i
their last afternoon, a saturday. they believed that gregory was to return at seven; only silas knew that he was to return at five. with the hoarding instinct that this knowledge might be useful to him, he kept it a secret. they were very silent, and remained close to one another, holding hands. how grave they were! they were very self-contained, husbanding all their strength. he knew that they meant to beard gregory that evening, but he, silas, equally, meant to outwit them, and he thought with satisfaction that his cunning was greater than theirs. he considered their silence with an irony more tragic than any of them knew. the pain that their company had cost him during the last ten days; the pain, too, which his own desire for their happiness had cost him; his angry, resentful love for them both; the strain of remaining true to his principles, and his vindictiveness (christine! christine! always 245christine, recurrent, gnawing,) all this mingled in his mind to a state of folly with which he was almost unable prudently to deal. he acknowledged that he had been partly to blame. he had drawn out nan’s confidences. but his temperament inclined him harshly towards self-flagellation....
“only a little time now, nan, before he’s here,” he said. “you’ll have much to tell him, much that’ll interest him. remember, if you want any help, i’m here: silas is here. him being my brother, we understand one another, like you and linnet understand one another. blood brothers is close like lovers. close as lovers.—but what call have i to talk of love, seeing i never knew it, nor wanted it?”
he went outside and sat on the doorstep, leaning his back against the closed door. the village street was deserted, distant voices sounded from the green; in the faint warmth of the april sun the paint of the door smelt hot, and flies buzzed stickily in the corners of the woodwork. silas sat there clasping his knees, and swaying slightly to the ironical rhythm of his own thoughts. he felt like a jailer, keeping those two imprisoned inside; they were happy, in spite of the imminent crisis; merely and childishly happy because they were together,—that sufficed; 246he had learnt during those ten days the perfection of their happiness. nan had betrayed, under his questionings, more than she had probably intended to betray, and under the pain of defrauded envy he had accumulated a store of knowledge. they seemed to be one another; it was not so much sympathy that they enjoyed, as identity. silas swayed himself slowly backwards and forwards; he put the tip of his tongue between his teeth and held it there; he tapped his boots softly together because of his enjoyment. they were inside, talking; gregory would be home soon. it tickled silas’s fancy to think he had a surprise up his sleeve in store for them; he, the unwanted third! he, the ostracised of the village! they would soon learn, all of them, that he still had fangs. he strained his ears to catch the first sound of the train, which, after stopping at spalding, crossed the fenny country at some little distance. he wished for the dulled rumble indicative that the train was upon its journey and therefore that gregory and calthorpe were upon their way to abbot’s etchery along the dyke, but at the same time he wished this hour prolonged, an hour so entirely after his own heart. he had so many revenges to take, so many old debts to wipe 247off, that no luxury of procrastination could be too great. provided only, indeed, that the completion was sufficient, and sufficiently inevitable; and as to this he had no misgivings.
he never heard the train. he continued to hear only the distant shouts from the green, the small noises of insects, and the murmur within the room—not a continued murmur, only an intermittent one—and the first sound that drew him from his torpor of satisfaction was that of footsteps on the cobbles and calthorpe’s voice, in its somewhat irritatingly cheery tones, “friend silas! well, i’ve brought back gregory safe and sound, and how are you all at home?”
gregory stood planted in the middle of the street watching his brother’s face for his greeting of calthorpe. his throat heaved, and his suppressed violence, which was entirely apparent, made his stiff black travelling suit and bowler hat seem puerile and ridiculous. he was in one of those primitive moods when civilised trappings become laughable: an angry man in a bowler hat.... not only angry, but convulsed with anxiety, and with a rage that prayed only to be released. yes, even though that rage must destroy his soul, it craved for an outlet. 248a man so minded would not have thanked the reassuring speech that drove back the straining rage as unwarrantable. the bag he carried was as paper in his hand. his limbs seemed to burst out of his clothes; strong muscle impatient for nakedness. his throat reared itself out of his collar. his hands protruded starkly from his cuffs. civilisation upon him was as preposterous as the naked man wrestling beneath was superb. he stood with his feet planted wide apart, in the attitude of one who awaits and encourages an attack.
silas was petulant at being taken by surprise; “i didn’t expect you,” he said, as though he had been cheated of his due. “well, now that we’re here, let us come in,” said calthorpe, still good-humoured, but slightly uneasy; he would have liked the numbers increased, not fancying the part of sole interpreter between the brothers; was he to act as light to the one, and as sound to the other? the constant companionship of gregory, and, above all, the railway journey that day, and the walk along the dyke, had convinced him that all was very far from well amongst the denes. “no,” said silas, standing up and stretching his arms crucifix-wise across the door, “you can’t go in there.”
