The Mayor of Casterbridge
enclosure, where she could be seen leading him away by the outer gates,
so as to avoid passing Henchard again. That she had been taken by
surprise was obvious. The result of this casual rencounter was that the
next morning a note was put into Henchard’s hand by the postman.
“Will you,” said Lucetta, with as much bitterness as she could put into
a small communication, “will you kindly undertake not to speak to me in
the biting undertones you used to-day, if I walk through the yard at
any time? I bear you no ill-will, and I am only too glad that you
should have employment of my dear husband; but in common fairness treat
me as his wife, and do not try to make me wretched by covert sneers. I
have committed no crime, and done you no injury.”
“Poor fool!” said Henchard with fond savagery, holding out the note.
“To know no better than commit herself in writing like this! Why, if I
were to show that to her dear husband—pooh!” He threw the letter into
the fire.
Lucetta took care not to come again among the hay and corn. She would
rather have died than run the risk of encountering Henchard at such
close quarters a second time. The gulf between them was growing wider
every day. Farfrae was always considerate to his fallen acquaintance;
but it was impossible that he should not, by degrees, cease to regard
the ex-corn-merchant as more than one of his other workmen. Henchard
saw this, and concealed his feelings under a cover of stolidity,
fortifying his heart by drinking more freely at the Three Mariners
every evening.
Often did Elizabeth-Jane, in her endeavours to prevent his taking other
liquor, carry tea to him in a little basket at five o’clock. Arriving
one day on this errand she found her stepfather was measuring up
clover-seed and rape-seed in the corn-stores on the top floor, and she
ascended to him. Each floor had a door opening into the air under a
cat-head, from which a chain dangled for hoisting the sacks.
When Elizabeth’s head rose through the trap she perceived that the
upper door was open, and that her stepfather and Farfrae stood just
within it in conversation, Farfrae being nearest the dizzy edge, and
Henchard a little way behind. Not to interrupt them she remained on the
steps without raising her head any higher. While waiting thus she
saw—or fancied she saw, for she had a terror of feeling certain—her
stepfather slowly raise his hand to a level behind Farfrae’s shoulders,
a curious expression taking possession of his face. The young man was
quite unconscious of the action, which was so indirect that, if Farfrae
had observed it, he might almost have regarded it as an idle
outstretching of the arm. But it would have been possible, by a
comparatively light touch, to push Farfrae off his balance, and send
him head over heels into the air.
Elizabeth felt quite sick at heart on thinking of what this _might_
have meant. As soon as they turned she mechanically took the tea to
Henchard, left it, and went away. Reflecting, she endeavoured to assure
herself that the movement was an idle eccentricity, and no more. Yet,
on the other hand, his subordinate position in an establishment where
he once had been master might be acting on him like an irritant poison;
and she finally resolved to caution Donald.
XXXIV.
Next morning, accordingly, she rose at five o’clock and went into the
street. It was not yet light; a dense fog prevailed, and the town was
as silent as it was dark, except that from the rectangular avenues
which framed in the borough there came a chorus of tiny rappings,
caused by the fall of water-drops condensed on the boughs; now it was
wafted from the West Walk, now from the South Walk; and then from both
quarters simultaneously. She moved on to the bottom of Corn Street,
and, knowing his time well, waited only a few minutes before she heard
the familiar bang of his door, and then his quick walk towards her. She
met him at the point where the last tree of the engirding avenue
flanked the last house in the street.
He could hardly discern her till, glancing inquiringly, he said,
“What—Miss Henchard—and are ye up so airly?”
She asked him to pardon her for waylaying him at such an unseemly time.
“But I am anxious to mention something,” she said. “And I wished not to
alarm Mrs. Farfrae by calling.”
“Yes?” said he, with the cheeriness of a superior. “And what may it be?
It’s very kind of ye, I’m sure.”
She now felt the difficulty of conveying to his mind the exact aspect
of possibilities in her own. But she somehow began, and introduced
Henchard’s name. “I sometimes fear,” she said with an effort, “that he
may be betrayed into some attempt to—insult you, sir.”
“But we are the best of friends?”
“Or to play some practical joke upon you, sir. Remember that he has
been hardly used.”
“But we are quite friendly?”
“Or to do something—that would injure you—hurt you—wound you.” Every
word cost her twice its length of pain. And she could see that Farfrae
was still incredulous. Henchard, a poor man in his employ, was not to
Farfrae’s view the Henchard who had ruled him. Yet he was not only the
same man, but that man with his sinister qualities, formerly latent,
quickened into life by his buffetings.
Farfrae, happy, and thinking no evil, persisted in making light of her
fears. Thus they parted, and she went homeward, journeymen now being in
the street, waggoners going to the harness-makers for articles left to
be repaired, farm-horses going to the shoeing-smiths, and the sons of
labour showing themselves generally on the move. Elizabeth entered her
lodging unhappily, thinking she had done no good, and only made herself
appear foolish by her weak note of warning.
But Donald Farfrae was one of those men upon whom an incident is never
absolutely lost. He revised impressions from a subsequent point of
view, and the impulsive judgment of the moment was not always his
permanent one. The vision of Elizabeth’s earnest face in the rimy dawn
came back to him several times during the day. Knowing the solidity of
her character he did not treat her hints altogether as idle sounds.
