Hetty said nothing; she felt a revival of hope at the mention of a letter which Adam had not read. There would be something quite different in it from what he thought.
Adam took out the letter, but he held it in his hand still, while he said, in a tone of tender entreaty, "Don"t you bear me ill will, Hetty, because I"m the means o" bringing you this pain. G.o.d knows I"d ha" borne a good deal worse for the sake o" sparing it you. And think--there"s n.o.body but me knows about this, and I"ll take care of you as if I was your brother. You"re the same as ever to me, for I don"t believe you"ve done any wrong knowingly."
Hetty had laid her hand on the letter, but Adam did not loose it till he had done speaking. She took no notice of what he said--she had not listened; but when he loosed the letter, she put it into her pocket, without opening it, and then began to walk more quickly, as if she wanted to go in.
"You"re in the right not to read it just yet," said Adam. "Read it when you"re by yourself. But stay out a little bit longer, and let us call the children: you look so white and ill, your aunt may take notice of it."
Hetty heard the warning. It recalled to her the necessity of rallying her native powers of concealment, which had half given way under the shock of Adam"s words. And she had the letter in her pocket: she was sure there was comfort in that letter in spite of Adam. She ran to find Totty, and soon reappeared with recovered colour, leading Totty, who was making a sour face because she had been obliged to throw away an unripe apple that she had set her small teeth in.
"Hegh, Totty," said Adam, "come and ride on my shoulder--ever so high--you"ll touch the tops o" the trees."
What little child ever refused to be comforted by that glorious sense of being seized strongly and swung upward? I don"t believe Ganymede cried when the eagle carried him away, and perhaps deposited him on Jove"s shoulder at the end. Totty smiled down complacently from her secure height, and pleasant was the sight to the mother"s eyes, as she stood at the house door and saw Adam coming with his small burden.
"Bless your sweet face, my pet," she said, the mother"s strong love filling her keen eyes with mildness, as Totty leaned forward and put out her arms. She had no eyes for Hetty at that moment, and only said, without looking at her, "You go and draw some ale, Hetty; the gells are both at the cheese."
After the ale had been drawn and her uncle"s pipe lighted, there was Totty to be taken to bed, and brought down again in her night-gown because she would cry instead of going to sleep. Then there was supper to be got ready, and Hetty must be continually in the way to give help. Adam stayed till he knew Mrs. Poyser expected him to go, engaging her and her husband in talk as constantly as he could, for the sake of leaving Hetty more at ease. He lingered, because he wanted to see her safely through that evening, and he was delighted to find how much self-command she showed. He knew she had not had time to read the letter, but he did not know she was buoyed up by a secret hope that the letter would contradict everything he had said. It was hard work for him to leave her--hard to think that he should not know for days how she was bearing her trouble. But he must go at last, and all he could do was to press her hand gently as he said "Good-bye," and hope she would take that as a sign that if his love could ever be a refuge for her, it was there the same as ever. How busy his thoughts were, as he walked home, in devising pitying excuses for her folly, in referring all her weakness to the sweet lovingness of her nature, in blaming Arthur, with less and less inclination to admit that his conduct might be extenuated too! His exasperation at Hetty"s suffering--and also at the sense that she was possibly thrust for ever out of his own reach--deafened him to any plea for the miscalled friend who had wrought this misery. Adam was a clear-sighted, fair-minded man--a fine fellow, indeed, morally as well as physically. But if Aristides the Just was ever in love and jealous, he was at that moment not perfectly magnanimous. And I cannot pretend that Adam, in these painful days, felt nothing but righteous indignation and loving pity. He was bitterly jealous, and in proportion as his love made him indulgent in his judgment of Hetty, the bitterness found a vent in his feeling towards Arthur.
