Part 18

He still knelt when Doctor Mathers suddenly entered, coughed, and plunged a hand into his pocket fiercely for more cigarettes. Then Myles rose, without visible emotion, to find the young physician red and angry. Indeed he now relieved his mingled feelings by swearing a little.

"Your wife's all right, and of course I'm infernally sorry about this. You know it's not my fault. The shock quite settled the matter, humanly speaking. A most unlucky chance. What in the name of God were you doing in the middle of the night in the woods? It's enough to make any doctor get savage. I'm heartily sorry for you both--heartily; but I'm mighty sorry for myself too. As a man with his way to make--but, of course, you don't know what all the fools on the countryside will say, though I well do. It's always the doctor's fault when this happens. However, I can't expect you to be sorry for me, I know."

"I am, Mathers. The blame of this sad thing is mine--all. I should have been firm, and not yielded to an unwise idea. And if you've no objection, I should like to see my wife and tell her how entirely I blame myself."

"It's no good talking like that, my dear sir; but, fault or no fault, let it be a lesson to you next time. Be firm. Mrs. Stapledon was frightened by the ghost of the devil apparently. Anyway, I can't learn what the nature of the shock was. 'Something grey--suddenly close to me,' is all she will say. That might be a wandering donkey. It's all very cruel and hard for you both--a jolly fine little boy he would have been. Better luck next time. I'll be back again in a few hours."

"I may see Honor?"

"Yes, certainly; but cut it short, and don't talk about fault or blame on anybody. Let her think you're glad--eh?"

"She wouldn't believe it."

"Well, well, don't make a fuss. Just say the right thing and then clear out. I want her to sleep before I come back. You know how sorry I am; but we must look ahead. Good morning."

A little later Stapledon, his heart beating hard and a sort of fear upon him, knocked at the door of his wife's room and was allowed to enter. In the half light he saw Mark sitting by Honor, and heard the old man speak in a voice so soft and womanly that Myles could scarce believe it was his uncle.

"Why, your good, brave heart will tide you over for all our sakes. 'Twas part of the great web of woman's sorrow spun in the beginning, dearie. It had to be. You thought how life was going to change for you; but it hasn't changed--not yet--that's all the matter. Take your life up again where you set it down; and just go on with it, like a brave girl. Here's Myles come. I hear his breathing. He'll say the same, in better words than mine. We must all live through the cloud, my Honor, and see it sink before the good sunshine that will follow. 'Twasn't Nature's will this should happen so, but God's own. There's comfort in that for you. And we'll have God and Nature both to fight on our side come next time."

He departed, and husband and wife were left alone. For a moment he could only hold her hand and press it and marvel to see how young she appeared again. Her eyes were very bright--like stars in the dim room. She looked at him and pressed back on his hand. Then a flicker of a whimsical smile woke at the corner of her lips and she spoke in a little voice.

"I'm so--so sorry, dear heart. I did my very best--I----"

"Don't," he said; and the old nurse in the next room frowned at his loud, hoarse tones.

"You'll say that I've been wasting my time again--I know you will."

"Please, please, Honor. For God's sake not at a minute like this--I----"

Then he stopped. Where was the answer to his prayer? Here he stood ranting and raving like a lunatic, while she, who had endured all, appeared calm and wholly self-possessed.

"The fault was all mine--every bit of it," he began again quietly. "If I had not let my headstrong little love go into the woods, the child----"

"Don't blame yourself. The past is past, and I'll never return to it in word or in thought, if I can help doing so. Only there are things we don't guess at, Myles--terrible things hidden and not believed in. Our little son had to die. It is cruel--cruel. I cannot explain--not now. Perhaps some day I will if I am ever brave enough."

"Don't talk wildly like this, my darling Honor. You are overwrought; you will be better very soon. Uncle Mark was right. Life has not changed for us."

"It never will. Things hidden--active things say 'No'! Oh, the grey horror of it there!"

