Chương Chương 23 · Chapter XXIII

A conjecture that her visitor might be some other person had, indeed,

flashed through Lucetta’s mind when she was on the point of bursting

out; but it was just too late to recede.

He was years younger than the Mayor of Casterbridge; fair, fresh, and

slenderly handsome. He wore genteel cloth leggings with white buttons,

polished boots with infinite lace holes, light cord breeches under a

black velveteen coat and waistcoat; and he had a silver-topped switch

in his hand. Lucetta blushed, and said with a curious mixture of pout

and laugh on her face—“O, I’ve made a mistake!”

The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh half a wrinkle.

“But I’m very sorry!” he said, in deprecating tones. “I came and I

inquired for Miss Henchard, and they showed me up here, and in no case

would I have caught ye so unmannerly if I had known!”

“I was the unmannerly one,” she said.

“But is it that I have come to the wrong house, madam?” said Mr.

Farfrae, blinking a little in his bewilderment and nervously tapping

his legging with his switch.

“O no, sir,—sit down. You must come and sit down now you are here,”

replied Lucetta kindly, to relieve his embarrassment. “Miss Henchard

will be here directly.”

Now this was not strictly true; but that something about the young

man—that hyperborean crispness, stringency, and charm, as of a

well-braced musical instrument, which had awakened the interest of

Henchard, and of Elizabeth-Jane and of the Three Mariners’ jovial crew,

at sight, made his unexpected presence here attractive to Lucetta. He

hesitated, looked at the chair, thought there was no danger in it

(though there was), and sat down.

Farfrae’s sudden entry was simply the result of Henchard’s permission

to him to see Elizabeth if he were minded to woo her. At first he had

taken no notice of Henchard’s brusque letter; but an exceptionally

fortunate business transaction put him on good terms with everybody,

and revealed to him that he could undeniably marry if he chose. Then

who so pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory in every way as

Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from her personal recommendations a

reconciliation with his former friend Henchard would, in the natural

course of things, flow from such a union. He therefore forgave the

Mayor his curtness; and this morning on his way to the fair he had

called at her house, where he learnt that she was staying at Miss

Templeman’s. A little stimulated at not finding her ready and

waiting—so fanciful are men!—he hastened on to High-Place Hall to

encounter no Elizabeth but its mistress herself.

“The fair to-day seems a large one,” she said when, by natural

deviation, their eyes sought the busy scene without. “Your numerous

fairs and markets keep me interested. How many things I think of while

I watch from here!”

He seemed in doubt how to answer, and the babble without reached them

as they sat—voices as of wavelets on a looping sea, one ever and anon

rising above the rest. “Do you look out often?” he asked.

“Yes—very often.”

“Do you look for any one you know?”

Why should she have answered as she did?

“I look as at a picture merely. But,” she went on, turning pleasantly

to him, “I may do so now—I may look for you. You are always there, are

you not? Ah—I don’t mean it seriously! But it is amusing to look for

somebody one knows in a crowd, even if one does not want him. It takes

off the terrible oppressiveness of being surrounded by a throng, and

having no point of junction with it through a single individual.”

“Ay! Maybe you’ll be very lonely, ma’am?”

“Nobody knows how lonely.”

“But you are rich, they say?”

“If so, I don’t know how to enjoy my riches. I came to Casterbridge

thinking I should like to live here. But I wonder if I shall.”

“Where did ye come from, ma’am?”

“The neighbourhood of Bath.”

“And I from near Edinboro’,” he murmured. “It’s better to stay at home,

and that’s true; but a man must live where his money is made. It is a

great pity, but it’s always so! Yet I’ve done very well this year. O

yes,” he went on with ingenuous enthusiasm. “You see that man with the

drab kerseymere coat? I bought largely of him in the autumn when wheat

was down, and then afterwards when it rose a little I sold off all I

had! It brought only a small profit to me; while the farmers kept

theirs, expecting higher figures—yes, though the rats were gnawing the

ricks hollow. Just when I sold the markets went lower, and I bought up

the corn of those who had been holding back at less price than my first

purchases. And then,” cried Farfrae impetuously, his face alight, “I

sold it a few weeks after, when it happened to go up again! And so, by

contenting mysel’ with small profits frequently repeated, I soon made

five hundred pounds—yes!”—(bringing down his hand upon the table, and

quite forgetting where he was)—“while the others by keeping theirs in

hand made nothing at all!”

