Chapter 51

UNDER COSDON BEACON

Beneath a region where the "newtakes" straggle up Cosdon's eastern flank and mark a struggle between man and the giant beacon, Chris Blanchard rested a while upon the grass by the highway. Tim, wrapped in a shawl, slept soundly beside his mother, and she sat with her elbows on her knees and one hand under her chin. It was already dusk; dark mist wreaths moved upon the Moor, and oncoming night winds sighed of rain. Then a moment before her intended departure from this most solitary spot she heard footsteps upon the road. Not interested to learn anything of the passer-by, Chris remained with her eyes upon the ground, but the footsteps stopped suddenly before her, whereupon she looked up and saw Martin Grimbal.

After a perambulation of twenty miles he had now set his face homewards, and thus the meeting was accomplished. Utmost constraint at first marked the expression of both man and woman, and it was left for Martin to break the silence, for Chris only started at seeing him, but said nothing. Her mind, however, ranged actively upon the reason of Grimbal's sudden appearance, and she did not at first believe it accidental.

"Why, my dear, what is this? You have wandered far afield!"

He addressed her in unnatural tones, for surprise and emotion sent his voice up into his head, and it came thin and tremulous as a woman's. Even as he spoke Martin feared. From the knowledge gleaned by him that morning he suspected the meaning of this action, and thought that Chris was running away.

And she, at the same moment, divined that he guessed the truth in so far as the present position was concerned. Still she did not speak, and he grew calmer and took her silence as an admission.

"You're going away from Chagford? Is it wise?"

"Ess, Martin, 'tis best so. You see this poor child be breedin' trouble, an' bringing bad talk against Will. He ban't wanted--little Timothy--an' I ban't wanted overmuch, so it comed to me I'd--I'd just slip away out of the turmoil an' taake Tim. Then--"

She stopped, for her heart was beating so fast that she could speak no more. She remembered her own arguments in the recent past,--that this flight must tell all who cared to reflect that the child was her own. Now she looked up at Martin to see if he had guessed it. But he exhibited extreme self-control and she was reassured.

"Just like your thoughtful self to try and save others from sorrow. Where are you going to, Chris? Don't tell me more than you please; but I may be useful to you on this, the first stage of the journey."

"To Okehampton to-night. To-morrow--but I'd rather not say any more. I don't care so long as you think I'm right."

"I haven't said that yet. But I'll go as far as Zeal with you. Then we'll get a covered cab or something. We may reach the village before rain."

"No call for your coming. 'Tis awnly a short mile."

"But I must. I'll carry the laddie. Poor little man! Hard to be the cause of such a bother."

He picked Timothy up so gently that the child did not wake.

"Now," he said, "come along. You must be tired already."

"How gude you be!" she said wearily. "I'm glad you doan't scold or fall into a rage wi' me, for I knaw I'm right. The bwoy's better away, and I'm small use to any now. But I can be busy with this little wan. I might do worse than give up my life to un--eh, Martin?"

Then some power put words in his mouth. He trembled when he had spoken them, but he would not have recalled them.

"You couldn't do better. It's a duty staring you in the face."

She started violently, and her dark skin flamed under the night.

"Why d'you say that?" she asked, with loud, harsh voice, and stopping still as she did so. "Why d'you say 'duty'?"

He, too, stood and looked at her.

"My dear," he answered, "love's a quick, subtle thing. It can make even such a man as I am less stupid than Nature built him. It fires dull brains; it adds sight to dim eyes; it shows the bookworm how to find out secrets hidden from keener spirits; it lifts a veil from the loved one and lets the lover see more than anybody else can. Be patient with me. I spoke because I love you still with all my heart and soul, Chris; I spoke, because what I feel for you is lifelong, and cannot change. Had I not still worshipped the earth under your feet I would have died rather than tell you. But love makes me bold. I have watched you so long and prayed for you so often. I have seen little differences in you that nobody else saw. And to-day I know. I knew when you picked up Timothy and flew at Will. Since then I've wandered Heaven can tell where, just thinking and thinking and wondering and seeing no way. And all the time God meant me to come and find you and tell you."

