Chapter XXXI
In Hetty's Bed-Chamber
IT was no longer light enough to go to bed without a candle, even inMrs. Poyser's early household, and Hetty carried one with her as shewent up at last to her bedroom soon after Adam was gone, and bolted thedoor behind her.
Now she would read her letter. It must--it must have comfort in it. Howwas Adam to know the truth? It was always likely he should say what hedid say.
She set down the candle and took out the letter. It had a faint scent ofroses, which made her feel as if Arthur were close to her. She put it toher lips, and a rush of remembered sensations for a moment or two sweptaway all fear. But her heart began to flutter strangely, and her handsto tremble as she broke the seal. She read slowly; it was not easy forher to read a gentleman's handwriting, though Arthur had taken pains towrite 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 longas life lasts, and I hope to prove this to you in many ways. If I sayanything to pain you in this letter, do not believe it is for want oflove and tenderness towards you, for there is nothing I would not dofor you, if I knew it to be really for your happiness. I cannot bear tothink of my little Hetty shedding tears when I am not there to kiss themaway; and if I followed only my own inclinations, I should be with herat this moment instead of writing. It is very hard for me to part fromher--harder still for me to write words which may seem unkind, thoughthey spring from the truest kindness.
"Dear, dear Hetty, sweet as our love has been to me, sweet as it wouldbe to me for you to love me always, I feel that it would have beenbetter for us both if we had never had that happiness, and that it ismy duty to ask you to love me and care for me as little as you can. Thefault has all been mine, for though I have been unable to resist thelonging to be near you, I have felt all the while that your affectionfor me might cause you grief. I ought to have resisted my feelings. Ishould 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 evilthat I have power to prevent. And I feel it would be a great evil foryou if your affections continued so fixed on me that you could think ofno other man who might be able to make you happier by his love than Iever can, and if you continued to look towards something in the futurewhich cannot possibly happen. For, dear Hetty, if I were to do what youone day spoke of, and make you my wife, I should do what you yourselfwould come to feel was for your misery instead of your welfare. I knowyou can never be happy except by marrying a man in your own station andif I were to marry you now, I should only be adding to any wrong I havedone, 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 littlein which we should be alike.
"And since I cannot marry you, we must part--we must try not to feellike lovers any more. I am miserable while I say this, but nothing elsecan be. Be angry with me, my sweet one, I deserve it; but do not believethat I shall not always care for you--always be grateful to you--alwaysremember my Hetty; and if any trouble should come that we do not nowforesee, 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 towrite, but I put it down below lest you should have forgotten. Do notwrite unless there is something I can really do for you; for, dearHetty, we must try to think of each other as little as we can. Forgiveme, and try to forget everything about me, except that I shall be, aslong as I live, your affectionate friend,
"ARTHUR DONNITHORNE."
Slowly Hetty had read this letter; and when she looked up from it therewas the reflection of a blanched face in the old dim glass--a whitemarble face with rounded childish forms, but with something sadder thana child's pain in it. Hetty did not see the face--she saw nothing--sheonly felt that she was cold and sick and trembling. The letter shook andrustled in her hand. She laid it down. It was a horrible sensation--thiscold and trembling. It swept away the very ideas that produced it, andHetty got up to reach a warm cloak from her clothes-press, wrapped itround 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 readit through again. The tears came this time--great rushing tears thatblinded her and blotched the paper. She felt nothing but that Arthur wascruel--cruel to write so, cruel not to marry her. Reasons why he couldnot marry her had no existence for her mind; how could she believe inany misery that could come to her from the fulfilment of all she hadbeen longing for and dreaming of? She had not the ideas that could makeup the notion of that misery.
As she threw down the letter again, she caught sight of her face in theglass; it was reddened now, and wet with tears; it was almost like acompanion that she might complain to--that would pity her. She leanedforward on her elbows, and looked into those dark overflooding eyes andat 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 onher new-born passion, afflicted her pleasure-craving nature with anoverpowering pain that annihilated all impulse to resistance, andsuspended her anger. She sat sobbing till the candle went out, and then,wearied, aching, stupefied with crying, threw herself on the bed withoutundressing and went to sleep.
