Chapter IX The Warning
There was a custom of ancient standing at Bear Down Farm. On working days the family supped together in a small chamber lying off the kitchen, and left the latter apartment to the hands; but upon Sunday night all the household partook at the same table, and it was rumoured and believed that, during a period of two hundred years, the reigning head of Endicott’s had never failed to preside at this repast, when in residence. Moreover, the very dishes changed not. A cold sirloin of beef, a potato salad, and a rabbit pie were the foundations of the feast; and after them followed fruit tarts, excepting in the spring, with bread and cheese, cider and small beer.
Two days after Honor’s quarrel with Christopher, while yet they continued unreconciled, there fell a Sunday supper at which the little band then playing its part in the history of Endicott’s was assembled about a laden board. But matters of moment were astir; a wave of excitement passed over the work folk, and Myles, who sat near the head of the table on Honor’s left, observed a simultaneous movement, a whispering and a nodding. There were present Mr. Cramphorn and his daughters, who dwelt in a cottage hard by the farm; Churdles Ash, Henry Collins, the red-haired humorist Pinsent, and the boy Tommy Bates. Mrs. Loveys took the bottom of the table; Mark Endicott sat beside his niece, at her right hand.
A hush fell upon the company before the shadow of some great pending event. The clatter of crockery, the tinkle of knives and forks ceased. Then Myles whispered to Honor that a speech was about to be delivered, and she, setting down her hands, smiled with bright inquiry upon Mr. Cramphorn, who had risen to his feet, and was darting uncomfortable glances about him from beneath black brows.
“D’you want to tell me anything, Cramphorn?” she inquired.
“Ma’am, I do,” he answered. “By rights ’tis the dooty of Churdles Ash, but he’m an ancient piece wi’out gert store o’ words best o’ times, an’ none for a moment such as this; so he’ve axed me to speak instead, ’cause it do bring him a wambliness of the innards to do or say ought as may draw the public eye upon un. ’Tis like this, mistress, we of Endicott’s, here assembled to supper, do desire to give ‘e joy of your marriage contract when it comes to be; an’ us hopes to a man as it may fall out for the best. Idden for us to say no more’n that; an’ what we think an’ what we doan’t think ban’t no business but our awn. Though your gude pleasure be ours, I do assure ‘e; an’ the lot of us would do all man or woman can do to lighten your heart in this vale o’ weariness. An’ I’m sure we wants for you to be a happy woman, wife, mother, an’ widow—all in due an’ proper season, ‘cordin’ to the laws o’ Nature an’ the will o’ God. An’ so sez Churdles Ash, an’ me, an’ Mrs. Loveys, an’ my darters, an’ t’others. An’ us have ordained to give e’ a li’l momentum of the happy day, awnly theer’s no search in’ hurry by the look of it, so as to that—it being Henery Collins his thought—us have resolved to bide till the banns be axed out. ‘Cause theer’s many a slip ’twixt the cup an’ the lip, ’cordin’ to a wise sayin’ of old. An’ so I’ll sit down wishin’ gude fortune to all at Endicott’s—fields, an’ things,2 an’ folk.”
Mr. Cramphorn and his friends had been aware of Honor’s engagement for three months; but the bucolic mind is before all things deliberate. It required that space of time and many long-winded, wearisome arguments to decide when and how an official cognisance of the great fact might best be taken.
The mistress of Bear Down briefly thanked everybody, with a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye; while the men and women gazed stolidly upon her as she expressed her gratitude for their kindly wishes. When she had spoken, Mr. Cramphorn, Collins, and Churdles Ash hit the table with their knife-handles once or twice, and the subject was instantly dismissed. Save in the mistress and her uncle, this incident struck not one visible spark of emotion upon anybody present. All ate heartily, then Honor Endicott withdrew to her parlour; Mrs. Loveys and Cramphorn’s daughters cleared the table.
