"Seth Bede would have come and spoken to you, my dear," she said, as she reached Hetty, "but he"s very full of trouble to-night."
Hetty answered with a dimpled smile, as if she did not quite know what had been said; and it made a strange contrast to see that sparkling self-engrossed loveliness looked at by Dinah"s calm pitying face, with its open glance which told that her heart lived in no cherished secrets of its own, but in feelings which it longed to share with all the world. Hetty liked Dinah as well as she had ever liked any woman; how was it possible to feel otherwise towards one who always put in a kind word for her when her aunt was finding fault, and who was always ready to take Totty off her hands--little tiresome Totty, that was made such a pet of by every one, and that Hetty could see no interest in at all? Dinah had never said anything disapproving or reproachful to Hetty during her whole visit to the Hall Farm; she had talked to her a great deal in a serious way, but Hetty didn"t mind that much, for she never listened: whatever Dinah might say, she almost always stroked Hetty"s cheek after it, and wanted to do some mending for her. Dinah was a riddle to her; Hetty looked at her much in the same way as one might imagine a little perching bird that could only flutter from bough to bough, to look at the swoop of the swallow or the mounting of the lark; but she did not care to solve such riddles, any more than she cared to know what was meant by the pictures in the Pilgrim"s Progress, or in the old folio Bible that Marty and Tommy always plagued her about on a Sunday.
Dinah took her hand now and drew it under her own arm.
"You look very happy to-night, dear child," she said. "I shall think of you often when I"m at Snowfield, and see your face before me as it is now. It"s a strange thing--sometimes when I"m quite alone, sitting in my room with my eyes closed, or walking over the hills, the people I"ve seen and known, if it"s only been for a few days, are brought before me, and I hear their voices and see them look and move almost plainer than I ever did when they were really with me so as I could touch them. And then my heart is drawn out towards them, and I feel their lot as if it was my own, and I take comfort in spreading it before the Lord and resting in His love, on their behalf as well as my own. And so I feel sure you will come before me."
She paused a moment, but Hetty said nothing.
"It has been a very precious time to me," Dinah went on, "last night and to-day--seeing two such good sons as Adam and Seth Bede. They are so tender and thoughtful for their aged mother. And she has been telling me what Adam has done, for these many years, to help his father and his brother; it"s wonderful what a spirit of wisdom and knowledge he has, and how he"s ready to use it all in behalf of them that are feeble. And I"m sure he has a loving spirit too. I"ve noticed it often among my own people round Snowfield, that the strong, skilful men are often the gentlest to the women and children; and it"s pretty to see "em carrying the little babies as if they were no heavier than little birds. And the babies always seem to like the strong arm best. I feel sure it would be so with Adam Bede. Don"t you think so, Hetty?"
"Yes," said Hetty abstractedly, for her mind had been all the while in the wood, and she would have found it difficult to say what she was a.s.senting to. Dinah saw she was not inclined to talk, but there would not have been time to say much more, for they were now at the yard-gate.
The still twilight, with its dying western red and its few faint struggling stars, rested on the farm-yard, where there was not a sound to be heard but the stamping of the cart-horses in the stable. It was about twenty minutes after sunset. The fowls were all gone to roost, and the bull-dog lay stretched on the straw outside his kennel, with the black-and-tan terrier by his side, when the falling-to of the gate disturbed them and set them barking, like good officials, before they had any distinct knowledge of the reason.
The barking had its effect in the house, for, as Dinah and Hetty approached, the doorway was filled by a portly figure, with a ruddy black-eyed face which bore in it the possibility of looking extremely acute, and occasionally contemptuous, on market-days, but had now a predominant after-supper expression of hearty good-nature. It is well known that great scholars who have shown the most pitiless acerbity in their criticism of other men"s scholarship have yet been of a relenting and indulgent temper in private life; and I have heard of a learned man meekly rocking the twins in the cradle with his left hand, while with his right he inflicted the most lacerating sarcasms on an opponent who had betrayed a brutal ignorance of Hebrew. Weaknesses and errors must be forgiven--alas! they are not alien to us--but the man who takes the wrong side on the momentous subject of the Hebrew points must be treated as the enemy of his race. There was the same sort of ant.i.thetic mixture in Martin Poyser: he was of so excellent a disposition that he had been kinder and more respectful than ever to his old father since he had made a deed of gift of all his property, and no man judged his neighbours more charitably on all personal matters; but for a farmer, like Luke Britton, for example, whose fallows were not well cleaned, who didn"t know the rudiments of hedging and ditching, and showed but a small share of judgment in the purchase of winter stock, Martin Poyser was as hard and implacable as the north-east wind. Luke Britton could not make a remark, even on the weather, but Martin Poyser detected in it a taint of that unsoundness and general ignorance which was palpable in all his farming operations. He hated to see the fellow lift the pewter pint to his mouth in the bar of the Royal George on market-day, and the mere sight of him on the other side of the road brought a severe and critical expression into his black eyes, as different as possible from the fatherly glance he bent on his two nieces as they approached the door. Mr. Poyser had smoked his evening pipe, and now held his hands in his pockets, as the only resource of a man who continues to sit up after the day"s business is done.
"Why, la.s.ses, ye"re rather late to-night," he said, when they reached the little gate leading into the causeway. "The mother"s begun to fidget about you, an" she"s got the little un ill. An" how did you leave the old woman Bede, Dinah? Is she much down about the old man? He"d been but a poor bargain to her this five year."
"She"s been greatly distressed for the loss of him," said Dinah, "but she"s seemed more comforted to-day. Her son Adam"s been at home all day, working at his father"s coffin, and she loves to have him at home. She"s been talking about him to me almost all the day. She has a loving heart, though she"s sorely given to fret and be fearful. I wish she had a surer trust to comfort her in her old age."
