Adam Bede
who was so soon to be his—was to his thoughts what the sweet morning
air was to his sensations: it gave him a consciousness of well-being
that made activity delightful. Every now and then there was a rush of
more intense feeling towards her, which chased away other images than
Hetty; and along with that would come a wondering thankfulness that all
this happiness was given to him—that this life of ours had such
sweetness in it. For Adam had a devout mind, though he was perhaps
rather impatient of devout words, and his tenderness lay very close to
his reverence, so that the one could hardly be stirred without the
other. But after feeling had welled up and poured itself out in this
way, busy thought would come back with the greater vigour; and this
morning it was intent on schemes by which the roads might be improved
that were so imperfect all through the country, and on picturing all
the benefits that might come from the exertions of a single country
gentleman, if he would set himself to getting the roads made good in
his own district.
It seemed a very short walk, the ten miles to Oakbourne, that pretty
town within sight of the blue hills, where he break-fasted. After this,
the country grew barer and barer: no more rolling woods, no more
wide-branching trees near frequent homesteads, no more bushy hedgerows,
but greystone walls intersecting the meagre pastures, and dismal
wide-scattered greystone houses on broken lands where mines had been
and were no longer. “A hungry land,” said Adam to himself. “I’d rather
go south’ard, where they say it’s as flat as a table, than come to live
here; though if Dinah likes to live in a country where she can be the
most comfort to folks, she’s i’ the right to live o’ this side; for she
must look as if she’d come straight from heaven, like th’ angels in the
desert, to strengthen them as ha’ got nothing t’ eat.” And when at last
he came in sight of Snowfield, he thought it looked like a town that
was “fellow to the country,” though the stream through the valley where
the great mill stood gave a pleasant greenness to the lower fields. The
town lay, grim, stony, and unsheltered, up the side of a steep hill,
and Adam did not go forward to it at present, for Seth had told him
where to find Dinah. It was at a thatched cottage outside the town, a
little way from the mill—an old cottage, standing sideways towards the
road, with a little bit of potato-ground before it. Here Dinah lodged
with an elderly couple; and if she and Hetty happened to be out, Adam
could learn where they were gone, or when they would be at home again.
Dinah might be out on some preaching errand, and perhaps she would have
left Hetty at home. Adam could not help hoping this, and as he
recognized the cottage by the roadside before him, there shone out in
his face that involuntary smile which belongs to the expectation of a
near joy.
He hurried his step along the narrow causeway, and rapped at the door.
It was opened by a very clean old woman, with a slow palsied shake of
the head.
“Is Dinah Morris at home?” said Adam.
“Eh?... no,” said the old woman, looking up at this tall stranger with
a wonder that made her slower of speech than usual. “Will you please to
come in?” she added, retiring from the door, as if recollecting
herself. “Why, ye’re brother to the young man as come afore, arena ye?”
“Yes,” said Adam, entering. “That was Seth Bede. I’m his brother Adam.
He told me to give his respects to you and your good master.”
“Aye, the same t’ him. He was a gracious young man. An’ ye feature him,
on’y ye’re darker. Sit ye down i’ th’ arm-chair. My man isna come home
from meeting.”
Adam sat down patiently, not liking to hurry the shaking old woman with
questions, but looking eagerly towards the narrow twisting stairs in
one corner, for he thought it was possible Hetty might have heard his
voice and would come down them.
“So you’re come to see Dinah Morris?” said the old woman, standing
opposite to him. “An’ you didn’ know she was away from home, then?”
“No,” said Adam, “but I thought it likely she might be away, seeing as
it’s Sunday. But the other young woman—is she at home, or gone along
with Dinah?”
The old woman looked at Adam with a bewildered air.
“Gone along wi’ her?” she said. “Eh, Dinah’s gone to Leeds, a big town
ye may ha’ heared on, where there’s a many o’ the Lord’s people. She’s
been gone sin’ Friday was a fortnight: they sent her the money for her
journey. You may see her room here,” she went on, opening a door and
not noticing the effect of her words on Adam. He rose and followed her,
and darted an eager glance into the little room with its narrow bed,
the portrait of Wesley on the wall, and the few books lying on the
large Bible. He had had an irrational hope that Hetty might be there.
He could not speak in the first moment after seeing that the room was
empty; an undefined fear had seized him—something had happened to Hetty
on the journey. Still the old woman was so slow of speech and
apprehension, that Hetty might be at Snowfield after all.
