The Mayor of Casterbridge

T >> Thomas Hardy >> The Mayor of Casterbridge


But towards six the storm abated, and a drier breeze shook the moisture
from the grass bents. It seemed possible to carry out the programme
after all. The awning was set up again; the band was called out from its
shelter, and ordered to begin, and where the tables had stood a place
was cleared for dancing.

"But where are the folk?" said Henchard, after the lapse of
half-an-hour, during which time only two men and a woman had stood up to
dance. "The shops are all shut. Why don't they come?"

"They are at Farfrae's affair in the West Walk," answered a Councilman
who stood in the field with the Mayor.

"A few, I suppose. But where are the body o 'em?"

"All out of doors are there."

"Then the more fools they!"

Henchard walked away moodily. One or two young fellows gallantly came to
climb the poles, to save the hams from being wasted; but as there
were no spectators, and the whole scene presented the most melancholy
appearance Henchard gave orders that the proceedings were to be
suspended, and the entertainment closed, the food to be distributed
among the poor people of the town. In a short time nothing was left in
the field but a few hurdles, the tents, and the poles.

Henchard returned to his house, had tea with his wife and daughter, and
then walked out. It was now dusk. He soon saw that the tendency of all
promenaders was towards a particular spot in the Walks, and eventually
proceeded thither himself. The notes of a stringed band came from the
enclosure that Farfrae had erected--the pavilion as he called it--and
when the Mayor reached it he perceived that a gigantic tent had been
ingeniously constructed without poles or ropes. The densest point of the
avenue of sycamores had been selected, where the boughs made a closely
interlaced vault overhead; to these boughs the canvas had been hung, and
a barrel roof was the result. The end towards the wind was enclosed, the
other end was open. Henchard went round and saw the interior.

In form it was like the nave of a cathedral with one gable removed, but
the scene within was anything but devotional. A reel or fling of some
sort was in progress; and the usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst of
the other dancers in the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging himself
about and spinning to the tune. For a moment Henchard could not help
laughing. Then he perceived the immense admiration for the Scotchman
that revealed itself in the women's faces; and when this exhibition was
over, and a new dance proposed, and Donald had disappeared for a time to
return in his natural garments, he had an unlimited choice of partners,
every girl being in a coming-on disposition towards one who so
thoroughly understood the poetry of motion as he.

All the town crowded to the Walk, such a delightful idea of a ballroom
never having occurred to the inhabitants before. Among the rest of the
onlookers were Elizabeth and her mother--the former thoughtful yet
much interested, her eyes beaming with a longing lingering light, as
if Nature had been advised by Correggio in their creation. The dancing
progressed with unabated spirit, and Henchard walked and waited till
his wife should be disposed to go home. He did not care to keep in the
light, and when he went into the dark it was worse, for there he heard
remarks of a kind which were becoming too frequent:

"Mr. Henchard's rejoicings couldn't say good morning to this," said one.
"A man must be a headstrong stunpoll to think folk would go up to that
bleak place to-day."

The other answered that people said it was not only in such things as
those that the Mayor was wanting. "Where would his business be if
it were not for this young fellow? 'Twas verily Fortune sent him to
Henchard. His accounts were like a bramblewood when Mr. Farfrae came.
He used to reckon his sacks by chalk strokes all in a row like
garden-palings, measure his ricks by stretching with his arms, weigh his
trusses by a lift, judge his hay by a chaw, and settle the price with a
curse. But now this accomplished young man does it all by ciphering and
mensuration. Then the wheat--that sometimes used to taste so strong
o' mice when made into bread that people could fairly tell the
breed--Farfrae has a plan for purifying, so that nobody would dream the
smallest four-legged beast had walked over it once. O yes, everybody
is full of him, and the care Mr. Henchard has to keep him, to be sure!"
concluded this gentleman.

"But he won't do it for long, good-now," said the other.

"No!" said Henchard to himself behind the tree. "Or if he do, he'll be
honeycombed clean out of all the character and standing that he's built
up in these eighteen year!"

He went back to the dancing pavilion. Farfrae was footing a quaint
little dance with Elizabeth-Jane--an old country thing, the only one she
knew, and though he considerately toned down his movements to suit her
demurer gait, the pattern of the shining little nails in the soles of
his boots became familiar to the eyes of every bystander. The tune
had enticed her into it; being a tune of a busy, vaulting, leaping
sort--some low notes on the silver string of each fiddle, then a
skipping on the small, like running up and down ladders--"Miss M'Leod of
Ayr" was its name, so Mr. Farfrae had said, and that it was very popular
in his own country.

