A plain man like G.o.dfrey Ca.s.s, speaking under some embarra.s.sment, necessarily blunders on words that are coa.r.s.er than his intentions, and that are likely to fall gratingly on susceptible feelings. While he had been speaking, Eppie had quietly pa.s.sed her arm behind Silas"s head, and let her hand rest against it caressingly: she felt him trembling violently. He was silent for some moments when Mr. Ca.s.s had ended--powerless under the conflict of emotions, all alike painful.
Eppie"s heart was swelling at the sense that her father was in distress; and she was just going to lean down and speak to him, when one struggling dread at last gained the mastery over every other in Silas, and he said, faintly--
"Eppie, my child, speak. I won"t stand in your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Ca.s.s."
Eppie took her hand from her father"s head, and came forward a step.
Her cheeks were flushed, but not with shyness this time: the sense that her father was in doubt and suffering banished that sort of self-consciousness. She dropped a low curtsy, first to Mrs. Ca.s.s and then to Mr. Ca.s.s, and said--
"Thank you, ma"am--thank you, sir. But I can"t leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him. And I don"t want to be a lady--thank you all the same" (here Eppie dropped another curtsy). "I couldn"t give up the folks I"ve been used to."
Eppie"s lips began to tremble a little at the last words. She retreated to her father"s chair again, and held him round the neck: while Silas, with a subdued sob, put up his hand to grasp hers.
The tears were in Nancy"s eyes, but her sympathy with Eppie was, naturally, divided with distress on her husband"s account. She dared not speak, wondering what was going on in her husband"s mind.
G.o.dfrey felt an irritation inevitable to almost all of us when we encounter an unexpected obstacle. He had been full of his own penitence and resolution to retrieve his error as far as the time was left to him; he was possessed with all-important feelings, that were to lead to a predetermined course of action which he had fixed on as the right, and he was not prepared to enter with lively appreciation into other people"s feelings counteracting his virtuous resolves. The agitation with which he spoke again was not quite unmixed with anger.
"But I"ve a claim on you, Eppie--the strongest of all claims. It"s my duty, Marner, to own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She is my own child--her mother was my wife. I"ve a natural claim on her that must stand before every other."
Eppie had given a violent start, and turned quite pale. Silas, on the contrary, who had been relieved, by Eppie"s answer, from the dread lest his mind should be in opposition to hers, felt the spirit of resistance in him set free, not without a touch of parental fierceness. "Then, sir," he answered, with an accent of bitterness that had been silent in him since the memorable day when his youthful hope had perished--"then, sir, why didn"t you say so sixteen year ago, and claim her before I"d come to love her, i"stead o" coming to take her from me now, when you might as well take the heart out o" my body? G.o.d gave her to me because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you"ve no right to her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in."
"I know that, Marner. I was wrong. I"ve repented of my conduct in that matter," said G.o.dfrey, who could not help feeling the edge of Silas"s words.
"I"m glad to hear it, sir," said Marner, with gathering excitement; "but repentance doesn"t alter what"s been going on for sixteen year.
Your coming now and saying "I"m her father" doesn"t alter the feelings inside us. It"s me she"s been calling her father ever since she could say the word."
"But I think you might look at the thing more reasonably, Marner," said G.o.dfrey, unexpectedly awed by the weaver"s direct truth-speaking. "It isn"t as if she was to be taken quite away from you, so that you"d never see her again. She"ll be very near you, and come to see you very often. She"ll feel just the same towards you."
"Just the same?" said Marner, more bitterly than ever. "How"ll she feel just the same for me as she does now, when we eat o" the same bit, and drink o" the same cup, and think o" the same things from one day"s end to another? Just the same? that"s idle talk. You"d cut us i" two."
G.o.dfrey, unqualified by experience to discern the pregnancy of Marner"s simple words, felt rather angry again. It seemed to him that the weaver was very selfish (a judgment readily pa.s.sed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice) to oppose what was undoubtedly for Eppie"s welfare; and he felt himself called upon, for her sake, to a.s.sert his authority.
