“What’s that?” cried Silas, startling them all.
They had not heard him come in. He stood on the threshold, his hand
outstretched, the likeness between himself and his son strongly
apparent. “What’s that?” he repeated; “who’s that, calling ‘Mother’
here?”
“Silas, it’s Martin come home,” said Nan, who was trembling and who had
gone, quite unwittingly, closer to Morgan.
“Martin? it’s suited him to come back, after seven years?” Silas uttered
a derisive “Ho!” He added, “It’s too late, my boy, to come here calling
‘Mother.’ That’s rich, that is—eh, Nan?”
“What d’you mean?” said Martin Dene, swinging round.
“Your mother’s dead, that’s what I mean.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, dead three months ago.”
“Dead! Mother dead? why? how?”
“Tell him, Nan.”
“Look here,” said Morgan, speaking for the first time, “I’m sorry you’ve
got to learn this news....”
“Oh, smooth it over! water it down! I didn’t know you were there,
Linnet,” interrupted Silas. “I’ll tell him myself. Your mother was
killed in an accident—picked up unrecognisable—run over by a train—now
you know. Got anything to say?”
“My God!” said young Dene, covering his face. Nan went up to him and
began to whisper to him; he heard her half through with horribly staring
gaze, but then, disregarding her, he cried in a hoarse voice to his
father, “Accident be damned! you drove her to it. I know your ways—they
drove me away to Canada, and Elsie to London—I’ve seen her there—and
they drove mother to _that_—come, own up! it was suicide, wasn’t it?” He
made a movement towards his father, but Nan clung to his arm.
“No, I swear it wasn’t,” replied Silas, full of a grim amusement at his
suggestion.
“Well, how did it happen, then? What’s your account of what happened?
Did any one see?”
As neither of the others answered, Morgan said, “Nobody saw it happen.”
Martin leapt on to that. “So it was never explained?”
“No,” said Morgan, “the coroner’s inquest gave Accidental Death.” Martin
laughed.
“You’re going now, I suppose?” said Silas, “Morgan’s answered you, and
his answer can hardly satisfy you. Suspicion’s a sleepless guest in the
mind.”
“You’re alone now, father?” asked the son. His tone altered as a sort of
pity and repentance overcame him, and as he remembered his father’s
blindness. “Perhaps I spoke too hasty, father; see here, I’ll stop on
with you if you like.”
“I don’t like; you can get out,” said Silas. Morgan and Nan gave an
exclamation.
“I’ll stop to-night; we’re not calm, either of us.”
“I don’t remember you calm, somehow?” Silas sneered. Martin’s temper,
which he had controlled, rose again.
“I’ll get out, then,” he said, moving towards the door. Nan, through her
terror, thought him very handsome,—bronze and black, his bony cheeks
still glistening from the rain.
“You needn’t bother to come back, after another seven years.”
“Don’t you worry, father; I won’t come back.”
“Martin!” cried Nan. This flare of quarrel between father and son
troubled her greatly; it was a disturbance of harmony, and she longed
for the re-establishment of peace, at the same time dreading further
questionings, further possible accusations; Martin would probe and
examine, Silas might lose his head,—Nan, knowing the truth, lived in the
perpetual terror of a frenzied outburst of candour on Silas’s part....
He was, she knew, quite capable of such an outburst. Life, and the
harmony of life, would be less endangered with Martin out of the way.
But this was an unkind greeting for Martin at his home—poor Martin!
after seven years’ absence and a trudge in the rain, to find his mother
dead and his father ferocious!—Nan’s fund of pity overflowed, and she
tried to compromise: “Martin! you can’t walk back to Spalding through
this awful night; stop till to-morrow with Gregory, and me.”
“Not he!” said Silas, unexpectedly, and as though he spoke with pride.
“You’re right, father,—though I thank you, Nan; you mean it kindly.”
“They mean everything kindly, Martin,” said Silas, indicating the other
two. He continued to speak with the same curious understanding towards
his son. Nan and Morgan, separately, stood repudiated and estranged.
Martin Dene nodded, his eyes meditatively upon them.
“Won’t you stop, Martin?” urged Nan’s timid voice.
“I’ve said an unforgivable thing to father,” he said, turning to her, in
patient explanation.
“But you didn’t think it, Martin; tell your father you didn’t think it.”
“I did think it; I still think it; father knows that. I shall always
think it. That’s why I can’t stop. So long,” he said, shouldering his
bundle; he nodded to them again and went out.