 CHAPTER 31 It was no longer light enough to go to bed without a candle, even in Mrs. Poiser's early household, and Hedy carried one with her as she went up at last to her bedroom soon after Adam was gone and bolted the door behind her. Now she would read her letter. It must. It must have comfort in it. How was Adam to know the truth? It was always likely he should say what he did say. She sat down the candle and took out the letter. I had a faint scent of roses, which made her feel as if Arthur were close to her. She put it to her lips in a rush of remembered sensations for a moment or two swept away all fear. But her heart began to flutter strangely, in her hands to tremble as she broke the seal. She read slowly. It was not easy for her to read a gentleman's handwriting, though Arthur had taken pains to write plainly. DEAR AS TEDDY I have spoken truly when I have said that I loved you, and I shall never forget our love. I shall be your true friend as long as life lasts, and I hope to prove this to you in many ways. If I say anything to pain you in this letter, do not believe it is for want of love and tenderness towards you, for there is nothing I would not do for you if I knew it to be really for your happiness. I cannot bear to think of my little heady shedding tears when I am not there to kiss them away, and if I followed only my own inclinations I should be with her at this moment instead of writing. It is very hard for me to part from her, harder still for me to write words which may seem unkind, though they spring from the truest kindness. DEAR, DEAR HEDDY, sweet as our love has been to me, sweet as it would be to me for you to love me always, I feel that it would have been better for us both if we had never had that happiness, and that it is my duty to ask you to love me and care for me as little as you can. The fault has been all mine, for though I have been unable to resist the longing to be near you, I have felt all the while that your affection for me might cause you grief. I ought to have resisted my feelings. I should have done so if I had been a better fellow than I am. But now, since the past cannot be altered, I am bound to save you from any evil that I have power to prevent, and I feel it would be a great evil for you if your affections continued so fixed on me that you could think of no other man who might be able to make you happier by his love than I ever can, and if you continue to look towards something in the future which cannot possibly happen. 4. Dear Hetty, if I were to do what you one day spoke of and make you my wife, I should do what you yourself would come to feel was for your misery instead of your welfare. I know you can never be happy except by marrying a man in your own station, and if I were to marry you now, I should only be adding to any wrong I have done, besides offending against my duty and the other relations of life. You know nothing, dear Hetty, of the world in which I must always live, and you would soon begin to dislike me, because there would be so little in which we should be alike. And since I cannot marry you, we must part. We must try not to feel like lovers any more. I am miserable while I say this, but nothing else can be. Be angry with me, my sweet one, I deserve it. But do not believe that I shall not always care for you. Always be grateful to you. Always remember my Hetty. And if any trouble should come that we do not now foresee, trust in me to do everything that lies in my power. I have told you where you are to direct the letter to if you want to write, but I put it down below lest you should have forgotten. Do not write unless there is something I can really do for you, for, dear Hetty, we must try to think of each other as little as we can. Forgive me and try to forget everything about me, except that I shall be, as long as I live, your affectionate friend, Arthur Donathon. Slowly Hetty read his letter, and when she looked up from it there was a reflection of a blanched face in the old dim glass, a white marble face with rounded childish forms, but with something sadder than a child's pain in it. Hetty did not see the face. She saw nothing. She only felt that she was cold and sick and trembling. The letter shook and rustled in her hand. She laid it down. It was a horrible sensation, this cold and trembling. It swept away the very ideas that produced it, and Hetty got up to reach a warm cloak from her clothes-press, wrapped it around her, and sat as if she were thinking of nothing but getting warm. Presently she took up the letter with a firmer hand and began to read it through again. The tears came this time. Great rushing tears that blinded her and blotched the paper. She felt nothing, but that Arthur was cruel. Cruel to write so. Cruel not to marry her. Reasons why he could not marry her had no existence for her mind. How could she believe in any misery that could come to her from the fulfillment of all that she had been longing for and dreaming of? She had not the ideas that could make up the notion of that misery. As she threw down the letter again she caught sight of her face in the glass. It was red and now and wet with tears. It was almost like a companion that she might complain to that would pity her. She leaned forward on her elbows and looked into those dark, over-flooding eyes and at the quivering mouth, and saw how the tears came thicker and thicker and how the mouth became convulsed with sobs. The shattering of all her little dream-world, the crushing blow on her newborn passion, afflicted her pleasure-craving nature with an overpowering pain that annihilated all impulse to resistance, and suspended her anger. She sat sobbing till the candle went out, and then, wearied, aching, stupefied with crying, threw herself on the bed without undressing and went to sleep. There was a feeble dawn in the room when Hedi awoke, a little after four o'clock with a sense of dull misery, the cause of which broke upon her gradually as she began to discern the objects around her in the dim light. And then came the frightening thought that she had to conceal her misery as well as to bear it, in this dreary daylight that was coming. She could lie no longer. She got up and went towards the table. There lay the letter. She opened her treasure drawer. There lay the earrings and the locket, the signs of all her short happiness, the signs of the lifelong drearyness that was to follow it. Looking at the little trinkets which she had once eyed and fingered so fondly as the earnest of her future paradise of finery, she lived back in the moments when they had been given to her with such tender caresses, such strangely pretty words, such glowing looks which filled her with a bewildering delicious surprise. They were so much sweeter than she had thought anything could be. When the Arthur had spoken to her and looked at her in this way, who was present with her now, whose arms she felt round her, his cheek against hers, his very breath upon her, was the cruel, cruel Arthur who had written that letter. That letter which she snatched and crushed and then opened again, that she might read it once more. The half-beenumbed mental condition which was the effect of last night's violent crying made it necessary to her to look again and see if her wretched thoughts were actually true. But the letter was really so cruel. She had to hold it close to the window, else she could not have read it by the faint light. Yes, it was worse, it was a more cruel. She crushed it up in anger. She hated the writer of that letter, hated him for the very reason that she hung upon him with all her love, all the girlish passion and vanity that made up her love. She had no tears this morning. She had wept them all away last night, and now she felt that dry-eyed morning misery which is worse than the first shock because it has the future in it as well as the present. Every morning to come, as far as her imagination could stretch, she would have to get up and feel that they would have no joy for her. For there is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is like to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope. As Hedy began languidly to take off the clothes she had worn all night that she might wash herself and brush her hair, she had a sickening sense that her life would go on in this way. She should always be doing things she had no pleasure in, getting up to the old tasks of work, seeing people she cared nothing about, going church into Treadleston and to tea with Mrs. Best, and carrying no happy thought with her. For her the short, poisonous delights had spoiled forever the little joys that had once made the sweetness of her life. The new frock ready for Treadleston fair, the party at Mr. Britton's at Brockston Wake, the bow that she would say no to for a long while, and the prospect of the wedding that was to come at last when she would have a silk gown and a great many clothes all at once. These things were all flat and dreary to her now. Everything would be a weariness, as she would carry about forever a hopeless thirst and longing. She paused in the midst of her languid undressing and leaned against the dark old clothes press. Her neck and arms were bare, her hair hung down in delicate rings, and they were just as beautiful as they were that night two months ago, when she walked up and down this bed chamber glowing with vanity and hope. She was not thinking of her neck and arms now, even in her own beauty was indifferent to her. Her eyes wandered sadly over the dull old chamber, and then looked out vacantly towards the growing dawn. Did a remembrance of Dina come across her mind? Of her foreboding words, which made her angry? Of Dina's affectionate and treated a think of her as a friend in trouble? No, the impression had been too slight to recur. Any affection or comfort Dina could have given her would have been as indifferent to Hetty this morning as everything else was except her bruised passion. She could better bear something quite new than sinking back into the old, everyday round. She would like to run away and lose her hold on the familiar and rush blindly on some unknown condition. Hers was a luxurious and vain nature, not a passionate one, and if she were ever to take any violent measure, she would be urged to it by the desperation of terror. There was not much room for her thoughts to travel in the narrow circle of her imagination, and she soon fixed on the one thing that she would do to get away with her old life. She would ask her uncle to let her go to be a lady's maid. Miss Lydia's maid would help her to get a situation. Perhaps she knew Hetty had her uncle's leave. When she had thought of this, she fastened up her hair and began to wash. It seemed more possible to her to go downstairs and try to behave as usual. She would ask her uncle this very day. On Hetty's blooming health, it would take a great deal of such mental suffering as hers to leave any deep impress, and when she was dressed as neatly as usual in her working dress, with her hair tucked up under her little cap, an indifferent observer would have been more struck with the young roundness of her cheek and neck and the darkness of her eyes and eyelashes than with any signs of sadness about her. But when she took up the crushed letter and put it in her drawer, that she might lock it out of sight, hard smarting tears, having no relief in them as the great drops had that fell last night, forced their way into her eyes. She wiped them away quickly. She must not cry in the daytime. Nobody should find out how miserable she was. Nobody should know she was disappointed about anything, and the thought that the eyes of her aunt and uncle should be upon her gave her the self-command which often accompanies a great dread. For Heddie looked out from her secret misery towards the possibility of their eyes knowing what had happened, as the sick and weary prisoner might think of the possible pillory. They would think her conduct shameful, and shame was torture. That was poor little Heddie's conscience. So she locked up her