reputation. She liked them so little, indeed, that there was room for
wonder why she had countenanced deception at all, and had not bravely
let the girl know her history. But the flesh is weak; and the true
explanation came in due course.
"O Michael!" she said, "I am afraid all this is taking up your time and
giving trouble - when I did not expect any such thing!" And she looked at
him and at his dress as a man of affluence, and at the furniture he had
provided for the room - ornate and lavish to her eyes.
"Not at all," said Henchard, in rough benignity. "This is only a
cottage - it costs me next to nothing. And as to taking up my time" - here
his red and black visage kindled with satisfaction - "I've a splendid
fellow to superintend my business now - a man whose like I've never been
able to lay hands on before. I shall soon be able to leave everything
to him, and have more time to call my own than I've had for these last
twenty years."
Henchard's visits here grew so frequent and so regular that it soon
became whispered, and then openly discussed in Casterbridge that the
masterful, coercive Mayor of the town was raptured and enervated by the
genteel widow Mrs. Newson. His well-known haughty indifference to the
society of womankind, his silent avoidance of converse with the sex,
contributed a piquancy to what would otherwise have been an unromantic
matter enough. That such a poor fragile woman should be his choice was
inexplicable, except on the ground that the engagement was a family
affair in which sentimental passion had no place; for it was known that
they were related in some way. Mrs. Henchard was so pale that the boys
called her "The Ghost." Sometimes Henchard overheard this epithet when
they passed together along the Walks - as the avenues on the walls
were named - at which his face would darken with an expression of
destructiveness towards the speakers ominous to see; but he said
nothing.
He pressed on the preparations for his union, or rather reunion, with
this pale creature in a dogged, unflinching spirit which did credit
to his conscientiousness. Nobody would have conceived from his outward
demeanour that there was no amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as
stimulant to the bustle going on in his gaunt, great house; nothing
but three large resolves - one, to make amends to his neglected Susan,
another, to provide a comfortable home for Elizabeth-Jane under his
paternal eye; and a third, to castigate himself with the thorns which
these restitutory acts brought in their train; among them the lowering
of his dignity in public opinion by marrying so comparatively humble a
woman.
Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the first time in her life when
she stepped into the plain brougham which drew up at the door on the
wedding-day to take her and Elizabeth-Jane to church. It was a windless
morning of warm November rain, which floated down like meal, and lay
in a powdery form on the nap of hats and coats. Few people had
gathered round the church door though they were well packed within.
The Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was of course the only one
present, beyond the chief actors, who knew the true situation of the
contracting parties. He, however, was too inexperienced, too thoughtful,
too judicial, too strongly conscious of the serious side of the
business, to enter into the scene in its dramatic aspect. That required
the special genius of Christopher Coney, Solomon Longways, Buzzford, and
their fellows. But they knew nothing of the secret; though, as the
time for coming out of church drew on, they gathered on the pavement
adjoining, and expounded the subject according to their lights.
"'Tis five-and-forty years since I had my settlement in this here town,"
said Coney; "but daze me if I ever see a man wait so long before to take
so little! There's a chance even for thee after this, Nance Mockridge."
The remark was addressed to a woman who stood behind his shoulder - the
same who had exhibited Henchard's bad bread in public when Elizabeth and
her mother entered Casterbridge.
"Be cust if I'd marry any such as he, or thee either," replied that
lady. "As for thee, Christopher, we know what ye be, and the less said
the better. And as for he - well, there - (lowering her voice) 'tis said
'a was a poor parish 'prentice - I wouldn't say it for all the world - but
'a was a poor parish 'prentice, that began life wi' no more belonging to
'en than a carrion crow."
"And now he's worth ever so much a minute," murmured Longways. "When a
man is said to be worth so much a minute, he's a man to be considered!"
Turning, he saw a circular disc reticulated with creases, and recognized
the smiling countenance of the fat woman who had asked for another song
at the Three Mariners. "Well, Mother Cuxsom," he said, "how's this?
Here's Mrs. Newson, a mere skellinton, has got another husband to keep
her, while a woman of your tonnage have not."
"I have not. Nor another to beat me....Ah, yes, Cuxsom's gone, and so
shall leather breeches!"
"Yes; with the blessing of God leather breeches shall go."
"'Tisn't worth my old while to think of another husband," continued Mrs.
