Part 9

'I have thought of that, you dear true soul,' he interrupted. 'I know that you will not wish to hurt them. But, Honor, there will be no desertion. I have only to cut a gap through the hedge of your paddock, and in three minutes, straight as an arrow, you can go from one house to the other. Round by the road is longer, but when you are at Chimsworthy we'll have a path between; then you can go to and fro as you like, and the little ones will be always on the run. You can have them all in with you when and as long as you like; and my father will be over-pleased if your father will come and keep him company on the Look-out stone. Since Uncle Taverner and he have quarrelled father has been dull, and felt the want of some one to talk to. So you see all will be just right. Everything comes as though it were fitted to be as we are going to make it.'

Again he paused, waiting for her answer. Whilst he had been speaking she had worked herself up to the necessary pitch of resolution to tell him something--not all, no! all she could not tell.

'Larry! it cannot be. I am going to marry another.'

He stood still, motionless, not even breathing, gazing at her with stupid wonder. What she said was impossible. Then a puff of north-west wind came from the far ocean, rolling over the down, gathering the fragrance of the yellow sea, and condensing it; then poured it as a breaking wave over the heads of those two standing in the lane cut through the golden trees. And with the odour came a humming, a low thrilling music, as the wind passed through the myriad spines beneath the foam of flower, and set them vibrating as the tongues of AEolian harps. The sweetness and the harmony were in the air, all around, only not in the hearts of those two young people, standing breast deep in the gorse-brake. The wind passed, and all was still once more. They stood opposite each other, speechless. Her hand, which he had let go, had fallen, and the blood dropped from it. How long they thus stood neither knew. He was looking at her; she had bent her head, and the sun on her hair was more glorious than on the gorse-flowers. He would have pierced to the depth of her soul and read it if he could, but he was baffled. There was an impenetrable veil over it, through which he could not see.

'You do not--you have not loved me,' he said with an effort. This was the meaning of her coldness, her reserve. Then he put out his left hand and touched her, touched her lightly on the bosom. That light touch was powerful as the rod of Moses on the rock in Horeb. Her self-control deserted her. She clasped her hands on her breast, and bowed, and burst into convulsive weeping, which was made worse by her efforts to arrest it and to speak.

Hillary said nothing. He was too dazed to ask for any explanation, too stupefied by the unexpected declaration that cut away for ever the ground of his happiness.

She waved her hand. 'Leave me alone. Go, Larry, go! I can tell you nothing more! Let me alone! Oh, leave me alone, Larry!'

He could not refuse to obey, her distress was so great, her entreaty so urgent. Silent, filled with despair, with his eyes on the ground, he went along the straight-cut path towards the road, and nearly ran against Kate.

'Oh! you here!' exclaimed the lively girl, 'then Honor is not far distant. Where is she? What, yonder! and I have been to Langford to look for her. What is the matter? Oh, fiddlesticks! you have been making yourselves and each other miserable. There is no occasion for that till all is desperate, and it is not so yet. Come along, Larry, back to Honor. I must see her; I want to tell her something, and you may as well be by. You are almost one of the family.'

She made him follow her. Honor had recovered her composure when left to herself, unwatched, and she was able to disguise her emotions from her sister.

'Oh, Honor!' exclaimed Kate, 'I have something to tell you. I think you've been a fool, and too precipitate--I do indeed, and so does Sam Voaden. A little while ago I chanced to go down the lane after some water, when, curiously enough, Sam was coming along it, and we had a neighbourly word or two between us. I told Sam all about Charles, and what Mr. Langford charged him with.'

'Kate--you never--!' gasped Honor in dismay.

'I did. Why not? Where's the hurt? Sam swore to me he'd tell no one.'

'What is this?' asked Hillary.

'Don't you know?' retorted Kate. 'What, has Honor not told you? Faith! there never was another girl like her for padlocking her tongue. I'm sure I could not keep from telling. Sam saw I was in trouble and asked the reason, and my breast was as full as my pitcher, so it overflowed. Well, Honor, Sam is not such a fool as some suppose. He has more sense than all we Luxmores put together--leastways, than we had last night. He says he don't believe a word of it, and that you was to blame for acting on it till you knew it was true.'

