“I’m terribly distressed, Silas,” Calthorpe began.
“What, you too, Mr. Calthorpe, come to condole?” cried the blind man, laughing loudly. “Well, it takes an accident to make me popular, it seems; I haven’t had so many callers in the last four years as in the last four hours. Sit down, Mr. Calthorpe; I ask ’em all to sit down. Nan, give a chair.”
Calthorpe sat down uneasily, beneath the silent scrutiny of Gregory and the quick glances of Gregory’s wife. The burning and sightless eyes of Silas were also bent upon him.
“I have only just heard the news,” he began again, “or I would have come sooner....”
“That’s all right. The neighbours ran to help, and to nose out what they could; the parson came too, he’s upstairs now. All very helpful,” said Silas, with another burst of laughter. “Gregory, my brother, too, though he isn’t much company, but we understand one another. Don’t we, Gregory? He can’t hear, but I always talk to him as though he could. I trust him with my secrets, Mr. Calthorpe. They say dead men tell no tales; I say deaf and dumb men tell no tales either. We understand one another, don’t we, Gregory?” He looked without seeing at the deaf mute who had listened without hearing, aware only that Silas was speaking by the movement of his lips. “One’s always sorry to have told a secret,” Silas said, nodding at Calthorpe; “always sorry sooner or later, but Gregory, my brother, he’s safe with any secret. I only tell them to him. Never to Nan, and I never told one to Hannah. Only to Gregory. All my secrets,” and he fell silent, and began biting his lips, pressing them between his teeth with his fingers, that were surprisingly long and nervous.
Calthorpe did not know how to answer; he looked at Gregory’s wife, trying to establish a bond of helpful sympathy between himself and her, the two normal people in that room, but she immediately looked away in her scared and nervous fashion. Calthorpe then saw that Gregory was watching him with a malicious sarcasm that startled Calthorpe for a moment into the belief that he was actually grinning, although no grin was there. Thus startled, he began to speak, hurriedly, confining himself to the practical.
“Of course, you must take some time off, Silas; this week will be very trying for you, and very busy too; there will be the inquest and the funeral.” (“Why did I say that?” he thought to himself.) “We shall all want to make it as easy as possible for you, and the men will be glad to take turns at your job. You mustn’t worry about that. Supposing I give you a week?” Seeing that Silas’s lips curled with what he took to be disdain, he thought that perhaps his offer had been inadequate, and added to it, “and your brother of course would be given the day of the funeral, and if at any other time you want him, Silas, you have only to ask me; I shouldn’t be hard on you.”
“We don’t want any time off,” Silas replied ungraciously.
“You know that it is customary ...” said Calthorpe. Customary! he clung to the word; it gave him a sense of security. “It is customary,” he repeated, “in the case of death, or sickness, or accident, to release such near relatives as are employed at the factory. You needn’t think you would be accepting a special favour.”
“Why should I think that, Mr. Calthorpe?”