Cuxsom. "And yet I'll lay my life I'm as respectable born as she."
"True; your mother was a very good woman - I can mind her. She were
rewarded by the Agricultural Society for having begot the greatest
number of healthy children without parish assistance, and other virtuous
marvels."
"'Twas that that kept us so low upon ground - that great hungry family."
"Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash runs thin."
"And dostn't mind how mother would sing, Christopher?" continued Mrs.
Cuxsom, kindling at the retrospection; "and how we went with her to the
party at Mellstock, do ye mind? - at old Dame Ledlow's, farmer Shinar's
aunt, do ye mind? - she we used to call Toad-skin, because her face were
so yaller and freckled, do ye mind?"
"I do, hee-hee, I do!" said Christopher Coney.
"And well do I - for I was getting up husband-high at that time - one-half
girl, and t'other half woman, as one may say. And canst mind" - she
prodded Solomon's shoulder with her finger-tip, while her eyes twinkled
between the crevices of their lids - "canst mind the sherry-wine, and the
zilver-snuffers, and how Joan Dummett was took bad when we were coming
home, and Jack Griggs was forced to carry her through the mud; and how
'a let her fall in Dairyman Sweet-apple's cow-barton, and we had to
clane her gown wi' grass - never such a mess as a' were in?"
"Ay - that I do - hee-hee, such doggery as there was in them ancient days,
to be sure! Ah, the miles I used to walk then; and now I can hardly step
over a furrow!"
Their reminiscences were cut short by the appearance of the reunited
pair - Henchard looking round upon the idlers with that ambiguous gaze
of his, which at one moment seemed to mean satisfaction, and at another
fiery disdain.
"Well - there's a difference between 'em, though he do call himself a
teetotaller," said Nance Mockridge. "She'll wish her cake dough afore
she's done of him. There's a blue-beardy look about 'en; and 'twill out
in time."
"Stuff - he's well enough! Some folk want their luck buttered. If I had a
choice as wide as the ocean sea I wouldn't wish for a better man. A poor
twanking woman like her - 'tis a godsend for her, and hardly a pair of
jumps or night-rail to her name."
The plain little brougham drove off in the mist, and the idlers
dispersed. "Well, we hardly know how to look at things in these times!"
said Solomon. "There was a man dropped down dead yesterday, not so very
many miles from here; and what wi' that, and this moist weather, 'tis
scarce worth one's while to begin any work o' consequence to-day. I'm in
such a low key with drinking nothing but small table ninepenny this
last week or two that I shall call and warm up at the Mar'ners as I pass
along."
"I don't know but that I may as well go with 'ee, Solomon," said
Christopher; "I'm as clammy as a cockle-snail."
14.
A Martinmas summer of Mrs. Henchard's life set in with her entry into
her husband's large house and respectable social orbit; and it was as
bright as such summers well can be. Lest she should pine for deeper
affection than he could give he made a point of showing some semblance
of it in external action. Among other things he had the iron railings,
that had smiled sadly in dull rust for the last eighty years, painted
a bright green, and the heavy-barred, small-paned Georgian sash windows
enlivened with three coats of white. He was as kind to her as a man,
mayor, and churchwarden could possibly be. The house was large, the
rooms lofty, and the landings wide; and the two unassuming women
scarcely made a perceptible addition to its contents.
To Elizabeth-Jane the time was a most triumphant one. The freedom she
experienced, the indulgence with which she was treated, went beyond her
expectations. The reposeful, easy, affluent life to which her mother's
marriage had introduced her was, in truth, the beginning of a great
change in Elizabeth. She found she could have nice personal possessions
and ornaments for the asking, and, as the mediaeval saying puts it,
"Take, have, and keep, are pleasant words." With peace of mind came
development, and with development beauty. Knowledge - the result of great
natural insight - she did not lack; learning, accomplishment - those,
alas, she had not; but as the winter and spring passed by her thin
face and figure filled out in rounder and softer curves; the lines and
contractions upon her young brow went away; the muddiness of skin which
she had looked upon as her lot by nature departed with a change to
abundance of good things, and a bloom came upon her cheek. Perhaps, too,
her grey, thoughtful eyes revealed an arch gaiety sometimes; but this
was infrequent; the sort of wisdom which looked from their pupils did
not readily keep company with these lighter moods. Like all people who
have known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too irrational
and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a reckless dram now and
then; for she had been too early habituated to anxious reasoning to drop
the habit suddenly. She felt none of those ups and downs of spirit
which beset so many people without cause; never - to paraphrase a recent
poet - never a gloom in Elizabeth-Jane's soul but she well knew how it
came there; and her present cheerfulness was fairly proportionate to her
solid guarantees for the same.