'It is true. I know it is true,' said Honor disconsolately. 'It is no use denying it.'

'But, as Sam said, why act on it till it is proved? Where is Charles? All you know is from Taverner Langford, and he is an interested party; he may be mistaken, or he may put things wrong way on wilfully.'

'No, Kate, no! You should not have spoken.'

'But I have spoken. If a pitcher is full, will it not run over the brim? I have been over-full, and have overflowed. That is nature, my nature, and I can't help it. No hurt is done. Sam will not talk about it to anyone; and what he says shows more sense than is to be found in all the nine heads that go under our cottage roof, wise as you consider yourself, Honor. Sam says nothing ought to be promised or done till Charles has been seen and you have heard what account he can give of himself.'

'His letter, Kate?'

'Well, what of his letter? He says nothing about stealing in it--stealing a thousand pounds. What he says may mean no more than his running away and leaving ninepence a day for nothing.'

'I am sorry you spoke,' said Honor.

'I am glad I spoke,' said Kate sharply. 'I tell you Sam's brain is bigger than all our nine. He saw the rights of the matter at once, and--look here!--he promised me that he would go and find Charles if he's gone no further than Plymouth.'

'You told him where he was!' exclaimed Honor, aghast.

'Of course I did. I wasn't going to send him off searching to Lundy Isle or Patagonia. Well, Sam says that he'll go and find him on certain conditions?'

'On what conditions?'

'Never mind, they don't concern you, they are private. And he wants to have a talk with Larry first; but Sam says he don't believe Charles took the money. He's too much of a Luxmore to act dishonourable, he said.'

Honor was still unconvinced. 'Larry,' continued Kate, 'will you go at once to Swaddledown and see Sam?'

'Yes; but I understand nothing of what this is about. You must explain it to me.'

'No, Larry, go to Sam--he knows all.'

In after years, when the gorse was flowering full, Honor said to Larry, 'The honey scent always brings back to my memory _one_ day.'

'Yes,' he replied; 'the furze is like love, thorns and flowers; but the flowers grow, and swell, and burst, and blaze, and swallow up the thorns, that none are seen.'

*CHAPTER XXXIV.*

*THE VISITATION.*

The amazement of Larry was equalled by his indignation when he heard from Sam Voaden the whole story of the charge against Charles, and of Honor consenting to save him at the cost of herself. He did not share Sam's confidence in the groundlessness of the charge; he thought Charles quite rascal enough to have robbed his master and bolted with the money. Nevertheless he thought that the best thing that could be done was for Sam to go after Charles, as he himself could not do so, on account of his arm and collar-bone; and he urged on Voaden to use his best endeavours, if he found Charles, which was doubtful, to persuade him to return the money, through him, to Langford.

'When he finds that he is suspected he may do that, especially if you threaten to hand him over to the constables should he refuse.'

'I don't believe he ever took it,' said Sam. 'I know Charles better than you.'

Hillary was coming away from Swaddledown, along the road or lane to Broadbury, when he met his uncle Taverner, in his Sunday suit, a hat on his head, walking along lustily, with a stick in his hand.

Larry stood in the way.

'Uncle Taverner,' he said.

'Stand aside,' said Langford roughly.

'One word.'

'Not one! I have nothing to do with you or yours. Stand aside that I may pass on.'

'I cannot; I will not! You are in my path, not I in yours--that is, in the path of my life's happiness.'

Langford looked at him interrogatively.

'Uncle Langford, I must speak to you.'

'I am busy, I have to go to the church. It is the rural dean's visitation. I am churchwarden.'

'I will not detain you long.'

'I will not be detained at all.'

'I must speak to you, uncle. You are too--too cruel! you have come between me and happiness.'

'Get along. Don't think anything you say will make me leave Langford to you.'

'It is not that. I have not given that a thought. But, Honor----'

'What of Honor?' asked Taverner sharply, stopping.

'I love her, uncle--I love her with my whole heart. I always have loved her, more or less, but now I love her as I can love no one else.'