"Adam"s sure enough," said Mr. Poyser, misunderstanding Dinah"s wish. "There"s no fear but he"ll yield well i" the threshing. He"s not one o" them as is all straw and no grain. I"ll be bond for him any day, as he"ll be a good son to the last. Did he say he"d be coming to see us soon? But come in, come in," he added, making way for them; "I hadn"t need keep y" out any longer."
The tall buildings round the yard shut out a good deal of the sky, but the large window let in abundant light to show every corner of the house-place.
Mrs. Poyser, seated in the rocking-chair, which had been brought out of the "right-hand parlour," was trying to soothe Totty to sleep. But Totty was not disposed to sleep; and when her cousins entered, she raised herself up and showed a pair of flushed cheeks, which looked fatter than ever now they were defined by the edge of her linen night-cap.
In the large wicker-bottomed arm-chair in the left-hand chimney-nook sat old Martin Poyser, a hale but shrunken and bleached image of his portly black-haired son--his head hanging forward a little, and his elbows pushed backwards so as to allow the whole of his forearm to rest on the arm of the chair. His blue handkerchief was spread over his knees, as was usual indoors, when it was not hanging over his head; and he sat watching what went forward with the quiet OUTWARD glance of healthy old age, which, disengaged from any interest in an inward drama, spies out pins upon the floor, follows one"s minutest motions with an unexpectant purposeless tenacity, watches the flickering of the flame or the sun-gleams on the wall, counts the quarries on the floor, watches even the hand of the clock, and pleases itself with detecting a rhythm in the tick.
"What a time o" night this is to come home, Hetty!" said Mrs. Poyser. "Look at the clock, do; why, it"s going on for half-past nine, and I"ve sent the gells to bed this half-hour, and late enough too; when they"ve got to get up at half after four, and the mowers" bottles to fill, and the baking; and here"s this blessed child wi" the fever for what I know, and as wakeful as if it was dinner-time, and n.o.body to help me to give her the physic but your uncle, and fine work there"s been, and half of it spilt on her night-gown--it"s well if she"s swallowed more nor "ull make her worse i"stead o" better. But folks as have no mind to be o" use have allays the luck to be out o" the road when there"s anything to be done."
"I did set out before eight, aunt," said Hetty, in a pettish tone, with a slight toss of her head. "But this clock"s so much before the clock at the Chase, there"s no telling what time it"ll be when I get here."
"What! You"d be wanting the clock set by gentlefolks"s time, would you? An" sit up burnin" candle, an" lie a-bed wi" the sun a-bakin" you like a cowc.u.mber i" the frame? The clock hasn"t been put forrard for the first time to-day, I reckon."
The fact was, Hetty had really forgotten the difference of the clocks when she told Captain Donnithorne that she set out at eight, and this, with her lingering pace, had made her nearly half an hour later than usual. But here her aunt"s attention was diverted from this tender subject by Totty, who, perceiving at length that the arrival of her cousins was not likely to bring anything satisfactory to her in particular, began to cry, "Munny, munny," in an explosive manner.
"Well, then, my pet, Mother"s got her, Mother won"t leave her; Totty be a good dilling, and go to sleep now," said Mrs. Poyser, leaning back and rocking the chair, while she tried to make Totty nestle against her. But Totty only cried louder, and said, "Don"t yock!" So the mother, with that wondrous patience which love gives to the quickest temperament, sat up again, and pressed her cheek against the linen night-cap and kissed it, and forgot to scold Hetty any longer.
"Come, Hetty," said Martin Poyser, in a conciliatory tone, "go and get your supper i" the pantry, as the things are all put away; an" then you can come and take the little un while your aunt undresses herself, for she won"t lie down in bed without her mother. An" I reckon YOU could eat a bit, Dinah, for they don"t keep much of a house down there."
"No, thank you, Uncle," said Dinah; "I ate a good meal before I came away, for Mrs. Bede would make a kettle-cake for me."
"I don"t want any supper," said Hetty, taking off her hat. "I can hold Totty now, if Aunt wants me."
"Why, what nonsense that is to talk!" said Mrs. Poyser. "Do you think you can live wi"out eatin", an" nourish your inside wi" stickin" red ribbons on your head? Go an" get your supper this minute, child; there"s a nice bit o" cold pudding i" the safe--just what you"re fond of."
Hetty complied silently by going towards the pantry, and Mrs. Poyser went on speaking to Dinah.
"Sit down, my dear, an" look as if you knowed what it was to make yourself a bit comfortable i" the world. I warrant the old woman was glad to see you, since you stayed so long."
"She seemed to like having me there at last; but her sons say she doesn"t like young women about her commonly; and I thought just at first she was almost angry with me for going."
"Eh, it"s a poor look-out when th" ould folks doesna like the young uns," said old Martin, bending his head down lower, and seeming to trace the pattern of the quarries with his eye.
"Aye, it"s ill livin" in a hen-roost for them as doesn"t like fleas," said Mrs. Poyser. "We"ve all had our turn at bein" young, I reckon, be"t good luck or ill."
"But she must learn to "commodate herself to young women," said Mr. Poyser, "for it isn"t to be counted on as Adam and Seth "ull keep bachelors for the next ten year to please their mother. That "ud be unreasonable. It isn"t right for old nor young nayther to make a bargain all o" their own side. What"s good for one"s good all round i" the long run. I"m no friend to young fellows a-marrying afore they know the difference atween a crab an" a apple; but they may wait o"er long."
"To be sure," said Mrs. Poyser; "if you go past your dinner-time, there"ll be little relish o" your meat. You turn it o"er an" o"er wi" your fork, an" don"t eat it after all. You find faut wi" your meat, an" the faut"s all i" your own stomach."
