In the waste of hours, after that, she found her thoughts revolving
constantly around her preconception of Silas Dene. At first she smiled
indulgently to herself when she encountered that unknown but quite
definitely conceived figure, again erect and motionless in the
foreground of her mental vision; then she grew resentful of the unknown
man who so imposed himself upon her attention, like a grave and
persistent apparition, bending upon her his unfaltering gaze. So long as
he remained an evocation, she could toy with him; fit theories on to
him, like an artist draping a lay figure. She diverted herself greatly
by thinking him out at leisure, ordering and re-ordering the procession
of her ideas; it was true that she had heard but little about him, yet
her theories were clearly formulated: he must be a self-conscious man,
humorously so perhaps, (she was not yet certain on the score of his
humour, trying whether she liked him best with or without it), but in
any case alarmingly so; but whether he had control over the trend of his
life, as would seem to be indicated by his raising himself by his own
effort above the intellectual level of his class, or the trend of his
life over him, she was unable to decide. Was he that being for whom in
her discontented, languid, tentative way she always sought,—for in her
endlessly renewed hours of idleness she dallied, not unintelligently,
with a little practical philosophy,—was he, might he be, that being who
lived in perfect consciousness, viewing each incident of life in instant
proportion, not condemned to wait for the slow drawing out of years into
perspective, but calm, secluded, not so inhuman as to escape the passing
ruffle of moods, nor so unreceptive as to escape the stimulus of new
influences, but on the whole sternly planned, continuous, progressive,
working towards a goal, not drifting towards some end unknown and
concealed within the uncertainty of mists? This apprehension, this
quality of being aware, was by Christine Malleson so greatly envied,
because it was in herself so totally lacking. What did she upon earth?
what track would she leave, did she hope to leave? she could not have
replied. Would she find in a blind factory-hand that rarest
illumination, flung like a straight ray along a dark road,—clearness and
wholeness of vision? She knew without being told that he would prove a
man of strong opinions; that much might be said of many men, but would
he have taken the further step, and welded the scattered material into a
system, that could be a weapon of defence or offence, a pix so ably
constructed as to appraise the worth of coin both large and small? Was
he of that calibre? She thought, potentially yes. She raised her
cigarette to her lips, watching the slim blue trail of smoke that rose
without wavering in the warm air of the draughtless room. Silas Dene,
surely, smoked a pipe, of pungent black tobacco, and along with the
specific picture of him ramming in the shreds, she played with the idea
of herself as the wife or the mistress of such a man; he would be the
experiment in a fine but natural metal, dross and dirt mingled with the
gold of the nugget. She allowed herself to drift with the current of
this amusement; she was alone, none could read her thoughts, a new
luxury was precious to her appetite wearied by ennui, and she had the
frankness of acknowledging to herself her craving for any new sensation.
She smoked in long inhalations, more concerned with the thought of what
she might do to Silas Dene than with the apprehension of what Silas Dene
might do to her. She would like to bewilder that man. She would like to
test his arrogance, break it if she could. She would like to prove to
him that his control of life was based upon no true security. It could
not be so based; no poor human could be truly immune. They might think
themselves immune until the storm came along. Should she play this
experiment, under the guise of Lady Bountiful, on Silas Dene? Should she
indulge her curiosity at his expense? The first unseemliness of the idea
passed away with surprising ease. He would help her to get through the
weary country months. She had tried her hand at most things, this would
be something new; something, therefore, amusing....
V
I
Calthorpe came often to see the Denes after the inquest; no one could
have been kinder, more considerate, or more attentive than Calthorpe.
No doubt the Denes would have preferred to keep out Calthorpe, as they
had kept out every one else, but he was the overseer, and they tolerated
him.
He came on Saturday afternoons, on Sundays, and sometimes on ordinary
week-days, during the evening.
He would spend a little time talking to Silas, and then he would knock
at Nancy’s door and ask her for confidential information.
“Nobody can tell me so well how Silas is getting on as you can, Mrs.
Dene,” he would say; “may I come in for a minute?” or else “would you
stroll down the road?”
Nan never strolled down the road, but she always let him into her
kitchen and gave him a chair beside the fire. Sometimes her husband was
there, sometimes he was not, but in either case he could not affect the
conversation. Nan told Calthorpe one day how it had taken her a little
while to become accustomed to the disabilities of the brothers, and to
remember that whereas Silas could hear and speak but could not see,
Gregory could see but could neither hear nor speak.
“I used to stop and think; now of course I know without thinking. And
really you wouldn’t believe how one can get on with Gregory: I talk to
him with my fingers like I talk to you with my tongue, it’s no bother.
He’s very quick, too, at understanding.”
Calthorpe had already noticed that she never lost an opportunity of
praising her husband and advertising her own contentment. She was more
reticent about her brother-in-law, and when once Calthorpe asked her
why, she replied after a slight hesitation.
“Silas can speak for himself; he doesn’t need any one to speak for him.”
“He can certainly speak!” said Calthorpe. “Do you remember how he
startled us all at the inquest? why, by the time he’d finished, half the
folk were wondering whether they shouldn’t throw themselves into the
floods, and the other half whether they shouldn’t go home and strangle
their families!”
