Chapter IX
Hetty's World
WHILE she adjusted the broad leaves that set off the pale fragrantbutter as the primrose is set off by its nest of green I am afraid Hettywas thinking a great deal more of the looks Captain Donnithorne had castat her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright, admiring glances froma handsome young gentleman with white hands, a gold chain, occasionalregimentals, and wealth and grandeur immeasurable--those were thewarm rays that set poor Hetty's heart vibrating and playing its littlefoolish tunes over and over again. We do not hear that Memnon's statuegave forth its melody at all under the rushing of the mightiest wind,or in response to any other influence divine or human than certainshort-lived sunbeams of morning; and we must learn to accommodateourselves to the discovery that some of those cunningly fashionedinstruments called human souls have only a very limited range of music,and will not vibrate in the least under a touch that fills others withtremulous rapture or quivering agony.
Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.She was not blind to the fact that young Luke Britton of Broxton came toHayslope Church on a Sunday afternoon on purpose that he might see her;and that he would have made much more decided advances if her unclePoyser, thinking but lightly of a young man whose father's land was sofoul as old Luke Britton's, had not forbidden her aunt to encourage himby any civilities. She was aware, too, that Mr. Craig, the gardener atthe Chase, was over head and ears in love with her, and had lately madeunmistakable avowals in luscious strawberries and hyperbolical peas.She knew still better, that Adam Bede--tall, upright, clever, brave AdamBede--who carried such authority with all the people round about, andwhom her uncle was always delighted to see of an evening, saying that"Adam knew a fine sight more o' the natur o' things than those asthought themselves his betters"--she knew that this Adam, who was oftenrather stern to other people and not much given to run after the lasses,could be made to turn pale or red any day by a word or a look fromher. Hetty's sphere of comparison was not large, but she couldn't helpperceiving that Adam was "something like" a man; always knew what to sayabout things, could tell her uncle how to prop the hovel, and had mendedthe churn in no time; knew, with only looking at it, the value of thechestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the damp came in the walls,and what they must do to stop the rats; and wrote a beautiful handthat you could read off, and could do figures in his head--a degreeof accomplishment totally unknown among the richest farmers of thatcountryside. Not at all like that slouching Luke Britton, who, whenshe once walked with him all the way from Broxton to Hayslope, had onlybroken silence to remark that the grey goose had begun to lay. And asfor Mr. Craig, the gardener, he was a sensible man enough, to be sure,but he was knock-kneed, and had a queer sort of sing-song in his talk;moreover, on the most charitable supposition, he must be far on the wayto forty.
Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, andwould be pleased for her to marry him. For those were times when therewas no rigid demarcation of rank between the farmer and the respectableartisan, and on the home hearth, as well as in the public house, theymight be seen taking their jug of ale together; the farmer havinga latent sense of capital, and of weight in parish affairs, whichsustained him under his conspicuous inferiority in conversation. MartinPoyser was not a frequenter of public houses, but he liked a friendlychat over his own home-brewed; and though it was pleasant to lay downthe law to a stupid neighbour who had no notion how to make the bestof his farm, it was also an agreeable variety to learn something froma clever fellow like Adam Bede. Accordingly, for the last threeyears--ever since he had superintended the building of the newbarn--Adam had always been made welcome at the Hall Farm, especially ofa winter evening, when the whole family, in patriarchal fashion, masterand mistress, children and servants, were assembled in that gloriouskitchen, at well-graduated distances from the blazing fire. And for thelast two years, at least, Hetty had been in the habit of hearing heruncle say, "Adam Bede may be working for wage now, but he'll be amaster-man some day, as sure as I sit in this chair. Mester Burge isin the right on't to want him to go partners and marry his daughter, ifit's true what they say; the woman as marries him 'ull have a good take,be't Lady day or Michaelmas," a remark which Mrs. Poyser always followedup with her cordial assent. "Ah," she would say, "it's all very finehaving a ready-made rich man, but mayhappen he'll be a ready-made fool;and it's no use filling your pocket full o' money if you've got a holein the corner. It'll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own,if you've got a soft to drive you: he'll soon turn you over into theditch. I allays said I'd never marry a man as had got no brains; forwhere's the use of a woman having brains of her own if she's tackledto a geck as everybody's a-laughing at? She might as well dress herselffine to sit back'ards on a donkey."