It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly becoming
good-looking, comfortably circumstanced, and for the first time in her
life commanding ready money, she would go and make a fool of herself by
dress. But no. The reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth
did was nowhere more conspicuous than in this question of clothes. To
keep in the rear of opportunity in matters of indulgence is as valuable
a habit as to keep abreast of opportunity in matters of enterprise. This
unsophisticated girl did it by an innate perceptiveness that was almost
genius. Thus she refrained from bursting out like a water-flower that
spring, and clothing herself in puffings and knick-knacks, as most of
the Casterbridge girls would have done in her circumstances. Her triumph
was tempered by circumspection, she had still that field-mouse fear of
the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common among the
thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and oppression.
"I won't be too gay on any account," she would say to herself. "It would
be tempting Providence to hurl mother and me down, and afflict us again
as He used to do."
We now see her in a black silk bonnet, velvet mantle or silk spencer,
dark dress, and carrying a sunshade. In this latter article she drew
the line at fringe, and had it plain edged, with a little ivory ring for
keeping it closed. It was odd about the necessity for that sunshade. She
discovered that with the clarification of her complexion and the birth
of pink cheeks her skin had grown more sensitive to the sun's rays.
She protected those cheeks forthwith, deeming spotlessness part of
womanliness.
Henchard had become very fond of her, and she went out with him more
frequently than with her mother now. Her appearance one day was so
attractive that he looked at her critically.
"I happened to have the ribbon by me, so I made it up," she faltered,
thinking him perhaps dissatisfied with some rather bright trimming she
had donned for the first time.
"Ay - of course - to be sure," he replied in his leonine way. "Do as you
like - or rather as your mother advises ye. 'Od send - I've nothing to say
to't!"
Indoors she appeared with her hair divided by a parting that arched like
a white rainbow from ear to ear. All in front of this line was covered
with a thick encampment of curls; all behind was dressed smoothly, and
drawn to a knob.
The three members of the family were sitting at breakfast one day, and
Henchard was looking silently, as he often did, at this head of
hair, which in colour was brown - rather light than dark. "I thought
Elizabeth-Jane's hair - didn't you tell me that Elizabeth-Jane's hair
promised to be black when she was a baby?" he said to his wife.
She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and murmured, "Did I?"
As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchard resumed. "Begad,
I nearly forgot myself just now! What I meant was that the girl's hair
certainly looked as if it would be darker, when she was a baby."
"It did; but they alter so," replied Susan.
"Their hair gets darker, I know - but I wasn't aware it lightened ever?"
"O yes." And the same uneasy expression came out on her face, to which
the future held the key. It passed as Henchard went on:
"Well, so much the better. Now Susan, I want to have her called
Miss Henchard - not Miss Newson. Lots o' people do it already in
carelessness - it is her legal name - so it may as well be made her usual
name - I don't like t'other name at all for my own flesh and blood. I'll
advertise it in the Casterbridge paper - that's the way they do it. She
won't object."
"No. O no. But - "
"Well, then, I shall do it," he said, peremptorily. "Surely, if she's
willing, you must wish it as much as I?"
"O yes - if she agrees let us do it by all means," she replied.
Then Mrs. Henchard acted somewhat inconsistently; it might have been
called falsely, but that her manner was emotional and full of the
earnestness of one who wishes to do right at great hazard. She went to
Elizabeth-Jane, whom she found sewing in her own sitting-room upstairs,
and told her what had been proposed about her surname. "Can you
agree - is it not a slight upon Newson - now he's dead and gone?"
Elizabeth reflected. "I'll think of it, mother," she answered.
When, later in the day, she saw Henchard, she adverted to the matter
at once, in a way which showed that the line of feeling started by her
mother had been persevered in. "Do you wish this change so very much,
sir?" she asked.
"Wish it? Why, my blessed fathers, what an ado you women make about
a trifle! I proposed it - that's all. Now, 'Lizabeth-Jane, just please
yourself. Curse me if I care what you do. Now, you understand, don't 'ee
go agreeing to it to please me."
