by George Eliot
Chapter XXXVII
The Journey in Despair
HETTY was too ill through the rest of that day for any questions to beaddressed to her--too ill even to think with any distinctness of theevils that were to come. She only felt that all her hope was crushed,and that instead of having found a refuge she had only reached theborders of a new wilderness where no goal lay before her. The sensationsof bodily sickness, in a comfortable bed, and with the tendance of thegood-natured landlady, made a sort of respite for her; such a respite asthere is in the faint weariness which obliges a man to throw himself onthe sand instead of toiling onward under the scorching sun.
But when sleep and rest had brought back the strength necessary for thekeenness of mental suffering--when she lay the next morning looking atthe growing light which was like a cruel task-master returning to urgefrom her a fresh round of hated hopeless labour--she began to think whatcourse she must take, to remember that all her money was gone, tolook at the prospect of further wandering among strangers with the newclearness shed on it by the experience of her journey to Windsor. Butwhich way could she turn? It was impossible for her to enter into anyservice, even if she could obtain it. There was nothing but immediatebeggary before her. She thought of a young woman who had been foundagainst the church wall at Hayslope one Sunday, nearly dead with coldand hunger--a tiny infant in her arms. The woman was rescued and takento the parish. "The parish!" You can perhaps hardly understand theeffect of that word on a mind like Hetty's, brought up among people whowere somewhat hard in their feelings even towards poverty, who livedamong the fields, and had little pity for want and rags as a cruelinevitable fate such as they sometimes seem in cities, but held thema mark of idleness and vice--and it was idleness and vice that broughtburdens on the parish. To Hetty the "parish" was next to the prisonin obloquy, and to ask anything of strangers--to beg--lay in the samefar-off hideous region of intolerable shame that Hetty had all her lifethought it impossible she could ever come near. But now the remembranceof that wretched woman whom she had seen herself, on her way fromchurch, being carried into Joshua Rann's, came back upon her with thenew terrible sense that there was very little now to divide HER fromthe same lot. And the dread of bodily hardship mingled with the dreadof shame; for Hetty had the luxurious nature of a round soft-coated petanimal.
How she yearned to be back in her safe home again, cherished and caredfor as she had always been! Her aunt's scolding about trifles would havebeen music to her ears now; she longed for it; she used to hear it in atime when she had only trifles to hide. Could she be the same Hetty thatused to make up the butter in the dairy with the Guelder roses peepingin at the window--she, a runaway whom her friends would not open theirdoors to again, lying in this strange bed, with the knowledge thatshe had no money to pay for what she received, and must offer thosestrangers some of the clothes in her basket? It was then she thought ofher locket and ear-rings, and seeing her pocket lie near, she reached itand spread the contents on the bed before her. There were the locket andear-rings in the little velvet-lined boxes, and with them there was abeautiful silver thimble which Adam had bought her, the words "Rememberme" making the ornament of the border; a steel purse, with her oneshilling in it; and a small red-leather case, fastening with a strap.Those beautiful little ear-rings, with their delicate pearls and garnet,that she had tried in her ears with such longing in the bright sunshineon the 30th of July! She had no longing to put them in her ears now: herhead with its dark rings of hair lay back languidly on the pillow, andthe sadness that rested about her brow and eyes was something too hardfor regretful memory. Yet she put her hands up to her ears: it wasbecause there were some thin gold rings in them, which were also wortha little money. Yes, she could surely get some money for her ornaments:those Arthur had given her must have cost a great deal of money. Thelandlord and landlady had been good to her; perhaps they would help herto get the money for these things.
But this money would not keep her long. What should she do when it wasgone? Where should she go? The horrible thought of want and beggarydrove her once to think she would go back to her uncle and aunt and askthem to forgive her and have pity on her. But she shrank from that ideaagain, as she might have shrunk from scorching metal. She could neverendure that shame before her uncle and aunt, before Mary Burge, and theservants at the Chase, and the people at Broxton, and everybody who knewher. They should never know what had happened to her. What could she do?She would go away from Windsor--travel again as she had done the lastweek, and get among the flat green fields with the high hedges roundthem, where nobody could see her or know her; and there, perhaps, whenthere was nothing else she could do, she should get courage to drownherself in some pond like that in the Scantlands. Yes, she would getaway from Windsor as soon as possible: she didn't like these people atthe inn to know about her, to know that she had come to look for CaptainDonnithorne. She must think of some reason to tell them why she hadasked for him.
