Chapter XXIV: "the Rest Is Easy"

Ben Bamsey survived his illness and had to thank a very pains-taking doctor and most devoted nurses for his life. He was unconscious for four and twenty hours, and during the fortnight that followed the crisis remained so weak, that it seemed he could never regain strength sufficient to move a hand. Then he began to recover. He prospered very slowly, but there were no relapses, and the definite disaster left by his illness remained unknown to the sufferer himself until the end of his days. Nor did other people perceive it until some months had elapsed. The physician was the first to do so, but he did not speak of it directly, rather leaving Ben's own circle to discover the change and its extent. The doctor had feared early; but it was not a fear he could impart.

Meantime it became known to those who had already bidden farewell to the master of Green Hayes that he would live; and not one of all those known to Mr. Bamsey but rejoiced to learn the good news.

On a day some time after Christmas, while yet the sick man's fate was undetermined and it could not be said that he was out of danger, Lawrence Maynard went down to Green Hayes, that he might learn the latest news. Life ran evenly at Falcon Farm and Mr. Stockman's first interest at present was his kinsman. Now Lawrence brought a partridge, with directions from Joe that it was to be made into broth for Mr. Bamsey.

He saw Ben's wife and heard the morning's news, that her husband was now safe and would recover.

Faith looked haggard and pale, and Maynard expressed a fear that the ordeal must have been very severe. She admitted it, but declared that such relief as all now felt would be a tonic and swiftly restore them.

"We're about beat," she said, in her usual placid fashion. "We've worked hard and, between us, we've saved my husband with the doctor's help. That man's a miracle. I've got a very great respect for him. You'd best to come in and rest yourself before you go back."

He entered, in secret hope of seeing Dinah, whom he had not met for several weeks. Once, however, she had written him a brief note to say that she was well.

Faith Bamsey spoke of Ben and praised his fortitude.

"If he'd wavered, or thrown up the sponge for an hour, he'd have died; but so long as he kept consciousness he determined to live, and even when he thought and felt positive he must go, he never gave up doing the right thing. He won't be the same man, however; we mustn't expect that. He'll be in his bed for a month yet and can't hope to go down house for six weeks. He mustn't think to go out of doors till spring and the warm weather; then it remains to be seen how much of his nature he gets back."

She entertained Maynard for half an hour, while he drank a cup of tea. She did not share Jane's suspicion and dislike of him and felt no objection to the idea of his wedding Dinah and removing her from Lower Town. She was almost minded in his quiet and inoffensive presence to raise the question, and went so far as to tell him Dinah had driven to Ashburton that afternoon. But he showed no apparent interest in the fact and Faith did not continue on the subject. She could be generous, however, in the blessed light of Ben's promised recovery, and she admitted that Dinah had been of infinite value in the sick-room. Indeed Mrs. Bamsey did not hide from herself that Dinah had doubtless made the difference between life and death for her husband; and since she desired above all things that Ben should live, some of her dislike was softened for the time. She wished her away very cordially, but knew the hour of Dinah's departure must now be protracted indefinitely, for no question could at present be put to her foster-father.

With her personal anxieties ended, Faith Bamsey found it possible to consider other people again.

"I've never had time to think of what Enoch Withycombe's death meant yet," she said, "because it brought such a terrible time to us. But now us can lift up our heads and look round at other folk again and inquire after the neighbours. Melinda was down axing after my husband a bit ago, but I didn't see her. Jerry comes and goes. I hope Melinda gets over it. To nurse a father all them years and then lose him, must have left her stranded in a manner of speaking."

"Mrs. Honeysett comes to see Miss Susan and farmer sometimes."

"I warrant. Would you say Cousin Joe be looking in that direction now she's free?"

Maynard shook his head.

"I wouldn't. I don't reckon Mr. Stockman will marry again. He's very comfortable."

"Yes--one of them whose comfort depends on the discomfort of somebody else, however."

"So people seem to think. It's a hard home for Miss Susan; but it's her life, and if she's not a cheerful sort of woman, you can't say she's much downcast."

"No--she dursn't be cast down. He wouldn't stand cast-down people round him. Mind to say I'm greatly obliged for the bird, and I hope Ben will eat a slice or two presently. I'll come up over and drink a dish of tea with them afore long. I'm properly withered for want of fresh air."

"I dare say you are, ma'am."