Here the subject dropped, and nothing more was said, and nothing was
done, and Elizabeth still passed as Miss Newson, and not by her legal
name.
Meanwhile the great corn and hay traffic conducted by Henchard throve
under the management of Donald Farfrae as it had never thriven before.
It had formerly moved in jolts; now it went on oiled casters. The old
crude viva voce system of Henchard, in which everything depended upon
his memory, and bargains were made by the tongue alone, was swept
away. Letters and ledgers took the place of "I'll do't," and "you shall
hae't"; and, as in all such cases of advance, the rugged picturesqueness
of the old method disappeared with its inconveniences.
The position of Elizabeth-Jane's room - rather high in the house, so
that it commanded a view of the hay-stores and granaries across the
garden - afforded her opportunity for accurate observation of what went
on there. She saw that Donald and Mr. Henchard were inseparables. When
walking together Henchard would lay his arm familiarly on his manager's
shoulder, as if Farfrae were a younger brother, bearing so heavily that
his slight frame bent under the weight. Occasionally she would hear
a perfect cannonade of laughter from Henchard, arising from something
Donald had said, the latter looking quite innocent and not laughing at
all. In Henchard's somewhat lonely life he evidently found the young
man as desirable for comradeship as he was useful for consultations.
Donald's brightness of intellect maintained in the corn-factor the
admiration it had won at the first hour of their meeting. The poor
opinion, and but ill-concealed, that he entertained of the
slim Farfrae's physical girth, strength, and dash was more than
counterbalanced by the immense respect he had for his brains.
Her quiet eye discerned that Henchard's tigerish affection for the
younger man, his constant liking to have Farfrae near him, now and then
resulted in a tendency to domineer, which, however, was checked in a
moment when Donald exhibited marks of real offence. One day, looking
down on their figures from on high, she heard the latter remark, as they
stood in the doorway between the garden and yard, that their habit of
walking and driving about together rather neutralized Farfrae's value
as a second pair of eyes, which should be used in places where the
principal was not. "'Od damn it," cried Henchard, "what's all the world!
I like a fellow to talk to. Now come along and hae some supper, and
don't take too much thought about things, or ye'll drive me crazy."
When she walked with her mother, on the other hand, she often beheld the
Scotchman looking at them with a curious interest. The fact that he had
met her at the Three Mariners was insufficient to account for it, since
on the occasions on which she had entered his room he had never raised
his eyes. Besides, it was at her mother more particularly than
at herself that he looked, to Elizabeth-Jane's half-conscious,
simple-minded, perhaps pardonable, disappointment. Thus she could not
account for this interest by her own attractiveness, and she decided
that it might be apparent only - a way of turning his eyes that Mr.
Farfrae had.
She did not divine the ample explanation of his manner, without personal
vanity, that was afforded by the fact of Donald being the depositary
of Henchard's confidence in respect of his past treatment of the pale,
chastened mother who walked by her side. Her conjectures on that past
never went further than faint ones based on things casually heard and
seen - mere guesses that Henchard and her mother might have been lovers
in their younger days, who had quarrelled and parted.
Casterbridge, as has been hinted, was a place deposited in the
block upon a corn-field. There was no suburb in the modern sense, or
transitional intermixture of town and down. It stood, with regard to the
wide fertile land adjoining, clean-cut and distinct, like a chess-board
on a green tablecloth. The farmer's boy could sit under his barley-mow
and pitch a stone into the office-window of the town-clerk; reapers
at work among the sheaves nodded to acquaintances standing on the
pavement-corner; the red-robed judge, when he condemned a sheep-stealer,
pronounced sentence to the tune of Baa, that floated in at the window
from the remainder of the flock browsing hard by; and at executions
the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately before the drop, out of
which the cows had been temporarily driven to give the spectators room.
The corn grown on the upland side of the borough was garnered by farmers
who lived in an eastern purlieu called Durnover. Here wheat-ricks
overhung the old Roman street, and thrust their eaves against the church
tower; green-thatched barns, with doorways as high as the gates of
Solomon's temple, opened directly upon the main thoroughfare. Barns
indeed were so numerous as to alternate with every half-dozen houses
along the way. Here lived burgesses who daily walked the fallow;
shepherds in an intra-mural squeeze. A street of farmers' homesteads - a
street ruled by a mayor and corporation, yet echoing with the thump of
the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan, and the purr of the milk
into the pails - a street which had nothing urban in it whatever - this
was the Durnover end of Casterbridge.