The men then lighted their pipes; Mark Endicott returned to his chair behind the leathern screen; the deep settle absorbed Churdles Ash and another; Jonah took a seat beside the peat fire, which he mended with a huge “scad” or two from the corner; and the customary Sunday night convention, with the blind man as president or arbiter, according to the tone of the discussion, was entered upon. Sometimes matters progressed harmoniously and sleepily enough; on other occasions, and always at the instance of Mr. Cramphorn, whose many opinions and scanty information not seldom awoke an active and polemical spirit, the argument was conducted with extreme acerbity—a circumstance inevitable when opposing minds endeavour to express ideas or shades of thought beyond the reach of their limited vocabularies.
To-night the wind blew hard from the west and growled in the chimney, while the peat beneath glowed to its fiery heart under a dancing aurora of blue flame, and half a dozen pipes sent forth crooked columns of smoke to the ceiling. Mr. Cramphorn, by virtue of the public part he had already taken in the evening’s ceremonial, was minded to rate himself and his accomplishments with more than usual generosity. For once his suspicious forehead had lifted somewhat off his eyebrows, and the consciousness of great deeds performed with credit cast him into a spirit of complaisance. He lightly rallied Churdles Ash upon the old man’s modesty; then, thrusting his mouth into the necessary figure, blew a perfect ring of smoke, and spat through it into the fire with great comfort and contentment.
Gaffer Ash replied in a tone of resignation.
“As to that,” he said, “some’s got words and some hasn’t. For my paart, I ban’t sorry as I can’t use ’em, for I’ve always thanked God as I was born so humble that I could live through my days without never being called ’pon to say what I think o’ things in general an’ the men an’ women round about.”
“Least said soonest mended,” commented Pinsent.
“Ess fay! ’Tis the chaps as have got to talk I be sorry for—the public warriors and Parliament men an’ such like. They sweat o’ nights, I reckon; for they be ’feared to talk now an’ again, I’ll wager, an’ be still worse ’feared to hold theer peace.”
“You’re pretty right, Ash,” said Mr. Endicott. “It takes a brave man to keep his mouth shut and not care whether he’s misunderstood or no. But ’tis a bleating age—a drum-beating age o’ clash and clatter. Why, the very members of Parliament get too jaded to follow their great business with sober minds. If a man don’t pepper his speeches with mountebank fun, they call him a dull dog, and won’t listen to him. All the world’s dropping into play-acting—that’s the truth of it.”
“I didn’t make no jokes howsoever when I turned my speech ’fore supper,” declared Mr. Cramphorn; “an’ I’m sure I’d never do no such ondacent thing in a set speech. Ban’t respectful. Not but what I was surprised to find how pat the right word comed to me at the right moment wi’out any digging for un.”
“’Tis a gert gift for a humble man,” said Mr. Ash.
“A gift to be used wi’ caution,” confessed Jonah. “When you say ’tis a gift, last word’s spoken,” he added, “but a man’s wise to keep close guard awver his tongue when it chances to be sharper’n common. Not as I ever go back on the spoken word, for ’tis a sign of weakness.”
Myles Stapledon laughed and Mr. Cramphorn grew hot.
“Why for should I?” he asked.
“If you never had call to eat your words after fifty years o’ talkin’, Jonah, you’re either uncommon fortunate or uncommon wise,” declared the blind man. “Wise you are not particular, not to my knowledge, so we must say you’re lucky.”
The others laughed, and Jonah, despite his brag of a tongue more ready than most, found nothing to say at this rebuke. He made an inarticulate growl at the back of his throat and puffed vigorously, while Henry Collins came to the rescue.
“Can ’e tell us when the weddin’s like to be, sir?” he inquired of Stapledon, and Myles waited for somebody else to reply; but none did so.
“I cannot tell,” he answered at length. “I fancy nothing is settled. But we shall hear soon enough, no doubt.”
“I suppose ’tis tu inquirin’ to ax if you’ll bide to Endicott’s when missis do leave it?” said Samuel Pinsent.
“Well—yes, I think it is. Lord knows what I’m going to do. My home’s here for the present—until—well, I really cannot tell myself. It depends on various things.”
There was a silence. Even the most slow-witted perceived a new revelation of Stapledon in this speech. Presently Churdles Ash spoke.
“Best to bide here till the time-work chaps be through wi’ theer job. Them time-work men! The holy text sez, ‘Blessed be they as have not seed an’ yet have believed’; but fegs! ’tis straining scripture to put that on time-work. I’d never believe no time-work man what I hadn’t seed.”
