 24 Poor Elizabeth Jane, little thinking what her malignant star had done to blast the budding attention she had won from Donald Farfray was glad to hear Lucetta's words about remaining. For in addition to Lucetta's house being a home, that raking view of the marketplace which it afforded had as much attraction for her as for Lucetta. The car for her was like the regulation open place in spectacular dramas, where the incidents that occur always happen to bear on the lives of the adjoining residents. Farmers, merchants, dairymen, whacks, hawkers appeared there from week to week and disappeared as the afternoon wasted away. It was the note of all orbits. From Saturday to Saturday was as from day to day with the two young women now. In an emotional sense they did not live at all during the intervals. Wherever they might go wandering on other days, on market day they were sure to be at home. Both stole sly glances out of the window at Farfray's shoulders and pole. His face they seldom saw, for either through shyness or not to disturb his mercantile mood he avoided looking towards their quarters. Thus things went on till a certain market morning brought a new sensation. Elizabeth and Lucetta were sitting at breakfast when a parcel containing two dresses arrived for the latter from London. She called Elizabeth from her breakfast and entering her friend's bedroom, Elizabeth saw the gowns spread out on the bed, one of a deep cherry color, the other lighter, a glove lying at the end of each sleeve, a bonnet at the top of each neck, and parasols across the gloves. Lucetta standing beside the suggested human figure in an attitude of contemplation. "'I wouldn't think so hard about it,' said Elizabeth, marking the intensity with which Lucetta was alternating the question whether this or that would suit best. "'But settling upon new clothes is so trying,' said Lucetta. "'You are that person,' pointing to one of the arrangements, or you are that totally different person, pointing to the other. For the whole of the coming spring and one of the two you don't know which may turn out to be very objectionable. It was finally decided by Miss Templeman that she would be the cherry-colored person at all hazards. The dress was pronounced to be a fit, and Lucetta walked with it into the front room, Elizabeth following her. The morning was exceptionally bright for the time of year. The sun fell so flat on the houses in pavement opposite Lucetta's residence that they poured their brightness into her rooms. Suddenly, after a rumbling of wheels, there were added to this steady light a fantastic series of circling ear radiations upon the ceiling, and the companions turned to the window. Immediately opposite, a vehicle of strange description had come to a standstill, as if it had been placed there for exhibition. It was the new-fashioned agricultural implement called a horse-drill, till then unknown in its modern shape in this part of the country, where the venerable seed-lip was still used for sowing as in the days of the Heptarchy. Its arrival created about as much sensation in the corn market as a flying machine would create at Charing Cross. The farmers crowded round it, women drew near it, children crept under and into it. The machine was painted in bright hues of green, yellow, and red, and it resembled, as a whole, a compound of hornet, grasshopper, and shrimp, magnified enormously. Or it might have been likened to an upright musical instrument with the front gone. That was how it struck Lucetta. Why, it is a sort of agricultural piano, she said. It has something to do with corn, said Elizabeth. I wonder who thought of introducing it here. Donald Farfray was in the minds of both as the innovator, for though not a farmer, he was closely leagueed with farming operations. And as if in response to their thought, he came up at that moment, looked at the machine, walked round it, and handled it as if he knew something about its make. The two watchers had inwardly started at his coming, and Elizabeth left the window, went to the back of the room, and stood as if absorbed in the paneling of the wall. She hardly knew that she had done this till Lucetta, animated by the conjunction of her new attire with the sight of Farfray, spoke out, let us go and look at the instrument, whatever it is. Elizabeth, Jane's, Bonnet, and Shaw were pitchforked on in a moment, and they went out. Among all the agriculturists gathered round, the only appropriate possessor of the new machine seemed to be Lucetta, because she alone rivaled it in color. They examined it curiously, observing the rows of trumpet-shaped tubes, one within the other, the little scoops like revolving salt spoons, which tossed the seed into the upper ends of the tubes that conducted it to the ground, till somebody said, Good morning, Elizabeth Jane. She looked up, and there was her stepfather. His greeting had been somewhat dry and thunderous, and Elizabeth Jane, embarrassed out of her equanimity, stammered at random. This is the lady I live with, Father, Miss Templeman. Hanchard put his hand to his hat, which he brought down with a great wave till it met his body at the knee. Miss Templeman bowed. I am happy to become acquainted with you, Mr. Hanchard, she said. This is a curious machine. Yes, Hanchard replied, and he proceeded to explain it, and still more forcibly, to ridicule it. Who brought it here, said Lucetta? Oh, don't ask me, ma'am, said Hanchard. The thing, why, just impossible it should act, was brought here by one of our machinists on the recommendation of a jumped-up jack-and-apes of a fellow who thinks his eye caught Elizabeth Jane's imploring face and he stopped, probably thinking that the suit might be progressing. He turned to go away. Then something seemed to occur which his stepdaughter fancied must really be a hallucination of hers. A murmur apparently came from Hanchard's lips, in which she detected the words, You refused to see me, reproachfully addressed to Lucetta. She could not believe that they had been uttered by her stepfather, unless indeed they might have been spoken to one of the elongated farmers near them. Yet Lucetta seemed silent, and then all thought of the incident was dissipated by the humming of a song which sounded as though from the interior of the machine. Hanchard had, by this time, vanished into the market house, and both the women glanced towards the corn drill. They could see behind it the bent back of a man who was pushing his head into the internal works to master their simple secrets. The hummed song went on. It was on the summer afternoon, a way before the sun went down, when Kitty with a brawn new gown, comore the hills to Galerie. Elizabeth Jane had apprehended the singer in a moment and looked guilty if she did not know what. Lucetta next recognized him, and more mistress of herself said, archly, the last of Galerie from inside of the seed drill. What a phenomenon! Satisfied at last with his investigation, the young man stood upright and met their eyes across the summit. We are looking at the wonderful new drill, Miss Templeman said, but practically it is a stupid thing, is it not, she added, on the strength of Hanchard's information. Stupid? Oh, no, said Farfrey gravely. It will revolutionize sewing hereabout. No more sowers flinging their seed about broadcast so that some falls by the wayside and some among thorns and all that. Each grain will go straight to its intended place and nowhere else whatever. Then the romance of the sower is gone for good, observed Elizabeth Jane, who felt herself at one with Farfrey, in Bible reading at least. He that observeseth the wind shall not sow, so the preacher said, but his words will not be to the point any more, how things change. Eh, eh, it must be so, Donald admitted, his gaze fixing itself on a blank point far away. But the machines are already very common in the east and north of England, he added apologetically. Lucetta seemed to be outside this train of sentiment, her acquaintance with the scriptures being somewhat limited. Is the machine yours? She asked the Farfrey. Oh, no, madam, said he, becoming embarrassed and deferential at the sound of her voice, though with Elizabeth Jane he was quiet at his ease. No, no, I merely recommended that it should be got. In the silence which followed Farfrey appeared only conscious of her, to have passed from perception of Elizabeth into a brighter sphere of existence than she appertained to. Lucetta, discerning that he was much mixed that day, partly in his mercantile mood and partly in his romantic one, said gaily to him, Well, don't forsake the machine for us! and went indoors with her companion. The latter felt that she had been in the way, so why was unaccountable to her? Lucetta explained the matter somewhat by saying, when they were again in the sitting-room, I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrey the other day, and so I knew him this morning. Lucetta was very kind towards Elizabeth that day. Together they saw the market thicken, and in course of time thin away with the slow decline of the sun towards the upper end of town, its rays taking the street end-ways and infallating the long surfer from top to bottom. The gigs and vans disappeared one by one till there was not a vehicle in the street. The time of the riding world was over, the pedestrian world held sway. Field laborers and their wives and children trooped in from the villages for their weekly shopping, and instead of a rattle of wheels and a tramp of horses ruling the sound as earlier, there was nothing but the shuffle of many feet. All the implements were gone, all the farmers, all the moneyed class. The character of the town's trading had changed from bulk to multiplicity, and pence were handled now as pounds had been handled earlier in the day. Lucetta and Elizabeth looked out upon this. For though it was night and the street lamps were lighted, they had kept their shutters unclosed. In the faint blink of the fire they spoke more freely. Your father was distant with you, said Lucetta. Yes. And having forgotten the momentary mystery of head-and-charge seeming speech to Lucetta, she continued, It is because he does not think I am respectable. I have tried to be so, more than you can imagine, but in vain. My mother's separation from my father was unfortunate for me. You don't know what it is to have shadows like that upon your life. Lucetta seemed to wince. I do not, of that kind, precisely, she said, but you may feel a sense of disgrace, shame, in other ways. Have you ever had any such feeling, said the younger innocently? Oh, no, said Lucetta quickly. I was thinking of what happens sometimes when women give themselves in strange positions in the eyes of the world from no fault of their own. It must make them very unhappy afterwards. It makes them anxious, for might not other women despise them? Not altogether despise them, yet not quite like or respect them. Lucetta winced again. Her past was by no means secure from investigation, even in Casterbridge, for one thing Henschard had never returned to her the cloud of letters she had written and sent him in her first excitement. Possibly they were destroyed, but she could have wished that they had never been written. Their encounter with Farfrey and his bearings towards Lucetta had made the reflective Elizabeth more observant of her brilliant and amiable companion. A few days afterwards, when her eyes met Lucetta's as the latter was going out, she somehow knew that Miss Templeman was nourishing a hope of seeing the attractive Scotchman. The fact was printed large all over Lucetta's cheeks and eyes to anyone who could read her as Elizabeth Jane was beginning to do. Lucetta passed on and closed the street door. A seer's spirit took possession of Elizabeth, impelling her to sit down by the fire in divine events so surely from data already her own that they could be held as witness. She followed Lucetta thus mentally, saw her encounter Donald somewhere, as if by chance, saw him wear his special look when meeting women with an added intensity because this one was Lucetta. She depicted his impassioned manner, beheld the indecision of both between their lostness to separate and their desire not to be observed, depicted their shaking of hands how they probably parted with fragility in their general contour and movement, only in the smaller features showing the spark of passion thus invisible to all but themselves. This discerning silent witch had not done thinking of these things when Lucetta came noiselessly behind her and made her start. It was all true as she had pictured. She could have sworn it. Lucetta had a heightened luminousness in her eye over and above the advanced color of her cheeks. You've seen Mr. Farfrey, said Elizabeth, do you merely? Yes, said Lucetta, how did you know? She knelt down on the hearth and took her friend's hands excitedly in her own. But after all she did not say when or how she had seen him or what he had said. That night she became restless. In the morning she was feverish, and at breakfast time she told her companion that she had something on her mind, something which concerned a person in whom she was interested much. Elizabeth was earnest to listen and sympathize. This person, a lady, once admired a man much, very much, she said tentatively. Ah, said Elizabeth Jane. They were intimate, rather. He did not think so deeply of her as she did of him, but in an impulsive moment purely out of reparation he proposed to make her his wife. She