She shivered and put her arms round Myles, but Mrs. Brimblecombe had heard her patient's voice lifted in terror, and this was more than any professional nurse could be expected to stand. As the medical man before her, she considered her own great reputation, and, entering now, bade Myles take his leave at once.

"Please to go, sir," she said aside to him. "You really mustn't bide no longer; an' 'tis very ill-convenient this loud talking; an' your voice, axin' your pardon, be lifted a deal tu high for a sick chamber."

"I'll go," he answered; "but don't leave her. The cursed accident of light or shade, or whatever it was that frightened her overnight, is in her mind still. She's wandering about it now. Soothe her all you can--all you can. And if she wants me, let me know."

In the passage red-eyed women of the farm met him, and Mrs. Loveys spoke.

"We'm all broken-hearted for 'e, I'm sure; an'--an' would 'e like just to see the dear, li'l perfect bwoy? Her wouldn't--missis. But p'raps you would, seein' 'tis your awn. An' the mother of un may be glad to knaw what he 'peared like later on, when she can bear to think on it."

Myles hesitated, then nodded without words and followed Mrs. Loveys into an empty room. There he looked down, among primroses and lilac that Sally had picked, upon what might have been his son; and he marvelled in dull pain at the dainty beauty of the work; and he stared with a sort of special blank wonder at the exquisite little hands and tiny nails. Presently he bent and kissed this marred mite, then departed, somehow the happier, to plan that it should lie within the churchyard for Honor's sake.

He broke his fast soon after midday, and, upon learning that his wife slept peacefully, sought for his own comfort the granite counsellors of the high hills. There was an emptiness in life before this stroke; it left him helpless, not knowing what to turn to. His great edifice of many plans and hopes was all a ruin.

Much to their own regret, Cramphorn and Churdles Ash met Stapledon as he climbed alone to the Moor. They were very sorry for him in their way, and they felt that to touch their hats and pass him by without words at such a moment would not be fitting.

"Sure, we'm grievous grieved, all the lot of us," said Jonah grimly--"more for her than you, because, bein' an Endicott, she'm more to me an' Ash than ever you can be. But 'tis a sad evil. Us had thought 'twould be osiers as you li'l wan would rock in--soft an' gentle by his mother's side; but 'tis elm instead--so all's ended, an' nought left but to bend afore the stroke."

Mr. Ash was also philosophical.

"'Tweern't death ezacally as comed 'pon the house, neither; nor yet life, you see. 'Cause you can't say as a babe be dead what never drawed breath, can 'e?"

"An' theer's another cheerful thought for 'e," added Cramphorn, "for though 'tis as painful for a woman to bear a wise man as a fool, no doubt, yet so it might have failed out, an' the pain ends in wan case and turns to joy; an' in t'other case it never ends. An' as 'twas odds he'd have been a poor antic, 'tis better as her should mourn a month for un dead than for all the days of his life, as Scripture sez somewheers."

"Well spoke," commented Churdles. "Never heard nothin' wiser from 'e, Jonah. An', beggin' your pardon, theer's a gert lesson to such a trouble, if a body ban't tu stiff-necked to see it. It do teach us worms o' the airth as even God A'mighty have got a pinch of somethin' human in the nature of Un--as I've allus said for that matter. This here shows how even He can alter His purpose arter a thing be well begun, an' ban't shamed to change His Everlasting Mind now an' again, more'n the wisest of us. Theer's gert comfort in that, if you please."

Stapledon thanked both old men for their consolation, and set his face to the Moor.

*CHAPTER VII.*

*PLOTS AGAINST AN ORPHAN*

The departure of Mrs. Libby and its probable effect upon her son became a matter of local interest, because she had toiled with her old bones for him to the end, and he had taken all her service as a matter of course, but would now feel the loss of his home comforts exceedingly.

"He'll have to get a wife," said the man Pinsent at Sunday supper. All were assembled save Honor, who had now been in her room for three weeks, and still kept it.

"If 'tis awnly for somebody to cook his victuals, the man must marry," declared Collins. Then with some craft he added, "And the question in Little Silver is who's to be the gal."

