Chapter VIII Out of the Mist
The calm awakened of moonlight, as quickly died, and Christopher Yeoland found himself in some uneasiness when he thought of his love. Whereon he based this irritation would have been difficult to determine, but a variety of small annoyances conspired to build it. These trifles, separately, laughter could blow away at a breath, but combined they grew into a shadow not easily dispelled. Already the name of Myles had oftener sounded upon Honor’s lips than seemed necessary, even when Stapledon’s position and importance at Bear Down were allowed; and now her name similarly echoed and re-echoed in the utterances of her cousin. Still Christopher smiled in thought.
“It’s the novelty of him after me. I’m a mere rollicking, irresponsible brook—only good to drink from or fish in—for ideas; he’s a useful, dreary canal—a most valuable contrivance—smooth, placid, not to say flat. Well, well, I must shake Honor up; I must——”
He reflected and debated upon various courses though immediate marriage was not included amongst them. But a fortnight later the situation had developed.
Honor and Christopher were riding together over the Moor; and, albeit the physical conditions promised fair enough until sunset-time, when both man and woman turned homewards very happy, yet each had grown miserable before the end, and they parted in anger upon the heathery wastes where northern Teign and Wallabrook wind underneath Scor Hill. For the weather of the high land and the weather of their minds simultaneously changed, and across both there passed a cloud. Over against the sunset, creeping magically as she is wont to creep, from the bosom of the Moor and the dark ways of unseen water, arose the Mist Mother. She appeared suddenly against the blue above, spread forth diaphanous draperies, twined her pearly arms among the stocks and stones and old, wind-bent bushes of the waste. Catching a radiance from the westering sun, she draped the grey heads of granite tors in cowls of gold; she rose and fell; she appeared and vanished; she stole forward suddenly; she wreathed curly tendrils of vapour over sedge and stone, green, quaking bog, still waters, and the peat cuttings that burnt red-hot under the level rays of the sun. Great solitary flakes of the mist, shining with ineffable lustre of light, lessened the sobriety of the heath; and upon their dazzling hearts, where they suddenly merged and spread in opposition to the sun on the slope of western-facing hills, there trembled out a spectral misty circle—a huge halo of colourless light drawn upon the glimmering moisture. Within it, a whitethorn stood bathed in a fiery glow without candescence; and from beneath the tree some wild creature—hare or fox—moved away silently and vanished under the curtain, while a curlew cried overhead invisible. The riders reined up and watched the luminous frolics of the Mist, where she played thus naked, like an innocent savage thing, before them.
“These are the moments when I seem to glimpse antique life through the grey—wolf-skins and dark human skins, coarse faces, black hair, bead-bright eyes, strange speech, the glimmer of tents or rush thatches through the mist. These, and the bark of dogs, laughter of women, tinkle of stone on stone, where some Damnonian hunter fabricates his flints and grunts of the wood-bears and the way to kill them.”
“Always dreaming, dearest. I wonder what you would have done in those days? Did the Damnonians have Christos too?”
“Undoubtedly. I should have been a bard, or a tribal prophet, or something important and easy. I should have dreamed dreams, and told fortunes, and imparted a certain cultured flavour to the lodge. I should have been their oracle very likely—nice easy work being an oracle. In it you’ll find the first dawn of the future art of criticism.”
“Creation is better than criticism.”
“That’s your cousin, I’ll swear! The very ring of him. No doubt he thinks so. Yet what can be more futile than unskilful creation? For that matter the awful amount of time that’s wasted in all sorts of futile work.”
“You’re certainly sincere. You practise the virtues of laziness as well as preach them,” said Honor without amusement.
“I do; but there’s not that old note of admiration at my theories in your voice of late, my angel girl.”
“No, Christo; I’m beginning to doubt, in a fleeting sort of way, if your gospel is quite the inspired thing you fancy it.”
“Treason! You live too much in the atmosphere of honest toil, sweetheart. And there’s hardly a butterfly left now to correct your impressions.”
“No; they are all starving under leaves, poor things.”
“Exactly—dying game; and the self-righteous ant is counting his stores—or is it the squirrel, or the dormouse? I know something or other hoards all the summer through to prolong his useless existence.”
Honor did not answer. Then her lover suddenly remembered Myles, and his forehead wrinkled for a moment.
“Of course I’m not blind, Honor,” he proceeded, in an altered tone. “I’ve seen the change these many days, and levelled a guess at the reason. Sobersides makes me look a weakling. Unfortunately he’s such a real good chap I cannot be cross with him.”
“Why should you be cross with anybody?”
“That’s the question. You’re the answer. I’m—I’m not exactly all I was to you. Don’t clamour. It’s true, and you know it’s true. You’re so exacting, so unrestful, so grave by fits lately. And he—he’s always on your tongue too. You didn’t know that, but it’s the case. Natural perhaps—a strong personality, and so forth—yet—yet——”
“What nonsense this is, Christopher!”
“Of course it is. But you don’t laugh. You never do laugh now. My own sober conviction is this; Stapledon’s in love with you and doesn’t know it. Don’t fall off your pony.”