Hetty now came back from the pantry and said, "I can take Totty now, Aunt, if you like."
"Come, Rachel," said Mr. Poyser, as his wife seemed to hesitate, seeing that Totty was at last nestling quietly, "thee"dst better let Hetty carry her upstairs, while thee tak"st thy things off. Thee"t tired. It"s time thee wast in bed. Thee"t bring on the pain in thy side again."
"Well, she may hold her if the child "ull go to her," said Mrs. Poyser.
Hetty went close to the rocking-chair, and stood without her usual smile, and without any attempt to entice Totty, simply waiting for her aunt to give the child into her hands.
"Wilt go to Cousin Hetty, my dilling, while mother gets ready to go to bed? Then Totty shall go into Mother"s bed, and sleep there all night."
Before her mother had done speaking, Totty had given her answer in an unmistakable manner, by knitting her brow, setting her tiny teeth against her underlip, and leaning forward to slap Hetty on the arm with her utmost force. Then, without speaking, she nestled to her mother again.
"Hey, hey," said Mr. Poyser, while Hetty stood without moving, "not go to Cousin Hetty? That"s like a babby. Totty"s a little woman, an" not a babby."
"It"s no use trying to persuade her," said Mrs. Poyser. "She allays takes against Hetty when she isn"t well. Happen she"ll go to Dinah."
Dinah, having taken off her bonnet and shawl, had hitherto kept quietly seated in the background, not liking to thrust herself between Hetty and what was considered Hetty"s proper work. But now she came forward, and, putting out her arms, said, "Come Totty, come and let Dinah carry her upstairs along with Mother: poor, poor Mother! she"s so tired--she wants to go to bed."
Totty turned her face towards Dinah, and looked at her an instant, then lifted herself up, put out her little arms, and let Dinah lift her from her mother"s lap. Hetty turned away without any sign of ill humour, and, taking her hat from the table, stood waiting with an air of indifference, to see if she should be told to do anything else.
"You may make the door fast now, Poyser; Alick"s been come in this long while," said Mrs. Poyser, rising with an appearance of relief from her low chair. "Get me the matches down, Hetty, for I must have the rushlight burning i" my room. Come, Father."
The heavy wooden bolts began to roll in the house doors, and old Martin prepared to move, by gathering up his blue handkerchief, and reaching his bright k.n.o.bbed walnut-tree stick from the corner. Mrs. Poyser then led the way out of the kitchen, followed by the gandfather, and Dinah with Totty in her arms--all going to bed by twilight, like the birds. Mrs. Poyser, on her way, peeped into the room where her two boys lay; just to see their ruddy round cheeks on the pillow, and to hear for a moment their light regular breathing.
"Come, Hetty, get to bed," said Mr. Poyser, in a soothing tone, as he himself turned to go upstairs. "You didna mean to be late, I"ll be bound, but your aunt"s been worrited to-day. Good-night, my wench, good-night."
Chapter XV.
The Two Bed-Chambers.
HETTY and Dinah both slept in the second story, in rooms adjoining each other, meagrely furnished rooms, with no blinds to shut out the light, which was now beginning to gather new strength from the rising of the moon--more than enough strength to enable Hetty to move about and undress with perfect comfort. She could see quite well the pegs in the old painted linen-press on which she hung her hat and gown; she could see the head of every pin on her red cloth pin-cushion; she could see a reflection of herself in the old-fashioned looking-gla.s.s, quite as distinct as was needful, considering that she had only to brush her hair and put on her night-cap. A queer old looking-gla.s.s! Hetty got into an ill temper with it almost every time she dressed. It had been considered a handsome gla.s.s in its day, and had probably been bought into the Poyser family a quarter of a century before, at a sale of genteel household furniture. Even now an auctioneer could say something for it: it had a great deal of tarnished gilding about it; it had a firm mahogany base, well supplied with drawers, which opened with a decided jerk and sent the contents leaping out from the farthest corners, without giving you the trouble of reaching them; above all, it had a bra.s.s candle-socket on each side, which would give it an aristocratic air to the very last. But Hetty objected to it because it had numerous dim blotches sprinkled over the mirror, which no rubbing would remove, and because, instead of swinging backwards and forwards, it was fixed in an upright position, so that she could only get one good view of her head and neck, and that was to be had only by sitting down on a low chair before her dressing-table. And the dressing-table was no dressing-table at all, but a small old chest of drawers, the most awkward thing in the world to sit down before, for the big bra.s.s handles quite hurt her knees, and she couldn"t get near the gla.s.s at all comfortably. But devout worshippers never allow inconveniences to prevent them from performing their religious rites, and Hetty this evening was more bent on her peculiar form of worship than usual.
Having taken off her gown and white kerchief, she drew a key from the large pocket that hung outside her petticoat, and, unlocking one of the lower drawers in the chest, reached from it two short bits of wax candle--secretly bought at Treddleston--and stuck them in the two bra.s.s sockets. Then she drew forth a bundle of matches and lighted the candles; and last of all, a small red-framed shilling looking-gla.s.s, without blotches. It was into this small gla.s.s that she chose to look first after seating herself. She looked into it, smiling and turning her head on one side, for a minute, then laid it down and took out her brush and comb from an upper drawer. She was going to let down her hair, and make herself look like that picture of a lady in Miss Lydia Donnithorne"s dressing-room. It was soon done, and the dark hyacinthine curves fell on her neck. It was not heavy, ma.s.sive, merely rippling hair, but soft and silken, running at every opportunity into delicate rings. But she pushed it all backward to look like the picture, and form a dark curtain, throwing into relief her round white neck. Then she put down her brush and comb and looked at herself, folding her arms before her, still like the picture. Even the old mottled gla.s.s couldn"t help sending back a lovely image, none the less lovely because Hetty"s stays were not of white satin--such as I feel sure heroines must generally wear--but of a dark greenish cotton texture.
