“Consider how miserable a pigmy is man, who for his most terrible
fancy conceives bulk, weight, and uproar; the magnifying of what he
commonly beholds.
“Get hence, thou starveling, thou poverty-stricken of spirit! let
thy poor eyes dictate; creation was not given unto thee.
“God said: I will be niggardly toward my servant; the earth will I
give him, and the sea and the sky shall be his; but in his heart
shall he find no separate image.
“Look, then, within thy heart: what shalt thou find? a perishable
hate, a faltering resolve, and, for thy richest treasure, the swift
feet of love.
“Terror shalt thou find, and care; the terror of the seen and the
unseen; of the steps that pursue thee, and the voices that cry out
thy name.
“These shall be thy companions; that shall clog thy spirit
throughout all thy days.”
“Well? hey? shorn of its magic?”
“Oh, Silas, to laugh at the Bible and write such bitter things!”
Silas roared with laughter; he clapped his hand upon his knee.
“You little fool. Shall I redeem myself? Give me a pencil and paper.”
She gave it to him in a dream. “A garden enclosed is my sister, my
spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed....”
Silas was writing; he wrote and chuckled, and handed the sheet to Nan.
“Then man turned and said: ‘All these things are true.’
“But look again within my heart; thou shalt find charity there, and
pity like a healing ointment; reverence before strength, and courage
as an archangel in bright armour.
“Blow but upon the embers of truth which thou shalt find, and they
shall leap as a flame; truly, thou shalt re-kindle the spark of thy
breath in man.
“So shalt thou not say in anger, ‘This man which I have made is
nothing worth.’”
“Does that please you better?”
“It’s surely not right, Silas.”
“Right! a fig for right and its insipidity!”
(“Insipid!” her heart rebelled; what could be insipid when light was
over the whole of life? new light, young light?)
“That first bit you read ...” she began, “it reminded me of the scents
at the factory; it was funny your reading just that bit.”
Silas said nothing; he was biting his nails and muttering; she resumed,
drawn onward though reluctant.
“It put me in mind of Mr. Morgan’s room; he has things like
that—spikenard and saffron, and the rest.”
“Morgan’s room—how do you know?”
She was terrified by his pounce upon her out of the heart of his
abstraction.
“Oh, I was sent there with a message.”
“To-day?”
“Yes, this afternoon.” Although she was guiltless she had all the quick
panic of guilt,—what should she say? what must she not say? hold
concealed?—and she felt that Silas held her pinned down beneath talons
while he pried.
“What message?”
“Miss Dawson wanted something.”
“What did she want?”
“To know whether he had ordered some printed labels.” Again that panic
of guilt, reassured now because she could answer his question without
stumbling. She almost wanted to call his attention to it, to say, “Look,
I’m telling the truth; there’s no necessity for me to invent.”
“So you went up to his room?”
“Yes.”
“And you saw the spices?”
“Yes—I was just saying, wasn’t I? that it was funny you should choose
that bit to read aloud.”
“I expect he showed them to you—he’s always talking about them to me—did
he?”
“One or two—yes, he did show me. But I couldn’t stop. I had my work
waiting.” She regretted ardently that she had introduced the subject;
she not only feared and mistrusted Silas’s inquisition, but she also
shrank, as with physical pain, at his handling of it. He was rough and
defamatory.
His tone changed, and unexpectedly he continued in a gentle, interested,
and sympathetic voice.
“I’m glad to think you make friends with Linnet. I often think it’s hard
for you, living between me and Gregory; you’re a young thing, so’s
Linnet; it’s natural you should be drawn together. He’s got a brain,
too; none of your young fools! I’ve a grand opinion of him. I thought
when he first came to the house that you and he would get laughing
together. Tell me what he looks like?”
“What he looks like, Silas?”
“Yes, describe him to me.”
“He has short curly hair and always laughing eyes.”
“Anything else?”
“Oh, he looks younger than his age.”
“How old would you think him?”
“Oh, about twenty-two, twenty-three.”
“How old are you, Nan?”
“Twenty-one.”
“And he’s twenty-five. It sounds good. I’m fifty. What more about
Linnet?”
“I haven’t looked at him so closely, Silas.”
“You mean you haven’t noticed anything more?”
“No, nothing more.” She had no shame, but rather pride, in the lie.
