Nan rose presently, heaping her sewing into her large open basket. Her
husband was still absorbed in his drawings, and Silas in his
meditations, over which he muttered and scowled. He seemed to be
conducting an argument with himself, for his lips moved, he nodded or
shook his head, and tapped his fingers upon his knee. Nan hesitated
before disturbing him. But she knew that she must warn him before she
left the room, for he could communicate with Gregory only with
difficulty. She put her hand on his shoulder.
“Eh? what’s that?” said Silas, starting; he had been very deeply lost in
his thoughts.
“I’m going to our cottage for a bit, Silas, to put things straight
there; I’ll be back presently.”
“Gregory’s here, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he’s got his drawings out on the table.”
Silas grunted, and Nan, after wrapping a muffler round her head and
mouth, let herself out of the front door.
In her own kitchen, which was identical with Silas’s in the other half
of the cottage, she stood breathing with a sense of relief. Ah! if she
might remain there! But she might not; Silas, who fought all the time
against her sympathy and her ministrations, Silas, in spite of that
ungracious ferocity, was now dependent upon her and could not be
forsaken. Responsibilities by a cruel irony thrust themselves upon her
weakness. She, who had so much need of protection, must protect.
She must not idle here.
She began rapidly clearing away the disorder of the day, raking out the
fire, and drawing the short curtains across the little windows. She took
her husband’s boots into the scullery at the back of the kitchen, and
set them ready to be cleaned the next morning. She went upstairs with a
candle, turned down the bed, drew the curtains there too, and tidied the
dressing-table. Through the partition in the next cottage was, she knew,
a similar bedroom, and in that bedroom, where Silas and Hannah had slept
every night for twenty-five years and where Hannah’s two children had
been born, the remains of Hannah now lay, covered over with a sheet, and
Hannah, brawny, loud-voiced, tyrannical towards her sister-in-law,
bullied by Silas, at times sullen and at times nosily recalcitrant
towards him, would no longer go about the house as a working-woman, her
sleeves rolled up, an apron over her dress, clattering pails and mops,
ordering stray children off her whitened doorstep. Nan had not loved
Hannah, but she thought it horrible that Hannah should be lying through
that thin partition, in the disfigurement of which the men had
whispered.
She wished that she dared arrange to sleep in another room, but Gregory
would be angry.
She finished her work as quickly as she could and returned to Silas’s
cottage; only a couple of yards separated front-door from front-door,
but, shivering, she pressed her muffler against her mouth to keep out
the fog. The light and warmth were welcome again as she slipped into the
kitchen.
Silas had not heard her. Gregory had his back to the door and did not
see her. He was still bending over his drawings, all unaware that Silas
stood near him, speaking, a wild and reckless look upon his face.
“You can’t hear me, Gregory, old man. Old brother Gregory, wrapped up in
your drawings! How much do you know, hey? How much do you guess? _I_ did
it—you know that, hey? She laughed at me—with Donnithorne. She played
the dirty on me—with Donnithorne. I hated her, but I’ve got my honour to
look after. I shan’t tell anybody, only you, old man. Tell you I did
it—hey? Don’t tell anybody, Gregory!”