Chapter XIX

by George Eliot

　　Between eight and nine o'clock that evening, Eppie and Silas wereseated alone in the cottage. After the great excitement the weaverhad undergone from the events of the afternoon, he had felt alonging for this quietude, and had even begged Mrs. Winthrop andAaron, who had naturally lingered behind every one else, to leavehim alone with his child. The excitement had not passed away: ithad only reached that stage when the keenness of the susceptibilitymakes external stimulus intolerable--when there is no sense ofweariness, but rather an intensity of inward life, under which sleepis an impossibility. Any one who has watched such moments in othermen remembers the brightness of the eyes and the strangedefiniteness that comes over coarse features from that transientinfluence. It is as if a new fineness of ear for all spiritualvoices had sent wonder-working vibrations through the heavy mortalframe--as if "beauty born of murmuring sound" had passed intothe face of the listener.Silas's face showed that sort of transfiguration, as he sat in hisarm-chair and looked at Eppie. She had drawn her own chair towardshis knees, and leaned forward, holding both his hands, while shelooked up at him. On the table near them, lit by a candle, lay therecovered gold--the old long-loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps,as Silas used to range it in the days when it was his only joy. Hehad been telling her how he used to count it every night, and howhis soul was utterly desolate till she was sent to him."At first, I'd a sort o' feeling come across me now and then," hewas saying in a subdued tone, "as if you might be changed into thegold again; for sometimes, turn my head which way I would, I seemedto see the gold; and I thought I should be glad if I could feel it,and find it was come back. But that didn't last long. After a bit,I should have thought it was a curse come again, if it had drove youfrom me, for I'd got to feel the need o' your looks and your voiceand the touch o' your little fingers. You didn't know then, Eppie,when you were such a little un--you didn't know what your oldfather Silas felt for you.""But I know now, father," said Eppie. "If it hadn't been foryou, they'd have taken me to the workhouse, and there'd have beennobody to love me.""Eh, my precious child, the blessing was mine. If you hadn't beensent to save me, I should ha' gone to the grave in my misery. Themoney was taken away from me in time; and you see it's been kept--kept till it was wanted for you. It's wonderful--our life iswonderful."Silas sat in silence a few minutes, looking at the money. "Ittakes no hold of me now," he said, ponderingly--"the moneydoesn't. I wonder if it ever could again--I doubt it might, if Ilost you, Eppie. I might come to think I was forsaken again, andlose the feeling that God was good to me."At that moment there was a knocking at the door; and Eppie wasobliged to rise without answering Silas. Beautiful she looked, withthe tenderness of gathering tears in her eyes and a slight flush onher cheeks, as she stepped to open the door. The flush deepenedwhen she saw Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass. She made her little rusticcurtsy, and held the door wide for them to enter."We're disturbing you very late, my dear," said Mrs. Cass, takingEppie's hand, and looking in her face with an expression of anxiousinterest and admiration. Nancy herself was pale and tremulous.Eppie, after placing chairs for Mr. and Mrs. Cass, went to standagainst Silas, opposite to them."Well, Marner," said Godfrey, trying to speak with perfectfirmness, "it's a great comfort to me to see you with your moneyagain, that you've been deprived of so many years. It was one of myfamily did you the wrong--the more grief to me--and I feel boundto make up to you for it in every way. Whatever I can do for youwill be nothing but paying a debt, even if I looked no further thanthe robbery. But there are other things I'm beholden--shall bebeholden to you for, Marner."Godfrey checked himself. It had been agreed between him and hiswife that the subject of his fatherhood should be approached verycarefully, and that, if possible, the disclosure should be reservedfor the future, so that it might be made to Eppie gradually. Nancyhad urged this, because she felt strongly the painful light in whichEppie must inevitably see the relation between her father andmother.Silas, always ill at ease when he was being spoken to by"betters", such as Mr. Cass--tall, powerful, florid men, seenchiefly on horseback--answered with some constraint--"Sir, I've a deal to thank you for a'ready. As for the robbery, Icount it no loss to me. And if I did, you couldn't help it: youaren't answerable for it.""You may look at it in that way, Marner, but I never can; and Ihope you'll let me act according to my own feeling of what's just.I know you're easily contented: you've been a hard-working man allyour life.""Yes, sir, yes," said Marner, meditatively. "I should ha' beenbad off without my work: it was what I held by when everything elsewas gone from me.""Ah," said Godfrey, applying Marner's words simply to his bodilywants, "it was a good trade for you in this country, becausethere's been a great deal of linen-weaving to be done. But you'regetting rather past such close work, Marner: it's time you laid byand had some rest. You look a good deal pulled down, though you'renot an old man, are you?""Fifty-five, as near as I can say, sir," said Silas."Oh, why, you may live thirty years longer--look at old Macey!And that money on the table, after all, is but little. It won't gofar either way--whether it's put out to interest, or you were tolive on it as long as it would last: it wouldn't go far if you'dnobody to keep but yourself, and you've had two to keep for a goodmany years now.""Eh, sir," said Silas, unaffected by anything Godfrey was saying,"I'm in no fear o' want. We shall do very well--Eppie and me'ull do well enough. There's few working-folks have got so muchlaid by as that. I don't know what it is to gentlefolks, but I lookupon it as a deal--almost