“Tell Gregory, Nan; tell him she had been dead three hours before I knew.”
Gregory’s wife made swift passes with her fingers to her husband, who read the signs and answered in the same language.
“He says you told him that when you first came in, Silas.” She had a clear and gentle voice.
“You hear that, Mr. Medhurst? you hear, Mr. Calthorpe? I told my brother that when I came in. I’m alone now; I had a son, but I don’t know where he is; I had a daughter too, but she went soon after her brother. I stand alone; I don’t count on nobody.”
“Come, Dene; I respect your sorrow, but I cannot hear you imply that your children deserted you: you were always, I am afraid, a harsh father.” Mr. Medhurst spoke in the reprimanding tone that he could assume at a moment’s notice; it was shaded with regret, as though he spoke thus not from a natural inclination to find fault, but from a pressure of duty.
“Why don’t you say that I was harsh to Hannah?” demanded Silas. Mr. Medhurst made a deprecatory movement with his hands; he would not willingly bring charges against a man already in trouble. “Why don’t you say so?” repeated the blind man, upon whom the movement was naturally lost.
“Since you insist,” said the clergyman, “I must say that the whole village knew you were not always very kind to your wife; in fact, I have spoken to you myself on the subject.”
“I knocked her about; I’d do the same to any woman, if I was fool and dupe enough to take up with another one,” Silas said.
His pronouncement left the room in silence; his blind glare checked the words on the lips of both the clergyman and the overseer; he still stood entrenched behind the table, his sinewy hand gripping Nan’s small shoulder, for she dared do nothing but remain motionless, neither cowering away nor moving closer to him, but keeping her eyes bent upon the floor. An oil-lamp swung from the ceiling above the table. Gregory watched them all in turn, from his chair beside the oven; he was really grinning now, and seemed more in the mood to defend his brother’s quarrels with his fist than to take any interest in the visible terror of his wife. Nor did she appear to expect championship from him. She had not thrown him so much as one appealing glance. Living between the two brothers, she might almost have forgotten which of the two was her husband and which her brother-in-law; in fact, it had been whispered in the village that the mode of life in the Denes’ cottage was such as to lead the woman into that kind of confusion,—but those who spoke so were the ignorant, who disregarded or else knew nothing of the pride and jealousy of the Denes.
“I didn’t knock her about so cruelly as the train,” said Silas, laughing wildly.