drawer and went away to her early work. In the evening when Mr. Poiser was smoking his pipe and his good nature was therefore at its superlative moment, Heddie sees the opportunity of her aunt's absence to say, Uncle, I wish you'd let me go for a lady's maid. Mr. Poiser took the pipe from his mouth and looked at Heddie and Myles' prize for some moments. She was sewing and went on with her work industriously. Why? What's put that into your head, my winch? He said at last, after he had given one conservative puff. I should like it. I should like it better than farm work. Nay, nay, you fancy so because you didn't know at my winch. It wouldn't be half so good for your health, nor for your luck a life. I'd like you to stay with us until you've got a good husband. You're my own niece and I wouldn't have you go to service, though it's a gentleman's house, as long as I've got a home for you. Mr. Poiser paused and puffed away at his pipe. I like the needlework, said Heddie. I should get good wages. Has your aunt been a bit sharp-way as to Mr. Poiser? Not noticing Heddie's further argument. You must mind that, my winch. She does it for your good. She wishes you well, and there isn't many aunts as are no kin to you had done by you as she has. No, it isn't my aunt, said Heddie, but I should like the work better. It was all very well for you to learn the work a bit, and I gave my consent to that fast enough so Mr. Pomfret was willing to teach you. For if anything was to happen, it's well to know how to turn your hand to different sorts of things. But I never meant you to go to service, my winch. My families ate their own bread and cheeses for back as anybody knows, Hannah, they father. You wouldn't have liked your grandchild to take wage? Nay, said old Martin, with an elongation of the word, meant to make it bitter as well as negative, while he leaned forward and looked down on the floor. But the winch takes it out of her mother. I had hard work to hold her in here, and she married a spy to me, a fellow with only two head of stock when there should have been aunts' farm. She might well die of the inflammation before she was thirty. It was seldom the old man made so long a speech, but his son's question had fallen like a bit of dry fuel on the embers of a long, unextinguished resentment, which had always made the grandfather more indifferent to Hetty than to his son's children. Her mother's fortune had been spent by that good-for-not sorrel, and Hetty had sorrel's blood in her veins. Poor thing, poor thing, said Martin the Younger, who was sorry to have provoked the retrospective harshness. She had but bad luck, but Hetty's got as good a chance to get in the solid sober husband as any gal of this country. After throwing out this pregnant hint, Mr. Poiser recurred to his pipe in silence, looking at Hetty to see if she did not give some sign of having renounced her ill-advised wish. But instead of that Hetty, in spite of herself, began to cry, half out of ill temper at the Nidale, half out of the day's repressed sadness. Hey, hey, said Mr. Poiser, meaning to check her playfully. Don't let's have any crying. Cryings for them has had got no home. Crying for them is want to get rid of one. What dost think, he continued to his wife, who now came back into the house-place, knitting with fierce rapidity, as if that movement were a necessary function like the twittering of a crab's antenna. Think? Why think we should have the fowl stole before we are much older with that gal, forgetting to lock the pens up a night? What's the matter now, Hetty? What are you crying at? Why, she's been wanting to go for a lady's maid, Mr. Poiser. I tell her we can do better for her than that. I thought she got some maggot in her head. She's gone about with her mouth-buttons up so all day. That's all but going so among them servants at the chase, as we wore fools for letting her go. She thinks it'd be a finer life than being with them as our kin to her and have brought her up since she were no bigger normality. She thinks there's nothing belongs to be in a lady's maid but wearing finer clothes nor she was born to all be bound. It's what rags she can get to stick on her as she's thinking I'm from morn until night, as I often ask her if she wouldn't like to be the mocking in the field, for then she'd be made of rags inside and out. I'll never get my consent to her going for a lady's maid while she's got good friends to take care on her till she's married to somebody who's better, nor one of them valets, as is neither a common man nor a gentleman, and must live on the fat of the land, and like enough to stick his hands under his coat-tails and expect his wife to work for him. I, I, said Mr. Poiser, we must have a better husband for her nor that, and there's better at hand. Come, I wench, give over, cry, and get to bed. I'll do better for you, nor laying you go for a lady's maid. Let's hear no more on't. When Hedy was gone upstairs, he said, I couldn't make it out as she would want to go away, for I thought she'd got a mind to add and bead. She's looked like it a late. And there's no knowing what she's got a liking to, for things take no more hold on her than if she was a dried pea. I believe that go, molly, as is aggravating enough for the matter of that, but I believe she'd care more about leaving us and the children, for all she's been here but a year come Michael must, nor Hedy would, but she's got this notion of being a lady's maid with going among them servants. We might have known that it had led to when we let her go to learn the fine work, but I'll post off to it pretty quick. Deeds be sorry to part with her, if it wasn't for her good, so Mr. Poiser, she's useful to thee of the work. Sorry? Yes, I'm fonder on her, nor she deserves, a little hard-hearted hussy wine to leave us to that way. I can't have had her about me these seven years, I reckon, and done for her, and taught her everything without caring about her. And here I'm having linen spun, and thinking all the while they'll make sheeting and table-clothing for her when she's married. And she'll live of the parish with us and never go out of our sights, like a fool as I am for thinking ought about her as is no better, nor a cherry with a hard stone inside it. Nay, nay, thee must not make much of a trifle, so Mr. Poiser, soothingly. She's fond on us all be bound, but she's young, and gets things in her head as she can't rightly give account on. Them young fillies will run away often without knowing why. Her uncle's answers, however, had another effect on Heddy besides that of disappointing her and making her cry. She knew quite well whom he had in his mind and his allusions to marriage and to a sober, solid husband, and when she was in her bedroom again, the possibility of her marrying Adam presented itself to her in a new light. In a mind where no strong sympathies are at work, where there is no supreme sense of right to which the agitated nature can cling and steady itself to quiet endurance, one of the first results of sorrow is a desperate vague clutching after any deed that will change the actual condition. Poor Heddy's vision of consequences at no more time than a narrow, fantastic calculation of her own probable pleasures and pains was now quite shut out by reckless irritation under present suffering. And she was ready for one of those convulsive, motiveless actions by which wretched men and women leap from a temporary sorrow into a lifelong misery. Why should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did so that it made some change in her life. She felt confident that he would still want to marry her, and any further thought about Adam's happiness in the matter had never yet visited her. Strange, perhaps you will say, this rush of impulse towards a course that might have seemed the most repugnant to her present state of mind and in only the second night of her sadness. Yes, the actions of a little trivial soul like Heddy's struggling amidst the serious, sad destinies of a human being are strange. So are the motions of a little vessel without ballast tossed about on a stormy sea. How pretty it looked with its party-colored sail in the sunlight moored in the quiet may. Let that man bear the loss who loosed it from its moorings. But that will not save the vessel, the pretty thing that might have been a lasting joy. CHAPTER 32 Mrs. Poiser has her say out. The next Saturday evening there was much-excited discussion at the Donothorn Arms concerning an incident which had occurred that very day. No less than a second appearance of the smart man in top boots, said by some to be a mere farmer in treaty for the chase-farm, by others to be the future steward, but by Mr. Cason himself, the personal witness to the stranger's visit, pronounced contemptuously to be nothing better than a bailiff such as Satchel had been before him. No one had thought of denying Mr. Cason's testimony to the fact that he had seen the stranger. Nevertheless, he proffered various corroborating circumstances. I see him myself, he said. I see him coming along by the crab-tree meadow on a bald-faced horse. I'd just been to have a pint. It was after ten in the forenoon when I have my pint as regular as the clock. And I says to Knowles, as drove up with his wagon, you'll get a bit of barley today, Knowles, I says, if you look about you. And then I went round by the rickyard and toward the treadles on road. And just as I come up by the big ash-tree, I see the man in top boots coming along on a bald-faced horse. I wish I may never stir if I didn't. And I stood still till he come up. And I says, good morning, sir. I says, for I wanted to hear the turn of his tongue, as I might know whether he was this countryman. So I says, good morning, sir. It'll all hope for the barley this morning, I think. There'll be a bit got him, if we've good luck. And he says, eh, you may be right. There's no tellin', he says. And I know it by that. Here, Mr. Cason gives a wink, as he didn't come from a hundred mile off. I dare say he'd think me a hot talker, as you loneshire folks all as does any one as talks the right language. The right language, said Bartle-Massie contemptuously. You're about as near the right language as a pig squeaking is like a tune played on a key bugle. Well, I don't know, answered Mr. Cason with an angry smile. I should think a man as has lived among the gentry from abye. It's likely to know what's the right answer, pretty nigh, as well as a schoolmaster. Aye, aye, man, said Bartle, with a tone of sarcastic consolation. You talk the right language for you. When Mike Holdsworth's goat says, eh, it's all right. It'd be unnatural for it to make any other noise. The rest of the party being loneshire men, Mr. Cason had the laugh strongly against him, and wisely fell back on the previous question, which, far from being exhausted in the single evening, was renewed in the churchyard before service the next day, with the fresh interest conferred on all news when there is a fresh person to hear it. And that fresh hearer was Martin Poiser, who, as his wife said, never went boozing with that said at Cason's, a sit in a soken and drink, and looking as wise as a lot of codfish with red faces. It was probably owing to the conversation she had with her husband, on their way from church concerning this problematic stranger that Mrs. Poiser's thoughts immediately reverted to him when, a day or two afterwards, as she was standing at the house door with her knitting, in that eager leisure which came to her when the afternoon cleaning was done, she saw the old squire enter the yard on his black pony, followed by John the Groom. She always cited it afterwards as a case of provision, which really had something more in it than her own remarkable penetration, that the moment she said eyes on the squire she said to herself, I shouldn't have wondered if he's come about that man as is a going to take the chaste farm, wanting Poiser to do something for him without pay. But Poiser's a fool if he does. Something unwanted must clearly be in the wind, for