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

It was about eight o’clock, and Lucetta was sitting in the drawing-room alone. Night had set in for more than half an hour, but she had not had the candles lighted, for when Farfrae was away she preferred waiting for him by the firelight, and, if it were not too cold, keeping one of the window-sashes a little way open that the sound of his wheels might reach her ears early. She was leaning back in the chair, in a more hopeful mood than she had enjoyed since her marriage. The day had been such a success; and the temporary uneasiness which Henchard’s show of effrontery had wrought in her disappeared with the quiet disappearance of Henchard himself under her husband’s reproof. The floating evidences of her absurd passion for him, and its consequences, had been destroyed, and she really seemed to have no cause for fear.

The reverie in which these and other subjects mingled was disturbed by a hubbub in the distance, that increased moment by moment. It did not greatly surprise her, the afternoon having been given up to recreation by a majority of the populace since the passage of the Royal equipages. But her attention was at once riveted to the matter by the voice of a maidservant next door, who spoke from an upper window across the street to some other maid even more elevated than she.

“Which way be they going now?” inquired the first with interest.

“I can’t be sure for a moment,” said the second, “because of the malter’s chimbley. O yes⁠—I can see ’em. Well, I declare, I declare!”

“What, what?” from the first, more enthusiastically.

“They are coming up Corn Street after all! They sit back to back!”

“What⁠—two of ’em⁠—are there two figures?”

“Yes. Two images on a donkey, back to back, their elbows tied to one another’s! She’s facing the head, and he’s facing the tail.”

“Is it meant for anybody in particular?”

“Well⁠—it mid be. The man has got on a blue coat and kerseymere leggings; he has black whiskers, and a reddish face. ’Tis a stuffed figure, with a falseface.”

The din was increasing now⁠—then it lessened a little.

“There⁠—I shan’t see, after all!” cried the disappointed first maid.

“They have gone into a back street⁠—that’s all,” said the one who occupied the enviable position in the attic. “There⁠—now I have got ’em all endways nicely!”

“What’s the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment if ’tis meant for one I’ve in mind.”

“My⁠—why⁠—’tis dressed just as she was dressed when she sat in the front seat at the time the play-actors came to the Town Hall!”

Lucetta started to her feet; and almost at the instant the door of the room was quickly and softly opened. Elizabeth-Jane advanced into the firelight.

“I have come to see you,” she said breathlessly. “I did not stop to knock⁠—forgive me! I see you have not shut your shutters, and the window is open.”

Without waiting for Lucetta’s reply she crossed quickly to the window and pulled out one of the shutters. Lucetta glided to her side. “Let it be⁠—hush!” she said peremporily, in a dry voice, while she seized Elizabeth-Jane by the hand, and held up her finger. Their intercourse had been so low and hurried that not a word had been lost of the conversation without; which had thus proceeded:⁠—

“Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands, and her back-comb in place; she’s got on a puce silk, and white stockings, and coloured shoes.”

Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window, but Lucetta held her by main force.

“ ’Tis me!” she said, with a face pale as death. “A procession⁠—a scandal⁠—an effigy of me, and him!”

The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knew it already.

“Let us shut it out,” coaxed Elizabeth-Jane, noting that the rigid wildness of Lucetta’s features were growing yet more rigid and wild with the meaning of the noise and laughter. “Let us shut it out!”

“It is of no use!” she shrieked. “He will see it, won’t he? Donald will see it! He is just coming home⁠—and it will break his heart⁠—he will never love me any more⁠—and O, it will kill me⁠—kill me!”

Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now. “O, can’t something be done to stop it?” she cried. “Is there nobody to do it⁠—not one?”

She relinquished Lucetta’s hands, and ran to the door. Lucetta herself, saying recklessly “I will see it!” turned to the window, threw up the sash, and went out upon the balcony. Elizabeth immediately followed, and put her arm round her to pull her in. Lucetta’s eyes were straight upon the spectacle of the uncanny revel, now dancing rapidly. The numerous lights round the two effigies threw them up into lurid distinctness; it was impossible to mistake the pair for other than the intended victims.

“Come in, come in,” implored Elizabeth; “and let me shut the window!”

“She’s me⁠—she’s me⁠—even to the parasol⁠—my green parasol!” cried Lucetta with a wild laugh as she stepped in. She stood motionless for one second⁠—then fell heavily to the floor.

Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington ceased. The roars of sarcastic laughter went off in ripples, and the trampling died out like the rustle of a spent wind. Elizabeth was only indirectly conscious of this; she had rung the bell, and was bending over Lucetta, who remained convulsed on the carpet in the paroxysms of an epileptic seizure. She rang again and again, in vain; the probability being that the servants had all run out of the house to see more of the Demoniac Sabbath than they could see within.

At last Farfrae’s man, who had been agape on the doorstep, came up; then the cook. The shutters, hastily pushed to by Elizabeth, were quite closed, a light was obtained, Lucetta carried to her room, and the man sent off for a doctor. While Elizabeth was undressing her she recovered consciousness; but as soon as she remembered what had passed the fit returned.

The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude;