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."