up a sealskin jacket and other furs in a second and more bulky parcel. With these and a letter she presently despatched a maid to Mr. Grimbal's temporary address. Phoebe's note explained how, weak and friendless until the sudden return of Will into her life, she had been thrown upon wickedness, falsehood, and deceit to win her own salvation in the face of all about her. She told him of the deed done that day, begged him to be patient and forget her, and implored him to forgive her husband, who had fought with the only weapons at his command. It was a feeble communication, and Phoebe thought that her love for Will might have inspired words more forcible; but relief annihilated any other emotion; she felt thankful that the lying, evasion, and prevarication of the last horrible ten days were at an end. From the nightmare of that time her poor, bruised conscience emerged sorely stricken; yet she felt that the battle now before her was a healthy thing by comparison, and might serve to brace her moral senses rather than not.

At the tea-table she first met her father, and there were present also Billy Blee and Mr. Chapple. The latter had come to Monks Barton about a triumphal arch, already in course of erection at Chagford market-place, and his presence it was that precipitated her confession, and brought Phoebe's news like a thunderbolt upon the company.

Mr. Chapple, looking up suddenly from the saucer that rested upon his outspread fingers and thumb, made a discovery, and spoke with some concern.

"Faith, Missy, that's ill luck--a wisht thing to do indeed! Put un off, like a gude maid, for theer 's many a wise sayin' 'gainst it."

"What's her done?" asked Billy anxiously.

"Luke 'pon her weddin' finger. 'Tis poor speed to put un on 'fore her lard an' master do it, at the proper moment ordained by Scripture."

"If she hasn't! Take un off, Miss Phoebe, do!" begged Mr. Blee, in real trepidation; and the miller likewise commanded his daughter to remove her wedding-ring.

"An auld wife's tale, but, all the same, shouldn't be theer till you 'm a married woman," he said.

Thus challenged, the way was made smooth as possible for the young wife. She went over to her father, walked close to him, and put her plump little hand with its shining addition upon his shoulder.

"Faither dear, I be a married woman. I had to tell lies and play false, but't was to you an' Mr. Grimbal I've been double, not to my husband that is. I was weak, and I've been punished sore, but--"

"Why, gal alive! what rigmarole 's this? Married--ay, an' so you shall be, in gude time. You 'm light-headed, lass, I do b'lieve. But doan't fret, I'll have Doctor--"

"Hear me," she said, almost roughly. "I kept my word--my first sacred word--to Will. I loved him, an' none else but him; an' 'tis done--I've married him this marnin', for it had to be, an' theer's the sign an' token of it I've brought along with me."

She drew the copy of the register from her pocket, opened it with trembling fingers, set it before Mr. Lyddon, and waited for him to speak. But it was some time before he found words or wind to do so. Literally the fact had taken his breath. A curious expression, more grin than frown--an expression beyond his control in moments of high emotion--wrinkled his eyelids, stretched his lips, and revealed the perfect double row of his false teeth. His hand went forward to the blue paper now lying before him, then the fingers stopped half way and shook in the air. Twice he opened his mouth, but only a sharp expiration, between a sigh and a bark, escaped.

"My God, you've shook the sawl of un!" cried Billy, starting forward, but the miller with an effort recovered his self-possession, scanned the paper, dropped it, and lifted up his voice in lamentation.

"True--past altering--'t is a thing done! May God forgive you for this wicked deed, Phoebe Lyddon--I'd never have b'lieved it of 'e--never--not if an angel had tawld me. My awn that was, and my awnly one! My darter, my soft-eyed gal, the crown of my grey hairs, the last light of my life!"

"I pray you'll come to forgive me in time, dear faither. I doan't ax 'e to yet a while. I had to do it--a faithful promise. 'T was for pure love, faither; I lied for him--lied even to you; an' my heart 's been near to breakin' for 'e these many days; but you'd never have listened if I'd told 'e."

"Go," he said very quietly. "I caan't abear the sight of'e just now. An' that poor fule, as thrawed his money in golden showers for 'e! Oh, my gude God, why for did 'E leave me any childern at all? Why didn't 'E take this cross-hearted wan when t' other was snatched away? Why didn't 'E fill the cup of my sorrer to the brim at a filling an' not drop by drop, to let un run awver now I be auld?"

