CHAPTER X
A jay, with flash of azure and rose, fluttered screaming along from point to point of a coppice hard by Hawk House, and Cora Lintern saw it. She frowned, for this bird was associated in her mind with a recent and an unpleasant incident. Her brother Heathman, whose disparate nature striking against her own produced many explosions, had recently told her that the jay was her bird—showy, tuneless, hard-hearted. She remembered the occasion of this attack, but for the moment had no energy at leisure with which to hate him; for difficulties were rampant in her own path, and chance began to treat her much as she had treated other people in the past.
In a word, her lover grew colder. As yet she had no knowledge of the reason, but the fact could not be denied, and her uneasiness increased. He saw somewhat less of her, and he made no effort to determine the time of the wedding. Neither did he invite her to do so. He had come twice to see Mrs. Lintern when Cora was not by, and an account of these visits was reported by her mother.
"I don't exactly know why he dropped in either time," said Mrs. Lintern. "He kept talking on everyday matters, and never named your name. 'Twas curious, in fact, the way he kept it out. All business, but nothing about the business of marrying you. Yet there was plenty on his mind, I do believe. I should reckon as he'd come for a special purpose, but finding himself here, it stuck in his throat. He's strong with men, but weak with women. Have he told you of aught that's fretting him?"
Her daughter could remember nothing of the sort. Neither did she confess what she did know—that Waite was unquestionably cooler than of old.
"'Tis time the day was named," declared Priscilla. "And you'd better suggest it when next you meet with him."
But Cora did not do so, because there was much in Timothy's manner that told her he desired no expedition. Some time had now elapsed since last she saw him, and to-day she was going, in obedience to a note brought by a labourer, to meet him at the Rut, half a mile from Coldstone Farm. That he should have thus invited her to come to him was typical of the change in his sentiments. Formerly he would have walked or ridden to her. The tone of his brief note chilled her, but she obeyed it, and was now approaching their tryst at evening time in early September.
In a little field nigh Hawk House she heard the purr of a corn-cutting machine. It was clinking round and round, shearing at each revolution a slice from the island of oats that still stood in the midst of a sea of fallen grain. A boy drove the machine, and behind it followed Humphrey Baskerville and Rupert. The younger man had come over to help garner the crop. Together they worked, gathered up the oats, and set them in little sheaves. The waning sunlight gilded the standing oats. Now and then a dog barked and darted round the vanishing island in the midst, for there—separated from safety by half an acre of stubble—certain rabbits squatted together, and waited for the moment when they must bolt and make their final run to death.
Cora, unseen, watched this spectacle; then Mrs. Hacker appeared with a tray, on which were three mugs and a jug of cider.
The girl was early for her appointment, but she sauntered forward presently and marked Timothy Waite in the lower part of the valley.
It was the Rut's tamest hour of late summer, for the brightness of the flowers had ceased to shine; the scanty heath made little display, and autumn had as yet lighted no beacon fire. Stunted thorn trees ripened their harvest, but the round masses of the greater furze were dim; a prevalent and heavy green spread over the Rut, and the only colour contrast was that presented by long stretches of dead brake fern. The litter had been cut several weeks before and allowed to dry and ripen. It had now taken upon itself a dark colour, widely different from the richer, more lustrous, and gold-sprinkled splendour of auburn that follows natural death. The dull brown stuff was being raked together ready for the cart; and Cora, from behind a furze clump, watched her sweetheart carry immense trusses of the bracken and heave them up to the growing pile upon a wain that waited for the load. All she could see was a pair of straight legs in black gaiters moving under a little stack of the fern; then the litter was lifted, to reveal Timothy Waite.
Presently he looked at his watch and marked that the time of meeting was nearly come. Whereupon he donned his coat, made tidy his neckcloth, handed his fork to a labourer, and left the working party. He strolled slowly up the coomb along the way that she must approach, while she left her hiding-place and set out to meet him. He shook hands, but he did not kiss her, and he did not look into her eyes. Instead, he evaded her own glance, spoke quickly, and walked quickly in unconscious obedience to his own mental turmoil.
"I can't run," she said. "If you want me to hear what you're saying, Timothy, you must go slower, or else sit down in the hedge."
"It's terrible," he answered. "It's terrible, and it's made an old man of me. But some things you seem to know from the first are true, and some you seem to know are not. And when first I heard it I said to myself, t 'Tis a damned lie of a wicked and venomous man'; but then, with time and thought, and God knows how many sleepless nights, I got to see 'twas true enough. And why wasn't I told? I ask you that. Why wasn't I told?"
Her heart sank and her head grew giddy. She translated this speech with lightning intuition, and knew too well all that it must mean. It explained his increasing coolness, his absences and evasions. It signified that he had changed his mind upon learning the secret of the Linterns.