"I should have thought, Marner," he said, severely--"I should have thought your affection for Eppie would make you rejoice in what was for her good, even if it did call upon you to give up something. You ought to remember your own life"s uncertain, and she"s at an age now when her lot may soon be fixed in a way very different from what it would be in her father"s home: she may marry some low working-man, and then, whatever I might do for her, I couldn"t make her well-off. You"re putting yourself in the way of her welfare; and though I"m sorry to hurt you after what you"ve done, and what I"ve left undone, I feel now it"s my duty to insist on taking care of my own daughter. I want to do my duty."
It would be difficult to say whether it were Silas or Eppie that was more deeply stirred by this last speech of G.o.dfrey"s. Thought had been very busy in Eppie as she listened to the contest between her old long-loved father and this new unfamiliar father who had suddenly come to fill the place of that black featureless shadow which had held the ring and placed it on her mother"s finger. Her imagination had darted backward in conjectures, and forward in previsions, of what this revealed fatherhood implied; and there were words in G.o.dfrey"s last speech which helped to make the previsions especially definite. Not that these thoughts, either of past or future, determined her resolution--_that_ was determined by the feelings which vibrated to every word Silas had uttered; but they raised, even apart from these feelings, a repulsion towards the offered lot and the newly-revealed father.
Silas, on the other hand, was again stricken in conscience, and alarmed lest G.o.dfrey"s accusation should be true--lest he should be raising his own will as an obstacle to Eppie"s good. For many moments he was mute, struggling for the self-conquest necessary to the uttering of the difficult words. They came out tremulously.
"I"ll say no more. Let it be as you will. Speak to the child. I"ll hinder nothing."
Even Nancy, with all the acute sensibility of her own affections, shared her husband"s view, that Marner was not justifiable in his wish to retain Eppie, after her real father had avowed himself. She felt that it was a very hard trial for the poor weaver, but her code allowed no question that a father by blood must have a claim above that of any foster-father. Besides, Nancy, used all her life to plenteous circ.u.mstances and the privileges of "respectability", could not enter into the pleasures which early nurture and habit connect with all the little aims and efforts of the poor who are born poor: to her mind, Eppie, in being restored to her birthright, was entering on a too long withheld but unquestionable good. Hence she heard Silas"s last words with relief, and thought, as G.o.dfrey did, that their wish was achieved.
"Eppie, my dear," said G.o.dfrey, looking at his daughter, not without some embarra.s.sment, under the sense that she was old enough to judge him, "it"ll always be our wish that you should show your love and grat.i.tude to one who"s been a father to you so many years, and we shall want to help you to make him comfortable in every way. But we hope you"ll come to love us as well; and though I haven"t been what a father should ha" been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost in my power for you for the rest of my life, and provide for you as my only child. And you"ll have the best of mothers in my wife--that"ll be a blessing you haven"t known since you were old enough to know it."
"My dear, you"ll be a treasure to me," said Nancy, in her gentle voice.
"We shall want for nothing when we have our daughter."
Eppie did not come forward and curtsy, as she had done before. She held Silas"s hand in hers, and grasped it firmly--it was a weaver"s hand, with a palm and finger-tips that were sensitive to such pressure--while she spoke with colder decision than before.
"Thank you, ma"am--thank you, sir, for your offers--they"re very great, and far above my wish. For I should have no delight i" life any more if I was forced to go away from my father, and knew he was sitting at home, a-thinking of me and feeling lone. We"ve been used to be happy together every day, and I can"t think o" no happiness without him. And he says he"d n.o.body i" the world till I was sent to him, and he"d have nothing when I was gone. And he"s took care of me and loved me from the first, and I"ll cleave to him as long as he lives, and n.o.body shall ever come between him and me."
"But you must make sure, Eppie," said Silas, in a low voice--"you must make sure as you won"t ever be sorry, because you"ve made your choice to stay among poor folks, and with poor clothes and things, when you might ha" had everything o" the best."
His sensitiveness on this point had increased as he listened to Eppie"s words of faithful affection.
"I can never be sorry, father," said Eppie. "I shouldn"t know what to think on or to wish for with fine things about me, as I haven"t been used to. And it "ud be poor work for me to put on things, and ride in a gig, and sit in a place at church, as "ud make them as I"m fond of think me unfitting company for "em. What could _I_ care for then?"