Henchard, as was natural, dealt largely with this nursery or bed of
small farmers close at hand - and his waggons were often down that way.
One day, when arrangements were in progress for getting home corn from
one of the aforesaid farms, Elizabeth-Jane received a note by hand,
asking her to oblige the writer by coming at once to a granary on
Durnover Hill. As this was the granary whose contents Henchard was
removing, she thought the request had something to do with his business,
and proceeded thither as soon as she had put on her bonnet. The granary
was just within the farm-yard, and stood on stone staddles, high enough
for persons to walk under. The gates were open, but nobody was within.
However, she entered and waited. Presently she saw a figure approaching
the gate - that of Donald Farfrae. He looked up at the church clock, and
came in. By some unaccountable shyness, some wish not to meet him there
alone, she quickly ascended the step-ladder leading to the granary
door, and entered it before he had seen her. Farfrae advanced, imagining
himself in solitude, and a few drops of rain beginning to fall he moved
and stood under the shelter where she had just been standing. Here he
leant against one of the staddles, and gave himself up to patience. He,
too, was plainly expecting some one; could it be herself? If so, why?
In a few minutes he looked at his watch, and then pulled out a note, a
duplicate of the one she had herself received.
This situation began to be very awkward, and the longer she waited the
more awkward it became. To emerge from a door just above his head and
descend the ladder, and show she had been in hiding there, would look so
very foolish that she still waited on. A winnowing machine stood close
beside her, and to relieve her suspense she gently moved the handle;
whereupon a cloud of wheat husks flew out into her face, and covered
her clothes and bonnet, and stuck into the fur of her victorine. He must
have heard the slight movement for he looked up, and then ascended the
steps.
"Ah - it's Miss Newson," he said as soon as he could see into the
granary. "I didn't know you were there. I have kept the appointment, and
am at your service."
"O Mr. Farfrae," she faltered, "so have I. But I didn't know it was you
who wished to see me, otherwise I - "
"I wished to see you? O no - at least, that is, I am afraid there may be
a mistake."
"Didn't you ask me to come here? Didn't you write this?" Elizabeth held
out her note.
"No. Indeed, at no hand would I have thought of it! And for you - didn't
you ask me? This is not your writing?" And he held up his.
"By no means."
"And is that really so! Then it's somebody wanting to see us both.
Perhaps we would do well to wait a little longer."
Acting on this consideration they lingered, Elizabeth-Jane's face being
arranged to an expression of preternatural composure, and the young
Scot, at every footstep in the street without, looking from under the
granary to see if the passer were about to enter and declare himself
their summoner. They watched individual drops of rain creeping down the
thatch of the opposite rick - straw after straw - till they reached the
bottom; but nobody came, and the granary roof began to drip.
"The person is not likely to be coming," said Farfrae. "It's a trick
perhaps, and if so, it's a great pity to waste our time like this, and
so much to be done."
"'Tis a great liberty," said Elizabeth.
"It's true, Miss Newson. We'll hear news of this some day depend on't,
and who it was that did it. I wouldn't stand for it hindering myself;
but you, Miss Newson - - "
"I don't mind - much,' she replied.
"Neither do I."
They lapsed again into silence. "You are anxious to get back to
Scotland, I suppose, Mr. Farfrae?" she inquired.
"O no, Miss Newson. Why would I be?"
"I only supposed you might be from the song you sang at the Three
Mariners - about Scotland and home, I mean - which you seemed to feel so
deep down in your heart; so that we all felt for you."
"Ay - and I did sing there - I did - - But, Miss Newson" - and Donald's
voice musically undulated between two semi-tones as it always did when
he became earnest - "it's well you feel a song for a few minutes, and
your eyes they get quite tearful; but you finish it, and for all you
felt you don't mind it or think of it again for a long while. O no,
I don't want to go back! Yet I'll sing the song to you wi' pleasure
whenever you like. I could sing it now, and not mind at all?"
"Thank you, indeed. But I fear I must go - rain or no."
