The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy [short novels in english .TXT] 📗

“You have quarreled more deeply than I know of.”

Elizabeth, wishing to shield the man she believed to be her father from any charge of unnatural dislike, said “Yes.”

“Then where you are is, of all places, the one he will avoid?”

Elizabeth nodded sadly.

Lucetta looked blank, twitched up her lovely eyebrows and lip, and burst into hysterical sobs. Here was a disaster⁠—her ingenious scheme completely stultified!

“O, my dear Miss Templeman⁠—what’s the matter?” cried her companion.

“I like your company much!” said Lucetta, as soon as she could speak.

“Yes, yes⁠—and so do I yours!” Elizabeth chimed in soothingly.

“But⁠—but⁠—” She could not finish the sentence, which was, naturally, that if Henchard had such a rooted dislike for the girl as now seemed to be the case, Elizabeth-Jane would have to be got rid of⁠—a disagreeable necessity.

A provisional resource suggested itself. “Miss Henchard⁠—will you go on an errand for me as soon as breakfast is over?⁠—Ah, that’s very good of you. Will you go and order⁠—” Here she enumerated several commissions at sundry shops, which would occupy Elizabeth’s time for the next hour or two, at least.

“And have you ever seen the Museum?”

Elizabeth-Jane had not.

“Then you should do so at once. You can finish the morning by going there. It is an old house in a back street⁠—I forget where⁠—but you’ll find out⁠—and there are crowds of interesting things⁠—skeletons, teeth, old pots and pans, ancient boots and shoes, birds’ eggs⁠—all charmingly instructive. You’ll be sure to stay till you get quite hungry.”

Elizabeth hastily put on her things and departed. “I wonder why she wants to get rid of me today!” she said sorrowfully as she went. That her absence, rather than her services or instruction, was in request, had been readily apparent to Elizabeth-Jane, simple as she seemed, and difficult as it was to attribute a motive for the desire.

She had not been gone ten minutes when one of Lucetta’s servants was sent to Henchard’s with a note. The contents were briefly:⁠—

Dear Michael⁠—You will be standing in view of my house today for two or three hours in the course of your business, so do please call and see me. I am sadly disappointed that you have not come before, for can I help anxiety about my own equivocal relation to you?⁠—especially now my aunt’s fortune has brought me more prominently before society? Your daughter’s presence here may be the cause of your neglect; and I have therefore sent her away for the morning. Say you come on business⁠—I shall be quite alone.

Lucetta.

When the messenger returned her mistress gave directions that if a gentleman called he was to be admitted at once, and sat down to await results.

Sentimentally she did not much care to see him⁠—his delays had wearied her, but it was necessary; and with a sigh she arranged herself picturesquely in the chair; first this way, then that; next so that the light fell over her head. Next she flung herself on the couch in the cyma-recta curve which so became her, and with her arm over her brow looked towards the door. This, she decided, was the best position after all; and thus she remained till a man’s step was heard on the stairs. Whereupon Lucetta, forgetting her curve (for Nature was too strong for Art as yet), jumped up and ran and hid herself behind one of the window-curtains in a freak of timidity. In spite of the waning of passion the situation was an agitating one⁠—she had not seen Henchard since his (supposed) temporary parting from her in Jersey.

She could hear the servant showing the visitor into the room, shutting the door upon him, and leaving as if to go and look for her mistress. Lucetta flung back the curtain with a nervous greeting. The man before her was not Henchard.

A conjecture that her visitor might be some other person had, indeed, flashed through Lucetta’s mind when she was on the point of bursting out; but it was just too late to recede.

He was years younger than the Mayor of Casterbridge; fair, fresh, and slenderly handsome. He wore genteel cloth leggings with white buttons, polished boots with infinite lace holes, light cord breeches under a black velveteen coat and waistcoat; and he had a silver-topped switch in his hand. Lucetta blushed, and said with a curious mixture of pout and laugh on her face⁠—“O, I’ve made a mistake!”

The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh half a wrinkle.

“But I’m very sorry!” he said, in deprecating tones. “I came and I inquired for Miss Henchard, and they showed me up here, and in no case would I have caught ye so unmannerly if I had known!”

“I was the unmannerly one,” she said.

“But is it that I have come to the wrong house, madam?” said Mr. Farfrae, blinking a little in his bewilderment and nervously tapping his legging with his switch.

“O no, sir⁠—sit down. You must come and sit down now you are here,” replied Lucetta kindly, to relieve his embarrassment. “Miss Henchard will be here directly.”

Now this was not strictly true; but that something about the young man⁠—that hyperborean crispness, stringency, and charm, as of a well-braced musical instrument, which had awakened the interest of Henchard, and of Elizabeth-Jane and of the Three Mariners’ jovial crew, at sight, made his unexpected presence here attractive to Lucetta. He hesitated, looked at the chair, thought there was no danger in it (though there was), and sat down.

Farfrae’s sudden entry was simply the result of Henchard’s permission to him to see Elizabeth if he were minded to woo her. At first he had taken no notice of Henchard’s brusque letter; but an exceptionally fortunate business transaction put him on good terms with everybody, and revealed to him that he could undeniably marry if he chose. Then who so pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory in every way as Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from her personal recommendations a reconciliation with his former friend Henchard would, in the natural course