Phoebe turned to him in bitter tears, but the man's head was down on his hands beside his plate and cup, and he, too, wept, with a pitiful childish squeak between his sobs. Weakness so overwhelming and so unexpected--a father's sorrow manifested in this helpless feminine fashion--tore the girl's very heartstrings. She knelt beside him and put her arms about him; but he pushed her away and with some return of self-control and sternness again bid her depart from him. This Phoebe did, and there was silence, while Mr. Lyddon snuffled, steadied himself, wiped his face with a cotton handkerchief, and felt feebly for a pair of spectacles in his pocket. Mr. Chapple, meantime, had made bold to scan the paper with round eyes, and Billy, now seeing the miller in some part recovered, essayed to comfort him.

"Theer, theer, maister, doan't let this black come-along-o't quench 'e quite. That's better! You such a man o' sense, tu! 'T was awver-ordained by Providence, though a artful thing in a young gal; but women be such itemy twoads best o' times--stage-players by sex, they sez; an' when love for a man be hid in 'em, gormed if they caan't fox the God as made 'em!"

"Her to do it! The unthankfulness, the cold cruelty of it! An' me that was mother an' father both to her--that did rock her cradle with these hands an' wash the li'l year-auld body of her. To forget all--all she owed! It cuts me that deep!"

"Deep as a wire into cheese, I lay. An' well it may; but han't no new thing; you stablish yourself with that. The ways o' women 's like--'t was a sayin' of Solomon I caan't call home just this minute; but he knawed, you mind, none better. He had his awn petticoat trouble, same as any other Christian man given to women. What do 'e say, neighbour?"

Billy, of opinion that Mr. Chapple should assist him in this painful duty, put the last question to his rotund friend, but the other, for answer, rose and prepared to depart.

"I say," he answered, "that I'd best go up-along and stop they chaps buildin' the triumphant arch. 'Pears won't be called for now. An' theer's a tidy deal else to do likewise. Folks was comin' in from the Moor half a score o' miles for this merry-makin'."

"'T is a practical thought," said Billy. "Them as come from far be like to seem fules if nothin' 's done. You go up the village an' I'll follow 'e so quick as I can."

Mr. Chapple thereupon withdrew and Billy turned to the miller. Mr. Lyddon had wandered once and again up and down the kitchen, then fallen into his customary chair; and there he now sat, his elbows on his knees, his hands over his face. He was overwhelmed; his tears hurt him physically and his head throbbed. Twenty years seemed to have piled themselves upon his brow in as many minutes.

"Sure I could shed water myself to see you like this here," said Mr. Blee, sympathetically; "but 't is wan of them eternal circumstances we 'm faaced with that all the rain falled of a wet winter won't wash away. Theer 's the lines. They 'm a fact, same as the sun in heaven 's a fact. God A'mighty's Self couldn't undo it wi'out some violent invention; an' for that matter I doan't see tu clear how even Him be gwaine to magic a married woman into a spinster again; any more than He could turn a spinster into a married woman, onless some ordinary human man came forrard. You must faace it braave an' strong. But that imp o' Satan--that damn Blanchard bwoy! Theer! I caan't say what I think 'bout him. Arter all that's been done: the guests invited, the banns axed out, the victuals bought, and me retracin' my ballet night arter night, for ten days, to get un to concert pitch--well, 't is a matter tu deep for mere speech."

"The--the young devil! I shall have no pity--not a spark. I wish to God he could hang for it!"

"As to that, might act worse than leave it to Jan Grimbal. He'll do summat 'fore you've done talkin', if I knaw un. An' a son-in-law 's a son-in-law, though he've brought it to pass by a brigand deed same as this. 'T is a kicklish question what a man should do to the person of his darter's husband. You bide quiet an' see what chances. Grimbal's like to take law into his awn hands, as any man of noble nature might in this quandary."

The disappointed lover's probable actions offered dreary food for thought, and the two old men were still conversing when a maid entered to lay the cloth for supper. Then Billy proceeded to the village and Mr. Lyddon, unnerved and restless, rambled aimlessly into the open air, addressed any man or woman who passed from the adjacent cottages, and querulously announced, to the astonishment of chance listeners, that his daughter's match was broken off.

An hour later Phoebe reappeared in the kitchen and occupied her usual place at the supper-table. No one spoke a word, but the course of the meal was suddenly interrupted, for there came a knock at the farmhouse door, and without waiting to be answered, somebody lifted the latch, tramped down the stone passage, and entered the room.