"Her head was allays likely to be turned," he thought, "when a gentleman, with his fine manners, and fine clothes, and his white hands, and that way o" talking gentlefolks have, came about her, making up to her in a bold way, as a man couldn"t do that was only her equal; and it"s much if she"ll ever like a common man now." He could not help drawing his own hands out of his pocket and looking at them--at the hard palms and the broken finger-nails. "I"m a roughish fellow, altogether; I don"t know, now I come to think on"t, what there is much for a woman to like about me; and yet I might ha" got another wife easy enough, if I hadn"t set my heart on her. But it"s little matter what other women think about me, if she can"t love me. She might ha" loved me, perhaps, as likely as any other man--there"s n.o.body hereabouts as I"m afraid of, if he hadn"t come between us; but now I shall belike be hateful to her because I"m so different to him. And yet there"s no telling--she may turn round the other way, when she finds he"s made light of her all the while. She may come to feel the vally of a man as "ud be thankful to be bound to her all his life. But I must put up with it whichever way it is--I"ve only to be thankful it"s been no worse. I am not th" only man that"s got to do without much happiness i" this life. There"s many a good bit o" work done with a bad heart. It"s G.o.d"s will, and that"s enough for us: we shouldn"t know better how things ought to be than He does, I reckon, if we was to spend our lives i" puzzling. But it "ud ha" gone near to spoil my work for me, if I"d seen her brought to sorrow and shame, and through the man as I"ve always been proud to think on. Since I"ve been spared that, I"ve no right to grumble. When a man"s got his limbs whole, he can bear a smart cut or two."
As Adam was getting over a stile at this point in his reflections, he perceived a man walking along the field before him. He knew it was Seth, returning from an evening preaching, and made haste to overtake him.
"I thought thee"dst be at home before me," he said, as Seth turned round to wait for him, "for I"m later than usual to-night."
"Well, I"m later too, for I got into talk, after meeting, with John Barnes, who has lately professed himself in a state of perfection, and I"d a question to ask him about his experience. It"s one o" them subjects that lead you further than y" expect--they don"t lie along the straight road."
They walked along together in silence two or three minutes. Adam was not inclined to enter into the subtleties of religious experience, but he was inclined to interchange a word or two of brotherly affection and confidence with Seth. That was a rare impulse in him, much as the brothers loved each other. They hardly ever spoke of personal matters, or uttered more than an allusion to their family troubles. Adam was by nature reserved in all matters of feeling, and Seth felt a certain timidity towards his more practical brother.
"Seth, lad," Adam said, putting his arm on his brother"s shoulder, "hast heard anything from Dinah Morris since she went away?"
"Yes," said Seth. "She told me I might write her word after a while, how we went on, and how mother bore up under her trouble. So I wrote to her a fortnight ago, and told her about thee having a new employment, and how Mother was more contented; and last Wednesday, when I called at the post at Treddles"on, I found a letter from her. I think thee"dst perhaps like to read it, but I didna say anything about it because thee"st seemed so full of other things. It"s quite easy t" read--she writes wonderful for a woman."
Seth had drawn the letter from his pocket and held it out to Adam, who said, as he took it, "Aye, lad, I"ve got a tough load to carry just now--thee mustna take it ill if I"m a bit silenter and crustier nor usual. Trouble doesna make me care the less for thee. I know we shall stick together to the last."
"I take nought ill o" thee, Adam. I know well enough what it means if thee"t a bit short wi" me now and then."
"There"s Mother opening the door to look out for us," said Adam, as they mounted the slope. "She"s been sitting i" the dark as usual. Well, Gyp, well, art glad to see me?"
Lisbeth went in again quickly and lighted a candle, for she had heard the welcome rustling of footsteps on the gra.s.s, before Gyp"s joyful bark.
"Eh, my lads! Th" hours war ne"er so long sin" I war born as they"n been this blessed Sunday night. What can ye both ha" been doin" till this time?"
"Thee shouldstna sit i" the dark, Mother," said Adam; "that makes the time seem longer."
"Eh, what am I to do wi" burnin" candle of a Sunday, when there"s on"y me an" it"s sin to do a bit o" knittin"? The daylight"s long enough for me to stare i" the booke as I canna read. It "ud be a fine way o" shortenin" the time, to make it waste the good candle. But which on you"s for ha"in" supper? Ye mun ayther be clemmed or full, I should think, seein" what time o" night it is."