Oh yes! She was very pretty. Captain Donnithorne thought so. Prettier than anybody about Hayslope--prettier than any of the ladies she had ever seen visiting at the Chase--indeed it seemed fine ladies were rather old and ugly--and prettier than Miss Bacon, the miller"s daughter, who was called the beauty of Treddleston. And Hetty looked at herself to-night with quite a different sensation from what she had ever felt before; there was an invisible spectator whose eye rested on her like morning on the flowers. His soft voice was saying over and over again those pretty things she had heard in the wood; his arm was round her, and the delicate rose-scent of his hair was with her still. The vainest woman is never thoroughly conscious of her own beauty till she is loved by the man who sets her own pa.s.sion vibrating in return.
But Hetty seemed to have made up her mind that something was wanting, for she got up and reached an old black lace scarf out of the linen-press, and a pair of large ear-rings out of the sacred drawer from which she had taken her candles. It was an old old scarf, full of rents, but it would make a becoming border round her shoulders, and set off the whiteness of her upper arm. And she would take out the little ear-rings she had in her ears--oh, how her aunt had scolded her for having her ears bored!--and put in those large ones. They were but coloured gla.s.s and gilding, but if you didn"t know what they were made of, they looked just as well as what the ladies wore. And so she sat down again, with the large ear-rings in her ears, and the black lace scarf adjusted round her shoulders. She looked down at her arms: no arms could be prettier down to a little way below the elbow--they were white and plump, and dimpled to match her cheeks; but towards the wrist, she thought with vexation that they were coa.r.s.ened by b.u.t.ter-making and other work that ladies never did.
Captain Donnithorne couldn"t like her to go on doing work: he would like to see her in nice clothes, and thin shoes, and white stockings, perhaps with silk clocks to them; for he must love her very much--no one else had ever put his arm round her and kissed her in that way. He would want to marry her and make a lady of her; she could hardly dare to shape the thought--yet how else could it be? Marry her quite secretly, as Mr. James, the doctor"s a.s.sistant, married the doctor"s niece, and n.o.body ever found it out for a long while after, and then it was of no use to be angry. The doctor had told her aunt all about it in Hetty"s hearing. She didn"t know how it would be, but it was quite plain the old Squire could never be told anything about it, for Hetty was ready to faint with awe and fright if she came across him at the Chase. He might have been earth-born, for what she knew. It had never entered her mind that he had been young like other men; he had always been the old Squire at whom everybody was frightened. Oh, it was impossible to think how it would be! But Captain Donnithorne would know; he was a great gentleman, and could have his way in everything, and could buy everything he liked. And nothing could be as it had been again: perhaps some day she should be a grand lady, and ride in her coach, and dress for dinner in a brocaded silk, with feathers in her hair, and her dress sweeping the ground, like Miss Lydia and Lady Dacey, when she saw them going into the dining-room one evening as she peeped through the little round window in the lobby; only she should not be old and ugly like Miss Lydia, or all the same thickness like Lady Dacey, but very pretty, with her hair done in a great many different ways, and sometimes in a pink dress, and sometimes in a white one--she didn"t know which she liked best; and Mary Burge and everybody would perhaps see her going out in her carriage--or rather, they would HEAR of it: it was impossible to imagine these things happening at Hayslope in sight of her aunt. At the thought of all this splendour, Hetty got up from her chair, and in doing so caught the little red-framed gla.s.s with the edge of her scarf, so that it fell with a bang on the floor; but she was too eagerly occupied with her vision to care about picking it up; and after a momentary start, began to pace with a pigeon-like stateliness backwards and forwards along her room, in her coloured stays and coloured skirt, and the old black lace scarf round her shoulders, and the great gla.s.s ear-rings in her ears.
How pretty the little puss looks in that odd dress! It would be the easiest folly in the world to fall in love with her: there is such a sweet babylike roundness about her face and figure; the delicate dark rings of hair lie so charmingly about her ears and neck; her great dark eyes with their long eye-lashes touch one so strangely, as if an imprisoned frisky sprite looked out of them.
Ah, what a prize the man gets who wins a sweet bride like Hetty! How the men envy him who come to the wedding breakfast, and see her hanging on his arm in her white lace and orange blossoms. The dear, young, round, soft, flexible thing! Her heart must be just as soft, her temper just as free from angles, her character just as pliant. If anything ever goes wrong, it must be the husband"s fault there: he can make her what he likes--that is plain. And the lover himself thinks so too: the little darling is so fond of him, her little vanities are so bewitching, he wouldn"t consent to her being a bit wiser; those kittenlike glances and movements are just what one wants to make one"s hearth a paradise. Every man under such circ.u.mstances is conscious of being a great physiognomist. Nature, he knows, has a language of her own, which she uses with strict veracity, and he considers himself an adept in the language. Nature has written out his bride"s character for him in those exquisite lines of cheek and lip and chin, in those eyelids delicate as petals, in those long lashes curled like the stamen of a flower, in the dark liquid depths of those wonderful eyes. How she will dote on her children! She is almost a child herself, and the little pink round things will hang about her like florets round the central flower; and the husband will look on, smiling benignly, able, whenever he chooses, to withdraw into the sanctuary of his wisdom, towards which his sweet wife will look reverently, and never lift the curtain. It is a marriage such as they made in the golden age, when the men were all wise and majestic and the women all lovely and loving.