agreed, but there was an unsuspected hitch in the proceedings, though she had been so far compromised with him that she felt she could never belong to another man as a pure matter of conscience, even if she should wish to. After that they were much apart, heard nothing of each other for a long time, and she felt her life quite closed up for her. Ah, poor girl! She suffered much on account of him, though I should add that he could not altogether be blamed for what had happened. At last the obstacle which separated them was providentially removed, and he came to marry her. How delightful! But in the interval she, my poor friend, had seen a man she liked better than him. Now comes the point. Could she, in honor, dismiss the first? A new man she liked better? That's bad. Yes, said Lucetta, looking pained at a boy who was swinging the town-pump handle. It is bad. Though you must remember that she was forced into an equivocal position with the first man by an accident, that he was not so well educated or refined as a second, and that she had discovered some qualities in the first that rendered him less desirable as a husband than she had at first thought him to be. I cannot answer, said Elizabeth Jane thoughtfully. It is so difficult. I want a pope to settle that. You prefer not to, perhaps. Lucetta showed in her appealing tone how much she leaned on Elizabeth's judgment. Yes, Miss Templeman, admitted Elizabeth, I would rather not say. Nevertheless Lucetta seemed relieved by the simple fact of having opened out the situation a little, and was slowly convalescent of her headache. Bring me a looking-glass. How do I appear to people? she said languidly. Well, a little worn, answered Elizabeth, eyeing her as a critic-eyes, a doubtful painting, fetching the glass she enabled Lucetta to survey herself in it, which Lucetta anxiously did. I wonder if I wear well as times go, she observed after a while. Yes, fairly. Where am I worst? Under your eyes I notice a little brownness there. Yes, that is my worst place, I know. How many years more do you think I shall last before I get hopelessly plain? There was something curious in the way in which Elizabeth, though the younger, had come to play the part of experienced sage in these discussions. It may be five years, she said judicially, or with a quiet life as many as ten, with no love you might calculate on ten. Lucetta seemed to reflect on this as on an unalterable impartial verdict. She told Elizabeth Jane no more of the past attachments she had roughly adumbrated as the experiences of a third person. And Elizabeth, who in spite of her philosophy was very tender-hearted, sighed that night in bed at the thought that her pretty rich Lucetta did not treat her to the full confidence of names and dates in her confessions. For by the she of Lucetta's story Elizabeth had not been beguiled. Chapter XXV The next phase of the Supercession of Henschart in Lucetta's heart was an experiment in calling on her performed by Farfray with some apparent trepidation. Conventionally speaking he conversed with both Miss Templeman and her companion, but in fact it was rather that Elizabeth sat invisible in the room. Donald appeared not to see her at all, and answered her wise little remarks with curtly indifferent monosyllables, his looks and faculties hanging on the woman who could boast of a more protean variety in her phases, moods, opinions, and also principles than could Elizabeth. Lucetta had persisted in dragging her into the circle, but she had remained like an awkward third point which that circle would not touch. Susan Henschart's daughter bore up against the frosty ache of the treatment as she had borne up under worse things, and contrived as soon as possible to get out of the inharmonious room without being missed. The Scotchman seemed hardly the same Farfray who had danced with her and walked with her in a delicate poise between love and friendship, that period in the history of a love when alone it can be said to be unalloyed with pain. She stoically looked from her bedroom window and contemplated her fate as if it were written on the top of the church tower hard by. Yes, she said at last, bringing down her palm upon the sill with a pat. He is the second man of that story, she told me. All this time Henschart's smoldering sentiments towards Lucetta had been fanned into higher and higher inflammation by the circumstances of the case. He was discovering that the young woman for whom he once felt a pitying warmth which had been almost chilled out of him by reflection was, when now qualified with a slight inaccessibility and a more matured beauty, the very being to make him satisfied with life. Day after day proved to him by her silence that it was no use to think of bringing her round by holding aloof. So he gave in and called upon her again, Elizabeth Jane being absent. He crossed the room to her with a heavy tread of some awkwardness. His strong warm gaze upon her, like the sun beside the moon in comparison with far-phrased modest look, and with something of a hailed fellow bearing as indeed was not unnatural. But she seemed so transubstantiated by her change of position and held out her hand to him in such cool friendship that he became deferential and sat down with a perceptible loss of power. He understood but little of fashion and dress, yet enough to feel himself inadequate in appearance beside her whom he had hitherto been dreaming of as almost his property. She said something very polite about his being good enough to call. This caused him to recover balance. He looked her oddly in the face, losing his awe. Well, of course I have called, Lucetta, he said. What does that nonsense mean? You know I couldn't have helped myself if I had wished. That is, if I had any kindness at all, I've called to say that I am ready as soon as custom will permit to give you my name in return for your devotion and what you lost by it in thinking too little of yourself and too much of me. To say that you can fix the day or month with my full consent whenever in your opinion it would be seemly. You know more of these things than I. It is full early yet, she said evasively. Yes, yes, I suppose it is. But you know, Lucetta, I felt directly my poor ill-used Susan died and when I could not bear the idea of marrying again, that after what had happened between us it was my duty not to let any unnecessary delay occur before putting things to rights. Still, I wouldn't call in a hurry because while you can guess how this money you've come in too made me feel, his voice slowly fell. He was conscious that in this room his accents and manner wore a roughness not observable in the street. He looked about the room at the novel hangings and ingenious furniture with which she had surrounded herself. Upon my life I didn't know such furniture as this could be bought in Casterbridge, he said. Nor can it be, said she. Nor will it till fifty years more of civilization have passed over the town. It took a wagon and four horses to get it here. Hmm, it looks as if you were living on capital. Oh no, I am not. So much better, but the fact is you're setting up like this makes my beaming towards you rather awkward. Why? An answer was not really needed and he did not furnish one. Well, he went on, there's nobody in the world I would have wished to see enter into this wealth before you, Lucetta, and nobody I am sure who will become it more. He turned to her with congratulatory admiration so fervid that she shrank somewhat, notwithstanding that she knew him so well. I am greatly obliged to you for all that, said she, rather with an error of speaking ritual. The stint of reciprocal feeling was perceived and henchard showed chagrin at once. Nobody was more quick to show that than he. You may be obliged or not for it. Though the things I say may not have the polish of what you've lately learned to expect for the first time in your life, they are real, my lady Lucetta. That's rather a rude way of speaking to me, pouted Lucetta with stormy eyes. Not at all, replied henchard hotly, but there, there I don't wish to quarrel with you. I come with an honest proposal for silencing your Jersey enemies and you ought to be thankful. How can you speak so? she answered, firing quickly, knowing that my only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl's passion for you with too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent all the time they called me guilty. You ought not to be so cutting. I suffered enough at that worrying time when you wrote to tell me of your wife's return and my consequent dismissal. And if I am a little independent now, surely the privilege is due to me. Yes, it is, he said, but it is not by what is in this life, but by what appears that you are judged. And I therefore think you ought to accept me for your own good name's sake. What is known in your native Jersey may get known here. How you keep on about Jersey, I am English. Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to my proposal? For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta had the move, and yet she was backward. For the present let things be, she said with some embarrassment. Treat me as an acquaintance and I'll treat you as one time. Well, she stopped and he said nothing to fill the gap for a while. There being no pressure of half acquaintance to drive them into speech if they were not minded for it. That's the way the wind blows, is it? He said it last grimly, nodding and affirmative to his own thoughts. A yellow flood of reflected sunlight filled the room for a few instance. It was produced by the passing of a load of newly trust hay from the country in a wagon marked with Farfrey's name. Beside it rode Farfrey himself on horseback. Lucetta's face became, as a woman's face becomes when the man she loves rises upon her gaze like an apparition. A turn of the eye by Henschard, a glance from the window and the secret of her inaccessibility would have been revealed. But Henschard, in estimating her tone, was looking down so plumb straight that he did not note the warm consciousness upon Lucetta's face. I shouldn't have thought it. I shouldn't have thought it of women, he said emphatically by and by, rising and shaking himself into activity, while Lucetta was so anxious to divert him from any suspicion of the truth that she asked him to be in no hurry. Bringing him some apples she insisted upon pairing one for him. He would not take it. No, no, such is not for me, he said dryly and moved to the door. At going out he turned his eye upon her. You came to live in Casterbridge entirely on my account, he said. Yet now you are here you won't have anything to say to my offer. He had hardly gone down the staircase when she dropped upon the sofa and jumped up again in a fit of desperation. I will love him, she cried passionately. As for him he's hot tempered and stern and it would be madness to bind myself to him knowing that. I won't be a slave to the past, I'll love where I choose. Yet, having decided to break away from Henschard one might have supposed her capable of aiming higher than Farfrey, but Lucetta reasoned nothing. She feared hard words from the people with whom she had been earlier associated. She had no relatives left and with native lightness of heart took kindly to what fate offered. Elizabeth Jane surveying the position of Lucetta between her two lovers from the crystalline sphere of a straightforward mind did not fail to perceive that her father, as she called him, and Donald Farfrey, became more desperately enamored of her friend every day. On Farfrey's side it was the unforced passion of youth, on Henschard's the artificially stimulated coveting of mature age. The pain she experienced from the almost absolute obliviousness to her existence that was shown by the pair of them became at times half dissipated by her sense of its humorousness. When Lucetta had pricked her finger they were as deeply concerned as if she were dying. When she herself had been seriously sick or in danger they uttered a conventional word of sympathy at the news and forgot all about it immediately. But as regarded Henschard this perception of hers also caused her some filial grief. She could not help asking what she had done to be neglected so after the professions of solicitude he had made. As regarded Farfrey she thought, after honest reflection, that it was quite natural. What was she beside Lucetta is one of the meaner beauties of the night when the moon had risen in the skies. She had learnt the lesson of renunciation and was as familiar with the wreck of each day's wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun. If her earthly career had taught her few book philosophies it had at least well practiced her in this. Yet her experience had consisted less in a series of pure disappointments than in a series of substitutions. Continually it had happened that what she had desired had not been granted her and that what had been granted her she had not desired. So she viewed with an approach to equanimity the new cancelled days when Donald had been her undeclared lover and wondered what unwished fourth thing heaven might send her in place of him. End of Chapter 25 Chapter 26 of the Mayor of Casterbridge This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy Chapter 26 It chanced that on a fine spring morning Henchard and Farfrey met in the Chestnut Walk which ran along the south wall of the town. Each had just come out from his early breakfast and there was not another soul near. Henchard