Part 65 (1/2)
”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 plat.i.tudes; 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 n.o.body 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 G.o.d make me half you think me, for I love you true, an' you'm the best man He ever fas.h.i.+oned,” 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 G.o.d 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 sn.i.g.g.e.rs 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. G.o.d 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.
CHAPTER X
BAD NEWS FOR BLANCHARD
On the morning that saw the wedding of Chris and Martin, Phoebe Blanchard found heart and tongue to speak to her husband of the thing she still kept locked within her mind. Since the meeting with John Grimbal she had suffered much in secret, but still kept silence; and now, after a quiet service before breakfast on a morning in mid-December, most of those who had been present as spectators returned to the valley, and Phoebe spoke to Will as they walked apart from the rest. A sight of the enemy it was that loosed her lips, for, much to the surprise of all present, John Grimbal had attended his brother's wedding. As the little gathering streamed away after the ceremony, he had galloped off again with a groom behind him, and the incident now led to greater things.
”Chill-fas.h.i.+on weddin',” said Will, as he walked homewards, ”but it 'pears to me all Blanchards be fated to wed coorious. Well, 't is a gude matter out o' hand. I knaw I raged somethin' terrible come I fust heard it, but I think differ'nt now, specially when I mind what Chris must have felt those times she seed me welting her child an' heard un yell, yet set her teeth an' never shawed a sign.”