A natural feminine, histrionic instinct made her pretend utmost astonishment, though she doubted whether it would deceive him.
"What you're talking about I haven't the slightest idea," she said. "But if you have a grievance, so have I—and more than one. You wasn't used to order me here and there six weeks ago. 'Twas you that would come and see me then; now I've got to weary my legs to tramp to do your bidding."
He paid no heed to her protest.
"If you don't understand, then you must, and before we part, too. I can't go on like this. No living man could do it. I called twice to see your mother about it, for it seemed to me that 'twas more seemly I should speak to her than to you; but when I faced her I couldn't open my mouth, much as I wanted to do so. She shook me almost, and I'd have been thankful to be shook; but 'tis the craft and cunning of the thing that's too much for me. I've been hoodwinked in this, and no doubt laughed at behind my back. That's what's made me feel as I do now. I waited and hoped on, and loved you for years, and saw you chuck two other men, and found I'd got you at last, and reckoned I was well rewarded for all my patience; and—then—then—this——"
"What? This what? Are you mad? What didn't you dare to speak to my mother, and yet you can speak to me? What have I done that's set you against me? What sin have I committed? Don't think I'm blind. I've seen you cooling off clear enough, and for the life of me I couldn't guess the reason, try as I would and sorrow about it as I would. But since you've ordered me here for this, perhaps you'll go straight on and tell me what's all the matter."
"I want you to answer me one question. The answer you must know, and I ask you to swear afore your Maker that you'll tell me the truth. Mind this, I know the truth. It's scorched into me like a burn this many a day. But I must hear it from you too, Cora."
She guessed his question, and also guessed that in truth lay her last hope. He spoke positively, and she doubted not that he knew. His fear before her mother was natural. She perceived how easily a man might have gone to a woman with this momentous question on his mind, and how naturally the presence of the woman might strike him dumb at the actual meeting. None knew better than Cora how different is the reality of a conversation with a fellow-creature from the imaginary interview formulated before the event. There was but one problem in her mind now—the advantage or disadvantage of truth. She judged that the case was desperate, but that her only hope lay in honesty.
"Speak," she said. "And I swear I'll answer nought but the truth—if I know the truth."
He hesitated, and considered her answer. He was fond of her still, but the circumstance of this deception, to which he supposed her a party, had gone far to shake his affection. The grievance was that the facts should have been hidden from him after his proposal. He held that then was the time when Cora's paternity should have been divulged. He believed that had he known it then, it would have made small difference to his love. It was not so much the fact as the hiding of the fact that had troubled him.
"Who was your father?" he asked at length, and the words burst out of him in a heap, like an explosion.
"I know who he was," she answered.
"Name him, then."
"You see, Timothy, you never asked. I often thought whether there was any reason to tell you, and often and often I felt you ought to know; but you're a wise and far-seeing man, and I wasn't the only one to be thought on. I'd have told you from the first, even at the risk of angering you, but there was mother. I couldn't do it—knowing what she'd feel. I was a daughter afore I was a sweetheart. Would you have done it when you came to think on your mother?"
"Name him."
"Nathan Baskerville was my father, and my sister's and brother's father. My mother was his wife all but in name, and they only didn't marry because it meant losing money. You understand why I didn't tell you—because of my poor mother. Now you can do as you please. I'm myself anyway, and I'm not going to suffer for another's sins more than I can help. There's no stain on me, and well you know it."
"Nathan was your father?"
"He was. I suppose Heathman told you. He's threatened to oft enough."
"No matter for that. 'Tis so, and 'twas deliberately hidden from me."
"'Twas hidden from all the world. And why not? I did no wrong by hiding it, feel as I might. There was four to think of."
"'Twasn't hidden from all the world, and 'tisn't hidden. I didn't learn it from Heathman. You've brought this on yourself in a way. If you hadn't quarrelled with a certain man I shouldn't have done so either. Jack Head told me after I'd thrashed him for insulting you; and I suppose if he hadn't I might have gone to church with you, and very likely gone to my grave at last, and never known what you was."
"I should have told you when my mother died."
"D'you swear that?"
"I tell you it is so. I'm going to swear no more at your bidding. 'Tis for me to speak now. You've cut me to the quick to-day, and I doubt if I shall ever get over it. 'Tisn't a very manly way to treat an innocent girl, I should think. However, I forgive everything and always shall, for I love the ground you walk on, and you know it, and 'twasn't from any wish to treat you without proper respect that I hid away this cruel thing. I said to myself, 'It can't hurt dear Tim not to know it, and it would hurt my mother and my sister terribly if 'twas known.' So, right or wrong, I did what I did; and now you're in judgment over me, and I can't—I can't live another moment, dear Timothy, till I know how you feel about it."