the old squire's visits to his tenetry were rare, and though Mrs. Poiser had during the last twelve month recited many imaginary speeches, meaning even more than met the year, which she was quite determined to make to him the next he appeared within the gates of the hall farm, the speeches had always remained imaginary. Good day, Mrs. Poiser, said the old squire, peering at her with his short-sighted eyes. A mode of looking at her which, as Mrs. Poiser observed, always aggravated me, it was as if he was an insect and he was going to dab his fingernail on you. However, she said, your servant, sir, and curtsied with an air of perfect deference as she advanced toward him, she was not the woman to misbehave toward her betters and fly in the face of the catechism without severe provocation. Is your husband at home, Mrs. Poiser? Yes, sir. Please only in the rickyard, I'll send for him in a minute. If you please, to get down and step in. Thank you, I will do so. I want to consult him about a little matter, but you are quite as much concerned in it, if not more. I must have your opinion, too. Heddy, run and tell your uncle to come in, said Mrs. Poiser, as they entered the house, and the old gentleman bowed low and answered to Heddy's curtsy, while Toddy, conscious of a pinafore stained with gooseberry jam, stood hiding her face against the clock and peeping round furtively. What a fine old kitchen this is, said Mr. Donathon, looking round admiringly. He always spoke in the same deliberate, well-chiseled, polite way, whether his words were sugary or venomous. And you keep it so exquisitely clean, Mrs. Poiser. I like these premises, do you know, beyond any on the estate? Well, sir, sense your fond of them. I should be glad if you let a bit of repairs be done to them for the boardings in that state, as were like to be eaten up with brats and mice, and the cellar you may stand up to your knee and water in it, if you like to go down. But perhaps you'd rather believe my words. Won't you please sit down, sir? Not yet. I must see your dairy. I've not seen it for years, and I hear on all hands about your fine cheese and butter, said the squire, looking politely unconscious that there could be any question on which he and Mrs. Poiser might happen to disagree. I think I see the door open there. You must not be surprised if I cast a covetous eye on your cream and butter. I don't expect that Mrs. Satchel's cream and butter will bear comparison with yours. I can't say, sir. I'm sure. It seldom I see other folks butter, though there's some on it as one's no need to see. The smell's enough. Ah, now this I like, said Mr. Donathon, looking round at the damp temple of cleanliness, bekeeping near the door. I'm sure I should like my breakfast better if I knew the butter and cream came from this dairy. Thank you. That really is a pleasant sight. Unfortunately, my slight tendency to rheumatism makes me afraid of damp. I'll sit down in your comfortable kitchen. Ah, Poiser, how do you do? In the midst of business I see, as usual, I've been looking at your wife's beautiful dairy, the best manager in the parish, is she not? Mr. Poiser had just entered in shirt sleeves and open waistcoat with a face a shade redder than usual from the exertion of pitching. As he stood, red, rotund, and radiant before the small, wiry, cool old gentleman, he looked like a prize apple by the side of a withered crab. Will you please to take this chair, sir? He said, lifting his father's armchair forward a little. You'll find it easy. No, thank you. I never sit in easy chairs, said the old gentleman, seating himself on a small chair near the door. Do you know, Mrs. Poiser, sit down, pray, both of you. I've been far from contented for some time with Mrs. Satchel's dairy management. I think she has not a good method as you have. Indeed, sir, I can't speak to that, said Mrs. Poiser in a hard voice, rolling and unrolling her knitting and looking icily out of the window as she continued to stand opposite the squire. Poiser might sit down if he liked, she thought. She wasn't going to sit down, as if she'd give in to any such smooth-tongued paliver. Mr. Poiser, who looked and felt the reverse of icy, did sit down in his three-cornered chair. And now, Poiser, as Satchel is laid up, I am intending to let the chase farm to a respectable tenant. I'm tired of having a farm on my own hands. Nothing is made the best of in such cases, as you know. A satisfactory bailiff is hard to find. And I think you and I, Poiser, and your excellent wife here, can enter into a little arrangement in consequence, which will be to our mutual advantage. Oh, said Mr. Poiser, with a good-natured blankless of imagination as to the nature of the arrangement. If I'm called upon to speak, sir, said Mrs. Poiser, after glancing at her husband with pity at his softness, you know better than me, but I don't see what the chase farm is to us. We've come barren enough with our own farm. Not but what I'm glad to hear of anybody respectable coming into the parish. There's some as have been brought in as hadn't been looked on in that character. You're likely to find, Mr. Thurl, an excellent neighbor. I assure you, such a one as you will feel glad to have accommodated by the little plan I'm going to mention, especially as I hope you will find it as much to your own advantage as his. Indeed, sir, if it's anything to our advantage, it'll be the first offer of the sort I've heard on. It's them as takes advantage that get advantage in this world, I think. Folks have to wait long enough before it's brought to them. The fact is, Poiser, said the squire, ignoring Mrs. Poiser's theory of worldly prosperity. There is too much dairy land and too little plow land on the chase farm to suit Thurl's purpose. Indeed, he will only take the farm on condition if some change in it. His wife, it appears, is not a clever dairy woman like yours. Now, the plan I'm thinking of is to affect a little exchange. If you were to have the hollow pastures, you might increase your dairy, which must be so profitable under your wife's management. And I should request you, Mrs. Poiser, to supply my house with milk, cream, and butter at the market prices. On the other hand, Poiser, you might let Thurl have the lower and upper ridges. Which really, with our wet seasons, would be a good riddance for you. There is much less risk in dairy land than corn land. Mr. Poiser was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his head on one side, and his mouth screwed up, apparently absorbed in making the tips of his fingers meet so as to represent the perfect accuracy the ribs of a ship. He was much too acute a man not to see through the whole business and to foresee perfectly what would be his wife's view of the subject. But he disliked giving unpleasant answers. Unless it was on a point of farming practice, he would rather give up than have a quarrel any day. And after all, it mattered more to his wife than to him. So after a few moments' silence, he looked up at her and said mildly, What dost say? Mrs. Poiser had had her eyes fixed on her husband with cold severity during his silence. But now she turned away her head with a toss, looked icily at the opposite roof of the cow shed, and spearing her knitting together with the loose pin held it firmly between her clasped hands. Say, Why I say you may do as you like about giving up any of your corn land before your lease is up, which it won't be for a year come next, Michael But I'll not consent to take more dairy work into my hands either for love or money, and there's neither love nor money here as I can see. Only other folks love of their sales, and the money as is to go into other folks' pockets. I know there's them as is born to own the land, and them as is born to sweat on it. Here Mrs. Poiser paused to gasp a little. And I know it's Chris and folks duty to submit to their bedders, as fur as flesh and blood will bear it. But I'll not make a barter of myself and wear myself to skin and bone and wort myself, as if I was a churd with butter a-coming in it, for no landlord in England, not if he was King George himself. No, no, my dear Mrs. Poiser, certainly not, said the squire, still confident in his own powers of persuasion. You must not overwork yourself. But don't you think your work will rather be lessened than increased in this way? There is so much milk required at the abbey that you will have little increase of cheese and butter-making for the addition to your dairy. And I believe selling the milk is the most profitable way of disposing of dairy produce, is it not? Aye, that's true, said Mr. Poiser, unable to repress an opinion on a question of farming profits, and forgetting that it was not, in this case, a purely abstract question. Aye, dare say, said Mrs. Poiser bitterly, turning her head halfway towards her husband and looking at the vacant arm chair. Aye, dare say, it's true for men, as sit in the chimney corner and make believe as everything's cut, with ins and outs, to fit in everything else. If you could make a pudding with thinking of the batter, it'd be easy getting dinner. How do I know whether the milk will be wanted constant? What's to make me sure, as the house won't be put a board wage of four or many months older? And then I may have to lie here awake at nights with twenty gallons of milk on my mind, and ding a little take no more butter, let alone paying for it. And we must fat pigs till we're obliged to beg the butcher on our knees to buy them, and lose half of them with the measles. And there's the fetching and the carrying, as it be welly half a day's work for a man and house, that's to be took out of the profits, I reckon. But there's folks that hold a sieve under the pump and expect to carry away with the water. That difficulty about the fetching and carrying, you will not have, Mrs. Poiser, said the squire, who thought that this entrance into particulars indicated a distant inclination to compromise on Mrs. Poiser's part. Martha will do that regularly, with the cart and pony. Oh, sir, beg in your pardon. I've never been used to having gentle folks' servants coming about my backplaces, a make-and-love to both the girls at the once, and keepin' them with their hands on their hips listening to all the manner of gossip when they should be down on their knees a scourin'. If we're to go to ruin, it shan't be with having our back kitchen turned into a public. Well, Poiser, said the squire, shifting his tactics and looking as if he thought Mrs. Poiser had suddenly withdrawn from the proceedings and left the room. You can turn the hollows into feeding-land. I can easily make another arrangement about supplying my house, and I shall not forget your readiness to accommodate your landlord as well as a neighbor. I know you will be glad to have your lease renewed for three years, when the present one expires. Otherwise, I daresay Thurl, who is a man of some capital, would be glad to take both the farms, as they could be worked so well together. But I don't want to part with an old tenant like you. To be thrust out of the discussion in this way would have been enough to complete Mrs. Poiser's exasperation, even without the final threat. Her husband really alarmed at the possibility of their leaving the old place where he had been bred and born, for he believed the old squire had small spite enough for anything, was beginning a mild remonstrance explanatory of the inconvenience he should find in having to buy and sell more stock with, well, sir, I think it's rather hard when Mrs. Poiser burst in with a desperate determination to have her say out this once, though it were to rain notices to quit and the only shelter were the workhouse. Then, sir, if I may speak, as for all I'm a woman, and there's folks as think a woman's fool enough to stand by and look on while the men sign her soul away, I have a right to speak, for I make one quarter of the rent and save another quarter. I say if Mr. Thurl's so ready to take the farm under you, it's a pity but what he should take this, and see if he likes to live