"He'm a comical tempered chap, to my thinking; an' they do say a man wi' a tie in his speech----" began Pinsent. But he found himself sharply taken to task from the quarter he had secretly aimed at.

"You'd best to mind your awn business, Samuel!" flamed out Sally, then blushed rose-red to the roots of her hair at the laughter her confession won. Her relations alone did not laugh. Margery bent over her plate and grew white rather than red; and Mr. Cramphorn roundly rated the speaker for such a lapse of manners.

"'Fore the whole world, would 'e? I blush for 'e--though you can for yourself still, it seems. An' him never so much as opened his lips on it! 'Tis a most unmaidenly thing, an' never to have been looked for in no darter o' mine."

"Sorry I drawed it from her, notwithstanding," said Pinsent. "I'm sure I'd rather have bit my tongue out than bring red to any gal's cheeks."

"Nobody would hurt her for gold," added Collins.

But Sally was now in tears. She left her supper, and withdrew weeping; her sister gave vent to a little hard laugh; while a moment later Cramphorn, in some discomfort, followed his elder daughter. Then, familiar with Jonah's estimate of Libby, and having no desire to breed further storm, Mark Endicott spoke to Ash.

"What's your opinion of the man, Churdles?"

"A poor creation, your honour," answered the patriarch promptly. "Not a penn'orth o' nature in un, else he'd have had some gal squeezed to his heart so soon as ever he comed by enough money to marry. He'm cold clay, an' awnly waitin' to see which of Jonah's maids be in highest favour--which is most like to have the cottage left to her. His faither was another most calculating chap. The woman what's just gone had awnly half a score short of a hunderd pound saved when he offered hisself. Married for money, in fact; an' that's a 'mazin' thing to happen except among respectable people."

"What d'you say to that, Margery?" asked Myles Stapledon bluntly. He did not like Margery, and her attitude at her sister's discomfiture had not escaped him.

"Ban't for me to speak against my elders," she answered slowly, with a malignant look at the placid veteran. "Mr. Ash--auld as he is--do find it so hard to mind his awn business as other people seemin'ly. He ban't paid for pokin' his ancient nose into Gregory Libby's consarns, I s'pose. But he'm past larnin' manners now, no doubt."

The boyish features of Mr. Ash flushed suddenly and his head shook a little.

"Theer's a sour speech--an' her so young! Worse'n any vinegar you'll be in the marriage cruet, woman, whoever 'tis that's daft enough to take 'e! Fegs! I pity un; an' I pity the Dowl when it's his turn--as it will be some day. To talk to a auld man so!"

Unwonted wrinkles appeared in Mr. Ash's apple-face, and he showed a great disinclination to let the matter drop, though Stapledon bid him be silent. He chattered and growled and demanded an apology, which Margery declined to offer. Then she instantly left the kitchen, so that no argument should rise upon her refusal. She glowered sullenly about her, restrained a strong desire to scream, and then withdrew.

Yet Churdles, though he knew it not, and must have much deplored the fact if it had come to his understanding, was responsible for a practical and valuable lesson to Margery. His words, though they angered her, had not fallen upon deaf ears. She sulked away now in the corner of an empty room and set her wits to work. Mr. Libby was in one respect like heaven; he had to be taken by storm, and Churdles Ash unwittingly indicated the direction of attack.

Margery indeed loved this shifty youth; she adored his cane-coloured hair cut straight across his low forehead, like a child's fringe, his uncertain eyes, his moustache--with a most "gentleman-like droop to it," as she had discovered. She loved him--not for his money but for himself, and her sister's infatuation was of a similar genuine quality. They were primitive maidens both and had seen little of the other sex, owing to their father's suspicions that every man on the eastern side of Dartmoor would run away with them, given the opportunity. Now passion worthy of a better cause burnt in their young hearts, and each raged against the other--inwardly for the most part. Their weapons were different, and whereas Margery's sarcasms proved wholly wasted on her sister, Sally's anger, when roused, generally took the shape of a swinging box on the ear--a retort contemptible enough, no doubt, yet not easy to be ignored. Margery's waspish tongue was no match for her sister's right arm, therefore open quarrels seldom happened; yet each daily strained every nerve, and since Gregory had come to be a mere womanless, desolate orphan, the efforts of both girls were redoubled. It had, however, been left to the sensation of that evening to quicken their wits; and now each, by ways remote, set about a new and more pressing investment of Mr. Libby's lonely heart.

