Adam Bede
see. And I say it again, you’re acting the part of a selfish
light-minded scoundrel though it cuts me to th’ heart to say so, and
I’d rather ha’ lost my right hand.”
“Let me tell you, Adam,” said Arthur, bridling his growing anger and
trying to recur to his careless tone, “you’re not only devilishly
impertinent, but you’re talking nonsense. Every pretty girl is not such
a fool as you, to suppose that when a gentleman admires her beauty and
pays her a little attention, he must mean something particular. Every
man likes to flirt with a pretty girl, and every pretty girl likes to
be flirted with. The wider the distance between them, the less harm
there is, for then she’s not likely to deceive herself.”
“I don’t know what you mean by flirting,” said Adam, “but if you mean
behaving to a woman as if you loved her, and yet not loving her all the
while, I say that’s not th’ action of an honest man, and what isn’t
honest does come t’ harm. I’m not a fool, and you’re not a fool, and
you know better than what you’re saying. You know it couldn’t be made
public as you’ve behaved to Hetty as y’ have done without her losing
her character and bringing shame and trouble on her and her relations.
What if you meant nothing by your kissing and your presents? Other
folks won’t believe as you’ve meant nothing; and don’t tell me about
her not deceiving herself. I tell you as you’ve filled her mind so with
the thought of you as it’ll mayhap poison her life, and she’ll never
love another man as ’ud make her a good husband.”
Arthur had felt a sudden relief while Adam was speaking; he perceived
that Adam had no positive knowledge of the past, and that there was no
irrevocable damage done by this evening’s unfortunate rencontre. Adam
could still be deceived. The candid Arthur had brought himself into a
position in which successful lying was his only hope. The hope allayed
his anger a little.
“Well, Adam,” he said, in a tone of friendly concession, “you’re
perhaps right. Perhaps I’ve gone a little too far in taking notice of
the pretty little thing and stealing a kiss now and then. You’re such a
grave, steady fellow, you don’t understand the temptation to such
trifling. I’m sure I wouldn’t bring any trouble or annoyance on her and
the good Poysers on any account if I could help it. But I think you
look a little too seriously at it. You know I’m going away immediately,
so I shan’t make any more mistakes of the kind. But let us say
good-night”—Arthur here turned round to walk on—“and talk no more about
the matter. The whole thing will soon be forgotten.”
“No, by God!” Adam burst out with rage that could be controlled no
longer, throwing down the basket of tools and striding forward till he
was right in front of Arthur. All his jealousy and sense of personal
injury, which he had been hitherto trying to keep under, had leaped up
and mastered him. What man of us, in the first moments of a sharp
agony, could ever feel that the fellow-man who has been the medium of
inflicting it did not mean to hurt us? In our instinctive rebellion
against pain, we are children again, and demand an active will to wreak
our vengeance on. Adam at this moment could only feel that he had been
robbed of Hetty—robbed treacherously by the man in whom he had
trusted—and he stood close in front of Arthur, with fierce eyes glaring
at him, with pale lips and clenched hands, the hard tones in which he
had hitherto been constraining himself to express no more than a just
indignation giving way to a deep agitated voice that seemed to shake
him as he spoke.
“No, it’ll not be soon forgot, as you’ve come in between her and me,
when she might ha’ loved me—it’ll not soon be forgot as you’ve robbed
me o’ my happiness, while I thought you was my best friend, and a
noble-minded man, as I was proud to work for. And you’ve been kissing
her, and meaning nothing, have you? And I never kissed her i’ my
life—but I’d ha’ worked hard for years for the right to kiss her. And
you make light of it. You think little o’ doing what may damage other
folks, so as you get your bit o’ trifling, as means nothing. I throw
back your favours, for you’re not the man I took you for. I’ll never
count you my friend any more. I’d rather you’d act as my enemy, and
fight me where I stand—it’s all th’ amends you can make me.”
Poor Adam, possessed by rage that could find no other vent, began to
throw off his coat and his cap, too blind with passion to notice the
change that had taken place in Arthur while he was speaking. Arthur’s
lips were now as pale as Adam’s; his heart was beating violently. The
discovery that Adam loved Hetty was a shock which made him for the
moment see himself in the light of Adam’s indignation, and regard
Adam’s suffering as not merely a consequence, but an element of his
error. The words of hatred and contempt—the first he had ever heard in
his life—seemed like scorching missiles that were making ineffaceable
scars on him. All screening self-excuse, which rarely falls quite away
while others respect us, forsook him for an instant, and he stood face
to face with the first great irrevocable evil he had ever committed. He
was only twenty-one, and three months ago—nay, much later—he had
thought proudly that no man should ever be able to reproach him justly.
His first impulse, if there had been time for it, would perhaps have
been to utter words of propitiation; but Adam had no sooner thrown off
his coat and cap than he became aware that Arthur was standing pale and
motionless, with his hands still thrust in his waistcoat pockets.
“What!” he said, “won’t you fight me like a man? You know I won’t
strike you while you stand so.”
“Go away, Adam,” said Arthur, “I don’t want to fight you.”
“No,” said Adam, bitterly; “you don’t want to fight me—you think I’m a
common man, as you can injure without answering for it.”
“I never meant to injure you,” said Arthur, with returning anger. “I
didn’t know you loved her.”