Now Phoebe, in the privacy of her little chamber beneath the thatch, had reflected miserably on the spectacle of her husband far away in a prison cell, with his curls cropped off and his shapely limbs clad convict-fashion. When, therefore, Will, and not John Grimbal, as she expected, stood before her, his wife was perhaps more astonished than any other body present. Young Blanchard appeared, however. He looked weary and hungry, for he had been on his legs during the greater part of the day and had forgotten to eat since his pretence of wedding-breakfast ten hours earlier. Now, newly returned from Exeter, he came straight to Monks Barton before going to his home.

Billy Blee was the first to find his voice before this sudden apparition. His fork, amply laden, hung in the air as though his arm was turned to stone; with a mighty gulp he emptied his mouth and spoke.

"Gormed if you ban't the most 'mazin' piece ever comed out o' Chagford!"

"Miller Lyddon," said Will, not heeding Mr. Blee, "I be here to say wan word 'fore I goes out o' your sight. You said you'd have law of me if I took Phoebe; an' that I done, 'cause we was of a mind. Now we 'm man an' wife, an' I'm just back from prison, wheer I went straight to save you trouble. But theer 's preambles an' writs an' what not. I shall be to mother's, an' you can send Inspector Chown when you like. It had to come 'cause we was of a mind."

He looked proudly at Phoebe, but departed without speaking to her, and silence followed his going. Mr. Lyddon stared blankly at the door through which Will departed, then his rage broke forth.

"Curse the wretch! Curse him to his dying day! An' I'll do more--more than that. What he can suffer he shall, and if I've got to pay my last shilling to get him punishment I'll do it--my last shilling I'll pay."

He had not regarded his daughter or spoken to her since his words at their first meeting; and now, still ignoring Phoebe's presence, he began eagerly debating with Billy Blee as to what law might have power to do. The girl, wisely enough, kept silence, ate a little food, and then went quietly away to her bed. She was secretly overjoyed at Will's return and near presence; but another visitor might be expected at any moment, and Phoebe knew that to be in bed before the arrival of John Grimbal would save her from the necessity of a meeting she much feared. She entered upon her wedding-night, therefore, while the voices below droned on, now rising, now falling; then, while she was saying her prayers with half her mind on them, the other half feverishly intent on a certain sound, it came. She heard the clink, clink of the gate, thrown wide open and now swinging backwards and forwards, striking the hasp each time; then a heavy step followed it, feet strode clanging down the passage, and the bull roar of a man's voice fell on her ear. Upon this she huddled under the clothes, but listened for a second at long intervals to hear when he departed. The thing that had happened, however, since her husband's departure and John Grimbal's arrival, remained happily hidden from Phoebe until next morning, by which time a climax in affairs was past and the outcome of tragic circumstances fully known.

When Blanchard left the farm, he turned his steps very slowly homewards, and delayed some minutes on Rushford Bridge before appearing to his mother. For her voice he certainly yearned, and for her strong sense to throw light upon his future actions; but she did not know everything there was to be known and he felt that with himself, when all was said, lay decision as to his next step. While he reflected a new notion took shape and grew defined and seemed good to him.

"Why not?" he said to himself, aloud. "Why not go back? Seeing the provocation--they might surely--?" He pursued the idea silently and came to a determination. Yet the contemplated action was never destined to be performed, for now an accident so trifling as the chance glimmer of a lucifer match contributed to remodel the scheme of his life and wholly shatter immediate resolutions. Craving a whiff of tobacco, without which he had been since morning, Will lighted his pipe, and the twinkle of flame as he did so showed his face to a man passing across the bridge at that moment. He stopped in his stride, and a great bellow of wrath escaped him, half savage, half joyful.

"By God! I didn't think to meet so soon!"

