G.o.dfrey, too, had disappeared: he was gone to s.n.a.t.c.h his hat and coat, having just reflection enough to remember that he must not look like a madman; but he rushed out of the house into the snow without heeding his thin shoes.
In a few minutes he was on his rapid way to the Stone-pits by the side of Dolly, who, though feeling that she was entirely in her place in encountering cold and snow on an errand of mercy, was much concerned at a young gentleman"s getting his feet wet under a like impulse.
"You"d a deal better go back, sir," said Dolly, with respectful compa.s.sion. "You"ve no call to catch cold; and I"d ask you if you"d be so good as tell my husband to come, on your way back--he"s at the Rainbow, I doubt--if you found him anyway sober enough to be o" use.
Or else, there"s Mrs. Snell "ud happen send the boy up to fetch and carry, for there may be things wanted from the doctor"s."
"No, I"ll stay, now I"m once out--I"ll stay outside here," said G.o.dfrey, when they came opposite Marner"s cottage. "You can come and tell me if I can do anything."
"Well, sir, you"re very good: you"ve a tender heart," said Dolly, going to the door.
G.o.dfrey was too painfully preoccupied to feel a twinge of self-reproach at this undeserved praise. He walked up and down, unconscious that he was plunging ankle-deep in snow, unconscious of everything but trembling suspense about what was going on in the cottage, and the effect of each alternative on his future lot. No, not quite unconscious of everything else. Deeper down, and half-smothered by pa.s.sionate desire and dread, there was the sense that he ought not to be waiting on these alternatives; that he ought to accept the consequences of his deeds, own the miserable wife, and fulfil the claims of the helpless child. But he had not moral courage enough to contemplate that active renunciation of Nancy as possible for him: he had only conscience and heart enough to make him for ever uneasy under the weakness that forbade the renunciation. And at this moment his mind leaped away from all restraint toward the sudden prospect of deliverance from his long bondage.
"Is she dead?" said the voice that predominated over every other within him. "If she is, I may marry Nancy; and then I shall be a good fellow in future, and have no secrets, and the child--shall be taken care of somehow." But across that vision came the other possibility--"She may live, and then it"s all up with me."
G.o.dfrey never knew how long it was before the door of the cottage opened and Mr. Kimble came out. He went forward to meet his uncle, prepared to suppress the agitation he must feel, whatever news he was to hear.
"I waited for you, as I"d come so far," he said, speaking first.
"Pooh, it was nonsense for you to come out: why didn"t you send one of the men? There"s nothing to be done. She"s dead--has been dead for hours, I should say."
"What sort of woman is she?" said G.o.dfrey, feeling the blood rush to his face.
"A young woman, but emaciated, with long black hair. Some vagrant--quite in rags. She"s got a wedding-ring on, however. They must fetch her away to the workhouse to-morrow. Come, come along."
"I want to look at her," said G.o.dfrey. "I think I saw such a woman yesterday. I"ll overtake you in a minute or two."
Mr. Kimble went on, and G.o.dfrey turned back to the cottage. He cast only one glance at the dead face on the pillow, which Dolly had smoothed with decent care; but he remembered that last look at his unhappy hated wife so well, that at the end of sixteen years every line in the worn face was present to him when he told the full story of this night.
He turned immediately towards the hearth, where Silas Marner sat lulling the child. She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep--only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky--before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway. The wide-open blue eyes looked up at G.o.dfrey"s without any uneasiness or sign of recognition: the child could make no visible audible claim on its father; and the father felt a strange mixture of feelings, a conflict of regret and joy, that the pulse of that little heart had no response for the half-jealous yearning in his own, when the blue eyes turned away from him slowly, and fixed themselves on the weaver"s queer face, which was bent low down to look at them, while the small hand began to pull Marner"s withered cheek with loving disfiguration.
"You"ll take the child to the parish to-morrow?" asked G.o.dfrey, speaking as indifferently as he could.
"Who says so?" said Marner, sharply. "Will they make me take her?"
"Why, you wouldn"t like to keep her, should you--an old bachelor like you?"
"Till anybody shows they"ve a right to take her away from me," said Marner. "The mother"s dead, and I reckon it"s got no father: it"s a lone thing--and I"m a lone thing. My money"s gone, I don"t know where--and this is come from I don"t know where. I know nothing--I"m partly mazed."
"Poor little thing!" said G.o.dfrey. "Let me give something towards finding it clothes."
