Part 26

"No, for 'twill take me all my time workin' for 'e, an' makin' your home as it should be."

"Kiss me," he said suddenly, "an' kiss me slow while I take my full of it. Theer's blood 'pon your lips! You've bited 'em. What's fretted 'e this marnin'? Not love of me, I warn 'e?"

"'Twas, then--just love of you, Greg; an' fear that the fallin' out of cruel things might make 'e turn away from me."

He patted her cheek and stroked it; then her neck; and then her plump bosom.

"So butivul an' fat as a pattridge you be! An' I'm sure I love 'e tremenjous; an' nothin' shall never part us if you say so."

"Then all my tears was vain, an'--an' I'll grow a better woman an' say longer prayers hencefarrard--for thanksgivings 'cause I've got 'e."

"'Tis a gude match for you, Sally; an' I do trust as you'll never make me to regret I spoke."

"Never, never; an' you'll never love nobody else, will 'e?"

"Not so long as you'm a gude wife an' a towser to work. My mind was always temperate 'an sober towards petticoats, as be well knawn."

"Oh, I could sing an' dance for sheer joy, I could! An' so chapfallen just afore you comed. But what's a faither to a lover--'specially such a sour faither as mine?"

"Doan't you quarrel wi' Cramphorn, however," said Gregory; "he'm the last man as I'd have you fall out with."

"Quarrel! I never quarrel with nobody. But he ban't like you--even-tempered an' fair. A wan-sided, cranky man, faither. I be his eldest, yet Margery's put afore me. He can't see through her dirty, hookem-snivey tricks an' lying speeches. I be straight an' plain, same as you, an' he hates me for it."

Mr. Libby's heart sank low.

"Hates you? D'you say your faither hates you?"

"Well, the word ban't big enough seemin'ly. I can tell you now, because we'm tokened, an' my heart shan't never have no secret from you. But he likes Margery best because she foxes him, an' fules him, an' tells him he's a wonder of the world; an' he believes it. An' Collins says as he've awpenly gived out that she'm to have all his gudes an' his money. Why for do 'e give awver lovin' me?"

For Mr. Libby's arm, which was round Sally's waist, fell away from that pleasant circumference, and an expression of very real misery spread over his face to the roots of his yellow hair.

"'His gudes an' his money'?" he asked, in a faint voice, that sounded as though he had been frightened.

"Ess. Why, you'm as if somebody had suddenly thrawed a bucket of water awver 'e! Doan't think I care 'bout his money now. You'll have to make him chaange his mind bimebye. When you'm my husband, you'll have to tackle faither an' see he doan't cut me away."

The man's brain went cold. Desire had vanished out of his eyes, and Sally might have been a stone beside him. He flung away the remainder of his luncheon, and uttered a hearty oath or two.

"'Tis a damned oncomely thing, an', as it takes two to a quarrel, theer's some fault your side as well as his, I reckon. What be the reason as Margery's more to him than you--his eldest?"

"Because she'm a lyin' slammockin' female twoad--that's the reason; an' he caan't see through her."

There was a moment of heavy silence; then Gregory Libby spoke.

"Doan't say nothin' 'bout what we've planned out to-day. Doan't tell nobody. Time enough come Spring."

"Say nought! I'd like to go up 'pon top the hill an' sing out my gude fortune for all ears to hear!"

"No, bide quiet. Us'll let 'em have the gert surprise of it in church. None shall knaw till we'm axed out some Sunday marnin'."

"'Twill bust upon 'em like thunder. I lay Margery will faint if she'm theer."

"An' us'll have the laugh of 'em all."

"'Tis as you please, Greg."

"An' you'll take your oath not to tell?"

"Not even mistress?"

"Certainly not she."

"Nor yet Missis Loveys?"

"So soon tell all Little Silver."

"You might let me just whisper it to my awn sister. 'Twill be a cruel stroke if her hears it fust afore all the people to church."