She understood; she gave one bitter cry that started an echo from ruined mine-workings hard at hand; then she turned from him, and, in a moment of sheer hopeless misery, flung herself and her wrecked ambitions upon the ground by the wayside.

For a moment the man stood scared by this desperate answer to his words. Then he put his burden down, approached Chris, knelt beside her, and tried to raise her. She sat up at last with panting breast and eyes in which some terror sat.

"You!" she said. "You to knaw! Wasn't my cup full enough before but that my wan hope should be cut away, tu? My God, I 'mauld in sorrow now--very auld. But 't is awver at last. You knaw, an' I had to hear it from your awn lips! Theer 's nought worse in the world for me now."

Her hands were pressed against her bosom, and as he unconsciously moved a little towards her she shrank backwards, then rose to her feet. Timothy woke and cried, upon which she turned to him and picked him up.

"Go!" she cried suddenly. "If ever you loved me, get out of my sight now, or you'll make me want to kill myself again."

He saw the time was come for strong self-assertion, and spoke.

"Listen!" he said. "You don't understand, but you must. I'm the only man in the world who knows--the only one, and I've told you because it was stamped into my brain to tell you, and because I love you perhaps better than one creature has any right to love another."

"You knaw. Isn't it enough? Who else did I care for? Who else mattered to me? Mother or brother or other folk? I pray you to go an' leave me. God knaws how hard it was to hide it, but I hugged it an' suffered more 'n any but a mother could fathom 'cause things weer as they weer. Then came this trouble, an' still none seed. But 't was meant you should, an' the rest doan't matter. I'd so soon go back now as not."

"So you shall," he answered calmly; "only hear this first. Last time I spoke about what was in my heart, Chris, you told me you could love me, but that you would not marry me, and I said I would never ask you again. I shall keep my word, sweetheart. I shall not ask; I shall take without asking. You love me; that is all I care for. The little boy came between last time; now nothing does."

He took the woman in his arms and kissed her, but the next moment he was flying to where water lay in a ditch, for his unexpected attitude had overpowered Chris. She raised her hands to his shoulders, uttered a faint cry, then slipped heavily out of his arms in a faint. The man rushed this way and that, the child sat and howled noisily, the woman remained long unconscious, and heavy rain began to fall out of the darkness; yet, to his dying day that desolate spot of earth brought light to Martin's eyes as often as he passed it.

Chris presently recovered her senses, and spoke words that made her lover's heart leap. She uttered them in a sad, low voice, but her hand was in his, pressing it close the while.

"Awften an' awften I've axed the A'mighty to give me wan little glint o' knawledge as how 'twould all end. If I'd knawed! But I never guessed how big your sawl was, Martin. I never thought you was the manner of man to love a woman arter that."

"God knows what's in my heart, Chris."

"I'll tell 'e everything some day. Lookin' back it doan't 'pear no ways wicked, though it may seem so in cold daylight to cold hearts."

"Come, come with me, for the rain grows harder. I know where I can hire a covered carriage at an inn. 'Tis only five minutes farther on, and poor Tim's unhappy."

"He'm hungry. You won't be hard 'pon my li'l bwoy if I come to 'e, Martin?"

"You know as well as I can tell you. There's one other thing. About Chagford, Chris? Are you afraid of it? I'll turn my back on it if you like. I'll take you to Okehampton now if you would rather go there."

"Never! 'Tis for you to care, not me. So you knaw an' forgive--what's the rest? Shadows. But let me hold your hand an' keep my tongue still. I'm sick an' fainty wi' this gert turn o' the wheel. 'T is tu deep for any words."

He felt not less uplifted, but his joy was a man's. It rolled and tumbled over his being like the riotous west wind. Under such stress his mind could find no worthy thing to say, and yet he was intoxicated and had to speak. He was very unlike himself. He uttered platitudes; then the weight of Timothy upon his arm reminded him that the child existed.

"He shall go to a good school, Chris."

She sighed.