With this thought she began to put the things back into her pocket,meaning to get up and dress before the landlady came to her. She had herhand on the red-leather case, when it occurred to her that there mightbe something in this case which she had forgotten--something worthselling; for without knowing what she should do with her life, shecraved the means of living as long as possible; and when we desireeagerly to find something, we are apt to search for it in hopelessplaces. No, there was nothing but common needles and pins, and driedtulip-petals between the paper leaves where she had written down herlittle money-accounts. But on one of these leaves there was a name,which, often as she had seen it before, now flashed on Hetty's mind likea newly discovered message. The name was--Dinah Morris, Snowfield. Therewas a text above it, written, as well as the name, by Dinah's own handwith a little pencil, one evening that they were sitting together andHetty happened to have the red case lying open before her. Hetty did notread the text now: she was only arrested by the name. Now, for the firsttime, she remembered without indifference the affectionate kindnessDinah had shown her, and those words of Dinah in the bed-chamber--thatHetty must think of her as a friend in trouble. Suppose she were to goto Dinah, and ask her to help her? Dinah did not think about things asother people did. She was a mystery to Hetty, but Hetty knew she wasalways kind. She couldn't imagine Dinah's face turning away from her indark reproof or scorn, Dinah's voice willingly speaking ill of her, orrejoicing in her misery as a punishment. Dinah did not seem to belong tothat world of Hetty's, whose glance she dreaded like scorching fire. Buteven to her Hetty shrank from beseeching and confession. She could notprevail on herself to say, "I will go to Dinah": she only thought ofthat as a possible alternative, if she had not courage for death.
The good landlady was amazed when she saw Hetty come downstairs soonafter herself, neatly dressed, and looking resolutely self-possessed.Hetty told her she was quite well this morning. She had only been verytired and overcome with her journey, for she had come a long way to askabout her brother, who had run away, and they thought he was gone for asoldier, and Captain Donnithorne might know, for he had been verykind to her brother once. It was a lame story, and the landlady lookeddoubtfully at Hetty as she told it; but there was a resolute air ofself-reliance about her this morning, so different from the helplessprostration of yesterday, that the landlady hardly knew how to make aremark that might seem like prying into other people's affairs. She onlyinvited her to sit down to breakfast with them, and in the course of itHetty brought out her ear-rings and locket, and asked the landlord ifhe could help her to get money for them. Her journey, she said, had costher much more than she expected, and now she had no money to get back toher friends, which she wanted to do at once.
It was not the first time the landlady had seen the ornaments, for shehad examined the contents of Hetty's pocket yesterday, and she and herhusband had discussed the fact of a country girl having these beautifulthings, with a stronger conviction than ever that Hetty had beenmiserably deluded by the fine young officer.
"Well," said the landlord
, when Hetty had spread the precious triflesbefore him, "we might take 'em to the jeweller's shop, for there's onenot far off; but Lord bless you, they wouldn't give you a quarter o'what the things are worth. And you wouldn't like to part with 'em?" headded, looking at her inquiringly.
"Oh, I don't mind," said Hetty, hastily, "so as I can get money to goback."
"And they might think the things were stolen, as you wanted to sell'em," he went on, "for it isn't usual for a young woman like you to havefine jew'llery like that."
The blood rushed to Hetty's face with anger. "I belong to respectablefolks," she said; "I'm not a thief."
"No, that you aren't, I'll be bound," said the landlady; "and you'd nocall to say that," looking indignantly at her husband. "The things weregev to her: that's plain enough to be seen."
"I didn't mean as I thought so," said the husband, apologetically,"but I said it was what the jeweller might think, and so he wouldn't beoffering much money for 'em."
"Well," said the wife, "suppose you were to advance some money on thethings yourself, and then if she liked to redeem 'em when she got home,she could. But if we heard nothing from her after two months, we mightdo as we liked with 'em."
I will not say that in this accommodating proposition the landlady hadno regard whatever to the possible reward of her good nature in theultimate possession of the locket and ear-rings: indeed, the effect theywould have in that case on the mind of the grocer's wife had presenteditself with remarkable vividness to her rapid imagination. The landlordtook up the ornaments and pushed out his lips in a meditative manner.He wished Hetty well, doubtless; but pray, how many of your well-wisherswould decline to make a little gain out of you? Your landlady issincerely affected at parting with you, respects you highly, and willreally rejoice if any one else is generous to you; but at the sametime she hands you a bill by which she gains as high a percentage aspossible.
"How much money do you want to get home with, young woman?" said thewell-wisher, at length.