"If you say a syllable of it to Margery, 'tis off!" declared Mr. Libby, and with such earnestness did he speak that the girl was alarmed, and made hasty assurances.

"Very well, I promise an' swear, since I must. But how long be I to go dumb? Remember, 'tis tu gert a thing for a woman to keep hid for long. You'm cruel, Greg, lovey, to ax it. I'll have to blaze it out soon or bust with it."

"Wait my time. It ban't to be awver-long, that I promise 'e."

"Kiss me again, Greg; an' cuddle me."

"You take your dyin' oath?"

"Ess, I said so."

"Very well; now I must go back to my work."

Presently they separated, and Sally, full of her secret, walked upon air through a golden world, with her hot heart's core aglow, while Mr. Libby bit his hare-lip, employed many coarse words for the benefit of the hedge he hacked at, and put a spite and spleen into each stroke that soon blunted his bill-hook. He was now faced with a problem calling for some ingenuity. He yearned to know how he might retrieve his error, and get well free of Sally before approaching her sister upon the same errand. Where to turn for succour and counsel he knew not. "If mother was awnly alive for ten minutes!" he thought. As for another ancient dame, Charity Grepe, she--publicly exposed as a fraud and delusion by Jonah Cramphorn--had found her occupation gone in earnest, and now reposed at Chagford poor-house. There was none to help the unhappy orphan in his trouble. The matter looked too delicate for masculine handling; and even Gregory had sense to perceive that it would be easy for others to take a wrong attitude before his dilemma and judge him harshly. Then came an inspiration to this lack-lustre son of the soil.

"No pusson else but she heard me tell her," he reflected. "Theer's awnly her word for it, an' I'll up an' say 'tis a strammin' gert lie, an' that she was mazed or dreamin', an' that I wouldn't marry her for a hunderd sovereigns! I'll braave her to her faace, if it comes to that. Folks'll sooner believe a man than a woman most times; an' if I ban't spry enough to awver-reach a fule of a outdoor farm-gal on such a matter, 'tis pity."

*CHAPTER VII.*

*LAPSES*

During early spring a new experience came to Myles Stapledon. Physically perfect, he had known no ache or ill until now; but chance for once found him vulnerable. From a heavy downpour upon the land he returned home, found matters to occupy him immediately, and so forgot to doff wet clothes at the earliest opportunity. A chill rewarded his carelessness, and a slight attack of pneumonia followed upon it. For the first time within his recollection the man had to stop in bed, but during the greater part of his illness Myles proved patient enough. Honor ministered to him untiringly; Mr. Endicott was much in the sick-room also; and from time to time, when the master was returning towards convalescence, Cramphorn or Churdles Ash would enter to see him with information concerning affairs.

Then, during one of the last wearisome days in his bed-chamber, at a season when the invalid was somewhat worn with private thoughts and heartily sick of such enforced idleness, an unfortunate misunderstanding threw him off his mental balance and precipitated such a catastrophe as those who knew Stapledon best had been the least likely to foresee. He was in fact forgotten for many hours, owing to a common error of his wife and uncle. Each thought the other would tend the sick man, so Honor departed to Newton Abbot with Christopher Yeoland, and Mark, quite ignorant of his niece's plans, was driven by Tommy Bates to Okehampton. The pitiful mistake had not dwelt an hour in Stapledon's memory under ordinary circumstances, but now, fretted by suffering and as ill able to bear physical trouble as any other man wholly unfamiliar with it, his lonely hours swelled and massed into a mountain of bitter grievance. He brooded and sank into dark ways of thought. Temptations got hold upon him; the ever-present thorn turned in his flesh and jealousy played with his weakness, like a cat with a mouse. Upon Honor's return the man afforded his wife, a new sensation and one of the greatest surprises that experience had ever brought to her.

Unaware of his lonely vigil, she returned home in high good humour, kissed him, complimented him on the fact that this was to be his last day in bed, and remarked upon the splendour of the sunset.

