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

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, wagoners 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 straightway 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 teakettle 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