i
this wound, this gash, to be exposed to the village! how greedily they would lick up his blood! they would set upon him with claw and fang as upon a lion brought low. no delight could equal the delight over the dictator shamed, or the eagerness with which those in subjection would pounce upon the infallible taken in fault. but, while knowing the story of the fire to be common gossip, he would grant no concessions; he stalked about the streets in challenging pride, more than usually unkempt, more than usually fierce, an object of whispered comment for all those who had expected him to keep himself at last within bounds. it was noticed that when spoken to, he threw back his head as though it had been crowned with a mane, and his answers were too haughty to be set down as the cheaper insolence. the men were a little impressed, 196but to give themselves determination they continued to mutter against him. calthorpe knew it, and was concerned. he hinted something to sir robert malleson, but malleson had received an anonymous letter which disturbed and occupied every energy of his mind, and was unsympathetic. the only person with whom calthorpe could get a hearing was mr. medhurst, who called at silas’s cottage, and came away saying blandly that dene was an altered being. why had calthorpe so distressed himself over dene’s state of mind, and the attitude of the village? he could not understand. calthorpe in his kind-heartedness had surely been mistaken.
“why, dene, i am very happy to find you in so christian a spirit.” poor mr. medhurst suffered greatly from the trap of his phraseology; it made all intercourse with his fellows a source of self-consciousness so acute that he felt justified in counting every visit as a mortification. yet he was unable to control it. visits to silas dene were a special mortification; he had to pray for strength before setting out, and now mrs. gregory dene, a good little soul, was not there to help him. “of course, you are a church-goer; i often see you in the abbey,” mr. medhurst pursued.
197“yes, sir,” silas replied gravely.
“you seem to prefer the evening services? ah well, i dare say they fit in better with your work.” silas made no reply, but sat smiling to himself. mr. medhurst started another topic, “what pretty flowers you have always in here, dene.”
“yes, sir, my sister-in-law does that.”
“she must be a great comfort to you, dene, since ... well, since you have been by yourself ... you know....”
“since my wife was killed, sir.”
“well ... yes; yes, after all, that is what i meant. i should like to say, dene, that i admire extremely the courage you have displayed under your sorrow; i think i may claim that i am not unobservant—although, god knows, sorely wanting in other qualities, i add in all humility. i will confess that your conduct at the inquest impressed me most painfully, but we need not dwell upon that; since then i have had nothing but praise for your demeanour.”
“indeed, sir?”
“yes, indeed. i was saying so to sir robert malleson only the other day. it gives me great pleasure to say so to you now. you are a brave 198man, dene.” he pronounced the words “brave man” separately and with emphasis, and allowed a suitable emotion to rise through his tone.
“thank you, sir.”
“not at all, dene, not at all. it is only your due.”
“well, sir, perhaps we all have liftings towards honour,” said silas demurely.
“h’m!” said mr. medhurst. what strange phrases the man employed! “liftings towards honour.” what could that mean? but he was certainly quieter; quieter and better-mannered, and his frequent presence at evening service was a hopeful sign, though mr. medhurst had noticed with a vague misgiving that he took no part in the responses.
ii
two days after the fire silas received a summons from lady malleson, a summons that he had been expecting because he knew malleson was away. it was brought to him not by hambley as usual (that was scarcely surprising), but by emma, lady malleson’s maid. would he come immediately? she, emma, was to bring him back. “i’ll wait for you, mr. dene; you’ll be wanting to brush up a bit,” she said, looking at his dirty hands and untidy hair, but 199he scoffed at the suggestion and said that they should start at once.
in his impatience he forced the maid to a great pace, dragging her along rather than allowing her to lead him. she kept exclaiming that he would stumble over roots and rabbit-holes as they crossed the park, but he brushed her caution aside. “you’re very particular not to keep her ladyship waiting,” said she meaningly, not appreciating this walk with blind dene, of whom so many strange tales were told. little hambley had been seen that morning up at malleson place, scowling and limping in the stable-yard, and the grooms with much relish had said that silas dene had given him a thorough thrashing. little hambley had, of course, not owned to it. he had snapped viciously in reply to their chaff. emma longed to ask silas whether the story was true, but as no one ever asked questions of silas, she, like many others, held her tongue.
iii
he was taken up to the sitting-room, introduced by the maid, and left just inside the door, as on the occasion of his first visit. but now he knew the way about the room.
