“What’s that?” cried Silas, startling them all.
They had not heard him come in. He stood on the threshold, his hand outstretched, the likeness between himself and his son strongly apparent.“What’s that?” he repeated; “who’s that, calling ‘Mother’ here?”
“Silas, it’s Martin come home,” said Nan, who was trembling and who had gone, quite unwittingly, closer to Morgan.
“Martin? it’s suited him to come back, after seven years?” Silas uttered a derisive “Ho!” He added, “It’s too late, my boy, to come here calling ‘Mother.’ That’s rich, that is—eh, Nan?”
“What d’you mean?” said Martin Dene, swinging round.
“Your mother’s dead, that’s what I mean.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, dead three months ago.”
“Dead! Mother dead? why? how?”
“Tell him, Nan.”
“Look here,” said Morgan, speaking for the first time, “I’m sorry you’ve got to learn this news....”
“Oh, smooth it over! water it down! I didn’t know you were there, Linnet,” interrupted Silas. “I’ll tell him myself. Your mother was killed in an accident—picked up unrecognisable—run over by a train—now you know. Got anything to say?”
“My God!” said young Dene, covering his face. Nan went up to him and began to whisper to him; heheard her half through with horribly staring gaze, but then, disregarding her, he cried in a hoarse voice to his father, “Accident be damned! you drove her to it. I know your ways—they drove me away to Canada, and Elsie to London—I’ve seen her there—and they drove mother tothat—come, own up! it was suicide, wasn’t it?” He made a movement towards his father, but Nan clung to his arm.
“No, I swear it wasn’t,” replied Silas, full of a grim amusement at his suggestion.
“Well, how did it happen, then? What’s your account of what happened? Did any one see?”
As neither of the others answered, Morgan said, “Nobody saw it happen.”
Martin leapt on to that. “So it was never explained?”
“No,” said Morgan, “the coroner’s inquest gave Accidental Death.” Martin laughed.
“You’re going now, I suppose?” said Silas, “Morgan’s answered you, and his answer can hardly satisfy you. Suspicion’s a sleepless guest in the mind.”
“You’re alone now, father?” asked the son. His tone altered as a sort of pity and repentance overcame him, and as he remembered his father’s blindness.“Perhaps I spoke too hasty, father; see here, I’ll stop on with you if you like.”
“I don’t like; you can get out,” said Silas. Morgan and Nan gave an exclamation.
“I’ll stop to-night; we’re not calm, either of us.”
“I don’t remember you calm, somehow?” Silas sneered. Martin’s temper, which he had controlled, rose again.
“I’ll get out, then,” he said, moving towards the door. Nan, through her terror, thought him very handsome,—bronze and black, his bony cheeks still glistening from the rain.
“You needn’t bother to come back, after another seven years.”
“Don’t you worry, father; I won’t come back.”
“Martin!” cried Nan. This flare of quarrel between father and son troubled her greatly; it was a disturbance of harmony, and she longed for the re-establishment of peace, at the same time dreading further questionings, further possible accusations; Martin would probe and examine, Silas might lose his head,—Nan, knowing the truth, lived in the perpetual terror of a frenzied outburst of candour on Silas’s part.... He was, she knew, quite capable of such an outburst. Life, and the harmony of life,would be less endangered with Martin out of the way. But this was an unkind greeting for Martin at his home—poor Martin! after seven years’ absence and a trudge in the rain, to find his mother dead and his father ferocious!—Nan’s fund of pity overflowed, and she tried to compromise: “Martin! you can’t walk back to Spalding through this awful night; stop till to-morrow with Gregory, and me.”
“Not he!” said Silas, unexpectedly, and as though he spoke with pride.
“You’re right, father,—though I thank you, Nan; you mean it kindly.”
“They mean everything kindly, Martin,” said Silas, indicating the other two. He continued to speak with the same curious understanding towards his son. Nan and Morgan, separately, stood repudiated and estranged.
Martin Dene nodded, his eyes meditatively upon them.
“Won’t you stop, Martin?” urged Nan’s timid voice.
“I’ve said an unforgivable thing to father,” he said, turning to her, in patient explanation.
“But you didn’t think it, Martin; tell your father you didn’t think it.”
“I did think it; I still think it; father knows that. I shall always think it. That’s why I can’t stop. So long,” he said, shouldering his bundle; he nodded to them again and went out.