It was very much in this way that our friend Adam Bede thought about Hetty; only he put his thoughts into different words. If ever she behaved with cold vanity towards him, he said to himself it is only because she doesn"t love me well enough; and he was sure that her love, whenever she gave it, would be the most precious thing a man could possess on earth. Before you despise Adam as deficient in penetration, pray ask yourself if you were ever predisposed to believe evil of any pretty woman--if you ever COULD, without hard head-breaking demonstration, believe evil of the ONE supremely pretty woman who has bewitched you. No: people who love downy peaches are apt not to think of the stone, and sometimes jar their teeth terribly against it.
Arthur Donnithorne, too, had the same sort of notion about Hetty, so far as he had thought of her nature of all. He felt sure she was a dear, affectionate, good little thing. The man who awakes the wondering tremulous pa.s.sion of a young girl always thinks her affectionate; and if he chances to look forward to future years, probably imagines himself being virtuously tender to her, because the poor thing is so clingingly fond of him. G.o.d made these dear women so--and it is a convenient arrangement in case of sickness.
After all, I believe the wisest of us must be beguiled in this way sometimes, and must think both better and worse of people than they deserve. Nature has her language, and she is not unveracious; but we don"t know all the intricacies of her syntax just yet, and in a hasty reading we may happen to extract the very opposite of her real meaning. Long dark eyelashes, now--what can be more exquisite? I find it impossible not to expect some depth of soul behind a deep grey eye with a long dark eyelash, in spite of an experience which has shown me that they may go along with deceit, peculation, and stupidity. But if, in the reaction of disgust, I have betaken myself to a fishy eye, there has been a surprising similarity of result. One begins to suspect at length that there is no direct correlation between eyelashes and morals; or else, that the eyelashes express the disposition of the fair one"s grandmother, which is on the whole less important to us.
No eyelashes could be more beautiful than Hetty"s; and now, while she walks with her pigeon-like stateliness along the room and looks down on her shoulders bordered by the old black lace, the dark fringe shows to perfection on her pink cheek. They are but dim ill-defined pictures that her narrow bit of an imagination can make of the future; but of every picture she is the central figure in fine clothes; Captain Donnithorne is very close to her, putting his arm round her, perhaps kissing her, and everybody else is admiring and envying her--especially Mary Burge, whose new print dress looks very contemptible by the side of Hetty"s resplendent toilette. Does any sweet or sad memory mingle with this dream of the future--any loving thought of her second parents--of the children she had helped to tend--of any youthful companion, any pet animal, any relic of her own childhood even? Not one. There are some plants that have hardly any roots: you may tear them from their native nook of rock or wall, and just lay them over your ornamental flower-pot, and they blossom none the worse. Hetty could have cast all her past life behind her and never cared to be reminded of it again. I think she had no feeling at all towards the old house, and did not like the Jacob"s Ladder and the long row of hollyhocks in the garden better than other flowers--perhaps not so well. It was wonderful how little she seemed to care about waiting on her uncle, who had been a good father to her--she hardly ever remembered to reach him his pipe at the right time without being told, unless a visitor happened to be there, who would have a better opportunity of seeing her as she walked across the hearth. Hetty did not understand how anybody could be very fond of middle-aged people. And as for those tiresome children, Marty and Tommy and Totty, they had been the very nuisance of her life--as bad as buzzing insects that will come teasing you on a hot day when you want to be quiet. Marty, the eldest, was a baby when she first came to the farm, for the children born before him had died, and so Hetty had had them all three, one after the other, toddling by her side in the meadow, or playing about her on wet days in the half-empty rooms of the large old house. The boys were out of hand now, but Totty was still a day-long plague, worse than either of the others had been, because there was more fuss made about her. And there was no end to the making and mending of clothes. Hetty would have been glad to hear that she should never see a child again; they were worse than the nasty little lambs that the shepherd was always bringing in to be taken special care of in lambing time; for the lambs WERE got rid of sooner or later. As for the young chickens and turkeys, Hetty would have hated the very word "hatching," if her aunt had not bribed her to attend to the young poultry by promising her the proceeds of one out of every brood. The round downy chicks peeping out from under their mother"s wing never touched Hetty with any pleasure; that was not the sort of prettiness she cared about, but she did care about the prettiness of the new things she would buy for herself at Treddleston Fair with the money they fetched. And yet she looked so dimpled, so charming, as she stooped down to put the soaked bread under the hen-coop, that you must have been a very acute personage indeed to suspect her of that hardness. Molly, the housemaid, with a turn-up nose and a protuberant jaw, was really a tender-hearted girl, and, as Mrs. Poyser said, a jewel to look after the poultry; but her stolid face showed nothing of this maternal delight, any more than a brown earthenware pitcher will show the light of the lamp within it.
It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the "dear deceit" of beauty, so it is not surprising that Mrs. Poyser, with her keenness and abundant opportunity for observation, should have formed a tolerably fair estimate of what might be expected from Hetty in the way of feeling, and in moments of indignation she had sometimes spoken with great openness on the subject to her husband.
"She"s no better than a peac.o.c.k, as "ud strut about on the wall and spread its tail when the sun shone if all the folks i" the parish was dying: there"s nothing seems to give her a turn i" th" inside, not even when we thought Totty had tumbled into the pit. To think o" that dear cherub! And we found her wi" her little shoes stuck i" the mud an" crying fit to break her heart by the far horse-pit. But Hetty never minded it, I could see, though she"s been at the nussin" o" the child ever since it was a babby. It"s my belief her heart"s as hard as a pebble."
"Nay, nay," said Mr. Poyser, "thee mustn"t judge Hetty too hard. Them young gells are like the unripe grain; they"ll make good meal by and by, but they"re squashy as yet. Thee"t see Hetty "ll be all right when she"s got a good husband and children of her own."