There was a feeble dawn in the room when Hetty awoke, a little afterfour o'clock, with a sense of dull misery, the cause of which broke uponher gradually as she began to discern the objects round her in the dimlight. And then came the frightening thought that she had to conceal hermisery 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: therelay the letter. She opened her treasure-drawer: there lay the ear-ringsand the locket--the signs of all her short happiness--the signs ofthe lifelong dreariness that was to follow it. Looking at the littletrinkets which she had once eyed and fingered so fondly as the earnestof her future paradise of finery, she lived back in the moments whenthey had been given to her with such tender caresses, such strangelypretty words, such glowing looks, which filled her with a bewilderingdelicious surprise--they were so much sweeter than she had thoughtanything could be. And the Arthur who had spoken to her and looked ather in this way, who was present with her now--whose arm she felt roundher, his cheek against hers, his very breath upon her--was the cruel,cruel Arthur who had written that letter, that letter which she snatchedand crushed and then opened again, that she might read it once more. Thehalf-benumbed mental condition which was the effect of the last night'sviolent crying made it necessary to her to look again and see if herwretched 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 itby the faint light. Yes! It was worse--it was more cruel. She crushedit up again in anger. She hated the writer of that letter--hated himfor the very reason that she hung upon him with all her love--all thegirlish passion 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 thefirst shock because it has the future in it as well as the present.Every morning to come, as far as her imagination could stretch, shewould 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 firstmoments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it isto have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recoveredhope. As Hetty began languidly to take off the clothes she had worn allthe night, that she might wash herself and brush her hair, she had asickening sense that her life would go on in this way. She should alwaysbe doing things she had no pleasure in, getting up to the old tasks ofwork, seeing people she cared nothing about, going to church, and toTreddleston, and to tea with Mrs. Best, and carrying no happy thoughtwith her. For her short poisonous delights had spoiled for ever
all thelittle joys that had once made the sweetness of her life--the new frockready 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 prospectof the wedding that was to come at last when she would have a silk gownand a great many clothes all at once. These things were all flat anddreary to her now; everything would be a weariness, and she would carryabout for ever a hopeless thirst and longing.
She paused in the midst of her languid undressing and leaned against thedark old clothes-press. Her neck and arms were bare, her hair hung downin delicate rings--and they were just as beautiful as they were thatnight two months ago, when she walked up and down this bed-chamberglowing with vanity and hope. She was not thinking of her neck and armsnow; even her own beauty was indifferent to her. Her eyes wandered sadlyover the dull old chamber, and then looked out vacantly towards thegrowing dawn. Did a remembrance of Dinah come across her mind? Of herforeboding words, which had made her angry? Of Dinah's affectionateentreaty to think of her as a friend in trouble? No, the impressionhad been too slight to recur. Any affection or comfort Dinah couldhave given her would have been as indifferent to Hetty this morning aseverything else was except her bruised passion. She was only thinkingshe could never stay here and go on with the old life--she could betterbear 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 theold faces again. But Hetty's was not a nature to face difficulties--todare to loose her hold on the familiar and rush blindly on some unknowncondition. Hers was a luxurious and vain nature--not a passionateone--and if she were ever to take any violent measure, she must be urgedto it by the desperation of terror. There was not much room for herthoughts to travel in the narrow circle of her imagination, and she soonfixed on the one thing she would do to get away from her old life: shewould ask her uncle to let her go to be a lady's maid. Miss Lydia's maidwould help her to get a situation, if she knew Hetty had her uncle'sleave.
When she had thought of this, she fastened up her hair and began towash: it seemed more possible to her to go downstairs and try to behaveas usual. She would ask her uncle this very day. On Hetty's bloominghealth it would take a great deal of such mental suffering as hers toleave any deep impress; and when she was dressed as neatly as usualin her working-dress, with her hair tucked up under her little cap,an indifferent observer would have been more struck with the youngroundness of her cheek and neck and the darkness of her eyes andeyelashes than with any signs of sadness about her. But when she took upthe crushed letter and put it in her drawer, that she might lock it outof sight, hard smarting tears, having no relief in them as the greatdrops had that fell last night, forced their way into her eyes. Shewiped them away quickly: she must not cry in the day-time. Nobody shouldfind out how miserable she was, nobody should know she was disappointedabout anything; and the thought that the eyes of her aunt and unclewould be upon her gave her the self-command which often accompanies agreat dread. For Hetty looked out from her secret misery towards thepossibility of their ever knowing what had happened, as the sick andweary prisoner might think of the possible pillory. They would think herconduct shameful, and shame was torture. That was poor little Hetty'sconscience.
So she locked up her drawer and went away to her early work.
In the evening, when Mr. Poyser was smoking his pipe, and hisgood-nature was therefore at its superlative moment, Hetty seized theopportunity of her aunt's absence to say, "Uncle, I wish you'd let me gofor a lady's maid."
Mr. Poyser took the pipe from his mouth and looked at Hetty in mildsurprise for some moments. She was sewing, and went on with her workindustriously.