"I"m hungry, Mother," said Seth, seating himself at the little table, which had been spread ever since it was light.
"I"ve had my supper," said Adam. "Here, Gyp," he added, taking some cold potato from the table and rubbing the rough grey head that looked up towards him.
"Thee needstna be gi"in" th" dog," said Lisbeth; "I"n fed him well a"ready. I"m not like to forget him, I reckon, when he"s all o" thee I can get sight on."
"Come, then, Gyp," said Adam, "we"ll go to bed. Good-night, Mother; I"m very tired."
"What ails him, dost know?" Lisbeth said to Seth, when Adam was gone upstairs. "He"s like as if he was struck for death this day or two--he"s so cast down. I found him i" the shop this forenoon, arter thee wast gone, a-sittin" an" doin" nothin"--not so much as a booke afore him."
"He"s a deal o" work upon him just now, Mother," said Seth, "and I think he"s a bit troubled in his mind. Don"t you take notice of it, because it hurts him when you do. Be as kind to him as you can, Mother, and don"t say anything to vex him."
"Eh, what dost talk o" my vexin" him? An" what am I like to be but kind? I"ll ma" him a kettle-cake for breakfast i" the mornin"."
Adam, meanwhile, was reading Dinah"s letter by the light of his dip candle.
DEAR BROTHER SETH--Your letter lay three days beyond my knowing of it at the post, for I had not money enough by me to pay the carriage, this being a time of great need and sickness here, with the rains that have fallen, as if the windows of heaven were opened again; and to lay by money, from day to day, in such a time, when there are so many in present need of all things, would be a want of trust like the laying up of the manna. I speak of this, because I would not have you think me slow to answer, or that I had small joy in your rejoicing at the worldly good that has befallen your brother Adam. The honour and love you bear him is nothing but meet, for G.o.d has given him great gifts, and he uses them as the patriarch Joseph did, who, when he was exalted to a place of power and trust, yet yearned with tenderness towards his parent and his younger brother.
"My heart is knit to your aged mother since it was granted me to be near her in the day of trouble. Speak to her of me, and tell her I often bear her in my thoughts at evening time, when I am sitting in the dim light as I did with her, and we held one another"s hands, and I spoke the words of comfort that were given to me. Ah, that is a blessed time, isn"t it, Seth, when the outward light is fading, and the body is a little wearied with its work and its labour. Then the inward light shines the brighter, and we have a deeper sense of resting on the Divine strength. I sit on my chair in the dark room and close my eyes, and it is as if I was out of the body and could feel no want for evermore. For then, the very hardship, and the sorrow, and the blindness, and the sin I have beheld and been ready to weep over--yea, all the anguish of the children of men, which sometimes wraps me round like sudden darkness--I can bear with a willing pain, as if I was sharing the Redeemer"s cross. For I feel it, I feel it--infinite love is suffering too--yea, in the fulness of knowledge it suffers, it yearns, it mourns; and that is a blind self-seeking which wants to be freed from the sorrow wherewith the whole creation groaneth and travaileth. Surely it is not true blessedness to be free from sorrow, while there is sorrow and sin in the world: sorrow is then a part of love, and love does not seek to throw it off. It is not the spirit only that tells me this--I see it in the whole work and word of the Gospel. Is there not pleading in heaven? Is not the Man of Sorrows there in that crucified body wherewith he ascended? And is He not one with the Infinite Love itself--as our love is one with our sorrow?
"These thoughts have been much borne in on me of late, and I have seen with new clearness the meaning of those words, "If any man love me, let him take up my cross." I have heard this enlarged on as if it meant the troubles and persecutions we bring on ourselves by confessing Jesus. But surely that is a narrow thought. The true cross of the Redeemer was the sin and sorrow of this world--that was what lay heavy on his heart--and that is the cross we shall share with him, that is the cup we must drink of with him, if we would have any part in that Divine Love which is one with his sorrow.
