by Thomas Hardy
“But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!” exclaimed Henchard, now unspeakably grieved. “Not Budmouth way at all.”
But, alas! for Henchard; he had lost his good name. They would not believe him, taking his words but as the frothy utterances of recklessness. Though Lucetta’s life seemed at that moment to depend upon her husband’s return (she being in great mental agony lest he should never know the unexaggerated truth of her past relations with Henchard), no messenger was despatched towards Weatherbury. Henchard, in a state of bitter anxiety and contrition, determined to seek Farfrae himself.
To this end he hastened down the town, ran along the eastern road over Durnover Moor, up the hill beyond, and thus onward in the moderate darkness of this spring night till he had reached a second and almost a third hill about three miles distant. In Yalbury Bottom, or Plain, at the foot of the hill, he listened. At first nothing, beyond his own heart-throbs, was to be heard but the slow wind making its moan among the masses of spruce and larch of Yalbury Wood which clothed the heights on either hand; but presently there came the sound of light wheels whetting their felloes against the newly stoned patches of road, accompanied by the distant glimmer of lights.
He knew it was Farfrae’s gig descending the hill from an indescribable personality in its noise, the vehicle having been his own till bought by the Scotchman at the sale of his effects. Henchard thereupon retraced his steps along Yalbury Plain, the gig coming up with him as its driver slackened speed between two plantations.
It was a point in the highway near which the road to Mellstock branched off from the homeward direction. By diverging to that village, as he had intended to do, Farfrae might probably delay his return by a couple of hours. It soon appeared that his intention was to do so still, the light swerving towards Cuckoo Lane, the by-road aforesaid. Farfrae’s off gig-lamp flashed in Henchard’s face. At the same time Farfrae discerned his late antagonist.
“Farfrae — Mr. Farfrae!” cried the breathless Henchard, holding up his hand.
Farfrae allowed the horse to turn several steps into the branch lane before he pulled up. He then drew rein, and said “Yes?” over his shoulder, as one would towards a pronounced enemy.
“Come back to Casterbridge at once!” Henchard said. “There’s something wrong at your house — requiring your return. I’ve run all the way here on purpose to tell ye.”
Farfrae was silent, and at his silence Henchard’s soul sank within him. Why had he not, before this, thought of what was only too obvious? He who, four hours earlier, had enticed Farfrae into a deadly wrestle stood now in the darkness of late night-time on a lonely road, inviting him to come a particular way, where an assailant might have confederates, instead of going his purposed way, where there might be a better opportunity of guarding himself from attack. Henchard could almost feel this view of things in course of passage through Farfrae’s mind.
“I have to go to Mellstock,” said Farfrae coldly, as he loosened his reins to move on.
“But,” implored Henchard, “the matter is more serious than your business at Mellstock. It is — your wife! She is ill. I can tell you particulars as we go along.”
The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increased Farfrae’s suspicion that this was a ruse to decoy him on to the next wood, where might be effectually compassed what, from policy or want of nerve, Henchard had failed to do earlier in the day. He started the horse.
“I know what you think,” deprecated Henchard running after, almost bowed down with despair as he perceived the image of unscrupulous villainy that he assumed in his former friend’s eyes. “But I am not what you think!” he cried hoarsely. “Believe me, Farfrae; I have come entirely on your own and your wife’s account. She is in danger. I know no more; and they want you to come. Your man has gone the other way in a mistake. O Farfrae! don’t mistrust me — I am a wretched man; but my heart is true to you still!”
Farfrae, however, did distrust him utterly. He knew his wife was with child, but he had left her not long ago in perfect health; and Henchard’s treachery was more credible than his story. He had in his time heard bitter ironies from Henchard’s lips, and there might be ironies now. He quickened the horse’s pace, and had soon risen into the high country lying between there and Mellstock, Henchard’s spasmodic run after him lending yet more substance to his thought of evil purposes.
The gig and its driver lessened against the sky in Henchard’s eyes; his exertions for Farfrae’s good had been in vain. Over this repentant sinner, at least, there was to be no joy in heaven. He cursed himself like a less scrupulous Job, as a vehement man will do when he loses self-respect, the last mental prop under poverty. To this he had come after a time of emotional darkness of which the adjoining woodland shade afforded inadequate illustration. Presently he began to walk back again along the way by which he had arrived. Farfrae should at all events have no reason for delay upon the road by seeing him there when he took his journey homeward later on.
Arriving at Casterbridge Henchard went again to Farfrae’s house to make inquiries. As soon as the door opened anxious faces confronted his from the staircase, hall, and landing; and they all said in grievous disappointment, “O — it is not he!” The manservant, finding his mistake, had long since returned, and all hopes had centred upon Henchard.
“But haven’t you found him?” said the doctor.
“Yes....I cannot tell ‘ee!” Henchard replied as he sank down on a chair within the entrance. “He can’t be home for two hours.”
“H’m,” said the surgeon, returning upstairs.
“How is she?” asked Henchard of Elizabeth, who formed one of the group.
“In great danger, father. Her anxiety to see her husband makes her fearfully restless. Poor woman — I fear they have killed her!”
Henchard regarded the sympathetic speaker for a few instants as if she struck him in a new light, then, without further remark, went out of the door and onward to his lonely cottage. So much for man’s rivalry, he thought. Death was to have the oyster, and Farfrae and himself the shells. But about Elizabeth-lane; in the midst of his gloom she seemed to him as a pin-point of light. He had liked the look on her face as she answered him from the stairs. There had been affection in it, and above all things what he desired now was affection from anything that was good and pure. She was not his own, yet, for the first time, he had a faint dream that he might get to like her as his own, — if she would only continue to love him.
Jopp was just going to bed when Henchard got home. As the latter entered the door Jopp said, “This is rather bad about Mrs. Farfrae’s illness.”
“Yes,” said Henchard shortly, though little dreaming of Jopp’s complicity in the night’s harlequinade, and raising his eyes just sufficiently to observe that Jopp’s face was lined with anxiety.
“Somebody has called for you,” continued Jopp, when Henchard was shutting himself into his own apartment. “A kind of traveller, or sea-captain of some sort.”
“Oh? — who could he be?”
“He seemed a well-be-doing man — had grey hair and a broadish face; but he gave no name, and no message.”
“Nor do I gi’e him any attention.” And, saying this, Henchard closed his door.
The divergence to Mellstock delayed Farfrae’s return very nearly the two hours of Henchard’s estimate. Among the other urgent reasons for his presence had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for a second physician; and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in a state bordering on distraction at his misconception of Henchard’s motives.
A messenger was despatched to Budmouth, late as it had grown; the night wore on, and the other doctor came in the small hours. Lucetta had been much soothed by Donald’s arrival; he seldom or never left her side; and when, immediately after his entry, she had tried to lisp out to him the secret which so oppressed her, he checked her feeble words, lest talking should be dangerous, assuring her there was plenty of time to tell him everything.
U
p to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride. The dangerous illness and miscarriage of Mrs. Farfrae was soon rumoured through the town, and an apprehensive guess having been given as to its cause by the leaders in the exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silence over all particulars of their orgie; while those immediately around Lucetta would not venture to add to her husband’s distress by alluding to the subject.
What, and how much, Farfrae’s wife ultimately explained to him of her past entanglement with Henchard, when they were alone in the solitude of that sad night, cannot be told. That she informed him of the bare facts of her peculiar intimacy with the corn-merchant became plain from Farfrae’s own statements. But in respect of her subsequent conduct — her motive in coming to Casterbridge to unite herself with Henchard — her assumed justification in abandoning him when she discovered reasons for fearing him (though in truth her inconsequent passion for another man at first sight had most to do with that abandonment) — her method of reconciling to her conscience a marriage with the second when she was in a measure committed to the first: to what extent she spoke of these things remained Farfrae’s secret alone.