200“in the house to-day, my lady?” he said, “i like the garden-house better.”
“and you want your own way, as usual?” she asked.
“you say that as though you hated me,” he said, stopping dead.
“what a sensitive ear you have,” she replied cruelly. “i do.”
there was a finality about this pronouncement which caused him to take it with the utmost seriousness. her tones were chill and bloodless and dead, and they disquieted him, so much that he advanced not another step, but remained readjusting his mood, which had been eager, to one of defence. he was horribly startled. it was fortunate for him that he could not see her; she had retreated from him as far as the size of the room would allow, behind the sofa, where she stood shivering as though with cold, her eyes fixed and unblinking, her hand laid upon her loose garment to hold it close at the throat, and all her muscles gathered ready for swift escape at any sign of advance on his part.
“i should not have sent for you,” she said, “but i knew you could not read a letter if i wrote you one, and i did not care to send you a message through 201any of my servants. i don’t want to keep you long, as i only want to tell you that i am leaving for london to-morrow and shall not be seeing you again. i could certainly have sent you a message to tell you that. but i wanted to tell you my reason myself.”
she had prepared beforehand what she intended to say, for her safeguard lay in frigidity of speech, and to achieve that she must maintain frigidity of feeling. that had been easy before he came; but when she saw him her cold anger had been shaken, her contempt had wavered beneath a return of her old respect, and her audacity in risking danger had revived. “i wanted to tell you my reason,” she resumed, “but before doing so i must own that you had completely taken me in. i thought i knew you well, but i knew only that part of you which you were willing that i should know. i thought i had made in you the discovery of something really rather remarkable. i was rather pleased with myself over it. i know now that i have been stupidly mistaken. your elaborate fraud deceived me as being a genuine thing....”
“i can see you have learnt all this by heart,” he interrupted. she flamed up no less at his perspicacity than at his rudeness.
202“very well,” she cried, “i’ll drop my stilted phrases. i did prepare them, but they are true, for all that. i have found you out. you interested me, you even impressed me,—i hate you for it. you’re nothing but a sham and a coward.”
“it’s not true,” said silas, growing very pale.
“it’s so true,” she said quickly, “that the words i’ve just used to you are the very words you have always most dreaded hearing. a sham and a coward. you’re such a coward that there have been moments when you were glad you were blind, because that saved you from dangers other men were expected to undertake. you were quite safe to talk about danger; your blindness sheltered you, and words couldn’t possibly hurt. am i not speaking the truth? your blindness has been your best friend, as well as your worst enemy,—your worst enemy, because it favoured your horrible imagination, and provided a darkness that you peopled with shapes; your best friend, because all the time it preserved you from having to practise what you preached. see how i know you now. i suppose it amused you to deceive me, to see just how far you could go, and sometimes when you thought you’d put your foot an inch over the line of my credulity you drew it back very skilfully. 203now i have simply found you out for what you are. i have learnt the story of the fire two nights ago.”
“nan!” exclaimed silas, in a burst of fury.
“not at all; i have seen hambley. i don’t wish to make any mystery. he came to see me this morning, whining and snivelling, and told me the whole story: how you had lost your head, how you had gibbered with fright—gibbered was the word he used—he says you went like this,” and she imitated a man in the extremity of terror, working her mouth, distending her eyes and nostrils, and clacking her fingers; “he was not pretty to watch, dene. then he told me how you had dragged him in and beaten him for looking in through your window; he was quite shrewd enough to see that you seized upon the pretext of beating him merely as a relief to your nerves, that fright had exasperated. he came to me in order to be revenged on you, and also, i think, because he wanted to whimper to some one. he says you went upon your knees to young morgan, and that morgan was laughing at you, though you didn’t know it, and that even your sister-in-law smiled more than once behind her hand. well, that’s the picture i carry away of you, dene. you can hardly 204be surprised that i regret the kindness i have shown to you. i have made a great mistake which i shall know better than to repeat in the future.” she hardened herself, she mentally insisted on her relief at escaping from a situation which she had felt to be getting beyond her control. there were many incidents she remembered with discomfort, and her husband had been very peremptory, when, the anonymous letter in his hand, he had come to her, “if i thought there was any truth in these revolting hints ...” yes, decidedly, hambley’s revelations had been very opportune as an excuse for getting rid of silas. she thought, on the whole, she had man?uvred her opportunities ably.
“hambley shall pay for this.”