"In my outward lot, which you ask about, I have all things and abound. I have had constant work in the mill, though some of the other hands have been turned off for a time, and my body is greatly strengthened, so that I feel little weariness after long walking and speaking. What you say about staying in your own country with your mother and brother shows me that you have a true guidance; your lot is appointed there by a clear showing, and to seek a greater blessing elsewhere would be like laying a false offering on the altar and expecting the fire from heaven to kindle it. My work and my joy are here among the hills, and I sometimes think I cling too much to my life among the people here, and should be rebellious if I was called away.
"I was thankful for your tidings about the dear friends at the Hall Farm, for though I sent them a letter, by my aunt"s desire, after I came back from my sojourn among them, I have had no word from them. My aunt has not the pen of a ready writer, and the work of the house is sufficient for the day, for she is weak in body. My heart cleaves to her and her children as the nearest of all to me in the flesh--yea, and to all in that house. I am carried away to them continually in my sleep, and often in the midst of work, and even of speech, the thought of them is borne in on me as if they were in need and trouble, which yet is dark to me. There may be some leading here; but I wait to be taught. You say they are all well.
"We shall see each other again in the body, I trust, though, it may be, not for a long while; for the brethren and sisters at Leeds are desirous to have me for a short s.p.a.ce among them, when I have a door opened me again to leave Snowfield.
"Farewell, dear brother--and yet not farewell. For those children of G.o.d whom it has been granted to see each other face to face, and to hold communion together, and to feel the same spirit working in both can never more be sundered though the hills may lie between. For their souls are enlarged for evermore by that union, and they bear one another about in their thoughts continually as it were a new strength.--Your faithful Sister and fellow-worker in Christ, "DINAH MORRIS."
"I have not skill to write the words so small as you do and my pen moves slow. And so I am straitened, and say but little of what is in my mind. Greet your mother for me with a kiss. She asked me to kiss her twice when we parted."
Adam had refolded the letter, and was sitting meditatively with his head resting on his arm at the head of the bed, when Seth came upstairs.
"Hast read the letter?" said Seth.
"Yes," said Adam. "I don"t know what I should ha" thought of her and her letter if I"d never seen her: I daresay I should ha" thought a preaching woman hateful. But she"s one as makes everything seem right she says and does, and I seemed to see her and hear her speaking when I read the letter. It"s wonderful how I remember her looks and her voice. She"d make thee rare and happy, Seth; she"s just the woman for thee."
"It"s no use thinking o" that," said Seth, despondingly. "She spoke so firm, and she"s not the woman to say one thing and mean another."
"Nay, but her feelings may grow different. A woman may get to love by degrees--the best fire dosna flare up the soonest. I"d have thee go and see her by and by: I"d make it convenient for thee to be away three or four days, and it "ud be no walk for thee--only between twenty and thirty mile."
"I should like to see her again, whether or no, if she wouldna be displeased with me for going," said Seth.
"She"ll be none displeased," said Adam emphatically, getting up and throwing off his coat. "It might be a great happiness to us all if she"d have thee, for mother took to her so wonderful and seemed so contented to be with her."
"Aye," said Seth, rather timidly, "and Dinah"s fond o" Hetty too; she thinks a deal about her."
Adam made no reply to that, and no other word but "good-night" pa.s.sed between them.
Chapter x.x.xI.
In Hetty"s Bed-Chamber.
IT was no longer light enough to go to bed without a candle, even in Mrs. Poyser"s early household, and Hetty carried one with her as she went up at last to her bedroom soon after Adam was gone, and bolted the door behind her.
Now she would read her letter. It must--it must have comfort in it. How was Adam to know the truth? It was always likely he should say what he did say.
She set down the candle and took out the letter. It had a faint scent of roses, which made her feel as if Arthur were close to her. She put it to her lips, and a rush of remembered sensations for a moment or two swept away all fear. But her heart began to flutter strangely, and her hands to tremble as she broke the seal. She read slowly; it was not easy for her to read a gentleman"s handwriting, though Arthur had taken pains to write plainly.