“Christopher! You’ve no right, or reason, or shadow of a shade for saying such a ridiculous thing.”
“There’s that in your voice convinces me at this moment.”
“Doesn’t he know we’re engaged? Would such a man allow himself for an instant——?”
“Of course he wouldn’t. That’s just what I argue, isn’t it? He stops on here because he doesn’t know what’s happened to him yet, poor devil. When he finds out, he’ll probably fly.”
“You judge others by yourself, my dearest. Love! Why, he works too hard to waste his thoughts on any woman whatsoever. Never was a mind so seldom in the clouds.”
“In the clouds—no; but on the earth—on the earth, and at your elbow.”
“He’s nothing of the kind.”
“Well, then, you’re always at his. Such a busy, bustling couple! I’m sure you’re enough to make the very singing birds ashamed. When is he going?”
“When his money is laid out to his liking, I suppose. Not yet awhile, I hope.”
“You don’t want him to go?”
“Certainly I don’t; why should I?”
“You admire him in a way?”
“In a great many ways. He’s a restful man. There’s a beautiful simplicity about his thoughts; and——”
“And he works?”
“You’re trying to make me cross, Christo; but I don’t think you will again.”
“Ah! I have to thank him for that too! He’s making you see how small it is to be cross with me. He’s enlarging your mind, lifting it to the stars, burying it in the bogs, teaching you all about rainbows and tadpoles. He’ll soak the sunshine out of your life if you’re not careful; and then you’ll grow as self-contained and sensible and perfect as he is.”
“After which you won’t want me any more, I suppose?”
“No—then you’d only be fit for—well, for him.”
“I don’t love you in these sneering moods, Christo. Why cannot you speak plainly? You’ve got some imaginary grievance. What is it?”
“I never said so. But—well, I have. I honestly believe I’m jealous—jealous of this superior man.”
“You child!”
“There it is! It’s come to that. I wasn’t a child in your eyes a month ago. But I shall be called an infant in arms at this rate in another month.”
“He can’t help being a sensible, far-seeing man, any more than you can help being a——”
“Fool—say it; don’t hesitate. Well, what then?”
Honor, despite her recent assertion, could still be angry with Christopher, because she loved him better than anything in the world. Her face flushed; she gathered her reins sharply.
“Then,” she answered, “there’s nothing more to be said—excepting that I’m a little tired of you to-day. We’ve seen too much of one another lately.”
“Or too much of somebody else.”
She wheeled away abruptly and galloped off, leaving him with the last word. One of her dogs, a big collie, stood irresolute, his left forepaw up, his eyes all doubt. Then he bent his great back like a bow, and bounded after his mistress; but Yeoland did not attempt to follow. He watched his lady awhile, and, when she was a quarter of a mile ahead, proceeded homewards.
She had chosen a winding way back to Bear Down, and he must pass the farm before she could return to it.
The man was perfectly calm to outward seeming, but he shook his head once or twice—shook it at his own folly.
“Poor little lass!” he said to himself. “Impatient—impatient—why? Because I was impatient, no doubt. Let me see—our first real quarrel since we were engaged.”
As he went down the hill past Honor’s home, a sudden fancy held him, and, acting upon it, he dismounted, hitched up his horse, and strolled round to the back of the house in hope that he might win a private word or two with Mark Endicott. Chance favoured him. Tea drinking was done, and the still, lonely hour following on that meal prevailed in the great kitchen. Without, spangled fowls clucked their last remarks for the day, and fluttered, with clumsy effort, to their perches in a great holly tree, where they roosted. At the open door a block, a bill-hook, and a leathern gauntlet lay beside a pile of split wood where Sally Cramphorn had been working; and upon the block a robin sat and sang.
Christopher lifted the latch and walked through a short passage to find Honor’s uncle alone in the kitchen and talking to himself by snatches.
“Forgive me, Mr. Endicott,” he said, breaking in upon the monologue; “I’ve no right to upset your reveries in this fashion, but I was passing and wanted a dozen words.”
“And welcome, Yeoland. We’ve missed you at the Sunday supper of late weeks. How is it with you?”
“Oh, all right. Only just now I want to exchange ideas—impressions. You love my Honor better than anybody else in the world but myself. And love makes one jolly quick—sensitive—foolishly so perhaps. I didn’t think it was in me to be sensitive; yet I find I am.”
“Speak your mind, and I’ll go on with my knitting—never blind man’s holiday if you are a blind man, you know.”
“You’re like all the rest in this hive, always busy. I wonder if the drones blush when they’re caught stealing honey?”
“Haven’t much time for blushing. Yet ’tis certain that never drone stole sweeter honey than you have—if you are a drone.”
“I’m coming to that. But the honey first. Frankly now, have you noticed any change in Honor of late days—since—well, within the last month or two.”
Mr. Endicott reflected before making any answer, and tapped his needles slowly.
“There is a change,” he said at length.
“She’s restless,” continued Christopher; “won’t have her laugh out—stops in the middle, as if she suddenly remembered she was in church or somewhere. How d’you account for it?”