was reading a letter from Lucetta, sent in answer to a note from him in which she made some excuse for not immediately granting him a second interview that he had desired. Donald had no wish to enter into conversation with his former friend on their present constrained terms. Neither would he pass him in scowling silence. He nodded and Henchard did the same. They receded from each other several paces when a voice cried, Farfrey! It was Henchard's who stood regarding him. Do you remember, said Henchard, as if it were the presence of the thought and not of the man which made him speak? Do you remember my story of that second woman who suffered for her thoughtless intimacy with me? I do, said Farfrey. Do you remember my telling you how it all began and how it ended? Yes. Well, I have offered to marry her now that I can, but she won't marry me. Now, what would you think of her? I put it to you. Well, ye owe her nothing more now, said Farfrey hardly. It is true, said Henchard, and went on. That he had looked up from a letter to ask his questions completely shut out from Farfrey's mind all vision of Lucetta as the culprit. Indeed, her present position was so different from that of the young woman of Henchard's story as of itself to be sufficient to blind him absolutely to her identity. As for Henchard, he was reassured by Farfrey's words and manner against the suspicion which had crossed his mind. They were not those of a conscious rival. Yet that there was rivalry by someone he was firmly persuaded. He could feel it in the air around Lucetta, see it in the turn of her pen. There was an antagonistic force in exercise, so that when he had tried to hang near her he seemed standing in a refluent current. That it was not innate caprice he was more and more certain. Her windows gleamed as if they did not want him. Her curtains seemed to hang slyly as if they screened an ousting presence. To discover whose presence that was, whether really Farfrey's after all or in others, he exerted himself to the utmost to see her again, and at length succeeded. At the interview, when she offered him tea, he made it a point to launch a cautious inquiry if she knew Mr. Farfrey. Oh yes, she knew him, she declared. She could not help knowing almost everybody in Casterbridge living in such a gazebo over the center and arena of the town. Pleasant young fellow, said Henchard. Yes, said Lucetta. We both know him, said kind Elizabeth Jane, to relieve her companion's divine embarrassment. There was a knock at the door. Literally three full knocks and a little one at the end. That kind of knock means half and half. Somebody between gentle and simple, said the corn merchant to himself. I shouldn't wonder therefore if it is he. In a few seconds, surely enough, Donald walked in. Lucetta was full of little fidgets and flutters, which increased Henchard's suspicions without affording any special proof of their correctness. He was well nigh ferocious of the sense of the queer situation in which he stood towards this woman. One who had reproached him for deserting her when culminated, who had urged claims upon his consideration on that account, who had lived waiting for him, who at the first decent opportunity had come to ask him to rectify by making her his, the false position into which she had placed herself for his sake, such she had been. And now he sat at her tea-table, eager to gain her attention, and in his amatory rage, feeling the other man present to be a villain just as any young fool of a lover might feel. They sat stiffly side by side at the darkening table, like some tusk and painting of the two disciples supping at a mass. Lucetta, forming the third and haloed figure, was opposite them. Elizabeth Jane, being out of the game and out of the group, could observe all from afar, like the evangelists who had to write it down. That there were long spaces of tass eternity when all exterior circumstances were subdued to the touch of spoons in China, the click of a heel on the pavement under the window, the passing of a wheelbarrow or cart, the whistling of the carter, the gush of water into householders' buckets at the town pump opposite, the exchange of greetings among their neighbors, and the rattle of the yolks by which they carried off their evening supply. More bread and butter, said Lucetta, to henchard and farfrey equally, holding out between them a plate full of long slices. Henchard took a slice by one end and donaled by the other. Each feeling certain he was the man meant. Neither let go, and the slice came in two. Oh, I am so sorry! cried Lucetta with a nervous titter. Farfrey tried to laugh, but he was too much in love to see the incident in any but a tragic light. How ridiculous of all three of them! said Elizabeth to herself. Henchard left the house with a ton of conjecture, though without a grain of proof, that the counter attraction was farfrey, and therefore he would not make up his mind. Yet to Elizabeth Jane it was plain as the town pump that Donald and Lucetta were incipient lovers. More than once, in spite of her care, Lucetta had been unable to restrain her glance from slitting across into farfrey's eyes like a bird to its nest. But Henchard was constructed upon too large a scale to discern such minutiae as these by an evening light, which to him were as the notes of an insect that lie above the compass of the human ear. But he was disturbed, and the sense of occult rivalry and suitorship was so much super-added to the palpable rivalry of their business lives. To the coarse materiality of that rivalry it added an inflaming soul. The thus vitalized antagonism took the form of action by Henchard sending for Jop, the manager originally displaced by farfrey's arrival. Henchard had frequently met this man about the streets, observed that his clothing spoke of neediness, heard that he lived in Mixon Lane, a back slum of the town, the pisallé of Castor Bridge domiciliation itself almost a proof that a man had reached a stage when he would not stick at trifles. Jop came after dark by the gates of the store-yard and felt his way through the hay and straw to the office where Henchard sat in solitude awaiting him. I am again out of a foreman, said the cornfactor. Are you in a place? Not so much as a beggar, sir. How much do you ask? Jop named his price, which was very moderate. When can you come? At this hour and moment, sir, said Jop, who standing hands pocketed at the street corner till the sun had faded the shoulders of his coat to scarecrow green, had regularly watched Henchard in the marketplace, measured him and learnt him by virtue of the power which the still man has in his stillness of knowing the busy one better than he knows himself. Jop, too, had had a convenient experience. He was the only one in Castor Bridge besides Henchard and the closed-lipped Elizabeth, who knew that Lucetta came truly from Jersey and but proximately from Bath. I know Jersey, too, sir, he said, was living there when you used to do business that way. Oh, yes, I've often seen you there. Indeed, very good, then the thing has settled. The testimonials you showed me when you first tried Fort are sufficient. That character's deteriorated in time of need possibly did not occur to Henchard. Jop said, thank you, and stood more firmly in the consciousness that at last he officially belonged to that spot. Now, said Henchard, digging his strong eyes into Jop's face, one thing is necessary to me as the biggest corn and hay dealer in these parts. The Scotchman who's taking the town trade so bold into his hands must be cut out. Do you hear? Which who can't live side by side, that's clear and certain. I've seen it all, said Jop. By fair competition, I mean, of course, Henchard continued, but as hard, keen, and unflinching as fair, rather more so. By such a desperate bid against him for the farmer's custom as will grind him into the ground, starve him out. I've capital, mind ye, and I can do it. I'm all that way of thinking, said the new foreman. Jop's dislike of farfrey is the man who had once usurped his place, while it made him a willing tool, made him at the same time commercially as unsafe a colleague as Henchard could have chosen. I sometimes think, he added, that he must have some glass that he sees next year in. He has such a knack of making everything bring him fortune. He's deep beyond all honest men's discerning, but we must make him shallower. We'll undersell him and overbuy him, and so snuff him out. They then entered into specific details of the process by which this would be accomplished, and parted at a late hour. Elizabeth Jane heard by accident that Jop had been engaged by her stepfather. She was so fully convinced that he was not the right man for the place that at the risk of making Henchard angry she expressed her apprehension to him when they met. But it was done to no purpose. Henchard shut up her argument with a sharp rebuff. The season's weather seemed to favour their scheme. The time was in the years immediately before foreign competition had revolutionised the trade in grain, when still, as from the earliest ages, the weak quotations from months to months depended entirely upon the home harvest. A bad harvest, or the prospect of one, would double the price of corn in a few weeks, and the promise of a good yield would lower it as rapidly. Prices were like the roads of the period, steep and gradient, reflecting in their phases the local conditions without engineering levelings or averages. The farmer's income was ruled by the wheat crop within his own horizon and the wheat crop by the weather. Thus in person he became a sort of flesh barometer, with feelers always directed to the sky and wind around him. The local atmosphere was everything to him, the atmospheres of other countries a matter of indifference. The people, too, who were not farmers, the rural multitude, saw in the god of the weather a more important personage than they do now. Indeed, the feeling of the peasantry in this matter was so intense that it to be almost unrealisable in these equitable days. Their impulse was well now to prostrate themselves in lamentation before untimely rains and tempests, which came as the allister of those households whose crime it was to be poor. After mid-summer they watched the weather cocks as men waiting in antechambers watched the latchkey. Sun elated them, quiet rain sobered them. Weeks of watery tempests stupefied them. That aspect of the sky, which they now regard as disagreeable, they then be held as maleficent. It was June and the weather was very unfavorable. Chaster Bridge being as it were the bellboard on which all the adjacent hamlets and villages sounded their notes, was decidedly dull. Instead of new articles in the shop windows, those that had been rejected in the foregoing summer were brought out again. Superceded reap-hooks, badly shaped rakes, shop-worn leggings, and time-stiffened water-types reappeared, firmished up as near to new as possible. Henschard, backed by Jop, read a disastrous garnering and resolved to base his strategy against Farfrey upon that reading. But before acting he wished, what so many have wished, that he could know for certain what was at present only strong probability. He was superstitious, as such headstrong natures often are, and he nourished in his mind an idea bearing on the matter, an idea he shrank from disclosing even to Jop. In a lonely hamlet a few miles from the town, so lonely that what are called lonely villages were teeming by comparison, there lived a man of curious repute as a forecaster or weather-profit. The way to his house was crooked and mirey, even difficult in the present unpropitious season. One evening when it was raining so heavily that Ivy and Laurel resounded like distant musketry, and an outdoor man could be excused for shrouding himself to his ears and eyes. Such a shrouded figure on foot might have been perceived traveling in the direction of the hazel cops which dripped over the profits caught. The turnpike road became a lane, the lane a cart track, the cart track a bridle path, the bridle path a footway, the footway overgrown. The solitary walker slipped here and there and stumbled over the natural springes formed by the brambles, till at length he reached the house which, with its garden, was surrounded with a high, dense hedge. The cottage, comparatively a large one, had been built of mud by the occupier's own hands and thatched also by himself. Here he had always lived and here it was assumed he would die. He existed on unseen supplies, for it was an anomalous thing that, while there was hardly a soul in the neighborhood but effected to lap of this man's assertions, uttering the formula, there's nothing in them, with full assurance on the surface of their faces, very few of them were unbelievers in their secret hearts. Whenever they consulted him, they did it for a fancy. When they paid him they said, just a trifle for Christmas or a candle-ness as the case might be. He would have preferred more honesty in his clients and less sham ridicule, but fundamental belief consoled him for superficial irony. As stated he was unable to live, people supported him with their backs turned. He was sometimes astonished that men could profess so little and believe so much at his house when at church they professed so much and believed so little. Behind his back he was called Wido, on account of his reputation, to his face Mr. Fall. The hedge of his garden formed an arch over the entrance, and a door was inserted as in a wall. Outside