In Hetty's Bed-Chamber
- Now after all that, Hetty gets to read the infamous letter. She bolts her bedroom door, takes the letter out, and smells a "faint scent of roses, which made her feel as if Arthur were close to her" (31.3). This must be a good sign, right?
- Wrong. Yeah, Arthur begins the letter by telling Hetty "I have spoken truly when I have said that I loved you" (31.4). But few paragraphs later, he's telling her that "since I cannot marry you, we must part" (31.6). Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
- Hetty finishes the letter. After a moment of stunned silence, she is overwhelmed by a fit of crying—"great rushing tears that blinded her and blotched the paper" (31.8). Her dream world is gone.
- The next morning, Hetty is too tired and too disappointed even to cry. Her life: boring. Her prospects: boring. The people around her: boring, and a whole lot poorer than Arthur.
- But in the middle of this disappointment, she remembers Dinah's "affectionate entreaty to think of her as a friend in trouble" (31.13). But the remembrance doesn't last long. All Hetty can think of is getting away from her boring, boring life.
- Yet Hetty knows that the Poysers will have none of this crying, or moping, or whatever. She collects herself, goes downstairs, and does her usual tasks. Then, that evening, she asks Mr. Poyser if she could try to get a station as a lady's maid.
- Mr. Poyser has no idea where this is coming from? Lady's maid? What on earth? He's convinced that Hetty's circumstances are fine as they are. Why, Hetty has "as good a chance o' getting a solid, sober husband as any gell i' the country" (31.28). Mrs. Poyser concurs. In fact, everyone does.
- None of this is lost on Hetty. She knows darn well who her uncle "had in his mind in his allusions to marriage" (31.40). Yup. That'd be Adam.
- At the end of the day, Hetty isn't happy, but she's not opposed to marrying Adam either. "She did not care what she did, so that it made some change in her life" (31.41). And if tying the knot isn't a "change," what is?