I
The workers were subordinate to the factory; it was a giant, a monster,
that they served. At night the red glow from the chimneys,—the glow from
the fires that must never flag or die,—accentuated the disregard of
man’s convenience. To keep alive that red breath of activity, men must
forego their privilege of sleep.
The tragedy in the household of the Denes was not allowed to interrupt
the general work of the factory, but the overseer, Mr. Calthorpe,
offered Silas Dene a week, and Gregory Dene a day,—the day of the
funeral,—as a concession to their mourning. He thought the offer
sufficiently generous.
The brothers Dene, however, refused it.
They lived in a double-cottage; Gregory with his wife in one half; Silas
and his wife, before her sudden death, in the other. Although situated
in the village street, it was a lonely cottage, for “the black Denes”
did not encourage neighbourly communion, nor did the neighbours trouble
them with unwelcome advances. This was not surprising, for they were
indeed a sinister race to whom affliction seemed naturally drawn. Nature
cursed them from the hour of their birth with physical deficiencies and
spiritual savagery; whether or no, as some said, the latter was only to
be expected as the outcome of the former, the name of Dene remained the
intimidation of the village.
Others again said that Nature was not so much to be held responsible as
the Denes’ father, whom everybody had known as a rake, and who never
ought to have married, much less begotten children.
Of the two brothers, Gregory had been deaf and dumb from birth, and
Silas blind. Their physique, however, was full of splendour, and
they were accounted two of the most valuable workers in the
factory,—magnificent men, tall, muscular, and dark.
Calthorpe came to their cottage directly he was told of the accident. It
was then evening, and the accident had occurred in the earlier part of
the afternoon. Calthorpe knew no details beyond the bare fact that Silas
Dene’s wife had been discovered, a mass of almost unidentifiable
disfigurement, lying across the railway line after the passage of the
little local train. He had been told this much by the men who had come
running with the news to his office; they had come breathless, shocked,
mystified; he had understood at once that they were mystified; they had
made no comment, but Calthorpe had been quick to catch the hint of
mystery; any concern of the Denes was always luscious with mystery.
He found Silas, the blind man, sitting in his kitchen, chewing an
unlighted pipe. He appeared to be strangely indifferent. A little man
named Hambley, Silas Dene’s only crony, sat in a dark corner, not
speaking, but observing everything with bright furtive eyes, like the
eyes of a weasel. He hugged himself in his corner; a sallow faced little
man, with a red tip to his thin nose. Gregory Dene was in the kitchen
too, and Gregory’s wife, with frightened eyes, was laying the table for
supper; she moved quickly, placing cups and plates, and casting rapid
glances at the two men.
“I’m terribly distressed, Silas,” Calthorpe began.
“What, you too, Mr. Calthorpe, come to condole?” cried the blind man,
laughing loudly. “Well, it takes an accident to make me popular, it
seems; I haven’t had so many callers in the last four years as in the
last four hours. Sit down, Mr. Calthorpe; I ask ’em all to sit down.
Nan, give a chair.”
Calthorpe sat down uneasily, beneath the silent scrutiny of Gregory and
the quick glances of Gregory’s wife. The burning and sightless eyes of
Silas were also bent upon him.
“I have only just heard the news,” he began again, “or I would have come
sooner....”
“That’s all right. The neighbours ran to help, and to nose out what they
could; the parson came too, he’s upstairs now. All very helpful,” said
Silas, with another burst of laughter. “Gregory, my brother, too, though
he isn’t much company, but we understand one another. Don’t we, Gregory?
He can’t hear, but I always talk to him as though he could. I trust him
with my secrets, Mr. Calthorpe. They say dead men tell no tales; I say
deaf and dumb men tell no tales either. We understand one another, don’t
we, Gregory?” He looked without seeing at the deaf mute who had listened
without hearing, aware only that Silas was speaking by the movement of
his lips. “One’s always sorry to have told a secret,” Silas said,
nodding at Calthorpe; “always sorry sooner or later, but Gregory, my
brother, he’s safe with any secret. I only tell them to him. Never to
Nan, and I never told one to Hannah. Only to Gregory. All my secrets,”
and he fell silent, and began biting his lips, pressing them between his
teeth with his fingers, that were surprisingly long and nervous.