in a house with all the plagues of Egypt in it, with the cellar full of water and frogs and toads hopping up the steps by dozens and the floors rotten and the rats and mice gnawing every bit of cheese and running over our heads as we lie a bed till we expect them to eat us up alive, as it's a mercy they had to eat the children long ago. I should like to see if there's another tenant besides Poiser as it put up with never having a bit of repairs done till the place tumbles down, and not then, only with begging and praying and having to pay half, and being strung up with the rent as it's much if he gets enough out of the land to pay, for all he's put his own money into the ground beforehand. See, if you get a stranger to lead such a life here as that, a maggot must be born in the rotten cheese to like it, I reckon. You may run away from the word, sir, continued Mrs. Poiser following the old squire beyond the door, for after the first moments of stunned surprise he had got up and waving his hand towards her with a smile had walked out towards his pony. But it was impossible for him to get away immediately, for John was walking the pony up and down the yard and was some distance from the causeway when his master beckoned. You may run away from my words, sir, and you may go spin an underhanded ways of doing us a mischief, for you've got old Harry to your friend, though nobody else is. But I tell you for once, as we're not dumb creatures to be abused and made money on by them as it's got the lash in their hands, for wanton knowing how to undo the tackle. And if I'm the one, as speaks my mind, there's plenty of the same way of thinking in this parish and the next to it, for your name's no better than a brimstone match in everybody's nose. If it isn't a two, three old folks as you think of saving your soul by giving them a bit of flannel and a drop of porridge, and you may be right in thinking it'll take but little to save your soul, for it'll be the smallest saving you've ever made with all your scraping. There are occasions on which two servant girls and a wagoner may be a formidable audience, and as the squire rode away on his black pony, even the gift of a short-sightedness did not prevent him from being aware that Molly and Nancy and Tim were grinning not far from him. Perhaps he suspected that sour old John was grinning behind him, which was also the fact. Meanwhile the bulldog, the black-and-tan terrier, Alex Sheepdog, and the gander hissing at a safe distance from the pony's heels carried out the idea of Mrs. Poiser's solo in an impressive quartet. Mrs. Poiser, however, had no sooner seen the pony move off than she turned round, gave the two hilarious damsels a look which drove them into the back kitchen, and, unsparing her knitting, began to knit again with her usual rapidity as she re-entered the house. These done it now, said Mr. Poiser, a little alarmed and uneasy, but not without some triumphant amusement at his wife's outbreak. Yes, I know I've done it, said Mrs. Poiser, but I've had my say out, and I shall be the easier for it all my life. There's no pleasure in living if you're to be corked up forever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel. I shan't repent saying what I think, if I live to be as old as the old squire, and there's little likelihood, for it seems as if them, as aren't wanted here, are the only folks as aren't wanted in the other world. But they wouldn't alike moving from the old place, this Michael-Mess twelve-month, said Mr. Poiser, and going into a strange parish where thee knowest nobody, it'll be hard upon us both, and upon father, too. Eh, it's no use wording, there's plenty of things may happen between this and Michael-Mess twelve-month. The captain may be master of for them, for what we know, said Mrs. Poiser, inclined to take an unusually hopeful view of an embarrassment which had been brought about by her own merit, and not by other people's fault. I'm none for worried-ting, said Mr. Poiser, rising from his three-corner chair and walking slowly towards the door. But I should be loath to leave the old place, and the parish where I was bred and born, and father afore me. We should have leave our roots behind us, I doubt, and never thrive again. CHAPTER 33 The barley was all carried at last, and the harvest suppers went without waiting for the dismal black crop of beans. The apples and nuts were gathered and stored, the scent of whey departed from the farmhouses, and the scent of brewing came in instead. The wood behind the chase, and all the hedgerow trees, took on a solemn splendor under the dark, low-hanging skies. Michael-Mess was come, with its fragrant basketfuls of purple damsons, and its paler purple daisies, and its lads and lasses leaving or seeking service, and winding along between the yellow hedges with their bundles under their arms. But though Michael-Mess was come, Mr. Thurrell, that desirable tenet, did not come to the chase farm, and the old squire, after all, had been obliged to put in a new bailiff. It was known throughout the two parishes that the squire's plan had been frustrated, because the poisers had refused to be put upon. And Mrs. Poisers' outbreak was discussed in all the farmhouses with a zest, which was only heightened by frequent repetition. The news that Boney was come back from Egypt was comparatively insipid, and the repulse of the French in Italy was nothing to Mrs. Poisers' repulse of the old squire. Mr. Irvine had heard a version of it in every parishioner's house, with one exception of the chase. But since he had always, with marvelous skill, avoided any quarrel with the donny thorns, he could not allow himself the pleasure of laughing at the old gentleman's discomforture with anyone besides his mother, who declared that if she were rich, she should like to allow Mrs. Poisers a penchant for life, and wanted to invite her to the parsonage that she might hear an account of the scene for Mrs. Poisers' own lips. No, no, mother, said Mr. Irvine. It was a little bit of a regular justice on Mrs. Poisers' part, but a magistrate like me must not countenance a regular justice. There must be no report spread that I have taken notice of the quarrel. Else I shall lose the little good influence I have over the old man. Well, I like that woman even better than her cream cheeses, said Mrs. Irvine. She has the spirit of three men with that pale face of hers, and she says such sharp things, too. Sharp? Yes, her tongue is like a new-set razor. She's quite original in her talk, too, one of those untaught wits that helped to stock a country with proverbs. I told you that capital thing I heard her say about Craig, that he was like a cock, who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow. Now that's an Aesop's fable in a sentence. But it will be a bad business if the old gentleman turns them out of the farm next Michael must ask, said Mrs. Irvine. Oh, that must not be, and poiser is such a good tenant that Donnythorn is likely to think twice and digest his spleen rather than turn them out. But if he should give them notice at Lady Day, Arthur and I must move heaven and earth to mollify him. Such old parishioners as they are must not go. Ah, there's no knowing what may happen before Lady Day, said Mrs. Irvine. It struck me on Arthur's birthday that the old man was a little shaken. He's 83, you know. It's really an unconscionable age. It's only women who have the right to live as long as that. When they've got old bachelor sons who would be forlorn without them, said Mr. Irvine, laughing and kissing his mother's hand. Mrs. Poiser, too, met her husband's occasional forebodings of a notice to quit with, there's no knowing what may happen before Lady Day. One of those undeniable general propositions, which are usually intended to convey a particular meaning very far from undeniable, but it's really too hard upon a human nature that it should be held a criminal offense to imagine the death even of the king. When he is turned 83, it is not to be believed that any but the dullest Britons can be good subjects under that hard condition. Apart from this foreboding, things went on as much as usual at the Poiser household. Mrs. Poiser thought she noticed a surprising improvement in Heady. To be sure, the girls got closer tempered, and sometimes she seemed as if there was no drawing a word from her with cart robes. But she thought much less about her dress, and went after the work quite eagerly, without any telling. And it was wonderful how she never wanted to go out now. Indeed, it could hardly be persuaded to go, and she bore her aunts putting a stop to her weekly lessons and fine work at the chase without the least grumbling or pounding. It must be, after all, that she had set her heart on Adam at last, and her sudden freak of wanting to be a lady's maid must have been caused by some little peek or misunderstanding between them, which had passed by. For whenever Adam came to the Hall Farm, Heady seemed to be in better spirits and talk more than at other times, though she was almost sullen when Mr. Craig or any other admirer happened to pay a visit there. Adam himself watched her at first with trembling anxiety, which gave way to surprise and delicious hope. Five days after delivering Arthur's letter, he had ventured to go to the Hall Farm again, not without drag, lest the sight of him might be painful to her. She was not in the house place when he entered, and he set talking to Mr. and Mrs. Poiser for a few minutes with a heavy fear on his heart that they might presently tell him Heady was ill. But by and by there came a light step that he knew. And when Mrs. Poiser said, Come Heady, where have you been? Adam was obliged to turn round, though he was afraid to see the changed look there must be in her face. He almost started when he saw her smiling as if she were pleased to see him, looking the same as ever at a first glance, only that she had her cap on, which he had never seen her in before when he came of an evening. Still, when he looked at her again, and again as she moved about or sat at her work, there was a change. The cheeks were as pink as ever, and she smiled as much as she had ever done of late. But there was something different in her eyes, in the expression of her face, in all her movements. Adam thought, something harder, older, less childlike. Poor thing he said to himself. That's always likely. It's because she's had her first heartache. But she's got a spirit to bear up under it. Thank God for that. As the weeks went by, and he saw her always looking pleased to see him, turning up her lovely face towards him, as if she meant him to understand that she was glad for him to come. And going about her work in that same equitable way, making no sign of sorrow, he began to believe that her feelings toward Arthur must have been much lighter than he had imagined in his first indignation and alarm, and that she had been able to think of her girlish fancy, that Arthur was in love with her and would marry her as a folly of which she was timely cured. And it perhaps was, as he had sometimes in his more cheerful moments hoped it would be, her heart was really turning with all the more warmth towards the man she knew to have a serious love for her. Possibly you think that Adam was not at all sagacious in his interpretations, and that it was altogether extremely unbecoming and a sensible man to behave as he did, falling in love with a girl who really had nothing more than her beauty to recommend her, attributing imaginary virtues to her, and even condescending to cleave to her after she had fallen in love with another man, waiting for her kind looks as a patient trembling dog waits for his master's eyes to be turned upon him. But in so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider. It is hard to find rules without exceptions. Of course, I know that, as a rule, sensible men fall in love with the most sensible women of their acquaintance, see through all the pretty deceits of coquettish beauty, never mention themselves loved when they are not