Besides the watchman who called the hours and weather in Casterbridge that night there walked a figure up and down Corn Street hardly less frequently. It was Henchard’s, whose retiring to rest had proved itself a futility as soon as attempted; and he gave it up to go hither and thither, and make inquiries about the patient every now and then. He called as much on Farfrae’s account as on Lucetta’s, and on Elizabeth-Jane’s even more than on either’s. Shorn one by one of all other interests, his life seemed centring on the personality of the stepdaughter whose presence but recently he could not endure. To see her on each occasion of his inquiry at Lucetta’s was a comfort to him.
The last of his calls was made about four o’clock in the morning, in the steely light of dawn. Lucifer was fading into day across Durnover Moor, the sparrows were just alighting into the street, and the hens had begun to cackle from the outhouses. When within a few yards of Farfrae’s he saw the door gently opened, and a servant raise her hand to the knocker, to untie the piece of cloth which had muffled it. He went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely flying up from the road-litter, so little did they believe in human aggression at so early a time.
“Why do you take off that?” said Henchard.
She turned in some surprise at his presence, and did not answer for an instant or two. Recognizing him, she said, “Because they may knock as loud as they will; she will never hear it any more.”
CHAPTER 41.
Henchard went home. The morning having now fully broke he lit his fire, and sat abstractedly beside it. He had not sat there long when a gentle footstep approached the house and entered the passage, a finger tapping lightly at the door. Henchard’s face brightened, for he knew the motions to be Elizabeth’s. She came into his room, looking wan and sad.
“Have you heard?” she asked. “Mrs. Farfrae! She is — dead! Yes, indeed — about an hour ago!”
“I know it,” said Henchard. “I have but lately come in from there. It is so very good of ‘ee, Elizabeth, to come and tell me. You must be so tired out, too, with sitting up. Now do you bide here with me this morning. You can go and rest in the other room; and I will call ‘ee when breakfast is ready.”
To please him, and herself — for his recent kindliness was winning a surprised gratitude from the lonely girl — she did as he bade her, and lay down on a sort of couch which Henchard had rigged up out of a settle in the adjoining room. She could hear him moving about in his preparations; but her mind ran most strongly on Lucetta, whose death in such fulness of life and amid such cheerful hopes of maternity was appallingly unexpected. Presently she fell asleep.
Meanwhile her stepfather in the outer room had set the breakfast in readiness; but finding that she dozed he would not call her; he waited on, looking into the fire and keeping the kettle boiling with house-wifely care, as if it were an honour to have her in his house. In truth, a great change had come over him with regard to her, and he was developing the dream of a future lit by her filial presence, as though that way alone could happiness lie.
He was disturbed by another knock at the door, and rose to open it, rather deprecating a call from anybody just then. A stoutly built man stood on the doorstep, with an alien, unfamiliar air about his figure and bearing — an air which might have been called colonial by people of cosmopolitan experience. It was the man who had asked the way at Peter’s finger. Henchard nodded, and looked inquiry.
“Good morning, good morning,” said the stranger with profuse heartiness. “Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?”
“My name is Henchard.”
“Then I’ve caught ‘ee at home — that’s right. Morning’s the time for business, says I. Can I have a few words with you?”
“By all means,” Henchard answered, showing the way in.
“You may remember me?” said his visitor, seating himself.
Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head.
“Well — perhaps you may not. My name is Newson.”
Henchard’s face and eyes seemed to die. The other did not notice it. “I know the name well,” Henchard said at last, looking on the floor.
“I make no doubt of that. Well, the fact is, I’ve been looking for ‘ee this fortnight past. I landed at Havenpool and went through Casterbridge on my way to Falmouth, and when I got there, they told me you had some years before been living at Casterbridge. Back came I again, and by long and by late I got here by coach, ten minutes ago. ‘He lives down by the mill,’ says they. So here I am. Now — that transaction between us some twenty years agone — ’tis that I’ve called about. ‘Twas a curious business. I was younger then than I am now, and perhaps the less said about it, in one sense, the better.”