Here was a red-hot raving Nemesis indeed; and Will, while prepared for a speedy meeting with his enemy, neither expected nor desired an encounter just then. But it had come, and he knew what was before him. Grimbal, just returned from a long day's sport, rode back to his hotel in a good temper. He drank a brandy-and-soda at the bar, then went up to his rooms and found Phoebe's letter; whereupon, as he was in muddy pink, he set off straight for Monks Barton; and now he stood face to face with the man on earth he most desired to meet. By the light of his match Will saw a red coat, white teeth under a great yellow moustache, and a pair of mad, flaming eyes, hungry for something. He knew what was coming, moved quickly from the parapet of the bridge, and flung away his pipe to free his hands. As he did so the other was on him. Will warded one tremendous stroke from a hunting-crop; then they came to close quarters, and Grimbal, dropping his whip, got in a heavy half-arm blow on his enemy's face before they gripped in holds. The younger man, in no trim for battle, reeled and tried to break away; but the other had him fast, picked him clean off the ground, and, getting in his weight, used a Yankee throw, with intent to drop Will against the granite of the bridge. But though Blanchard went down like a child before the attack, he disappeared rather than fell; and in the pitchy night it seemed as though some amiable deity had caught up the vanquished into air. A sudden pressure of the low parapet against his own legs as he staggered forward, told John Grimbal what was done and, at the same moment, a tremendous splash in the water below indicated his enemy's dismal position. Teign, though not in flood at the time, ran high, and just below the bridge a deep pool opened out. Around it were rocks upon which rose the pillars of the bridge. No sound or cry followed Will Blanchard's fall; no further splash of a swimmer, or rustle on the river's bank, indicated any effort from him. Grimbal's first instincts were those of regret that revenge had proved so brief. His desire was past before he had tasted it. Then for a moment he hesitated, and the first raving lust to kill Phoebe's husband waned a trifle before the sudden conviction that he had done so. He crept down to the river, ploughed about to find the man, questioning what he should do if he did find him. His wrath waxed as he made search, and he told himself that he should only trample Blanchard deeper into water if he came upon him. He kicked here and there with his heavy boots; then abandoned the search and proceeded to Monks Barton.

Into the presence of the miller he thundered, and for a time said nothing of the conflict from which he had come. The scene needs no special narration. Vain words and wishes, oaths and curses, filled John Grimbal's mouth. He stamped on the floor, finding it impossible to remain motionless, roared the others down, loaded the miller with bitter reproaches for his blindness, silenced Mr. Blee on every occasion when he attempted to join the discussion. The man, in fine, exhibited that furious, brute passion and rage to be expected from such a nature suddenly faced with complete dislocation of cherished hopes. His life had been a long record of success, and this tremendous reverse, on his first knowledge of it, came near to unhinge John Grimbal's mind. Storm succeeded storm, explosion followed upon explosion, and the thought of the vanity of such a display only rendered him more frantic. Then chance reminded the raging maniac of that thing he had done, and now, removed from the deed by a little time, he gloried in it.

"Blast the devil--short shrift he got--given straight into my hand! I swore to kill him when I heard it; an' I have--pitched him over the bridge and broken his blasted neck. I'd burn in ragin' hell through ten lifetimes to do it again. But that's done once for all. And you can tell your whore of a daughter she's a widow, not a wife!"

"God be gude to us!" cried Billy, while Mr. Lyddon started in dismay. "Is this true you'm tellin'? Blue murder? An' so, like's not, his awn mother'll find un when she goes to draw water in the marnin'!"

"Let her, and his sister, too; and my God-damned brother! All in it--every cursed one of 'em. I'd like--I'd like--Christ--"

He broke off, was silent for a moment, then strode out of the room towards the staircase. Mr. Lyddon heard him and rushed after him with Billy. They scrambled past and stood at the stair-foot while Grimbal glanced up in the direction of Phoebe's room, and then glared at the two old men.

"Why not, you doddering fools? Can you still stand by her, cursed jade of lies? My work's only half done! No man's ever betrayed me but he's suffered hell for it; and no woman shall."

He raged, and the two with beating hearts waited for him.

Then suddenly laughing aloud, the man turned his back, and passed into the night without more words.

"Mad, so mad as any zany!" gasped Mr. Blee. "Thank God the whim's took un to go. My innards was curdlin' afore him!"

The extravagance of Grimbal's rage had affected Mr. Lyddon also. With white and terrified face he crept after Grimbal, and watched that tornado of a man depart.

"My stars! He do breathe forth threatenings and slaughters worse 'n in any Bible carater ever I read of," said the miller, "and if what he sez be true--"

"I'll wager 't is. Theer 's method in him. Your son-in-law, if I may say it, be drownded, sure 's death. What a world!"

