Adam Bede
right, as look as if they’d never tasted nothing better than
bacon-sword and sour-cake i’ their lives. But what did Mr. Irwine say
to you about that fool’s trick o’ preaching on the Green?”
“He only said he’d heard of it; he didn’t seem to feel any displeasure
about it. But, dear aunt, don’t think any more about that. He told me
something that I’m sure will cause you sorrow, as it does me. Thias
Bede was drowned last night in the Willow Brook, and I’m thinking that
the aged mother will be greatly in need of comfort. Perhaps I can be of
use to her, so I have fetched my bonnet and am going to set out.”
“Dear heart, dear heart! But you must have a cup o’ tea first, child,”
said Mrs. Poyser, falling at once from the key of B with five sharps to
the frank and genial C. “The kettle’s boiling—we’ll have it ready in a
minute; and the young uns ’ull be in and wanting theirs directly. I’m
quite willing you should go and see th’ old woman, for you’re one as is
allays welcome in trouble, Methodist or no Methodist; but, for the
matter o’ that, it’s the flesh and blood folks are made on as makes the
difference. Some cheeses are made o’ skimmed milk and some o’ new milk,
and it’s no matter what you call ’em, you may tell which is which by
the look and the smell. But as to Thias Bede, he’s better out o’ the
way nor in—God forgi’ me for saying so—for he’s done little this ten
year but make trouble for them as belonged to him; and I think it ’ud
be well for you to take a little bottle o’ rum for th’ old woman, for I
daresay she’s got never a drop o’ nothing to comfort her inside. Sit
down, child, and be easy, for you shan’t stir out till you’ve had a cup
o’ tea, and so I tell you.”
During the latter part of this speech, Mrs. Poyser had been reaching
down the tea-things from the shelves, and was on her way towards the
pantry for the loaf (followed close by Totty, who had made her
appearance on the rattling of the tea-cups), when Hetty came out of the
dairy relieving her tired arms by lifting them up, and clasping her
hands at the back of her head.
“Molly,” she said, rather languidly, “just run out and get me a bunch
of dock-leaves: the butter’s ready to pack up now.”
“D’ you hear what’s happened, Hetty?” said her aunt.
“No; how should I hear anything?” was the answer, in a pettish tone.
“Not as you’d care much, I daresay, if you did hear; for you’re too
feather-headed to mind if everybody was dead, so as you could stay
upstairs a-dressing yourself for two hours by the clock. But anybody
besides yourself ’ud mind about such things happening to them as think
a deal more of you than you deserve. But Adam Bede and all his kin
might be drownded for what you’d care—you’d be perking at the glass the
next minute.”
“Adam Bede—drowned?” said Hetty, letting her arms fall and looking
rather bewildered, but suspecting that her aunt was as usual
exaggerating with a didactic purpose.
“No, my dear, no,” said Dinah kindly, for Mrs. Poyser had passed on to
the pantry without deigning more precise information. “Not Adam. Adam’s
father, the old man, is drowned. He was drowned last night in the
Willow Brook. Mr. Irwine has just told me about it.”
“Oh, how dreadful!” said Hetty, looking serious, but not deeply
affected; and as Molly now entered with the dock-leaves, she took them
silently and returned to the dairy without asking further questions.
Chapter IX
Hetty’s World
While she adjusted the broad leaves that set off the pale fragrant
butter as the primrose is set off by its nest of green I am afraid
Hetty was thinking a great deal more of the looks Captain Donnithorne
had cast at her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright, admiring glances
from a handsome young gentleman with white hands, a gold chain,
occasional regimentals, and wealth and grandeur immeasurable—those were
the warm rays that set poor Hetty’s heart vibrating and playing its
little foolish tunes over and over again. We do not hear that Memnon’s
statue gave forth its melody at all under the rushing of the mightiest
wind, or in response to any other influence divine or human than
certain short-lived sunbeams of morning; and we must learn to
accommodate ourselves to the discovery that some of those cunningly
fashioned instruments called human souls have only a very limited range
of music, and will not vibrate in the least under a touch that fills
others with tremulous 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
to Hayslope Church on a Sunday afternoon on purpose that he might see
her; and that he would have made much more decided advances if her
uncle Poyser, thinking but lightly of a young man whose father’s land
was so foul as old Luke Britton’s, had not forbidden her aunt to
encourage him by any civilities. She was aware, too, that Mr. Craig,
the gardener at the Chase, was over head and ears in love with her, and
had lately made unmistakable avowals in luscious strawberries and
hyperbolical peas. She knew still better, that Adam Bede—tall, upright,
clever, brave Adam Bede—who carried such authority with all the people
round about, and whom 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 as thought themselves his betters”—she knew that this
Adam, who was often rather 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 from her. Hetty’s sphere of comparison was not large,
but she couldn’t help perceiving that Adam was “something like” a man;
always knew what to say about things, could tell her uncle how to prop
the hovel, and had mended the churn in no time; knew, with only looking
at it, the value of the chestnut-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 hand that you could read off, and could do figures in
his head—a degree of accomplishment totally unknown among the richest
farmers of that countryside. Not at all like that slouching Luke
Britton, who, when she once walked with him all the way from Broxton to
Hayslope, had only broken silence to remark that the grey goose had
begun to lay. And as for 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 way to forty.
Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
would be pleased for her to marry him. For those were times when there
was no rigid demarcation of rank between the farmer and the respectable
artisan, and on the home hearth, as well as in the public house, they
might be seen taking their jug of ale together; the farmer having a
latent sense of capital, and of weight in parish affairs, which
sustained him under his conspicuous inferiority in conversation. Martin
Poyser was not a frequenter of public houses, but he liked a friendly
chat over his own home-brewed; and though it was pleasant to lay down
the law to a stupid neighbour who had no notion how to make the best of
his farm, it was also an agreeable variety to learn something from a
clever fellow like Adam Bede. Accordingly, for the last three
years—ever since he had superintended the building of the new barn—Adam
had always been made welcome at the Hall Farm, especially of a winter
evening, when the whole family, in patriarchal fashion, master and
mistress, children and servants, were assembled in that glorious
kitchen, at well-graduated distances from the blazing fire. And for the
last two years, at least, Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her
uncle say, “Adam Bede may be working for wage now, but he’ll be a
master-man some day, as sure as I sit in this chair. Mester Burge is in
the right on’t to want him to go partners and marry his daughter, if
it’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
followed up with her cordial assent. “Ah,” she would say, “it’s all
very fine having 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 hole in 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 the ditch. I allays said I’d never marry a man as
had got no brains; for where’s the use of a woman having brains of her
own if she’s tackled to a geck as everybody’s a-laughing at? She might
as well dress herself fine to sit back’ards on a donkey.”
These expressions, though figurative, sufficiently indicated the bent
of Mrs. Poyser’s mind with regard to Adam; and though she and her
husband might have viewed the subject differently if Hetty had been a
daughter of their own, it was clear that they would have welcomed the
match with Adam for a penniless niece. For what could Hetty have been
but a servant elsewhere, if her uncle had not taken her in and brought
her up as a domestic help to her aunt, whose health since the birth of
Totty had not been equal to more positive labour than the
superintendence of servants and children? But Hetty had never given
Adam any steady encouragement. Even in the moments when she was most
thoroughly conscious of his superiority to her other admirers, she had
never brought herself to think 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 had shown the least sign of slipping from under
the yoke of her coquettish tyranny and attaching himself to the gentle
Mary Burge, who would have been 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 a hank of cotton.” And always when Adam
stayed away for several weeks from the Hall Farm, and otherwise made
some show of resistance to his passion as a foolish one, Hetty took
care to entice him back into the net by little airs of meekness and
timidity, as if she were in trouble at his neglect. 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 never grew a shade deeper when his
name was mentioned; she felt no thrill when she saw him passing along
the causeway by the window, or advancing towards her unexpectedly in
the footpath across the meadow; she felt nothing, when his eyes rested
on her, but the cold triumph of knowing that he loved her and would not
care to look at Mary Burge. He could no more stir in her the emotions
that make the sweet intoxication of young love than the mere picture of
a sun can stir the spring sap in the subtle fibres of the plant. She
saw him as he was—a poor man with old parents to keep, who would not be
able, for a long while to come, to give her even such luxuries as she
shared in her uncle’s house. And Hetty’s dreams were all of luxuries:
to sit in a carpeted parlour, and always wear white stockings; to have
some large beautiful ear-rings, such as were all the fashion; to have
Nottingham lace round the top of her gown, and something to make her
handkerchief smell nice, like Miss Lydia Donnithorne’s when she drew it
out at church; and not to be obliged to get up early or be scolded by
anybody. She thought, if Adam had been rich and could have given her
these things, she loved him well enough 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,