the door the tall traveller stopped, bandaged his face with a handkerchief as if he were suffering from toothache and went up the path. The window shutters were not closed, and he could see the prophet within preparing his supper. In answer to the knock, Fall came to the door, candle in hand. The visitor stepped back a little from the light and said, Can I speak to him? In significant tones. The other's invitation to come in was responded to by the country formula. This will do, thanky. After which the householder had no alternative but to come out. He placed the candle on the corner of the dresser, took his hat from a nail, and joins a stranger in the porch, shutting the door behind him. I've long heard that you can do things of a sort, began the other, repressing his individuality as much as he could. Maybe so, Mr. Hinchard, said the weathercaster. Ah, why do you call me that? asked the visitor with the start. Because it's your name? Feeling you'd come, I'd waited for you, and think you might be leery from your walk. I laid two supper plates. Looky here. He threw open the door and disclosed the supper table, at which appeared a second chair, knife and fork, plate and mug, as he had declared. Hinchard felt like Saul at his reception by Samuel. He remained in silence for a few moments, then throwing off the disguise of frigidity, which he had hitherto preserved. He said, Then I have not come in vain. Now, for instance, can you charm away warts? Without trouble. Cure the evil? That I've done, with consideration, as they will wear the toad bag by night, as well as by day. Forecast the weather, with labor and time. Then take this, said Hinchard, to the crown piece. Now, what is the harvest fortnight to be? When can I know? I've worked it out already, and you can know it once. The fact was that five farmers had already been there on the same errand from different parts of the country. By the sun, moon and stars, by the clouds, the winds, the trees and grass, the candle flame and swallows, the smell of the herbs, likewise by the cat's eyes, the ravens, the leeches, the spiders, and the dung mixon. The last fortnight in August will be rain and tempest. You are not certain, of course. As one can be in a world where all's unsure, it will be more like living in revelations this autumn than in England. Shall I sketch it out for you in a scheme? Oh, no, no, said Hinchard. I don't altogether believe in forecasts. Come to second thoughts on such. But I—you don't, you don't. Just quite understood, said Widow, without a sound of scorn. You have given me a crown because you've won too many. But won't you join me at supper now, just waiting and all? Hinchard would gladly have joined, for the savor of the stew had floated from the cottage into the porch with such appetizing distinctness that the meat, the onions, the pepper and the herbs could be severally recognized by his nose. But as sitting down to hob and knob there would have seemed to mark him too implicitly as the weathercaster's apostle, he declined and went his way. The next Saturday Hinchard bought grain to such an enormous extent that there was quite a talk about his purchases among his neighbors, the lawyer, the wine merchant and the doctor. Also on the next and on all available days. When his granaries were full to choking, all the weathercocks of Casterbridge creaked and set their faces in another direction, as if tired of the southwest. The weather changed. The sunlight, which had been like tin for weeks, assumes the hues of Topaz. The temperament of the welkin passed from the phlegmatic to the sanguine, an excellent harvest was almost a certainty, and as a consequence prices rushed down. All these transformations, lovely to the outsider, to the wrong-headed corn dealer, were terrible. He was reminded of what he had well known before that a man might gamble upon the square green areas of fields as readily as upon those of a card room. Hinchard had backed bad weather and apparently lost. He had mistaken the turn of the flood for the turn of the ebb. His dealings had been so extensive that settlement could not long be postponed, and to settle he was obliged to sell off corn that he had bought only a few weeks before at figures higher by many shillings a quarter. Much of the corn he had never seen. It had not even been moved from the ricks in which it lay stacked miles away. Thus he lost heavily. In the blaze of an early August day he met Farfray in the marketplace. Farfray knew of his dealings, though he did not guess their intended bearing on himself, and commiserated him, for since their exchange of words in the South Walk they had been on stiffly speaking terms. Hinchard for the moment appeared to resent the sympathy, but he suddenly took a careless turn. Oh, no, no, nothing serious, man. He cried with fierce giddy. These things always happen, don't they? I know it has been said that figures have touched me tight lately. But is that anything rare? The case is not so bad as folk make out, perhaps. And, dammy, a man must be a fool to mind the common hazards of trade. But he had to enter the Casterbridge Bank that day for reasons which had never before sent him there, and to sit a long time in the partner's room with a constrained bearing. It was rumored soon after that much real property, as well as vast stores of produce which had stood in Hinchard's name in the town and neighborhood, was actually the possession of his bankers. Coming down the steps of the bank he encountered Jop. The gloomy transactions, just completed within, had added fever to the original sting of Farfray's sympathy that morning, which Hinchard fancied might be a satire disguised so that Jop met with anything but a bland reception. The latter was in the act of taking off his head to wipe his forehead and saying, a fine hot day to an acquaintance. You can wipe and wipe and say a fine hot day, can ye? cried Hinchard in a savage undertone, imprisoning Jop between himself and the bank wall. If it hadn't been for your blasted advice, it might have been a fine day enough. Why did you let me go on, hey? When word of doubt from you or anybody would have made me think twice. For you can never be sure of whether told has passed. My advice, sir, was to do what you thought best. A useful fellow. And the sooner you help somebody else in that way the better. Hinchard continued his address to Jop in similar terms till it ended in Jop's dismissal there and then, Hinchard turning upon his heel and leaving him. You shall be sorry for this, sir. Sorry as a man can be, said Jop, standing pale and looking after the corn merchant as he disappeared in the crowd of market men hard by. End of Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Of the Mayor of Castor Bridge This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Mayor of Castor Bridge by Thomas Hardy. Chapter 27 It was the eve of harvest. Prices being low Farfri was buying. As was usual after reckoning too surely on famine weather the local farmers had flown to the other extreme and, in Farfri's opinion, were selling off too recklessly, calculating with just a trifle too much certainty upon an abundant yield. So he went on buying old corn at its comparatively ridiculous price for the produce of the previous year, though not large, had been of excellent quality. When Henschard had squared his affairs in a disastrous way and got rid of his burdensome purchases at a monstrous loss, the harvest began. There were three days of excellent weather and then, What if that cursed conjurer should be right after all, said Henschard? The fact was that no sooner had the sickles begun to play than the atmosphere suddenly felt as if crests would grow in it without other nourishment. It rubbed people's cheeks like damp flannel when they walked broad. There was a gusty, high, warm wind. Isolated raindrops starred the windowpains at remote distances. The sunlight would flap out like a quickly opened fan, throw the pattern of the window upon the floor of the room in a milky colorless shine and withdraw as suddenly as it had appeared. From that day and hour it was clear that there was not to be so successful in in-gathering after all. If Henschard had only waited long enough, he might at least have avoided loss, though he had not made a profit. But the momentum of his character knew no patience. At this turn of the scales he remained silent. The movements of his mind seemed to tend to the thought that some power was working against him. I wonder, he asked himself with eerie misgiving, I wonder if it can be that somebody has been roasting a waxen image of me or stirring an unholy brew to confound me. I don't believe in such power and yet what if they should have been doing it? Even he could not admit that the perpetrator, if any, might be Farfrey. These isolated hours of superstition came to Henschard in time of moody depression when all his practical largeness of view had oozed out of him. Meanwhile, Donald Farfrey prospered. He had purchased in so depressed a market that the present moderate stiffness of prices was sufficient to pile for him a large heap of gold where a little one had been. Why, he'll soon be mayor, said Henschard. It was indeed hard that the speaker should, of all others, have to follow the triumphal chariot of this man to the capital. The rivalry of the masters was taken up by the men. September night shades had fallen upon Casterbridge. The clocks had struck half past eight and the moon had risen. The streets of the town were curiously silent for such a comparatively early hour. A sound of jangling horse bells and heavy wheels passed up the street. These were followed by angry voices outside Lucetta's house, which led her and Elizabeth Jane to run to the windows and pull up the blinds. The neighboring market house and town hall abutted against its next neighbor, the church, except in the lower story, where an arched thoroughfare gave admittance to a large square called Bull State. A stone post rose in the midst to which the oxen had formerly been tied for baiting with dogs to make them tender before they were killed in the adjoining shambles. In a corner stood the stocks. The thoroughfare leading to this spot was now blocked by two four-horse wagons and horses, one laden with hay trusses, the leaders having already passed each other and become entangled head to tail. The passage of the vehicles might have been practicable, if empty, but built up with hay to the bedroom windows as one was, it was impossible. You must have done it a purpose, so far phrased waggoner. You can hear my horses bells half a mile such a night as this. If you'd been minding your business instead of wailing along in such a gockhammer way, you would have zed me, retorted the wroth representative of Henschard. However, according to the strict rule of the road, it appeared that Henschard's man was most in the wrong. He therefore attempted to back into the high street. In doing this, the near hind wheel rose against the churchyard wall and the whole mountainous load went over, two of the four wheels rising in the air and the legs of the fell horse. Instead of considering how to gather up the load, the two men closed in a fight with their fists. Before the first round was quite over, Henschard came upon the spot, somebody having run for him. Henschard sent the two men staggering in contrary directions by collaring one with each hand, turned to the horse that was down and extricated him after some trouble. He then inquired into the circumstances and seeing the state of his wagon and its load began hotly waiting for our phrased man. Lucetta and Elizabeth Jane had by this time run down to the street corner once they watched the bright heap of new hay lying in the moon's rays and passed and repassed by the forms of Henschard and the wagoners. The women had witnessed what nobody else had seen, the origin of the mishap and Lucetta spoke. I saw it all, Mr. Henschard, she cried, and your man was most in the wrong. Henschard paused in his orang and turned. Oh, I didn't notice you, Miss Templeman, said he. My man in the wrong? I have to be sure, to be sure. But I beg your pardon notwithstanding, the others is the empty wagon and he must have been most to blame for coming on. No, I saw it too, said Elizabeth Jane, and I can assure you he couldn't help it. You can't trust their senses, murmured Henschard's man. Why not? asked Henschard sharply. While you see, sir, all the women sighed with farfraid, being a damned young damned of the sort that he is, one that creeps into a maid's heart like the giddying worm into a sheep's brain, making crooked seem straight to their eyes. But do you know who that lady is you talk about in such a fashion? Do you know that I pay my attentions to her and have for some time? Just be careful. Not I, I know nothing, sir, outside eight shillings a week. And that Mr. Farfrae is well aware of it? He's sharp in trade, but he wouldn't do anything so underhand as what you hint at. Whether because Lucetta heard this low dialogue or not, her white figure disappeared from her doorway inward and the door was shut before Henschard could reach it to converse with her further. This disappointed him, for he had been sufficiently disturbed by what the man had said to wish to speak to her more closely. While pausing, the old constable came up. Just see that nobody drives against that hay and wagon tonight, stubborn, said the corn merchant. It must bide till the morning, for all hands are in the fields still. And if any