“Curious business! ‘Twas worse than curious. I cannot even allow that I’m the man you met then. I was not in my senses, and a man’s senses are himself.”
“We were young and thoughtless,” said Newson. “However, I’ve come to mend matters rather than open arguments. Poor Susan — hers was a strange experience.”
“She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman. She was not what they call shrewd or sharp at all — better she had been.”
“She was not.”
“As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough to think that the sale was in a way binding. She was as guiltless o’ wrong-doing in that particular as a saint in the clouds.”
“I know it, I know it. I found it out directly,” said Henchard, still with averted eyes. “There lay the sting o’t to me. If she had seen it as what it was she would never have left me. Never! But how should she be expected to know? What advantages had she? None. She could write her own name, and no more.”
“Well, it was not in my heart to undeceive her when the deed was done,” said the sailor of former days. “I thought, and there was not much vanity in thinking it, that she would be happier with me. She was fairly happy, and I never would have undeceived her till the day of her death. Your child died; she had another, and all went well. But a time came — mind me, a time always does come. A time came — it was some while after she and I and the child returned from America — when somebody she had confided her history to, told her my claim to her was a mockery, and made a jest of her belief in my right. After that she was never happy with me. She pined and pined, and socked and sighed. She said she must leave me, and then came the question of our child. Then a man advised me how to act, and I did it, for I thought it was best. I left her at Falmouth, and went off to sea. When I got to the other side of the Atlantic there was a storm, and it was supposed that a lot of us, including myself, had been washed overboard. I got ashore at Newfoundland, and then I asked myself what I should do.
“‘Since I’m here, here I’ll bide,’ I thought to myself; ‘‘twill be most kindness to her, now she’s taken against me, to let her believe me lost, for,’ I thought, ‘while she su
pposes us both alive she’ll be miserable; but if she thinks me dead she’ll go back to him, and the child will have a home.’ I’ve never returned to this country till a month ago, and I found that, as I supposed, she went to you, and my daughter with her. They told me in Falmouth that Susan was dead. But my Elizabeth-Jane — where is she?”
“Dead likewise,” said Henchard doggedly. “Surely you learnt that too?”
The sailor started up, and took an enervated pace or two down the room. “Dead!” he said, in a low voice. “Then what’s the use of my money to me?”
Henchard, without answering, shook his head as if that were rather a question for Newson himself than for him.
“Where is she buried?” the traveller inquired.
“Beside her mother,” said Henchard, in the same stolid tones.
“When did she die?”
“A year ago and more,” replied the other without hesitation.
The sailor continued standing. Henchard never looked up from the floor. At last Newson said: “My journey hither has been for nothing! I may as well go as I came! It has served me right. I’ll trouble you no longer.”
Henchard heard the retreating footsteps of Newson upon the sanded floor, the mechanical lifting of the latch, the slow opening and closing of the door that was natural to a baulked or dejected man; but he did not turn his head. Newson’s shadow passed the window. He was gone.
Then Henchard, scarcely believing the evidence of his senses, rose from his seat amazed at what he had done. It had been the impulse of a moment. The regard he had lately acquired for Elizabeth, the new-sprung hope of his loneliness that she would be to him a daughter of whom he could feel as proud as of the actual daughter she still believed herself to be, had been stimulated by the unexpected coming of Newson to a greedy exclusiveness in relation to her; so that the sudden prospect of her loss had caused him to speak mad lies like a child, in pure mockery of consequences. He had expected questions to close in round him, and unmask his fabrication in five minutes; yet such questioning had not come. But surely they would come; Newson’s departure could be but momentary; he would learn all by inquiries in the town; and return to curse him, and carry his last treasure away!