loved, cease loving on all proper occasions, and marry the woman most fitted for them in every respect. Indeed, so is to compel the approbation of all the maiden ladies in their neighborhood. But even to this rule an exception will occur now and then in the laps of centuries, and my friend Adam was one. For my own part, however, I respect him none the less. Nay, I think the deep love he had for that sweet, rounded, blossom-like, dark-eyed heady, of whose inward self he was really very ignorant, came out of the strength of his nature, and now out of any inconsistent weakness. Is it any weakness, pray, to be wrought on by exquisite music, to feel its wondrous harmony searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the delicate fibers of life where no memory can penetrate, and binding together your whole being, past and present, in one unspeakable vibration, melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the love that has been scattered through toilsome years, concentrating in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation, all the heart-learned lessons of renouncing sympathy, blending your present joy with past sorrow and your present sorrow with all your past joy? If not, then neither is it a weakness to be so wrought upon by the exquisite curves of a woman's cheek and neck and arms by the liquid depths of her beseeching eyes or the sweet childish pout of her lips. For the beauty of a lovely woman is like music. What can one say more? Beauty has an expression beyond and far above the one woman's soul that its clothes, as the words of genius have a wider meaning than the thoughts that prompted them. It is more than a woman's love that moves us in a woman's eyes. It seems to be a far-off, mighty love that has come near to us and made speech for itself there. The rounded neck, the dimpled arms move us by something more than their prettiness, by their close kinship with all we have known of tenderness and peace. The noblest nature sees the most of this impersonal expression in beauty. It is needless to say that there are gentlemen with whiskers dyed and undyed who see none of it whatever. And for this reason, the noblest nature is often the most blinded to the character of the one woman's soul that the beauty clothes. Wents, I fear, the tragedy of human life is likely to continue for a long time to come in spite of mental philosophers who are ready with the best receipts for avoiding all mistakes of the kind. Our good Adam had no fine words into which he could put his feelings for Heady. He could not disguise mystery in this way with the appearance of knowledge. He called his love frankly a mystery as you have heard him. He only knew that the sight and memory of her moved him deeply, touching the spring of all love and tenderness, all faith and courage within him. How could he imagine narrowness, selfishness, and hardness in her? He created the mind he believed in out of his own, which was large, unselfish, tender. The hopes he felt about Heady softened a little his feelings toward Arthur. Surely his attentions to Heady must have been of a slight kind. They were all together wrong, and such is no man in Arthur's position ought to have allowed himself, but they must have had an air of playfulness about them, which had probably blinded him to their danger and had prevented them from laying any stronghold on Heady's heart. As the new promise of happiness rose for Adam, his indignation and jealousy began to die out. Heady was not made unhappy. He almost believed that she liked him best, and the thought sometime crossed his mind that the friendship which had once seemed dead forever might revive in the days to come, and he would not have to say goodbye to the grand old woods, but would like them better because they were Arthur's. For this new promise of happiness, following so quickly on the shock of pain, had an intoxicating effect on the sober Adam, who had all his life been used to much hardship and moderate hope. Was he really going to have an easy lot after all? It seems so, for at the beginning of November, Jonathan Burge, finding it impossible to replace Adam, had at last made up his mind to offer him a share in the business, without further condition then that he should continue to give his energies to it and renounce all thought of having a separate business of his own. Son-in-law or no son-in-law, Adam had made himself too necessary to be parted with, and his head work was so much more important to Burge than his skill and handicraft, that his having the management of the woods made little difference in the value of his services, and as to the bargain about the squire's timber, it would be easy to call in the third person. Adam saw here an opening into a broadening path of prosperous work, such as he thought of with ambitious longing ever since he was a lad. He might come to build a bridge, or a town hall, or a factory, for he'd always said to himself that Jonathan Burge's building business was like an acorn, which might be the mother of a great tree. So he gave his hand to Burge on that bargain, and went home with his mind full of happy visions, in which my refined reader will perhaps be shocked when I say it, the image of Hetty Hubbard, and smiled over plans for seasoning timber at a trifling expense, calculations as to the cheapening of bricks per thousand by water carriage, and a favorite scheme for the strengthening of roofs and walls with a peculiar form of iron girder. What then? Adam's enthusiasm lay in these things, and our love is in rod, and our enthusiasm as electricity is in rod in the air, exalting its power by subtle presence. Adam would be able to take a separate house now, and provide for his mother and the old one. His prospects would justify his marrying very soon, and if Dyna consented to have Seth, their mother would perhaps be more contented to live apart from Adam. But he told himself that he would not be hasty. He would not try Hetty's feelings for him until it had had time to grow strong and firm. However, tomorrow, after church, he would go to the hall farm and tell them the news. Mr. Poiser, he knew, would like it better than a five pound note, and he should see if Hetty's eyes brightened at it. The months would be short with all he had to fill his mind, and this foolish eagerness which had come over him of late must not hurry him into any premature words. Yet, when he got home and told his mother the good news, and ate his supper, while she sat by almost crying for joy, and wanting him to eat twice as much as usual because of his good luck, he could not help preparing her gently for the coming change by talking of the old house being too small for them all to go on living in it always. End of Chapter 33 Reading by Belinda Brown of Indianapolis, Indiana. Chapter 34 of Adam Beed. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Adam Beed by George Elliott. Chapter 34, The Betrothal. It was a dry Sunday and really a pleasant day for the second of November. There was no sunshine, but the clouds were high, and the wind was so still that the yellow leaves which fluttered down from the hedgerow elms must have fallen from pure decay. Nevertheless, Mrs. Poiser did not go to church, for she had taken a cold too serious to be neglected. Only two winters ago, she had been laid up for weeks with a cold. And since his wife did not go to church, Mr. Poiser considered that on the whole it would be as well for him to stay away too and keep her company. He could perhaps have given no precise form to the reasons that determine this conclusion, but it is well known to all experienced minds that her firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse and medium. However, it was no one from the Poiser family went to church that afternoon except Hedy and the boys. Yet Adam was bold enough to join them after church and say that he would walk home with them. Though all the way through the village, he appeared to be chiefly occupied with Marty and Tommy, telling them about the squirrels in Benton Corpus and promising to take them there someday. But when they came to the fields, he said to the boys, now then, which is the stoutest walker? Himmys gets the home gate first, shall be the first to go with me to Benton Corpus on their donkey. But Tommy must have to start up to the next style because he's the smallest. Adam had never behaved so much like a determined lover before. As soon as the boys had both set off, he looked down at Hedy and said, won't you hang on my arm, Hedy? In a pleading tone, as if he had already asked her and she had refused. Hedy looked up at him smiling me and put her round arm through his in a moment. It was nothing to her putting her arm through Adam's, but she knew he cared a great deal about having her arm through his and she wished him to care. Her heart beat no faster and she looked at the half-bear hedgerows and the plowed field with the same sense of oppressive dullness as before. But Adam scarcely felt that he was walking. He thought Hedy must know that he was pressing her arm a little, very little. Words rushed to his lips that he dared not utter, that he had made up his mind not to utter yet and so he was silent for the length of that field. The calm patience with which he had once waited for Hedy's love, content only with her presence and the thought of the future, had forsaken him since that terrible shock nearly three months ago. The agitations of jealousy had given new restlessness to his passion, had made fear and uncertainty too hard almost to bear. But though he might not speak to Hedy of his love, he would tell her about his new prospects and see if she would be pleased. So when he was enough master of himself to talk, he said, I'm going to tell your uncle some news that'll surprise him, Hedy, and I think he'll be glad to hear it too. What's that? Hedy said indifferently. Why, Mr. Birch has offered me a share in his business and I'm going to take it. There was a change in Hedy's face, certainly not produced by any agreeable impression from this news. In fact, she felt a momentary annoyance and alarm for she had so often heard it hinted by her uncle that Adam might have Mary Birch and a share in the business any day if he liked, that she associated the two objects now and the thought immediately occurred that perhaps Adam had given her up because of what had happened lately and had turned towards Mary Birch. With that thought and before she had time to remember any reasons why it could not be true, came a new sense of forsakenness and disappointment. The one thing, the one person her mind had rested on in its dull wariness had slipped away from her and peevish misery filled her eyes with tears. She was looking on the ground, but Adam saw her face, saw the tears and before he had finished saying, Hedy, dear Hedy, what are you crying for? His eager rapid thought had flown through all the causes conceivable to him and had it last related on half the true one. Hedy thought he was going to marry Mary Birch. She didn't like him to marry. Perhaps she didn't like him to marry anyone but herself. All caution was swept away. All reason for it was gone and Adam could feel nothing but trembling joy. He leaned towards her and took her hand as he said, I could afford to be married now, Hedy. I could make a wife comfortable, but I shall never want to be married if you won't have me. Hedy looked up at him and smiled through her tears as she had done to Arthur that first evening in the wood when she had thought he was not coming and yet he came. It was a febler relief, a febler triumph she felt now, but the great dark eyes and the sweet lips were as beautiful as ever, perhaps more beautiful for there was a more luxuriant womanliness about Hedy of late. Adam could hardly believe in the happiness of that moment. His right hand held her left and he pressed her arm close against his heart as he leaned down towards her. Do you really love me, Hedy? Will you be my own life to love and take care of as long as I live? Hedy did not speak, but Adam's face was very close to