It was soon over, and the girl looked at Henchard for approval; but
he did not give it. He seemed not to see her. "Look here, Farfrae," he
said, like one whose mind was elsewhere, "I'll go to Port-Bredy Great
Market to-morrow myself. You can stay and put things right in your
clothes-box, and recover strength to your knees after your vagaries." He
planted on Donald an antagonistic glare that had begun as a smile.

Some other townsmen came up, and Donald drew aside. "What's this,
Henchard," said Alderman Tubber, applying his thumb to the corn-factor
like a cheese-taster. "An opposition randy to yours, eh? Jack's as good
as his master, eh? Cut ye out quite, hasn't he?"

"You see, Mr. Henchard," said the lawyer, another goodnatured friend,
"where you made the mistake was in going so far afield. You should have
taken a leaf out of his book, and have had your sports in a sheltered
place like this. But you didn't think of it, you see; and he did, and
that's where he's beat you."

"He'll be top-sawyer soon of you two, and carry all afore him," added
jocular Mr. Tubber.

"No," said Henchard gloomily. "He won't be that, because he's shortly
going to leave me." He looked towards Donald, who had come near. "Mr.
Farfrae's time as my manager is drawing to a close--isn't it, Farfrae?"

The young man, who could now read the lines and folds of Henchard's
strongly-traced face as if they were clear verbal inscriptions, quietly
assented; and when people deplored the fact, and asked why it was, he
simply replied that Mr. Henchard no longer required his help.

Henchard went home, apparently satisfied. But in the morning, when his
jealous temper had passed away, his heart sank within him at what he had
said and done. He was the more disturbed when he found that this time
Farfrae was determined to take him at his word.




17.


Elizabeth-Jane had perceived from Henchard's manner that in assenting to
dance she had made a mistake of some kind. In her simplicity she did
not know what it was till a hint from a nodding acquaintance enlightened
her. As the Mayor's step-daughter, she learnt, she had not been quite in
her place in treading a measure amid such a mixed throng as filled the
dancing pavilion.

Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin glowed like live coals at the
dawning of the idea that her tastes were not good enough for her
position, and would bring her into disgrace.

This made her very miserable, and she looked about for her mother;
but Mrs. Henchard, who had less idea of conventionality than Elizabeth
herself, had gone away, leaving her daughter to return at her own
pleasure. The latter moved on into the dark dense old avenues, or rather
vaults of living woodwork, which ran along the town boundary, and stood
reflecting.

A man followed in a few minutes, and her face being to-wards the shine
from the tent he recognized her. It was Farfrae--just come from the
dialogue with Henchard which had signified his dismissal.

"And it's you, Miss Newson?--and I've been looking for ye everywhere!"
he said, overcoming a sadness imparted by the estrangement with the
corn-merchant. "May I walk on with you as far as your street-corner?"

She thought there might be something wrong in this, but did not utter
any objection. So together they went on, first down the West Walk, and
then into the Bowling Walk, till Farfrae said, "It's like that I'm going
to leave you soon."

She faltered, "Why?"

"Oh--as a mere matter of business--nothing more. But we'll not concern
ourselves about it--it is for the best. I hoped to have another dance
with you."

She said she could not dance--in any proper way.

"Nay, but you do! It's the feeling for it rather than the learning of
steps that makes pleasant dancers....I fear I offended your father by
getting up this! And now, perhaps, I'll have to go to another part o'
the warrld altogether!"

This seemed such a melancholy prospect that Elizabeth-Jane breathed
a sigh--letting it off in fragments that he might not hear her.
But darkness makes people truthful, and the Scotchman went on
impulsively--perhaps he had heard her after all:

"I wish I was richer, Miss Newson; and your stepfather had not been
offended, I would ask you something in a short time--yes, I would ask
you to-night. But that's not for me!"

What he would have asked her he did not say, and instead of encouraging
him she remained incompetently silent. Thus afraid one of another they
continued their promenade along the walls till they got near the bottom
of the Bowling Walk; twenty steps further and the trees would end,
and the street-corner and lamps appear. In consciousness of this they
stopped.