“hambley must take care of himself,” she replied, “i have no doubt that you will invent some form of revenge which will interest you very much as a new experiment, and you will improve it and refine it and fiddle over it, like some magician preparing a brew. i should never, at any moment, have had any doubts as to that. i should like you to understand that i always knew you for cruel, unscrupulous, and without heart or conscience; i thought you a ruthless man, but where i went wrong was in not 205thinking you despicable. i could have respected you for thorough-going villainy,—yes, i thought there was a certain largeness of gesture about your discontent,—but i have only contempt for the sham.”
her voice had grown still more cold and level; it licked sharply round his vanity, and as ever, his instinct flew to physical violence. he snarled, and moved in her direction, knocking over a small table, but she dodged him.
“keep quiet, dene,” she said, in the same glacial tone, “we really cannot play this ridiculous game of blindman’s buff.”
iv
he saw that he could do nothing against her, and indeed was too proud to try. his pride had risen correspondingly to his humiliation; he would show her that something, at all events, in him was not a sham. he was terribly, doubly hurt,—hurt in his heart, and hurt, too, with the uneasy wound of pride, his pride towards her, his pride towards himself. all that she had said had been so true; she had found the truth as a weapon, and had beaten him with it across the face. he was so battered, so 206gashed with scorn, that he was surprised to find himself still alive and sentient. but he was sentient. he was indomitable. his life was so strong that it had not been knocked even temporarily unconscious. it stirred: he spoke.
“i shall say nothing to justify myself,” he began. “if your ladyship wishes to think ill of me you must do so, although i dare say i could alter your opinion.” he was prompted to say this by a phrase that had occurred to his mind, and which gave him some private consolation, “i have, after all, murdered my wife, defied god, and banished my own son.” but he did not say these words aloud. “you are of course free, my lady,” he went on, “to dismiss me without being besought by me. you call me a coward; you forget i have the courage to live alone.”
“the egoism,” she amended.
“no!” he said sharply, “it’s discipline, not inclination, and it began when i was a boy, because i wouldn’t have pity. now it’s a habit. i’ve shut myself off from pity. i’m well schooled.”
“is that all you have to say?” asked lady malleson, as he ceased.
“did you expect me to plead for mercy? you 207were quite right when you said you knew only the part of me that i was willing for you to know. if you had known everything, my lady, you might have been startled.” he was nursing his secret phrase. “but i plan very carefully what i shall betray to different people. being blind, i must invent things to think about.”
“you are a demon!” broke from lady malleson.
silas smiled a bitter, gratified smile; he had at least succeeded in making her angry. having done so, could he reconquer her? should he risk the affront of failure? she was all he had. no! if she cared so little, let her go. he would not submit to being patronised, to being kept on sufferance by the woman who alone had the privilege of twisting the strings of his heart. if that privilege, so grudgingly, so agonisingly accorded, were to be so little esteemed, let her go! what matter? a loneliness the more.
“i thought at first that i would tell emma to bring you to the abbey,” she resumed, more quietly; “i thought that the setting would please you and satisfy your sense of histrionics. it would have been so thoroughly silasian. for you are histrionic, aren’t you, silas?”
208“perhaps,” he said.
“you and i, sitting on two cane chairs, in the dark abbey,” she went on, “while i poured out to you in an undertone all my opinion of you, my new opinion, for the first time, my true opinion, and then, who knows? the organist might have come in to practise, and so provided an accompaniment for your answer. i really believe your answer would have varied according to the music. it would tickle you to sway your life on a dainty chance like that. i wonder that i overcame the temptation.”
“a great pity,” said silas indifferently, but as though he had allowed himself to be beguiled a moment by the charm of the suggestion. she was annoyed with herself; she felt that she had allowed her irony to run away with her, to become a little too wild, especially when he continued in a tone of irreproachable conventionality, “i must now thank your ladyship for the kindness shown in the past and for the many hours i have been allowed to spend at malleson place. i appreciate that it isn’t many poor chaps like me that’s given the advantage. it’s been a gift blown me by the ill wind of my wife’s death and my blindness. your ladyship has a kind heart,—they all say so in the village when 209they hear of the favours shown to blind dene.” as he spoke he made small staccato movements with his fingers, bearing a resemblance to the dart of gregory’s pencil in some minute alteration of his designs, a family resemblance, that in its finicky precision was equally incongruous to both brothers; in silas the gestures seem to indicate the finishing touches to a work of art about to be laid aside; the touches were given, possibly, with regret, but still with a certain affectionate satisfaction, as to work well done, and opportunely completed; (he marvelled at himself even as he spoke and gesticulated); they irritated lady malleson with a small, wiry irritation, like some insignificant but exasperating physical pain, causing her to forget what she had called the grandeur of silas, and to remember only the warped, malicious artistry in which he appeared to take delight.
then he changed; he towered; he dwarfed her; all her superiority went in a flash.
