Chapter XXVIII
A Dilemma
IT was only a few minutes measured by the clock--though Adam
always thought it had been a long while--before he perceived a
gleam of consciousness in Arthur's face and a slight shiver
through his frame. The intense joy that flooded his soul brought
back some of the old affection with it.
"Do you feel any pain, sir?" he said, tenderly, loosening Arthur's
cravat.
Arthur turned his eyes on Adam with a vague stare which gave way
to a slightly startled motion as if from the shock of returning
memory. But he only shivered again and said nothing.
"Do you feel any hurt, sir?" Adam said again, with a trembling in
his voice.
Arthur put his hand up to his waistcoat buttons, and when Adam had
unbuttoned it, he took a longer breath. "Lay my head down," he
said, faintly, "and get me some water if you can."
Adam laid the head down gently on the fern again, and emptying the
tools out of the flag-basket, hurried through the trees to the
edge of the Grove bordering on the Chase, where a brook ran below
the bank.
When he returned with his basket leaking, but still half-full,
Arthur looked at him with a more thoroughly reawakened
consciousness.
"Can you drink a drop out o' your hand, sir?" said Adam, kneeling
down again to lift up Arthur's head.
"No," said Arthur, "dip my cravat in and souse it on my head."
The water seemed to do him some good, for he presently raised
himself a little higher, resting on Adam's arm.
"Do you feel any hurt inside sir?" Adam asked again
"No--no hurt," said Arthur, still faintly, "but rather done up."
After a while he said, "I suppose I fainted away when you knocked
me down."
"Yes, sir, thank God," said Adam. "I thought it was worse."
"What! You thought you'd done for me, eh? Come help me on my
legs."
"I feel terribly shaky and dizzy," Arthur said, as he stood
leaning on Adam's arm; "that blow of yours must have come against
me like a battering-ram. I don't believe I can walk alone."
"Lean on me, sir; I'll get you along," said Adam. "Or, will you
sit down a bit longer, on my coat here, and I'll prop y' up.
You'll perhaps be better in a minute or two."
"No," said Arthur. "I'll go to the Hermitage--I think I've got
some brandy there. There's a short road to it a little farther
on, near the gate. If you'll just help me on."
They walked slowly, with frequent pauses, but without speaking
again. In both of them, the concentration in the present which
had attended the first moments of Arthur's revival had now given
way to a vivid recollection of the previous scene. It was nearly
dark in the narrow path among the trees, but within the circle of
fir-trees round the Hermitage there was room for the growing
moonlight to enter in at the windows. Their steps were noiseless
on the thick carpet of fir-needles, and the outward stillness
seemed to heighten their inward consciousness, as Arthur took the
key out of his pocket and placed it in Adam's hand, for him to
open the door. Adam had not known before that Arthur had
furnished the old Hermitage and made it a retreat for himself, and
it was a surprise to him when he opened the door to see a snug
room with all the signs of frequent habitation.
Arthur loosed Adam's arm and threw himself on the ottoman.
"You'll see my hunting-bottle somewhere," he said. "A leather
case with a bottle and glass in."
Adam was not long in finding the case. "There's very little
brandy in it, sir," he said, turning it downwards over the glass,
as he held it before the window; "hardly this little glassful."
"Well, give me that," said Arthur, with the peevishness of
physical depression. When he had taken some sips, Adam said,
"Hadn't I better run to th' house, sir, and get some more brandy?
I can be there and back pretty soon. It'll be a stiff walk home
for you, if you don't have something to revive you."
"Yes--go. But don't say I'm ill. Ask for my man Pym, and tell
him to get it from Mills, and not to say I'm at the Hermitage.
Get some water too."
Adam was relieved to have an active task--both of them were
relieved to be apart from each other for a short time. But Adam's
swift pace could not still the eager pain of thinking--of living
again with concentrated suffering through the last wretched hour,
and looking out from it over all the new sad future.
Arthur lay still for some minutes after Adam was gone, but
presently he rose feebly from the ottoman and peered about slowly
in the broken moonlight, seeking something. It was a short bit of
wax candle that stood amongst a confusion of writing and drawing
materials. There was more searching for the means of lighting the
candle, and when that was done, he went cautiously round the room,
as if wishing to assure himself of the presence or absence of
something. At last he had found a slight thing, which he put
first in his pocket, and then, on a second thought, took out again
and thrust deep down into a waste-paper basket. It was a woman's
little, pink, silk neckerchief. He set the candle on the table,
and threw himself down on the ottoman again, exhausted with the
effort.
When Adam came back with his supplies, his entrance awoke Arthur
from a doze.
"That's right," Arthur said; "I'm tremendously in want of some
brandy-vigour."