"I don"t want to be hard upo" the gell. She"s got cliver fingers of her own, and can be useful enough when she likes and I should miss her wi" the b.u.t.ter, for she"s got a cool hand. An" let be what may, I"d strive to do my part by a niece o" yours--an" THAT I"ve done, for I"ve taught her everything as belongs to a house, an" I"ve told her her duty often enough, though, G.o.d knows, I"ve no breath to spare, an" that catchin" pain comes on dreadful by times. Wi" them three gells in the house I"d need have twice the strength to keep "em up to their work. It"s like having roast meat at three fires; as soon as you"ve basted one, another"s burnin"."
Hetty stood sufficiently in awe of her aunt to be anxious to conceal from her so much of her vanity as could be hidden without too great a sacrifice. She could not resist spending her money in bits of finery which Mrs. Poyser disapproved; but she would have been ready to die with shame, vexation, and fright if her aunt had this moment opened the door, and seen her with her bits of candle lighted, and strutting about decked in her scarf and ear-rings. To prevent such a surprise, she always bolted her door, and she had not forgotten to do so to-night. It was well: for there now came a light tap, and Hetty, with a leaping heart, rushed to blow out the candles and throw them into the drawer. She dared not stay to take out her ear-rings, but she threw off her scarf, and let it fall on the floor, before the light tap came again. We shall know how it was that the light tap came, if we leave Hetty for a short time and return to Dinah, at the moment when she had delivered Totty to her mother"s arms, and was come upstairs to her bedroom, adjoining Hetty"s.
Dinah delighted in her bedroom window. Being on the second story of that tall house, it gave her a wide view over the fields. The thickness of the wall formed a broad step about a yard below the window, where she could place her chair. And now the first thing she did on entering her room was to seat herself in this chair and look out on the peaceful fields beyond which the large moon was rising, just above the hedgerow elms. She liked the pasture best where the milch cows were lying, and next to that the meadow where the gra.s.s was half-mown, and lay in silvered sweeping lines. Her heart was very full, for there was to be only one more night on which she would look out on those fields for a long time to come; but she thought little of leaving the mere scene, for, to her, bleak Snowfield had just as many charms. She thought of all the dear people whom she had learned to care for among these peaceful fields, and who would now have a place in her loving remembrance for ever. She thought of the struggles and the weariness that might lie before them in the rest of their life"s journey, when she would be away from them, and know nothing of what was befalling them; and the pressure of this thought soon became too strong for her to enjoy the unresponding stillness of the moonlit fields. She closed her eyes, that she might feel more intensely the presence of a Love and Sympathy deeper and more tender than was breathed from the earth and sky. That was often Dinah"s mode of praying in solitude. Simply to close her eyes and to feel herself enclosed by the Divine Presence; then gradually her fears, her yearning anxieties for others, melted away like ice-crystals in a warm ocean. She had sat in this way perfectly still, with her hands crossed on her lap and the pale light resting on her calm face, for at least ten minutes when she was startled by a loud sound, apparently of something falling in Hetty"s room. But like all sounds that fall on our ears in a state of abstraction, it had no distinct character, but was simply loud and startling, so that she felt uncertain whether she had interpreted it rightly. She rose and listened, but all was quiet afterwards, and she reflected that Hetty might merely have knocked something down in getting into bed. She began slowly to undress; but now, owing to the suggestions of this sound, her thoughts became concentrated on Hetty--that sweet young thing, with life and all its trials before her--the solemn daily duties of the wife and mother--and her mind so unprepared for them all, bent merely on little foolish, selfish pleasures, like a child hugging its toys in the beginning of a long toilsome journey in which it will have to bear hunger and cold and unsheltered darkness. Dinah felt a double care for Hetty, because she shared Seth"s anxious interest in his brother"s lot, and she had not come to the conclusion that Hetty did not love Adam well enough to marry him. She saw too clearly the absence of any warm, self-devoting love in Hetty"s nature to regard the coldness of her behaviour towards Adam as any indication that he was not the man she would like to have for a husband. And this blank in Hetty"s nature, instead of exciting Dinah"s dislike, only touched her with a deeper pity: the lovely face and form affected her as beauty always affects a pure and tender mind, free from selfish jealousies. It was an excellent divine gift, that gave a deeper pathos to the need, the sin, the sorrow with which it was mingled, as the canker in a lily-white bud is more grievous to behold than in a common pot-herb.
By the time Dinah had undressed and put on her night-gown, this feeling about Hetty had gathered a painful intensity; her imagination had created a th.o.r.n.y thicket of sin and sorrow, in which she saw the poor thing struggling torn and bleeding, looking with tears for rescue and finding none. It was in this way that Dinah"s imagination and sympathy acted and reacted habitually, each heightening the other. She felt a deep longing to go now and pour into Hetty"s ear all the words of tender warning and appeal that rushed into her mind. But perhaps Hetty was already asleep. Dinah put her ear to the part.i.tion and heard still some slight noises, which convinced her that Hetty was not yet in bed. Still she hesitated; she was not quite certain of a divine direction; the voice that told her to go to Hetty seemed no stronger that the other voice which said that Hetty was weary, and that going to her now in an unseasonable moment would only tend to close her heart more obstinately. Dinah was not satisfied without a more unmistakable guidance than those inward voices. There was light enough for her, if she opened her Bible, to discern the text sufficiently to know what it would say to her. She knew the physiognomy of every page, and could tell on what book she opened, sometimes on what chapter, without seeing t.i.tle or number. It was a small thick Bible, worn quite round at the edges. Dinah laid it sideways on the window ledge, where the light was strongest, and then opened it with her forefinger. The first words she looked at were those at the top of the left-hand page: "And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul"s neck and kissed him." That was enough for Dinah; she had opened on that memorable parting at Ephesus, when Paul had felt bound to open his heart in a last exhortation and warning. She hesitated no longer, but, opening her own door gently, went and tapped on Hetty"s. We know she had to tap twice, because Hetty had to put out her candles and throw off her black lace scarf; but after the second tap the door was opened immediately. Dinah said, "Will you let me come in, Hetty?" and Hetty, without speaking, for she was confused and vexed, opened the door wider and let her in.