"DEAREST HETTY--I have spoken truly when I have said that I loved you, and I shall never forget our love. I shall be your true friend as long as life lasts, and I hope to prove this to you in many ways. If I say anything to pain you in this letter, do not believe it is for want of love and tenderness towards you, for there is nothing I would not do for you, if I knew it to be really for your happiness. I cannot bear to think of my little Hetty shedding tears when I am not there to kiss them away; and if I followed only my own inclinations, I should be with her at this moment instead of writing. It is very hard for me to part from her--harder still for me to write words which may seem unkind, though they spring from the truest kindness.
"Dear, dear Hetty, sweet as our love has been to me, sweet as it would be to me for you to love me always, I feel that it would have been better for us both if we had never had that happiness, and that it is my duty to ask you to love me and care for me as little as you can. The fault has all been mine, for though I have been unable to resist the longing to be near you, I have felt all the while that your affection for me might cause you grief. I ought to have resisted my feelings. I should have done so, if I had been a better fellow than I am; but now, since the past cannot be altered, I am bound to save you from any evil that I have power to prevent. And I feel it would be a great evil for you if your affections continued so fixed on me that you could think of no other man who might be able to make you happier by his love than I ever can, and if you continued to look towards something in the future which cannot possibly happen. For, dear Hetty, if I were to do what you one day spoke of, and make you my wife, I should do what you yourself would come to feel was for your misery instead of your welfare. I know you can never be happy except by marrying a man in your own station; and if I were to marry you now, I should only be adding to any wrong I have done, besides offending against my duty in the other relations of life. You know nothing, dear Hetty, of the world in which I must always live, and you would soon begin to dislike me, because there would be so little in which we should be alike.
"And since I cannot marry you, we must part--we must try not to feel like lovers any more. I am miserable while I say this, but nothing else can be. Be angry with me, my sweet one, I deserve it; but do not believe that I shall not always care for you--always be grateful to you--always remember my Hetty; and if any trouble should come that we do not now foresee, trust in me to do everything that lies in my power.
"I have told you where you are to direct a letter to, if you want to write, but I put it down below lest you should have forgotten. Do not write unless there is something I can really do for you; for, dear Hetty, we must try to think of each other as little as we can. Forgive me, and try to forget everything about me, except that I shall be, as long as I live, your affectionate friend, "ARTHUR DONNITHORNE."
Slowly Hetty had read this letter; and when she looked up from it there was the reflection of a blanched face in the old dim gla.s.s--a white marble face with rounded childish forms, but with something sadder than a child"s pain in it. Hetty did not see the face--she saw nothing--she only felt that she was cold and sick and trembling. The letter shook and rustled in her hand. She laid it down. It was a horrible sensation--this cold and trembling. It swept away the very ideas that produced it, and Hetty got up to reach a warm cloak from her clothes-press, wrapped it round her, and sat as if she were thinking of nothing but getting warm. Presently she took up the letter with a firmer hand, and began to read it through again. The tears came this time--great rushing tears that blinded her and blotched the paper. She felt nothing but that Arthur was cruel--cruel to write so, cruel not to marry her. Reasons why he could not marry her had no existence for her mind; how could she believe in any misery that could come to her from the fulfilment of all she had been longing for and dreaming of? She had not the ideas that could make up the notion of that misery.
As she threw down the letter again, she caught sight of her face in the gla.s.s; it was reddened now, and wet with tears; it was almost like a companion that she might complain to--that would pity her. She leaned forward on her elbows, and looked into those dark overflooding eyes and at the quivering mouth, and saw how the tears came thicker and thicker, and how the mouth became convulsed with sobs.
The shattering of all her little dream-world, the crushing blow on her new-born pa.s.sion, afflicted her pleasure-craving nature with an overpowering pain that annihilated all impulse to resistance, and suspended her anger. She sat sobbing till the candle went out, and then, wearied, aching, stupefied with crying, threw herself on the bed without undressing and went to sleep.