“It’s a pity ye didna know,” she said. “Have ye come from your own
country o’ purpose to see her?”
“But Hetty—Hetty Sorrel,” said Adam, abruptly; “Where is _she?_”
“I know nobody by that name,” said the old woman, wonderingly. “Is it
anybody ye’ve heared on at Snowfield?”
“Did there come no young woman here—very young and pretty—Friday was a
fortnight, to see Dinah Morris?”
“Nay; I’n seen no young woman.”
“Think; are you quite sure? A girl, eighteen years old, with dark eyes
and dark curly hair, and a red cloak on, and a basket on her arm? You
couldn’t forget her if you saw her.”
“Nay; Friday was a fortnight—it was the day as Dinah went away—there
come nobody. There’s ne’er been nobody asking for her till you come,
for the folks about know as she’s gone. Eh dear, eh dear, is there
summat the matter?”
The old woman had seen the ghastly look of fear in Adam’s face. But he
was not stunned or confounded: he was thinking eagerly where he could
inquire about Hetty.
“Yes; a young woman started from our country to see Dinah, Friday was a
fortnight. I came to fetch her back. I’m afraid something has happened
to her. I can’t stop. Good-bye.”
He hastened out of the cottage, and the old woman followed him to the
gate, watching him sadly with her shaking head as he almost ran towards
the town. He was going to inquire at the place where the Oakbourne
coach stopped.
No! No young woman like Hetty had been seen there. Had any accident
happened to the coach a fortnight ago? No. And there was no coach to
take him back to Oakbourne that day. Well, he would walk: he couldn’t
stay here, in wretched inaction. But the innkeeper, seeing that Adam
was in great anxiety, and entering into this new incident with the
eagerness of a man who passes a great deal of time with his hands in
his pockets looking into an obstinately monotonous street, offered to
take him back to Oakbourne in his own “taxed cart” this very evening.
It was not five o’clock; there was plenty of time for Adam to take a
meal and yet to get to Oakbourne before ten o’clock. The innkeeper
declared that he really wanted to go to Oakbourne, and might as well go
to-night; he should have all Monday before him then. Adam, after making
an ineffectual attempt to eat, put the food in his pocket, and,
drinking a draught of ale, declared himself ready to set off. As they
approached the cottage, it occurred to him that he would do well to
learn from the old woman where Dinah was to be found in Leeds: if there
was trouble at the Hall Farm—he only half-admitted the foreboding that
there would be—the Poysers might like to send for Dinah. But Dinah had
not left any address, and the old woman, whose memory for names was
infirm, could not recall the name of the “blessed woman” who was
Dinah’s chief friend in the Society at Leeds.
During that long, long journey in the taxed cart, there was time for
all the conjectures of importunate fear and struggling hope. In the
very first shock of discovering that Hetty had not been to Snowfield,
the thought of Arthur had darted through Adam like a sharp pang, but he
tried for some time to ward off its return by busying himself with
modes of accounting for the alarming fact, quite apart from that
intolerable thought. Some accident had happened. Hetty had, by some
strange chance, got into a wrong vehicle from Oakbourne: she had been
taken ill, and did not want to frighten them by letting them know. But
this frail fence of vague improbabilities was soon hurled down by a
rush of distinct agonizing fears. Hetty had been deceiving herself in
thinking that she could love and marry him: she had been loving Arthur
all the while; and now, in her desperation at the nearness of their
marriage, she had run away. And she was gone to _him_. The old
indignation and jealousy rose again, and prompted the suspicion that
Arthur had been dealing falsely—had written to Hetty—had tempted her to
come to him—being unwilling, after all, that she should belong to
another man besides himself. Perhaps the whole thing had been contrived
by him, and he had given her directions how to follow him to
Ireland—for Adam knew that Arthur had been gone thither three weeks
ago, having recently learnt it at the Chase. Every sad look of Hetty’s,
since she had been engaged to Adam, returned upon him now with all the
exaggeration of painful retrospect. He had been foolishly sanguine and
confident. The poor thing hadn’t perhaps known her own mind for a long
while; had thought that she could forget Arthur; had been momentarily
drawn towards the man who offered her a protecting, faithful love. He
couldn’t bear to blame her: she never meant to cause him this dreadful
pain. The blame lay with that man who had selfishly played with her
heart—had perhaps even deliberately lured her away.
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 Stoniton 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 Stoniton 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