hers and she put up her round cheek against his like a kitten. She wanted to be caressed. She wanted to feel as if Arthur were with her again. Adam cared for no words after that and they hardly spoke through the rest of the walk. He only said, I may tell your uncle and aunt may I tie Hedy? And she said yes. The red firelight on the hearth at the hall farm shone on joyful faces that evening when Hedy was gone upstairs and Adam took the opportunity for telling Mr. and Mrs. Poiser and the grandfather that he saw his way to maintaining a wife now and that Hedy had consented to have him. I hope you have no objections against me for her husband, said Adam. I'm a poor man as yet, but she shall want nothing as I can want for her. Objections, said Mr. Poiser, while the grandfather leaned forward and brought out his name. What objections can we have to you, lad? Never mind you being impourish as yet. There's money in your headpiece as there's money in the stone field, but it must have time. Even got enough to begin on and we can do a deal toward the bit of furniture you want. These got feathers and linen to spare plenty, eh? This question was, of course, addressed to Mrs. Poiser, who was wrapped up in warm shawl and was too hoarse to speak with her usual facility. At first she only nodded emphatically, but she was presently unable to resist the temptation to be more explicit. It'd be a poor tale if I had enough feathers and linen, she said hoarsely. When I never sell a fowl but what's plucked and the wheels are going every day of the week. Come, my wench, said Mr. Poiser, when Hetty came down, come and kiss us and let us wish you luck. Hetty went very quietly and kissed the big good-natured man. There, he said, patting her on the back, go and kiss your aunt and your grandfather. I'm as wishful to have you settled well as if you was my own daughter and so is your aunt, I'll be bound, for she's done by you this seven year, Hetty, as if you'd been her own. Come, come now, he went on becoming jokos as soon as Hetty had kissed her aunt and the old man. Adam wants a kiss too, I warrant, and he's a right to one now. Hetty turned away, smiling towards her empty chair. Come, Adam, then, take one, persisted Mr. Poiser, else you aren't half a man. Adam got up, blushing like a small maiden, great strong fellow as he was, and putting his arm round Hetty, stooped down and gently kissed her lips. It was a pretty scene in the red firelight, for there were no candles, why should there be when the fire was so bright and was reflected from all the pewter and the polished oak? No one wanted to work on a Sunday evening, even Hetty felt something like contentment in the midst of all this love. Adam's attachment to her, Adam's caress, stirred no passion in her, were no longer enough to satisfy her vanity, but they were the best her life offered her now. They promised her some change. There was a great deal of discussion before Adam went away about the possibility of his finding a house that would do for him to settle in. No house was empty except the one next to Will Mascary's in the village, and that was too small for Adam now. Mr. Poiser insisted that the best plan would be for Seth and his mother to move and leave Adam in the old home, which might be in large after a while, for there was plenty of space in the woodyard and garden, but Adam objected to turning his mother out. Well, well, said Mr. Poiser at last. We needn't to fix everything tonight. We must take time to consider, and you can't think of getting married a foreaster, and not for long court ships, but there must be a better time to make things comfortable. I, to be sure, said Mrs. Poiser in a hoarse whisper. Christian folks can't be married like hukus, I reckon. I'm a bit daunted, though, said Mr. Poiser, when I think as we may have noticed to quit and be like before to take a farm 20 mile off. Eh, said the old man, staring at the floor and lifting his hands up and down while his arms rested on the elbows of his chair. It's a poor tale if I'm on leave the old spot and be buried in a strange parish, and you'll happen in double rates to pay, he added, looking up at his son. Well, he mustn't fret beforehand, father, said Martin the Younger. Happen the captain will come home and make our peace with the old squire. I build upon that, for I know the captain will see folks righted if he can. End of chapter 34. Chapter 35 of Adam Bede. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Adam Bede by George Eliot. Chapter 35, The Hidden Dread. It was a busy time for Adam, the time between the beginning of November and the beginning of February, and you could see little of Heddy, except on Sundays, but a happy time nevertheless, for it was taking him near and near to March when they were to be married and all the little preparations for their new housekeeping marked the progress towards the longed-for day. Two new rooms had been run up to the old house, for his mother and Seth were to live with them after all. Lisbeth had cried so piteously at the thought of leaving Adam that he had gone to Heddy and asked her if, for the love of him, she would put up with his mother's ways and consent to live with her. To his great delight, Heddy said, yes, either soon she lived with us is not. Heddy's mind was oppressed at that moment with a worse difficulty than poor Lisbeth's ways. She could not care about them. So Adam was consoled for the disappointment he had felt when Seth had come back from his visit to Snowfield and said, it was no use. Dinah's heart wasn't a turn towards marrying. For when he had told his mother that Heddy was willing they should all live together and there was no more need of them to think of parting, she said in a more contented tone that he had hurt her speak in since it had been settled that he was to be married. Hey, my lad, albeit still is the old tabby and they were want to do but the awful work, she won't like to do. And then we needn't apart the platters and things as I stood on the shelf together since before they was born. There was only one cloud that now and then came across Adam's sunshine. Heddy seemed unhappy sometimes, but to all his anxious, tender questions, she replied with an assurance that she was quite contented and wished nothing different. And the next time he saw her, she was more lively than usual. It might be that she was a little overdone with work and anxiety now. For soon after Christmas, Mrs. Poiser had taken another cold, which had brought on inflammation and this illness had confined her to her room all through January. Heddy had to manage everything downstairs and have supply mollies placed too while the good dams awaited on her mistress and she seemed to throw herself so entirely into her new functions, working with a grave steadiness which was new in her that Mr. Poiser often told Adam she was wanting to show him what a good housekeeper he would have but he doubted the lass was overdoing it. She must have a bit of rest when her aunt could come downstairs. This desirable event of Mrs. Poiser's coming downstairs happened in the early part of February when some mild weather thawed the last patch of snow on the Binton Hills. On one of these days, soon after her aunt came down, Heddy went to Treadleston to buy some of the wedding things which were wanting and which Mrs. Poiser had scolded her for neglecting, observing that she supposed it was because they were not for the outside else she'd have bought them fast enough. It was about 10 o'clock when Heddy set off and the slight horror frost that had whiten the hedges in the early morning had disappeared as the sun mounted the cloudless sky. Bright February days have a stronger charm of hope about them than any other days in the year. One likes to pause in the mild rays of the sun and look over the gates at the patient plough horses turning at the end of the furrow and think that the beautiful year is all before one. The birds seem to feel just the same, their notes are as clear as the clear air. There are no leaves on the trees and hedgerows but how green all the grassy fields are and the dark purplish brown of the plowed earth and of the bare branches is beautiful too. What a glad world this looks like as one drives the rides along the valleys and over the hills. I have often thought so when in foreign countries where the fields and woods have looked to me like our English loam shirt, the rich land tilled with just as much care, the woods rolling down the gentle slopes of the green meadows. I have come on something by the roadside which has reminded me that I am not a gnomesher, an image of a great agony, the agony of the cross. It has stood perhaps by the clustering apple blossoms or in the broad sunshine by the cornfield or at the turning by the wood where a clear brook was gurgling below and surely if there came a traveler to this world who knew nothing of the story of man's life upon it, this image of agony would seem to him strangely out of place in the midst of this joyous nature. He would not know that hidden behind the apple blossoms or among the golden corn or under the shrouding boughs of the wood, there might be a human heart beating heavily with anguish, perhaps a young blooming girl not knowing where to turn for refuge from swift advancing shame, understanding no more of this life of ours than a foolish lost lamb wandering farther and farther in the nightfall on the lonely heath yet tasting the bitterest of life's bitterness. Such things are sometimes hidden among the sunny fields and behind the blossoming orchards and the sound of the gurgling brook if you came close to one spot behind a small bush would be mingled for your ear with a despairing human sob. No wonder man's religion has much sorrow in it, no wonder he needs a suffering God. Hedy and her red cloak and warm bonnet with her basket in hand is turning towards the gate by the side of the Treadleston Road but not that she may have a more lingering enjoyment of the sunshine and think with hope of the long unfolding year. She hardly knows that the sun is shining and for weeks now when she has hoped at all it has been for something at which she herself trembles and shudders. She only wants to be out of the high road that she may walk slowly and not care how her face looks as she dwells on wretched thoughts and through this gate she can get into a field path behind the wide thick hedgerows. Her great dark eyes wander blankly over the fields like the eyes of one who is desolate, homeless, unloved not the promise bride of a brave, tender man but there are no tears in them. Her tears were all wept away in the wary night before she went to sleep. At the next style the pathway branches off. There are two roads before her one along by the hedgerow which will by and by lead her into the road again. The other across the fields which will take her much farther out of the way into the scantlins, low shrouded pastures where she will see nobody. She chooses this and begins to walk a little faster as if she had suddenly thought of an object towards which it was worthwhile to hasten. Soon she is in the scantlins where the grassy landslopes gradually downwards and she leaves the level ground to follow the slope. Farther on there is a clump of trees on the low ground and she is making her way towards it. No, it is not a clump of trees but a dark shrouded pool so full with the wintry rains that the underbows of the elder bushes lie low beneath the water. She sits down on the grassy bank against the stooping stem of the great oak that hangs over the dark pool. She has thought of this pool often in the nights of the month that has just gone by and now at last she has come to see it. She clasps her hands around her knees and leans forward and looks earnestly at it as if trying to guess what sort of bed it would make for her young round limbs. No, she has not courage to jump into that cold watery bed and if she had, they might find her. They might find out why she had drowned herself. There is one thing left to her. She must go away, go where they can't