There was a feeble dawn in the room when Hetty awoke, a little after four o"clock, with a sense of dull misery, the cause of which broke upon her gradually as she began to discern the objects round her in the dim light. And then came the frightening thought that she had to conceal her misery as well as to bear it, in this dreary daylight that was coming. She could lie no longer. She got up and went towards the table: there lay the letter. She opened her treasure-drawer: there lay the ear-rings and the locket--the signs of all her short happiness--the signs of the lifelong dreariness that was to follow it. Looking at the little trinkets which she had once eyed and fingered so fondly as the earnest of her future paradise of finery, she lived back in the moments when they had been given to her with such tender caresses, such strangely pretty words, such glowing looks, which filled her with a bewildering delicious surprise--they were so much sweeter than she had thought anything could be. And the Arthur who had spoken to her and looked at her in this way, who was present with her now--whose arm she felt round her, his cheek against hers, his very breath upon her--was the cruel, cruel Arthur who had written that letter, that letter which she s.n.a.t.c.hed and crushed and then opened again, that she might read it once more. The half-benumbed mental condition which was the effect of the last night"s violent crying made it necessary to her to look again and see if her wretched thoughts were actually true--if the letter was really so cruel. She had to hold it close to the window, else she could not have read it by the faint light. Yes! It was worse--it was more cruel. She crushed it up again in anger. She hated the writer of that letter--hated him for the very reason that she hung upon him with all her love--all the girlish pa.s.sion and vanity that made up her love.
She had no tears this morning. She had wept them all away last night, and now she felt that dry-eyed morning misery, which is worse than the first shock because it has the future in it as well as the present. Every morning to come, as far as her imagination could stretch, she would have to get up and feel that the day would have no joy for her. For there is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope. As Hetty began languidly to take off the clothes she had worn all the night, that she might wash herself and brush her hair, she had a sickening sense that her life would go on in this way. She should always be doing things she had no pleasure in, getting up to the old tasks of work, seeing people she cared nothing about, going to church, and to Treddleston, and to tea with Mrs. Best, and carrying no happy thought with her. For her short poisonous delights had spoiled for ever all the little joys that had once made the sweetness of her life--the new frock ready for Treddleston Fair, the party at Mr. Britton"s at Broxton wake, the beaux that she would say "No" to for a long while, and the prospect of the wedding that was to come at last when she would have a silk gown and a great many clothes all at once. These things were all flat and dreary to her now; everything would be a weariness, and she would carry about for ever a hopeless thirst and longing.
She paused in the midst of her languid undressing and leaned against the dark old clothes-press. Her neck and arms were bare, her hair hung down in delicate rings--and they were just as beautiful as they were that night two months ago, when she walked up and down this bed-chamber glowing with vanity and hope. She was not thinking of her neck and arms now; even her own beauty was indifferent to her. Her eyes wandered sadly over the dull old chamber, and then looked out vacantly towards the growing dawn. Did a remembrance of Dinah come across her mind? Of her foreboding words, which had made her angry? Of Dinah"s affectionate entreaty to think of her as a friend in trouble? No, the impression had been too slight to recur. Any affection or comfort Dinah could have given her would have been as indifferent to Hetty this morning as everything else was except her bruised pa.s.sion. She was only thinking she could never stay here and go on with the old life--she could better bear something quite new than sinking back into the old everyday round. She would like to run away that very morning, and never see any of the old faces again. But Hetty"s was not a nature to face difficulties--to dare to loose her hold on the familiar and rush blindly on some unknown condition. Hers was a luxurious and vain nature--not a pa.s.sionate one--and if she were ever to take any violent measure, she must be urged to it by the desperation of terror. There was not much room for her thoughts to travel in the narrow circle of her imagination, and she soon fixed on the one thing she would do to get away from her old life: she would ask her uncle to let her go to be a lady"s maid. Miss Lydia"s maid would help her to get a situation, if she krew Hetty had her uncle"s leave.