'Oh, that is it!' exclaimed the old man, bending his brows, and disguising his agitation and annoyance by striking the stones out of the road with the end of his stick. 'A boy's fancy, light as thistle-seed; and a boy's head is as full of fancies as a thistle is of seed.'

'Nothing of the sort,' said the young man vehemently. 'There is no one but Honor can make me what I know I ought to become. I have never had a mother or a sister to guide me. I have grown up unchecked, unadvised, and now I want my dear, dear Honor to help me to be what I should be, and am not. Uncle! you sneer at Chimsworthy because it is full of docks, and thistles, and rushes, but I am like that--worthy land, and none but Honor can weed me. Why do you come cruelly in between us, and kill her happiness as well as mine? Her you cannot make other than noble and true, but me!--me, without her you will ruin. I must have Honor! I cannot live without her. Oh, uncle, uncle! what are you doing? It is unworthy of you to use poor Honor's necessity to wring from her her consent. You know she only gives it to save her brother. Why, because she is generous, would you take advantage of her generosity?'

The lad pleaded with earnestness, vehemence, and with tears in his voice. Taverner looked at him, and thought, 'How like he is to his mother! This is Blandina's face and Blandina's voice. He is not a Nanspian, he is a Langford.' But he said roughly, 'Pshaw! let me go by. The rural dean is waiting. Do not you mistake me for a weathercock to be turned by every breath. You must get over your fancy--it is a fancy--or change it to regard for Honor as your aunt. Do not attempt to move me. What is settled is settled.'

As Hillary still interposed himself between Langford and his course the old man raised his stick.

'Come! must I strike you?' he said angrily. 'I've spoken to you more freely than you deserve. Stand aside. I am not to be turned from my way by you or any other.'

He went forward headlong, striking about him with his stick, and was not to be further stayed. He went, as he said, to the church to meet the rural dean, but not only because summoned--he went also to see him as surrogate, and obtain a marriage licence.

'A Langford cannot be married by banns,' he said. 'And I'm not going to have everyone in church sniggering when our names are called.'

As he went along the road, head down, muttering, the face of Hillary haunted him--pale with sickness, refined, spiritualised by suffering, not the suffering of the body but of the mind. He was strangely like Blandina in her last sickness, and there were tones in his voice of entreaty that brought back to Langford memories of his sister and of his mother.

He arrived at the church before the rector and the rural dean. The latter was taking refreshment at the parsonage a mile away. Would Nanspian be there? He did not wish to meet him, but he would not be away lest it should be said he had feared to meet him. Nanspian was not there. He had forgotten all about the visitation.

'He wants a deal of reminding,' said the clerk, who had unlocked the church. 'He forgets most things worse than ever since his stroke.'

Langford disengaged himself from the clerk and entered the church--a noble building, of unusual beauty. In the nave at his feet was a long slate stone, and the name TAVERNER LANGFORD. He knew very well that the stone was there, with its inscription and the date 1635; but as he stood looking at it an uncomfortable feeling came over him, as if he were standing at the edge of his own grave. He was alone in the church. The air was chill and damp, and smelt of decay. The dry-rot was in the pews. The slates were speckled, showing that the church roof was the haunt of bats, who flew about in flights when darkness set in. If it were cold and damp in the church, what must it be in the vault below? He knew what was there--the dust of many Langfords, one or two old lead coffins crushed down by their own weight. And he knew that some day he would lie there, and the 'Taverner Langford' on the stone would apply to him as well as to his ancestor. How horrible to be there at night, with the cold eating into him, and the smell of mildew about him, and the bats fleeting above him! The thought made him uneasy, and he went out of the church into the sunlight, thinking that he would pay a woman to scour the stone of the bat-stains which befouled it. He had never dreamed of doing this before, but when he considered that he must himself lie there, he took a loathing to the bats, and an indignation at the vault-covering stone being disfigured by them.

He walked through the coarse grass to where his sister was laid. She was not buried in the family vault. Nanspian had not wished it.

The clerk came to him.

'Mr. Nanspian had a double-walled grave made,' said the clerk, who was also sexton. 'Folks laughed, I mind, when he ordered it, and said he was sure to marry again--a fine lusty man like he. But they were wrong. He never did. He has bided true to her memory.'

