Kabanata Kabanata 5 · Chapter V

A few score yards brought them to the spot where the town band was now

shaking the window-panes with the strains of “The Roast Beef of Old

England.”

The building before whose doors they had pitched their music-stands was

the chief hotel in Casterbridge—namely, the King’s Arms. A spacious

bow-window projected into the street over the main portico, and from

the open sashes came the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and

the drawing of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the

whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top of a flight

of stone steps to the road-waggon office opposite, for which reason a

knot of idlers had gathered there.

“We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about—our relation

Mr. Henchard,” whispered Mrs. Newson who, since her entry into

Casterbridge, had seemed strangely weak and agitated, “And this, I

think, would be a good place for trying it—just to ask, you know, how

he stands in the town—if he is here, as I think he must be. You,

Elizabeth-Jane, had better be the one to do it. I’m too worn out to do

anything—pull down your fall first.”

She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Jane obeyed her

directions and stood among the idlers.

“What’s going on to-night?” asked the girl, after singling out an old

man and standing by him long enough to acquire a neighbourly right of

converse.

“Well, ye must be a stranger sure,” said the old man, without taking

his eyes from the window. “Why, ’tis a great public dinner of the

gentle-people and such like leading volk—wi’ the Mayor in the chair. As

we plainer fellows bain’t invited, they leave the winder-shutters open

that we may get jist a sense o’t out here. If you mount the steps you

can see em. That’s Mr. Henchard, the Mayor, at the end of the table, a

facing ye; and that’s the Council men right and left.... Ah, lots of

them when they begun life were no more than I be now!”

“Henchard!” said Elizabeth-Jane, surprised, but by no means suspecting

the whole force of the revelation. She ascended to the top of the

steps.

Her mother, though her head was bowed, had already caught from the

inn-window tones that strangely riveted her attention, before the old

man’s words, “Mr. Henchard, the Mayor,” reached her ears. She arose,

and stepped up to her daughter’s side as soon as she could do so

without showing exceptional eagerness.

The interior of the hotel dining-room was spread out before her, with

its tables, and glass, and plate, and inmates. Facing the window, in

the chair of dignity, sat a man about forty years of age; of heavy

frame, large features, and commanding voice; his general build being

rather coarse than compact. He had a rich complexion, which verged on

swarthiness, a flashing black eye, and dark, bushy brows and hair. When

he indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some remark among the

guests, his large mouth parted so far back as to show to the rays of

the chandelier a full score or more of the two-and-thirty sound white

teeth that he obviously still could boast of.

That laugh was not encouraging to strangers, and hence it may have been

well that it was rarely heard. Many theories might have been built upon

it. It fell in well with conjectures of a temperament which would have

no pity for weakness, but would be ready to yield ungrudging admiration

to greatness and strength. Its producer’s personal goodness, if he had

any, would be of a very fitful cast—an occasional almost oppressive

generosity rather than a mild and constant kindness.

Susan Henchard’s husband—in law, at least—sat before them, matured in

shape, stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits; disciplined,

thought-marked—in a word, older. Elizabeth, encumbered with no

recollections as her mother was, regarded him with nothing more than

the keen curiosity and interest which the discovery of such unexpected

social standing in the long-sought relative naturally begot. He was

dressed in an old-fashioned evening suit, an expanse of frilled shirt

showing on his broad breast; jewelled studs, and a heavy gold chain.

Three glasses stood at his right hand; but, to his wife’s surprise, the

two for wine were empty, while the third, a tumbler, was half full of

water.

When last she had seen him he was sitting in a corduroy jacket, fustian

waistcoat and breeches, and tanned leather leggings, with a basin of

hot furmity before him. Time, the magician, had wrought much here.

Watching him, and thus thinking of past days, she became so moved that

she shrank back against the jamb of the waggon-office doorway to which

the steps gave access, the shadow from it conveniently hiding her

features. She forgot her daughter till a touch from Elizabeth-Jane

aroused her. “Have you seen him, mother?” whispered the girl.

“Yes, yes,” answered her companion hastily. “I have seen him, and it is

enough for me! Now I only want to go—pass away—die.”

“Why—O what?” She drew closer, and whispered in her mother’s ear, “Does

he seem to you not likely to befriend us? I thought he looked a

generous man. What a gentleman he is, isn’t he? and how his diamond

studs shine! How strange that you should have said he might be in the

stocks, or in the workhouse, or dead! Did ever anything go more by

contraries! Why do you feel so afraid of him? I am not at all; I’ll

call upon him—he can but say he don’t own such remote kin.”

“I don’t know at all—I can’t tell what to set about. I feel so down.”

“Don’t be that, mother, now we have got here and all! Rest there where

you be a little while—I will look on and find out more about him.”

“I don’t think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard. He is not how I thought he

would be—he overpowers me! I don’t wish to see him any more.”

“But wait a little time and consider.”

Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested in anything in her

life as in their present position, partly from the natural elation she

felt at discovering herself akin to a coach; and she gazed again at the

scene. The younger guests were talking and eating with animation; their

elders were searching for titbits, and sniffing and grunting over their

plates like sows nuzzling for acorns. Three drinks seemed to be sacred

to the company—port, sherry, and rum; outside which old-established

trinity few or no palates ranged.

