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 nobody 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 nobody 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 Godfrey 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 passionately, 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.'
Godfrey 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 Godfrey had gone straight to the door, unable to say more.
Chapter 20
Nancy and Godfrey walked home under the starlight in silence. When they entered the oaken parlour, Godfrey 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 Godfrey 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 Godfrey, 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 pass for childless once, Nancy--I shall pass 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 Godfrey, 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.
Godfrey fell into thoughtfulness again. Presently he looked up at Nancy sorrowfully, and said--
'She's a very pretty, nice girl, isn't she, Nancy?'
'Yes, dear; and with just your hair and eyes: I wondered it had never struck me before.'