Margery took the word of Mr. Ash to herself, and realised that if her loved one was really waiting to get a hint of Jonah Cramphorn's intentions, her own course must be modified. She knew that her father, despite his surly and overbearing disposition, might be influenced without difficulty; and she possessed the tact and discretion proper to such a task. She had never desired any influence over him until the present, and had indeed thought but little of the future, excepting with reference to herself and Gregory. Now, however, the danger of allowing Sally even an indirect ascendency was made manifest, and Margery determined that her sister must be put out of court at home, by fair means if possible, by foul if necessary.

In a most cold-blooded and calculating spirit she approached the problem of making herself so indispensable to her father that he should come to regard her as his better and more deserving child. That situation once established, no doubt Gregory Libby would be the first to perceive it. If he was backward in doing so, then might she delicately aid his perception; indeed she doubted not that this course would be necessary, for the control she now set herself to maintain over her parent must be more real than apparent at first. She hoped that within a month at the latest it would be safe to hint to Gregory that such supremacy existed.

And meanwhile, hanging over a gate out of doors, so that her tear-stained cheeks might cool, Sally also meditated some definite action whereby the halting regard of the desired object should grow established and affirmed. To a determination she also came, but it fell far short of her sister's in subtlety. She merely fell back upon the trite conceit of a _tertium quid_, and hoped how, once reminded of the fact that other men also found her pleasant in their eyes, Mr. Libby would awaken into jealousy and so take action. Her father she did not consider, because his opinions had long since ceased to weigh with her, when it was possible to disregard them. Sally approached the future in a sanguine spirit, for within the secret places of her heart there lurked an honest belief that Gregory loved her to desperation. Why he delayed to mention the fact, under these distracting circumstances, was not easy to explain; but now, upon his mother's death, there had come a climax in the young man's life; and Sally felt that in the present forlorn circumstances she ought to be, and probably was, his paramount object of reflection.

So she determined to precipitate the imminent declaration by parading another possible husband; and that point established it remained only to decide upon whom this thankless part should fall. Henry Collins naturally offered himself to her mind. His emotions were perfectly familiar to her, though in that he had scrupulously obeyed Jonah and never dared to offer marriage, Sally regarded him with some natural derision. But he loved her very well, and would come when she whistled, and frisk at her side with great content and joy. Whereupon, driven frantic before the spectacle of Collins lifted to this giddy fortune, she doubted not but that Gregory would declare himself and make a definite offer. His words once spoken, she felt no fear for the future. She held herself in some esteem, and was satisfied of her powers to keep Libby, or any other man, to a bargain.

Thus both maids, within the space of an hour, had braced their minds to a course of vital action; and it remained for time to show which, if either, was to succeed in the result.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*A NECKLACE OF BIRDS' EGGS*

There came a Sunday, yet not so soon as Doctor Mathers hoped, when Honor declared herself able and desirous to take the air again. She chose the Moor as the scene of this return to life; and, as Stapledon had departed for the day to see an acquaintance at Okehampton before his wife decided to go forth, her uncle, and not her husband, accompanied her--to the deep chagrin of the latter when he returned home.

Through the long hours of a weary and empty convalescence, Honor said little concerning the incident responsible for wreck of hope; but her loss had grown into an abiding grief nevertheless; and while the man was stricken most sorely at first, but had now become resigned, devoting only leisure thought to his private sorrow, the woman took this trial to her heart with increasing bitterness through those lonely hours that followed upon it. There was, moreover, an added element of terror and a superstitious despair bred of her alarm in the woods. This died but slowly, for she would not share the experience with any other; yet, as physical health increased, all lesser emotion dwindled before the ever-present sense of loss. From Myles she hid the heavy misery of it, that his own sorrow might not be increased; but she liked to speak with her uncle of the little flower lost in the bud, and he was patient and never weary of comforting her to the best of his power.