coach or road wagon wants to come along, tell them they must go around by the back street and be hanged to them. Any case tomorrow up in Hall? Yes, sir, one in numbers, sir. Oh, what's that? An old flagrant female, sir, swearing and committing a nuisance in a horrible profane manner against the church wall, sir, as if for no more than a pot house. That's all, sir. Oh, the mayor's out of town, isn't he? He is, sir. Very well then, I'll be there. Don't forget to keep an eye on that hay. Good night, he. During those moments, Henschard had determined to follow up Lucetta, notwithstanding her elusiveness, and he knocked for admission. The answer he received was an expression of Miss Templeman's sorrow at being unable to see him again that evening because she had an engagement to go out. Henschard walked away from the door to the opposite side of the street and stood by his hay in a lonely reverie. The constable having strolled elsewhere and the horses being removed. Though the moon was not bright as yet, there were no lamps lighted, and he entered the shadow of one of the projecting jams which forms a thoroughfare to Bull's Stake. Here he watched Lucetta's door. Candle lights were flitting in and out of her bedroom, and it was obvious that she was dressing for the appointment, whatever the nature of that might be at such an hour. The lights disappeared, the clock struck nine, and almost at the moment Farfay came round the opposite corner and knocked that she had been waiting just inside for him was certain, for she instantly opened the door herself. They went together by the way of a back lane westward avoiding the front street, guessing where they were going he determined to follow. The harvest had been so delayed by the capricious weather that whenever a fine day occurred all sinews were strained to save what could be saved at the damaged crops. On account of the rapid shortening of the days the harvesters worked by moonlight. Hence tonight the wheat fields abutting on the two sides of the square formed by Casterbridge town were animated by the gathering hands. Their shouts and laughter had reached Tenchart at the market house while he stood there waiting, and he had little doubt from the turn which Farfray and Lucetta had taken that they were bound for the spot. Nearly the whole town had gone into the fields. The Casterbridge populace still retained the primitive habit of helping one another in time of need, and thus though the corn belonged to the farming section of the little community, that inhabiting the Derniver quarter the remainder was no less interested in the labor of getting it home. Reaching the top of the lane Tenchart crossed the shaded avenue on the walls, slid down the green rampart, and stood amongst the stubble. The stitches or shocks rose like tents about the yellow expanse, those in the distance becoming lost in the moonlit hazes. He had entered at a point removed from the scene of immediate operations, but two others had entered at that place, and he could see them winding among the shocks. They were paying no regard to the direction of their walk whose vague serpentining soon began to bear down towards Tenchart. A meeting promised to be awkward, and he therefore stepped into the hollow of the nearest shock and sat down. You have my leave, Lucetta was saying gaily, speak what you like. Well then, replied Farfrey, with the unmistakable inflection of the lover-pure, which Tenchart had never heard in full resonance of his lips before, you were sure to be much sought after for your position, wealth, talents, and beauty. But will you resist the temptation to be one of those ladies with lots of admirers, A, and be content to have only a homely one? And he, the speaker, said she, laughing, very well, sir, what next? Ah, I'm afraid that what I feel will make me forget my manners. Then I hope you'll never have any if you lack them only for that cause. After some broken words which Tenchart lost, she added, are you sure you won't be jealous? Farfrey seemed to assure her that he would not by taking her hand. You are convinced, Donald, that I love nobody else, she presently said, but I should wish to have my own way in some things. In everything, what special thing did you mean? If I wished not to live always in Casterbridge, for instance, upon finding that I should not be happy here? Tenchart did not hear the reply. He might have done so and much more, but he did not care to play the eavesdropper. They went on towards the scene of activity where the sheaves were being handed a dozen a minute upon the carts and wagons which carried them away. Lucetta insisted on parting from Farfrey when they drew near the work people. He had some business with them, and though he entreated her to wait a few minutes, she was inexorable and tripped off homeward alone. Tenchart thereupon left the field and followed her. His state of mind was such that on reaching Lucetta's door he did not knock but opened it and walked straight up to her sitting room expecting to find her there. But the room was empty, and he perceived that in his haste he had somehow passed her on the way hither. He had not to wait many minutes, however, for he soon heard her dressed rustling in the hall followed by a soft closing of the door. In a moment she appeared. The light was so low that she did not notice henchart at first. As soon as she saw him she uttered a little cry, almost of terror. How can you frighten me so, she exclaimed with a flushed face. It is past ten o'clock and you have no right to surprise me here at such a time? I don't know that I'm not the right. At any rate I have the excuse. Is it so necessary that I should stop to think of manners and customs? It is too late for propriety and might injure me. I called an hour ago and you would not see me, and I thought you were in when I called now. It is you, Lucetta, who are doing wrong. It is not proper any to throw me over like this. I have a little matter to remind you of which you seem to forget. She sank into a chair and turned pale. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. She said through her hands as he, standing close to the edge of her gown, began to allude to the jersey days. But you ought to hear it, said he. It came to nothing and through you. Then why not leave me the freedom that I gained with such sorrow? Had I found that you proposed to marry me for pure love I might have felt bound now. But I soon learned that you had planned it out of mere charity, almost as an unpleasant duty because I had nursed you and compromised myself, and you thought you must repay me. After that I did not care for you so deeply as before. Why did you come here to find me then? I thought I ought to marry you for conscience's sake, since you were free even though I did not like you so well. And why then don't you think so now? She was silent. It was only too obvious that conscience had ruled well enough till new love had intervened and usurped that rule. In feeling this she herself forgot for the moment her partially justifying argument that having discovered henchards infirmities of temper she had some excuse for not risking her happiness in his hands after once escaping them. The only thing she could say was I was a poor girl then and now my circumstances have altered so I am hardly the same person. That's true and it makes the case awkward for me but I don't want to touch your money. I am quite willing that every penny of your property shall remain to your personal use. Besides that argument has nothing in it. The man you are thinking of is no better than I. If you were as good as he you would leave me. She cried passionately. This unluckily aroused henchard. You cannot in honor refuse me he said and unless you give me your promise this very night to be my wife before a witness I'll reveal our intimacy in common fairness to other men. A look of resignation settled upon her. Henchard saw its bitterness and had Lucetta's heart been given to any other man in the world in far free he would probably have had pity upon her at that moment but the supplanter was the upstart as henchard called him who had mounted into prominence upon his shoulders and he could bring himself to show no mercy. Without another word she rang the bell and directed that Elizabeth Jane should be fetched from her room. The latter appeared surprised in the midst of her lucubrations as soon as she saw henchard she went across to him dutifully. Elizabeth Jane he said taking her hand I want you to hear this and turning to Lucetta will you or will you not marry me if you wish it I must agree you say yes I do no sooner had she given the promise than she fell back in a fainting state what dreadful thing drives her to say this father when it is such a pain to her asked Elizabeth kneeling down by Lucetta don't compel her to do anything against her will I have lived with her and know that she cannot bear much don't be a northern simpleton said henchard dryly this promise will leave him free for you if you want him won't it at this lucetta seemed to wake from her spoon with a start him who are you talking about she said wildly nobody as far as I am concerned said Elizabeth firmly oh well then it is my mistake said henchard but the business is between me and miss templeman she agrees to be my wife but don't dwell on it just now and treated Elizabeth holding lucetta's hand I don't wish to if she promises said henchard I have I have grown Lucetta her limbs hanging like fluid from very misery and faintness Michael please don't argue it anymore I will not he said and taking up his hat he went away Elizabeth Jane continued to kneel by lucetta what is this she said you called my father Michael as if you knew him well and how is it he has got this power over you that you promised to marry him against your will ah you have many many secrets from me perhaps you have some from me lucetta murmured with closed eyes little thinking however so unsuspicious was she that the secret of Elizabeth's heart concerned the young man who had caused this damage to her own I would not do anything against you at all stammered Elizabeth keeping in all signs of emotion till she was ready to burst I cannot understand how my father can command you so I don't sympathize with him in it at all I'll go to him and ask him to release you no no said lucetta let it all be end of chapter 27 chapter 28 of the mayor of castor bridge this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the mayor of castor bridge by Thomas Hardy chapter 28 the next morning hen shard went to the town hall below lucetta's house to attend petty sessions being still a magistrate for the year by virtue of his late position as mayor in passing he looked up at her windows but nothing of her was to be seen hen shard is a justice of the peace may at first seem to be an even greater incongruity than shallow and silenced themselves but his rough and ready perceptions his sledgehammer directness had often served him better than nice legal knowledge and dispatching such simple business as fell to his hands in this court today dr chalkfield the mayor for the year being absent the corn merchant took the big chair his eyes still abstractly stretching out of the window to the ashler front of high place hall there was one case only and the offender stood before him she was an old woman of model countenance a tired in a shawl of that nameless tertiary hue which comes but cannot be made a hue neither tawny russet hazel nor ash a sticky black bonnet that seemed to have been worn in the country of the psalmist where the clouds dropped fatness and an apron that had been white in time so comparatively recent as still the contrast visibly with the rest of her clothes the steeped aspect of the woman as a whole showed her to be no native of the countryside or even of a country town she looked cursorily at henchard and the second magistrate and henchard looked at her with a momentary pause as if she had reminded him indistinctly of somebody or something which passed from his mind as quickly as it had come well and what has she been doing he said looking down at the charge sheet she is charged sir with the offense of disorderly female and nuisance whispered stubborn where did she do that said the other magistrate by the church sir of all the horrible places in the world i caught her in the act your worship stand back then said henchard let's hear what you've got to say stubborn was sworn in the magistrates clerk dipped his pen henchard being no note taker himself and the constable began hearing an illegal noise i went down the street at 25 minutes past 11 p.m. on the night of the fifth instinct hand a domini when i had don't go so fast stubborn said the clerk the constable waited with his eyes on the clerk's pen till the latter stopped scratching and said yes stubborn continued when i had proceeded to the spot i saw defendant at another spot namely the gutter he paused watching the point of the clerk's pen again gutter yes stubborn spot measuring 12 feet nine inches are there about from where i still careful not to outrun the clerk's penmanship stubborn pulled up again for having got his evidence by heart it was immaterial to him whereabouts he broke off i object to that spoke up the old woman spot measuring 12 feet nine or there about from where i is not sound testimony the magistrates consulted and the second one said that the bench was of opinion the 12 feet nine inches from a man on his oath was admissible stubborn was the suppressed gaze of victorious