A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on their sides, and each

primed with a spoon, was now placed down the table, and these were

promptly filled with grog at such high temperatures as to raise serious

considerations for the articles exposed to its vapours. But

Elizabeth-Jane noticed that, though this filling went on with great

promptness up and down the table, nobody filled the Mayor’s glass, who

still drank large quantities of water from the tumbler behind the clump

of crystal vessels intended for wine and spirits.

“They don’t fill Mr. Henchard’s wine-glasses,” she ventured to say to

her elbow acquaintance, the old man.

“Ah, no; don’t ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining worthy of

that name? He scorns all tempting liquors; never touches nothing. O

yes, he’ve strong qualities that way. I have heard tell that he sware a

gospel oath in bygone times, and has bode by it ever since. So they

don’t press him, knowing it would be unbecoming in the face of that:

for yer gospel oath is a serious thing.”

Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in by

inquiring, “How much longer have he got to suffer from it, Solomon

Longways?”

“Another two year, they say. I don’t know the why and the wherefore of

his fixing such a time, for ’a never has told anybody. But ’tis exactly

two calendar years longer, they say. A powerful mind to hold out so

long!”

“True.... But there’s great strength in hope. Knowing that in

four-and-twenty months’ time ye’ll be out of your bondage, and able to

make up for all you’ve suffered, by partaking without stint—why, it

keeps a man up, no doubt.”

“No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. And ’a must need such

reflections—a lonely widow man,” said Longways.

“When did he lose his wife?” asked Elizabeth.

“I never knowed her. ’Twas afore he came to Casterbridge,” Solomon

Longways replied with terminative emphasis, as if the fact of his

ignorance of Mrs. Henchard were sufficient to deprive her history of

all interest. “But I know that ’a’s a banded teetotaller, and that if

any of his men be ever so little overtook by a drop he’s down upon ’em

as stern as the Lord upon the jovial Jews.”

“Has he many men, then?” said Elizabeth-Jane.

“Many! Why, my good maid, he’s the powerfullest member of the Town

Council, and quite a principal man in the country round besides. Never

a big dealing in wheat, barley, oats, hay, roots, and such-like but

Henchard’s got a hand in it. Ay, and he’ll go into other things too;

and that’s where he makes his mistake. He worked his way up from

nothing when ’a came here; and now he’s a pillar of the town. Not but

what he’s been shaken a little to-year about this bad corn he has

supplied in his contracts. I’ve seen the sun rise over Durnover Moor

these nine-and-sixty year, and though Mr. Henchard has never cussed me

unfairly ever since I’ve worked for’n, seeing I be but a little small

man, I must say that I have never before tasted such rough bread as has

been made from Henchard’s wheat lately. ’Tis that growed out that ye

could a’most call it malt, and there’s a list at bottom o’ the loaf as

thick as the sole of one’s shoe.”

The band now struck up another melody, and by the time it was ended the

dinner was over, and speeches began to be made. The evening being calm,

and the windows still open, these orations could be distinctly heard.

Henchard’s voice arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his

hay-dealing experiences, in which he had outwitted a sharper who had

been bent upon outwitting him.

“Ha-ha-ha!” responded his audience at the upshot of the story; and

hilarity was general till a new voice arose with, “This is all very

well; but how about the bad bread?”

It came from the lower end of the table, where there sat a group of

minor tradesmen who, although part of the company, appeared to be a

little below the social level of the others; and who seemed to nourish

a certain independence of opinion and carry on discussions not quite in

harmony with those at the head; just as the west end of a church is

sometimes persistently found to sing out of time and tune with the

leading spirits in the chancel.

This interruption about the bad bread afforded infinite satisfaction to

the loungers outside, several of whom were in the mood which finds its

pleasure in others’ discomfiture; and hence they echoed pretty freely,

“Hey! How about the bad bread, Mr. Mayor?” Moreover, feeling none of

the restraints of those who shared the feast, they could afford to add,

“You rather ought to tell the story o’ that, sir!”

The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayor to notice it.

“Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly,” he said. “But I was

taken in in buying it as much as the bakers who bought it o’ me.”

“And the poor folk who had to eat it whether or no,” said the

inharmonious man outside the window.

Henchard’s face darkened. There was temper under the thin bland

surface—the temper which, artificially intensified, had banished a wife

nearly a score of years before.

“You must make allowances for the accidents of a large business,” he

said. “You must bear in mind that the weather just at the harvest of

that corn was worse than we have known it for years. However, I have

mended my arrangements on account o’t. Since I have found my business

too large to be well looked after by myself alone, I have advertised

for a thorough good man as manager of the corn department. When I’ve

got him you will find these mistakes will no longer occur—matters will

be better looked into.”

“But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?” inquired the

man who had before spoken, and who seemed to be a baker or miller.

“Will you replace the grown flour we’ve still got by sound grain?”

Henchard’s face had become still more stern at these interruptions, and

he drank from his tumbler of water as if to calm himself or gain time.

Instead of vouchsafing a direct reply, he stiffly observed—

“If anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheat into wholesome wheat

I’ll take it back with pleasure. But it can’t be done.”

Henchard was not to be drawn again. Having said this, he sat down.