第 四十三 章 · Chapter XLIII

What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough, seen at a little

later date by other people. That Mr. Farfrae “walked with that bankrupt

Henchard’s stepdaughter, of all women,” became a common topic in the

town, the simple perambulating term being used hereabout to signify a

wooing; and the nineteen superior young ladies of Casterbridge, who had

each looked upon herself as the only woman capable of making the

merchant Councilman happy, indignantly left off going to the church

Farfrae attended, left off conscious mannerisms, left off putting him

in their prayers at night amongst their blood relations; in short,

reverted to their normal courses.

Perhaps the only inhabitants of the town to whom this looming choice of

the Scotchman’s gave unmixed satisfaction were the members of the

philosophic party, which included Longways, Christopher Coney, Billy

Wills, Mr. Buzzford, and the like. The Three Mariners having been,

years before, the house in which they had witnessed the young man and

woman’s first and humble appearance on the Casterbridge stage, they

took a kindly interest in their career, not unconnected, perhaps, with

visions of festive treatment at their hands hereafter. Mrs. Stannidge,

having rolled into the large parlour one evening and said that it was a

wonder such a man as Mr. Farfrae, “a pillow of the town,” who might

have chosen one of the daughters of the professional men or private

residents, should stoop so low, Coney ventured to disagree with her.

“No, ma’am, no wonder at all. ’Tis she that’s a stooping to he—that’s

my opinion. A widow man—whose first wife was no credit to him—what is

it for a young perusing woman that’s her own mistress and well liked?

But as a neat patching up of things I see much good in it. When a man

have put up a tomb of best marble-stone to the other one, as he’ve

done, and weeped his fill, and thought it all over, and said to

hisself, ‘T’other took me in, I knowed this one first; she’s a sensible

piece for a partner, and there’s no faithful woman in high life

now’;—well, he may do worse than not to take her, if she’s

tender-inclined.”

Thus they talked at the Mariners. But we must guard against a too

liberal use of the conventional declaration that a great sensation was

caused by the prospective event, that all the gossips’ tongues were set

wagging thereby, and so-on, even though such a declaration might lend

some eclat to the career of our poor only heroine. When all has been

said about busy rumourers, a superficial and temporary thing is the

interest of anybody in affairs which do not directly touch them. It

would be a truer representation to say that Casterbridge (ever

excepting the nineteen young ladies) looked up for a moment at the

news, and withdrawing its attention, went on labouring and victualling,

bringing up its children, and burying its dead, without caring a tittle

for Farfrae’s domestic plans.

Not a hint of the matter was thrown out to her stepfather by Elizabeth

herself or by Farfrae either. Reasoning on the cause of their reticence

he concluded that, estimating him by his past, the throbbing pair were

afraid to broach the subject, and looked upon him as an irksome

obstacle whom they would be heartily glad to get out of the way.

Embittered as he was against society, this moody view of himself took

deeper and deeper hold of Henchard, till the daily necessity of facing

mankind, and of them particularly Elizabeth-Jane, became well-nigh more

than he could endure. His health declined; he became morbidly

sensitive. He wished he could escape those who did not want him, and

hide his head for ever.

But what if he were mistaken in his views, and there were no necessity

that his own absolute separation from her should be involved in the

incident of her marriage?

He proceeded to draw a picture of the alternative—himself living like a

fangless lion about the back rooms of a house in which his stepdaughter

was mistress, an inoffensive old man, tenderly smiled on by Elizabeth,

and good-naturedly tolerated by her husband. It was terrible to his

pride to think of descending so low; and yet, for the girl’s sake he

might put up with anything; even from Farfrae; even snubbings and

masterful tongue-scourgings. The privilege of being in the house she

occupied would almost outweigh the personal humiliation.

Whether this were a dim possibility or the reverse, the courtship—which

it evidently now was—had an absorbing interest for him.

Elizabeth, as has been said, often took her walks on the Budmouth Road,

and Farfrae as often made it convenient to create an accidental meeting

with her there. Two miles out, a quarter of a mile from the highway,

was the prehistoric fort called Mai Dun, of huge dimensions and many

ramparts, within or upon whose enclosures a human being as seen from

the road, was but an insignificant speck. Hitherward Henchard often

resorted, glass in hand, and scanned the hedgeless _Via_—for it was the

original track laid out by the legions of the Empire—to a distance of

two or three miles, his object being to read the progress of affairs

between Farfrae and his charmer.