rectitude of the old woman continued was standing myself she was wobbling about quite dangerous to the thoroughfare and when i approached to draw near she committed the nuisance and insulted me insulted me yes what did she say she said put away that d lantern she says yes says she does hear old turn it head put away that d lantern i have floored fellows at d site finer looking than a d full like the you son of a b d me if i hate she says i object to that conversation interpose the old woman i was not capable enough to hear what i said and what is said out of my hearing is not evidence there was another stoppage for consultation a book was referred to and finally stubborn was allowed to go on again the truth was that the old woman had appeared in court so many more times than the magistrates themselves that they were obliged to keep a sharp lookout upon their procedure however when stubborn had rambled on a little further henshard broke out impatiently come we don't want to hear any more of them cussed d's and b's say the words out like a man and don't be so modest stubborn else leave it alone turning to the woman now then have you any questions to ask him or anything to say yes she replied with the twinkle in her eye and the clerk dipped his pen twenty years ago or there about i was selling of firmity in a tent at waden fair twenty years ago well that's beginning at the beginning suppose you go back to the creation said the clerk not without satire but henshard stared and quite forgot what was evidence in what was not a man and a woman with a little child came into my tent the woman continued they sat down and had a base and a piece ah lords my life i was of a more respectable station in the world then than i am now being a land smuggler in a large way of business and i used to season my firmity with rum for them who asked for it i did it for the man and then he had more and more till at last he quarreled with his wife and offered to sell her to the highest bidder a sailor came in and bid five guineas and paid the money and led her away and the man who sold his wife in that fashion is the man sitting there in the great big chair the speaker concluded by knotting her head at henshard and folding her arms everybody looked at henshard his face seemed strange and intent as if it had been powdered over with ashes we don't want to hear your life and adventures said the second magistrate sharply filling the pause which followed you've been asked if you anything to say bearing on the case that bears on the case it proves that he's no better than i and has no right to sit there in judgment upon me tissa concocted story said the clerk to hold your tongue no just true the words came from henshard tissa's true is the light he said slowly and upon my soul it does prove that i'm no better than she and to keep out of any temptation to treat her hard for her revenge i'll leave her to you the sensation in the court was indescribably great henshard left the chair and came out passing through a group of people on the steps and outside that was much larger than usual for it seemed that the old firmity dealer had mysteriously hinted to the denizens of the lane in which she had been lodging since her arrival that she knew a queer thing or two about their great local man mr. henshard if she chose to tell it this had brought them hither why are there so many idlers around the town hall today said lucetta to her servant when the case was over she had risen late and had just looked out of the window oh please ma'am just this lary about mr. henshard a woman has proved that before he became a gentleman he sold his wife for five guineas in a booth at a fair in all the accounts which henshard had given her of the separation from his wife susan for so many years of his belief in her death and so on he had never clearly explained the actual and immediate cause of that separation the story she now heard for the first time a gradual misery over spread lucetta's face as she dwelt upon the promise rung from her the night before at bottom then henshard was this how terrible a contingency for a woman who should commit herself to his care during the day she went out to the ring and to other places not coming in till nearly dusk as soon as she saw elizabeth jane after her return indoors she told her that she had resolved to go away from home to the seaside for a few days to port breedy castor bridge was so gloomy elizabeth seeing that she looked wan and disturbed encouraged her in the idea thinking a change would afford her relief she could not help suspecting that the gloom which seemed to have come over castor bridge and lucetta's eyes might be partially owing to the fact that farfrey was away from home elizabeth saw her friend depart for port breedy and took charge of high place hall till her return after two or three days of solitude an incessant rain henshard called at the house he seemed disappointed to hear of lucetta's absence and though he nodded with outward indifference he went away handling his beard with a nettle of min the next day he called again is she come now he asked yes she returned this morning replied his stepdaughter but she is not indoors she has gone for a walk along the turnpike road to port breedy she will be home by dusk after a few words was only served to reveal his restless impatience he left the house again end of chapter twenty eight recorded by deborah in january first two thousand nine happy new year chapter twenty nine of the mayor of castor bridge this is a liver box recording all liver box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liver box dot org the mayor of castor bridge by thomas hardy chapter twenty nine at this hour lucetta was bounding along the road to port breedy just as elizabeth had announced that she had chosen for her afternoon walk the road along which she had returned to castor bridge three hours earlier in a carriage was curious if anything should be called curious in concatenations of phenomena wherein each is known to have its accounting cause it was the day of the chief market saturday and far fray for once had been missed from his corn stand in the dealer's room nevertheless it was known that he would be home that night for sunday as castor bridge expressed it lucetta in continuing her walk had at length reached the end of the rank trees which bordered the highway in this and other directions out of the town this end marked a mile and here she stopped the spot was a veil between two gentle aclivities and the road still adhering to its roman foundation stretched onward straight as a surveyors line till lost to sight on the most distant ridge there was neither hedge nor tree in the prospect now the road clinging to the stubby expanse of corn land like a strip to an undulating garment near her was a barn the single building of any kind within her horizon she strained her eyes up the lessening road but nothing appeared there on not so much as a spec she sighed one word donald and turned her face to the town for retreat here the case was different a single figure was approaching her elizabeth janes lucetta in spite of her loneliness seemed a little vexed elizabeth's face as soon as she recognized her friend shaped itself into affectionate lines while yet beyond speaking distance i suddenly thought i would come and meet you she said smiling lucetta's reply was taken from her lips by an unexpected diversion a byroad on her right hand descended from the field into the highway at the point where she stood and down the track a bull was rambling uncertainly towards her and elizabeth who facing the other way did not observe him in the latter quarter of each year cattle were at once the mainstay and the terror of families about castor bridge and its neighborhood where breeding was carried on with abrahamic success the head of stock driven into and out of the town at this season to be sold by the local auctioneer was very large and all these horned beasts in traveling to and fro sent women and children to shelter as nothing else could do in the main the animals would have walked along quietly enough but the castor bridge tradition was that to drive stock it was indispensable that hideous cries coupled with yahoo antics and gestures should be used large sticks flourished stray dogs called in and in general everything done that was likely to infuriate the viciously disposed and terrified the mild nothing was commoner than for a householder on going out of his parlor to find his hall or passage full of little children nursemaids aged women or a lady's school who apologized for their presence by saying a bull passing down street from the sale lucetta and elizabeth regarded the animal in doubt he meanwhile drawing vaguely towards them it was a large specimen of the breed in color rich done though disfigured at present by splotches of mud about his seamy sides his horns were thick and tipped with brass his two nostrils like the Thames tunnel as seen in the perspective toys of yore between them through the gristle of his nose was a stout copper ring welded on and irremovable as girth's collar of brass to the ring was attached an ash staff about a yard long which the bull with the motions of his head flung about like a flail it was not till they observed this dangling stick that the young women were really alarmed for it revealed to them that the bull was an old one too savage to be driven which had in some way escaped the staff being the means by which the drover controlled him and kept his horns at arms length they looked around for some shelter or hiding place and thought of the barn hard by as long as they had kept their eyes on the bull he had shown some deference in his manner of approach but no sooner did they turn their backs to seek the barn than he tossed his head and decided to thoroughly terrify them this caused the two helpless girls to run wildly where upon the bull advanced in a deliberate charge the barn stood behind a green slimy pond and it was closed to save as to one of the usual pair of doors facing them which had been propped open by a hurdle stick and for this opening they made the interior had been cleared by a recent bout of threshing except at one end where there was a stack of dry clover Elizabeth Jane took in the situation we must climb up there she said but before they had even approached it they heard the bull scampering through the pond without and in a second he dashed into the barn knocking down the hurdle stake in passing the heavy door slammed behind him and all three were imprisoned in the barn together the mistaken creature saw them and stalked towards the end of the barn into which they had fled the girls doubled so adroitly that their pursuer was against the wall when the fugitives were already halfway to the other end by the time that his length would allow him to turn and follow them pither they had crossed over thus the pursuit went on the hot air from his nostrils blowing over them like a circle and not a moment being attainable by Elizabeth or Lucetta in which to open the door what might have happened had their situation continued cannot be said but in a few moments a rattling of the door distracted their adversaries attention and a man appeared he ran forward towards the leading staff seized it and wrenched the animal's head as if he would snap it off the wrench was in reality so violent that the thick neck seemed to have lost its stiffness and to become half paralyzed whilst the nose dropped blood the premeditated human contrivance of the nose ring was too cunning for impulsive brute force and the creature flinched the man was seen in the parcel gloom to be large framed and unhesitating he led the bull to the door and the light revealed henchard he made the bull fast without and re-entered to the sucker of lucetta for he had not perceived elizabeth who had climbed onto the clover heap lucetta was hysterical and henchard took her in his arms and carried her to the door you have saved me she cried as soon as she could speak i have returned your kindness he responded tenderly you once saved me how comes it to be you she asked not heeding his reply i came out here to look for you i have been wanting to tell you something these two or three days but you have been away and i could not perhaps you cannot talk now oh no where is elizabeth here am i cried the missing one cheerfully and without waiting for the ladder to be placed she slid down the face of the clover stack to the floor henchard supporting lucetta on one side and elizabeth jane on the other they went slowly along the rising road they had reached the top and were descending again when lucetta now much recovered recollected that she had dropped her muff in the barn all run back said elizabeth jane i don't mind it at all as i am not tired as you are she there upon hastened down again to the barn the others pursuing their way elizabeth soon found the muff such an article being by no means small at that time coming out she paused to look for a moment at the bull now rather to be pitied with his bleeding nose having perhaps rather intended a practical joke than a murder henchard had secured him by jamming the staff into the hinge of the barn door and wedging it there with a stake at length she turned to hasten onward after her contemplation when she saw a green and black gig approaching from the contrary direction the vehicle being driven by farfray his presence here seemed to explain lucettas walked that way donald saw her drew up and was hastily made