But he did not desist from a kindly scheme on Henchard’s account that
engaged him just then; and when he met Lawyer Joyce, the town-clerk,
later in the day, he spoke of it as if nothing had occurred to damp it.
“About that little seedsman’s shop,” he said, “the shop overlooking the
churchyard, which is to let. It is not for myself I want it, but for
our unlucky fellow-townsman Henchard. It would be a new beginning for
him, if a small one; and I have told the Council that I would head a
private subscription among them to set him up in it—that I would be
fifty pounds, if they would make up the other fifty among them.”
“Yes, yes; so I’ve heard; and there’s nothing to say against it for
that matter,” the town-clerk replied, in his plain, frank way. “But,
Farfrae, others see what you don’t. Henchard hates ’ee—ay, hates ’ee;
and ’tis right that you should know it. To my knowledge he was at the
Three Mariners last night, saying in public that about you which a man
ought not to say about another.”
“Is that so—ah, is that so?” said Farfrae, looking down. “Why should he
do it?” added the young man bitterly; “what harm have I done him that
he should try to wrong me?”
“God only knows,” said Joyce, lifting his eyebrows. “It shows much
long-suffering in you to put up with him, and keep him in your employ.”
“But I cannet discharge a man who was once a good friend to me. How can
I forget that when I came here ’twas he enabled me to make a footing
for mysel’? No, no. As long as I’ve a day’s work to offer he shall do
it if he chooses. ’Tis not I who will deny him such a little as that.
But I’ll drop the idea of establishing him in a shop till I can think
more about it.”
It grieved Farfrae much to give up this scheme. But a damp having been
thrown over it by these and other voices in the air, he went and
countermanded his orders. The then occupier of the shop was in it when
Farfrae spoke to him and feeling it necessary to give some explanation
of his withdrawal from the negotiation Donald mentioned Henchard’s
name, and stated that the intentions of the Council had been changed.
The occupier was much disappointed, and straight-way informed Henchard,
as soon as he saw him, that a scheme of the Council for setting him up
in a shop had been knocked on the head by Farfrae. And thus out of
error enmity grew.
When Farfrae got indoors that evening the tea-kettle was singing on the
high hob of the semi-egg-shaped grate. Lucetta, light as a sylph, ran
forward and seized his hands, whereupon Farfrae duly kissed her.
“Oh!” she cried playfully, turning to the window. “See—the blinds are
not drawn down, and the people can look in—what a scandal!”
When the candles were lighted, the curtains drawn, and the twain sat at
tea, she noticed that he looked serious. Without directly inquiring why
she let her eyes linger solicitously on his face.
“Who has called?” he absently asked. “Any folk for me?”
“No,” said Lucetta. “What’s the matter, Donald?”
“Well—nothing worth talking of,” he responded sadly.
“Then, never mind it. You will get through it, Scotchmen are always
lucky.”
“No—not always!” he said, shaking his head gloomily as he contemplated
a crumb on the table. “I know many who have not been so! There was
Sandy Macfarlane, who started to America to try his fortune, and he was
drowned; and Archibald Leith, he was murdered! And poor Willie
Dunbleeze and Maitland Macfreeze—they fell into bad courses, and went
the way of all such!”
“Why—you old goosey—I was only speaking in a general sense, of course!
You are always so literal. Now when we have finished tea, sing me that
funny song about high-heeled shoon and siller tags, and the
one-and-forty wooers.”
“No, no. I couldna sing to-night! It’s Henchard—he hates me; so that I
may not be his friend if I would. I would understand why there should
be a wee bit of envy; but I cannet see a reason for the whole intensity
of what he feels. Now, can you, Lucetta? It is more like old-fashioned
rivalry in love than just a bit of rivalry in trade.”
Lucetta had grown somewhat wan. “No,” she replied.
“I give him employment—I cannet refuse it. But neither can I blind
myself to the fact that with a man of passions such as his, there is no
safeguard for conduct!”
“What have you heard—O Donald, dearest?” said Lucetta in alarm. The
words on her lips were “anything about me?”—but she did not utter them.
She could not, however, suppress her agitation, and her eyes filled
with tears.
“No, no—it is not so serious as ye fancy,” declared Farfrae soothingly;
though he did not know its seriousness so well as she.
“I wish you would do what we have talked of,” mournfully remarked
Lucetta. “Give up business, and go away from here. We have plenty of
money, and why should we stay?”
Farfrae seemed seriously disposed to discuss this move, and they talked
thereon till a visitor was announced. Their neighbour Alderman Vatt
came in.
“You’ve heard, I suppose of poor Doctor Chalkfield’s death? Yes—died
this afternoon at five,” said Mr. Vatt. Chalkfield was the Councilman
who had succeeded to the Mayoralty in the preceding November.
Farfrae was sorry at the intelligence, and Mr. Vatt continued: “Well,
we know he’s been going some days, and as his family is well provided
for we must take it all as it is. Now I have called to ask ’ee
this—quite privately. If I should nominate ’ee to succeed him, and
there should be no particular opposition, will ’ee accept the chair?”
“But there are folk whose turn is before mine; and I’m over young, and
may be thought pushing!” said Farfrae after a pause.
“Not at all. I don’t speak for myself only, several have named it. You
won’t refuse?”