One day Henchard was at this spot when a masculine figure came along

the road from Budmouth, and lingered. Applying his telescope to his eye

Henchard expected that Farfrae’s features would be disclosed as usual.

But the lenses revealed that today the man was not Elizabeth-Jane’s

lover.

It was one clothed as a merchant captain, and as he turned in the

scrutiny of the road he revealed his face. Henchard lived a lifetime

the moment he saw it. The face was Newson’s.

Henchard dropped the glass, and for some seconds made no other

movement. Newson waited, and Henchard waited—if that could be called a

waiting which was a transfixture. But Elizabeth-Jane did not come.

Something or other had caused her to neglect her customary walk that

day. Perhaps Farfrae and she had chosen another road for variety’s

sake. But what did that amount to? She might be here to-morrow, and in

any case Newson, if bent on a private meeting and a revelation of the

truth to her, would soon make his opportunity.

Then he would tell her not only of his paternity, but of the ruse by

which he had been once sent away. Elizabeth’s strict nature would cause

her for the first time to despise her stepfather, would root out his

image as that of an arch-deceiver, and Newson would reign in her heart

in his stead.

But Newson did not see anything of her that morning. Having stood still

awhile he at last retraced his steps, and Henchard felt like a

condemned man who has a few hours’ respite. When he reached his own

house he found her there.

“O father!” she said innocently. “I have had a letter—a strange one—not

signed. Somebody has asked me to meet him, either on the Budmouth Road

at noon today, or in the evening at Mr. Farfrae’s. He says he came to

see me some time ago, but a trick was played him, so that he did not

see me. I don’t understand it; but between you and me I think Donald is

at the bottom of the mystery, and that it is a relation of his who

wants to pass an opinion on his choice. But I did not like to go till I

had seen you. Shall I go?”

Henchard replied heavily, “Yes; go.”

The question of his remaining in Casterbridge was for ever disposed of

by this closing in of Newson on the scene. Henchard was not the man to

stand the certainty of condemnation on a matter so near his heart. And

being an old hand at bearing anguish in silence, and haughty withal, he

resolved to make as light as he could of his intentions, while

immediately taking his measures.

He surprised the young woman whom he had looked upon as his all in this

world by saying to her, as if he did not care about her more: “I am

going to leave Casterbridge, Elizabeth-Jane.”

“Leave Casterbridge!” she cried, “and leave—me?”

“Yes, this little shop can be managed by you alone as well as by us

both; I don’t care about shops and streets and folk—I would rather get

into the country by myself, out of sight, and follow my own ways, and

leave you to yours.”

She looked down and her tears fell silently. It seemed to her that this

resolve of his had come on account of her attachment and its probable

result. She showed her devotion to Farfrae, however, by mastering her

emotion and speaking out.

“I am sorry you have decided on this,” she said with difficult

firmness. “For I thought it probable—possible—that I might marry Mr.

Farfrae some little time hence, and I did not know that you disapproved

of the step!”

“I approve of anything you desire to do, Izzy,” said Henchard huskily.

“If I did not approve it would be no matter! I wish to go away. My

presence might make things awkward in the future, and, in short, it is

best that I go.”

Nothing that her affection could urge would induce him to reconsider

his determination; for she could not urge what she did not know—that

when she should learn he was not related to her other than as a

step-parent she would refrain from despising him, and that when she

knew what he had done to keep her in ignorance she would refrain from

hating him. It was his conviction that she would not so refrain; and

there existed as yet neither word nor event which could argue it away.

“Then,” she said at last, “you will not be able to come to my wedding;

and that is not as it ought to be.”

“I don’t want to see it—I don’t want to see it!” he exclaimed; adding

more softly, “but think of me sometimes in your future life—you’ll do

that, Izzy?—think of me when you are living as the wife of the richest,

the foremost man in the town, and don’t let my sins, _when you know

them all_, cause ’ee to quite forget that though I loved ’ee late I

loved ’ee well.”

“It is because of Donald!” she sobbed.

“I don’t forbid you to marry him,” said Henchard. “Promise not to quite

forget me when——” He meant when Newson should come.

