Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (50 page)

At Oakbourne, the ostler at the Royal Oak remembered such a young woman as Adam described getting out of the Treddleston coach more than a fortnight ago — wasn’t likely to forget such a pretty lass as that in a hurry — was sure she had not gone on by the Buxton coach that went through Snowfield, but had lost sight of her while he went away with the horses and had never set eyes on her again. Adam then went straight to the house from which the Stonition coach started: Stoniton was the most obvious place for Hetty to go to first, whatever might be her destination, for she would hardly venture on any but the chief coach-roads. She had been noticed here too, and was remembered to have sat on the box by the coachman; but the coachman could not be seen, for another man had been driving on that road in his stead the last three or four days. He could probably be seen at Stoniton, through inquiry at the inn where the coach put up. So the anxious heart-stricken Adam must of necessity wait and try to rest till morning — nay, till eleven o’clock, when the coach started.

At Stoniton another delay occurred, for the old coachman who had driven Hetty would not be in the town again till night. When he did come he remembered Hetty well, and remembered his own joke addressed to her, quoting it many times to Adam, and observing with equal frequency that he thought there was something more than common, because Hetty had not laughed when he joked her. But he declared, as the people had done at the inn, that he had lost sight of Hetty directly she got down. Part of the next morning was consumed in inquiries at every house in the town from which a coach started — (all in vain, for you know Hetty did not start from Stonition by coach, but on foot in the grey morning) — and then in walking out to the first toll-gates on the different lines of road, in the forlorn hope of finding some recollection of her there. No, she was not to be traced any farther; and the next hard task for Adam was to go home and carry the wretched tidings to the Hall Farm. As to what he should do beyond that, he had come to two distinct resolutions amidst the tumult of thought and feeling which was going on within him while he went to and fro. He would not mention what he knew of Arthur Donnithorne’s behaviour to Hetty till there was a clear necessity for it: it was still possible Hetty might come back, and the disclosure might be an injury or an offence to her. And as soon as he had been home and done what was necessary there to prepare for his further absence, he would start off to Ireland: if he found no trace of Hetty on the road, he would go straight to Arthur Donnithorne and make himself certain how far he was acquainted with her movements. Several times the thought occurred to him that he would consult Mr. Irwine, but that would be useless unless he told him all, and so betrayed the secret about Arthur. It seems strange that Adam, in the incessant occupation of his mind about Hetty, should never have alighted on the probability that she had gone to Windsor, ignorant that Arthur was no longer there. Perhaps the reason was that he could not conceive Hetty’s throwing herself on Arthur uncalled; he imagined no cause that could have driven her to such a step, after that letter written in August. There were but two alternatives in his mind: either Arthur had written to her again and enticed her away, or she had simply fled from her approaching marriage with himself because she found, after all, she could not love him well enough, and yet was afraid of her friends’ anger if she retracted.

With this last determination on his mind, of going straight to Arthur, the thought that he had spent two days in inquiries which had proved to be almost useless, was torturing to Adam; and yet, since he would not tell the Poysers his conviction as to where Hetty was gone, or his intention to follow her thither, he must be able to say to them that he had traced her as far as possible.

It was after twelve o’clock on Tuesday night when Adam reached Treddleston; and, unwilling to disturb his mother and Seth, and also to encounter their questions at that hour, he threw himself without undressing on a bed at the “Waggon Overthrown,” and slept hard from pure weariness. Not more than four hours, however, for before five o’clock he set out on his way home in the faint morning twilight. He always kept a key of the workshop door in his pocket, so that he could let himself in; and he wished to enter without awaking his mother, for he was anxious to avoid telling her the new trouble himself by seeing Seth first, and asking him to tell her when it should be necessary. He walked gently along the yard, and turned the key gently in the door; but, as he expected, Gyp, who lay in the workshop, gave a sharp bark. It subsided when he saw Adam, holding up his finger at him to impose silence, and in his dumb, tailless joy he must content himself with rubbing his body against his master’s legs.

Adam was too heart-sick to take notice of Gyp’s fondling. He threw himself on the bench and stared dully at the wood and the signs of work around him, wondering if he should ever come to feel pleasure in them again, while Gyp, dimly aware that there was something wrong with his master, laid his rough grey head on Adam’s knee and wrinkled his brows to look up at him. Hitherto, since Sunday afternoon, Adam had been constantly among strange people and in strange places, having no associations with the details of his daily life, and now that by the light of this new morning he was come back to his home and surrounded by the familiar objects that seemed for ever robbed of their charm, the reality — the hard, inevitable reality of his troubles pressed upon him with a new weight. Right before him was an unfinished chest of drawers, which he had been making in spare moments for Hetty’s use, when his home should be hers.

Seth had not heard Adam’s entrance, but he had been roused by Gyp’s bark, and Adam heard him moving about in the room above, dressing himself. Seth’s first thoughts were about his brother: he would come home to-day, surely, for the business would be wanting him sadly by to-morrow, but it was pleasant to think he had had a longer holiday than he had expected. And would Dinah come too? Seth felt that that was the greatest happiness he could look forward to for himself, though he had no hope left that she would ever love him well enough to marry him; but he had often said to himself, it was better to be Dinah’s friend and brother than any other woman’s husband. If he could but be always near her, instead of living so far off!

He came downstairs and opened the inner door leading from the kitchen into the workshop, intending to let out Gyp; but he stood still in the doorway, smitten with a sudden shock at the sight of Adam seated listlessly on the bench, pale, unwashed, with sunken blank eyes, almost like a drunkard in the morning. But Seth felt in an instant what the marks meant — not drunkenness, but some great calamity. Adam looked up at him without speaking, and Seth moved forward towards the bench, himself trembling so that speech did not come readily.

