Book Five
Chapter XXXVI
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 by 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 Stoniton was more expensive than
she had expected--it was plain that she must trust to carriers'
carts or slow waggons; 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 nigh six foot, I'll be bound, isna
he, now?"
"Who?" said Hetty, rather startled.
"Why, the sweetheart as you've left behind, or else him as you're
goin' arter--which is it?"
Hetty felt her face flushing and then turning 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.
"Hegh, hegh!" said the coachman, seeing that his joke was not so
gratifying as he had expected, "you munna take it too ser'ous; 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 Stoniton, and when she got down at the
inn where the coach stopped, she hastened away with her 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 Stoniton 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 Stoniton 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 t' Ashby next--that's south'ard. But there's as many
places from here to London as there's houses in Stoniton, 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 o' 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 knowed 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 summat overtaking you."
Every word sank like lead on Hetty's 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 farthest 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 kittenlike 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, must now make her toilsome way in
loneliness, her peaceful home left behind for ever, and nothing
but a tremulous hope of distant refuge before her. Now for the
first time, as she lay down to-night 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 any one, 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 draught that just
made pain bearable. For Hetty 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 difflcult to understand her state of
mind. She was too igrorant 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 Hettv 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 Stoniton, 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 Stoniton, her courage sank. She had come only this little
way, and yet felt tired, and almost hungry again in the keen
morning air; for though 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 stile 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 waggon was coming, creeping slowly along with a
slouching driver cracking his whip beside the horses. She waited
for it, thinking that if the waggoner were not a very sour-looking
man, she would ask him to take her up. As the waggon 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 waggon,
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 waggon, if you're going towards
Ashby?" said Hetty. "I'll pay you for it."
"Aw," said the big fellow, with that slowly dawning smile which
belongs to heavy faces, "I can take y' up fawst enough wi'out
bein' paid for't if you dooant mind lyin' a bit closish a-top o'
the wool-packs. Where do you coom from? And what do you want at
Ashby?"
"I come from Stoniton. I'm going a long way--to Windsor."
"What! Arter some service, or what?"
"Going to my brother--he's a soldier there."
"Well, I'm going no furder nor Leicester--and fur enough too--but
I'll take you, if you dooant mind being a bit long on the road.
Th' hosses wooant feel YOUR weight no more nor they feel the
little doog there, as I puck up on the road a fortni't agoo. He
war lost, I b'lieve, an's been all of a tremble iver sin'. Come,
gi' us your basket an' come behind and let me put y' 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 victual"; he himself was going
to eat his dinner at this "public." Late at night they reached
Leicester, and so this second day of Hetty's journey was past.
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 Leicester, 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 Hinckley, and by the help of a return chaise,
with a drunken postilion--who frightened her by driving like Jehu
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 Warwickshire: 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
Stratford-on-Avon, finding Stratford 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
Stratford. That seems but a slight journey as you look at the
map, or remember your own pleasant travels to and from the meadowy
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 for ever, 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 miller's 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
Stratford, 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 Windsor 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
Windsor 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 sixpence?"
"No, no," he said, gruffly, "never mind--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 Hetty's would have found out the
sensitive fibre in most men.
"Come, young woman, come in," he said, "and have adrop o'
something; you're pretty well knocked up, I can see that."
He took her into the bar and said to his wife, "Here, missis, take
this young woman into the parlour; she's a little overcome"--for
Hetty's 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: Hetty 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 travelling," she said, glancing
while she spoke at Hetty's ringless hand. "Have you come far?"
"Yes," said Hetty, 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 Hetty took
from her pocket a bit of paper: it was the end of Arthur's letter
on which he 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 Hetty 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 Hetty.
"But there's no gentleman there," returned the landlord. "It's
shut up--been shut up this fortnight. What gentleman is it you
want? Perhaps I can let you know where to find him."
"It's Captain Donnithorne," said Hetty tremulously, her heart
beginning to beat painfully at this disappointment of her hope
that she should find Arthur at once.
"Captain Donnithorne? Stop a bit," said the landlard, slowly.
"Was he in the Loamshire Militia? A tall young officer with a
fairish skin and reddish whiskers--and had a servant by the name
o' Pym?"
"Oh yes," said Hetty; "you know him--where is he?"
"A fine sight o' miles away from here. The Loamshire Militia's
gone to Ireland; it's been gone this fortnight."
"Look there! She's fainting," said the landlady, hastening to
support Hetty, 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 dratchell, 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 ostler 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 pictur in a shop-winder. It goes to one's 'eart to
look at her."
"It 'ud have been a good deal better for her if she'd been uglier
and had more conduct," said 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."