"Ay! Then, Miss Newson, ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and
take no heed of it. And if the person should say anything to you, be
civil to him or her, as if you did not mind it - so you'll take the
clever person's laugh away." In speaking his eyes became fixed upon
her dress, still sown with wheat husks. "There's husks and dust on you.
Perhaps you don't know it?" he said, in tones of extreme delicacy. "And
it's very bad to let rain come upon clothes when there's chaff on them.
It washes in and spoils them. Let me help you - blowing is the best."
As Elizabeth neither assented nor dissented Donald Farfrae began blowing
her back hair, and her side hair, and her neck, and the crown of her
bonnet, and the fur of her victorine, Elizabeth saying, "O, thank you,"
at every puff. At last she was fairly clean, though Farfrae, having got
over his first concern at the situation, seemed in no manner of hurry to
be gone.
"Ah - now I'll go and get ye an umbrella," he said.
She declined the offer, stepped out and was gone. Farfrae walked slowly
after, looking thoughtfully at her diminishing figure, and whistling in
undertones, "As I came down through Cannobie."
15.
At first Miss Newson's budding beauty was not regarded with much
interest by anybody in Casterbridge. Donald Farfrae's gaze, it is true,
was now attracted by the Mayor's so-called step-daughter, but he was
only one. The truth is that she was but a poor illustrative instance of
the prophet Baruch's sly definition: "The virgin that loveth to go gay."
When she walked abroad she seemed to be occupied with an inner chamber
of ideas, and to have slight need for visible objects. She formed
curious resolves on checking gay fancies in the matter of clothes,
because it was inconsistent with her past life to blossom gaudily the
moment she had become possessed of money. But nothing is more insidious
than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere
wishes. Henchard gave Elizabeth-Jane a box of delicately-tinted gloves
one spring day. She wanted to wear them to show her appreciation of his
kindness, but she had no bonnet that would harmonize. As an artistic
indulgence she thought she would have such a bonnet. When she had a
bonnet that would go with the gloves she had no dress that would go with
the bonnet. It was now absolutely necessary to finish; she ordered the
requisite article, and found that she had no sunshade to go with the
dress. In for a penny in for a pound; she bought the sunshade, and the
whole structure was at last complete.
Everybody was attracted, and some said that her bygone simplicity was
the art that conceals art, the "delicate imposition" of Rochefoucauld;
she had produced an effect, a contrast, and it had been done on purpose.
As a matter of fact this was not true, but it had its result; for as
soon as Casterbridge thought her artful it thought her worth notice. "It
is the first time in my life that I have been so much admired," she said
to herself; "though perhaps it is by those whose admiration is not worth
having."
But Donald Farfrae admired her, too; and altogether the time was an
exciting one; sex had never before asserted itself in her so strongly,
for in former days she had perhaps been too impersonally human to be
distinctively feminine. After an unprecedented success one day she came
indoors, went upstairs, and leant upon her bed face downwards quite
forgetting the possible creasing and damage. "Good Heaven," she
whispered, "can it be? Here am I setting up as the town beauty!"
When she had thought it over, her usual fear of exaggerating appearances
engendered a deep sadness. "There is something wrong in all this," she
mused. "If they only knew what an unfinished girl I am - that I can't
talk Italian, or use globes, or show any of the accomplishments they
learn at boarding schools, how they would despise me! Better sell all
this finery and buy myself grammar-books and dictionaries and a history
of all the philosophies!"
She looked from the window and saw Henchard and Farfrae in the hay-yard
talking, with that impetuous cordiality on the Mayor's part, and genial
modesty on the younger man's, that was now so generally observable
in their intercourse. Friendship between man and man; what a rugged
strength there was in it, as evinced by these two. And yet the seed that
was to lift the foundation of this friendship was at that moment taking
root in a chink of its structure.
It was about six o'clock; the men were dropping off homeward one by one.
The last to leave was a round-shouldered, blinking young man of nineteen
or twenty, whose mouth fell ajar on the slightest provocation, seemingly
because there was no chin to support it. Henchard called aloud to him as
he went out of the gate, "Here - Abel Whittle!"
Whittle turned, and ran back a few steps. "Yes, sir," he said, in
breathless deprecation, as if he knew what was coming next.
"Once more - be in time to-morrow morning. You see what's to be done, and
you hear what I say, and you know I'm not going to be trifled with any
longer."
