"A soldier!"

"He certainly was, and my servant; about the most decent, straightforward, childlike chap that ever I saw."

"G.o.d!"

"You're surprised. But it's a fact. That's Newcombe all right. You couldn't forget a face and a laugh like his. The handsomest man I've ever seen, bar none. He borrowed a suit of my clothes, the beggar, when he vanished. But a week later I had the things back with a letter. He trusted me that far. I tried to trace him, of course, but was not sorry I failed."

"A letter!"

"Yes, giving a reason for his desertion. Some chap was running after his girl and had got her in a corner and bullied her into saying 'Yes,'

though she hated the sight of him. I'd have done anything for Tom. But he took the law into his own hands. He disappeared--we were at Shorncliffe then if I remember rightly. The chap had joined to get abroad, and he told me all his harum-scarum ambitions once. I hope the poor devil was in time to rescue his sweetheart, anyway."

"Yes, he was in time for that."

"I'm glad."

"Should you see him again, Tremayne, I would advise your pretending not to know him. Unless, of course, you consider it your duty to proclaim him."

"Bless your life, I don't know him from Adam," declared the Major. "I'm not going to move after all these years. I wish he'd come back to me again, all the same. A good servant."

"Poor brute! What's the procedure with a deserter? Do you send soldiers for him or the police?"

"A pair of handcuffs and the local bobby, that's all. Then the man's handed over to the military authorities and court-martialled."

"What would he get?"

"Depends on circ.u.mstances and character. Tom might probably have six months, as he didn't give himself up. I should have thought, knowing the manner of man, that he would have done his business, married the girl, then come back and surrendered. In that case, being peace time, he would only have forfeited his service, which didn't amount to much."

So John Grimbal learned the secret of his enemy at last; but, to pursue a former simile, the fruit had remained so long out of reach that now it was not only overripe, but rotten. There began a painful resuscitation of desires towards revenge--desires long moribund. To flog into life a pa.s.sion near dead of inanition was Grimbal's disgusting task. For days and nights the thing was as Frankenstein's creation of grisly shreds and patches; then it moved spasmodically,--or he fancied that it moved.

He fooled himself with reiterated a.s.surances that he was glorying in the discovery; he told himself that he was not made of the human stuff that can forgive bitter wrongs or forget them until cancelled. He painted in lurid colours his past griefs; through a ghastly mora.s.s of revenge grown stale, of memories deadened by time, he tried to struggle back to his original starting-point in vanished years, and feel as he felt when he flung Will Blanchard over Rushford Bridge.

Once he wished to G.o.d the truth had never reached him; then he urged himself to use it instantly and plague his mind no more. A mental exhaustion and nausea overtook him. Upon the night of his discovery he retired to sleep wishing that Blanchard would be as good as his rumoured word and get out of England. But this thought took a shape of reality in the tattered medley of dreams, and Grimbal, waking, leapt on to the floor in frantic fear that his enemy had escaped him.

As yet he knew nothing of Will's good fortune, and when it came to his ears it unexpectedly failed to reawaken resentment or strengthen his animosity. For, as he retraced the story of the past years, it was with him as with a man reading the narrative of another's wrongs. He could not yet absorb himself anew in the strife; he could not revive the personal element.

Sometimes he looked at himself in the gla.s.s as he shaved; and the sight of the grey hair thickening on the sides of his head, the spectacle of the deep lines upon his forehead and the stamp of many a shadowy crow's-foot about his blue eyes--these indications served more than all his thoughts to sting him into deeds and to rekindle an active malignancy.

CHAPTER VII

SMALL TIMOTHY

A year and more than a year pa.s.sed by, during which time some pure sunshine brightened the life of Blanchard. Chagford laughed at his sustained good fortune, declared him to have as many lives as a cat, and secretly regretted its outspoken criticism of Miller Lyddon before the event of his generosity. Life at Monks Barton was at least wholly happy for Will himself. No whisper or rumour of renewed tribulation reached his ear; early and late he worked, with whole-hearted energy; he differed from Mr. Blee as seldom as possible; he wearied the miller with new designs, tremendous enterprises, particulars concerning novel machinery, and much information relating to nitrates. Newtake had vanished out of his life, like an old coat put off for the last time. He never mentioned the place and there was now but one farm in all Devon for him.

Meantime a strange cloud increased above him, though as yet he had not discerned so much as the shadow of it. This circ.u.mstance possessed no connection with John Grimbal. Time pa.s.sed and still he did not take action, though he continued to nurse his wrongs through winter, spring, and summer, as a child nurses a sick animal. The matter tainted his life but did not dominate it. His existence continued to be soured and discoloured, yet not entirely spoiled. Now a new stone of stumbling lay ahead and Grimbal's interest had shifted a little.

