Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (22 page)

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 peacock, 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 butter, 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, God 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 grass 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 thorny 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 partition 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 title 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 unobservant 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 God’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 space 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 passionate 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 XV
I

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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 substitute 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 appetite for muffins. An assault 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 glasses 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 attitude 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 passes 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 passed 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 embarrass 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 coxy 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 assisted 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.”

“You’re very good to say so, sir, and I’m not unthankful. But” — Adam continued, in a decided tone — “I shouldn’t like to make any offers to Mr. Burge, or t’ have any made for me. I see no clear road to a partnership. If he should ever want to dispose of the business, that ‘ud be a different matter. I should be glad of some money at a fair interest then, for I feel sure I could pay it off in time.”

“Very well, Adam,” said Arthur, remembering what Mr. Irwine had said about a probable hitch in the love-making between Adam and Mary Burge, “we’ll say no more about it at present. When is your father to be buried?”

“On Sunday, sir; Mr. Irwine’s coming earlier on purpose. I shall be glad when it’s over, for I think my mother ‘ull perhaps get easier then. It cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they’ve no way o’ working it off, and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered tree.”

“Ah, you’ve had a good deal of trouble and vexation in your life, Adam. I don’t think you’ve ever been hare-brained and light-hearted, like other youngsters. You’ve always had some care on your mind.”

“Why, yes, sir; but that’s nothing to make a fuss about. If we’re men and have men’s feelings, I reckon we must have men’s troubles. We can’t be like the birds, as fly from their nest as soon as they’ve got their wings, and never know their kin when they see ‘em, and get a fresh lot every year. I’ve had enough to be thankful for: I’ve allays had health and strength and brains to give me a delight in my work; and I count it a great thing as I’ve had Bartle Massey’s night-school to go to. He’s helped me to knowledge I could never ha’ got by myself.”

“What a rare fellow you are, Adam!” said Arthur, after a pause, in which he had looked musingly at the big fellow walking by his side. “I could hit out better than most men at Oxford, and yet I believe you would knock me into next week if I were to have a battle with you.”

“God forbid I should ever do that, sir,” said Adam, looking round at Arthur and smiling. “I used to fight for fun, but I’ve never done that since I was the cause o’ poor Gil Tranter being laid up for a fortnight. I’ll never fight any man again, only when he behaves like a scoundrel. If you get hold of a chap that’s got no shame nor conscience to stop him, you must try what you can do by bunging his eyes up.”

Arthur did not laugh, for he was preoccupied with some thought that made him say presently, “I should think now, Adam, you never have any struggles within yourself. I fancy you would master a wish that you had made up your mind it was not quite right to indulge, as easily as you would knock down a drunken fellow who was quarrelsome with you. I mean, you are never shilly-shally, first making up your mind that you won’t do a thing, and then doing it after all?”

“Well,” said Adam, slowly, after a moment’s hesitation, “no. I don’t remember ever being see-saw in that way, when I’d made my mind up, as you say, that a thing was wrong. It takes the taste out o’ my mouth for things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after ‘em. I’ve seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never do what’s wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever see. It’s like a bit o’ bad workmanship — you never see th’ end o’ the mischief it’ll do. And it’s a poor look-out to come into the world to make your fellow-creatures worse off instead o’ better. But there’s a difference between the things folks call wrong. I’m not for making a sin of every little fool’s trick, or bit o’ nonsense anybody may be let into, like some o’ them dissenters. And a man may have two minds whether it isn’t worthwhile to get a bruise or two for the sake of a bit o’ fun. But it isn’t my way to be see-saw about anything: I think my fault lies th’ other way. When I’ve said a thing, if it’s only to myself, it’s hard for me to go back.”

“Yes, that’s just what I expected of you,” said Arthur. “You’ve got an iron will, as well as an iron arm. But however strong a man’s resolution may be, it costs him something to carry it out, now and then. We may determine not to gather any cherries and keep our hands sturdily in our pockets, but we can’t prevent our mouths from watering.”

“That’s true, sir, but there’s nothing like settling with ourselves as there’s a deal we must do without i’ this life. It’s no use looking on life as if it was Treddles’on Fair, where folks only go to see shows and get fairings. If we do, we shall find it different. But where’s the use o’ me talking to you, sir? You know better than I do.”

“I’m not so sure of that, Adam. You’ve had four or five years of experience more than I’ve had, and I think your life has been a better school to you than college has been to me.”

“Why, sir, you seem to think o’ college something like what Bartle Massey does. He says college mostly makes people like bladders — just good for nothing but t’ hold the stuff as is poured into ‘em. But he’s got a tongue like a sharp blade, Bartle has — it never touches anything but it cuts. Here’s the turning, sir. I must bid you good-morning, as you’re going to the rectory.”