“Anybody’s a fool to believe where he doesn’t trust,” said Mark Endicott. “You open a great question, Ash. I believed no more or less than any other chap of five-an’-twenty in my young days; but, come blindness, there was no more taking on trust for me. I had to find a reason for all I believed from that day forward.”
“Was faith a flower that grew well in the dark with you, uncle?” inquired Myles, and there was a wave of sudden interest in his voice.
“Why, yes. Darkness is the time for making roots and ’stablishing plants, whether of the soil or of the mind. Faith grew but slowly. And the flower of it comes to no more than this: do your duty, and be gentle with your neighbour. Don’t wax weak because you catch yourself all wrong so often. Don’t let any man pity you but yourself; and don’t let no other set of brains than your own settle the rights and wrongs of life for you. That’s my road—a blind man’s. But there’s one thing more, my sons: to believe in the goodness of God through thick and thin.”
“The hardest thing of all,” said Stapledon.
Mr. Cramphorn here thought proper to join issue. He also had his own views, reached single-handed, and was by no means ashamed of them.
“As to the A’mighty,” he said, “my rule’s to treat Un same as He treats me—same as we’m taught to treat any other neighbour. That’s fair, if you ax me.”
“A blasphemous word to say it, whether or no,” declared Ash uneasily. “We ban’t teached to treat folks same as they treat us, but same as we wish they’d treat us. That’s a very differ’nt thing. Gormed if I ban’t mazed a bolt doan’t strike ’e, Jonah.”
“’Tis my way, an’ who’s gwaine to shaw me wheer it fails o’ right an’ justice?”
“A truculent attitude to the Everlasting, surely,” ventured Myles, looking at the restless little man with his hang-dog forehead and big chin.
“Who’s afeared, so long as he’m on the windy side o’ justice? I ban’t. If God sends gude things, I’m fust to thank Un ’pon my bended knees, an’ hope respectful for long continuance; if He sends bad—then I cool off an’ wait for better times. Ban’t my way to return thanks for nought. I’ve thanked Un for the hay for missus’s gude sake a score o’ times; but thank Un for the turmits I won’t, till I sees if we’m gwaine to have rain ’fore ’tis tu late. ‘No song, no supper,’ as the saying is. Ban’t my way to turn left cheek to Jehovah Jireh after He’s smote me ’pon the right. ’Tis contrary to human nature; an’ Christ’s self can’t alter that.”
“’Tis tu changeable in you, Cramphorn, if I may say it without angering you,” murmured Collins.
“Not so, Henery; ban’t me that changes, but Him. I’m a steadfast man, an’ always was so, as Mr. Endicott will bear witness. When the Lard’s hand’s light on me, I go dancin’ an’ frolickin’ afore Him, like to David afore the ark, an’ pray long prayers week-days so well as Sundays; but when He’m contrary with me, an’ minded to blaw hot an’ cold, from no fault o’ mine—why, dammy, I get cranky tu. Caan’t help it. Built so. ’Pears to me as ’tis awnly a brute dog as’ll lick the hands that welts un.”
“What do ’e say to this here popish discoorse, sir?” inquired Churdles Ash; and Mark answered him.
“Why, Jonah only confesses the secret of most of us. We’ve got too much wit or too little pluck to tell—that’s all the difference. He’s blurted it out.”
“The ‘state of most of us’?” gasped Mr. Collins.
