Chapter 55

MR. LYDDON'S TACTICS

In the morning Mrs. Blanchard was worse, and some few days later lay in danger of her life. Her son spent half his time in the sick-room, walked about bootless to make no sound, and fretted with impatience at thought of the length of days which must elapse before Chris could return to Chagford. Telegrams had been sent to Martin Grimbal, who was spending his honeymoon out of England; but on the most sanguine computation he and his wife would scarcely be home again in less than ten days or a fortnight.

Hope and gloom succeeded each other swiftly within Will Blanchard's mind, and at first he discounted the consistent pessimism of Doctor Parsons somewhat more liberally than the issue justified. When, therefore, he was informed of the truth and stood face to face with his mother's danger, hope sank, and his unstable spirit was swept from an altitude of secret confidence to the opposite depth of despair.

Through long silences, while she slept or seemed to do so, the young man traced back his life and hers; and he began to see what a good mother means. Then he accused himself of many faults and made impetuous confession to his wife and her father. On these occasions Phoebe softened his self-blame, but Mr. Lyddon let Will talk, and told him for his consolation that every mother's son must be accused of like offences.

"Best of childer falls far short," he assured Will; "best brings tu many tears, if 't is awnly for wantonness; an' him as thinks he've been all he should be to his mother lies to himself; an' him as says he has, lies to other people."

Will's wild-hawk nature was subdued before this grave crisis in his parent's life; he sat through long nights and tended the fire with quiet fingers; he learnt from the nurse how to move a pillow tenderly, how to shut a door without any sound. He wearied Doctor Parsons with futile propositions, but the physician's simulated cynicism often broke down in secret before this spectacle of the son's dog-like pertinacity. Blanchard much desired to have a vein opened for his mother, nor was all the practitioner's eloquence equal to convincing him such a course could not be pursued.

"She 'm gone that gashly white along o' want o' blood," declared Will; "an' I be busting wi' gude red blood, an' why for shouldn't you put in a pipe an' draw off a quart or so for her betterment? I'll swear 't would strengthen the heart of her."

Time passed, and it happened on one occasion, while walking abroad between his vigils, that Blanchard met John Grimbal. Will had reflected curiously of late days into what ghostly proportions his affair with the master of the Red House now dwindled before this greater calamity of his mother's sickness; but sudden sight of the enemy roused passion and threw back the man's mind to that occasion of their last conversation in the woods.

Yet the first words that now passed were to John Grimbal's credit. He made an astonishing and unexpected utterance. Indeed, the spoken word surprised him as much as his listener, and he swore at himself for a fool when Will's retort reached his ear.

They were passing at close quarters,--Blanchard on foot, John upon horseback,--when the latter said,--

"How 's Mrs. Blanchard to-day?"

"Mind your awn business an' keep our name off your lips!" answered the pedestrian, who misunderstood the question, as he did most questions where possible, and now supposed that Grimbal meant Phoebe.

His harsh words woke instant wrath.

"What a snarling, cross-bred cur you are! I should judge your own family will be the first to thank me for putting you under lock and key. Hell to live with, you must be."

"God rot your dirty heart! Do it--do it; doan't jaw--do it! But if you lay a finger 'pon me while my mother 's bad or have me took before she 'm stirring again, I'll kill you when I come out. God 's my judge if I doan't!"

Then, forgetting what had taken him out of doors, and upon what matter he was engaged, Will turned back in a tempest, and hastened to his mother's cottage.

At Monks Barton Mr. Lyddon and his daughter had many and long conversations upon the subject of Blanchard's difficulties. Both trembled to think what might be the issue if his mother died; both began to realise that there could be no more happiness for Will until a definite extrication from his present position was forthcoming. At his daughter's entreaty the miller finally determined on a strong step. He made up his mind to visit Grimbal at the Red House, and win from him, if possible, some undertaking which would enable him to relieve his son-in-law of the present uncertainty.

Phoebe pleaded for silence, and prayed her father to get a promise at any cost in that direction.

"Let him awnly promise 'e never to tell of his free will, an' the door against danger 's shut," she said. "When Will knaws Grimbal 's gwaine to be dumb, he'll rage a while, then calm down an' be hisself again. 'T is the doubt that drove him frantic."

"I'll see the man, then; but not a word to Will's ear. All the fat would be in the fire if he so much as dreamed I was about any such business. As to a promise, if I can get it I will. An' 'twixt me an' you, Phoebe, I'm hopeful of it. He 's kept quiet so long that theer caan't be any fiery hunger 'gainst Will in un just now. I'll soothe un down an' get his word of honour if it 's to be got. Then your husband can do as he pleases."