"'At eventide it shall be light,'" she said; "and Christo was so rapt in all the glory of gold and purple over Cosdon, as we drove home from Moreton, that he nearly upset me and his dog-cart and himself. Yet I wish you could see the sky. It would soothe you."

"As winter sunshine soothes icicles--by making their points sharper. Nature's softest moods are cruellest if your mind happens to be in torment."

"My dear! Whatever is the matter? And your fire out--oh, Myles, how wrong!"

"Is it? Then blame yourself. Since my midday meal and before it I have seen no soul this day, and heard no voice but the clock. Here alone, suffering and chewing gall for six hours and more. But what does it matter so you were pleased with the sunset and your company?"

"Then where is uncle? Surely----? I _am_ so sorry, dear one. We've muddled it between us, and each thought you were in the keeping of the other."

"Don't be sorry. What do I matter? Where have you been?"

"To Newton with Christo. And he sent you these lovely black grapes. I'm afraid I ate a few coming home, but I haven't spoiled the bunch."

"Eat the rest, then, or fling them into the fire. I don't want them."

"You're angry, Myles; and you have a right to be; yet it was only a dismal accident. We must light the fire, and I'll get you your tea, poor ill-used fellow. It was a shame, but I'm very, very penitent, and so will uncle be."

"I wish I could get out of your way. Such a bother for you to come back to a sick-room; and a sick animal in a house is a bore always--especially to you, who don't love animals."

The woman's eyes opened wide and she stared at him.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"You know well enough. I'm so exacting and my cough keeps you awake at night, and these drives in the fresh air behind Yeoland's big trotter must be such a relief to you. Why don't you ask him to drive you right away--to hell, and have done with it?"

Honor looked at him, then turned her back and knelt down by the fire. Presently she spoke.

"Your thoughts have been ugly company I'm afraid. This is a terrible surprise, Myles, for I know so well how much you must have suffered before you could say such things to me. Will you never understand your own wife?"

"I think I do--at last."

"You'll be sorry--very sorry that you could speak so, and let an unhappy accident be the spark to this. If you had but heard what Christopher said of you this very day driving home----"

"Don't begin that folly. That he slights me enough to praise me--and you listen to him and pretend to think he is in earnest!"

She did not answer; then he sat up in bed and spoke again.

"I'm glad that weakness has torn this out of me. I shall be sorry to-morrow, but I'm glad to-night. Leave the fire and come here. I don't want to shout. You see what you've dragged me down to; you see what a snarling cur with his bone stolen I look now. That's your work. And I'll thank you to put a period to it. I don't live any longer in this purgatory, however greatly your fool's paradise may please you. I'm weary of it. It's poisoning me. Either you see too much of this man or not enough. That is what you have to determine. If too much, end it; if not enough, mend it, and go to him, body and soul, for good--the sooner the better."

"Myles! You, of all men, to be so coarse! Are you mad? Are you dreaming to speak to your wife so? God knows that I've never done, or said, or thought anything to anger you to this, or shadow your honour for a second--nor has he."

"'He!' Always 'he--he--he'--rooting at your heart-strings, I suppose, like a ----. What do you know of his thoughts and dreams? How comes it that you are so read in his life and mind that you can say whether my honour is so safe with him? I'd sooner trust it with my dogs. Then it would be safe. Who are you to know what this man's mind holds?"

"I ought to know, if anybody does."

"Then go back to him, for God's sake, and let me come to the end of this road. Let all that is past sink to a memory, not remain a raw, present wound, that smarts from my waking moment until I sleep again."

"You are weary of me?"

"I'm weary of half of you, or a quarter of you, or what particular proportion of you may still be supposed to belong to me."

"I am all yours--heart and soul--and you know it; or if you do not, Christopher Yeoland does."

"You love him too."

"That question was answered years ago. I love him, and always shall. His welfare is much to me. I have been concerned with it to-day."

"Yet you dare to say you belong heart and soul to me."

"It is the truth. If you don't understand that, I cannot help you. He does understand."