"Three guineas," answered Hetty, fixing on the sum she set out with, forwant of any other standard, and afraid of asking too much.
"Well, I've no objections to advance you three guineas," said thelandlord; "and if you like to send it me back and get the jewelleryagain, you can, you know. The Green Man isn't going to run away."
"Oh yes, I'll be very glad if you'll give me that," said Hetty, relievedat the thought that she would not have to go to the jeweller's and bestared at and questioned.
"But if you want the things again, you'll write before long," said thelandlady, "because when two months are up, we shall make up our minds asyou don't want 'em."
"Yes," said Hetty indifferently.
The husband and wife were equally content with this arrangement. Thehusband thought, if the ornaments were not redeemed, he could make agood thing of it by taking them to London and selling them. The wifethought she would coax the good man into letting her keep them. Andthey were accommodating Hetty, poor thing--a pretty, respectable-lookingyoung woman, apparently in a sad case. They declined to take anythingfor her food and bed: she was quite welcome. And at eleven o'clock Hettysaid "Good-bye" to them with the same quiet, resolute air she had wornall the morning, mounting the coach that was to take her twenty milesback along the way she had come.
There is a strength of self-possession which is the sign that thelast hope has departed. Despair no more leans on others than perfectcontentment, and in despair pride ceases to be counteracted by the senseof dependence.
Hetty felt that no one could deliver her from the evils that would makelife hateful to her; and no one, she said to herself, should ever knowher misery and humiliation. No; she would not confess even to Dinah. Shewould wander out of sight, and drown herself where her body would neverbe found, and no one should know what had become of her.
When she got off this coach, she began to walk again, and take cheaprides in carts, and get cheap meals, going on and on without distinctpurpose, yet strangely, by some fascination, taking the way she hadcome, though she was determined not to go back to her own country.Perhaps it was because she had fixed her mind on the grassy Warwickshirefields, with the bushy tree-studded hedgerows that made a hiding-placeeven in this leafless season. She went more slowly than she came, oftengetting over the stiles and sitting for hours under the hedgerows,looking before her with blank, beautiful eyes; fancying herself at theedge of a hidden pool, low down, like that in the Scantlands; wonderingif it were very painful to be drowned, and if there would be anythingworse after death than what she dreaded in life. Religious doctrines hadtaken no hold on Hetty's mind. She was one of those numerous peoplewho have had godfathers and godmothers, learned their catechism, beenconfirmed, and gone to church every Sunday, and yet, for any practicalresult of strength in life, or trust in death, have never appropriated asingle Christian idea or Christian feeling. You would misunderstandher thoughts during these wretched days, if you imagined that they wereinfluenced either by religious fears or religious hopes.
She chose to go to Stratford-on-Avon again, where she had gone before bymistake, for she remembered some grassy fields on her former way towardsit--fields among which she thought she might find just the sort of poolshe had in her mind. Yet she took care of her money still; she carriedher basket; death seemed still a long way off, and life was so strongin her. She craved food and rest--she hastened towards them at the verymoment she was picturing to herself the bank from which she would leaptowards death. It was already five days since she had left Windsor, forshe had wandered about, always avoiding speech or questioning looks,and recovering her air of proud self-dependence whenever she was underobservation, choosing her decent lodging at night, and dressing herselfneatly in the morning, and setting off on her way steadily, or remainingunder shelter if it rained, as if she had a happy life to cherish.
And yet, even in her most self-conscious moments, the face was sadlydifferent from that which had smiled at itself in the old specked glass,or smiled at others when they glanced at it admiringly. A hard and evenfierce look had come in the eyes, though their lashes were as long asever, and they had all their dark brightness. And the cheek was neverdimpled with smiles now. It was the same rounded, pouting, childishprettiness, but with all love and belief in love departed from it--thesadder for its beauty, like that wondrous Medusa-face, with thepassionate, passionless lips.
At last she was among the fields she had been dreaming of, on a longnarrow pathway leading towards a wood. If there should be a pool in thatwood! It would be better hidden than one in the fields. No, it was not awood, only a wild brake, where there had once been gravel-pits, leavingmounds and hollows studded with brushwood and small trees. She roamed upand down, thinking there was perhaps a pool in every hollow before shecame to it, till her limbs were weary, and she sat down to rest. Theafternoon was far advanced, and the leaden sky was darkening, as if thesun were setting behind it. After a little while Hetty started up again,feeling that darkness would soon come on and she must put off findingthe pool till to-morrow, and make her way to some shelter for the night.She had quite lost her way in the fields, and might as well go in onedirection as another, for aught she knew. She walked through field afterfield, and no village, no house was in sight; but there, at the cornerof this pasture, there was a break in the hedges; the land seemed todip down a little, and two trees leaned towards each other across theopening. Hetty's heart gave a great beat as she thought there must bea pool there. She walked towards it heavily over the tufted grass, withpale lips and a sense of trembling. It was as if the thing were come inspite of herself, instead of being the object of her search.