acquainted with what had occurred at elizabeth jane mentioning how greatly lucetta had been jeopardized he exhibited an agitation different in kind no less than in intensity from any she had seen in him before he became so absorbed in the circumstance that he scarcely had sufficient knowledge of what he was doing to think of helping her up beside him she has gone on with mr henchard you say he inquired at last yes he is taking her home they are almost there by this time and you are sure she can get home elizabeth jane was quite sure your stepfather saved her entirely farfray checked his horse's pace she guessed why he was thinking that it would be best not to intrude on the other two just now henchard had saved lucetta and to provoke a possible exhibition of her deeper affection for himself was as ungenerous as it was unwise the immediate subject of their talk being exhausted she felt more embarrassed at sitting thus beside her past lover but soon the two figures of the others were visible at the entrance to the town the face of the woman was frequently turned back but farfray did not whip on the horse when these reached the town walls henchard and his companion had disappeared down the street farfray set down elizabeth jane on her expressing a particular wish to a light there and drove round to the stables at the back of his lodgings on this account he entered the house through his garden and going up to his apartments found them in a particularly disturbed state his boxes being hauled out upon the landing and his bookcase standing in three pieces these phenomena however seemed to cause him not the least surprise when will everything be sent up he said to the mistress of the house who was superintending i'm afraid not before eight sir said she you see we wasn't aware till this morning that you were going to move or we could have been forwarder uh well never mind never mind said farfray cheerfully eight o'clock will do well enough if it be not later now don't you be standing here talking or it will be twelve i doubt thus speaking he went out by the front door and up the street during this interval henchard and lucetta had had experiences of a different kind after elizabeth's departure for the moth the corn merchant opened himself frankly holding her hand within his arm though she would feign have withdrawn it dear lucetta i have been very very anxious to see you these two or three days he said ever since i saw you last i have thought over the way i got your promise that night you said to me if i were a man i should not insist that cut me deep i felt that there was some truth in it i don't want to make you wretched and to marry me just now would do that as nothing else could it is but too plain therefore i agree to an indefinite engagement to put off all thought of marriage for a year or two but but can i do nothing of a different kind said lucetta i am full of gratitude to you you have saved my life and your care of me is like coals of fire on my head i am a moneyed person now surely i can do something in return for your goodness something practical henchard remained in thought he had evidently not expected this there is one thing you might do lucetta he said but not exactly of that kind then of what kind is it she asked with renewed misgiving i must tell you a secret to ask it you may have heard that i have been unlucky this year i did what i have never done before speculated rashly and i lost that's just put me in a straight and you would wish me to advance some money no no said henchard almost in anger i'm not the man to sponge on a woman even though she may be so nearly my own as you no lucetta what you can do is this and it would save me my great creditor is grower and it is at his hands i shall suffer if at anybody's while a fortnight's forbearance on his part would be enough to allow me to pull through this maybe got out of him in one way that you would let it be known to him that you are my intended that we are to be quietly married in the next fortnight now stop you haven't heard all let him have this story without of course any prejudice to the fact that the actual engagement between us is to be a long one nobody else need no and you could go with me to mr grower and just let me speak to him before him as if we were on such terms we'll ask him to keep it secret he will willingly wait then at the fortnight's end i shall be able to face him and i can coolly tell him all his postponed between us for a year or two not a soul in the town need know how you've helped me since you wish to be of use there's your way it being now what the people called the pinking in of the day that is the quarter hour just before dusk he did not at first observe the result of his own words upon her if it were anything else she began and the dryness of her lips was represented in her voice but it is such a little thing he said with a deeper approach less than you have offered just the beginning of what you have so lately promised i could have told him as much myself but he would not have believed me it is not because i won't it is because i absolutely can't she said with rising distress you are provoking he burst out it is enough to make me force you to carry out at once what you have promised i cannot she insisted desperately why when i have only within these few minutes released you from your promise to do the thing off hand because he was a witness witness of what if i must tell you don't don't upgrade me well let's see what you mean witness of my marriage mr grower was marriage yes with mr farfray oh michael i am already his wife we were married this week at port breedy there were reasons against our doing it here mr grower was a witness because he happened to be at port breedy at the time henchard stood as if idiotized she was so alarmed at his silence that she murmured something about lending him sufficient money to tide over the perilous fortnight married him said henchard at length my good what married whilst bound to marry me it was like this she explained with tears in her eyes and quavers in her voice don't don't be cruel i loved him so much and i thought you might tell him of the past and that grieved me and then when i had promised you i learned of the rumors that you had sold your first wife at a fair like a horse or cow how could i keep my promise after hearing that i could not risk myself in your hands it would have been letting myself down to take your name after such a scandal but i knew i should lose donald if i did not take your hand at once for you would carry out your threat of telling him of our former acquaintance as long as there was a chance of keeping me for yourself by doing so but you will not do so now will you michael for it is too late to separate us the notes of st peter's bells in full peel had been wafted to them while she spoke and now the genial thumping of the town band renowned for its unstinted use of the drumstick throb down the street then this racket they are making is on account of what i suppose said he yes i think he has told them or else mr grower has may i leave you now might he was detained at port breedy today and sent me on a few hours before him venetus his wife's life i have saved this afternoon yes and he will be forever grateful to you i am much obliged to him oh you false woman burst from henshawd you promised me yes yes but it was under compulsion and i did not know all your past and now i have a mind to punish you as you deserve one word to this brand new husband of how you courted me and your precious happiness is blown to adams michael pity me and be generous you don't deserve pity you did but you don't now i'll help you to pay off your debt a pensioner or far for his wife not i don't stay with me longer i shall say something worse go home she disappeared under the trees of the south walk as the band came around the corner awaking the echoes of every stock and stone in celebration of her happiness lucetta took no heed but ran up the back street and reached her own home unperceived end of chapter 29 chapter 30 of the mayor of castor bridge this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org the mayor of castor bridge by thomas hardy chapter 30 far-phrased words to his landlady had referred to the removal of his boxes and other effects from his late lodgings to lucetta's house the work was not heavy but it had been much hindered on account of the frequent pauses necessitated by exclamations of surprise at the event of which the good woman had been briefly informed by letter a few hours earlier at the last moment of leaving port breedy far-fray like john gilpin had been detained by important customers whom even in the exceptional circumstances he was not the man to neglect moreover there was a convenience in lucetta arriving first at her house nobody there as yet knew what had happened and she was best in a position to break the news to the inmates and give directions for her husband's accommodation he had therefore sent on his two days bride in a hired broom whilst he went across the country to a certain group of wheat and barley ricks a few miles off telling her the hour at which he might be expected the same evening this accounted for her trotting out to meet him after their separation of four hours by a strenuous effort after leaving henshard she calmed herself in readiness to receive donald at high place hall when he came on from his lodgings one supreme fact empowered her to this the sense that come what would she had secured him half an hour after her arrival he walked in and she met him with a relieved gladness which a month's perilous absence could not have intensified there was one thing i have not done and yet it is important she said earnestly when she had finished talking about the adventure with the bull that is broken the news of our marriage to my dear elizabeth jane ah and you have not he said thoughtfully i gave her a lift from the barn homewards but i did not tell her either for i thought she might have heard of it in the town and was keeping back her congratulations from shyness and all that she can hardly have heard of it but i'll find out i'll go to her now and donald you don't mind her living on with me just the same as before she is so quiet and unassuming oh no indeed i don't farfay answered with perhaps a fate awkwardness but i wonder if she would care to oh yes said the setter eagerly i am sure she would like to besides poor thing she has no other home farfay looked at her and saw that she did not suspect the secret of her more reserved friend he liked her all the better for the blindness arrange as you like with her by all means he said it is i who have come to your house not you to mine i'll run and speak to her said lucetta when she got upstairs to elizabeth jane's room the latter had taken off her outdoor things and was resting over a book lucetta found in a moment that she had not yet learned the news i did not come down to you miss templeman she said simply i was coming to ask if you had quite recovered from your fright but i found you had a visitor what are the bells ringing for i wonder and the band too is playing somebody must be married or else they are practicing for christmas lucetta uttered a vague yes and seating herself by the other young woman looked musingly at her what a lonely creature you are she presently said never knowing what's going on or what people are talking about everywhere with keen interest you should get out and gossip about as other women do and then you wouldn't be obliged to ask me a question of that kind well now i have something to tell you elizabeth jane said she was so glad and made herself receptive i must go rather a long way back said lucetta the difficulty of explaining herself satisfactorily to the pondering one beside her growing more apparent at each syllable you remember that trying case of conscience i told you of some time ago about the first lover and the second lover she let out in jerky phrases a leading word or two of the story she had told oh yes i remember the story of your friend said elizabeth driley regarding the irises of lucetta's eyes as though to catch their exact shade the two lovers the old one and the new how she wanted to marry the second but felt she ought to marry the first so that she neglected the better course to follow the evil like the poet of it i've just been construing video millora provokie deteriora sick quarter oh no she didn't follow evil exactly said lucetta hastily but you said that she or as i may say you answered elizabeth dropping the mask were in honor and conscience bound to marry the first lucetta's blush at being seen through came and went again before she replied anxiously you will never breathe this will you elizabeth jane certainly not if you say not then i will tell you that the case is more complicated worse in fact than it seemed in my story i and the first man were thrown together in a strange way and felt that we ought to be united as the world had talked of us he was a widower as he supposed he had not heard of his first wife for many years but the wife returned and we parted she is now dead and the husband comes paying me addresses again saying now we'll complete our purposes but elizabeth jane all this amounts to a new courtship of me by him i was absolved from all vows by the return of the other woman have you not lately renewed your promise said the younger with quiet surmise she had divined man number one that was wrong for me by a threat yes it was but i think when anyone gets