“listen,” he said then, so suddenly that she had the impression that he had stepped bodily out of a disguise,—“your interest in me may have been unreal to you,—how could it have been otherwise? you are a fine lady, you have been through many 210experiences; i’m a rough fellow, and i dare say bitter and brutal enough....”
“you like to think yourself brutal, don’t you?” she interjected.
“such as i was,” he said, “you had me; are you proud of what you made of me?—oh!” he said, hearing her movement of impatience, “i won’t make you discourse; only that question i wanted to ask you: are you proud of what you made? only this: was i so unworthy of your ladyship? have you been sullied by my contact? or have i, by god,” he thundered at her, “been sullied by yours? i’m not so sure. what are you wondering in your mind now? whether you can trust me to go away and hold my tongue? you think you won’t risk putting the idea of indiscretion into my head; you probably think it will come there quite soon enough by itself. are you any less of a coward than i? you need have no anxiety, i’m not tempted to revenge myself on you in that way,—you think of that, you’re preoccupied with that, but do you think at all of what you may have done to me? you picked me up casually, and you think you can put me down in the same way. but, between picking me up and putting me down, you’ve worked on me; you don’t 211leave me quite the same as you found me; and i’m not an easy metal.”
she was frightened when he said that, and muttered hurriedly, “i hope i haven’t done you any harm.”
“one doesn’t know what harm or good one does,” he replied, “working-man or grand lady. you’ll go your way. i’m asking you only whether you’ll remember me with pride, or whether you’ll think of yourself as one of the things that dragged me back, when i was always trying to escape? i’m not strong, you know. i’m not strong. i’m only cursed with a spirit that’s totally beyond my strength.”
“i don’t understand,” she said uneasily; she tried to tell herself that he was making a great fuss; but she could not get away from the idea that the “fuss” was tragically weighted.
“you’re quite safe,” he said, with extraordinary gentleness. “i never wanted to love, you know, either you or any one else; i often told you so; but it isn’t love that i abuse, only the weakness that submits to it. and i have to acknowledge that you are wise in getting rid of me. i’m all awry, you know; misbegotten; and folk like me are better left alone; their misfortune only rubs off on to other 212people. you are wise to protect yourself; that’s always a wise thing to do. i could wish only that you had done it earlier; you would have made it easier for me.”
the melancholy of his reproach surprised her into saying, “is it at this moment that you’re speaking from your heart, or was it just now?” and she remembered the sharp finicky gestures he had made when he thanked her for the kindness she had shown him. “to what extent are you theatrical?” she asked, in a little outburst of bad temper.
“that isn’t a question i should answer, even if i had the answer at the tip of my tongue,” he replied. “you may think, if you choose, that i am never sincere.” (she thought, “he is going back to his old manner.” she was greatly thankful.) “perhaps i am no more sincere,” he continued, standing there, “than any of your ladyship’s little gimcracks in this room.” his reference to her gimcracks was not contemptuous; he seemed rather to be translated into a region where a large gentleness held sway. ironically enough, she thought that she had never seen him before, although this was the last time she was seeing him. a similar idea appeared to strike him at the same moment, for he said, “all along, i have 213fought against you, and tried to disguise myself from you. it doesn’t matter now. i seem always to be fighting,—floundering about,—don’t i? i wonder whether i shall ever get away? away from myself? would your ladyship ring for emma now? i should like to go.”
she got up wearily and crossed the room to the bell. he was standing there, no longer scathing, but quiet, patient, and tired. she looked at him; and, going swiftly to him, she caught his hand.
“listen, silas. perhaps i’ve been too hasty. listen to me. perhaps i need not dismiss you altogether ... i might reconsider....”
“no,” he brought out with extreme firmness, as though he extorted from a long way off the last tragic effort of an overstrained will.
“as you please,” she said, dropping his hand, and in her angry haste she threw open the door to urge the maid who was coming to lead him away.
