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.