"I never found out who it was that sent us to Durnover granary on a
fool's errand that day," said Donald, in his undulating tones. "Did ye
ever know yourself, Miss Newson?"

"Never," said she.

"I wonder why they did it!"

"For fun, perhaps."

"Perhaps it was not for fun. It might have been that they thought they
would like us to stay waiting there, talking to one another? Ay, well! I
hope you Casterbridge folk will not forget me if I go."

"That I'm sure we won't!" she said earnestly. "I--wish you wouldn't go
at all."

They had got into the lamplight. "Now, I'll think over that," said
Donald Farfrae. "And I'll not come up to your door; but part from you
here; lest it make your father more angry still."

They parted, Farfrae returning into the dark Bowling Walk, and
Elizabeth-Jane going up the street. Without any consciousness of what
she was doing she started running with all her might till she reached
her father's door. "O dear me--what am I at?" she thought, as she pulled
up breathless.

Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae's enigmatic
words about not daring to ask her what he fain would. Elizabeth, that
silent observing woman, had long noted how he was rising in favour among
the townspeople; and knowing Henchard's nature now she had feared that
Farfrae's days as manager were numbered, so that the announcement gave
her little surprise. Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge despite his
words and her father's dismissal? His occult breathings to her might be
solvable by his course in that respect.

The next day was windy--so windy that walking in the garden she picked
up a portion of the draft of a letter on business in Donald Farfrae's
writing, which had flown over the wall from the office. The useless
scrap she took indoors, and began to copy the calligraphy, which she
much admired. The letter began "Dear Sir," and presently writing on a
loose slip "Elizabeth-Jane," she laid the latter over "Sir," making the
phrase "Dear Elizabeth-Jane." When she saw the effect a quick red ran up
her face and warmed her through, though nobody was there to see what she
had done. She quickly tore up the slip, and threw it away. After this
she grew cool and laughed at herself, walked about the room, and laughed
again; not joyfully, but distressfully rather.

It was quickly known in Casterbridge that Farfrae and Henchard had
decided to dispense with each other. Elizabeth-Jane's anxiety to know
if Farfrae were going away from the town reached a pitch that disturbed
her, for she could no longer conceal from herself the cause. At length
the news reached her that he was not going to leave the place. A man
following the same trade as Henchard, but on a very small scale, had
sold his business to Farfrae, who was forthwith about to start as corn
and hay merchant on his own account.

Her heart fluttered when she heard of this step of Donald's, proving
that he meant to remain; and yet, would a man who cared one little bit
for her have endangered his suit by setting up a business in opposition
to Mr. Henchard's? Surely not; and it must have been a passing impulse
only which had led him to address her so softly.

To solve the problem whether her appearance on the evening of the dance
were such as to inspire a fleeting love at first sight, she dressed
herself up exactly as she had dressed then--the muslin, the spencer, the
sandals, the para-sol--and looked in the mirror The picture glassed back
was in her opinion, precisely of such a kind as to inspire that fleeting
regard, and no more--"just enough to make him silly, and not enough
to keep him so," she said luminously; and Elizabeth thought, in a much
lower key, that by this time he had discovered how plain and homely was
the informing spirit of that pretty outside.

Hence, when she felt her heart going out to him, she would say to
herself with a mock pleasantry that carried an ache with it, "No, no,
Elizabeth-Jane--such dreams are not for you!" She tried to prevent
herself from seeing him, and thinking of him; succeeding fairly well in
the former attempt, in the latter not so completely.

Henchard, who had been hurt at finding that Farfrae did not mean to
put up with his temper any longer, was incensed beyond measure when
he learnt what the young man had done as an alternative. It was in
the town-hall, after a council meeting, that he first became aware of
Farfrae's coup for establishing himself independently in the town; and
his voice might have been heard as far as the town-pump expressing his
feelings to his fellow councilmen. These tones showed that, though under
a long reign of self-control he had become Mayor and churchwarden and
what not, there was still the same unruly volcanic stuff beneath the
rind of Michael Henchard as when he had sold his wife at Weydon Fair.