She promised mechanically, in her agitation; and the same evening at

dusk Henchard left the town, to whose development he had been one of

the chief stimulants for many years. During the day he had bought a new

tool-basket, cleaned up his old hay-knife and wimble, set himself up in

fresh leggings, kneenaps and corduroys, and in other ways gone back to

the working clothes of his young manhood, discarding for ever the

shabby-genteel suit of cloth and rusty silk hat that since his decline

had characterized him in the Casterbridge street as a man who had seen

better days.

He went secretly and alone, not a soul of the many who had known him

being aware of his departure. Elizabeth-Jane accompanied him as far as

the second bridge on the highway—for the hour of her appointment with

the unguessed visitor at Farfrae’s had not yet arrived—and parted from

him with unfeigned wonder and sorrow, keeping him back a minute or two

before finally letting him go. She watched his form diminish across the

moor, the yellow rush-basket at his back moving up and down with each

tread, and the creases behind his knees coming and going alternately

till she could no longer see them. Though she did not know it Henchard

formed at this moment much the same picture as he had presented when

entering Casterbridge for the first time nearly a quarter of a century

before; except, to be sure, that the serious addition to his years had

considerably lessened the spring to his stride, that his state of

hopelessness had weakened him, and imparted to his shoulders, as

weighted by the basket, a perceptible bend.

He went on till he came to the first milestone, which stood in the

bank, half way up a steep hill. He rested his basket on the top of the

stone, placed his elbows on it, and gave way to a convulsive twitch,

which was worse than a sob, because it was so hard and so dry.

“If I had only got her with me—if I only had!” he said. “Hard work

would be nothing to me then! But that was not to be. I—Cain—go alone as

I deserve—an outcast and a vagabond. But my punishment is _not_ greater

than I can bear!”

He sternly subdued his anguish, shouldered his basket, and went on.

Elizabeth, in the meantime, had breathed him a sigh, recovered her

equanimity, and turned her face to Casterbridge. Before she had reached

the first house she was met in her walk by Donald Farfrae. This was

evidently not their first meeting that day; they joined hands without

ceremony, and Farfrae anxiously asked, “And is he gone—and did you tell

him?—I mean of the other matter—not of ours.”

“He is gone; and I told him all I knew of your friend. Donald, who is

he?”

“Well, well, dearie; you will know soon about that. And Mr. Henchard

will hear of it if he does not go far.”

“He will go far—he’s bent upon getting out of sight and sound!”

She walked beside her lover, and when they reached the Crossways, or

Bow, turned with him into Corn Street instead of going straight on to

her own door. At Farfrae’s house they stopped and went in.

Farfrae flung open the door of the ground-floor sitting-room, saying,

“There he is waiting for you,” and Elizabeth entered. In the arm-chair

sat the broad-faced genial man who had called on Henchard on a

memorable morning between one and two years before this time, and whom

the latter had seen mount the coach and depart within half-an-hour of

his arrival. It was Richard Newson. The meeting with the light-hearted

father from whom she had been separated half-a-dozen years, as if by

death, need hardly be detailed. It was an affecting one, apart from the

question of paternity. Henchard’s departure was in a moment explained.

When the true facts came to be handled the difficulty of restoring her

to her old belief in Newson was not so great as might have seemed

likely, for Henchard’s conduct itself was a proof that those facts were

true. Moreover, she had grown up under Newson’s paternal care; and even

had Henchard been her father in nature, this father in early

domiciliation might almost have carried the point against him, when the

incidents of her parting with Henchard had a little worn off.

Newson’s pride in what she had grown up to be was more than he could

express. He kissed her again and again.

“I’ve saved you the trouble to come and meet me—ha-ha!” said Newson.

“The fact is that Mr. Farfrae here, he said, ‘Come up and stop with me

for a day or two, Captain Newson, and I’ll bring her round.’ ‘Faith,’

says I, ‘so I will’; and here I am.”

“Well, Henchard is gone,” said Farfrae, shutting the door. “He has done

it all voluntarily, and, as I gather from Elizabeth, he has been very

nice with her. I was got rather uneasy; but all is as it should be, and

we will have no more deefficulties at all.”

“Now, that’s very much as I thought,” said Newson, looking into the

face of each by turns. “I said to myself, ay, a hundred times, when I

tried to get a peep at her unknown to herself—‘Depend upon it, ’tis

best that I should live on quiet for a few days like this till

something turns up for the better.’ I now know you are all right, and

what can I wish for more?”