"Leave the rest to me, Faither."

A fortnight later the cautious miller, after great and exhaustive reflection, set out to carry into practice his intention. An appointment was made on the day that Will drove to Moreton to meet his sister and Martin Grimbal. This removed him out of the way, while Billy had been despatched to Okehampton for some harness, and Mr. Lyddon's daughter, alone in the secret, was spending the afternoon with her mother-in-law.

So Miller walked over to the Red House and soon found himself waiting for John Grimbal in a cheerless but handsome dining-room. The apartment suggested little occupation. A desk stood in the window, and upon it were half a dozen documents under a paper-weight made from a horse's hoof. A fire burned in the broad grate; a row of chairs, upholstered in dark red leather, stood stiffly round; a dozen indifferent oil-paintings of dogs and horses filled large gold frames upon the walls; and upon a massive sideboard of black oak a few silver cups, won by Grimbal's dogs at various shows and coursing meetings, were displayed.

Mr. Lyddon found himself kept waiting about ten minutes; then John entered, bade him a cold "good afternoon" without shaking hands, and placed an easy-chair for him beside the fire.

"Would you object to me lighting my pipe, Jan Grimbal?" asked the miller humbly; and by way of answer the other took a box of matches from his pocket and handed it to the visitor.

"Thank you, thank you; I'm obliged to you. Let me get a light, then I'll talk to 'e."

He puffed for a minute or two, while Grimbal waited in silence for his guest to begin.

"Now, wi'out any beatin' of the bush or waste of time, I'll speak. I be come 'bout Blanchard, as I dare say you guessed. The news of what he done nine or ten years ago comed to me just a month since. A month 't was, or might be three weeks. Like a bolt from the blue it falled 'pon me an' that's a fact. An' I heard how you knawed the thing--you as had such gude cause to hate un wance."

"'Once?'"

"Well, no man's hate can outlive his reason, surely? I was with 'e, tu, then; but a man what lets himself suffer lifelong trouble from a fule be a fule himself. Not that Blanchard 's all fule--far from it. He've ripened a little of late years--though slowly as fruit in a wet summer. Granted he bested you in the past an' your natural hope an' prayer was to be upsides wi' un some day. Well, that's all dead an' buried, ban't it? I hated the shadow of un in them days so bad as ever you did; but you gets to see more of the world, an' the men that walks in it when you 'm moved away from things by the distance of a few years. Then you find how wan deed bears upon t' other. Will done no more than you'd 'a' done if the cases was altered. In fact, you 'm alike at some points, come to think of it."

"Is that what you've walked over here to tell me?"

"No; I'm here to ax 'e frank an' plain, as a sportsman an' a straight man wi' a gude heart most times, to tell me what you 'm gwaine to do 'bout this job. I'm auld, an' I assure 'e you'll hate yourself if you give un up. 'T would be outside your carater to do it."

"You say that! Would you harbour a convict from Princetown if you found him hiding on your farm?"

"Ban't a like case. Theer 's the personal point of view, if you onderstand me. A man deserts from the army ten years ago, an' you, a sort o' amateur soldier, feels 't is your duty to give un to justice."

"Well, isn't that what has happened?"

"No fay! Nothing of the sort. If 't was your duty, why didn't you do it fust minute you found it out? If you'd writ to the authorities an' gived the man up fust moment, I might have said 't was a hard deed, but I'd never have dared to say 't weern't just. Awnly you done no such thing. You nursed the power an' sucked the thought, same as furriners suck at poppy poison. You played with the picture of revenge against a man you hated, an' let the idea of what you'd do fill your brain; an' then, when you wanted bigger doses, you told Phoebe what you knawed--reckoning as she'd tell Will bimebye. That's bad, Jan Grimbal--worse than poisoning foxes, by God! An' you knaw it."

"Who are you, to judge me and my motives?"

"An auld man, an' wan as be deeply interested in this business. Time was when we thought alike touching the bwoy; now we doan't; 'cause your knowledge of un hasn't grawed past the point wheer he downed us, an' mine has."

"You're a fool to say so. D' you think I haven't watched the young brute these many years? Self-sufficient, ignorant, hot-headed, always in the wrong. What d' you find to praise in the clown? Look at his life. Failure! failure! failure! and making of enemies at every turn. Where would he be to-day but for you?"

