It was after the early supper-time at the Red House, and the entertainment was in that stage when bashfulness itself had passed into easy jollity, when gentlemen, conscious of unusual accomplishments, could at length be prevailed on to dance a hornpipe, and when the Squire preferred talking loudly, scattering snuff, and patting his visitors' backs, to sitting longer at the whist-table--a choice exasperating to uncle Kimble, who, being always volatile in sober business hours, became intense and bitter over cards and brandy, shuffled before his adversary's deal with a glare of suspicion, and turned up a mean trump-card with an air of inexpressible disgust, as if in a world where such things could happen one might as well enter on a course of reckless profligacy.
When the evening had advanced to this pitch of freedom and enjoyment, it was usual for the servants, the heavy duties of supper being well over, to get their share of amusement by coming to look on at the dancing; so that the back regions of the house were left in solitude.
There were two doors by which the White Parlour was entered from the hall, and they were both standing open for the sake of air; but the lower one was crowded with the servants and villagers, and only the upper doorway was left free.Bob Cass was figuring in a hornpipe, and his father, very proud of this lithe son, whom he repeatedly declared to be just like himself in his young days in a tone that implied this to be the very highest stamp of juvenile merit, was the centre of a group who had placed themselves opposite the performer, not far from the upper door.Godfrey was standing a little way off, not to admire his brother's dancing, but to keep sight of Nancy, who was seated in the group, near her father.He stood aloof, because he wished to avoid suggesting himself as a subject for the Squire's fatherly jokes in connection with matrimony and Miss Nancy Lammeter's beauty, which were likely to become more and more explicit.But he had the prospect of dancing with her again when the hornpipe was concluded, and in the meanwhile it was very pleasant to get long glances at her quite unobserved.
But when Godfrey was lifting his eyes from one of those long glances, they encountered an object as startling to him at that moment as if it had been an apparition from the dead.It _was_ an apparition from that hidden life which lies, like a dark by-street, behind the goodly ornamented facade that meets the sunlight and the gaze of respectable admirers.It was his own child, carried in Silas Marner's arms.That was his instantaneous impression, unaccompanied by doubt, though he had not seen the child for months past; and when the hope was rising that he might possibly be mistaken, Mr.Crackenthorp and Mr.Lammeter had already advanced to Silas, in astonishment at this strange advent.Godfrey joined them immediately, unable to rest without hearing every word--trying to control himself, but conscious that if any one noticed him, they must see that he was white-lipped and trembling.
But now all eyes at that end of the room were bent on Silas Marner;the Squire himself had risen, and asked angrily, "How's this?--what's this?--what do you do coming in here in this way?""I'm come for the doctor--I want the doctor," Silas had said, in the first moment, to Mr.Crackenthorp.
"Why, what's the matter, Marner?" said the rector."The doctor's here; but say quietly what you want him for.""It's a woman," said Silas, speaking low, and half-breathlessly, just as Godfrey came up."She's dead, I think--dead in the snow at the Stone-pits--not far from my door."Godfrey felt a great throb: there was one terror in his mind at that moment: it was, that the woman might _not_ be dead.That was an evil terror--an ugly inmate to have found a nestling-place in Godfrey's kindly disposition; but no disposition is a security from evil wishes to a man whose happiness hangs on duplicity.
"Hush, hush!" said Mr.Crackenthorp."Go out into the hall there.I'll fetch the doctor to you.Found a woman in the snow--and thinks she's dead," he added, speaking low to the Squire.
"Better say as little about it as possible: it will shock the ladies.Just tell them a poor woman is ill from cold and hunger.
I'll go and fetch Kimble."
By this time, however, the ladies had pressed forward, curious to know what could have brought the solitary linen-weaver there under such strange circumstances, and interested in the pretty child, who, half alarmed and half attracted by the brightness and the numerous company, now frowned and hid her face, now lifted up her head again and looked round placably, until a touch or a coaxing word brought back the frown, and made her bury her face with new determination.
"What child is it?" said several ladies at once, and, among the rest, Nancy Lammeter, addressing Godfrey.
"I don't know--some poor woman's who has been found in the snow, I believe," was the answer Godfrey wrung from himself with a terrible effort.("After all, _am_ I certain?" he hastened to add, silently, in anticipation of his own conscience.)"Why, you'd better leave the child here, then, Master Marner,"said good-natured Mrs.Kimble, hesitating, however, to take those dingy clothes into contact with her own ornamented satin bodice.
"I'll tell one o' the girls to fetch it.""No--no--I can't part with it, I can't let it go," said Silas, abruptly."It's come to me--I've a right to keep it."The proposition to take the child from him had come to Silas quite unexpectedly, and his speech, uttered under a strong sudden impulse, was almost like a revelation to himself: a minute before, he had no distinct intention about the child.
"Did you ever hear the like?" said Mrs.Kimble, in mild surprise, to her neighbour.
"Now, ladies, I must trouble you to stand aside," said Mr.Kimble, coming from the card-room, in some bitterness at the interruption, but drilled by the long habit of his profession into obedience to unpleasant calls, even when he was hardly sober.