Lucetta regarded him with a critical interest. He was quite a new type

of person to her. At last his eye fell upon the lady’s and their

glances met.

“Ay, now, I’m wearying you!” he exclaimed.

She said, “No, indeed,” colouring a shade.

“What then?”

“Quite otherwise. You are most interesting.”

It was now Farfrae who showed the modest pink.

“I mean all you Scotchmen,” she added in hasty correction. “So free

from Southern extremes. We common people are all one way or the

other—warm or cold, passionate or frigid. You have both temperatures

going on in you at the same time.”

“But how do you mean that? Ye were best to explain clearly, ma’am.”

“You are animated—then you are thinking of getting on. You are sad the

next moment—then you are thinking of Scotland and friends.”

“Yes. I think of home sometimes!” he said simply.

“So do I—as far as I can. But it was an old house where I was born, and

they pulled it down for improvements, so I seem hardly to have any home

to think of now.”

Lucetta did not add, as she might have done, that the house was in St.

Helier, and not in Bath.

“But the mountains, and the mists and the rocks, they are there! And

don’t they seem like home?”

She shook her head.

“They do to me—they do to me,” he murmured. And his mind could be seen

flying away northwards. Whether its origin were national or personal,

it was quite true what Lucetta had said, that the curious double

strands in Farfrae’s thread of life—the commercial and the

romantic—were very distinct at times. Like the colours in a variegated

cord those contrasts could be seen intertwisted, yet not mingling.

“You are wishing you were back again,” she said.

“Ah, no, ma’am,” said Farfrae, suddenly recalling himself.

The fair without the windows was now raging thick and loud. It was the

chief hiring fair of the year, and differed quite from the market of a

few days earlier. In substance it was a whitey-brown crowd flecked with

white—this being the body of labourers waiting for places. The long

bonnets of the women, like waggon-tilts, their cotton gowns and checked

shawls, mixed with the carters’ smockfrocks; for they, too, entered

into the hiring. Among the rest, at the corner of the pavement, stood

an old shepherd, who attracted the eyes of Lucetta and Farfrae by his

stillness. He was evidently a chastened man. The battle of life had

been a sharp one with him, for, to begin with, he was a man of small

frame. He was now so bowed by hard work and years that, approaching

from behind, a person could hardly see his head. He had planted the

stem of his crook in the gutter and was resting upon the bow, which was

polished to silver brightness by the long friction of his hands. He had

quite forgotten where he was, and what he had come for, his eyes being

bent on the ground. A little way off negotiations were proceeding which

had reference to him; but he did not hear them, and there seemed to be

passing through his mind pleasant visions of the hiring successes of

his 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 kind-hearted 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 to-day 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 here 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 watched him threading

the maze of farmers and farmers’ men. She could see by his gait that he

was conscious of her eyes, and her heart went out to him for his

modesty—pleaded with her sense of his unfitness that he might be

allowed to come again. He entered the market-house, and she could see

him no more.

Three minutes later, when she had left the window, knocks, not of

multitude but of strength, sounded through the house, and the

waiting-maid tripped up.

“The Mayor,” she said.

Lucetta had reclined herself, and she was looking dreamily through her

fingers. She did not answer at once, and the maid repeated the

information with the addition, “And he’s afraid he hasn’t much time to

spare, he says.”

“Oh! Then tell him that as I have a headache I won’t detain him

to-day.”

The message was taken down, and she heard the door close.

Lucetta had come to Casterbridge to quicken Henchard’s feelings with

regard to her. She had quickened them, and now she was indifferent to

the achievement.

Her morning view of Elizabeth-Jane as a disturbing element changed, and

she no longer felt strongly the necessity of getting rid of the girl

for her stepfather’s sake. When the young woman came in, sweetly

unconscious of the turn in the tide, Lucetta went up to her, and said

quite sincerely—

“I’m so glad you’ve come. You’ll live with me a long time, won’t you?”

Elizabeth as a watch-dog to keep her father off—what a new idea. Yet it

was not unpleasing. Henchard had neglected her all these days, after

compromising her indescribably in the past. The least he could have

done when he found himself free, and herself affluent, would have been

to respond heartily and promptly to her invitation.

Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled her with wild surmise at

their suddenness; and so passed Lucetta’s experiences of that day.