There it was, black under the darkening sky: no motion, no sound near.She set down her basket, and then sank down herself on the grass,trembling. The pool had its wintry depth now: by the time it gotshallow, as she remembered the pools did at Hayslope, in the summer,no one could find out that it was her body. But then there was herbasket--she must hide that too. She must throw it into the water--makeit heavy wi
th stones first, and then throw it in. She got up to lookabout for stones, and soon brought five or six, which she laid downbeside her basket, and then sat down again. There was no need tohurry--there was all the night to drown herself in. She sat leaning herelbow on the basket. She was weary, hungry. There were some buns in herbasket--three, which she had supplied herself with at the place whereshe ate her dinner. She took them out now and ate them eagerly, and thensat still again, looking at the pool. The soothed sensation that cameover her from the satisfaction of her hunger, and this fixed dreamyattitude, brought on drowsiness, and presently her head sank down on herknees. She was fast asleep.
When she awoke it was deep night, and she felt chill. She was frightenedat this darkness--frightened at the long night before her. If she couldbut throw herself into the water! No, not yet. She began to walk aboutthat she might get warm again, as if she would have more resolutionthen. Oh how long the time was in that darkness! The bright hearth andthe warmth and the voices of home, the secure uprising and lying down,the familiar fields, the familiar people, the Sundays and holidays withtheir simple joys of dress and feasting--all the sweets of her younglife rushed before her now, and she seemed to be stretching her armstowards them across a great gulf. She set her teeth when she thought ofArthur. She cursed him, without knowing what her cursing would do. Shewished he too might know desolation, and cold, and a life of shame thathe dared not end by death.
The horror of this cold, and darkness, and solitude--out of all humanreach--became greater every long minute. It was almost as if she weredead already, and knew that she was dead, and longed to get back to lifeagain. But no: she was alive still; she had not taken the dreadfulleap. She felt a strange contradictory wretchedness and exultation:wretchedness, that she did not dare to face death; exultation, that shewas still in life--that she might yet know light and warmth again. Shewalked backwards and forwards to warm herself, beginning to discernsomething of the objects around her, as her eyes became accustomed tothe night--the darker line of the hedge, the rapid motion of some livingcreature--perhaps a field-mouse--rushing across the grass. She no longerfelt as if the darkness hedged her in. She thought she could walk backacross the field, and get over the stile; and then, in the very nextfield, she thought she remembered there was a hovel of furze near asheepfold. If she could get into that hovel, she would be warmer. Shecould pass the night there, for that was what Alick did at Hayslopein lambing-time. The thought of this hovel brought the energy of a newhope. She took up her basket and walked across the field, but it wassome time before she got in the right direction for the stile. Theexercise and the occupation of finding the stile were a stimulus to her,however, and lightened the horror of the darkness and solitude. Therewere sheep in the next field, and she startled a group as she set downher basket and got over the stile; and the sound of their movementcomforted her, for it assured her that her impression was right--thiswas the field where she had seen the hovel, for it was the field wherethe sheep were. Right on along the path, and she would get to it. Shereached the opposite gate, and felt her way along its rails and therails of the sheep-fold, till her hand encountered the pricking of thegorsy wall. Delicious sensation! She had found the shelter. She gropedher way, touching the prickly gorse, to the door, and pushed it open.It was an ill-smelling close place, but warm, and there was straw onthe ground. Hetty sank down on the straw with a sense of escape. Tearscame--she had never shed tears before since she left Windsor--tears andsobs of hysterical joy that she had still hold of life, that shewas still on the familiar earth, with the sheep near her. The veryconsciousness of her own limbs was a delight to her: she turned up hersleeves, and kissed her arms with the passionate love of life. Soonwarmth and weariness lulled her in the midst of her sobs, and she fellcontinually into dozing, fancying herself at the brink of the poolagain--fancying that she had jumped into the water, and then awakingwith a start, and wondering where she was. But at last deep dreamlesssleep came; her head, guarded by her bonnet, found a pillow againstthe gorsy wall, and the poor soul, driven to and fro between two equalterrors, found the one relief that was possible to it--the relief ofunconsciousness.