"I'm glad to see you've got a light, sir," said Adam. "I've been
thinking I'd better have asked for a lanthorn."
"No, no; the candle will last long enough--I shall soon be up to
walking home now."
"I can't go before I've seen you safe home, sir," said Adam,
hesitatingly.
"No: it will be better for you to stay--sit down."
Adam sat down, and they remained opposite to each other in uneasy
silence, while Arthur slowly drank brandy-and-water, with visibly
renovating effect. He began to lie in a more voluntary position,
and looked as if he were less overpowered by bodily sensations.
Adam was keenly alive to these indications, and as his anxiety
about Arthur's condition began to be allayed, he felt more of that
impatience which every one knows who has had his just indignation
suspended by the physical state of the culprit. Yet there was one
thing on his mind to be done before he could recur to
remonstrance: it was to confess what had been unjust in his own
words. Perhaps he longed all the more to make this confession,
that his indignation might be free again; and as he saw the signs
of returning ease in Arthur, the words again and again came to his
lips and went back, checked by the thought that it would be better
to leave everything till to-morrow. As long as they were silent
they did not look at each other, and a foreboding came across Adam
that if they began to speak as though they remembered the past--if
they looked at each other with full recognition--they must take
fire again. So they sat in silence till the bit of wax candle
flickered low in the socket, the silence all the while becoming
more irksome to Adam. Arthur had just poured out some more
brandy-and-water, and he threw one arm behind his head and drew up
one leg in an attitude of recovered ease, which was an
irresistible temptation to Adam to speak what was on his mind.
"You begin to feel more yourself again, sir," he said, as the
candle went out and they were half-hidden from each other in the
faint moonlight.
"Yes: I don't feel good for much--very lazy, and not inclined to
move; but I'll go home when I've taken this dose."
There was a slight pause before Adam said, "My temper got the
better of me, and I said things as wasn't true. I'd no right to
speak as if you'd known you was doing me an injury: you'd no
grounds for knowing it; I've always kept what I felt for her as
secret as I could."
He paused again before he went on.
"And perhaps I judged you too harsh--I'm apt to be harsh--and you
may have acted out o' thoughtlessness more than I should ha'
believed was possible for a man with a heart and a conscience.
We're not all put together alike, and we may misjudge one another.
God knows, it's all the joy I could have now, to think the best of
you."
Arthur wanted to go home without saying any more--he was too
painfully embarrassed in mind, as well as too weak in body, to
wish for any further explanation to-night. And yet it was a
relief to him that Adam reopened the subject in a way the least
difficult for him to answer. Arthur was in the wretched position
of an open, generous man who has committed an error which makes
deception seem a necessity. The native impulse to give truth in
return for truth, to meet trust with frank confession, must be
suppressed, and duty was becoming a question of tactics. His deed
was reacting upon him--was already governing him tyrannously and
forcing him into a course that jarred with his habitual feelings.
The only aim that seemed admissible to him now was to deceive Adam
to the utmost: to make Adam think better of him than he deserved.
And when he heard the words of honest retractation--when he heard
the sad appeal with which Adam ended--he was obliged to rejoice in
the remains of ignorant confidence it implied. He did not answer
immediately, for he had to be judicious and not truthful.
"Say no more about our anger, Adam," he said, at last, very
languidly, for the labour of speech was unwelcome to him; "I
forgive your momentary injustice--it was quite natural, with the
exaggerated notions you had in your mind. We shall be none the
worse friends in future, I hope, because we've fought. You had
the best of it, and that was as it should be, for I believe I've
been most in the wrong of the two. Come, let us shake hands."
Arthur held out his hand, but Adam sat still.
"I don't like to say 'No' to that, sir," he said, "but I can't
shake hands till it's clear what we mean by't. I was wrong when I
spoke as if you'd done me an injury knowingly, but I wasn't wrong
in what I said before, about your behaviour t' Hetty, and I can't
shake hands with you as if I held you my friend the same as ever
till you've cleared that up better."
Arthur swallowed his pride and resentment as he drew back his
hand. He was silent for some moments, and then said, as
indifferently as he could, "I don't know what you mean by clearing
up, Adam. I've told you already that you think too seriously of a
little flirtation. But if you are right in supposing there is any
danger in it--I'm going away on Saturday, and there will be an end
of it. As for the pain it has given you, I'm heartily sorry for
it. I can say no more."
Adam said nothing, but rose from his chair and stood with his face
towards one of the windows, as if looking at the blackness of the
moonlit fir-trees; but he was in reality conscious of nothing but
the conflict within him. It was of no use now--his resolution not
to speak till to-morrow. He must speak there and then. But it
was several minutes before he turned round and stepped nearer to
Arthur, standing and looking down on him as he lay.