What a strange contrast the two figures made, visible enough in that mingled twilight and moonlight! Hetty, her cheeks flushed and her eyes glistening from her imaginary drama, her beautiful neck and arms bare, her hair hanging in a curly tangle down her back, and the baubles in her ears. Dinah, covered with her long white dress, her pale face full of subdued emotion, almost like a lovely corpse into which the soul has returned charged with sublimer secrets and a sublimer love. They were nearly of the same height; Dinah evidently a little the taller as she put her arm round Hetty"s waist and kissed her forehead.
"I knew you were not in bed, my dear," she said, in her sweet clear voice, which was irritating to Hetty, mingling with her own peevish vexation like music with jangling chains, "for I heard you moving; and I longed to speak to you again to-night, for it is the last but one that I shall be here, and we don"t know what may happen to-morrow to keep us apart. Shall I sit down with you while you do up your hair?"
"Oh yes," said Hetty, hastily turning round and reaching the second chair in the room, glad that Dinah looked as if she did not notice her ear-rings.
Dinah sat down, and Hetty began to brush together her hair before twisting it up, doing it with that air of excessive indifference which belongs to confused self-consciousness. But the expression of Dinah"s eyes gradually relieved her; they seemed un.o.bservant of all details.
"Dear Hetty," she said, "It has been borne in upon my mind to-night that you may some day be in trouble--trouble is appointed for us all here below, and there comes a time when we need more comfort and help than the things of this life can give. I want to tell you that if ever you are in trouble, and need a friend that will always feel for you and love you, you have got that friend in Dinah Morris at Snowfield, and if you come to her, or send for her, she"ll never forget this night and the words she is speaking to you now. Will you remember it, Hetty?"
"Yes," said Hetty, rather frightened. "But why should you think I shall be in trouble? Do you know of anything?"
Hetty had seated herself as she tied on her cap, and now Dinah leaned forwards and took her hands as she answered, "Because, dear, trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn"t G.o.d"s will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing; the people we love are taken from us, and we can joy in nothing because they are not with us; sickness comes, and we faint under the burden of our feeble bodies; we go astray and do wrong, and bring ourselves into trouble with our fellow-men. There is no man or woman born into this world to whom some of these trials do not fall, and so I feel that some of them must happen to you; and I desire for you, that while you are young you should seek for strength from your Heavenly Father, that you may have a support which will not fail you in the evil day."
Dinah paused and released Hetty"s hands that she might not hinder her. Hetty sat quite still; she felt no response within herself to Dinah"s anxious affection; but Dinah"s words uttered with solemn pathetic distinctness, affected her with a chill fear. Her flush had died away almost to paleness; she had the timidity of a luxurious pleasure-seeking nature, which shrinks from the hint of pain. Dinah saw the effect, and her tender anxious pleading became the more earnest, till Hetty, full of a vague fear that something evil was some time to befall her, began to cry.
It is our habit to say that while the lower nature can never understand the higher, the higher nature commands a complete view of the lower. But I think the higher nature has to learn this comprehension, as we learn the art of vision, by a good deal of hard experience, often with bruises and gashes incurred in taking things up by the wrong end, and fancying our s.p.a.ce wider than it is. Dinah had never seen Hetty affected in this way before, and, with her usual benignant hopefulness, she trusted it was the stirring of a divine impulse. She kissed the sobbing thing, and began to cry with her for grateful joy. But Hetty was simply in that excitable state of mind in which there is no calculating what turn the feelings may take from one moment to another, and for the first time she became irritated under Dinah"s caress. She pushed her away impatiently, and said, with a childish sobbing voice, "Don"t talk to me so, Dinah. Why do you come to frighten me? I"ve never done anything to you. Why can"t you let me be?"
Poor Dinah felt a pang. She was too wise to persist, and only said mildly, "Yes, my dear, you"re tired; I won"t hinder you any longer. Make haste and get into bed. Good-night."
She went out of the room almost as quietly and quickly as if she had been a ghost; but once by the side of her own bed, she threw herself on her knees and poured out in deep silence all the pa.s.sionate pity that filled her heart.
As for Hetty, she was soon in the wood again--her waking dreams being merged in a sleeping life scarcely more fragmentary and confused.
Chapter XVI.
Links.
ARTHUR DONNITHORNE, you remember, is under an engagement with himself to go and see Mr. Irwine this Friday morning, and he is awake and dressing so early that he determines to go before breakfast, instead of after. The rector, he knows, breakfasts alone at half-past nine, the ladies of the family having a different breakfast-hour; Arthur will have an early ride over the hill and breakfast with him. One can say everything best over a meal.
The progress of civilization has made a breakfast or a dinner an easy and cheerful subst.i.tute for more troublesome and disagreeable ceremonies. We take a less gloomy view of our errors now our father confessor listens to us over his egg and coffee. We are more distinctly conscious that rude penances are out of the question for gentlemen in an enlightened age, and that mortal sin is not incompatible with an appet.i.te for m.u.f.fins. An a.s.sault on our pockets, which in more barbarous times would have been made in the brusque form of a pistol-shot, is quite a well-bred and smiling procedure now it has become a request for a loan thrown in as an easy parenthesis between the second and third gla.s.ses of claret.
Still, there was this advantage in the old rigid forms, that they committed you to the fulfilment of a resolution by some outward deed: when you have put your mouth to one end of a hole in a stone wall and are aware that there is an expectant ear at the other end, you are more likely to say what you came out with the intention of saying than if you were seated with your legs in an easy att.i.tude under the mahogany with a companion who will have no reason to be surprised if you have nothing particular to say.