Like the rest of Chagford he heard the rumour of little Timothy's parentage--a rumour that grew as the resemblance ripened between Blanchard and the child. Interested by this thought and its significance, he devoted some time to it; and then, upon an early October morning, chance hurried the man into action. On the spur of an opportunity he played the coward, as many another man has done, only to mourn his weakness too late.

There came a misty autumn sunrise beside the river and Grimbal, hastening through the valley of Teign, suddenly found himself face to face with Phoebe. She had been upon the meadows since grey dawn, where many mushrooms set in silvery dew glimmered like pearls through the mist; and now, with a full basket, she was returning to Monks Barton for breakfast. As she rested for a moment at a stile between two fields, Grimbal loomed large from the foggy atmosphere and stood beside her. She moved her basket for him to pa.s.s and her pulses quickened but slightly, for she had met him on numerous occasions during past years and they were now as strangers. To Phoebe he had long been nothing, and any slight emotion he might awaken was in the nature of resentment that the man could still harden his heart against her husband and remain thus stubborn and obdurate after such lapse of time. When, therefore, John Grimbal, moved thereto by some sudden prompting, addressed Will's wife, she started in astonishment and a blush of warm blood leapt to her face.

He himself was surprised at his own voice; for it sounded unfamiliar, as though some intelligent thing had suddenly possessed him and was using his vocal organs for its own ends.

"Don't move. Why, 't is a year since we met alone, I think. So you are back at Monks Barton. Does it bring thoughts? Is it all sweet? By your face I should judge not."

She stared and her mouth trembled, but she did not answer.

"You needn't tell me you're happy," he continued, with hurried words.

"n.o.body is, for that matter. But you might have been. Looking at your ruined life and my own, I can find it in my heart to be sorry for us both."

"Who dares to say my life is ruined?" she flashed out. "D' you think I would change Will for the n.o.blest in the land? He _is_ the n.o.blest. I want no pity--least of all yourn. I've been a very lucky woman--and--everybody knaws it whatever they may say here an' theer."

She was strong before him now; her temper appeared in her voice and she took her basket and rose to leave him.

"Wait one moment. Chance threw us here, and I'll never speak to you again if you resent it. But, meeting you like this, something seemed to tell me to say a word and let you know. I'm sorry you are so wretched--honestly."

"I ban't wretched! Never was a happier wife."

"Never was a better one, I know; but happy? Think. I was fond of you once and I can read between the lines--the little thin lines on your forehead. They are newcomers. I'm not deceived. Nor is it hidden. That the man has proved faithless is common knowledge now. Facts are hard things and you've got the fact under your eyes. The child's his living image."

"Who told you, and how dare you foul my ears and thoughts with such lies?" she asked, her bosom heaving. "You'm a coward, as you always was, but never more a coward than this minute."

"D' you pretend that n.o.body has told you this? Aren't your own eyes bright enough to see it?"

The man was in a pitiful mood, and now he grew hot and forgot himself wholly before her stinging contempt. She did not reply to his question and he continued,--

"Your silence is an answer. You know well enough. Who's the mother?

Perhaps you know that, too. Is she more to him than you are?"

Phoebe made a great effort to keep herself from screaming. Then she moved hastily away, but Grimbal stopped her and dared her to proceed.

"Wait. I'll have this out. Why don't you face him with it and make him tell you the truth? Any plucky woman would. The scandal grows into a disgrace and your father's a fool to stand it. You can tell him so from me."

"Mind your awn business an' let me pa.s.s, you hulking, gert, venomous wretch!" she cried. Then a blackguard inspiration came to the man, and, suffering under a growing irritation with himself as much as with Phoebe, he conceived an idea by which his secret might after all be made a bitter weapon. He a.s.sured himself, even while he hated the sight of her, that justice to Phoebe must be done. She had dwelt in ignorance long enough. He determined to tell her that she was the wife of a deserter. The end gained was the real idea in his mind, though he tried to delude himself. The sudden idea that he might inform Blanchard through Phoebe of his knowledge really actuated him.

"You may turn your head away as if I was dirt, you little fool, and you may call me what names you please; but I'm raising this question for your good, not my own. What do I care? Only it's a man's part to step in when he sees a woman being trampled on."

"A man!" she said. "You'm not in our lives any more, an' we doan't want 'e in 'em. More like to a meddlin' auld woman than a man, if you ax me."

"You can say that? Then we'll put you out of the question. I, at least, shall do my duty."

"Is it part of your duty to bully me here alone? Why doan't 'e faace the man, like a man, 'stead of bl.u.s.terin' to me 'bout it? Out on you! Let me pa.s.s, I tell 'e."

"Doan't make that noise. Just listen and stand still. I'm in earnest. It pleases me to know the true history of this child, and I mean to. As a Justice of the Peace I mean to."

"Ax Will Blanchard then an' let him answer. Maybe you'll be sorry you spoke arter."