Chapter XLII
The Morning of the Trial
AT one o'clock the next day, Adam was alone in his dull upper
room; his watch lay before him on the table, as if he were
counting the long minutes. He had no knowledge of what was likely
to be said by the witnesses on the trial, for he had shrunk from
all the particulars connected with Hetty's arrest and accusation.
This brave active man, who would have hastened towards any danger
or toil to rescue Hetty from an apprehended wrong or misfortune,
felt himself powerless to contemplate irremediable evil and
suffering. The susceptibility which would have been an impelling
force where there was any possibility of action became helpless
anguish when he was obliged to be passive, or else sought an
active outlet in the thought of inflicting justice on Arthur.
Energetic natures, strong for all strenuous deeds, will often rush
away from a hopeless sufferer, as if they were hard-hearted. It
is the overmastering sense of pain that drives them. They shrink
by an ungovernable instinct, as they would shrink from laceration.
Adam had brought himself to think of seeing Hetty, if she would
consent to see him, because he thought the meeting might possibly
be a good to her--might help to melt away this terrible hardness
they told him of. If she saw he bore her no ill will for what she
had done to him, she might open her heart to him. But this
resolution had been an immense effort--he trembled at the thought
of seeing her changed face, as a timid woman trembles at the
thought of the surgeon's knife, and he chose now to bear the long
hours of suspense rather than encounter what seemed to him the
more intolerable agony of witnessing her trial.
Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a
regeneration, the initiation into a new state. The yearning
memories, the bitter regret, the agonized sympathy, the struggling
appeals to the Invisible Right--all the intense emotions which had
filled the days and nights of the past week, and were compressing
themselves again like an eager crowd into the hours of this single
morning, made Adam look back on all the previous years as if they
had been a dim sleepy existence, and he had only now awaked to
full consciousness. It seemed to him as if he had always before
thought it a light thing that men should suffer, as if all that he
had himself endured and called sorrow before was only a moment's
stroke that had never left a bruise. Doubtless a great anguish
may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of
fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.
"O God," Adam groaned, as he leaned on the table and looked
blankly at the face of the watch, "and men have suffered like this
before...and poor helpless young things have suffered like
her....Such a little while ago looking so happy and so
pretty...kissing 'em all, her grandfather and all of 'em, and they
wishing her luck....O my poor, poor Hetty...dost think on it now?"
Adam started and looked round towards the door. Vixen had begun
to whimper, and there was a sound of a stick and a lame walk on
the stairs. It was Bartle Massey come back. Could it be all
over?
Bartle entered quietly, and, going up to Adam, grasped his hand
and said, "I'm just come to look at you, my boy, for the folks are
gone out of court for a bit."
Adam's heart beat so violently he was unable to speak--he could
only return the pressure of his friend's hand--and Bartle, drawing
up the other chair, came and sat in front of him, taking off his
hat and his spectacles.
"That's a thing never happened to me before," he observed, "to go
out o' the door with my spectacles on. I clean forgot to take 'em
off."
The old man made this trivial remark, thinking it better not to
respond at all to Adam's agitation: he would gather, in an
indirect way, that there was nothing decisive to communicate at
present.
"And now," he said, rising again, "I must see to your having a bit
of the loaf, and some of that wine Mr. Irwine sent this morning.
He'll be angry with me if you don't have it. Come, now," he went
on, bringing forward the bottle and the loaf and pouring some wine
into a cup, "I must have a bit and a sup myself. Drink a drop
with me, my lad--drink with me."
Adam pushed the cup gently away and said, entreatingly, "Tell me
about it, Mr. Massey--tell me all about it. Was she there? Have
they begun?"
"Yes, my boy, yes--it's taken all the time since I first went; but
they're slow, they're slow; and there's the counsel they've got
for her puts a spoke in the wheel whenever he can, and makes a
deal to do with cross-examining the witnesses and quarrelling with
the other lawyers. That's all he can do for the money they give
him; and it's a big sum--it's a big sum. But he's a 'cute fellow,
with an eye that 'ud pick the needles out of the hay in no time.
If a man had got no feelings, it 'ud be as good as a demonstration
to listen to what goes on in court; but a tender heart makes one
stupid. I'd have given up figures for ever only to have had some
good news to bring to you, my poor lad."