"Why, what's put that into your head, my wench?" he said at last, afterhe 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'tbe half so good for your health, nor for your luck i' life. I'd like youto stay wi' us till you've got a good husband: you're my own niece, andI wouldn't have you go to service, though it was a gentleman's house, aslong 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 noticingHetty's further argument. "You mustna mind that, my wench--she does itfor your good. She wishes you well; an' there isn't many aunts as are nokin 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 myconsent 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 handto different sorts o' things. But I niver meant you to go to service, mywench; my family's ate their own bread and cheese as fur back as anybodyknows, hanna they, Father? You wouldna like your grand-child to takewage?"
"Na-a-y," said old Martin, with an elongation of the word, meant to makeit bitter as well as negative, while he leaned forward and looked downon 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 heado' 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 questionhad fallen like a bit of dry fuel on the embers of a long unextinguishedresentment, which had always made the grandfather more indifferent toHetty than to his son's children. Her mother's fortune had been spent bythat 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 haveprovoked this retrospective harshness. "She'd but bad luck. But Hetty'sgot 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 pipeand his silence, looking at Hetty to see if she did not give some signof 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'tlet's have any crying. Crying's for them as ha' got no home, not forthem as want to get rid o' one. What dost think?" he continued to hiswife, who now came back into the house-place, knitting with fiercerapidity, as if that movement were a necessary function, like thetwittering of a crab's antennae.
"Think? Why, I think we shall have the fowl stole before we are mucholder, wi' that gell forgetting to lock the pens up o' nights. What'sthe matter now, Hetty? What are you crying at?"
"Why, she's been wanting to go for a lady's maid," said Mr. Poyser. "Itell her we can do better for her nor that."
"I thought she'd got some maggot in her head, she's gone about wi' hermouth buttoned up so all day. It's all wi' going so among them servantsat the Chase, as we war fools for letting her. She thinks it 'ud be afiner life than being wi' them as are akin to her and ha' brought her upsin' she war no bigger nor Marty. She thinks there's nothing belongs tobeing a lady's maid but wearing finer clothes nor she was born to, I'llbe bound. It's what rag she can get to stick on her as she's thinking onfrom morning till night, as I often ask her if she wouldn't like to bethe 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'sgot good friends to take care on her till she's married to somebodybetter nor one o' them valets, as is neither a common man nor agentleman, an' must live on the fat o' the land, an's like enough tostick his hands under his coat-tails and expect his wife to work forhim."
"Aye, aye," said Mr. Poyser, "we must have a better husband for her northat, and there's better at hand. Come, my wench, give over crying andget 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 shouldwant to go away, for I thought she'd got a mind t' Adam Bede. She'slooked like it o' late."
"Eh, there's no knowing what she's got a liking to, for things takeno 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 believeshe'd care more about leaving us and the children, for all she's beenhere but a year come Michaelmas, nor Hetty would. But she's got thisnotion o' being a lady's maid wi' going among them servants--we mightha' 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-heartedhussy, wanting to leave us i' that way. I can't ha' had her about methese seven year, I reckon, and done for her, and taught her everythingwi'out caring about her. An' here I'm having linen spun, an' thinkingall the while it'll make sheeting and table-clothing for her when she'smarried, an' she'll live i' the parish wi' us, and never go out ofour sights--like a fool as I am for thinking aught about her, as is nobetter 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' getsthings in her head as she can't rightly give account on. Them youngfillies 'ull run away often wi'-ou knowing why."
Her uncle's answers, however, had had another effect on Hetty besidesthat of disappointing her and making her cry. She knew quite well whomhe had in his mind in his allusions to marriage, and to a sober, solidhusband; and when she was in her bedroom again, the possibility of hermarrying Adam presented itself to her in a new light. In a mind where nostrong sympathies are at work, where there is no supreme sense ofright to which the agitated nature can cling and steady itself to quietendurance, one of the first results of sorrow is a desperate vagueclutching after any deed that will change the actual condition. PoorHetty's vision of consequences, at no time more than a narrow fantasticcalculation of her own probable pleasures and pains, was now quite shutout by reckless irritation under present suffering, and she was readyfor one of those convulsive, motiveless actions by which wretched menand women leap from a temporary sorrow into a lifelong misery.
Why should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did, so thatit made some change in her life. She felt confident that he would stillwant to marry her, and any further thought about Adam's happiness in thematter had never yet visited her.
"Strange!" perhaps you will say, "this rush of impulse to-wards a coursethat 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, strugglingamidst the serious sad destinies of a human being, are strange. So arethe motions of a little vessel without ballast tossed about on a stormysea. 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 beena lasting joy.