"I lack his fine intellect. You must endeavour to sink to my level and make this truth apparent to your husband's blunter perceptions. I must have more than words. Acts will better appeal to me. After to-day I forbid you to see or speak with Yeoland; and may you never suffer as you have made me suffer."

"I will do what you wish. If you had only spoken sooner, Myles, some of this misery might have been escaped. I wish I had seen it."

"Any woman who loved honestly would have seen it," he said, hard to the end. Then, without answering, she left him; and while he turned restlessly upon himself and regret presently waxed to a deep shame at this ebullition, she went her way and came to tears leisurely along a path first marked by frank amazement. Honor's surprise was unutterable. Never, since the moment of their meeting, had she dreamed or suspected that any imaginable disaster could thus reduce the high standard by which Myles conducted his mental life and controlled his temperament. That physical suffering and a sharp illness should have power to discover and reveal such a secret much surprised her. She remained incredulous that she had heard aright. It was as though she had dreamed the meeting and some nightmare Myles--grotesque, rude, a very Caliban--had taken shape while her mind ran riot in sleep. Yet it was true, for the measure of his lapse from customary high courtesy, was the measure of the months that he had suffered in silence, and the measure of his wrongs. Wholly imaginary she held them; all he had said was the outcome of a nature fretted by sickness and reduced below itself, like a drunken man--this Honor believed; but even so she remained in a stupor of astonishment. To see such a man with his armour off, to hear strange words in his mouth, to watch passion on his face, was an experience unutterably painful. And yet surprise transcended sorrow. She was almost stunned and dazed by this storm of thunder and lightning from a mind whose weather had never promised such a tempest. Now the moody fits and evasive humours could be read a little, for light fell every way. And Honor sat an hour with her thoughts; then passed from first emotions to others deeper and truer. She began to regret the past and blame her blindness. Unconventional enough, she had acted with no thought of any special significance being read into her actions--least of all by her husband. A woman of more common mind and nature had seen the danger and doubtfulness of such relations; but this was her first revelation of it; and the sudden, somewhat brutal disclosure opened her eyes widely indeed. She set herself to see and estimate from her husband's standpoint, to gauge the extent of the justice that had launched his pent-up outburst, and, upon a paltry misunderstanding, loosed these tremendous charges, hugged up and hidden within his heart till now. She ignored the cruel manner of his assault, and felt her heart beat in fear at this shadow of a master passion. Jealousy was its name, and an accident of lonely hours with the demon had suffered it to overwhelm him, tear him, dominate him thus.

The thread of the woman's thoughts need not be traced as she strove with these tangles, and slowly restored the ravelled skein. That Myles would regret this hurricane she knew; that he would ask her forgiveness, and probably desire her to disregard his demands she suspected. Self-control was a garment that her husband could scarcely discard for long, even in sickness; the amazing thing was that it should have proved a garment at all; for Honor always believed it as much a part of Myles as his other characteristics. Meantime she asked herself her duty, and justice spoke, while the woman listened without impatience.

She understood in some degree the strenuousness of many male characters upon the subject of ethics; she conceded that men of her husband's stamp thought and felt more deeply than most women; and she knew that her own sense of proportion, or sense of humour--which often amounts to the same thing--had inclined her, rightly or wrongly, to view all relations of life from an impersonal standpoint, including even those affairs in which she herself participated.

She knew the absolute innocence of her inmost soul with respect to Christopher, and her face flamed here at the thought that her husband had dared to fear for her honour and his own. But she resolutely identified her thoughts with his attitude; she reminded herself that Myles was a bad student of character, and quite unable to see the real nature of Christopher Yeoland, or understand him as she did. Her brain grew tired at last, and pity led to tears; but the nature of the pity was uncertain, and whether she cried for herself, for her husband, or for both, Honor could not have declared with any certainty.