"But does it seem to be going against her?" said Adam. "Tell me
what they've said. I must know it now--I must know what they have
to bring against her."
"Why, the chief evidence yet has been the doctors; all but Martin
Poyser--poor Martin. Everybody in court felt for him--it was like
one sob, the sound they made when he came down again. The worst
was when they told him to look at the prisoner at the bar. It was
hard work, poor fellow--it was hard work. Adam, my boy, the blow
falls heavily on him as well as you; you must help poor Martin;
you must show courage. Drink some wine now, and show me you mean
to bear it like a man."
Bartle had made the right sort of appeal. Adam, with an air of
quiet obedience, took up the cup and drank a little.
"Tell me how SHE looked," he said presently.
"Frightened, very frightened, when they first brought her in; it
was the first sight of the crowd and the judge, poor creatur. And
there's a lot o' foolish women in fine clothes, with gewgaws all
up their arms and feathers on their heads, sitting near the judge:
they've dressed themselves out in that way, one 'ud think, to be
scarecrows and warnings against any man ever meddling with a woman
again. They put up their glasses, and stared and whispered. But
after that she stood like a white image, staring down at her hands
and seeming neither to hear nor see anything. And she's as white
as a sheet. She didn't speak when they asked her if she'd plead
'guilty' or 'not guilty,' and they pleaded 'not guilty' for her.
But when she heard her uncle's name, there seemed to go a shiver
right through her; and when they told him to look at her, she hung
her head down, and cowered, and hid her face in her hands. He'd
much ado to speak poor man, his voice trembled so. And the
counsellors--who look as hard as nails mostly--I saw, spared him
as much as they could. Mr. Irwine put himself near him and went
with him out o' court. Ah, it's a great thing in a man's life to
be able to stand by a neighbour and uphold him in such trouble as
that."
"God bless him, and you too, Mr. Massey," said Adam, in a low
voice, laying his hand on Bartle's arm.
"Aye, aye, he's good metal; he gives the right ring when you try
him, our parson does. A man o' sense--says no more than's
needful. He's not one of those that think they can comfort you
with chattering, as if folks who stand by and look on knew a deal
better what the trouble was than those who have to bear it. I've
had to do with such folks in my time--in the south, when I was in
trouble myself. Mr. Irwine is to be a witness himself, by and by,
on her side, you know, to speak to her character and bringing up."
"But the other evidence...does it go hard against her!" said Adam.
"What do you think, Mr. Massey? Tell me the truth."
"Yes, my lad, yes. The truth is the best thing to tell. It must
come at last. The doctors' evidence is heavy on her--is heavy.
But she's gone on denying she's had a child from first to last.
These poor silly women-things--they've not the sense to know it's
no use denying what's proved. It'll make against her with the
jury, I doubt, her being so obstinate: they may be less for
recommending her to mercy, if the verdict's against her. But Mr.
Irwine 'ull leave no stone unturned with the judge--you may rely
upon that, Adam."
"Is there nobody to stand by her and seem to care for her in the
court?" said Adam.
"There's the chaplain o' the jail sits near her, but he's a sharp
ferrety-faced man--another sort o' flesh and blood to Mr. Irwine.
They say the jail chaplains are mostly the fag-end o' the clergy."
"There's one man as ought to be there," said Adam bitterly.
Presently he drew himself up and looked fixedly out of the window,
apparently turning over some new idea in his mind.
"Mr. Massey," he said at last, pushing the hair off his forehead,
"I'll go back with you. I'll go into court. It's cowardly of me
to keep away. I'll stand by her--I'll own her--for all she's been
deceitful. They oughtn't to cast her off--her own flesh and
blood. We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none
ourselves. I used to be hard sometimes: I'll never be hard again.
I'll go, Mr. Massey--I'll go with you."
There was a decision in Adam's manner which would have prevented
Bartle from opposing him, even if he had wished to do so. He only
said, "Take a bit, then, and another sup, Adam, for the love of
me. See, I must stop and eat a morsel. Now, you take some."
Nerved by an active resolution, Adam took a morsel of bread and
drank some wine. He was haggard and unshaven, as he had been
yesterday, but he stood upright again, and looked more like the
Adam Bede of former days.