It is to be noted, however, that Myles somewhat misunderstood Honor's extreme reticence, and her assumed air of brightness and good hope misled him perhaps more completely than Honor designed. He was secretly surprised that this matter had not left a deeper mark; he did not guess at a scar out of his sight; but he marvelled that his wife could still laugh and even jest upon occasion. Under her tranquillity and humour he failed to probe, but he bade the inner wonder in his mind be dumb. Not until long afterwards did he learn the truth and realise the depth of the sorrow she had masked for love of him.

The little open carriage crept up over Scor Hill, then proceeded by a steep way to Charity Grepe's cottage. There Honor left half-a-crown in person, for since certain rumours that poor Cherry must go to the work-house, the mistress of Bear Down had become her active champion. Then the pony was turned, climbed the hill again, and presently stood above Teign valley, at a point on the hillside where a little lakelet reflected the blue sky above it, and shone framed in rushes and verdant sphagnum, in rosy sundews all frosted and agleam, in small scattered flames of the bog asphodel, and in many lesser things that love a marsh.

Away on the wide front of Watern, great gloomy tracts, still dark from fire, spread forth over many an acre. There a "swaling" had freed the land of heath and furze, and provided light and air for grass; but the spot seen from this distance was naked as yet.

"There's a great scar over against us on the hill--black--black against the green and the grey and the blue overhead--all charred and desolate. That's how my heart feels, Uncle Mark--so dreary and forlorn--like an empty nest."

"Look again," he said; "look at what seems so black upon the hill, and think as you look, and you'll remember the ash and ruin are all full of young, sweet blades, sprouting strong, brimming with sap to hide the rack of dead char. 'Twill be so with you, my dear; for there's the bend and spring of youth in your heart still. Wait till the heather's out again, and the foxgloves are nodding along the low ridges over the Teign, and the whortle bells be turned to purple berries once more."

"How you remember!" she said, "despite all the long years of darkness."

"Yes; I remember, thank God. I smell the damp near where you've pulled up; and I see the marsh, down to the little bluebell flower that creeps in the grass, and the spotted leaves of orchis, and the white wisps of the cotton grass in summer, and all the rest, that I never thought upon when I had my eyes. But there's a quiet, unknown mercy that works through the morning hours of a man's life if he lives in the lap of Nature and is true to her. Keen sight stores the memory unbeknown to us; and none can tell how deep that unconscious, unguessed gathering-up may be but those who fall upon blindness. No credit to me at all; yet the pictures come as the seasons come--at bud-break; at the sound of the west wind and the call of the river; at the music of rain on the leaves; at the whirr of the cutter in the hay; at the touch of snow on my face and in my eyebrows. I know--I know it all, for my eyes reaped and my brain garnered at the merciful will of God. Without those mind picture-books I should be blind indeed."

"You're so brave. I wish that I had more of you in me. I'm not a true Endicott."

"As to that, 'tis only those who won't see are blind. Eyesight's the window of the house, but the ear is the door. A blow-fly on the window-pane is big enough to hide the evening star--if you're content to let it; but shut your eyes and you'll see the star in the blue, with nought between it and your thoughts."

"It's so hard to be wise; and words are not warm, live things you can cuddle. Oh, I want something smaller than myself to love! I had lighted such a great fire of love; and now it's all burnt out, and no green hope springing through the ashes."

"Be patient. Look forward, my Honor."

"There's nothing there--all blank."

"You're morbid; and that's the last foolishness I should ever have thought to tax you with. Myles----"

"No--no; you don't understand. How should you understand?"

"Moonshine!"

"It wasn't moonshine. I wish I could think it was. But you must be patient with me. It's so cold to open your eyes every morning with the dull feeling that something sad is waiting for you to remember it. I'm all winter, while the rest of the world is full of spring."

"And spring will touch you presently."