“Well, Captain Newson, I will be glad to see ye here every day now,

since it can do no harm,” said Farfrae. “And what I’ve been thinking is

that the wedding may as well be kept under my own roof, the house being

large, and you being in lodgings by yourself—so that a great deal of

trouble and expense would be saved ye?—and ’tis a convenience when a

couple’s married not to hae far to go to get home!”

“With all my heart,” said Captain Newson; “since, as ye say, it can do

no harm, now poor Henchard’s gone; though I wouldn’t have done it

otherwise, or put myself in his way at all; for I’ve already in my

lifetime been an intruder into his family quite as far as politeness

can be expected to put up with. But what do the young woman say herself

about it? Elizabeth, my child, come and hearken to what we be talking

about, and not bide staring out o’ the window as if ye didn’t hear.”

“Donald and you must settle it,” murmured Elizabeth, still keeping up a

scrutinizing gaze at some small object in the street.

“Well, then,” continued Newson, turning anew to Farfrae with a face

expressing thorough entry into the subject, “that’s how we’ll have it.

And, Mr. Farfrae, as you provide so much, and houseroom, and all that,

I’ll do my part in the drinkables, and see to the rum and

schiedam—maybe a dozen jars will be sufficient?—as many of the folk

will be ladies, and perhaps they won’t drink hard enough to make a high

average in the reckoning? But you know best. I’ve provided for men and

shipmates times enough, but I’m as ignorant as a child how many glasses

of grog a woman, that’s not a drinking woman, is expected to consume at

these ceremonies?”

“Oh, none—we’ll no want much of that—O no!” said Farfrae, shaking his

head with appalled gravity. “Do you leave all to me.”

When they had gone a little further in these particulars Newson,

leaning back in his chair and smiling reflectively at the ceiling,

said, “I’ve never told ye, or have I, Mr. Farfrae, how Henchard put me

off the scent that time?”

He expressed ignorance of what the Captain alluded to.

“Ah, I thought I hadn’t. I resolved that I would not, I remember, not

to hurt the man’s name. But now he’s gone I can tell ye. Why, I came to

Casterbridge nine or ten months before that day last week that I found

ye out. I had been here twice before then. The first time I passed

through the town on my way westward, not knowing Elizabeth lived here.

Then hearing at some place—I forget where—that a man of the name of

Henchard had been mayor here, I came back, and called at his house one

morning. The old rascal!—he said Elizabeth-Jane had died years ago.”

Elizabeth now gave earnest heed to his story.

“Now, it never crossed my mind that the man was selling me a packet,”

continued Newson. “And, if you’ll believe me, I was that upset, that I

went back to the coach that had brought me, and took passage onward

without lying in the town half-an-hour. Ha-ha!—’twas a good joke, and

well carried out, and I give the man credit for’t!”

Elizabeth-Jane was amazed at the intelligence. “A joke?—O no!” she

cried. “Then he kept you from me, father, all those months, when you

might have been here?”

The father admitted that such was the case.

“He ought not to have done it!” said Farfrae.

Elizabeth sighed. “I said I would never forget him. But O! I think I

ought to forget him now!”

Newson, like a good many rovers and sojourners among strange men and

strange moralities, failed to perceive the enormity of Henchard’s

crime, notwithstanding that he himself had been the chief sufferer

therefrom. Indeed, the attack upon the absent culprit waxing serious,

he began to take Henchard’s part.

“Well, ’twas not ten words that he said, after all,” Newson pleaded.

“And how could he know that I should be such a simpleton as to believe

him? ’Twas as much my fault as his, poor fellow!”

“No,” said Elizabeth-Jane firmly, in her revulsion of feeling. “He knew

your disposition—you always were so trusting, father; I’ve heard my

mother say so hundreds of times—and he did it to wrong you. After

weaning me from you these five years by saying he was my father, he

should not have done this.”

Thus they conversed; and there was nobody to set before Elizabeth any

extenuation of the absent one’s deceit. Even had he been present

Henchard might scarce have pleaded it, so little did he value himself

or his good name.

“Well, well—never mind—it is all over and past,” said Newson

good-naturedly. “Now, about this wedding again.”