Alas! That relief seems to end the moment it has begun. It seemed toHetty as if those dozen dreams had only passed into another dream--thatshe was in the hovel, and her aunt was standing over her with a candlein her hand. She trembled under her aunt's glance, and opened her eyes.There was no candle, but there was light in the hovel--the light ofearly morning through the open door. And there was a face looking downon her; but it was an unknown face, belonging to an elderly man in asmock-frock.
"Why, what do you do here, young woman?" the man said roughly.
Hetty trembled still worse under this real fear and shame than she haddone in her momentary dream under her aunt's glance. She felt that shewas like a beggar already--found sleeping in that place. But in spite ofher trembling, she was so eager to account to the man for her presencehere, that she found words at once.
"I lost my way," she said. "I'm travelling--north'ard, and I got awayfrom the road into the fields, and was overtaken by the dark. Will youtell me the way to the nearest village?"
She got up as she was speaking, and put her hands to her bonnet toadjust it, and then laid hold of her basket.
The man looked at her with a slow bovine gaze, without giving her anyanswer, for some seconds. Then he turned away and walked towards thedoor of the hovel, but it was not till he got there that he stood still,and, turning his shoulder half-round towards her, said, "Aw, I can showyou the way to Norton, if you like. But what do you do gettin' out o'the highroad?" he added, with a tone of gruff reproof. "Y'ull be gettin'into mischief, if you dooant mind."
"Yes," said Hetty, "I won't do it again. I'll keep in the road, ifyou'll be so good as show me how to get to it."
"Why dooant you keep where there's a finger-poasses an' folks to ax theway on?" the man said, still more gruffly. "Anybody 'ud think you was awild woman, an' look at yer."
Hetty was frightened at this gruff old man, and still more at this lastsuggestion that she looked like a wild woman. As she followed him out ofthe hovel she thought she would give him a sixpence for telling her theway, and then he would not suppose she was wild. As he stopped to pointout the road to her, she put her hand in her pocket to get the six-penceready, and when he was turning away, without saying good-morning,she held it out to him and said, "Thank you; will you please to takesomething for your trouble?"
He looked slowly at the sixpence, and then said, "I want none o' yourmoney. You'd better take care on't, else you'll get it stool from yer,if you go trapesin' about the fields like a mad woman a-thatway."
The man left her without further speech, and Hetty held on her way.Another day had risen, and she must wander on. It was no use to think ofdrowning herself--she could not do it, at least while she had money leftto buy food and strength to journey on. But the incident on her wakingthis morning heightened her dread of that time when her money would beall gone; she would have to sell her basket and clothes then, and shewould really look like a beggar or a wild woman, as the man had said.The passionate joy in life she had felt in the night, after escapingfrom the brink of the black cold death in the pool, was gone now.Life now, by the morning light, with the impression of that man's hardwondering look at her, was as full of dread as death--it was worse; itwas a dread to which she felt chained, from which she shrank and shrankas she did from the black pool, and yet could find no refuge from it.
She took out her money from her purse, and looked at it. She had stilltwo-and-twenty shillings; it would serve her for many days more, or itwould help her to get on faster to Stonyshire, within reach ofDinah. The thought of Dinah urged itself more strongly now, since theexperience of the night had driven her shuddering imagination away fromthe pool. If it had been only going to Dinah--if nobody besides Dinahwould ever know--Hetty could have made up her mind to go to her. Thesoft voice, the pitying eyes, would have drawn her. But afterwards theother people must know, and she
could no more rush on that shame thanshe could rush on death.
She must wander on and on, and wait for a lower depth of despair to giveher courage. Perhaps death would come to her, for she was getting lessand less able to bear the day's weariness. And yet--such is the strangeaction of our souls, drawing us by a lurking desire towards the veryends we dread--Hetty, when she set out again from Norton, asked thestraightest road northwards towards Stonyshire, and kept it all thatday.
Poor wandering Hetty, with the rounded childish face and the hard,unloving, despairing soul looking out of it--with the narrow heartand narrow thoughts, no room in them for any sorrows but her own, andtasting that sorrow with the more intense bitterness! My heart bleedsfor her as I see her toiling along on her weary feet, or seated ina cart, with her eyes fixed vacantly on the road before her, neverthinking or caring whither it tends, till hunger comes and makes herdesire that a village may be near.
What will be the end, the end of her objectless wandering, apart fromall love, caring for human beings only through her pride, clinging tolife only as the hunted wounded brute clings to it?
God preserve you and me from being the beginners of such misery!