It was the first time he had directly mentioned the inquest to Nan, and
he did so now in full recollection of the effect Silas’s speech had had
upon her. He had hesitated long over the problem whether he should ever
allude to it or no, but recognising the subject as the shadow always in
the background of their talks, he had decided to attack it openly, his
intent, as usual, kindly.
“It’s worried you a good deal, I know,” he added.
“Oh,” she began,—he knew that little “Oh,” by which she prefaced her
remarks and which always betrayed her nervousness,—“Oh, I don’t think we
ought to talk about it, do you?”
“You mean, you don’t want to talk about it?”
She got up in a restless way, and busied herself with a vase of wild
flowers upon the dresser, turning herself so that her face was hidden
from him.
“Mrs. Dene, you don’t want to talk about it?”
“Oh, don’t _drive_ me, please,” she murmured, in a voice full of
distress.
Calthorpe was very remorseful to feel that he had been the cause of this
distress, and he came over to the dresser where she stood arranging the
flowers.
“Very well; of course we will never speak of it again,” he said, trying
to soothe her, but knowing that if his repentance took too affectionate
a form she would immediately shy away from him. “What are you doing with
those flowers? look, you have upset some of the water! here’s my
handkerchief to mop it up with.”
As she took the handkerchief he saw that there were tears on her cheek,
as clear as the drops of water she had spilt from the flowers; but with
his large, rough tact he pretended not to notice.
“Where did you find so many flowers, this time of year? Primroses in
February! Catkins, of course, and grasses, and a sprig of plum
blossom....”
“And some wild violets,” she said, showing him. “Smell them, how sweet!”
“Well, I wish I had somebody like you to put flowers about my place,” he
said in a rush of sentiment.
“Will you take these? Yes, please!” crushing them, all wet as they were,
into his hands. “I got them in a copse over by Thorpe’s Howland last
Sunday, I walked over there....”
“What, by yourself?”
“No, with Silas and Mr. Morgan; it was Gregory’s Sunday on at the
factory. We started after dinner, Silas was in a good temper, and I was
happy to get away from the floods for a bit. You know, there’s a belt of
higher ground away there to the south, which never gets flooded. It was
nice to see the green again, and to go through woods where the trees
didn’t stand with their roots soaking and rotting in water. I hate the
floods, they’re so cruel; cruel in a dull, flat sort of way.... Gregory
likes them; they make him grin. Of course, Silas can’t see them, but if
he could I’m certain he’d like them too; he’s always asking me to tell
him just what they’re like. But that Sunday he’d forgotten about them.
He was as cheerful as could be, repeating poetry all the time as we went
along the lanes; he kept stopping and saying “Now listen to this!” and
waving time with his stick as he recited, and Mr. Morgan kept capping
what he said, and they laughed a lot, trying to outdo each other.” She
smiled at the recollection, leaning with her back against the dresser;
then Calthorpe saw the smile disappear from her lips as though at
another darker remembrance, and the scared look came into her eyes.
“Well?” he prompted.
“Oh. Well, then we went on till we got to Thorpe’s Howland, and we made
Silas sit under a beech-tree while we looked for primroses....”
“You and Linnet Morgan?”
“Yes, I and Mr. Morgan. Silas sat under the tree for a bit, pulling up
the moss all round him; then he got up and leant against the tree-trunk,
saying more poetry; Shakespeare, I think it was. Mr. Morgan beckoned to
me to come and listen, so we crept up on tiptoe, and Silas went on like
that for about half an hour; I don’t know how he manages to keep it all
in his head. I don’t like it so much when he starts his poetry in the
kitchen, but in the wood it seemed all right; it might have been part of
the wood,” she said, lowering her voice and hanging her head with her
pretty, sudden shyness, and scrutinising her finger nails.
“How do you mean: part of the wood?”
“Well,—there was a lot of patchy sunlight on the ground, coming through
the trees, and the moss that Silas had torn up smelt bitter,—like
earth,—and the primroses smelt soft and sweet. There was the sort of big
sand-pit in the bank, where we had picked them. There were the trees, so
gray and naked. There was Silas,—Mr. Morgan whispered to me that Silas
looked like a tree himself, a tree that had been blasted by lightning,
and when he said that, I saw he was right; even Silas’s arms, waving
about, were like the branches.”
“Well, well!” said Calthorpe, scratching his chin.
“Mr. Morgan’s like a son to Silas already,” she went on; “he’s gay with
him, and he’s as gentle as a woman. He’s never put out by Silas’s
ways—never seems to notice them, in fact. And Silas likes him because he
can talk to him by the hour about all the things he thinks about and
reads about.”
“But Silas always talks to everybody.”
“Yes, he’s so greedy for an audience that he’ll put up with never
getting a sensible answer, sooner than not talk at all. But Mr. Morgan’s
got education; he’ll argue with Silas; he’s like a whetstone to a knife.
He’ll get Silas into a proper excited rage, and then laugh, and Silas
takes it in good part. It was a grand day when he came to live in the
cottage.”
“Yes,—well, I must be going,” said Calthorpe, moving away, and he went
after a rather sulky good-bye, very unlike his usual friendliness and
promises to come again.