“She’s grown a bit more strenuous since her engagement—more alive to the working-day side of things.”
“Not lasting, I hope?”
“Please God, yes. She won’t be any less happy.”
“Of course Myles Stapledon’s responsible. Yet how has he done it? You say you’re glad to see Honor more serious-minded. Well, that means you would have made her so before now, if you could. You failed to change her in all these years; he has succeeded in clouding her life somehow within the space of two months. How can you explain that?”
“You’re asking pithy questions, my son. And, by the voice of you, I’m inclined to reckon you’re as likely to know the answers to them as I am. Maybe more likely. You’re a man in love, and that quickens the wits of even the dullest clod who ever sat sighing on a gate, eating his turnip and finding it tasteless. I loved a maid once, too; but ’tis so far off.”
“Well, there’s something not wholly right in this. And they ought to know it.”
“Certainly they don’t—don’t guess it or dream it. But leave that. Now you. You must tackle yourself. The remedy lies with you. This thing has made you think, at any rate.”
“Well, yes. Honor isn’t so satisfied with me as of old, somehow. Of course that’s natural, but——”
“She loves you a thousand times better than you love yourself.”
“And still isn’t exactly happy in me.”
“Are you happy in yourself? She’s very well satisfied with you—worships the ground you walk on, as the saying is—but that’s not to say she’s satisfied with your life. And more am I, or anybody that cares about you. And more are you.”
“Well, well; but Myles Stapledon—this dear, good chap. He’s a—what? Why, a magnifying glass for people to see me in—upside down.”
“He thinks very little about you, I fancy.”
“He’s succeeded in making me feel a fool, anyhow; and that’s unpleasant. Tell me what to do, Mr. Endicott. Where shall I begin?”
“Begin to be a man, Yeoland. That’s what a woman wants in her husband—wants it unconsciously before everything. A man—self-contained, resolute—a figure strong enough to lean upon in storm and stress.”
“Stapledon is a man.”
“He is, emphatically. He knows where he is going, and the road. He gets unity into his life, method into his to-morrows.”
“To-morrow’s always all right. It’s to-day that bothers me so infernally.”
“Ah! and yesterday must make you feel sick every time you think of it, if you’ve any conscience.”
“I know there isn’t much to show. Yet it seems such a poor compliment to the wonderful world to waste your time in grubbing meanly with your back to her. At best we can only get a few jewelled glimpses through these clay gates that we live behind. Then down comes the night, when no man may work or play. And we shall be an awfully long time dead. And what’s the sum of a life’s labour after all?”
“Get work,” said Mark, “and drop that twaddle. Healthy work’s the first law of Nature, no matter what wise men may say or poets sing. Liberty! It’s a Jack-o’-lantern. There’s no created thing can be free. Doing His will—all, all. Root and branch, berry and bud, feathered and furred creatures—all working to live complete. The lily does toil; and if you could see the double fringe of her roots above the bulb and under it—as I can well mind when I had eyes and loved the garden—you’d know it was so. There’s no good thing in all the world got without labour at the back of it. Think what goes to build a flash of lightning—you that love storms. But the lightning’s not free neither. And the Almighty’s self works harder than all His worlds put together.”
“Well, I’ll do something definite. I think I’ll write a book about birds. Tell me, does Honor speak much of her cousin?”
“She does.”
“Yet if she knew—if she only knew. Why, God’s light! she’d wither and lose her sap and grow old in two years with Stapledon. I know it, in the very heart of me, and I’d stake my life on it against all the prophets. There’s that in close contact with him would freeze and kill such as Honor. Yes, kill her, for it’s a vital part of her would suffer. Some fascination has sprung up from the contrast between us; and it has charmed her. She’s bewitched. And yet—be frank, Mr. Endicott—do you believe that Stapledon is the husband for Honor? You’ve thought about it, naturally, because, before she and I were engaged, you told me that you hoped they might make a match for their own sakes and the farm’s. Now what do you say? Would you, knowing her only less well than I do, wish that she could change?”
The other was silent.
“You would, then?”
“If I would,” answered old Endicott, “I shouldn’t have hesitated to say so. It’s because I wouldn’t that I was dumb.”
“You wouldn’t? That’s a great weight off my mind, then.”
“I mean no praise for you. I should like to chop you and Stapledon small, mix you, and mould you again. Yet what folly! Then she’d look at neither, for certain.”
“Such a salad wouldn’t be delectable. But thank you for heartening me. I’m the husband for your niece. I know it—sure as I’m a Christian. And she knew it a month ago; and she’ll know it again a month hence, I pray, even if she’s forgotten it for the moment. Now I’ll clear out, and leave you with your thoughts.”
“So you’ve quarrelled with her?”
“No, no, no; she quarrelled with me, very properly, very justly; then she left me in disgrace, and I came to you, hoping for a grain of comfort. I’m a poor prattler, you know—one who cannot hide my little dish of misery out of sight, but must always parade it if I suspect a sympathetic nature in man or woman. Good-bye again.”
So Christopher departed, mounted his horse, and trotted home in most amiable mood.