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

prime, when his skill laid open to him any farm for the asking.

The negotiations were between a farmer from a distant county and the old man’s son. In these there was a difficulty. The farmer would not take the crust without the crumb of the bargain, in other words, the old man without the younger; and the son had a sweetheart on his present farm, who stood by, waiting the issue with pale lips.

“I’m sorry to leave ye, Nelly,” said the young man with emotion. “But, you see, I can’t starve father, and he’s out o’ work at Lady-day. ’Tis only thirty-five mile.”

The girl’s lips quivered. “Thirty-five mile!” she murmured. “Ah! ’tis enough! I shall never see ’ee again!” It was, indeed, a hopeless length of traction for Dan Cupid’s magnet; for young men were young men at Casterbridge as elsewhere.

“O! no, no⁠—I never shall,” she insisted, when he pressed her hand; and she turned her face to Lucetta’s wall to hide her weeping. The farmer said he would give the young man half-an-hour for his answer, and went away, leaving the group sorrowing.

Lucetta’s eyes, full of tears, met Farfrae’s. His, too, to her surprise, were moist at the scene.

“It is very hard,” she said with strong feelings. “Lovers ought not to be parted like that! O, if I had my wish, I’d let people live and love at their pleasure!”

“Maybe I can manage that they’ll not be parted,” said Farfrae. “I want a young carter; and perhaps I’ll take the old man too⁠—yes; he’ll not be very expensive, and doubtless he will answer my pairrpose somehow.”

“O, you are so good!” she cried, delighted. “Go and tell them, and let me know if you have succeeded!”

Farfrae went out, and she saw him speak to the group. The eyes of all brightened; the bargain was soon struck. Farfrae returned to her immediately it was concluded.

“It is kindhearted of you, indeed,” said Lucetta. “For my part, I have resolved that all my servants shall have lovers if they want them! Do make the same resolve!”

Farfrae looked more serious, waving his head a half turn. “I must be a little stricter than that,” he said.

“Why?”

“You are a⁠—a thriving woman; and I am a struggling hay-and-corn merchant.”

“I am a very ambitious woman.”

“Ah, well, I cannet explain. I don’t know how to talk to ladies, ambitious or no; and that’s true,” said Donald with grave regret. “I try to be civil to a’ folk⁠—no more!”

“I see you are as you say,” replied she, sensibly getting the upper hand in these exchanges of sentiment. Under this revelation of insight Farfrae again looked out of the window into the thick of the fair.

Two farmers met and shook hands, and being quite near the window their remarks could be heard as others’ had been.

“Have you seen young Mr. Farfrae this morning?” asked one. “He promised to meet me here at the stroke of twelve; but I’ve gone athwart and about the fair half-a-dozen times, and never a sign of him: though he’s mostly a man to his word.”

“I quite forgot the engagement,” murmured Farfrae.

“Now you must go,” said she; “must you not?”

“Yes,” he replied. But he still remained.

“You had better go,” she urged. “You will lose a customer.”

“Now, Miss Templeman, you will make me angry,” exclaimed Farfrae.

“Then suppose you don’t go; but stay a little longer?”

He looked anxiously at the farmer who was seeking him and who just then ominously walked across to where Henchard was standing, and he looked into the room and at her. “I like staying; but I fear I must go!” he said. “Business ought not to be neglected, ought it?”

“Not for a single minute.”

“It’s true. I’ll come another time⁠—if I may, ma’am?”

“Certainly,” she said. “What has happened to us today is very curious.”

“Something to think over when we are alone, it’s like to be?”

“Oh, I don’t know that. It is commonplace after all.”

“No, I’ll not say that. O no!”

“Well, whatever it has been, it is now over; and the market calls you to be gone.”

“Yes, yes. Market⁠—business! I wish there were no business in the warrld.”

Lucetta almost laughed⁠—she would quite have laughed⁠—but that there was a little emotion going in her at the time. “How you change!” she said. “You should not change like this.

“I have never wished such things before,” said the Scotchman, with a simple, shamed, apologetic look for his weakness. “It is only since coming heere and seeing you!”

“If that’s the case, you had better not look at me any longer. Dear me, I feel I have quite demoralized you!”

“But look or look not, I will see you in my thoughts. Well, I’ll go⁠—thank you for the pleasure of this visit.”

“Thank you for staying.”

“Maybe I’ll get into my market-mind when I’ve been out a few minutes,” he murmured. “But I don’t know⁠—I don’t know!”

As he went she said eagerly, “You may hear them speak of me in Casterbridge as time goes on. If they tell you I’m a coquette, which some may, because of the incidents of my life, don’t believe it, for I am not.”

“I swear I will not!” he said fervidly.

Thus the two. She had enkindled the young man’s enthusiasm till he was quite brimming with sentiment; while he from merely affording her a new form of idleness, had gone on to wake her serious solicitude. Why was this? They could not have told.

Lucetta as a young girl would hardly have looked at a tradesman. But her ups and downs, capped by her indiscretions with Henchard had made her uncritical as to station. In her poverty she had met with repulse from the society to which she had belonged, and she had no great zest for renewing an attempt upon it now. Her heart longed for some ark into which it could fly and be at rest. Rough or smooth she did not care so long as it was warm.

Farfrae was shown out, it having entirely escaped him that he had called to see Elizabeth. Lucetta at the window