“God have mercy on us, Addy,” he said, in a low voice, sitting down on the bench beside Adam, “what is it?”

Adam was unable to speak. The strong man, accustomed to suppress the signs of sorrow, had felt his heart swell like a child’s at this first approach of sympathy. He fell on Seth’s neck and sobbed.

Seth was prepared for the worst now, for, even in his recollections of their boyhood, Adam had never sobbed before.

“Is it death, Adam? Is she dead?” he asked, in a low tone, when Adam raised his head and was recovering himself.

“No, lad; but she’s gone — gone away from us. She’s never been to Snowfield. Dinah’s been gone to Leeds ever since last Friday was a fortnight, the very day Hetty set out. I can’t find out where she went after she got to Stoniton.”

Seth was silent from utter astonishment: he knew nothing that could suggest to him a reason for Hetty’s going away.

“Hast any notion what she’s done it for?” he said, at last.

“She can’t ha’ loved me. She didn’t like our marriage when it came nigh — that must be it,” said Adam. He had determined to mention no further reason.

“I hear Mother stirring,” said Seth. “Must we tell her?”

“No, not yet,” said Adam, rising from the bench and pushing the hair from his face, as if he wanted to rouse himself. “I can’t have her told yet; and I must set out on another journey directly, after I’ve been to the village and th’ Hall Farm. I can’t tell thee where I’m going, and thee must say to her I’m gone on business as nobody is to know anything about. I’ll go and wash myself now.” Adam moved towards the door of the workshop, but after a step or two he turned round, and, meeting Seth’s eyes with a calm sad glance, he said, “I must take all the money out o’ the tin box, lad; but if anything happens to me, all the rest ‘ll be thine, to take care o’ Mother with.”

Seth was pale and trembling: he felt there was some terrible secret under all this. “Brother,” he said, faintly — he never called Adam “Brother” except in solemn moments — “I don’t believe you’ll do anything as you can’t ask God’s blessing on.”

“Nay, lad,” said Adam, “don’t be afraid. I’m for doing nought but what’s a man’s duty.”

The thought that if he betrayed his trouble to his mother, she would only distress him by words, half of blundering affection, half of irrepressible triumph that Hetty proved as unfit to be his wife as she had always foreseen, brought back some of his habitual firmness and self-command. He had felt ill on his journey home — he told her when she came down — had stayed all night at Tredddleston for that reason; and a bad headache, that still hung about him this morning, accounted for his paleness and heavy eyes.

He determined to go to the village, in the first place, attend to his business for an hour, and give notice to Burge of his being obliged to go on a journey, which he must beg him not to mention to any one; for he wished to avoid going to the Hall Farm near breakfast-time, when the children and servants would be in the house-place, and there must be exclamations in their hearing about his having returned without Hetty. He waited until the clock struck nine before he left the work-yard at the village, and set off, through the fields, towards the Farm. It was an immense relief to him, as he came near the Home Close, to see Mr. Poyser advancing towards him, for this would spare him the pain of going to the house. Mr. Poyser was walking briskly this March morning, with a sense of spring business on his mind: he was going to cast the master’s eye on the shoeing of a new cart-horse, carrying his spud as a useful companion by the way. His surprise was great when he caught sight of Adam, but he was not a man given to presentiments of evil.

“Why, Adam, lad, is’t you? Have ye been all this time away and not brought the lasses back, after all? Where are they?”

“No, I’ve not brought ‘em,” said Adam, turning round, to indicate that he wished to walk back with Mr. Poyser.

“Why,” said Martin, looking with sharper attention at Adam, “ye look bad. Is there anything happened?”

“Yes,” said Adam, heavily. “A sad thing’s happened. I didna find Hetty at Snowfield.”

Mr. Poyser’s good-natured face showed signs of troubled astonishment. “Not find her? What’s happened to her?” he said, his thoughts flying at once to bodily accident.

“That I can’t tell, whether anything’s happened to her. She never went to Snowfield — she took the coach to Stoniton, but I can’t learn nothing of her after she got down from the Stoniton coach.”

“Why, you donna mean she’s run away?” said Martin, standing still, so puzzled and bewildered that the fact did not yet make itself felt as a trouble by him.

“She must ha’ done,” said Adam. “She didn’t like our marriage when it came to the point — that must be it. She’d mistook her feelings.”

Martin was silent for a minute or two, looking on the ground and rooting up the grass with his spud, without knowing what he was doing. His usual slowness was always trebled when the subject of speech was painful. At last he looked up, right in Adam’s face, saying, “Then she didna deserve t’ ha’ ye, my lad. An’ I feel i’ fault myself, for she was my niece, and I was allays hot for her marr’ing ye. There’s no amends I can make ye, lad — the more’s the pity: it’s a sad cut-up for ye, I doubt.”

Adam could say nothing; and Mr. Poyser, after pursuing his walk for a little while, went on, “I’ll be bound she’s gone after trying to get a lady’s maid’s place, for she’d got that in her head half a year ago, and wanted me to gi’ my consent. But I’d thought better on her” — he added, shaking his head slowly and sadly — “I’d thought better on her, nor to look for this, after she’d gi’en y’ her word, an’ everything been got ready.”

Adam had the strongest motives for encouraging this supposition in Mr. Poyser, and he even tried to believe that it might possibly be true. He had no warrant for the certainty that she was gone to Arthur.

“It was better it should be so,” he said, as quietly as he could, “if she felt she couldn’t like me for a husband. Better run away before than repent after. I hope you won’t look harshly on her if she comes back, as she may do if she finds it hard to get on away from home.”