"I wish I could die quick here by the roadside, dear Martin, for living along with you won't be no happier than I am this moment. My thoughts do all run back, not forward. I've lived long enough, I reckon. If I'd told 'e! But I'd rather been skinned alive than do it. I'd have let the rest knaw years agone but for you."

Driving homewards half an hour later, Chris Blanchard told Martin that part of her story which concerned her life after the birth of Timothy.

"The travellin' people was pure gawld to me," she said. "And theer's much to say of theer gert gudeness. But I can tell 'e that another time. It chanced the very day Will's li'l wan was buried we was to Chagford, an' the sad falling-out quickened my awn mind as to a thought 'bout my cheel. It comed awver me to leave un at Newtake. I left the vans wheer they was camped that afternoon, an' hid 'pon the hill wi' the baaby. Then Will comed out hisself, an' I chaanged my thought an' followed un wheer he roamed, knawin' the colour of his mind through them black hours as if 'twas my awn. 'Twas arter he'd left the roundy-poundy wheer he was born that I put my child in it, then called tu un loud an' clear. He never knawed the voice, which was the awnly thing I feared. But a voice long silent be soon forgot. I bided at hand till I saw the bwoy in brother Will's arms. An' then I knawed 'twas well an' that mother would come to see it. Arterwards I suffered very terrible wi'out un. But I fought wi' myself an' kept away up to the time I'd fixed in my mind. That was so as nobody should link me with the li'l wan in theer thoughts. Waitin' was the hard deed, and seein' my bwoy for the first time when I went to Newtake was hard tu. But 'tis all wan now."

She remained silent until the lengthy ride was ended and her mother's cottage reached. Then, as that home she had thought to enter no more appeared again, the nature of the woman awoke for one second, and she flung herself on Martin's heart.

"May God make me half you think me, for I love you true, an' you'm the best man He ever fashioned," she said. "An' to-morrow's Sunday," she added inconsequently, "an' I'll kneel in church an' call down lifelong blessings on 'e."

"Don't go to-morrow, my darling. And yet--but no, we'll not go, either of us. I couldn't hear my own banns read out for the world, and I don't think you could; yet read they'll be as sure as the service is held."

She said nothing, but he knew that she felt; then mother and child were gone, and Martin, dismissing his vehicle, proceeded to Monks Barton with the news that all was well.

Mrs. Blanchard heard her daughter's story and its sequel. She exhibited some emotion, but no grief. The sorrow she may have suffered was never revealed to any eye by word or tear.

"I reckoned of late days theer was Blanchard blood to the child," she said, "an' I won't hide from you I thought more'n wance you was so like to be the mother as Will the faither of un. Go to bed now, if you caan't eat, an' taake the bwoy, an' thank God for lining your dark cloud with this silver. If He forgives 'e, an' this here gude grey Martin forgives 'e, who be I to fret? Worse'n you've been forgived at fust hand by the Lard when He travelled on flesh-an'-blood feet 'mong men; an' folks have short memories for dates, an' them as sniggers now will be dust or dotards 'fore Tim's grawed. When you've been a lawful wife ten year an' more, who's gwaine to mind this? Not little Tim's fellow bwoys an' gals, anyway. His awn generation won't trouble him, an' he'll find a wise guardian in Martin, an' a lovin' gran'mother in me. Dry your eyes an' be a Blanchard. God A'mighty sends sawls in the world His awn way, an' chooses the faithers an' mothers for 'em; an' He's never taught Nature to go second to parson yet, worse luck. 'Tis done, an' to grumble at a dead man's doin's--specially if you caan't mend 'em--be vain."

"My share was half, an' not less," said Chris.

"Aye, you say so, but 'tis a deed wheer the blame ban't awften divided equal," answered Mrs. Blanchard. "Wheer's the maiden as caan't wait for her weddin' bells?"

The use of the last two words magically swept Chris back into the past. The coincidence was curious, and she remembered when a man, destined never to listen to such melody, declared impatiently that he heard it in the hidden heart of a summer day long past. She did not reply to her mother, but arose and took her child and went to rest.