find her. After the first oncoming of her great dread, some weeks after her betrothal to Adam, she had waited and waited in the blind vague hope that something would happen to set her free from her terror but she could wait no longer. All the force of her nature had been concentrated on the one effort of concealment and she had shrunk with irresistible dread from every course that could tend towards a betrayal of her miserable secret. Whenever the thought of writing to Arthur had occurred to her, she had rejected it. He could do nothing for her that would shelter her from discovery and scorn among the relatives and neighbors who once more made all her world. Now her airy dream had vanished. Her imagination no longer saw happiness with Arthur for he could do nothing that would satisfy or soothe her pride. No, something else would happen. Something must happen to set her free from this dread. In young, childish, ignorant souls, there is constantly this blind trust in some unshapen chance. It is as hard to a boy or a girl to believe that a great wretchedness will actually befall them as to believe that they will die. But now necessity was pressing hard upon her. Now the time of her marriage was close at hand. She could no longer rest in this blind trust. She must run away. She must hide herself where no familiar eyes could detect her. And then the terror of wandering out into the world of which she knew nothing made the possibility of going to Arthur a thought which brought some comfort with it. She felt so helpless now, so unable to fashion the future for herself that the prospect of throwing herself on him had a relief in it which was stronger than her pride. As she sat by the pool and shuddered at the dark cold water, the hope that he would receive her tenderly, that he would care for her and think for her was like a sense of lulling warmth that made her for the moment indifferent to everything else. And she began now to think of nothing but the skin by which she should get away. She had had a letter from Dinah lately full of kind words about the coming marriage which she had heard of from Seth. And when Hetty had read this letter relapsed to her uncle, he had said, I wish Dinah had come again now for she'd be a comfort to your aunt when you're gone. What do you think, my wench, going to see her as soon as you can be spared and persuading her to come back with you? You might have to persuade her with telling her as your aunt wants her for all she writes of not being able to come. Hetty had not liked the thought of going to Snowfield and felt no longing to see Dinah so she only said, it's so far off, uncle. But now she thought this proposed visit would serve as a pretext for going away. She would tell her aunt when she got home again that she should like the change of going to Snowfield for a week or 10 days. And then when she got to Stonerton where nobody knew her, she would ask for the coach that would take her on the way to Windsor. Arthur was at Windsor and she would go to him. As soon as Hetty had determined on the scheme she rose from the grassy bank of the pool, took up her basket and went on her way to Treadleston for she must buy the wedding things she had come out for though she would never want them. She must be careful not to raise any suspicion that she was going to run away. Mrs. Poiser was quite agreeably surprised that Hetty wished to go and see Dinah and try to bring her back to stay over the wedding. The sooner she went, the better since the weather was pleasant now. And Adam when he came in the evening said if Hetty could set off tomorrow he would make time to go with her to Treadleston and see her safe into the Stonerton coach. I wish I could go with you and take care of you Hetty who said the next morning leaning in at the coach door but she won't stay much beyond the week. The time will seem long. He was looking at her fondly and his strong hand held hers in its grasp. Hetty felt a sense of protection in his presence. She was used to it now. If she could have had the past undone and know no other love than her quiet liking for Adam. The tears rose as she gave him the last look. God bless her for loving me, said Adam as he went on his way to work again with Jeep had his heels. But Hetty's tears were not for Adam. Not for the anguish that would come upon him when he found she was gone from him forever. They were for the misery of her own lot which took her away from this brave tender man who offered up his whole life to her and through her a poor helpless supplyant on the man who would think it a misfortune that she was obliged to cling to him. At three o'clock that day when Hetty was on the coach that was to take her they said to Lester, part of the long, long way to Windsor she felt dimly that she might be traveling all this weary journey towards the beginning of a new misery. Yet Arthur was at Windsor. He would surely not be angry with her. If he did not mind about her as he used to do he had promised to be good to her. End of chapter 35. Chapter 36 of Adam Bede. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Tony Ashworth, Brisbane, Australia. Adam Bede by George Elliott. Chapter 36. The Journey of Hope. A long lonely journey with sadness in the heart away from the familiar to the strange. That is a hard and dreary thing even to the rich, the strong, the instructed. A hard thing even when we are called by duty not urged by dread. What was it then to Hetty? With her poor narrow thoughts no longer melting into vague hopes but pressed upon the chill of definite fear repeating again and again the same small round of memories shaping again and again the same childish doubtful images of what was to come. Seeing nothing in this wide world but the little history of her own pleasures and pains with so little money in her pocket and the way so long and difficult. Unless she could afford always to go in the coaches and she felt sure she could not for the journey to Stonerton was more expensive than she had expected. It was plain that she must trust to carry as cart-sourced flow wagons and what a time it would be before she could get to the end of her journey. The burly old coachman from Oakbourne seeing such a pretty young woman among the outside passengers had invited her to come and sit beside him and feeling that it became him as a man and a coachman to open the dialogue with a joke he applied himself as soon as they were off the stones to the elaboration of one suitable in all respects. After many cuts with his whip and glances at Hetty out of the corner of his eye he lifted his lips above the edge of his wrapper and said, he's pretty nice six foot I'll be bound, isn't he now? Who said Hetty rather startled? Why the sweetheart as you've left behind or else him as you're going after, which is it? Hetty felt her face flushing and then turned pale. She thought this coachman must know something about her. He must know Adam and might tell him where she was gone for it is difficult to country people to believe that those who make a figure in their own parish are not known everywhere else and it was equally difficult to Hetty to understand that chance words could happen to apply closely to her circumstances. She was too frightened to speak. Hey, hey said the coachman seeing that his joke was not so gratifying as he had expected. You might not take it too serious. If he's behaved ill get another. Such a pretty lass as you can get a sweetheart any day. Hetty's fear was allayed by and by when she found that the coachman made no further allusion to her personal concerns but it still had the effect of preventing her from asking him what were the places on the road to Windsor. She told him she was only going a little way out of Stonerton and when she got down at the end where the coach stopped she hastened away with a basket to another part of the town. When she had formed her plan of going to Windsor she had not foreseen any difficulties except that of getting away and after she had overcome this by proposing the visit to Dinah her thoughts flew to the meeting with Arthur and the question how he would behave to her not resting on any probable incidents of the journey. She was too entirely ignorant of traveling to imagine any of its details and with all her store of money her three guineas in her pocket she thought herself amply provided. It was not until she found how much it cost her to get to Stonerton that she began to be alarmed about the journey and then for the first time she felt her ignorance as to the places that must be passed on her way. Oppressed with this new alarm she walked along the grim Stonerton streets and at last turned into a shabby little inn where she hoped to get a cheap lodging for the night. Here she asked the landlord if he could tell her what places she must go to to get to Windsor. Well I can't rightly say Windsor must be pretty nigh London for it's where the King lives was the answer. Anyhow you'd best go to Ashby next that's Southerd but there's as many places from here to London as there's houses in Stonerton by what I can make out. I've never been no traveller myself but how comes a lone young woman like you to be thinking of taking such a journey as that? I'm going to my brother he's a soldier at Windsor said hetty frightened at the landlord's questioning look. I can't afford to go by the coach. Do you think there's a cart goes toward Ashby in the morning? Yes there may be carts if anybody know where they started from but you might run over the town before you found out. You'd best set off and walk and trust to summit overtaking you. Every word sank like lead on hetty spirits she saw the journey stretch bit by bit before her now even to get to Ashby seemed a hard thing it might take the day for what she knew and that was nothing to the rest of the journey but it must be done she must get to Arthur oh how she yearned to be again with somebody who would care for her. She who had never got up in the morning without the certainty of seeing familiar faces people on whom she had an acknowledged claim whose father's journey had been to Rosseter on the pillion with her uncle whose thoughts had always been taking holiday in dreams of pleasure because all the business of her life was managed for her this kitten like hetty who till a few months ago had never felt any other grief than that of envying Mary Burge a new ribbon or being girded at by her aunt for neglecting Totty who must now make her toilsome way in loneliness her peaceful home left behind forever and nothing but a tremulous hope of distant refuge before her now for the first time as she lay down tonight in the strange hard bed she felt that her home had been a happy one that her uncle had been very good to her that her quiet lot at Hayslope among the things and people she knew with her little pride in her one best gown and bonnet and nothing to hide from anyone was what she would like to wake up to as a reality and find that all the feverish life she had known besides was a short nightmare she thought of all she had left behind with yearning regret for her own sake her own misery filled her heart there was no room in it for other people's sorrow and yet before the cruel letter Arthur had been so tender and loving the memory of that had still a charm for her though it was no more than a soothing draft that just made pain bearable for Hettie could conceive no other existence for herself in future than a hidden one and a hidden life, even with love would have had no delights for her still less a life mingled with shame she knew no romances and had only a feeble share in the feelings which are the source of romance so that well-read ladies may find it difficult to understand her state of mind she was too ignorant of everything beyond the simple notions and habits in which she had been brought up to have any more definite idea of her probable future than that Arthur would take care of her somehow and shelter her from anger and scorn he would not marry her and make her a lady and apart from that she could think of nothing he could