'I would never have forgiven him had he done other,' said Langford.

'I reckon you never forgive him, though he has not,' said the solemn clerk.

Langford frowned and moved his shoulders uneasily.

'The grave is cared for,' said he in a churlish tone.

'Young Larry Nanspian sees to that,' answered the clerk. 'If there be no other good in him there is that--he don't forget what is due to his mother, though she be dead.'

Langford put his stick to the letters on the headstone. 'In loving memory of Blandina Nanspian, only daughter of Moses Langford, of Langford, gent.' 'Oh!' muttered Taverner, 'my father could call himself a gentleman when he had Chimsworthy as well as Langford, but I suppose I can't call myself anything but yeoman on my poor farm. Blandina should never have married, and then Chimsworthy would not have gone out of the family.'

'But to whom would both have gone after your death, Mr. Langford?' asked the clerk. ''Twould be a pity if an old ancient family like yours came to an end, and, I reckon, some day both will be joined again, by Mr. Larry.'

'No, no!--no, no!' growled Taverner, and walked away. He saw the rural dean and the rector coming through the churchyard gate.

An hour later, Taverner was on his way home. He had paid the fee, made the necessary application, and would receive the licence on the morrow. It was too late for him to draw back, even had he been inclined. Taverner was a proud man, and he was obstinate. He flattered himself that when he had once resolved on a thing he always went through with it; no dissuasion, no impediments turned him aside. But he was not easy in mind as he walked home. Never before had he seen the family likeness so strong in Larry; he had caught an occasional look of his mother in the boy's face before, but now that he was ill in mind and body the likeness was striking. Taverner still laid no great weight on Larry's expressed attachment for Honor; he did not know that love was not a fiction, and was unable to conceive of it as anything more than a passing fancy. What really troubled the old man was the prospect of disarrangement of his accustomed mode of life. When he was married his wife would claim entrance into his parlour, and would meddle with what he had there, would use his desk, would come in and out when he was busy, would talk when he wanted quiet. A housekeeper could be kept in order by threat of dismissal, but a wife was tied for life. Then--how about Larry? He might forbid him the house, but would he keep away? Would not he insist on seeing his old friend and companion and love, Honor? That would be dangerous to his own peace of mind, might threaten his happiness. He remembered some words of Mrs. Veale, and his blood rushed through his head like a scalding wave.

When he came to his door Mrs. Veale was there. She seemed to know by instinct his purpose in going to Bratton.

'Have you got it, master?' she asked with husky voice and fluttering eyelids.

'Got what?'

'What you went to get--the licence.'

'It is coming by post to-morrow. Are you satisfied?' he asked, sneering, and with a glance of dislike.

'A corpse-light came up the lane and danced on the doorstep last night,' said Mrs. Veale. 'And you are thinking of marrying! "I'd better have left things as they were," said the man who scalded his dog to clear it of fleas. The spider spread for a midget and caught a hornet. "Marry come up," said the mote (tree-stump), "I will wed the flame;" so she took him, embraced him, and----' Mrs. Veale stooped to the hearth, took up a handful of light wood-ash, and blew it in her master's face from her palm, then said, 'Ashes, remain.'

The ensuing night the house was disturbed. Taverner Langford was ill, complaining of violent sickness, cramps, and burning in the throat. He must have a doctor sent for from Okehampton.

'Get a doctor's foot on your floor and he leaves his shoes,' said Mrs. Veale. 'No, wait till morning. If you're no better then we will send.'

'Go out of my room,' shouted Taverner to the farm men and maids who had crowded in. His calls and hammerings with the stick had roused everyone in the house. 'Do you think I am going to die because I'm took with spasms? Mrs. Veale is enough. Let her remain.'

'I reckon I caught a chill standing in the damp church with the smell of the vaults in my nose,' said Taverner, sitting in his chair and groaning. 'I felt the cold rise.'

'It is waiting,' remarked Mrs. Veale,

'What is waiting?' he asked irritably.