"I saw Enoch Withycombe last week," she said. "The old man was standing down in the Vale, not far from the kennels--just where you'd think he might be. And always seeing him lying down, as we did, it gave me quite a turn to mark how tall his ghost was."

To see a dead man had not astonished Faith; but the unremembered accident of his height had done so.

"How did he look, Mrs. Bamsey?" asked Maynard.

"I couldn't tell you. The faces that I see never show very clear. You'm conscious it is this man, or this woman. You know, somehow, 'tis them, but there's always a fog around them. They don't look the same as what living people look."

"The haunted house that adjoins Mrs. Honeysett's is taken at last," he said. "Mr. Chaffe has been up over a good bit putting it to rights, and they've stripped the ivy and are going to put on a new thatch. It's a very good house really, though in a terrible state, so Mr. Chaffe told master."

"I've heard all about it," she answered. "There's a new gardener come to Buckland Court--a widow man with a young daughter. And he don't care for ghosts--one of the modern sort, that believe naught they can't understand. And as they can't understand much, they don't believe much. So he's took it."

"Harry Ford, he's called," added Lawrence. "A man famous for flower-growing, I believe."

"I'm glad then. I hate for houses to stand empty."

He asked after Jerry.

"I met your young people back-along, and I'm afraid Miss Jane have put me in her black books--why for I don't know very well. I suppose they'll wed come presently?"

Again Mrs. Bamsey was tempted to speak, but felt it wiser not to do so. She ignored Maynard's first remark and replied to the second.

"Yes; they'll be for it now no doubt. After Easter perhaps; but not till my husband is strong enough to be at the church and give Jane away of course. Jerry's come into a bit of money since his father died. They must have their ideas, but they're close as thieves about the future. All I can hear is that they be wishful to go away from here come they're married."

"Folk like to make a change and start life fresh after that."

"I suppose they do."

He talked a little longer and it was impossible for Faith to feel dislike or anger. Had he come between her son and his betrothed--had he been responsible for the unhappy break, she would have felt differently; but she knew that he was not responsible and she perceived that if he indeed desired to marry Dinah, the circumstance would solve difficulties only ignored by common consent during her husband's illness. She had not heard what John said to Dinah in the sick-room and supposed that now her son must appreciate the situation, since he had quite ceased to speak of Dinah. His purpose, avowed in a passion, had not overmuch impressed Dinah herself, for it was outside reason and she doubted not that Johnny would be ashamed of such foolish threats in a cooler moment. But, none the less, she meant to warn Lawrence and now an opportunity occurred to do so.

For Maynard availed himself of Mrs. Bamsey's information, and hearing that Ben's foster-daughter was gone to Ashburton, knew the way by which she would return home and proceeded on that way. He had not seen her since the Sunday afternoon at Lizwell Meet; neither had he written to her, doubting whether it might be wise to do so and guessing that her whole life for the present was devoted to the sufferer.

He left Mrs. Bamsey now and presently passed the workshops of Arthur Chaffe at Lower Town, then sank into the valley. By the time he reached New Bridge, Dinah had also arrived there and he carried her parcels for half a mile and returned beside the river.

She was beyond measure rejoiced to see him and he found her worn and weary from the strain of the battle; but its victorious issue went far already to make her forget what was passed. She talked of Mr. Bamsey and gave Maynard details of the sick-room and the alternate phases of hope and despair that had accompanied the illness. To her these things bulked large and filled her thoughts; but he was well content, because Dinah adopted an implicit attitude to him that indicated beyond doubt her settled consciousness of their relation. She spoke as though they were lovers of established understanding. She seemed to take it for granted that only an uncertain measure of time separated them.

This much she implied from the moment of their meeting and presently, when they approached the parting place, she became personal.

"Don't think, for all I'm so full of dear foster-father, that you've been out of my thoughts, Lawrence," she said. "You was there all the time--the last thing in my mind when I went to get an hour or two of sleep, and the first thing when I woke. You ran through it all; and once or twice when he was rambling, he named your name and said you was a very good sort of man--civil and thoughtful and peace-loving. And I told him you were; and he hoped we'd come together, for he said he could trust me with you. He wasn't far from himself when he said it, but only I heard; and whether he ever named you in his fever dreams when I wasn't there--to Jane, or Mrs. Bamsey--I don't know. They never let on about it and so I hope he didn't."

"I've just seen his wife," he said. "She's long ways happier for this great recovery. She's sensible enough. She looked a few questions, but didn't ask them, and you're not bound to answer looks."