She had begun in a spirit rather dictatorial, but changed swiftly into this milder appeal when she marked the expression of his face. He was prepared to stand little. From the first she felt almost hopeless that she would have power to move him.
"Who told Jack Head?" asked Timothy.
"God knows. My brother, I should think. There's none else in the world but mother and Phyllis that knew it."
"Others were told, but not me. I was deceived by all of you."
"That's not true," she answered as her fighting instinct got the better of tact. "'Twasn't to deceive you not to tell you. All families have got secrets—yours too."
"You did wrong to me. 'Tisn't even like as if I was nobody. I come of pretty good havage on my mother's side, and I think a lot of such things."
"Well, the Baskervilles——"
"Don't be foolish, woman! D'you think I'm ——? There, 'tisn't a case for talk that I can see. The thing be done and can't be undone. I'd have overlooked it, so like as not, if you'd made a clean breast of the truth when I offered for you; but to let me go on blind—I can't forgive that."
Perceiving what had hurt him, Cora set herself to lessen the sting as much as possible; but she failed. They talked to no purpose for an hour, while she used every argument that occurred to her, and he opposed to her swift mind and subtle reasoning a blank, impassive wall of sulky anger and wounded pride. It began to grow dark before the conclusion came, and they had walked half-way back to Shaugh. At the top of the hill he left her, and the battle ended in wrath on both sides and a parting irrevocable.
Her failure it was that made Cora lose her temper, and when she did so, he, thankful for the excuse, spoke harshly, and absolved his own uneasy spirit for so doing.
The final scene was brief, and the woman, wearied in mind and body with her efforts to propitiate him, drew it down upon them.
"Why don't you speak out like a man, then?" she said at last. "Why d'you keep growling in your throat, like a brute, and not answering my questions? 'Tis because you can't answer them in right and justice. But one word you've got to find a tongue to, though well you may be shamed to do it. It shan't be said I've thrown you over, if that's the cowardly thing you're playing up for. I promised to marry you, and I would marry you; but you don't want to marry me, it seems, and you've pitched on this paltry thing to get out of it."
"'Paltry thing'! You're shameless."
"Yes, it is paltry; and everybody would say so; and you'll hear what decent people think of you pretty soon if you throw me over, I can tell you. How can a child help its own father, or see whether its parents be properly married? You're cruel and mad both."
"We'll see, then," he answered. "Since you're bent on hearing me speak, I will. And don't pretend as I'm growling and you're not hearing. I'll tell you what I mean, and my words shall be as clear as my mind is about it. I won't marry you now, and I wouldn't if you was all you ought to be. I've had a taste of your tongue this evening that's opened my mind a good bit to what you are. You've shown me a lot more about yourself than you think for. And if I did growl, like a brute, my ears was open and my wits was wide awake, like a man. And I won't marry you, and I've a perfect right not to do so after this."
"You dirty coward! No, you shan't marry me, and you shouldn't if you crawled to me across the whole world on your knees, and prayed to me to forgive you. And if you're well out of it, what am I? And don't you think you've heard the last of this, because you have not. I've got good friends and strong friends in the world, though you'd like to fancy as I was friendless and outcast, for men like you to spit on. But I can fight my own battles very well, come to that, as you shall find; and I'll have you up for breach, God's my judge; and if decent men don't bring in proper, terrifying damages against you, I'll ask you to forgive me. Yes, I'll make your name laughed at from one end of the Moor to t'other, as you shall find afore you'm many days older."
He stood still before this threat, and, finding that he did not answer, she left him and hastened home.
There she blazed her startling news. Cora's own attitude towards the truth was now one of indifference. She raged against her fate, and for the time being could not look forward. Phyllis alone displayed grief. She was engaged to a young baker at Cornwood, and feared for her own romance: therefore she wept and revealed the liveliest concern. But Heathman, perceiving Priscilla's indifference, exhibited the like. It appeared that mother and son were glad rather than regretful at this escape of truth.
Mrs. Lintern, however, exhibited exceeding wonder, if little dismay. She was sorry for Cora, but not for herself.
"I had a feeling, strong as death in me, that 'twould come to light," she said. "Somehow I always knew that the thing must struggle out sometime. Many and many actually knew it in their hearts, by a sort of understanding—like a dog's reason. And I knew they knew it. But the truth was never openly thrust in my face till he died, and Eliza Gollop spoke it. And, she being what she is, none believed her; and 'twas enough that she should whisper scandal for the better sort to flout her and turn a deaf ear. And now it's out, and the great wonder in me ban't that 'tis out, but who let it out. For the moment it looks as if 'twas a miracle; yet, no doubt, time will clear that too."
"I suppose you'll go now," said Cora. "Anyway, if you don't, I shall. There's been nought but trouble and misery for me in this hole from my childhood upward."