BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
VANESSA IO
Between Bear Down and the valley was fern and the breath of fern and great gleam and drone of summer flies under the living sun. Here Teign tumbled through deep gorges, and from the wind-swept granite of Godleigh hill, beneath unclouded noonday splendour, acres of bracken panted silver-green in the glare, dipped to the fringes of the woods below, and shone like a shield of light upon the bosom of the acclivity. At river-level spread a forest, where oak and alder, larch and pinnacles of pine shimmered in the haze. Dark shadows broke the manifold planes of them, and the song of the river beneath, with lull and rise on the lazy summer breeze, murmured from mossy granite stairways twining through the woods. Here shone masses of king fern, twinkled jewels of honeysuckle, and the deep, pink blossoms of eglantine. The atmosphere was very dry; the leaves on a little white poplar clapped their hands to the river melody; hirundines wheeled and cried in the upper blue, and there lacked not other signs, all dearer than rainbows to a farmer whose corn is ripe, of fine weather and its continuance.
In the shadow of a great stone upon the hillside, where, beneath the fairy forest of the fern, sad grasses robbed of sunlight seeded feebly, and wood strawberries gemmed the under-green, sat Honor Stapledon alone. Upon one hand sloped bare descents, already blistered somewhat by a hot July, patched with rusty colour where the heather had been roasted under the eye of the sun, painted with tawny, thirsty foliage, brightened by the blue spires of viper's bugloss, starred with pink of centauries. A great bramble bore red fruit and pale blossom together; and here butterflies made dancing, glancing gleam and tangle of colour as they came and went, flashed hither and thither, or settled to sun themselves on the flowers and rocks. One—Vanessa Io—feared nothing, and pursued his business and pleasure upon the bramble within a few inches of Honor's cheek.
As yet Christopher Yeoland had not plucked courage to return publicly, but that morning came rumours from Little Silver that he was upon a visit to Godleigh, as guest of the departing tenant. Noah Brimblecombe had actually seen him and mentioned the fact to Mr. Cramphorn. Honor, therefore, expecting an early visit, and feeling quite unequal to such an experience now that it had come so near—desiring moreover that Myles and not herself should first welcome the wanderer—had stolen away to the adjacent hillside, there to pass some hours with a book. But her thoughts proved of a nature more interesting than verses. Indeed they lacked not poetry and even images to be described as startling, for the matter was dramatic and sufficiently sensational to fire a less imaginative mind. So her book remained unopened, and she watched Vanessa Io, though her thoughts were not with him.
While Stapledon had grasped the fact of Christopher's continued existence and pending return somewhat sooner than his wife, the positions a month later seemed reversed. He faced the upheaval on the first proclamation, and she shrank from it with emotion bred from her recent terror; but now it was Honor who discussed affairs in the calmer spirit, and Myles who changed the subject, not always without impatience. The woman's frank interest daily grew, and she saw no cause to hide it; while the man, whose mind had been jolted from the rut of accepted things, now felt a desire to return into it and found himself come near resentment of this wonder. Such a tremendous circumstance hung over his days like a cloud, for it meant more to him than anybody, so at least he believed at that season. Stapledon's intellect was of a sort likely to be impatient at such monkey tricks. He found all the solid building of the past, all the logical sequences of events and movements leading to possession of Honor, tumbled into ruins around him. To his order-loving nature the skein of life grew in some measure tangled before such sleight and jugglery. Though he strove hard to keep in sight the sure knowledge that Yeoland had played his part for love of Honor, yet indignation would now and then awake to burn in him; and that first spark of passion, lighted when he thought of his child, after the earliest confession from Henry Collins, was not as yet wholly extinguished. Now, while the return of the wanderer came nearer, Myles shook himself into a resolute attitude and told himself that the uncertain depths and shallows of his own emotions must be discovered and his future line of conduct determined, as Mark Endicott had forewarned him. But while he stood thus, in unfamiliar moods of doubt, Honor, contrariwise, from a standpoint almost approaching superstitious fear, was come to accept the truth and accept it thankfully. The tremendous mental excitement, the shock and clash of thoughts afforded by this event, possessed some tonic faculty for her, and, as Doctor Clack had predicted, wrought more good than harm within her nature. For a little while she had wept after the first wave of fear was passed; she had wept and wondered in secret at the snarling cruelty of chance that willed this man, of all men, to rob her of her baby treasure; but the thought of his sorrow when the truth should reach him lessened her own.
The reason for Christopher's conduct Honor had of course learned. That much Myles set out for her with the most luminous words at his command; and he smarted even while he told of the other's renunciation and self-sacrifice. He explained many times how for love of her Yeoland departed and let it be imagined that he was no more; how, from conviction that her happiness was wound up with her present husband, he had done this thing. Myles strove to live in an atmosphere of naked truth at this season, for his instinct told him that the way was strange and that salvation only lay in stripping off it every cloud or tissue of unreality.
As for Mark Endicott, from mere human interest at an event beyond experience, he passed to estimate and appraisement of Christopher's deeds. Averse from every sort of deception, he yet found himself unable to judge hardly before the motives and the character of the first puppet in this tragi-comedy. Yeoland had meant well in the past, and the only question for the future was his own sentiments toward Honor. That these justified him in his return to Godleigh Mr. Endicott nothing doubted. He recollected the somewhat peculiar emotional characteristics of the man and felt no cause for fear, save in the matter of Myles.
As for Little Silver, intelligence that their squire, resuscitated in life and pocket, was returning to his own filled most hearts with lively satisfaction after the first amazement had sobered. Recollection of his generosity awakened; whereon the fathers of the village met in conclave and determined to mark their great man's home-coming with some sort of celebration, if only a bonfire upon the hill-top and some special broaching of beer-barrels.