249gregory saw the gesture, which was intelligible enough, although he did not hear the words. a perverse relief swept over him, at having his worst dread confirmed. a horrible inarticulate noise broke from him, which made calthorpe swing round in his direction. “good god,” said calthorpe appalled, “it’s like a baboon,” and he continued to stare, expecting the noise to be repeated. silas, too, had heard; “yes—like a brute,” he said, becoming transfigured with delight as he saw the certainty of man?uvring that brute with the cunning of his own intellect. gregory never uttered a sound unless he was extraordinarily moved. “tell him, mr. calthorpe,” said silas, “that he can’t go into my cottage.”
“he wants to know why,” said calthorpe, having delivered this message and received the answer from gregory’s quivering fingers. “he looks as though he might spring upon you at any moment, silas.” he watched, anxiously, first one and then the other.
“gathering himself together, is he?”
“yes—he doesn’t look as though he’d hold himself in much longer. oh, you wouldn’t chuckle if you could see him.”
“tell him to trust me and not to be a fool.”
250“he says, was it true?”
“tell him first, that he must let me manage things.”
“i don’t like the look of this, silas; i’m all in the dark.”
“never mind, sir; you just tell him to trust me.”
“he’ll be at your throat if i don’t,” and the communication passed silently from calthorpe to gregory. “he says he will trust you a bit longer, but he wants to see things for himself.”
silas appeared to be perplexed by his brother’s impatience, and by the danger of calthorpe putting two and two together.
“ask him if he will wait till to-morrow,” he said, at length.
this suggestion so enraged gregory that he leapt at his brother and was only warded off by calthorpe’s appeasing gesture. he fell back a pace, and framed a message with shaking hands.
“he says,” said calthorpe, “that he will be damned if he waits another five minutes. and i am damned myself, silas,” added the honest instrument, “if i understand a word of this, or if i will go on letting you make a cat’s-paw of me for your black 251tricks. call mrs. dene, who perhaps knows what you are up to.”
silas was outwardly calm, but alert. he must lose no time in breaking up the trio.
“i shall explain everything to you, mr. calthorpe,” he said earnestly, still standing with his arms flung wide across the door, “but he’s a dangerous man, my brother. he’s in a dangerous temper. to tell you the truth, mr. calthorpe,” he ran on with extreme glibness, “he suspects some one of tampering with his designs—but keep that for yourself. i’ve got the proofs inside my cottage, only i didn’t expect you so early. we must get him away. tell him to go into his own place and change his clothes, and i’ll send his wife to him.”
“well, there seems to be no harm in that,” said calthorpe dubiously.
“believe me, sir, i’m acting for the best.”
“h’m—you seem mighty eager to get your brother out of the way.”
“surely you only have to look at him, mr. calthorpe.”
calthorpe looked, and, having done so, he asked gregory to go. “but i am damned if i understand,” he said again, taking off his hat and scratching his 252head. “you denes are hard fellows to make out,” he added in an access of irritation, seeing the expression on silas’s face, and indeed he felt that his irritation was only small and petulant beside the anger of gregory and the sardonic malevolence of silas. if it were not for nan, he would wash his hands of the whole lot of them. his easy-going philosophy of life was too greatly disturbed by the stress and inexplicable ferment of the denes. he saw gregory scowling in his indecision, than a message came from the able fingers, which he passed on to silas. “he says he will wait for his wife in his own cottage.”
“tell him she shall join him there,” said silas grimly.
ii
devastation met nan’s eyes when she hurried into her cottage. the white lace curtains were torn from the windows and the pictures lay scattered about the floor. any ornament or attempt at decoration had been snatched from its place and flung across the room. in the midst of this wreckage stood gregory, in his shirt sleeves, his chest heaving 253and his bronze forehead shining with sweat. he held out to nan a paper upon which he had written, “plain deel tables and chairs is good enough for us, without fal-lals.” she read it, and with tears running over her cheeks knelt down to gather up her broken china, collecting the pieces tenderly into the shreds of the curtains. gregory came towards her and kicked the things away from her hand. she knelt upon the floor, gazing up at him without protest but with inexpressible sorrow. every time she renewed her gesture of gathering up the shares, he scattered them again by a kick, until in discouragement she desisted, waiting for his next manifestation. she dared not get up while he stood over her in his threatening attitude.
silas came in; nan found herself turning to him as towards a friend. here, at least, was one who had some influence over gregory! she felt herself the alien before the brothers.
silas was sympathetic. silas commiserated. let her go away for a little, and he would soothe gregory. gregory had behaved like a peevish child. he, silas, would remonstrate. he even patted nan’s shoulder kindly as she passed him, drying her eyes, to leave the brothers together as she was bid.
