Adam Bede
for the remnant of an old abbey to which it was united at one end, in
much the same way as one may sometimes see a new farmhouse rising high
and prim at the end of older and lower farm-offices. The fine old
remnant stood a little backward and under the shadow of tall beeches,
but the sun was now on the taller and more advanced front, the blinds
were all down, and the house seemed asleep in the hot midday. It made
Hetty quite sad to look at it: Arthur must be somewhere in the back
rooms, with the grand company, where he could not possibly know that
she was come, and she should not see him for a long, long while—not
till after dinner, when they said he was to come up and make a speech.
But Hetty was wrong in part of her conjecture. No grand company was
come except the Irwines, for whom the carriage had been sent early, and
Arthur was at that moment not in a back room, but walking with the
rector into the broad stone cloisters of the old abbey, where the long
tables were laid for all the cottage tenants and the farm-servants. A
very handsome young Briton he looked to-day, in high spirits and a
bright-blue frock-coat, the highest mode—his arm no longer in a sling.
So open-looking and candid, too; but candid people have their secrets,
and secrets leave no lines in young faces.
“Upon my word,” he said, as they entered the cool cloisters, “I think
the cottagers have the best of it: these cloisters make a delightful
dining-room on a hot day. That was capital advice of yours, Irwine,
about the dinners—to let them be as orderly and comfortable as
possible, and only for the tenants: especially as I had only a limited
sum after all; for though my grandfather talked of a _carte blanche_,
he couldn’t make up his mind to trust me, when it came to the point.”
“Never mind, you’ll give more pleasure in this quiet way,” said Mr.
Irwine. “In this sort of thing people are constantly confounding
liberality with riot and disorder. It sounds very grand to say that so
many sheep and oxen were roasted whole, and everybody ate who liked to
come; but in the end it generally happens that no one has had an
enjoyable meal. If the people get a good dinner and a moderate quantity
of ale in the middle of the day, they’ll be able to enjoy the games as
the day cools. You can’t hinder some of them from getting too much
towards evening, but drunkenness and darkness go better together than
drunkenness and daylight.”
“Well, I hope there won’t be much of it. I’ve kept the Treddleston
people away by having a feast for them in the town; and I’ve got Casson
and Adam Bede and some other good fellows to look to the giving out of
ale in the booths, and to take care things don’t go too far. Come, let
us go up above now and see the dinner-tables for the large tenants.”
They went up the stone staircase leading simply to the long gallery
above the cloisters, a gallery where all the dusty worthless old
pictures had been banished for the last three generations—mouldy
portraits of Queen Elizabeth and her ladies, General Monk with his eye
knocked out, Daniel very much in the dark among the lions, and Julius
Cæsar on horseback, with a high nose and laurel crown, holding his
Commentaries in his hand.
“What a capital thing it is that they saved this piece of the old
abbey!” said Arthur. “If I’m ever master here, I shall do up the
gallery in first-rate style. We’ve got no room in the house a third as
large as this. That second table is for the farmers’ wives and
children: Mrs. Best said it would be more comfortable for the mothers
and children to be by themselves. I was determined to have the
children, and make a regular family thing of it. I shall be ‘the old
squire’ to those little lads and lasses some day, and they’ll tell
their children what a much finer young fellow I was than my own son.
There’s a table for the women and children below as well. But you will
see them all—you will come up with me after dinner, I hope?”
“Yes, to be sure,” said Mr. Irwine. “I wouldn’t miss your maiden speech
to the tenantry.”
“And there will be something else you’ll like to hear,” said Arthur.
“Let us go into the library and I’ll tell you all about it while my
grandfather is in the drawing-room with the ladies. Something that will
surprise you,” he continued, as they sat down. “My grandfather has come
round after all.”
“What, about Adam?”
“Yes; I should have ridden over to tell you about it, only I was so
busy. You know I told you I had quite given up arguing the matter with
him—I thought it was hopeless—but yesterday morning he asked me to come
in here to him before I went out, and astonished me by saying that he
had decided on all the new arrangements he should make in consequence
of old Satchell being obliged to lay by work, and that he intended to
employ Adam in superintending the woods at a salary of a guinea a-week,
and the use of a pony to be kept here. I believe the secret of it is,
he saw from the first it would be a profitable plan, but he had some
particular dislike of Adam to get over—and besides, the fact that I
propose a thing is generally a reason with him for rejecting it.
There’s the most curious contradiction in my grandfather: I know he
means to leave me all the money he has saved, and he is likely enough
to have cut off poor Aunt Lydia, who has been a slave to him all her
life, with only five hundred a-year, for the sake of giving me all the
more; and yet I sometimes think he positively hates me because I’m his
heir. I believe if I were to break my neck, he would feel it the
greatest misfortune that could befall him, and yet it seems a pleasure
to him to make my life a series of petty annoyances.”
“Ah, my boy, it is not only woman’s love that is ἀπέρωτος ἒρως as old
Æschylus calls it. There’s plenty of ‘unloving love’ in the world of a
masculine kind. But tell me about Adam. Has he accepted the post? I
don’t see that it can be much more profitable than his present work,
though, to be sure, it will leave him a good deal of time on his own
hands.”