When she had thought of this, she fastened up her hair and began to wash: it seemed more possible to her to go downstairs and try to behave as usual. She would ask her uncle this very day. On Hetty"s blooming health it would take a great deal of such mental suffering as hers to leave any deep impress; and when she was dressed as neatly as usual in her working-dress, with her hair tucked up under her little cap, an indifferent observer would have been more struck with the young roundness of her cheek and neck and the darkness of her eyes and eyelashes than with any signs of sadness about her. But when she took up the crushed letter and put it in her drawer, that she might lock it out of sight, hard smarting tears, having no relief in them as the great drops had that fell last night, forced their way into her eyes. She wiped them away quickly: she must not cry in the day-time. n.o.body should find out how miserable she was, n.o.body should know she was disappointed about anything; and the thought that the eyes of her aunt and uncle would be upon her gave her the self-command which often accompanies a great dread. For Hetty looked out from her secret misery towards the possibility of their ever knowing what had happened, as the sick and weary prisoner might think of the possible pillory. They would think her conduct shameful, and shame was torture. That was poor little Hetty"s conscience.
So she locked up her drawer and went away to her early work.
In the evening, when Mr. Poyser was smoking his pipe, and his good-nature was therefore at its superlative moment, Hetty seized the opportunity of her aunt"s absence to say, "Uncle, I wish you"d let me go for a lady"s maid."
Mr. Poyser took the pipe from his mouth and looked at Hetty in mild surprise for some moments. She was sewing, and went on with her work industriously.
"Why, what"s put that into your head, my wench?" he said at last, after he had given one conservative puff.
"I should like it--I should like it better than farm-work."
"Nay, nay; you fancy so because you donna know it, my wench. It wouldn"t be half so good for your health, nor for your luck i" life. I"d like you to stay wi" us till you"ve got a good husband: you"re my own niece, and I wouldn"t have you go to service, though it was a gentleman"s house, as long as I"ve got a home for you."
Mr. Poyser paused, and puffed away at his pipe.
"I like the needlework," said Hetty, "and I should get good wages."
"Has your aunt been a bit sharp wi" you?" said Mr. Poyser, not noticing Hetty"s further argument. "You mustna mind that, my wench--she does it for your good. She wishes you well; an" there isn"t many aunts as are no kin to you "ud ha" done by you as she has."
"No, it isn"t my aunt," said Hetty, "but I should like the work better."
"It was all very well for you to learn the work a bit--an" I gev my consent to that fast enough, sin" Mrs. Pomfret was willing to teach you. For if anything was t" happen, it"s well to know how to turn your hand to different sorts o" things. But I niver meant you to go to service, my wench; my family"s ate their own bread and cheese as fur back as anybody knows, hanna they, Father? You wouldna like your grand-child to take wage?"
"Na-a-y," said old Martin, with an elongation of the word, meant to make it bitter as well as negative, while he leaned forward and looked down on the floor. "But the wench takes arter her mother. I"d hard work t" hould HER in, an" she married i" spite o" me--a feller wi" on"y two head o" stock when there should ha" been ten on"s farm--she might well die o" th" inflammation afore she war thirty."
It was seldom the old man made so long a speech, but his son"s question had fallen like a bit of dry fuel on the embers of a long unextinguished resentment, which had always made the grandfather more indifferent to Hetty than to his son"s children. Her mother"s fortune had been spent by that good-for-nought Sorrel, and Hetty had Sorrel"s blood in her veins.
"Poor thing, poor thing!" said Martin the younger, who was sorry to have provoked this retrospective harshness. "She"d but bad luck. But Hetty"s got as good a chance o" getting a solid, sober husband as any gell i" this country."
After throwing out this pregnant hint, Mr. Poyser recurred to his pipe and his silence, looking at Hetty to see if she did not give some sign of having renounced her ill-advised wish. But instead of that, Hetty, in spite of herself, began to cry, half out of ill temper at the denial, half out of the day"s repressed sadness.
"Hegh, hegh!" said Mr. Poyser, meaning to check her playfully, "don"t let"s have any crying. Crying"s for them as ha" got no home, not for them as want to get rid o" one. What dost think?" he continued to his wife, who now came back into the house-place, knitting with fierce rapidity, as if that movement were a necessary function, like the twittering of a crab"s antennae.
"Think? Why, I think we shall have the fowl stole before we are much older, wi" that gell forgetting to lock the pens up o" nights. What"s the matter now, Hetty? What are you crying at?"
"Why, she"s been wanting to go for a lady"s maid," said Mr. Poyser. "I tell her we can do better for her nor that."