give towards which she looked with longing and ambition the next morning she rose early and taking only some milk and bread for her breakfast set out to walk on the road towards Ashby under a leaden coloured sky with a narrowing streak of yellow like a departing hope on the edge of the horizon now in her faintness of heart at the length and difficulty of her journey she was most of all afraid of spending her money and becoming so destitute that she would have to ask people's charity for Hetty had the pride not only of a proud nature but of a proud class the class that pays the most poor rates and most shudders at the idea of profiting by a poor rate it had not yet occurred to her that she might get money for her locket and earrings which she carried with her and she applied all her small arithmetic and knowledge of prices to calculating how many meals and how many rides were contained in her two guineas and the odd shillings which had a melancholy look as if they were the pale ashes of the other bright flaming coin for the first few miles out of Stonerton she walked on bravely always fixing on some tree or gate or projecting bush at the most distant visible point in the road as a goal and feeling a faint joy when she had reached it but when she came to the fourth milestone the first she had happened to notice among the long grass by the roadside and read that she was still only four miles beyond Stonerton her courage sank she had come only this little way and yet felt tired and almost hungry again in the keen morning air although Hetty was accustomed to much movement and exertion indoors she was not used to long walks which produced quite a different sort of fatigue from that of household activity as she was looking at the milestone she felt some drops falling on her face it was beginning to rain here was a new trouble which had not entered into her sad thoughts before and quite weighed down by this sudden addition to her burden she sat down on the step of a style and began to sob hysterically the beginning of hardship is like the first taste of bitter food it seems for a moment unbearable yet if there is nothing else to satisfy our hunger we take another bite and find it possible to go on when Hetty recovered from her burst of weeping she rallied her fainting courage it was raining and she must try to get on to a village where she might find rest and shelter presently as she walked on wearily she heard the rumbling of heavy wheels behind her a covered wagon was coming creeping slowly along with a slouching driver cracking his whip beside the horses she waited for it thinking that if the wagoner were not a very sour looking man she would ask him to take her up as the wagon approached her the driver had fallen behind but there was something in the front of the big vehicle which encouraged her at any previous moment in her life she would not have noticed it but now the new susceptibility that suffering had awakened in her caused this object to impress her strongly it was only a small white and liver coloured spaniel which sat on the front ledge of the wagon with large timid eyes and an incessant trembling in the body such as you may have seen in some of these small creatures Hetty cared little for animals as you know but at this moment she felt as if the helpless timid creature had some fellowship with her and without being quite aware of the reason she was less doubtful about speaking to the driver who now came forward a large ruddy man with a sack over his shoulders by way of scarf or mantle could you take me up in your wagon if you're going towards Ashby said Hetty I'll pay you for it or said the big fellow with that slowly dawning smile which belongs to heavy faces I can take you up forced enough without being paid for it if you don't mind lying a bit closest atop of the wool packs where do you come from and what do you want at Ashby I come from Stonerton I'm going a long way to Windsor what? out of some service or what? going to my brother he's a soldier there well I'm going no further nor lester and far enough too but I'll take you if you don't mind being a bit long on the road the horses won't feel your weight no more nor they feel the little duke there as I pack up on the road a fortnight ago here I lost I believe and it's been all of a tremble ever since come gears your basket and come behind and let me put you in to lie on the wool packs with a cranny left between the curtains of the awning to let in the air was luxury to Hetty now and she half slept away the hours till the driver came to ask her if she wanted to get down and have some little he himself was going to eat his dinner at this public late at night they reached lester and so the second day of Hetty's journey was passed she had spent no money except what she had paid for her food but she felt that this slow journeying would be intolerable for her another day and in the morning she found her way to a coach office to ask about the road to Windsor and see if it would cost her too much to go part of the distance by coach again yes the distance was too great the coaches were too dear she must give them up but the elderly clerk at the office touched by her pretty anxious face wrote down for her the names of the chief places she must pass through this was the only comfort she got in lester for the men stared at her as she went along the street and for the first time in her life Hetty wished no one would look at her she set out walking again but this day she was fortunate for she was soon overtaken by a carrier's cart which carried her to Hinkley and by the help of a return chaise with a drunken pastilian who frightened her by driving like jihu the son of nimshi and shouting hilarious remarks at her twisting himself backwards on his saddle she was before night in the heart of woody warwick show but still almost a hundred miles from windsor they told her oh what a large world it was and what hard work for her to find her way in it she went by mistake to strafford on avon finding strafford set down in her list of places and then she was told she had come a long way out of the right road it was not till the fifth day that she got to stony strafford that seems but a slight journey as you look at the map or remember your own pleasant travels to and from the medouy banks of the avon but how wearily long it was to hetty it seemed to her as if this country of flat fields and hedgerows and dotted houses and villages and market towns all so much alike to her indifferent eyes must have no end and she must go on wandering among them forever waiting tired at toll gates for some cart to come and then finding the cart went only a little way a very little way to the millers a mile off perhaps and she hated going into the public houses where she must go to get food and ask questions because there were always men lounging there who stared at her and joked her rudely her body was very weary too with these days of new fatigue and anxiety they had made her look more pale and worn than all the time of hidden dread she had gone through at home when at last she reached stony strafford her impatience and weariness had become too strong for her economical caution she determined to take the coach for the rest of the way though it should cost her all her remaining money she would need nothing at winza but to find Arthur when she had paid the fare for the last coach she had only a shilling and as she got down at the sign of the green man in winza at twelve o'clock in the middle of the seventh day hungry and faint the coachman came up and begged her to remember him she put her hand in her pocket and took out the shilling but the tears came with the sense of exhaustion and the thought that she was giving away her last means of getting food which she really required before she could go in search of Arthur as she held out the shilling she lifted up her dark tear filled eyes to the coachman's face and said can you give me back six months no no he said gruffly nevermind put the shilling up again the landlord of the green man had stood near enough to witness this scene and he was a man whose abundant feeding served to keep his good nature as well as his person in high condition and that lovely tearful face of hetties would have found out the sensitive fiber in most men come young woman come in he said and have a drop of something you're pretty well knocked up i can see that he took her into the bar and said to his wife here mrs take this young woman into the parlour she's a little overcome for hetties tears were falling fast they were merely hysterical tears she thought she had no reason for weeping now and was vexed that she was too weak and tired to help it she was at Windsor at last not far from Arthur she looked with eager hungry eyes at the bread and meat and beer that the landlady brought her and for some minutes she forgot everything else in the delicious sensations of satisfying hunger and recovering from exhaustion the landlady sat opposite to her as she ate and looked at her earnestly no wonder hettie had thrown off her bonnet and her curls had fallen down her face was all the more touching in its youth and beauty because of its weary look and the good woman's eyes presently wandered to her figure which in her hurried dressing on her journey she had taken no pains to conceal moreover the stranger's eye detects what the familiar unsuspecting eye leaves unnoticed why you're not very fit for traveling she said glancing while she spoke at hettie's ringless hand have you come far yes said hettie roused by this question to exert more self-command and feeling the better for the food she had taken i've come a good long way and it's very tiring but i'm better now could you tell me which way to go to this place here hettie took from her pocket a bit of paper it was the end of Arthur's letter on which she had written his address while she was speaking the landlord had come in and had begun to look at her as earnestly as his wife had done he took up the piece of paper which hettie handed across the table and read the address why what do you want at this house he said it is in the nature of innkeepers and all men who have no pressing business of their own to ask as many questions as possible before giving any information i want to see a gentleman as is there said hettie but there's no gentleman there returned the landlord it's shut up being shut up this fortnight what gentleman is it you want perhaps i can let you know where to find him it's captain donathan said hettie tremulously her heart beginning to beat painfully at this disappointment of her hope that she should find Arthur at once captain donathan stop a bit said the landlord slowly was he in the loam shea militia a tall young officer with a fair skin and reddish whiskers and had a servant by the name of pym all you said hettie you know him where is he a fine sight of miles away from here the loam shea militia has gone to Ireland it's been gone this fortnight look there she's fainting said the landlady hastening to support hettie who had lost her miserable consciousness and looked like a beautiful corpse they carried her to the sofa and loosened her dress here's a bad business i suspect said the landlord as he brought in some water ah it's plain enough what sort of business it is said the wife she's not a common flaunting dratchel i can see that she looks like a respectable country girl and she comes from a good way off to judge by her tongue she talks something like that oslo we had that come from the north he was as honest a fellow as we ever had about the house they're all honest folks in the north i never saw a prettier young woman in my life said the husband she's like a picture in a shop window it goes to one's art to look at her it would have been a good deal better for her if she'd been uglier and had more conducts at the landlady who on any charitable construction must have been supposed to have more conduct than beauty but she's coming to again fetch a drop more water end of chapter thirty six recording by tony ashworth brismann