“Well, I felt some doubt about it when I spoke to him and he seemed to
hesitate at first. His objection was that he thought he should not be
able to satisfy my grandfather. But I begged him as a personal favour
to me not to let any reason prevent him from accepting the place, if he
really liked the employment and would not be giving up anything that
was more profitable to him. And he assured me he should like it of all
things—it would be a great step forward for him in business, and it
would enable him to do what he had long wished to do, to give up
working for Burge. He says he shall have plenty of time to superintend
a little business of his own, which he and Seth will carry on, and will
perhaps be able to enlarge by degrees. So he has agreed at last, and I
have arranged that he shall dine with the large tenants to-day; and I
mean to announce the appointment to them, and ask them to drink Adam’s
health. It’s a little drama I’ve got up in honour of my friend Adam.
He’s a fine fellow, and I like the opportunity of letting people know
that I think so.”
“A drama in which friend Arthur piques himself on having a pretty part
to play,” said Mr. Irwine, smiling. But when he saw Arthur colour, he
went on relentingly, “My part, you know, is always that of the old fogy
who sees nothing to admire in the young folks. I don’t like to admit
that I’m proud of my pupil when he does graceful things. But I must
play the amiable old gentleman for once, and second your toast in
honour of Adam. Has your grandfather yielded on the other point too,
and agreed to have a respectable man as steward?”
“Oh no,” said Arthur, rising from his chair with an air of impatience
and walking along the room with his hands in his pockets. “He’s got
some project or other about letting the Chase Farm and bargaining for a
supply of milk and butter for the house. But I ask no questions about
it—it makes me too angry. I believe he means to do all the business
himself, and have nothing in the shape of a steward. It’s amazing what
energy he has, though.”
“Well, we’ll go to the ladies now,” said Mr. Irwine, rising too. “I
want to tell my mother what a splendid throne you’ve prepared for her
under the marquee.”
“Yes, and we must be going to luncheon too,” said Arthur. “It must be
two o’clock, for there is the gong beginning to sound for the tenants’
dinners.”
Chapter XXIII
Dinner-Time
When Adam heard that he was to dine upstairs with the large tenants, he
felt rather uncomfortable at the idea of being exalted in this way
above his mother and Seth, who were to dine in the cloisters below. But
Mr. Mills, the butler, assured him that Captain Donnithorne had given
particular orders about it, and would be very angry if Adam was not
there.
Adam nodded and went up to Seth, who was standing a few yards off.
“Seth, lad,” he said, “the captain has sent to say I’m to dine
upstairs—he wishes it particular, Mr. Mills says, so I suppose it ’ud
be behaving ill for me not to go. But I don’t like sitting up above
thee and mother, as if I was better than my own flesh and blood. Thee’t
not take it unkind, I hope?”
“Nay, nay, lad,” said Seth, “thy honour’s our honour; and if thee
get’st respect, thee’st won it by thy own deserts. The further I see
thee above me, the better, so long as thee feel’st like a brother to
me. It’s because o’ thy being appointed over the woods, and it’s
nothing but what’s right. That’s a place o’ trust, and thee’t above a
common workman now.”
“Aye,” said Adam, “but nobody knows a word about it yet. I haven’t
given notice to Mr. Burge about leaving him, and I don’t like to tell
anybody else about it before he knows, for he’ll be a good bit hurt, I
doubt. People ’ull be wondering to see me there, and they’ll like
enough be guessing the reason and asking questions, for there’s been so
much talk up and down about my having the place, this last three
weeks.”
“Well, thee canst say thee wast ordered to come without being told the
reason. That’s the truth. And mother ’ull be fine and joyful about it.
Let’s go and tell her.”
Adam was not the only guest invited to come upstairs on other grounds
than the amount he contributed to the rent-roll. There were other
people in the two parishes who derived dignity from their functions
rather than from their pocket, and of these Bartle Massey was one. His
lame walk was rather slower than usual on this warm day, so Adam
lingered behind when the bell rang for dinner, that he might walk up
with his old friend; for he was a little too shy to join the Poyser
party on this public occasion. Opportunities of getting to Hetty’s side
would be sure to turn up in the course of the day, and Adam contented
himself with that for he disliked any risk of being “joked” about
Hetty—the big, outspoken, fearless man was very shy and diffident as to
his love-making.
“Well, Mester Massey,” said Adam, as Bartle came up “I’m going to dine
upstairs with you to-day: the captain’s sent me orders.”
“Ah!” said Bartle, pausing, with one hand on his back. “Then there’s
something in the wind—there’s something in the wind. Have you heard
anything about what the old squire means to do?”
“Why, yes,” said Adam; “I’ll tell you what I know, because I believe
you can keep a still tongue in your head if you like, and I hope you’ll
not let drop a word till it’s common talk, for I’ve particular reasons
against its being known.”
“Trust to me, my boy, trust to me. I’ve got no wife to worm it out of
me and then run out and cackle it in everybody’s hearing. If you trust
a man, let him be a bachelor—let him be a bachelor.”
“Well, then, it was so far settled yesterday that I’m to take the
management o’ the woods. The captain sent for me t’ offer it me, when I