They were alone, the three of them, the absence of Gregory so
startlingly unprecedented that despite Silas’s presence she obtained a
foretaste of complete and sudden solitude with Linnet. She was admitted,
she, the starved, to a feast of dominion. She found herself translated
into a world where she, most marvellously, was the object of reverence
and solicitude, and under this warmth of spoiling her natural grace
expanded even beyond the anticipation of his delight. Aware that those
ten days were but a reprieve, she gave herself up to making the most of
them,—in so far as was consistent with the narrow rulings of her
conscience. Linnet, exasperated at times, but ruefully submissive
always, acknowledged and obeyed her imperious orders. She was very happy
in her control of him; all the happier, perhaps in the knowledge that
she owed it solely to the consent of his chivalry, without which (O
exquisite danger!) her security would, like glass, be shivered.
There was, unforgettably, Silas. Silas proclaiming himself a friend,
but, nevertheless, remaining a spy, a jailer. Silas who seemed to come
upon them with a queer noiselessness; who cried, “Well?” over their
shoulders, and who then, suddenly swooping down upon them, swept with
his hands to learn whether they were sitting close together, or apart.
They were always apart. Angered, he would say, “Well?” again, this time
with a forced benevolence in his voice; and sometimes he would amuse
himself by walking along between them, hilarious, taking an arm of each.
This method of surprising them, this sham benevolence, this reasonless
hilarity, struck cold terror into Nan as something indefinably sinister.
Once, too, when she met Silas tapping his way over the cobbles towards
the letter-box, on the envelope which he carried in his hand she read
the name and address of Gregory. (Silas had adapted with delight this
method of communication. He rubbed his hands together when he thought of
Gregory, in Birmingham, tearing the flap open and scanning the lines of
those able, indefinite letters.) But at other times she was puzzled by
the hungry interest with which he questioned her, and in which her ear
did not detect the usual unalloyed malignity, but rather a wistfulness,
a desire to be admitted to a lovely secret, a genuine craving for
participation, however humble, however incomplete, and beggarly upon the
fringe of riches. At such times an eagerness crept into his face, as he
bent forward to question her, his hands hanging loosely interlaced
between his knees, the strong cords of his throat standing out in
sculptural masses of light and shadow; words came from him almost
timidly, as though he feared to presume or to give offence, but must
nevertheless urge his examination, irresistibly tempted and allured.
Nan, who sat sewing, looked into his face with wonderment. Experience
taught her mistrust, but instinct taught her a heart-searching pity.
There was always that same feeling which she had for Silas, which she
could not explain, and which nothing,—no dread, no premonition, no
knowledge,—could permanently destroy. It reawakened always at the sound
of his yearning voice. Once it led her to put her fingers on his
forehead, “How much you’ve missed!”
He sprang away, detected at the very moment when forgetful absorption
had suspended his defiance.
“I’ve had all I wanted. Make no mistake. You’re wasting your sloppy
pity....”