"Theer 's a rare gert singleness of purpose 'bout un."

"A grand success he is, no doubt. I suppose you couldn't get on without him now. Yet you cursed the cub freely enough once."

"Bitter speeches won't serve 'e, Grimbal; but they show me mighty clear what's hid in you. Your sawl 's torn every way by this thing, an' you turn an' turn again to it, like a dog to his vomit, yet the gude in 'e drags 'e away."

"Better cut all that. You won't tell me what you've come for, so I'll tell you. You want me to promise not to move in this matter,--is that so?"

"Why, not ezackly. I want more 'n that. I never thought for a minute you would do it, now you've let the time pass so far. I knaw you'll never act so ugly a paart now; but Will doan 't, an' he'll never b'lieve me if I told un."

The other made a sound, half growl, half mirthless laugh.

"You've taken it all for granted, then--you, who know more about what 's in my mind than I do myself? You're a fond old man; and if you'd wanted to screw me up to the pitch of taking the necessary trouble, you couldn't have gone a better way. I've been too busy to bother about the young rascal of late or he'd lie in gaol now."

"Doan't say no such vain things! D' you think I caan't read what your face speaks so plain? A man's eyes tell the truth awftener than what his tongue does, for they 'm harder to break into lying. 'Tu busy'! You be foul to the very brainpan wi' this job an' you knaw it."

"Is the hatred all on my side, d' you suppose? Curse the brute to hell! And you'd have me eat humble-pie to the man who 's wrecked my life?"

"No such thing at all. All the hatred be on your side. He'd forgived 'e clean. Even now, though you 'm fretting his guts to fiddlestrings because of waiting for 'e, he feels no malice--no more than the caged rat feels 'gainst the man as be carrying him, anyway."

"You're wrong there. He'd kill me to-morrow. He let me know it. In a weak moment I asked him the other day how his mother was; and he turned upon me like a mad dog, and told me to keep his name off my lips, and said he'd have my life if I gave him up."

"That's coorious then, for he 's hungry to give himself up, so soon as the auld woman 's well again."

"Talk! I suppose he sent you to whine for him?"

"Not so. He'd have blocked my road if he'd guessed."

"Well, I'm honest when I say I don't care a curse what he does or does not. Let him go his way. And as to proclaiming him, I shall do so when it pleases me. An odious crime that,--a traitor to his country."

"Doan't become you nor me to dwell 'pon that, seeing how things was."

Grimbal rose.

"You think he 's a noble fellow, and that your daughter had a merciful escape. It isn't for me to suggest you are mistaken. Now I've no more time to spare, I'm afraid."

The miller also rose, and as he prepared to depart he spoke a final word.

"You 'm terrible pushed for time, by the looks of it. I knaw 't is hard in this life to find time to do right, though every man can make a 'mazing mort o' leisure for t' other thing. But hear me: you 'm ruinin' yourself, body an' sawl, along o' this job--body an' sawl, like apples in a barrel rots each other. You 'm in a bad way, Jan Grimbal, an' I'm sorry for 'e--brick house an' horses an' dogs notwithstanding. Have a spring cleaning in that sulky brain o' yourn, my son, an' be a man wi' yourself, same as you be a man wi' the world."

The other sneered.

"Don't get hot. The air is cold. And as you've given so much good advice, take some, too. Mind your own business, and let your son-in-law mind his."

Mr. Lyddon shook his head.

"Such words do only prove me right. Look in your heart an' see how 't is with you that you can speak to an auld man so. 'T is common metal shawing up in 'e, an' I'm sorry to find it."

He set off home without more words and, as chance ordered the incident, emerged from the avenue gates of the Red House while a covered vehicle passed by on the way from Moreton Hampstead. Its roof was piled with luggage, and inside sat Chris, her husband, and Will. They spied Mr. Lyddon and made room for him; but later on in the evening Will taxed the miller with his action.

"I knawed right well wheer you'd come from," he said gloomily, "an' I'd 'a' cut my right hand off rather than you should have done it. You did n't ought, Faither; for I'll have no living man come between me an' him."

"I made it clear I was on my awn paart," explained Mr. Lyddon; but that night Will wrote a letter to his enemy and despatched it by a lad before breakfast on the following morning.

"Sir," he said, "this comes to say that Miller seen you yesterday out of his own head, and if I had knowed he was coming I would have took good care to prevent it.

"W. BLANCHARD."