Then Dinah told him of John's threats and how he had again begged her to wed.

"I felt things was at a climax then; and I told him straight out that I knew what love was at last. I was gentle and kind to the poor chap; but he wasn't gentle and kind to me. He wanted to know the man, and that, of course, I couldn't tell him, though dearly I longed to. But things being as they are, I can't name you, Lawrence, though 'tis terrible hateful to me I can't. I said to Johnny 'twas no odds about the man for the present, and then he lost his temper and swore he'd find him out and do all manner of wicked deeds to him. Only his rage, of course, and nothing to trouble about, but so it is and I meant for you to know."

He considered and she spoke again.

"It makes me mad to think all we are to each other have got to be hid, as if we was ashamed of it instead of proud--proud. But Cousin Joe would abide by the letter against the spirit no doubt. He'd tell everybody you was married if we blazed out we were tokened; and now Mr. Withycombe's dead, there's not any in the Vale that would understand."

"Certainly there is not, Dinah--or beyond the Vale I reckon."

"All's one," she said. "In my eyes you're a free man, and just as right to find a mate as a bird in a tree. Yes, you are. I know what marriage means now, and I know what our marriage will mean. For that matter we are married in heart and soul."

"It's good to hear you say so," he answered. "My love's so true as yours, Dinah; but there's more mixed with it."

"Away with what be mixed with it! I won't have naught mixed with it, and no thought shall think any evil into it, Lawrence. You couldn't think evil for that matter; but men be apt, seemingly, to tangle up a straight thought by spinning other thoughts around it. And I won't have that. What be your thoughts that you say are mixed with the future? Can you name them? Can you think 'em out loud in words and look in my face while you do? I lay you can't! But, for that matter, I've been thinking too. And what I think mixes with what I feel, and makes all the better what I feel."

In her eagerness Dinah became rhetorical.

"I was turning over that widow at Barnstaple," she said--"the woman called Courtier, married to a dead man. And I was wondering why I thought twice of her even while I did so; for what be she to me? Not so much as the grass on the field-path I walk over. And what be she to you more than the dead? Be she real, Lawrence? Be she more real and alive to you than Gilbert Courtier, in his grave, beyond sight and sound of living men for evermore? Let the dead lie. You'm alive, anyway, and free in the Eye of God to marry me. And what matters except how soon, and when, and where?"

"You're a brave wonder," he said, "and the man you can love, who would miss you, must be a bigger fool than me. What's left be my work--and a glorious bit of work I reckon."

"Easy enough anyway."

"For the things to be done, easy enough I doubt not; for the things to be thought, none so easy. Them that sweep fearless to a job, like you, have got to be thought for. And love quickens a man and makes him higher and deeper and better--better, Dinah--than himself--if love's got any decent material to work upon and the man's any good. And pray God that will turn out to be so in my case. A bit ago, when first I came here, I'd have gone bare-headed into this--same as you want to. But I've larned a lot from a dead man since I came to Falcon Farm. Withycombe looked deeper into life than me, being taught by his master and his own troubles and also out of books so to do. He steadied me here and there, and maybe it was for this great business that the words were put in his mouth. And it's that that be mixed with what I feel for you. God knows it don't lessen the love; but it--how shall I say--it lifts it a bit--into sharper air than a man breathes easy. I ban't going to be selfish if I can help it. We're young and the world's before us. But afore we come together, I want you to be so strong and sure-footed that nothing shall ever shake you after, and naught that man can do or say----"

"Oh, my dear heart!" she cried, "what do you think I'm made of?"

"I know--I know. It's what I be made of, Dinah darling. I've got to find that out."

"Let me show you then. You don't frighten me, Lawrence. I know what you're made of, and I know if I know naught else, you won't be a finished thing till you share what I'm made of. We be halves of one whole as sure as our Maker fashioned the parts; and that you know--you must know. And I tell you the rest is easy, and you know it's easy so well as me."

He said no more. In her present mood it must have only hurt to do so, and every human inclination, every reasonable argument, every plea of common sense and justice prompted him to acquiesce whole-heartedly. But something other than reason possessed his mind at that particular hour. For the moment he could not smother thoughts that were selfless and engaged with Dinah only.

After a silence he answered her last words.

"Yes, I know it," he said. "If the rest goes that way, then the rest is easy enough."

"What other way can it go, unless like our ways to-night--mine up one hill--alone--yours up another hill--alone?"