Nancy looked at G.o.dfrey with a pained questioning glance. But his eyes were fixed on the floor, where he was moving the end of his stick, as if he were pondering on something absently. She thought there was a word which might perhaps come better from her lips than from his.
"What you say is natural, my dear child--it"s natural you should cling to those who"ve brought you up," she said, mildly; "but there"s a duty you owe to your lawful father. There"s perhaps something to be given up on more sides than one. When your father opens his home to you, I think it"s right you shouldn"t turn your back on it."
"I can"t feel as I"ve got any father but one," said Eppie, impetuously, while the tears gathered. "I"ve always thought of a little home where he"d sit i" the corner, and I should fend and do everything for him: I can"t think o" no other home. I wasn"t brought up to be a lady, and I can"t turn my mind to it. I like the working-folks, and their victuals, and their ways. And," she ended pa.s.sionately, while the tears fell, "I"m promised to marry a working-man, as"ll live with father, and help me to take care of him."
G.o.dfrey looked up at Nancy with a flushed face and smarting dilated eyes. This frustration of a purpose towards which he had set out under the exalted consciousness that he was about to compensate in some degree for the greatest demerit of his life, made him feel the air of the room stifling.
"Let us go," he said, in an under-tone.
"We won"t talk of this any longer now," said Nancy, rising. "We"re your well-wishers, my dear--and yours too, Marner. We shall come and see you again. It"s getting late now."
In this way she covered her husband"s abrupt departure, for G.o.dfrey had gone straight to the door, unable to say more.
CHAPTER XX
Nancy and G.o.dfrey walked home under the starlight in silence. When they entered the oaken parlour, G.o.dfrey threw himself into his chair, while Nancy laid down her bonnet and shawl, and stood on the hearth near her husband, unwilling to leave him even for a few minutes, and yet fearing to utter any word lest it might jar on his feeling. At last G.o.dfrey turned his head towards her, and their eyes met, dwelling in that meeting without any movement on either side. That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger--not to be interfered with by speech or action which would distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose.
But presently he put out his hand, and as Nancy placed hers within it, he drew her towards him, and said--
"That"s ended!"
She bent to kiss him, and then said, as she stood by his side, "Yes, I"m afraid we must give up the hope of having her for a daughter. It wouldn"t be right to want to force her to come to us against her will.
We can"t alter her bringing up and what"s come of it."
"No," said G.o.dfrey, with a keen decisiveness of tone, in contrast with his usually careless and unemphatic speech--"there"s debts we can"t pay like money debts, by paying extra for the years that have slipped by.
While I"ve been putting off and putting off, the trees have been growing--it"s too late now. Marner was in the right in what he said about a man"s turning away a blessing from his door: it falls to somebody else. I wanted to pa.s.s for childless once, Nancy--I shall pa.s.s for childless now against my wish."
Nancy did not speak immediately, but after a little while she asked--"You won"t make it known, then, about Eppie"s being your daughter?"
"No: where would be the good to anybody?--only harm. I must do what I can for her in the state of life she chooses. I must see who it is she"s thinking of marrying."
"If it won"t do any good to make the thing known," said Nancy, who thought she might now allow herself the relief of entertaining a feeling which she had tried to silence before, "I should be very thankful for father and Priscilla never to be troubled with knowing what was done in the past, more than about Dunsey: it can"t be helped, their knowing that."
"I shall put it in my will--I think I shall put it in my will. I shouldn"t like to leave anything to be found out, like this of Dunsey,"
said G.o.dfrey, meditatively. "But I can"t see anything but difficulties that "ud come from telling it now. I must do what I can to make her happy in her own way. I"ve a notion," he added, after a moment"s pause, "it"s Aaron Winthrop she meant she was engaged to. I remember seeing him with her and Marner going away from church."
"Well, he"s very sober and industrious," said Nancy, trying to view the matter as cheerfully as possible.
G.o.dfrey fell into thoughtfulness again. Presently he looked up at Nancy sorrowfully, and said--