"Yes, sir." Then Abel Whittle left, and Henchard and Farfrae; and
Elizabeth saw no more of them.
Now there was good reason for this command on Henchard's part. Poor
Abel, as he was called, had an inveterate habit of over-sleeping himself
and coming late to his work. His anxious will was to be among the
earliest; but if his comrades omitted to pull the string that he always
tied round his great toe and left hanging out the window for that
purpose, his will was as wind. He did not arrive in time.
As he was often second hand at the hay-weighing, or at the crane which
lifted the sacks, or was one of those who had to accompany the waggons
into the country to fetch away stacks that had been purchased, this
affliction of Abel's was productive of much inconvenience. For two
mornings in the present week he had kept the others waiting nearly an
hour; hence Henchard's threat. It now remained to be seen what would
happen to-morrow.
Six o'clock struck, and there was no Whittle. At half-past six Henchard
entered the yard; the waggon was horsed that Abel was to accompany; and
the other man had been waiting twenty minutes. Then Henchard swore, and
Whittle coming up breathless at that instant, the corn-factor turned on
him, and declared with an oath that this was the last time; that if he
were behind once more, by God, he would come and drag him out o' bed.
"There is sommit wrong in my make, your worshipful!" said Abel,
"especially in the inside, whereas my poor dumb brain gets as dead as
a clot afore I've said my few scrags of prayers. Yes - it came on as a
stripling, just afore I'd got man's wages, whereas I never enjoy my bed
at all, for no sooner do I lie down than I be asleep, and afore I be
awake I be up. I've fretted my gizzard green about it, maister, but what
can I do? Now last night, afore I went to bed, I only had a scantling o'
cheese and - "
"I don't want to hear it!" roared Henchard. "To-morrow the waggons must
start at four, and if you're not here, stand clear. I'll mortify thy
flesh for thee!"
"But let me clear up my points, your worshipful - - "
Henchard turned away.
"He asked me and he questioned me, and then 'a wouldn't hear my
points!" said Abel, to the yard in general. "Now, I shall twitch like a
moment-hand all night to-night for fear o' him!"
The journey to be taken by the waggons next day was a long one into
Blackmoor Vale, and at four o'clock lanterns were moving about the yard.
But Abel was missing. Before either of the other men could run to Abel's
and warn him Henchard appeared in the garden doorway. "Where's Abel
Whittle? Not come after all I've said? Now I'll carry out my word, by
my blessed fathers - nothing else will do him any good! I'm going up that
way."
Henchard went off, entered Abel's house, a little cottage in Back
Street, the door of which was never locked because the inmates had
nothing to lose. Reaching Whittle's bedside the corn-factor shouted a
bass note so vigorously that Abel started up instantly, and beholding
Henchard standing over him, was galvanized into spasmodic movements
which had not much relation to getting on his clothes.
"Out of bed, sir, and off to the granary, or you leave my employ to-day!
'Tis to teach ye a lesson. March on; never mind your breeches!"
The unhappy Whittle threw on his sleeve waistcoat, and managed to get
into his boots at the bottom of the stairs, while Henchard thrust his
hat over his head. Whittle then trotted on down Back Street, Henchard
walking sternly behind.
Just at this time Farfrae, who had been to Henchard's house to look for
him, came out of the back gate, and saw something white fluttering in
the morning gloom, which he soon perceived to be part of Abel's shirt
that showed below his waistcoat.
"For maircy's sake, what object's this?" said Farfrae, following Abel
into the yard, Henchard being some way in the rear by this time.
"Ye see, Mr. Farfrae," gibbered Abel with a resigned smile of terror,
"he said he'd mortify my flesh if so be I didn't get up sooner, and now
he's a-doing on't! Ye see it can't be helped, Mr. Farfrae; things do
happen queer sometimes! Yes - I'll go to Blackmoor Vale half naked as
I be, since he do command; but I shall kill myself afterwards; I can't
outlive the disgrace, for the women-folk will be looking out of their
winders at my mortification all the way along, and laughing me to scorn
as a man 'ithout breeches! You know how I feel such things, Maister
Farfrae, and how forlorn thoughts get hold upon me. Yes - I shall do
myself harm - I feel it coming on!"
"Get back home, and slip on your breeches, and come to wark like a man!
If ye go not, you'll ha'e your death standing there!"
