Adam Bede
her, and a gentle voice said, “Why, Hetty, what makes you cry? I didn’t
mean to vex you. I wouldn’t vex you for the world, you little blossom.
Come, don’t cry; look at me, else I shall think you won’t forgive me.”
Arthur had laid his hand on the soft arm that was nearest to him, and
was stooping towards Hetty with a look of coaxing entreaty. Hetty
lifted her long dewy lashes, and met the eyes that were bent towards
her with a sweet, timid, beseeching look. What a space of time those
three moments were while their eyes met and his arms touched her! Love
is such a simple thing when we have only one-and-twenty summers and a
sweet girl of seventeen trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud
first opening her heart with wondering rapture to the morning. Such
young unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other like two velvet peaches
that touch softly and are at rest; they mingle as easily as two
brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple
with ever-interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding-places. While
Arthur gazed into Hetty’s dark beseeching eyes, it made no difference
to him what sort of English she spoke; and even if hoops and powder had
been in fashion, he would very likely not have been sensible just then
that Hetty wanted those signs of high breeding.
But they started asunder with beating hearts: something had fallen on
the ground with a rattling noise; it was Hetty’s basket; all her little
workwoman’s matters were scattered on the path, some of them showing a
capability of rolling to great lengths. There was much to be done in
picking up, and not a word was spoken; but when Arthur hung the basket
over her arm again, the poor child felt a strange difference in his
look and manner. He just pressed her hand, and said, with a look and
tone that were almost chilling to her, “I have been hindering you; I
must not keep you any longer now. You will be expected at the house.
Good-bye.”
Without waiting for her to speak, he turned away from her and hurried
back towards the road that led to the Hermitage, leaving Hetty to
pursue her way in a strange dream that seemed to have begun in
bewildering delight and was now passing into contrarieties and sadness.
Would he meet her again as she came home? Why had he spoken almost as
if he were displeased with her? And then run away so suddenly? She
cried, hardly knowing why.
Arthur too was very uneasy, but his feelings were lit up for him by a
more distinct consciousness. He hurried to the Hermitage, which stood
in the heart of the wood, unlocked the door with a hasty wrench,
slammed it after him, pitched _Zeluco_ into the most distant corner,
and thrusting his right hand into his pocket, first walked four or five
times up and down the scanty length of the little room, and then seated
himself on the ottoman in an uncomfortable stiff way, as we often do
when we wish not to abandon ourselves to feeling.
He was getting in love with Hetty—that was quite plain. He was ready to
pitch everything else—no matter where—for the sake of surrendering
himself to this delicious feeling which had just disclosed itself. It
was no use blinking the fact now—they would get too fond of each other,
if he went on taking notice of her—and what would come of it? He should
have to go away in a few weeks, and the poor little thing would be
miserable. He _must not_ see her alone again; he must keep out of her
way. What a fool he was for coming back from Gawaine’s!
He got up and threw open the windows, to let in the soft breath of the
afternoon, and the healthy scent of the firs that made a belt round the
Hermitage. The soft air did not help his resolution, as he leaned out
and looked into the leafy distance. But he considered his resolution
sufficiently fixed: there was no need to debate with himself any
longer. He had made up his mind not to meet Hetty again; and now he
might give himself up to thinking how immensely agreeable it would be
if circumstances were different—how pleasant it would have been to meet
her this evening as she came back, and put his arm round her again and
look into her sweet face. He wondered if the dear little thing were
thinking of him too—twenty to one she was. How beautiful her eyes were
with the tear on their lashes! He would like to satisfy his soul for a
day with looking at them, and he _must_ see her again—he must see her,
simply to remove any false impression from her mind about his manner to
her just now. He would behave in a quiet, kind way to her—just to
prevent her from going home with her head full of wrong fancies. Yes,
that would be the best thing to do after all.
It was a long while—more than an hour before Arthur had brought his
meditations to this point; but once arrived there, he could stay no
longer at the Hermitage. The time must be filled up with movement until
he should see Hetty again. And it was already late enough to go and
dress for dinner, for his grandfather’s dinner-hour was six.
Chapter XIII
Evening in the Wood
It happened that Mrs. Pomfret had had a slight quarrel with Mrs. Best,
the housekeeper, on this Thursday morning—a fact which had two
consequences highly convenient to Hetty. It caused Mrs. Pomfret to have
tea sent up to her own room, and it inspired that exemplary lady’s maid
with so lively a recollection of former passages in Mrs. Best’s
conduct, and of dialogues in which Mrs. Best had decidedly the
inferiority as an interlocutor with Mrs. Pomfret, that Hetty required
no more presence of mind than was demanded for using her needle, and
throwing in an occasional “yes” or “no.” She would have wanted to put
on her hat earlier than usual; only she had told Captain Donnithorne
that she usually set out about eight o’clock, and if he _should_ go to
the Grove again expecting to see her, and she should be gone! Would he
come? Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory
and dubious expectation. At last the minute-hand of the old-fashioned
brazen-faced timepiece was on the last quarter to eight, and there was
every reason for its being time to get ready for departure. Even Mrs.
Pomfret’s preoccupied mind did not prevent her from noticing what
looked like a new flush of beauty in the little thing as she tied on
her hat before the looking-glass.
“That child gets prettier and prettier every day, I do believe,” was
her inward comment. “The more’s the pity. She’ll get neither a place
nor a husband any the sooner for it. Sober well-to-do men don’t like
such pretty wives. When I was a girl, I was more admired than if I had
been so very pretty. However, she’s reason to be grateful to me for
teaching her something to get her bread with, better than farm-house
work. They always told me I was good-natured—and that’s the truth, and
to my hurt too, else there’s them in this house that wouldn’t be here
now to lord it over me in the housekeeper’s room.”
Hetty walked hastily across the short space of pleasure-ground which
she had to traverse, dreading to meet Mr. Craig, to whom she could
hardly have spoken civilly. How relieved she was when she had got
safely under the oaks and among the fern of the Chase! Even then she
was as ready to be startled as the deer that leaped away at her
approach. She thought nothing of the evening light that lay gently in
the grassy alleys between the fern, and made the beauty of their living
green more visible than it had been in the overpowering flood of noon:
she thought of nothing that was present. She only saw something that
was possible: Mr. Arthur Donnithorne coming to meet her again along the
Fir-tree Grove. That was the foreground of Hetty’s picture; behind it
lay a bright hazy something—days that were not to be as the other days
of her life had been. It was as if she had been wooed by a river-god,
who might any time take her to his wondrous halls below a watery
heaven. There was no knowing what would come, since this strange
entrancing delight had come. If a chest full of lace and satin and
jewels had been sent her from some unknown source, how could she but
have thought that her whole lot was going to change, and that to-morrow
some still more bewildering joy would befall her? Hetty had never read
a novel; if she had ever seen one, I think the words would have been
too hard for her; how then could she find a shape for her expectations?
They were as formless as the sweet languid odours of the garden at the
Chase, which had floated past her as she walked by the gate.
She is at another gate now—that leading into Fir-tree Grove. She enters
the wood, where it is already twilight, and at every step she takes,
the fear at her heart becomes colder. If he should not come! Oh, how
dreary it was—the thought of going out at the other end of the wood,
into the unsheltered road, without having seen him. She reaches the
first turning towards the Hermitage, walking slowly—he is not there.
She hates the leveret that runs across the path; she hates everything
that is not what she longs for. She walks on, happy whenever she is
coming to a bend in the road, for perhaps he is behind it. No. She is
beginning to cry: her heart has swelled so, the tears stand in her
eyes; she gives one great sob, while the corners of her mouth quiver,
and the tears roll down.
She doesn’t know that there is another turning to the Hermitage, that
she is close against it, and that Arthur Donnithorne is only a few
yards from her, full of one thought, and a thought of which she only is
the object. He is going to see Hetty again: that is the longing which
has been growing through the last three hours to a feverish thirst.
Not, of course, to speak in the caressing way into which he had
unguardedly fallen before dinner, but to set things right with her by a
kindness which would have the air of friendly civility, and prevent her
from running away with wrong notions about their mutual relation.
If Hetty had known he was there, she would not have cried; and it would
have been better, for then Arthur would perhaps have behaved as wisely
as he had intended. As it was, she started when he appeared at the end
of the side-alley, and looked up at him with two great drops rolling
down her cheeks. What else could he do but speak to her in a soft,
soothing tone, as if she were a bright-eyed spaniel with a thorn in her
foot?
“Has something frightened you, Hetty? Have you seen anything in the
wood? Don’t be frightened—I’ll take care of you now.”
Hetty was blushing so, she didn’t know whether she was happy or
miserable. To be crying again—what did gentlemen think of girls who
cried in that way? She felt unable even to say “no,” but could only
look away from him and wipe the tears from her cheek. Not before a
great drop had fallen on her rose-coloured strings—she knew that quite
well.
“Come, be cheerful again. Smile at me, and tell me what’s the matter.
Come, tell me.”
Hetty turned her head towards him, whispered, “I thought you wouldn’t
come,” and slowly got courage to lift her eyes to him. That look was
too much: he must have had eyes of Egyptian granite not to look too
lovingly in return.
“You little frightened bird! Little tearful rose! Silly pet! You won’t
cry again, now I’m with you, will you?”
Ah, he doesn’t know in the least what he is saying. This is not what he
meant to say. His arm is stealing round the waist again; it is
tightening its clasp; he is bending his face nearer and nearer to the
round cheek; his lips are meeting those pouting child-lips, and for a
long moment time has vanished. He may be a shepherd in Arcadia for
aught he knows, he may be the first youth kissing the first maiden, he
may be Eros himself, sipping the lips of Psyche—it is all one.
There was no speaking for minutes after. They walked along with beating