too much. And as for us, it's little wewant.""Only the garden, father," said Eppie, blushing up to the ears themoment after."You love a garden, do you, my dear?" said Nancy, thinking thatthis turn in the point of view might help her husband. "We shouldagree in that: I give a deal of time to the garden.""Ah, there's plenty of gardening at the Red House," said Godfrey,surprised at the difficulty he found in approaching a propositionwhich had seemed so easy to him in the distance. "You've done agood part by Eppie, Marner, for sixteen years. It 'ud be a greatcomfort to you to see her well provided for, wouldn't it? She looksblooming and healthy, but not fit for any hardships: she doesn'tlook like a strapping girl come of working parents. You'd like tosee her taken care of by those who can leave her well off, and makea lady of her; she's more fit for it than for a rough life, such asshe might come to have in a few years' time."A slight flush came over Marner's face, and disappeared, like apassing gleam. Eppie was simply wondering Mr. Cass should talk soabout things that seemed to have nothing to do with reality; butSilas was hurt and uneasy."I don't take your meaning, sir," he answered, not having words atcommand to express the mingled feelings with which he had heardMr. Cass's words."Well, my meaning is this, Marner," said Godfrey, determined tocome to the point. "Mrs. Cass and I, you know, have no children--nobody to benefit by our good home and everything else we have--more than enough for ourselves. And we should like to have somebodyin the place of a daughter to us--we should like to have Eppie,and treat her in every way as our own child. It 'ud be a greatcomfort to you in your old age, I hope, to see her fortune made inthat way, after you've been at the trouble of bringing her up sowell. And it's right you should have every reward for that. AndEppie, I'm sure, will always love you and be grateful to you: she'dcome and see you very often, and we should all be on the look-out todo everything we could towards making you comfortable."A plain man like Godfrey Cass, speaking under some embarrassment,necessarily blunders on words that are coarser than his intentions,and that are likely to fall gratingly on susceptible feelings.While he had been speaking, Eppie had quietly passed her arm behindSilas's head, and let her hand rest against it caressingly: she felthim trembling violently. He was silent for some moments whenMr. Cass had ended--powerless under the conflict of emotions, allalike painful. Eppie's heart was swelling at the sense that herfather was in distress; and she was just going to lean down andspeak to him, when one struggling dread at last gained the masteryover every other in Silas, and he said, faintly--"Eppie, my child, speak. I won't stand in your way. Thank Mr. andMrs. Cass."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 sensethat her father was in doubt and suffering banished that sort ofself-consciousness. She dropped a low curtsy, first to Mrs. Cassand then to Mr. Cass, 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). "Icouldn't give up the folks I've been used to."Eppie's lips began to tremble a little at the last words. Sheretreated 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. Shedared not speak, wondering what was going on in her husband's mind.Godfrey felt an irritation inevitable to almost all of us when weencounter an unexpected obstacle. He had been full of his ownpenitence and resolution to retrieve his error as far as the timewas left to him; he was possessed with all-important feelings, thatwere to lead to a predetermined course of action which he had fixedon as the right, and he was not prepared to enter with livelyappreciation into other people's feelings counteracting his virtuousresolves. The agitation with which he spoke again was not quiteunmixed 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 claimon her that must stand before every other."Eppie had given a violent start, and turned quite pale. Silas, onthe contrary, who had been relieved, by Eppie's answer, from thedread lest his mind should be in opposition to hers, felt the spiritof resistance in him set free, not without a touch of parentalfierceness. "Then, sir," he answered, with an accent ofbitterness that had been silent in him since the memorable day whenhis youthful hope had perished--"then, sir, why didn't you say sosixteen year ago, and claim her before I'd come to love her, i'steado' coming to take her from me now, when you might as well take theheart out o' my body? God gave her to me because you turned yourback upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you've no right toher! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it falls to them astake it in.""I know that, Marner. I was wrong. I've repented of my conduct inthat matter," said Godfrey, who could not help feeling the edge ofSilas's words."I'm glad to hear it, sir," said Marner, with gatheringexcitement; "but repentance doesn't alter what's been going on forsixteen year. Your coming now and saying "I'm her father" doesn'talter the feelings inside us. It's me she's been calling her fatherever since she could say the word.""But I think you might look at the thing more reasonably, Marner,"said Godfrey, unexpectedly awed by the weaver's directtruth-speaking. "It isn't as if she was to be taken quite awayfrom you, so that you'd never see her again. She'll be very nearyou, and come to see you very often. She'll feel just the sametowards you.""Just the same?" said Marner, more bitterly than ever. "How'llshe feel just the same for me as she does now, when we eat o' thesame bit, and drink o' the same cup, and think o' the same thingsfrom one day's end to another? Just the same? that's idle talk.You'd cut us i' two."Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern the pregnancy ofMarner's simple words, felt rather angry again. It seemed to himthat the weaver was very selfish (a judgment readily passed by thosewho have never tested their own power of sacrifice) to oppose whatwas undoubtedly for Eppie's welfare; and he felt himself calledupon, for her sake, to assert his authority."I should have thought, Marner," he said, severely--"I shouldhave thought your affection for Eppie would make you rejoice in whatwas 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 agenow when her lot may soon be fixed in a way very different from whatit would be in her father's home: she may marry some lowworking-man, and then, whatever I might do for her, I couldn't makeher 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 whatI've left undone, I feel now it's my duty to insist on taking careof my own daughter. I want to do my duty."It would be difficult to say whether it were Silas or Eppie that wasmore deeply stirred by this last speech of Godfrey's. Thought hadbeen very busy in Eppie as she listened to the contest between herold long-loved father and this new unfamiliar father who hadsuddenly come to fill the place of that black featureless shadowwhich had held the ring and placed it on her mother's finger. Herimagination had darted backward in conjectures, and forward inprevisions, of what this revealed fatherhood implied; and there werewords in Godfrey's last speech which helped to make the previsionsespecially definite. Not that these thoughts, either of past orfuture, determined her resolution--that was determined by thefeelings which vibrated to every word Silas had uttered; but theyraised, even apart from these feelings, a repulsion towards theoffered lot and the newly-revealed father.Silas, on the other hand, was again stricken in conscience, andalarmed lest Godfrey's accusation should be true--lest he shouldbe raising his own will as an obstacle to Eppie's good. For manymoments he was mute, struggling for the self-conquest necessary tothe 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 hiswish to retain Eppie, after her real father had avowed himself. Shefelt that it was a very hard trial for the poor weaver, but her codeallowed no question that a father by blood must have a claim abovethat of any foster-father. Besides, Nancy, used all her life toplenteous circumstances and the privileges of "respectability",could not enter into the pleasures which early nurture and habitconnect with all the little aims and efforts of the poor who areborn poor: to her mind, Eppie, in being restored to her birthright,was entering on a too long withheld but unquestionable good. Henceshe heard Silas's last words with relief, and thought, as Godfreydid, that their wish was achieved."Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his daughter, notwithout some embarrassment, under the sense that she was old enoughto judge him, "it'll always be our wish that you should show yourlove and gratitude 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'tbeen what a father should ha' been to you all these years, I wish todo the utmost in my power for you for the rest of my life, andprovide for you as my only child. And you'll have the best ofmothers in my wife--that'll be a blessing you haven't known sinceyou were old enough to know it.""My dear, you'll be a treasure to me," said Nancy, in her gentlevoice. "We shall want for nothing when we have our daughter."Eppie did not come forward and curtsy, as she had done before. Sheheld Silas's hand in hers, and grasped it firmly--it was aweaver's hand, with a palm and finger-tips that were sensitive tosuch pressure--while she spoke with colder decision than before."Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir, for your offers--they'revery 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 hewas sitting at home, a-thinking of me and feeling lone. We've beenused to be happy together every day, and I can't think o' nohappiness without him. And he says he'd nobody i' the world till Iwas sent to him, and he'd have nothing when I was gone. And he'stook care of me and loved me from the first, and I'll cleave to himas long as he lives, and nobody shall ever come between him andme.""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 madeyour choice to stay among poor folks, and with poor clothes andthings, when you might ha' had everything o' the best."His sensitiveness on this point had increased as he listened toEppie's words of faithful affection."I can never be sorry, father," said Eppie. "I shouldn't knowwhat to think on or to wish for with fine things about me, as Ihaven't been used to. And it 'ud be poor work for me to put onthings, and ride in a gig, and sit in a place at church, as 'ud makethem as I'm fond of think me unfitting company for 'em. What couldI care for then?"Nancy looked at Godfrey with a pained questioning glance. But hiseyes were fixed on the floor, where he was moving the end of hisstick, as if he were pondering on something absently. She thoughtthere was a word which might perhaps come better from her lips thanfrom his."What you say is natural, my dear child--it's natural you shouldcling to those who've brought you up," she said, mildly; "butthere's a duty you owe to your lawful father. There's perhapssomething to be given up on more sides than one. When your fatheropens his home to you, I think it's right you shouldn't turn yourback 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 alittle home where he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend and doeverything for him: I can't think o' no other home. I wasn'tbrought up to be a lady, and I can't turn my mind to it. I like theworking-folks, and their victuals, and their ways. And," she endedpassionately, while the tears fell, "I'm promised to marry aworking-man, as'll live with father, and help me to take care ofhim."Godfrey looked up at Nancy with a flushed face and smarting dilatedeyes. This frustration of a purpose towards which he had set outunder the exalted consciousness that he was about to compensate insome degree for the greatest demerit of his life, made him feel theair 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. Weshall come and see you again. It's getting late now."In this way she covered her husband's abrupt departure, for Godfreyhad gone straight to the door, unable to say more.