“But you’ve made her love _you_,” said Adam. “You’re a double-faced
man—I’ll never believe a word you say again.”
“Go away, I tell you,” said Arthur, angrily, “or we shall both repent.”
“No,” said Adam, with a convulsed voice, “I swear I won’t go away
without fighting you. Do you want provoking any more? I tell you you’re
a coward and a scoundrel, and I despise you.”
The colour had all rushed back to Arthur’s face; in a moment his right
hand was clenched, and dealt a blow like lightning, which sent Adam
staggering backward. His blood was as thoroughly up as Adam’s now, and
the two men, forgetting the emotions that had gone before, fought with
the instinctive fierceness of panthers in the deepening twilight
darkened by the trees. The delicate-handed gentleman was a match for
the workman in everything but strength, and Arthur’s skill enabled him
to protract the struggle for some long moments. But between unarmed men
the battle is to the strong, where the strong is no blunderer, and
Arthur must sink under a well-planted blow of Adam’s as a steel rod is
broken by an iron bar. The blow soon came, and Arthur fell, his head
lying concealed in a tuft of fern, so that Adam could only discern his
darkly clad body.
He stood still in the dim light waiting for Arthur to rise.
The blow had been given now, towards which he had been straining all
the force of nerve and muscle—and what was the good of it? What had he
done by fighting? Only satisfied his own passion, only wreaked his own
vengeance. He had not rescued Hetty, nor changed the past—there it was,
just as it had been, and he sickened at the vanity of his own rage.
But why did not Arthur rise? He was perfectly motionless, and the time
seemed long to Adam. Good God! had the blow been too much for him? Adam
shuddered at the thought of his own strength, as with the oncoming of
this dread he knelt down by Arthur’s side and lifted his head from
among the fern. There was no sign of life: the eyes and teeth were set.
The horror that rushed over Adam completely mastered him, and forced
upon him its own belief. He could feel nothing but that death was in
Arthur’s face, and that he was helpless before it. He made not a single
movement, but knelt like an image of despair gazing at an image of
death.
Chapter XXVIII
A Dilemma
It was only a few minutes measured by the clock—though Adam always
thought it had been a long while—before he perceived a gleam of
consciousness in Arthur’s face and a slight shiver through his frame.
The intense joy that flooded his soul brought back some of the old
affection with it.
“Do you feel any pain, sir?” he said, tenderly, loosening Arthur’s
cravat.
Arthur turned his eyes on Adam with a vague stare which gave way to a
slightly startled motion as if from the shock of returning memory. But
he only shivered again and said nothing.
“Do you feel any hurt, sir?” Adam said again, with a trembling in his
voice.
Arthur put his hand up to his waistcoat buttons, and when Adam had
unbuttoned it, he took a longer breath. “Lay my head down,” he said,
faintly, “and get me some water if you can.”
Adam laid the head down gently on the fern again, and emptying the
tools out of the flag-basket, hurried through the trees to the edge of
the Grove bordering on the Chase, where a brook ran below the bank.
When he returned with his basket leaking, but still half-full, Arthur
looked at him with a more thoroughly reawakened consciousness.
“Can you drink a drop out o’ your hand, sir?” said Adam, kneeling down
again to lift up Arthur’s head.
“No,” said Arthur, “dip my cravat in and souse it on my head.”
The water seemed to do him some good, for he presently raised himself a
little higher, resting on Adam’s arm.
“Do you feel any hurt inside sir?” Adam asked again
“No—no hurt,” said Arthur, still faintly, “but rather done up.”
After a while he said, “I suppose I fainted away when you knocked me
down.”
“Yes, sir, thank God,” said Adam. “I thought it was worse.”
“What! You thought you’d done for me, eh? Come help me on my legs.”
“I feel terribly shaky and dizzy,” Arthur said, as he stood leaning on
Adam’s arm; “that blow of yours must have come against me like a
battering-ram. I don’t believe I can walk alone.”
“Lean on me, sir; I’ll get you along,” said Adam. “Or, will you sit
down a bit longer, on my coat here, and I’ll prop y’ up. You’ll perhaps
be better in a minute or two.”
“No,” said Arthur. “I’ll go to the Hermitage—I think I’ve got some
brandy there. There’s a short road to it a little farther on, near the
gate. If you’ll just help me on.”
They walked slowly, with frequent pauses, but without speaking again.
In both of them, the concentration in the present which had attended
the first moments of Arthur’s revival had now given way to a vivid
recollection of the previous scene. It was nearly dark in the narrow
path among the trees, but within the circle of fir-trees round the
Hermitage there was room for the growing moonlight to enter in at the
windows. Their steps were noiseless on the thick carpet of fir-needles,
and the outward stillness seemed to heighten their inward
consciousness, as Arthur took the key out of his pocket and placed it
in Adam’s hand, for him to open the door. Adam had not known before
that Arthur had furnished the old Hermitage and made it a retreat for
himself, and it was a surprise to him when he opened the door to see a
snug room with all the signs of frequent habitation.
Arthur loosed Adam’s arm and threw himself on the ottoman. “You’ll see
my hunting-bottle somewhere,” he said. “A leather case with a bottle
and glass in.”
Adam was not long in finding the case. “There’s very little brandy in
it, sir,” he said, turning it downwards over the glass, as he held it
before the window; “hardly this little glassful.”