'The corpse-candle; I see it on the doorstep. And you that should be considering to have the bell tolled ordering a wedding peal! Those who slide on ice must expect falls, and elephants mustn't dance on tight-ropes. Rabbits that burrow in bogs won't have dry quarters. The fox said, "Instead of eating I shall be eaten," when, seeking a hen-roost, he walked into a kennel.'

*CHAPTER XXXV.*

*A WARNING.*

The day was wet; a warm south-westerly wind was breathing, not blowing, and its breath was steam, a steam that condensed into minute water-drops. The thatch was dripping. The window panes were blind with shiny films of moisture. There had been dry weather for the haysel, glorious weather, and now, just when wanted, the earth was bathed in a cloud. It would be inaccurate to say that it rained. It rained only under the eaves and beneath the trees; the earth was taking a vapour bath.

Honor and Kate were in the cottage, basket-weaving. The children were at school. No wet dismays the Devonian, but east wind throws him on his back, and he shrivels with frost. Kate had recovered her spirits marvellously since her interview with Sam Voaden. She had a buoyant heart; it was like a cork in water, that might be pressed under, but came up with a leap again. She felt keenly for the time, but wounds speedily healed with her. It was other with Honor; she remained depressed, pale, thin looking, and silent. She said nothing to her sister about Hillary. Kate had some glimmering idea that Honor liked the young man, but did not suppose that there was more in her heart than a liking. But Kate, though she dearly loved her sister, was somewhat in awe of her. She never ventured to peer into her soul, and she understood nothing of what went on there. Honor was scrupulous, precise, close; and Kate, though a good-hearted, true girl, was not close, but open, not precise, but careless, and ready to stretch a point of conscience to suit her pleasure. Kate, in the presence of Honor, was much like an unmathematical boy set over a problem in Euclid. She was sure that all was very true in Honor's mind, but also that the process by which it arrived at its conclusions was beyond her understanding. Honor possessed, what is the prerogative of few women, a just mind. Forced by her position into dividing between the children who looked up to her, obliged to consider their complaints against each other in petty quarrels from opposite sides, and of deciding equably, she had acquired breadth and fairness and self-restraint, against action upon impulse. Kate was eager to take sides, and was partial; Honor never. She was always disposed to consider that there was something to be said on the side opposed to that first presented to her, and was cautious not to pronounce an opinion till she had heard both sides. This Kate could not understand, and she regarded her sister as wanting in warmth and enthusiasm.

'No news yet from Sam,' said Kate. 'That is odd. I thought we should have known at once about Charles.'

'How could that be? Plymouth is a large place, and Sam Voaden will not know where to look. It is even possible that Charles may have sailed.'

'If he has sailed you need not be tied to old Langford--that is, not unless you like.'

'I have passed my word. I cannot withdraw.'

'Fiddlesticks-ends! You only promised on condition that Mr. Langford would not proceed against Charles.'

'He has not proceeded.'

'He can't--if Charles is out of England.'

'But he might have done so the day he discovered his loss, before Charles got away. I gave my word to prevent his taking immediate action, and so Charles had time to make his escape from the country.'

'Taverner Langford had no right to ask it of you.'

'He did ask it, and I gave my word. I cannot withdraw now. That would not be fair and right.'

Kate shrugged her shoulders. 'I should pay him out in his own coin.'

'Like Charles at the circus?'

Kate coloured. 'That was another matter altogether. Mr. Langford had no right to put such a price on his forbearance. Besides, I don't believe in Charles's guilt. Sam does not, and, thick as some folks think Sam, he has as much brains as are wanted to fill a large skull, and these of first quality. Sam can see into a millstone.'

'Yes, Kate, but what is in a millstone?--the same as outside.'

'Sam says that he knows Charles is innocent.'

'What reasons does he give?'

'Oh, none at all. I did not ask for any. _He_ thinks it, that is enough for me.'

'He _thinks_ it, now; he knows it, a minute ago.'

'I am quite sure that Charles never took the money.'

'Why?'

'There you are again with your "whys." Because Sam says it.'

'Yes, dear Kate, Sam is a good-hearted fellow, who will not think badly of anyone, and he supposes others are as straightforward as himself.'