coupled up with a man in the past so unfortunately as you have done she ought to become his wife if she can even if she were not the sinning party reset his countenance lost its sparkle he turned out to be a man i should be afraid to marry she pleaded really afraid and it was not till after my renewed promise that i knew it then there is only one course left to honesty you must remain a single woman but think again do consider i am certain interrupted her companion heartily i have guessed very well who the man is my father and i say it is him or nobody for you any suspicion of impropriety was to elizabeth jane like a red rag to a bull her craving for correctness of procedure was indeed almost vicious owing to her early troubles with regard to her mother assemblance of irregularity had terrors for her which those whose names are safeguarded from suspicion know nothing of you ought to marry mr. henchard or nobody certainly not another man she went on with a quivering lip in whose movement two passions shared i don't admit that said lucetta passionately admitted or not it is true lucetta covered her eyes with her right hand as if she could plead no more holding out her left to elizabeth jane why you have married him cried the latter jumping up with pleasure after a glance at lucetta's fingers when did you do it why did you not tell me instead of teasing me like this how very honorable of you he did treat my mother badly once it seems in a moment of intoxication and it is true that he is stern sometimes but you will rule him entirely i am sure with your beauty and wealth and accomplishments you are the woman he will adore and we shall all three be happy together now oh my elizabeth jane cried lucetta distressfully to somebody else that i have married i was so desperate so afraid of being forced to anything else so afraid of revelations that would quench his love for me that i resolved to do it offhand come what might and purchase a week of happiness at any cost you have married mr farfray cried elizabeth jane and nascent tones lucetta bowed she had recovered herself the bells are ringing on that account she said my husband is downstairs he will live here till a more suitable house is ready for us and i have told him that i want you to stay with me just as before let me think of it alone the girl quickly replied corking up the turmoil of her feeling with grand control you shall i am sure we shall be happy together lucetta departed to join donald's below a vague uneasiness floating over her joy at seeing him quite at home there not on account of her friend elizabeth did she feel it for of the bearings of elizabeth jane's emotions she had not the least suspicion but on henchards alone now the instant decision of susan henchard's daughter was to dwell in that house no more apart from her estimate of the propriety of lucetta's conduct farfray had been so nearly her avowed lover that she felt she could not abide there it was still early in the evening when she hastily put on her things and went out in a few minutes knowing the ground she had found a suitable lodging and arranged to enter it that night returning and entering noiselessly she took off her pretty dress and arrange herself in a plain one packing up the other to keep us her best for she would have to be very economical now she wrote a note to leave for lucetta who was closely shut up in the drawing room with farfray and then elizabeth jane called a man with a wheelbarrow and seeing her boxes put into it she trotted off down the street to her rooms they were in the street in which henchard lived and almost opposite his door here she sat down and considered the means of subsistence the little annual sum settled on her by her stepfather would keep body and soul together a wonderful skill in netting of all sorts acquired in childhood by making sains and nuisance home might serve her in good stead and her studies which were pursued unremittingly might serve her in still better by this time the marriage that had taken place was known throughout castor bridge had been discussed noisily on curb stones confidentially behind counters and jovially at the three mariners whether farfray would sell his business and set up for a gentleman on his wife's money or whether he would show independence enough to stick to his trade in spite of his brilliant alliance was a great point of interest end of chapter 30 chapter 31 of the mayor of castor bridge this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the mayor of castor bridge by Thomas Hardy chapter 31 the retort of the Firmity Woman before the magistrates had spread and in four and twenty hours there was not a person in castor bridge who remained unacquainted with the story of henchard's mad freak at wade and priors fair long years before the amends he had made in afterlife were lost sight of in the dramatic glare of the original act had the incident been well known of old and always it might by this time have grown to be lightly regarded as the rather tall wild oat but well nigh the single one of a young man with whom the steady and mature if somewhat headstrong burger of today had scarcely a point in common but the act having lain as dead and buried ever since the interspace of years was unperceived and the black spot of his youth wore the aspect of a recent crime smallest the police court incident had been in itself it formed the edge or turn in the incline of henchard's fortunes on that day almost at that minute he passed the ridge of prosperity and honor and began to descend rapidly on the other side it was strange how soon he sank in esteem socially he had received the startling philip downwards and having already lost commercial buoyancy from rash transactions the velocity of his descent in both aspects became accelerated every hour he now gazed more at the pavements and less at the house fronts when he walked about more at the feet and leggings of men and less into the pupils of their eyes with the blazing regard which formerly had made them blink new events combined to undo him it had been a bad year for others besides himself and the heavy failure of a debtor whom he had trusted generously completed the overthrow of his tottering credit and now in his desperation he failed to preserve that strict correspondence between bulk and sample which is the soul of commerce in grain for this one of his men was mainly to blame that worthy in his great unwisdom having picked over the sample of an enormous quantity of second rate corn which henchard had in hand and removed the pinched blasted and smutted grains in great numbers the produce have honestly offered would have created no scandal but the blunder of misrepresentation coming at such a moment dragged henchard's name into the ditch the details of his failure were of the ordinary kind one day elizabeth jane was passing the king's arms when she saw people bustling in and out more than usual where there was no market a bystander informed her with some surprise at her ignorance that it was a meeting of the commissioners under mr. henchard's bankruptcy she felt quite tearful and when she heard that he was present in the hotel she wished to go in and see him what was advised not to intrude that day the room in which debtor and creditors had assembled was a front one and henchard looking out of the window had caught sight of elizabeth jane through the wire blind his examination had closed and the creditors were leaving the appearance of elizabeth threw him into a reverie till turning his face from the window and towering above all the rest he called their attention for a moment more his countenance had somewhat changed from its flush of prosperity the black hair and whiskers were the same as ever but a film of ash was over the rest gentlemen he said over and above the assets that we've been talking about and that appear on the balance sheet there be these it all belongs to you as much as everything else i've got and i don't wish to keep it from you not i saying this he took his gold watch from his pocket and laid it on the table then his purse the yellow canvas money bag such as was carried by all farmers and dealers untieing it and shaking the money out upon the table beside the watch the latter he drew back quickly for an instant to remove the hairguard made and given him by lucetta there now you have all i've got in the world he said and i wish for your sakes for smore the creditors farmers almost to a man looked at the watch and at the money and into the street when farmer james everdeen of weatherbury spoke no no henchard he said warmly we don't want that just honorable in ye but keep it what do you say neighbors do you agree hey sure we don't wish it at all said grower another creditor let him keep it of course murmured another in the background a silent reserved young man named boldwood and the rest responded unanimously well said the senior commissioner addressing henchard though the case is a desperate one i am bound to admit that i have never met a debtor who behaved more fairly i've proved the balance sheet to be as honestly made out as it could possibly be we have no trouble there have been no evasions and no concealment the rashness of dealing which led to this unhappy situation is obvious enough but as far as i can see every attempt has been made to avoid wronging anybody henchard was more affected by this than he cared to let them perceive and he turned aside to the window again a general murmur of agreement followed the commissioner's words and the meeting dispersed when they were gone henchard regarded the watch they had returned to him tisn't mind by rights he said to himself why the devil didn't they take it i don't want what don't belong to me moved by a recollection he took the watch to the makers just opposite sold it there and then for what the tradesman offered and went with the proceeds to one among the smaller of his creditors a cottager of durneverns straightened circumstances to whom he handed the money when everything was ticketed that henchard had owned and the auctions were in progress there was quite a sympathetic reaction in the town which till then for some time past had done nothing but condemn him now that henchard's whole career was pictured distinctly to his neighbors and that could see how admirably he had used his one talent of energy to create a position of affluence out of absolutely nothing which was really all he could show when he came to the town as a journeyman haytruster with his wimble and knife in his basket they wondered and regretted his fall try as she might elizabeth could never meet with him she believed in him still though nobody else did and she wanted to be allowed to forgive him for his roughness to her and to help him in his trouble she wrote to him he did not reply she then went to his house the great house she had lived in so happily for a time with its front of done brick vitrified here and there and its heavy sash bars but henchard was to be found there no more the ex-mayor had left the home of his prosperity and gone into job's cottage by the priory mill the sad perlio to which he had wandered on the night of his discovery that she was not his daughter so there she went elizabeth thought it odd that he had fixed on this spot to retire to but assumed that necessity had no choice trees which seemed old enough to have been planted by the fryers still stood around and the back hatch of the original mill yet formed a cascade which had raised its terrific roar for centuries the cottage itself was built of old stones from the long dismantled priory scraps of tracery molded window jams and arch labels being mixed in with the rubble of the walls in this cottage he occupied a couple of rooms job whom henchard had employed abused cajoled and dismissed by turns being the householder but even here her stepfather could not be seen not by his daughter pleaded elizabeth by nobody at present that's his order she was informed afterwards she was passing by the corn stores and hay barns which had been the headquarters of his business she knew that he ruled there no longer but it was with amazement that she regarded the familiar gateway a smear of decisive lead colored paint had been laid on to obliterate henchard's name though its letters dimly loomed through like ships and a fog over these and fresh white spread the name of farfray abel whittle was edging his skeleton in at the wicked and she said mr farfray is master here yes miss henchard he said mr farfray have bought the concern and all of we work folk with it and it's better for us than twas though i shouldn't say that to you as a daughter-law we work harder but we made a feared now it was fear made my few poor hairs so thin no busting out no slamming of doors no meddling with your eternal soul and all that and though to suchilling a weak less i'm the richer man for what's all the world if your mind is always in a lary miss henchard the intelligence was in a general sense true and henchard's stores which had remained in a paralyzed condition during the settlement of his bankruptcy were stirred into activity again when the new tenant had possession since forward the full sacks looped with a shining chain went scurrying up and down under the cathead harry arms were thrust out from the different doorways and the grain was hauled in trusses of hay were tossed anew in and out of the barns and the wimbles creaked while the scales and steel yards began to be busy where guesswork had formerly been the rule end of chapter 31