Calthorpe did not know how to answer; he looked at Gregory’s wife,
trying to establish a bond of helpful sympathy between himself and her,
the two normal people in that room, but she immediately looked away in
her scared and nervous fashion. Calthorpe then saw that Gregory was
watching him with a malicious sarcasm that startled Calthorpe for a
moment into the belief that he was actually grinning, although no grin
was there. Thus startled, he began to speak, hurriedly, confining
himself to the practical.
“Of course, you must take some time off, Silas; this week will be very
trying for you, and very busy too; there will be the inquest and the
funeral.” (“Why did I say that?” he thought to himself.) “We shall all
want to make it as easy as possible for you, and the men will be glad to
take turns at your job. You mustn’t worry about that. Supposing I give
you a week?” Seeing that Silas’s lips curled with what he took to be
disdain, he thought that perhaps his offer had been inadequate, and
added to it, “and your brother of course would be given the day of the
funeral, and if at any other time you want him, Silas, you have only to
ask me; I shouldn’t be hard on you.”
“We don’t want any time off,” Silas replied ungraciously.
“You know that it is customary ...” said Calthorpe. Customary! he clung
to the word; it gave him a sense of security. “It is customary,” he
repeated, “in the case of death, or sickness, or accident, to release
such near relatives as are employed at the factory. You needn’t think
you would be accepting a special favour.”
“Why should I think that, Mr. Calthorpe?”
Calthorpe knew from the instant defiance in the blind man’s tone that he
must make no allusion to Silas’s disability; he said, “Well, the sad
circumstances of your wife’s death....”
“She brought me my dinner as usual,” said Silas suddenly; “she sat with
me in the shed while I ate it, down by the railway, like she always did,
because afterwards she used to bring me back to my work, and then carry
the plate and things home. Just like every other day. When I’d done she
took me back and left me in the shops; I didn’t know anything more.
After I’d been there two or three hours they came and told me. They said
she’d been found on the railway line. I don’t know how long she’d been
there, or why she didn’t start off for home at once. Perhaps she’d been
waiting for the fog to lift; there was a fog to-day, wasn’t there? and
anyway I could feel it in my breath without her telling me so. It was
extra thick down on the railway. Perhaps she waited for it to lift. Or
perhaps she was waiting to meet somebody in the shed.”
“Waiting to _meet_ somebody, Silas?”
“I’m a blind man, Mr. Calthorpe, and she was a blind man’s wife.”
Calthorpe saw that Gregory’s wife had ceased her little clatter with the
supper-things, and was standing as though stupefied beside the supper
table, her fingers resting on its edge. Now she moved again, setting a
kettle on the range.
“I knew nothing till hours after she left me—two or three hours,” Silas
reverted. “Nothing until they came and told me. I’d been working all the
afternoon. She left me at the door of the shops, Mr. Calthorpe,” he
said; “she didn’t come in with me.”
“No, no; I see,” said Calthorpe.
“Sometimes she’d come in for a chat; she was friendly with my mates,
friendly with Donnithorne specially. He’d come here sometimes, Sundays,
wouldn’t he, Gregory? But to-day she didn’t come in. No. She said she
had a bit of mending to do at home; that’s it, a bit of mending. She
wanted to get home quick.”
“Then why should you think she waited to meet anybody in the shed?”
asked Calthorpe.
“That’s only my fancy; I’m a blind man, Mr. Calthorpe; I couldn’t have
seen who she waited for, or who she met. Gregory could have seen. But
_I_ couldn’t, and Gregory wasn’t there. You know he works inside the
factory, Mr. Calthorpe, and I work in the shops down by the
railway-sheds, tying up the boxes.”
“I know; you’re a grand worker,” said Calthorpe. He was afraid of Silas.
He saw with relief that the clergyman had come down from the upper room,
and was standing on the lowest step of the stairs where they opened into
the kitchen.
“I knew nothing,” Silas went on with a rising voice. “Funny, that a
man’s wife should be lying across railway lines, and the man not know
it. Husband and wife should be one, shouldn’t they? But I never told her
my secrets. Women don’t understand men’s secrets. I don’t hold with
women, Mr. Calthorpe, they’re lying and deceitful animals; you can’t
trust them out of your sight, and as I haven’t any sight it stands to
reason I can’t trust them at all. But husband and wife should be one all
the same, so they say. Dutiful and patient and faithful, that’s what
women ought to be, but they’re only artful. Perhaps I’ll be better
without one. I’ll get a man to share the house with me, and lead me
about when I need it; I know a nice young chap who’d be glad.”