"Well, he's a friend of mine, and I'm a friend of his--or if we are not,
what are we? 'Od send, if I've not been his friend, who has, I should
like to know? Didn't he come here without a sound shoe to his voot?
Didn't I keep him here--help him to a living? Didn't I help him to
money, or whatever he wanted? I stuck out for no terms--I said 'Name
your own price.' I'd have shared my last crust with that young fellow
at one time, I liked him so well. And now he's defied me! But damn him,
I'll have a tussle with him now--at fair buying and selling, mind--at
fair buying and selling! And if I can't overbid such a stripling as he,
then I'm not wo'th a varden! We'll show that we know our business as
well as one here and there!"

His friends of the Corporation did not specially respond. Henchard was
less popular now than he had been when nearly two years before, they
had voted him to the chief magistracy on account of his amazing
energy. While they had collectively profited by this quality of the
corn-factor's they had been made to wince individually on more than one
occasion. So he went out of the hall and down the street alone.

Reaching home he seemed to recollect something with a sour satisfaction.
He called Elizabeth-Jane. Seeing how he looked when she entered she
appeared alarmed.

"Nothing to find fault with," he said, observing her concern. "Only I
want to caution you, my dear. That man, Farfrae--it is about him. I've
seen him talking to you two or three times--he danced with 'ee at the
rejoicings, and came home with 'ee. Now, now, no blame to you. But just
harken: Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone the least bit beyond
sniff and snaff at all?"

"No. I have promised him nothing."

"Good. All's well that ends well. I particularly wish you not to see him
again."

"Very well, sir."

"You promise?"

She hesitated for a moment, and then said--

"Yes, if you much wish it."

"I do. He's an enemy to our house!"

When she had gone he sat down, and wrote in a heavy hand to Farfrae
thus:--


SIR,--I make request that henceforth you and my stepdaughter be as
strangers to each other. She on her part has promised to welcome no
more addresses from you; and I trust, therefore, you will not attempt to
force them upon her.

M. HENCHARD.


One would almost have supposed Henchard to have had policy to see
that no better modus vivendi could be arrived at with Farfrae than by
encouraging him to become his son-in-law. But such a scheme for buying
over a rival had nothing to recommend it to the Mayor's headstrong
faculties. With all domestic finesse of that kind he was hopelessly at
variance. Loving a man or hating him, his diplomacy was as wrongheaded
as a buffalo's; and his wife had not ventured to suggest the course
which she, for many reasons, would have welcomed gladly.

Meanwhile Donald Farfrae had opened the gates of commerce on his own
account at a spot on Durnover Hill--as far as possible from Henchard's
stores, and with every intention of keeping clear of his former friend
and employer's customers. There was, it seemed to the younger man, room
for both of them and to spare. The town was small, but the corn and
hay-trade was proportionately large, and with his native sagacity he saw
opportunity for a share of it.

So determined was he to do nothing which should seem like
trade-antagonism to the Mayor that he refused his first customer--a
large farmer of good repute--because Henchard and this man had dealt
together within the preceding three months.

"He was once my friend," said Farfrae, "and it's not for me to take
business from him. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot hurt the
trade of a man who's been so kind to me."

In spite of this praiseworthy course the Scotchman's trade increased.
Whether it were that his northern energy was an overmastering force
among the easy-going Wessex worthies, or whether it was sheer luck, the
fact remained that whatever he touched he prospered in. Like Jacob
in Padan-Aram, he would no sooner humbly limit himself to
the ringstraked-and-spotted exceptions of trade than the
ringstraked-and-spotted would multiply and prevail.

But most probably luck had little to do with it. Character is Fate, said
Novalis, and Farfrae's character was just the reverse of Henchard's,
who might not inaptly be described as Faust has been described--as a
vehement gloomy being who had quitted the ways of vulgar men without
light to guide him on a better way.

Farfrae duly received the request to discontinue attentions to
Elizabeth-Jane. His acts of that kind had been so slight that the
request was almost superfluous. Yet he had felt a considerable interest
in her, and after some cogitation he decided that it would be as well
to enact no Romeo part just then--for the young girl's sake no less than
his own. Thus the incipient attachment was stifled down.

A time came when, avoid collision with his former friend as he might,
Farfrae was compelled, in sheer self-defence, to close with Henchard in
mortal commercial combat. He could no longer parry the fierce attacks
of the latter by simple avoidance. As soon as their war of prices began
everybody was interested, and some few guessed the end. It was, in some
degree, Northern insight matched against Southern doggedness--the dirk
against the cudgel--and Henchard's weapon was one which, if it did not
deal ruin at the first or second stroke, left him afterwards well-nigh
at his antagonist's mercy.

