“Let ’em believe or disbelieve, who cares?” he thundered out. “Not me—not a curse for you or anybody, my awn blood or not my awn blood. To harbour lies against me! But women loves to believe bad most times.”
“Who said they believed it, Will? Doan’t go mad, now ’tis awver and done.”
“They did believe it; I knaw, I seed it in theer faaces, come to think of it. ’Tis the auld song. I caan’t do no right. Course I’ve got childer an’ ruined maids in every parish of the Moor! God damn theer lying, poisonous tongues, the lot of ’em! I’m sick of this rotten, lie-breeding hole, an’ of purty near every sawl in it but mother. She never would think against me. An’ me, so true to Phoebe as the honey-bee to his awn butt! I’ll go—I’ll get out of it—so help me, I will—to a clean land, ’mongst clean-thinking folk, wheer men deal fair and judge a chap by his works. For a thought I’d wring the neck of the blasted child, by God I would!”
“He’ve done no wrong.”
“Nor me neither. I had no more hand in his getting than he had himself. Poor li’l brat; I’m sorry I spoke harsh of him. He was give me—he was give me—an’ I wish to God he was mine. Anyways he shaa’n’t come to no harm. I’ll fight the lot of ’e for un, till he ’s auld enough to fight for hisself.”
Then Will burst out of Monks Barton and vanished. He passed far from the confines of the farm, roamed on to the high Moor, and nothing further was seen of him until the following day.
Those most concerned assembled after his departure and heard the result of the interview.
“Solemn as a minister he swore,” explained Mr. Lyddon; “an’ then, a’most before his hands was off the Book, he burst out like a screeching, ravin’ hurricane. I half felt the oath was vain then, an’ ’t was his real nature bubblin’ up like.”
They discussed the matter, all save Chris, who sat apart, silent and abstracted. Presently she rose and left them, and faced her own trouble single-handed, as she had similarly confronted greater sorrows in the past.
She was fully determined to conceal her cherished secret still; yet not for the superficial reason that had occurred to any mind. Vast mental alterations had transformed Chris Blanchard since the death of Clement. Her family she scarcely considered now; no power of logic would have convinced her that she had wronged them or darkened their fame. In the past, indeed, not the least motive of her flight had centred in the fear of Will; but now she feared nobody, and her own misfortune held no shadow of sin or shame for her, looking back upon it. Those who would have denied themselves her society or friendship upon this knowledge it would have given her no pang to lose. She could feel fiercely still, as she looked back to the birth of her son and traced the long course of her sufferings; and she yet experienced occasional thrills of satisfaction in her weaker moments, when she lowered the mask and reflected, not without pride, on the strength and determination that had enabled her to keep her secret. But to reveal the truth now was a prospect altogether hateful in the eyes of Chris, and she knew the reason. More than once had she been upon the brink of disclosure, since recent unhappy suspicions had darkened Phoebe’s life; but she had postponed the necessary step again and again, at one thought. Her fortitude, her apathy, her stoic indifference, broke down and left her all woman before one necessity of confession; her heart stood still when she remembered that Martin Grimbal must know and judge. His verdict she did, indeed, dread with all her soul, and his only; for him she had grown to love, and the thought of his respect and regard was precious to her. Everybody must know, everybody or nobody. For long she could conceive of no action clearing Will in the eyes of the wider circle who would not be content to take his word, and yet leaving herself uninvolved. Then the solution came. She would depart once more with the child. Such a flight was implicit confession, and could not be misunderstood. Martin must, indeed, know, but she would never see him after he knew. To face him after the truth had reached his ear seemed to Chris a circumstance too terrible to dwell upon. Her action, of course, would proclaim the parentage of Timothy, and free Will from further slanderings; while for herself, through tears she saw the kind faces of the gypsy people and her life henceforth devoted to her little one.