These expressions, though figurative, sufficiently indicated the bent ofMrs. Poyser's mind with regard to Adam; and though she and her husbandmight have viewed the subject differently if Hetty had been a daughterof their own, it was clear that they would have welcomed the match withAdam for a penniless niece. For what could Hetty have been but a servantelsewhere, if her uncle had not taken her in and brought her up as adomestic help to her aunt, whose health since the birth of Totty had notbeen equal to more positive labour than the superintendence of servantsand children? But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement.Even in the moments when she was most thoroughly conscious of hissuperiority to her other admirers, she had never brought herself tothink of accepting him. She liked to feel that this strong, skilful,keen-eyed man was in her power, and would have been indignant if he hadshown the least sign of slipping from under the yoke of her coquettishtyranny and attaching himself to the gentle Mary Burge, who would havebeen grateful enough for the most trifling notice from him. "Mary Burge,indeed! Such a sallow-faced girl: if she put on a bit of pink ribbon,she looked as yellow as a crow-flower and her hair was as straight as ahank of cotton." And always when Adam stayed away for several weeks fromthe Hall Farm, and otherwise made some show of resistance to his passionas a foolish one, Hetty took care to entice him back into the net bylittle airs of meekness and timidity, as if she were in trouble at hisneglect. But as to marrying Adam, that was a very different affair!There was nothing in the world to tempt her to do that. Her cheeks nevergrew a shade deeper when his name was mentioned; she felt no thrillwhen she saw him passing along the causeway by the window, or advancingtowards her unexpectedly in the footpath across the meadow; she feltnothing, when his eyes rested on her, but the cold triumph of knowingthat he loved her and would not care to look at Mary Burge. He could nomore stir in her the emotions that make the sweet intoxication of younglove than the mere picture of a sun can stir the spring sap in thesubtle fibres of the plant. She saw him as he was--a poor man with oldparents to keep, who would not be able, for a long while to come, togive her even such luxuries as she shared in her uncle's house. AndHetty's dreams were all of luxuries: to sit in a carpeted parlour, andalways wear white stockings; to have some large beautiful ear-rings,such as were all the fashion to have Nottingham lace round the top ofher gown, and something to make her handkerchief smell nice, likeMiss Lydia Donnithorne's when she drew it out at church; and not to beobliged to get up early or be scolded by anybody. She thought, if Adamhad been rich and could have given her these things, she loved him wellenough to marry him.
But for the last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty--vague,atmospheric, shaping itself into no self-confessed hopes or prospects,but producing a pleasant narcotic effect, making her tread the groundand go about her work in a sort of dream, unconscious of weight oreffort, and showing her all things through a soft, liquid veil, as ifshe were living not in this solid world of brick and stone, but in abeatified world, such as the sun lights up for us in the waters. Hettyhad become aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal oftrouble for the chance of seeing her; that he always placed himself atchurch so as to have the fullest view of her both sitting and standing;that he was constant
ly finding reason for calling at the Hall Farm, andalways would contrive to say something for the sake of making her speakto him and look at him. The poor child no more conceived at present theidea that the young squire could ever be her lover than a baker's prettydaughter in the crowd, whom a young emperor distinguishes by an imperialbut admiring smile, conceives that she shall be made empress. But thebaker's daughter goes home and dreams of the handsome young emperor, andperhaps weighs the flour amiss while she is thinking what a heavenly lotit must be to have him for a husband. And so, poor Hetty had got a faceand a presence haunting her waking and sleeping dreams; bright, softglances had penetrated her, and suffused her life with a strange, happylanguor. The eyes that shed those glances were really not half sofine as Adam's, which sometimes looked at her with a sad, beseechingtenderness, but they had found a ready medium in Hetty's littlesilly imagination, whereas Adam's could get no entrance through thatatmosphere. For three weeks, at least, her inward life had consisted oflittle else than living through in memory the looks and words Arthur haddirected towards her--of little else than recalling the sensations withwhich she heard his voice outside the house, and saw him enter, andbecame conscious that his eyes were fixed on her, and then becameconscious that a tall figure, looking down on her with eyes that seemedto touch her, was coming nearer in clothes of beautiful texture with anodour like that of a flower-garden borne on the evening breeze. Foolishthoughts! But all this happened, you must remember, nearly sixty yearsago, and Hetty was quite uneducated--a simple farmer's girl, to whoma gentleman with a white hand was dazzling as an Olympian god. Untilto-day, she had never looked farther into the future than to the nexttime Captain Donnithorne would come to the Farm, or the next Sunday whenshe should see him at church; but now she thought, perhaps he would tryto meet her when she went to the Chase to-morrow--and if he shouldspeak to her, and walk a little way, when nobody was by! That had neverhappened yet; and now her imagination, instead of retracing the past,was busy fashioning what would happen to-morrow--whereabout in theChase she should see him coming towards her, how she should put her newrose-coloured ribbon on, which he had never seen, and what he would sayto her to make her return his glance--a glance which she would be livingthrough in her memory, over and over again, all the rest of the day.