Almost every Saturday they encountered each other amid the crowd of
farmers which thronged about the market-place in the weekly course of
their business. Donald was always ready, and even anxious, to say a few
friendly words, but the Mayor invariably gazed stormfully past him,
like one who had endured and lost on his account, and could in no sense
forgive the wrong; nor did Farfrae's snubbed manner of perplexity at all
appease him. The large farmers, corn-merchants, millers, auctioneers,
and others had each an official stall in the corn-market room, with
their names painted thereon; and when to the familiar series of
"Henchard," "Everdene," "Shiner," "Darton," and so on, was added one
inscribed "Farfrae," in staring new letters, Henchard was stung into
bitterness; like Bellerophon, he wandered away from the crowd, cankered
in soul.

From that day Donald Farfrae's name was seldom mentioned in Henchard's
house. If at breakfast or dinner Elizabeth-Jane's mother inadvertently
alluded to her favourite's movements, the girl would implore her by a
look to be silent; and her husband would say, "What--are you, too, my
enemy?"




18.


There came a shock which had been foreseen for some time by Elizabeth,
as the box passenger foresees the approaching jerk from some channel
across the highway.

Her mother was ill--too unwell to leave her room. Henchard, who treated
her kindly, except in moments of irritation, sent at once for the
richest, busiest doctor, whom he supposed to be the best. Bedtime came,
and they burnt a light all night. In a day or two she rallied.

Elizabeth, who had been staying up, did not appear at breakfast on the
second morning, and Henchard sat down alone. He was startled to see
a letter for him from Jersey in a writing he knew too well, and had
expected least to behold again. He took it up in his hands and looked
at it as at a picture, a vision, a vista of past enactments; and then he
read it as an unimportant finale to conjecture.

The writer said that she at length perceived how impossible it would
be for any further communications to proceed between them now that
his re-marriage had taken place. That such reunion had been the only
straightforward course open to him she was bound to admit.


"On calm reflection, therefore," she went on, "I quite forgive you for
landing me in such a dilemma, remembering that you concealed nothing
before our ill-advised acquaintance; and that you really did set before
me in your grim way the fact of there being a certain risk in intimacy
with you, slight as it seemed to be after fifteen or sixteen years of
silence on your wife's part. I thus look upon the whole as a misfortune
of mine, and not a fault of yours.

"So that, Michael, I must ask you to overlook those letters with which I
pestered you day after day in the heat of my feelings. They were
written whilst I thought your conduct to me cruel; but now I know more
particulars of the position you were in I see how inconsiderate my
reproaches were.

"Now you will, I am sure, perceive that the one condition which will
make any future happiness possible for me is that the past connection
between our lives be kept secret outside this isle. Speak of it I know
you will not; and I can trust you not to write of it. One safe-guard
more remains to be mentioned--that no writings of mine, or trifling
articles belonging to me, should be left in your possession through
neglect or forgetfulness. To this end may I request you to return to
me any such you may have, particularly the letters written in the first
abandonment of feeling.

"For the handsome sum you forwarded to me as a plaster to the wound I
heartily thank you.

"I am now on my way to Bristol, to see my only relative. She is rich,
and I hope will do something for me. I shall return through Casterbridge
and Budmouth, where I shall take the packet-boat. Can you meet me with
the letters and other trifles? I shall be in the coach which changes
horses at the Antelope Hotel at half-past five Wednesday evening; I
shall be wearing a Paisley shawl with a red centre, and thus may easily
be found. I should prefer this plan of receiving them to having them
sent.--I remain still, yours; ever,

"LUCETTA"


Henchard breathed heavily. "Poor thing--better you had not known me!
Upon my heart and soul, if ever I should be left in a position to
carry out that marriage with thee, I OUGHT to do it--I ought to do it,
indeed!"

The contingency that he had in his mind was, of course, the death of
Mrs. Henchard.

As requested, he sealed up Lucetta's letters, and put the parcel aside
till the day she had appointed; this plan of returning them by hand
being apparently a little ruse of the young lady for exchanging a word
or two with him on past times. He would have preferred not to see her;
but deeming that there could be no great harm in acquiescing thus far,
he went at dusk and stood opposite the coach-office.