"I'm afeard I mustn't! Mr. Henchard said - - "
"I don't care what Mr. Henchard said, nor anybody else! 'Tis simple
foolishness to do this. Go and dress yourself instantly Whittle."
"Hullo, hullo!" said Henchard, coming up behind. "Who's sending him
back?"
All the men looked towards Farfrae.
"I am," said Donald. "I say this joke has been carried far enough."
"And I say it hasn't! Get up in the waggon, Whittle."
"Not if I am manager," said Farfrae. "He either goes home, or I march
out of this yard for good."
Henchard looked at him with a face stern and red. But he paused for
a moment, and their eyes met. Donald went up to him, for he saw in
Henchard's look that he began to regret this.
"Come," said Donald quietly, "a man o' your position should ken better,
sir! It is tyrannical and no worthy of you."
"'Tis not tyrannical!" murmured Henchard, like a sullen boy. "It is to
make him remember!" He presently added, in a tone of one bitterly hurt:
"Why did you speak to me before them like that, Farfrae? You might have
stopped till we were alone. Ah - I know why! I've told ye the secret o'
my life - fool that I was to do't - and you take advantage of me!"
"I had forgot it," said Farfrae simply.
Henchard looked on the ground, said nothing more, and turned away.
During the day Farfrae learnt from the men that Henchard had kept Abel's
old mother in coals and snuff all the previous winter, which made him
less antagonistic to the corn-factor. But Henchard continued moody and
silent, and when one of the men inquired of him if some oats should be
hoisted to an upper floor or not, he said shortly, "Ask Mr. Farfrae.
He's master here!"
Morally he was; there could be no doubt of it. Henchard, who had
hitherto been the most admired man in his circle, was the most admired
no longer. One day the daughters of a deceased farmer in Durnover wanted
an opinion of the value of their haystack, and sent a messenger to ask
Mr. Farfrae to oblige them with one. The messenger, who was a child, met
in the yard not Farfrae, but Henchard.
"Very well," he said. "I'll come."
"But please will Mr. Farfrae come?" said the child.
"I am going that way....Why Mr. Farfrae?" said Henchard, with the fixed
look of thought. "Why do people always want Mr. Farfrae?"
"I suppose because they like him so - that's what they say."
"Oh - I see - that's what they say - hey? They like him because he's
cleverer than Mr. Henchard, and because he knows more; and, in short,
Mr. Henchard can't hold a candle to him - hey?"
"Yes - that's just it, sir - some of it."
"Oh, there's more? Of course there's more! What besides? Come, here's a
sixpence for a fairing."
"'And he's better tempered, and Henchard's a fool to him,' they say.
And when some of the women were a-walking home they said, 'He's a
diment - he's a chap o' wax - he's the best - he's the horse for my money,'
says they. And they said, 'He's the most understanding man o' them two
by long chalks. I wish he was the master instead of Henchard,' they
said."
"They'll talk any nonsense," Henchard replied with covered gloom. "Well,
you can go now. And I am coming to value the hay, d'ye hear? - I." The
boy departed, and Henchard murmured, "Wish he were master here, do
they?"
He went towards Durnover. On his way he overtook Farfrae. They walked on
together, Henchard looking mostly on the ground.
"You're no yoursel' the day?" Donald inquired.
"Yes, I am very well," said Henchard.
"But ye are a bit down - surely ye are down? Why, there's nothing to be
angry about! 'Tis splendid stuff that we've got from Blackmoor Vale. By
the by, the people in Durnover want their hay valued."
"Yes. I am going there."
"I'll go with ye."
As Henchard did not reply Donald practised a piece of music sotto voce,
till, getting near the bereaved people's door, he stopped himself with -
"Ah, as their father is dead I won't go on with such as that. How could
I forget?"
"Do you care so very much about hurting folks' feelings?" observed
Henchard with a half sneer. "You do, I know - especially mine!"
"I am sorry if I have hurt yours, sir," replied Donald, standing still,
with a second expression of the same sentiment in the regretfulness of
his face. "Why should you say it - think it?"
The cloud lifted from Henchard's brow, and as Donald finished the
corn-merchant turned to him, regarding his breast rather than his face.
"I have been hearing things that vexed me," he said. "'Twas that made me
short in my manner - made me overlook what you really are. Now, I don't