However, Arthur Donnithorne, as he winds among the pleasant lanes on horseback in the morning sunshine, has a sincere determination to open his heart to the rector, and the swirling sound of the scythe as he pa.s.ses by the meadow is all the pleasanter to him because of this honest purpose. He is glad to see the promise of settled weather now, for getting in the hay, about which the farmers have been fearful; and there is something so healthful in the sharing of a joy that is general and not merely personal, that this thought about the hay-harvest reacts on his state of mind and makes his resolution seem an easier matter. A man about town might perhaps consider that these influences were not to be felt out of a child"s story-book; but when you are among the fields and hedgerows, it is impossible to maintain a consistent superiority to simple natural pleasures.
Arthur had pa.s.sed the village of Hayslope and was approaching the Broxton side of the hill, when, at a turning in the road, he saw a figure about a hundred yards before him which it was impossible to mistake for any one else than Adam Bede, even if there had been no grey, tailless shepherd-dog at his heels. He was striding along at his usual rapid pace, and Arthur pushed on his horse to overtake him, for he retained too much of his boyish feeling for Adam to miss an opportunity of chatting with him. I will not say that his love for that good fellow did not owe some of its force to the love of patronage: our friend Arthur liked to do everything that was handsome, and to have his handsome deeds recognized.
Adam looked round as he heard the quickening clatter of the horse"s heels, and waited for the horseman, lifting his paper cap from his head with a bright smile of recognition. Next to his own brother Seth, Adam would have done more for Arthur Donnithorne than for any other young man in the world. There was hardly anything he would not rather have lost than the two-feet ruler which he always carried in his pocket; it was Arthur"s present, bought with his pocket-money when he was a fair-haired lad of eleven, and when he had profited so well by Adam"s lessons in carpentering and turning as to embarra.s.s every female in the house with gifts of superfluous thread-reels and round boxes. Adam had quite a pride in the little squire in those early days, and the feeling had only become slightly modified as the fair-haired lad had grown into the whiskered young man. Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the influence of rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect to every one who had more advantages than himself, not being a philosopher or a proletaire with democratic ideas, but simply a stout-limbed clever carpenter with a large fund of reverence in his nature, which inclined him to admit all established claims unless he saw very clear grounds for questioning them. He had no theories about setting the world to rights, but he saw there was a great deal of damage done by building with ill-seasoned timber--by ignorant men in fine clothes making plans for outhouses and workshops and the like without knowing the bearings of things--by slovenly joiners" work, and by hasty contracts that could never be fulfilled without ruining somebody; and he resolved, for his part, to set his face against such doings. On these points he would have maintained his opinion against the largest landed proprietor in Loamshire or Stonyshire either; but he felt that beyond these it would be better for him to defer to people who were more knowing than himself. He saw as plainly as possible how ill the woods on the estate were managed, and the shameful state of the farm-buildings; and if old Squire Donnithorne had asked him the effect of this mismanagement, he would have spoken his opinion without flinching, but the impulse to a respectful demeanour towards a "gentleman" would have been strong within him all the while. The word "gentleman" had a spell for Adam, and, as he often said, he "couldn"t abide a fellow who thought he made himself fine by being c.o.xy to"s betters." I must remind you again that Adam had the blood of the peasant in his veins, and that since he was in his prime half a century ago, you must expect some of his characteristics to be obsolete.
Towards the young squire this instinctive reverence of Adam"s was a.s.sisted by boyish memories and personal regard so you may imagine that he thought far more of Arthur"s good qualities, and attached far more value to very slight actions of his, than if they had been the qualities and actions of a common workman like himself. He felt sure it would be a fine day for everybody about Hayslope when the young squire came into the estate--such a generous open-hearted disposition as he had, and an "uncommon" notion about improvements and repairs, considering he was only just coming of age. Thus there was both respect and affection in the smile with which he raised his paper cap as Arthur Donnithorne rode up.
"Well, Adam, how are you?" said Arthur, holding out his hand. He never shook hands with any of the farmers, and Adam felt the honour keenly. "I could swear to your back a long way off. It"s just the same back, only broader, as when you used to carry me on it. Do you remember?"
"Aye, sir, I remember. It "ud be a poor look-out if folks didn"t remember what they did and said when they were lads. We should think no more about old friends than we do about new uns, then."
"You"re going to Broxton, I suppose?" said Arthur, putting his horse on at a slow pace while Adam walked by his side. "Are you going to the rectory?"
"No, sir, I"m going to see about Bradwell"s barn. They"re afraid of the roof pushing the walls out, and I"m going to see what can be done with it before we send the stuff and the workmen."
"Why, Burge trusts almost everything to you now, Adam, doesn"t he? I should think he will make you his partner soon. He will, if he"s wise."
"Nay, sir, I don"t see as he"d be much the better off for that. A foreman, if he"s got a conscience and delights in his work, will do his business as well as if he was a partner. I wouldn"t give a penny for a man as "ud drive a nail in slack because he didn"t get extra pay for it."
"I know that, Adam; I know you work for him as well as if you were working for yourself. But you would have more power than you have now, and could turn the business to better account perhaps. The old man must give up his business sometime, and he has no son; I suppose he"ll want a son-in-law who can take to it. But he has rather grasping fingers of his own, I fancy. I daresay he wants a man who can put some money into the business. If I were not as poor as a rat, I would gladly invest some money in that way, for the sake of having you settled on the estate. I"m sure I should profit by it in the end. And perhaps I shall be better off in a year or two. I shall have a larger allowance now I"m of age; and when I"ve paid off a debt or two, I shall be able to look about me."