He had put his hand in his pocket and found half-a-guinea, and, thrusting it into Silas"s hand, he hurried out of the cottage to overtake Mr. Kimble.
"Ah, I see it"s not the same woman I saw," he said, as he came up.
"It"s a pretty little child: the old fellow seems to want to keep it; that"s strange for a miser like him. But I gave him a trifle to help him out: the parish isn"t likely to quarrel with him for the right to keep the child."
"No; but I"ve seen the time when I might have quarrelled with him for it myself. It"s too late now, though. If the child ran into the fire, your aunt"s too fat to overtake it: she could only sit and grunt like an alarmed sow. But what a fool you are, G.o.dfrey, to come out in your dancing shoes and stockings in this way--and you one of the beaux of the evening, and at your own house! What do you mean by such freaks, young fellow? Has Miss Nancy been cruel, and do you want to spite her by spoiling your pumps?"
"Oh, everything has been disagreeable to-night. I was tired to death of jigging and gallanting, and that bother about the hornpipes. And I"d got to dance with the other Miss Gunn," said G.o.dfrey, glad of the subterfuge his uncle had suggested to him.
The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs when once the actions have become a lie.
G.o.dfrey reappeared in the White Parlour with dry feet, and, since the truth must be told, with a sense of relief and gladness that was too strong for painful thoughts to struggle with. For could he not venture now, whenever opportunity offered, to say the tenderest things to Nancy Lammeter--to promise her and himself that he would always be just what she would desire to see him? There was no danger that his dead wife would be recognized: those were not days of active inquiry and wide report; and as for the registry of their marriage, that was a long way off, buried in unturned pages, away from every one"s interest but his own. Dunsey might betray him if he came back; but Dunsey might be won to silence.
And when events turn out so much better for a man than he has had reason to dread, is it not a proof that his conduct has been less foolish and blameworthy than it might otherwise have appeared? When we are treated well, we naturally begin to think that we are not altogether unmeritorious, and that it is only just we should treat ourselves well, and not mar our own good fortune. Where, after all, would be the use of his confessing the past to Nancy Lammeter, and throwing away his happiness?--nay, hers? for he felt some confidence that she loved him. As for the child, he would see that it was cared for: he would never forsake it; he would do everything but own it.
Perhaps it would be just as happy in life without being owned by its father, seeing that n.o.body could tell how things would turn out, and that--is there any other reason wanted?--well, then, that the father would be much happier without owning the child.
CHAPTER XIV
There was a pauper"s burial that week in Raveloe, and up Kench Yard at Batherley it was known that the dark-haired woman with the fair child, who had lately come to lodge there, was gone away again. That was all the express note taken that Molly had disappeared from the eyes of men.
But the unwept death which, to the general lot, seemed as trivial as the summer-shed leaf, was charged with the force of destiny to certain human lives that we know of, shaping their joys and sorrows even to the end.
Silas Marner"s determination to keep the "tramp"s child" was matter of hardly less surprise and iterated talk in the village than the robbery of his money. That softening of feeling towards him which dated from his misfortune, that merging of suspicion and dislike in a rather contemptuous pity for him as lone and crazy, was now accompanied with a more active sympathy, especially amongst the women. Notable mothers, who knew what it was to keep children "whole and sweet"; lazy mothers, who knew what it was to be interrupted in folding their arms and scratching their elbows by the mischievous propensities of children just firm on their legs, were equally interested in conjecturing how a lone man would manage with a two-year-old child on his hands, and were equally ready with their suggestions: the notable chiefly telling him what he had better do, and the lazy ones being emphatic in telling him what he would never be able to do.
Among the notable mothers, Dolly Winthrop was the one whose neighbourly offices were the most acceptable to Marner, for they were rendered without any show of bustling instruction. Silas had shown her the half-guinea given to him by G.o.dfrey, and had asked her what he should do about getting some clothes for the child.
"Eh, Master Marner," said Dolly, "there"s no call to buy, no more nor a pair o" shoes; for I"ve got the little petticoats as Aaron wore five years ago, and it"s ill spending the money on them baby-clothes, for the child "ull grow like gra.s.s i" May, bless it--that it will."
And the same day Dolly brought her bundle, and displayed to Marner, one by one, the tiny garments in their due order of succession, most of them patched and darned, but clean and neat as fresh-sprung herbs.