"Never, by God! I'm only a man."

"And my man! My man!"

They talked a little longer, then parted, where they had parted on a previous great occasion. But they did not part until Maynard had made her promise to meet him again and that quickly.

"You'll be a lot freer now," he said.

"I shall and I shan't too, because all the fighting for foster-father have made me closer than ever to him somehow. There's such a lot of different loves in the world seemingly. I love the dear old man with my whole heart--every bit of it. He can't do nor say nothing I don't love him for--he's an old saint. And I love you with my whole heart too, Lawrence. I properly drown in love when I think of you; and I can almost put my arms round you in my thoughts, and feel we ain't two people at all--only one."

They kissed and went their ways, and he considered all that she had said even to the last word. The thought of these things in themselves rejoiced him. To run away with Dinah and vanish from this environment would not be difficult. Indeed he had already traversed the ground and considered the details of their departure. He would give notice a month before they disappeared, and while his going might be orderly enough, Dinah's must be in the nature of a surprise. He considered whether they should leave in such a manner that their names would not be associated afterwards; but it seemed impossible to avoid that. It mattered little and not at all to her. In any case the details were simple enough; there was nothing whatever to prevent their departure when they chose to depart. To Canada, or Australia, they might go when they willed, and he had retraced the old ground and reconsidered the question of state-aided passages and his own resources, which were ample for the purpose.

But not with these things was Maynard's mind occupied when he left Dinah. He was not a man of very complex character, and the independence of thought that had marked the chief action of his life had never been seriously challenged until now. He had been guided by reason in most questions of conduct and never recognised anything above or outside reason in the action that led him to desert his wife on their wedding day; but that same quality it was that now complicated reason and made him doubt, not for his own sake or well being, not of the future opened for him by the immense new experience of loving Dinah, but by the consequences of such a future for Dinah herself. Here reason spoke with a plain voice. His wits told him that no rational human being could offer any sort of objection to their union; and the tribal superstitions that might intervene, based on the creed morals under which his nation pretended to exist, did not weigh with him. What did was the law of the land, not the religion of the land. Under the law he could not marry Dinah, and no child that might come into the world as a result of their union would be other than a bastard. That would not trouble her; and, indeed, need not trouble anybody, for since Gilbert Courtier, as Dinah had said, no longer existed for them, and was now beyond reach as completely as though indeed he lay in his grave, there could be none to rise and question a marriage entered into between him and Dinah--in Canada, or elsewhere. But there were still the realities and, beyond them, a certain constituent of his own character which now began to assert itself. There persisted in his soul a something not cowardly, but belonging to hereditary instincts of conscience, mother-taught, through centuries. It made Lawrence want to have all in order, conformable to the laws of the world and his own deeply rooted sense of propriety. He had no desire to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds: he knew that for nothing you can only get nothing, but he longed, before all else, that the inevitable might also be the reputable, and that no whisper in time to come should ever be raised against his future wife. The desire rose much above a will to mere safety. It was higher than that and, indeed, belonged to Maynard's ethical values and sense of all that was fitting and good of report among men and women. It echoed the same influence and radical conception of conduct that had made him leave his wife on his wedding day; and the fact that no such considerations controlled Dinah, the truth that she regarded the situation on a plane of more or less material reality and felt no sympathy with his shadowy difficulties, promised to increase them. He hardly saw this himself yet, but though he felt that she was right, yet doubted, in that secret and distinctive compartment of his inner self, whether she might be wrong. He was, for the moment, divided between agreeing with her utterly and feeling that he must allow no natural instinct and rational argument to let him take advantage of her. And when he looked closer into this, a new difficulty arose, for how could he ever make Dinah understand this emotion, or set clearly before her comprehension what he himself as yet so dimly comprehended?

Her grasp of the situation was clear and lucid. From the moment when she had said in the teashop, "D'you call that being married?" he guessed how she was going to feel, and how she would be prepared to act. Nor would the suggested confession to dead Enoch Withycombe have made any difference to Dinah, whatever view the old hunter might have held. Dinah's heart was single, and while now Maynard longed with a great longing to find his own heart seeing eye to eye with hers in every particular, he knew that it did not, and he could not be sure that it ever would. He regarded the situation as lying entirely between her and himself, and entertained no thought of any possibility that others might complicate it, either to retard, or determine the event. She had, indeed, told him of John Bamsey's threats, but to them he attached no importance. From within and not from without must the conclusion be reached.