i
he was on duty at the factory that night, so silas, not to be alone, had his supper with nan and gregory. the households of the double-cottage were so interchangeable that it increased nan’s sense of restriction within that grim and tiny circle, the monotony of knowing that after supper gregory would bring out his roll of drawings and flatten them out on the table with drawing-pins, and that silas would surround himself with his great braille volumes, running his fingers over the pages while his eyes would remain fixed on some distant corner and expressions of amusement, interest, or indignation uncannily succeeded each other upon his face. to watch him while he was reading never ceased to fascinate and frighten nan. to see him laughing when no one could tell what he was laughing at, when his eyes were not even bent upon the page!
148but to-night she had other thoughts. they were not thoughts, they were a timorous, shying riot, that took hands; danced; and upon detection broke up into a scattered rabble. she knew only that they were lovely, and felt the soft muslin of their garments as they passed her. not thoughts! no, they were more like wings, song, and breeze all chasing one another in her heart. even the bronze presence of silas and gregory could not weigh against their feathery loveliness. she was bewildered, turning this way and that with hands outstretched, trying to capture one, to hold it, and examine it; but she could not, either because it eluded her, or because she feared to rub away its bloom and colour. she was like a girl, blindfolded, playing blindman’s buff in the midst of a ring of children. she sat quite idle, not consciously thinking, not even conscious that she was happy. for the moment she was completely happy; she had forgotten both silas and gregory. calthorpe would not have found her wan; her cheeks were flushed and her lips parted, but so abstracted was she that she did not know it. she did not know that she was idle, although she was usually busy over some little industry. she had lost all sense save that of well-being and deliverance.
149
ii
silas recalled her as he shut his volume with a bang.
“what are you doing, nan?”
“oh....” she rebelled against this inquisition, irritated for once because she was startled. for all that she lived between a blind man and a deaf one, she had perpetually the sensation of being both watched and overheard. her instinct leaped to a pang of guilt in being detected idle, and she resented the unspoken criticism. “nothing, silas; thinking.”
“what about?”
“i wondered what you were reading,” she lied.
he reopened the book, always eager to share out his own impressions. trying page after page with his fingers, he came at last to the passage he sought. she saw the raised letters standing up in their strange shapes, casting strange little shadows.
“i’ll read to you, shall i?”
he began to read,—
“how fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thy ointments than all spices!
“thy lips, o my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of lebanon.
150“a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
“thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard.
“spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.
“a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters and streams from lebanon.
“awake, o north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.”
nan was not able to speak; she had listened with indrawn breath, and her hand had flown upwards to her heart.
“i don’t like that—sugar!” said silas resentfully. “you liked it, i expect? this suits me better,—
“i will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
“and i will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
“and i will break the pride of your power; and i will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:
“and your strength shall be spent in vain; for your 151land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
“i will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate....
“and upon them that are left alive of you, i will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.”
nan had not listened; the music of that other verse was running in her drunken head, “spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices....”
“half of the bible should be printed in blood,” said silas, meditating the fulminations, “and read with a spear in the hand.—but it’s a trick, a trick!” he said, instantly checking his enthusiasm, with the mocking twist on his mouth, “i do the trick myself, sometimes, to demolish it,” and turning over the pages of leviticus, he came across a sheet covered with his own handwriting, which he gave to nan. “read it aloud.”
she read,—
“consider how miserable a pigmy is man, who for his most terrible fancy conceives bulk, weight, and 152uproar; 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.
153“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?”
154she 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?”
155“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?”
156“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 157similar 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.