“If I had eyes, I should make better use of them,” said Silas, not
disagreeably. He went on, “I’ve helped you and Linnet, haven’t I? sent
you for walks together, left you alone in my kitchen more than once? I’m
less soured than you think me. I’m sorry for you sometimes, being young,
and I liked helping you to Linnet as a playfellow. You reckon on me,
little Nan.”
She did not know what to make of this. She wanted to believe that Silas
meant to be kind; indeed, in spite of her latent scepticism she was
touched; but she was alarmed by and resisted the insinuations of his
words, which he had spoken in a lower voice, as though in an unnecessary
precaution of secrecy before Gregory; she glanced at Gregory, poising
his beautifully sharpened pencil over his drawing, and his fine looks,
and coarse rough hair, appeared to her distasteful. She looked at Silas,
so similar in build and feature, yet with a certain slyness that was
wholly absent from his brother. Silas was speaking again,—
“If you need anything, come to me, little Nan. You’re good to me, and
it’s not forgotten. We’ll be allies.”
This was the kind of phrase that frightened her, and whirled her away
before she was well aware, to a region of tacit admissions and
implications. Had she said more than she meant? more than she even
thought? Why, she thought nothing, or had thought nothing until Silas
began, but now her sense of undefined well-being was taking shape,
emerging from the mist of rustle and cadence, as the coast-line of
undiscovered country emerges from the sea mists of dawn. She had been
rushed; Silas had rushed her. She thought with terror of how Silas had
fastened upon her first words; one could believe that he had only been
waiting for her to pronounce them. He had been so ready. He had fired so
many questions. He had obliged her to say, or at least to admit, by her
silence, anything he wanted. He might not want much yet, but later?
later?
Apparently he was satisfied for the moment, for he picked up his Braille
volume and fell to running his finger tips over the pages, smiling to
himself.
X
I
She hoped that the subject would be forgotten. It was not forgotten.
That was clear to her, although Silas made no direct allusion; but by
his manner he established the existence of a secret between them, and
because she dared not say to him, “There is no secret,” the secret
remained, growing insidiously. She was nervous and uneasy in his
presence. Silas was kinder than ever she had known him, kinder and
gentler, also he appeared to be more contented, but she had a terrified
suspicion that he was contented only because his mind was occupied, and
it seemed horrible to her that she should be the centre of that
occupation. She had suddenly become involved in an affair whose
existence, she protested to herself, had its being solely as the outcome
of Silas’s imagination. She tried to shake it off and to laugh it away,
but he held her to it. She had the helpless sensation of being on the
end of a rope that he was slowly hauling in, maintaining his purchase
over every miserly inch as he gained it.
Hambley, soft-footed, insinuating, and urbane, added by his parasitic
presence to the uneasiness of the house. The yellow faced, thin little
man, with his black hair and his long front teeth like a rodent’s, never
had an opinion of his own, but echoed Silas, or cackled with the
laughter of approval. He alternately tried to provoke and to propitiate
Nan and Morgan, gibed at them when they were civil to him, and fawned on
them when they were curt. Nan shuddered when she wondered how many of
Silas’s darker thoughts were shared out to his keeping.
Was there a conspiracy against her? To her mind, full of alarm, this
seemed not impossible. Calthorpe even,—her prop, her kind, comfortable
friend,—Calthorpe mentioned casually, “I may have to steal Gregory from
you, my dear; I must have a man with me when I go to Birmingham to look
over some new plants, and I fancy that your Gregory would relish the
job, and be very useful to me.” She had clasped his arm. “Oh no, don’t
take Gregory away, Mr. Calthorpe.” “What!” he said in surprise, “are you
so fond of him?” She did not answer. She was not fond of Gregory; he was
an owner and an institution, but the question of fondness played no
part. Hitherto, she had not thought of disliking him; that was all. He
and Silas (until she knew Silas was a murderer) had appeared very much
the same in her mind, the only difference being that whereas Gregory had
rights over her passive and uninquiring person Silas had none.
“Well, am I not to take him?” asked Calthorpe.
“Yes, take him,” she replied. Why had she hesitated? By all these doubts
and hesitations she was playing Silas’s game; he had gained another inch
of the rope. “When are you going?”
“It’s all quite uncertain; I may not be going at all. But if I go, it
will be some time next month, and I shall ask for Gregory. I am
discovering that he has the real knack for any kind of engine; he’s
sulky about it and contemptuous, but I urge him, and he unfolds. He
showed me some of his plans—but you’re in the clouds?”