That evening, while Mark Endicott was with Myles and his wife sat alone in her parlour, Christopher Yeoland strolled up to the farm with a parcel forgotten and left in his vehicle. The master of Godleigh stayed for a brief chat, made inquiries after Stapledon, and very quickly discovered that his companion laboured under some secret emotion. Honor thereupon changed her mind. She had not intended to whisper a hint of her tragic discovery, but the other's ready sympathy proved too much for her reserve. Moreover, there was a thought in her that perhaps the sooner Yeoland knew the truth the better. She told him a little of what had happened and attributed it to her husband's great present weakness; yet the thing sounded graver spoken aloud, even in her very guarded version, and Christopher's forehead showed that he, too, held it serious.

"Of course he didn't mean it," she concluded; "and to-morrow he will be sorry for having spoken so. But I'm afraid that dear Myles will never understand that we are different from other people."

"You think we are?"

"I know we are. Surely we have proved that to one another, if not to the world."

"We can't expect people to take us at our own valuation. This row comes appositely in a way. God knows the truth, but all the same, perhaps the position is impracticable. The world would say that Myles was right, and that we were too--too original. Only what's to be done? Of course he can't forbid us to speak to one another--that's absurd. But, for some reason, our friendship makes him a miserable man. He's let that out to-night, poor dear chap."

"I wish I could understand his attitude; but I must make myself understand it, Christo. It is my duty."

"I believe I do know what he feels. It's pride more than jealousy. His mind is too well hung to be jealous, but pride is the bait to catch all big natures. He doesn't like to feel any other man has the power to please you."

"But remember the basis of our friendship. It must make a difference. And I have always been so frank. He knew--none better--what we were each to the other once; and he knows that I am fond of you and always must be so."

"Exactly; and that's not knowledge to make him particularly happy. We have accentuated it of late, and hurt him. He sees perils and troubles ahead that don't really exist--mere phantoms--yet, from his point of view, they look real enough. He cannot see, and so there's probably a growing inclination on his part to kick me out of Little Silver, if such a thing could be done. Yes, I appreciate his attitude, though he can't appreciate mine. It comes to this: my deep content in your society is making him very angry--and worse than angry. He's turning by slow degrees into a volcano. To-day came the first little eruption--a mere nothing. Myles will regret it, and to-morrow bank up the fire again in his usual Spartan way; but he is powerless to prevent the sequel. There may be a regular Pompeii and Herculaneum presently. Your husband is built that way, though I never guessed it. If you were mine, and he was in my position, I should not turn a hair, knowing you and knowing him; but he is different. He doesn't know me at all, and he doesn't know you as well as I do. He must be blind to a nature like yours by the accident of his own personal temperament."

"He understands me, I am sure--at least, I think so."

"Not all round. But that's beside the mark. The question is, What next?"

"No question at all. My whole life and soul must be devoted to making him happy in spite of himself."

"And what must I do?"

She did not answer, and before need of a definite decision and the necessity for action, Christopher fell back upon his customary methods.

"Obviously I must do nothing. Least done soonest mended--a proverb quite as wise as the one I found it on; for deeds make more bother in the world than the loudest words. I shall let Time try his hand. It will probably come out all right when Myles gets well. He's so sane in most things--only there's my volcano theory, I tell you what; I'll speak to your uncle and ask him if he sees any difficulty."

"Can't you make up your mind yourself?"

"No--unless you express a wish. Otherwise I shall go on as I am going. I'll see Mr. Endicott, and when Myles is fit again I'll see him. Yes, that's the road of wisdom. I'll meet him and say, 'Now, old chap, explode and give me the full force of the discharge. Tell me what you mean and what you want.'"

Honor, for her part, found loyalty wakened rather than weakened by her husband's remonstrances. She desired to return to him--to get back to his heart. Christopher wearied her just now, and when Mark Endicott entered from the sick-room, Honor bid Yeoland farewell and hastened to Myles.

Yeoland chatted awhile, shared some spirit and water with the blind man, and then, on a sudden, after private determination to do no such thing, broached the problem in his mind.