In this state of mind, how could Hetty give any feeling to Adam'stroubles, or think much about poor old Thias being drowned? Young souls,in such pleasant delirium as hers are as unsympathetic as butterfliessipping nectar; they are isolated from all appeals by a barrier ofdreams--by invisible looks and impalpable arms.
While Hetty's hands were busy packing up the butter, and her head filledwith these pictures of the morrow, Arthur Donnithorne, riding by Mr.Irwine's side towards the valley of the Willow Brook, had also certainindistinct anticipations, running as an undercurrent in his mind whilehe was listening to Mr. Irwine's account of Dinah--indistinct, yetstrong enough to make him feel rather conscious when Mr. Irwine suddenlysaid, "What fascinated you so in Mrs. Poyser's dairy, Arthur? Have youbecome an amateur of damp quarries and skimming dishes?"
Arthur knew the rector too well to suppose that a clever invention wouldbe of any use, so he said, with his accustomed frankness, "No, I went tolook at the pretty butter-maker Hetty Sorrel. She's a perfect Hebe; andif I were an artist, I would paint her. It's amazing what pretty girlsone sees among the farmers' daughters, when the men are such clowns.That common, round, red face one sees sometimes in the men--all cheekand no features, like Martin Poyser's--comes out in the women of thefamily as the most charming phiz imaginable."
"Well, I have no objection to your contemplating Hetty in an artisticlight, but I must not have you feeding her vanity and filling her littlenoddle with the notion that she's a great beauty, attractive to finegentlemen, or you will spoil her for a poor man's wife--honest Craig's,for example, whom I have seen bestowing soft glances on her. The littlepuss seems already to have airs enough to make a husband as miserableas it's a law of nature for a quiet man to be when he marries a beauty.Apropos of marrying, I hope our friend Adam will get settled, now thepoor old man's gone. He will only have his mother to keep in future, andI've a notion that there's a kindness between him and that nice modestgirl, Mary Burge, from something that fell from old Jonathan one daywhen I was talking to him. But when I mentioned the subject to Adam helooked uneasy and turned the conversation. I suppose the love-makingdoesn't run smooth, or perhaps Adam hangs back till he's in a betterposition. He has independence of spirit enough for two men--rather anexcess of pride, if anything."
"That would be a capital match for Adam. He would slip into old Burge'sshoes and make a fine thing of that building business, I'll answer forhim. I should like to see him well settled in this parish; he would beready then to act as my grand-vizier when I wanted one. We could planno end of repairs and improvements together. I've never seen the girl,though, I think--at least I've never looked at her."
"Look at her next Sunday at church--she sits with her father on theleft of the reading-desk. You needn't look quite so much at Hetty Sorrelthen. When I've made up my mind that I can't afford to buy a temptingdog, I take no notice of him, because if he took a strong fancy tome and looked lovingly at me, the struggle between arithmetic andinclination might become unpleasantly severe. I pique myself on mywisdom there, Arthur, and as an old fellow to whom wisdom had becomecheap, I bestow it upon you."
"Thank you. It may stand me in good stead some day though I don'tknow that I have any present use for it. Bless me! How the brook hasoverflowed. Suppose we have a canter, now we're at the bottom of thehill."
That is the great advantage of dialogue on horseback; it can be mergedany minute into a trot or a canter, and one might have escaped fromSocrates himself in the saddle. The two friends were free from thenecessity of further conversation till they pulled up in the lane behindAdam's cottage.