“Surely, even though we don’t own it to our innermost souls. Who should know, if not me? It makes a mighty difference whether ’tis by pleasant paths or bitter that we come to the throne of grace. Fair weather saints most of us, I reckon. I felt the same when my eyes were put out. God knows how I kept my hands off my life. I never shall. Before that change I’d prayed regular as need be, morn and night, just because my dear mother had taught me so to do, and habit’s the half of life. And after my eyes went the habit stuck, though my soul was up in arms and my brain poisoned against a hard Providence. And what did I do? Why, regular as the clock, at the hour when I was used to bless God, I went on my knees and lifted my empty eyes to Him and cursed Him. ’Twas as the psalmist prayed in his awful song of rage: my prayer was turned into sin. I did that—for a month. And what was the price He paid me for my wickedness? Why, He sent peace—peace fell upon me and the wish to live; and He that had took my sight away brought tears to my eyes instead. So I reached a blind man’s seeing at the last. I’ve lived to know that man’s misty talk and thought upon justice is no more than a wind in the trees. Therefore Jonah is in the wrong to steer his life by his own human notion of justice. There’s no justice in this world, and what fashion of stuff will be the justice in the next, we’ll know when we come to get it measured out, not sooner. One thing’s sure: it’s not over likely to be planned on earthly models; so there’s no sight under heaven more pitiful to me than all mankind so busy planning pleasure parties in the next world to make up for their little, thorny, wayside job in this.”
“The question is, Do we matter to the God of a starry night?” asked Stapledon, forgetting the presence of any beyond the last speaker. “We matter a great deal to ourselves and ought to—I know that, of course,” he added. “We must take ourselves seriously.”
Mark laughed and made instant answer.
“We take ourselves too seriously, our neighbours not seriously enough. It’s the fault of all humans—philosophers included.”
“An’ I be sure theer’s immortal angels hid in our bones, however,” summed up Mr. Ash.
“If so, good,” answered Stapledon with profound seriousness. “But thought won’t alter what is by the will of God; nor yet what’s going to be. The Future’s His workshop only. No man can meddle there. But the present is ours; and if half the brain-sweat wasted on the next world was spent in tidying the dirty corners in this one—why, we might bring the other nearer—if other there be.”
“You’ll know there’s another long before your time comes to go to it, my son,” said the blind man in a calm voice. Then the tall clock between the warming-pans struck ten with the sonorous cadence and ring of old metal. At this signal pipes were knocked out and windows and doors thrown open; whereupon the west wind, like the voice of a superior intellect, stilled their chatter with sweet breath, soon swept away the reek of tobacco, and brought a blast of pure air through the smoke. All those present, save only Myles and Endicott, then departed to their rest; but these two sat on awhile, for the old man had a hard thing to say, and knew that the moment to speak was come.
“How long are you going to stop here?” he asked suddenly.
“I can’t guess. I suppose there’s no hurry. I’ve really not much interest anywhere else. Why do you ask?”
“Because it’s important, lad. Blind folks hear such a deal. And they often know more than what belongs to the mere spoken word. There’s an inner and an outer meaning to most speech of man, and we sightless ones often gather both. It surprises people at times. You see we win nothing from sight of a speaking mouth or the eyes above it. All our brain sits behind our ear; there’s no windows for it to look out at.”
“You’ve surprised me by what you have gleaned out of a voice, uncle.”
“And I’m like to again. Not pleasantly neither. I’ve thought how I’d found something on your tongue long ago; but I’ve kept dumb, hoping I was mistaken. To-night, my son, there’s no more room for doubt.”
“This is a mystery—quite uncanny.”
“I don’t know. ’Tis very unfortunate—very, but a fact; and you’ve got to face it.”
“Read the riddle to me,” said Stapledon slowly. His voice sounded anxious under an assumption of amusement.
“Do you remember after supper how Pinsent asked you whether you would stop on here when his mistress was married? You answered that the Lord knew what you were going to do. Now it was clean out of your character to answer so.”
“I hope it was; I hope so indeed. I was sorry the moment afterwards.”
“You couldn’t help yourself. You were not thinking of your answer to the question, but the much more important thing suggested by the question. That’s what made you so short: the thought of Honor’s marriage.”
“I own it,” confessed the other. A silence fell; then Mark spoke again more gravely.
“Myles, you must clear out of here. I’m blind and even I know it. How much more such as can see—you yourself, for instance—and Honor—and Christopher Yeoland.”
Stapledon’s brow flushed and his jaw set hard. He looked at the sightless face before him, and spoke hurriedly.
“For God’s sake, what do you mean?”