"It'll be better for me to speak plain," he said, with evident
effort, "though it's hard work. You see, sir, this isn't a trifle
to me, whatever it may be to you. I'm none o' them men as can go
making love first to one woman and then t' another, and don't
think it much odds which of 'em I take. What I feel for Hetty's a
different sort o' love, such as I believe nobody can know much
about but them as feel it and God as has given it to 'em. She's
more nor everything else to me, all but my conscience and my good
name. And if it's true what you've been saying all along--and if
it's only been trifling and flirting as you call it, as 'll be put
an end to by your going away--why, then, I'd wait, and hope her
heart 'ud turn to me after all. I'm loath to think you'd speak
false to me, and I'll believe your word, however things may look."
"You would be wronging Hetty more than me not to believe it," said
Arthur, almost violently, starting up from the ottoman and moving
away. But he threw himself into a chair again directly, saying,
more feebly, "You seem to forget that, in suspecting me, you are
casting imputations upon her."
"Nay, sir," Adam said, in a calmer voice, as if he were half-
relieved--for he was too straightforward to make a distinction
between a direct falsehood and an indirect one--"Nay, sir, things
don't lie level between Hetty and you. You're acting with your
eyes open, whatever you may do; but how do you know what's been in
her mind? She's all but a child--as any man with a conscience in
him ought to feel bound to take care on. And whatever you may
think, I know you've disturbed her mind. I know she's been fixing
her heart on you, for there's a many things clear to me now as I
didn't understand before. But you seem to make light o' what she
may feel--you don't think o' that."
"Good God, Adam, let me alone!" Arthur burst out impetuously; "I
feel it enough without your worrying me."
He was aware of his indiscretion as soon as the words had escaped
him.
"Well, then, if you feel it," Adam rejoined, eagerly; "if you feel
as you may ha' put false notions into her mind, and made her
believe as you loved her, when all the while you meant nothing,
I've this demand to make of you--I'm not speaking for myself, but
for her. I ask you t' undeceive her before you go away. Y'aren't
going away for ever, and if you leave her behind with a notion in
her head o' your feeling about her the same as she feels about
you, she'll be hankering after you, and the mischief may get
worse. It may be a smart to her now, but it'll save her pain i'
th' end. I ask you to write a letter--you may trust to my seeing
as she gets it. Tell her the truth, and take blame to yourself
for behaving as you'd no right to do to a young woman as isn't
your equal. I speak plain, sir, but I can't speak any other way.
There's nobody can take care o' Hetty in this thing but me."
"I can do what I think needful in the matter," said Arthur, more
and more irritated by mingled distress and perplexity, "without
giving promises to you. I shall take what measures I think
proper."
"No," said Adam, in an abrupt decided tone, "that won't do. I
must know what ground I'm treading on. I must be safe as you've
put an end to what ought never to ha' been begun. I don't forget
what's owing to you as a gentleman, but in this thing we're man
and man, and I can't give up."
There was no answer for some moments. Then Arthur said, "I'll see
you to-morrow. I can bear no more now; I'm ill." He rose as he
spoke, and reached his cap, as if intending to go.
"You won't see her again!" Adam exclaimed, with a flash of
recurring anger and suspicion, moving towards the door and placing
his back against it. "Either tell me she can never be my wife--
tell me you've been lying--or else promise me what I've said."
Adam, uttering this alternative, stood like a terrible fate before
Arthur, who had moved forward a step or two, and now stopped,
faint, shaken, sick in mind and body. It seemed long to both of
them--that inward struggle of Arthur's--before he said, feebly, "I
promise; let me go."
Adam moved away from the door and opened it, but when Arthur
reached the step, he stopped again and leaned against the door-
post.
"You're not well enough to walk alone, sir," said Adam. "Take my
arm again."
Arthur made no answer, and presently walked on, Adam following.
But, after a few steps, he stood still again, and said, coldly, "I
believe I must trouble you. It's getting late now, and there may
be an alarm set up about me at home."
Adam gave his arm, and they walked on without uttering a word,
till they came where the basket and the tools lay.
"I must pick up the tools, sir," Adam said. "They're my
brother's. I doubt they'll be rusted. If you'll please to wait a
minute."
Arthur stood still without speaking, and no other word passed
between them till they were at the side entrance, where he hoped
to get in without being seen by any one. He said then, "Thank
you; I needn't trouble you any further."
"What time will it be conven'ent for me to see you to-morrow,
sir?" said Adam.
"You may send me word that you're here at five o'clock," said
Arthur; "not before."
"Good-night, sir," said Adam. But he heard no reply; Arthur had
turned into the house.