"I thought she"d got some maggot in her head, she"s gone about wi" her mouth b.u.t.toned up so all day. It"s all wi" going so among them servants at the Chase, as we war fools for letting her. She thinks it "ud be a finer life than being wi" them as are akin to her and ha" brought her up sin" she war no bigger nor Marty. She thinks there"s nothing belongs to being a lady"s maid but wearing finer clothes nor she was born to, I"ll be bound. It"s what rag she can get to stick on her as she"s thinking on from morning till night, as I often ask her if she wouldn"t like to be the mawkin i" the field, for then she"d be made o" rags inside and out. I"ll never gi" my consent to her going for a lady"s maid, while she"s got good friends to take care on her till she"s married to somebody better nor one o" them valets, as is neither a common man nor a gentleman, an" must live on the fat o" the land, an"s like enough to stick his hands under his coat-tails and expect his wife to work for him."
"Aye, aye," said Mr. Poyser, "we must have a better husband for her nor that, and there"s better at hand. Come, my wench, give over crying and get to bed. I"ll do better for you nor letting you go for a lady"s maid. Let"s hear no more on"t."
When Hetty was gone upstairs he said, "I canna make it out as she should want to go away, for I thought she"d got a mind t" Adam Bede. She"s looked like it o" late."
"Eh, there"s no knowing what she"s got a liking to, for things take no more hold on her than if she was a dried pea. I believe that gell, Molly--as is aggravatin" enough, for the matter o" that--but I believe she"d care more about leaving us and the children, for all she"s been here but a year come Michaelmas, nor Hetty would. But she"s got this notion o" being a lady"s maid wi" going among them servants--we might ha" known what it "ud lead to when we let her go to learn the fine work. But I"ll put a stop to it pretty quick."
"Thee"dst be sorry to part wi" her, if it wasn"t for her good," said Mr. Poyser. "She"s useful to thee i" the work."
"Sorry? Yes, I"m fonder on her nor she deserves--a little hard-hearted hussy, wanting to leave us i" that way. I can"t ha" had her about me these seven year, I reckon, and done for her, and taught her everything wi"out caring about her. An" here I"m having linen spun, an" thinking all the while it"ll make sheeting and table-clothing for her when she"s married, an" she"ll live i" the parish wi" us, and never go out of our sights--like a fool as I am for thinking aught about her, as is no better nor a cherry wi" a hard stone inside it."
"Nay, nay, thee mustna make much of a trifle," said Mr. Poyser, soothingly. "She"s fond on us, I"ll be bound; but she"s young, an" gets things in her head as she can"t rightly give account on. Them young fillies "ull run away often wi"-ou; knowing why."
Her uncle"s answers, however, had had another effect on Hetty besides that of disappointing her and making her cry. She knew quite well whom he had in his mind in his allusions to marriage, and to a sober, solid husband; and when she was in her bedroom again, the possibility of her marrying Adam presented itself to her in a new light. In a mind where no strong sympathies are at work, where there is no supreme sense of right to which the agitated nature can cling and steady itself to quiet endurance, one of the first results of sorrow is a desperate vague clutching after any deed that will change the actual condition. Poor Hetty"s vision of consequences, at no time more than a narrow fantastic calculation of her own probable pleasures and pains, was now quite shut out by reckless irritation under present suffering, and she was ready for one of those convulsive, motiveless actions by which wretched men and women leap from a temporary sorrow into a lifelong misery.
Why should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did, so that it made some change in her life. She felt confident that he would still want to marry her, and any further thought about Adam"s happiness in the matter had never yet visited her.
"Strange!" perhaps you will say, "this rush of impulse to-wards a course that might have seemed the most repugnant to her present state of mind, and in only the second night of her sadness!"
Yes, the actions of a little trivial soul like Hetty"s, struggling amidst the serious sad destinies of a human being, are strange. So are the motions of a little vessel without ballast tossed about on a stormy sea. How pretty it looked with its parti-coloured sail in the sunlight, moored in the quiet bay!
"Let that man bear the loss who loosed it from its moorings."
But that will not save the vessel--the pretty thing that might have been a lasting joy.