“It’s news to you? I do think it is! And it has come the same way to many when it falls the first time. The deeper it strikes, the less they can put a name to it. But now you know. Glance back along the road you’ve walked beside Honor of late days. Then see how the way ahead looks to you with her figure gone. I knew this a week ago, and I sorrowed for you. There was an unconscious tribute in your voice when you spoke to her—a hush in it, as if you were praying. Man, I’m sorry—but your heart will tell you that I’m right.”
A lengthy silence followed upon this speech; then the other whispered out a question, and there was awe rather than terror in his tone.
“You mean I’m coming to love her?”
“I do—if only that. Remember what you said the first day you came here about the false step at the threshold.”
“But she is another man’s. That has been familiar knowledge to me.”
“And you think that fact can prevent a man of honour from loving a woman?”
“Surely.”
“Not so at all. Love of woman’s a thing apart—beyond all rule and scale, or dogma, or the Bible’s self. The passions are pagans to the end—no more to be trusted than tame tigers, if a man is a man. But passions are bred out nowadays. I don’t believe the next generation will be shook to the heart with the same gusts and storms as the last. We think smaller thoughts and feel smaller sentiments; we’re too careful of our skins to trust the giant passions; our hearts don’t pump the same great flood of hot blood. But you—you belong to the older sort. And you love her—you who never heard the rustle of a petticoat with quickened breath before, I reckon. You’re too honest to deny it after you’ve thought a little. You know there’s something seething down at the bottom of your soul—and now you hear the name of it. Go to bed and sleep upon that.”
Stapledon remained mute. His face was passive, but his forehead was wrinkled a little. He folded his arms and stared at the fire.
“God knows I wish this was otherwise,” continued Mark Endicott. “’Twould have been a comely and a fitting thing for you to mate her and carry on all here. So at least I thought before I knew you.”
“But have changed your opinion of me since?”
“Well, yes; I did not think so highly of you until we met and got to understand each other. But I doubt if you’d be a fit husband for Honor. There’s a difference of—I don’t know the word—but it’s a difference in essentials anyway—in views and in standpoint. Honor’s a clever woman to some extent, yet she takes abundant delight in occasional foolishness, as clever women often do. ’Tisn’t your fashion of mind to fool—not even on holidays. You couldn’t if you tried.”
“But she is as sober-minded as I am at heart. Under her humorous survey of things and her laughter there is——”
“I know; I know all about her.”
“We had thought we possessed much in common on a comparison of notes now and again.”
“If you did, ’tis just what you wouldn’t have found out so pat at first sight. There’s a great gulf fixed between you, and I’m not sorry it is so, seeing she’s another man’s. Yeoland looks to be a light thing; I grant that; but I do believe that he understands her better than you or I ever could. I’ve found out so much from hearing them together. Moreover, he’s growing sober; there’s a sort of cranky sense in him, I hope, after all.”
“A feather-brain, but well-meaning.”
“The last leaf on an old tree—even as Honor is.”
“At least there must be deep friendship always—deep friendship. So much can’t be denied to me. Don’t talk of a great gulf between us, uncle. Not at least a mental one.”
“Truly I believe so, Myles.”
“We could bridge that.”
“With bridges of passing passion—like silver spider-threads between flowers. But they wouldn’t stand the awful strain of lifelong companionship. You’ve never thought what that strain means in our class of life, when husband and wife have got to bide within close touch most times till the grave parts them. But that’s all wind and nothing. She’s tokened to Yeoland. So no more need be spoken on that head. You’ve got to think of your peace of mind, Stapledon, and—well, I’d best say it—hers too. Now, good-night. Not another word, if you’re a wise man.”
Mark Endicott was usually abroad betimes, though not such an early riser as Myles, and on the following morning, according to his custom, he walked in the garden before breakfast. His pathway extended before the more ancient front of Bear Down, and in summer, at each step, he might stretch forth his hand over the flower border and know what blossom would meet it. Now there fell a heavy footfall that approached from the farmyard.
“Good morning,” said Stapledon, as he shook Mark by the hand.
“Good morning, my lad.”
“I’m going on Saturday.”
Mr. Endicott nodded, as one acknowledging information already familiar.
“Your loss will fall heavily on me,” he said, “for it’s not twice in a month of Sundays that I get such a companion spirit to chop words with.”
Notes
2 Things = stock.