This was the introduction to a great ceremony with soap and water, from which Baby came out in new beauty, and sat on Dolly"s knee, handling her toes and chuckling and patting her palms together with an air of having made several discoveries about herself, which she communicated by alternate sounds of "gug-gug-gug", and "mammy". The "mammy" was not a cry of need or uneasiness: Baby had been used to utter it without expecting either tender sound or touch to follow.
"Anybody "ud think the angils in heaven couldn"t be prettier," said Dolly, rubbing the golden curls and kissing them. "And to think of its being covered wi" them dirty rags--and the poor mother--froze to death; but there"s Them as took care of it, and brought it to your door, Master Marner. The door was open, and it walked in over the snow, like as if it had been a little starved robin. Didn"t you say the door was open?"
"Yes," said Silas, meditatively. "Yes--the door was open. The money"s gone I don"t know where, and this is come from I don"t know where."
He had not mentioned to any one his unconsciousness of the child"s entrance, shrinking from questions which might lead to the fact he himself suspected--namely, that he had been in one of his trances.
"Ah," said Dolly, with soothing gravity, "it"s like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest--one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it"s little we can do arter all--the big things come and go wi" no striving o" our"n--they do, that they do; and I think you"re in the right on it to keep the little un, Master Marner, seeing as it"s been sent to you, though there"s folks as thinks different. You"ll happen be a bit moithered with it while it"s so little; but I"ll come, and welcome, and see to it for you: I"ve a bit o" time to spare most days, for when one gets up betimes i" the morning, the clock seems to stan" still tow"rt ten, afore it"s time to go about the victual. So, as I say, I"ll come and see to the child for you, and welcome."
"Thank you... kindly," said Silas, hesitating a little. "I"ll be glad if you"ll tell me things. But," he added, uneasily, leaning forward to look at Baby with some jealousy, as she was resting her head backward against Dolly"s arm, and eyeing him contentedly from a distance--"But I want to do things for it myself, else it may get fond o" somebody else, and not fond o" me. I"ve been used to fending for myself in the house--I can learn, I can learn."
"Eh, to be sure," said Dolly, gently. "I"ve seen men as are wonderful handy wi" children. The men are awk"ard and contrairy mostly, G.o.d help "em--but when the drink"s out of "em, they aren"t unsensible, though they"re bad for leeching and bandaging--so fiery and unpatient. You see this goes first, next the skin," proceeded Dolly, taking up the little shirt, and putting it on.
"Yes," said Marner, docilely, bringing his eyes very close, that they might be initiated in the mysteries; whereupon Baby seized his head with both her small arms, and put her lips against his face with purring noises.
"See there," said Dolly, with a woman"s tender tact, "she"s fondest o"
you. She wants to go o" your lap, I"ll be bound. Go, then: take her, Master Marner; you can put the things on, and then you can say as you"ve done for her from the first of her coming to you."
Marner took her on his lap, trembling with an emotion mysterious to himself, at something unknown dawning on his life. Thought and feeling were so confused within him, that if he had tried to give them utterance, he could only have said that the child was come instead of the gold--that the gold had turned into the child. He took the garments from Dolly, and put them on under her teaching; interrupted, of course, by Baby"s gymnastics.
"There, then! why, you take to it quite easy, Master Marner," said Dolly; "but what shall you do when you"re forced to sit in your loom?
For she"ll get busier and mischievouser every day--she will, bless her.
It"s lucky as you"ve got that high hearth i"stead of a grate, for that keeps the fire more out of her reach: but if you"ve got anything as can be spilt or broke, or as is fit to cut her fingers off, she"ll be at it--and it is but right you should know."
Silas meditated a little while in some perplexity. "I"ll tie her to the leg o" the loom," he said at last--"tie her with a good long strip o" something."
"Well, mayhap that"ll do, as it"s a little gell, for they"re easier persuaded to sit i" one place nor the lads. I know what the lads are; for I"ve had four--four I"ve had, G.o.d knows--and if you was to take and tie "em up, they"d make a fighting and a crying as if you was ringing the pigs. But I"ll bring you my little chair, and some bits o" red rag and things for her to play wi"; an" she"ll sit and chatter to "em as if they was alive. Eh, if it wasn"t a sin to the lads to wish "em made different, bless "em, I should ha" been glad for one of "em to be a little gell; and to think as I could ha" taught her to scour, and mend, and the knitting, and everything. But I can teach "em this little un, Master Marner, when she gets old enough."