"Get the lanterns and call Sam Bonus. He must stand to this door an' let no man in while we 'm away. God send the chap ban't dead. I don't like for a long-cripple to suffer torture."

"That's your high religion. An' I'll carry the brandy, for 't is a liquor, when all 's said, what 's saved more bodies in this world than it 's damned sawls in the next, an' a thing pleasant, tu, used with sense--specially if a man can sleep 'fore 't is dead in un."

"Hurry, hurry! Every minute may mean life or death. I'll call Bonus; you get the lanterns."

Ten minutes later a huge labourer stood guard over Monks Barton, and the miller, with his man, entered upon their long and fruitless search. The thaw had come, but glimmering ridges of snow still outlined the bases of northern-facing hedges along the river. With infinite labour and some difficulty they explored the stream, then, wet and weary, returned by the southern bank to their starting-point at Rushford Bridge. Here Billy found a cloth cap by the water's edge, and that was the only evidence of Will's downfall. As they clambered up from the river Mr. Lyddon noted bright eyes shining across the night, and found that the windows of Mrs. Blanchard's cottage were illuminated.

"They 'm waitin' for him by the looks of it," he said. "What ought us to do, I wonder?"

Billy never objected to be the bearer of news, good or ill, so that it was sensational; but a thought struck him at seeing the lighted windows.

"Why, it may be he's theer! If so, then us might find Grimbal didn't slay un arter all. 'T was such a miz-maze o' crooked words he let fly 'pon us, that perhaps us misread un."

"I wish I thought so. Come. Us can ax that much."

A few minutes later they stood at Mrs. Blanchard's door and knocked. The widow herself appeared, fully dressed, wide awake, and perfectly collected. Her manner told Mr. Lyddon nothing.

"What might you want, Miller?"

"'T is Will. There's bin blows struck and violence done, I hear."

"I can tell 'e the rest. The bwoy's paid his score an' got full measure. He wanted to be even with you, tu, but they wouldn't let un."

"If he ban't dead, I'll make him smart yet for his evil act."

"I warned 'e. He was cheated behind his back, an' played with the same cards what you did, and played better."

"Wheer is he now? That's what I want to knaw."

"Up in the house. They met on the bridge an' Grimbal bested him, Will bein' weary an' empty-bellied. When the man flinged him in the stream, he got under the arch behind the rocks afore he lost his head for a time and went senseless. When he comed to he crawled up the croft and I let un in."

"Thank God he's not dead; but punishment he shall have if theer's justice in the land."

"Bide your time. He won't shirk it. But he's hurted proper; you might let Jan Grimbal knaw, 't will ease his mind."

"Not it," declared Billy; "he thought he'd killed un; cracked the neck of un."

"The blow 'pon his faace scatted abroad his left nostril; the fall brawked his arm, not his neck; an' the spurs t' other was wearin' tored his leg to the bone. Doctor's seen un; so tell Grimbal. Theer's pleasure in such payment."

She spoke without emotion, and showed no passion against the master of the Red House. When Will had come to her, being once satisfied in her immediate motherly agony that his life was not endangered, she allowed her mind a sort of secret, fierce delight at his performance and its success in the main issue. She was proud of him at the bottom of her heart; but before other eyes bore herself with outward imperturbability.

"You'll keep the gal, I reckon?" she said quietly; "if you can hold hand off Will till he'm on his legs again, I'd thank you."

"I shall do what I please, when I please; an' my poor fule of a daughter stops with me as long as I've got power to make her."

"Hope you'll live to see things might have been worse."

"That's impossible. No worse evil could have fallen upon me. My grey hairs a laughing-stock, and your awn brother's hand in it. He knawed well enough the crime he was committing."

"You've a short memory, Miller. I lay Jan Grimbal knaws the reason if you doan't. The worm that can sting does, if you tread on it. Gude-night to 'e."

"An' how do you find yourself now?" Billy inquired, as his master and he returned to Monks Barton.

"Weary an' sick, an' filled with gall. Was it wrong to make the match, do 'e think, seein' 't was all for love of my cheel? Was I out to push so strong for it? I seem I done right, despite this awful mischance."

"An' so you did; an' my feelin's be the same as yours to a split hair, though I've got no language for em at this unnatural hour of marnin'," said Billy.

Then in silence, to the bobbing illumination of their lanterns, Mr. Lyddon and his familiar dragged their weary bodies home.