Elizabeth-Jane had perceived from Henchard’s manner that in assenting
to dance she had made a mistake of some kind. In her simplicity she did
not know what it was till a hint from a nodding acquaintance
enlightened her. As the Mayor’s stepdaughter, she learnt, she had not
been quite in her place in treading a measure amid such a mixed throng
as filled the dancing pavilion.
Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin glowed like live coals at the
dawning of the idea that her tastes were not good enough for her
position, and would bring her into disgrace.
This made her very miserable, and she looked about for her mother; but
Mrs. Henchard, who had less idea of conventionality than Elizabeth
herself, had gone away, leaving her daughter to return at her own
pleasure. The latter moved on into the dark dense old avenues, or
rather vaults of living woodwork, which ran along the town boundary,
and stood reflecting.
A man followed in a few minutes, and her face being to-wards the shine
from the tent he recognized her. It was Farfrae—just come from the
dialogue with Henchard which had signified his dismissal.
“And it’s you, Miss Newson?—and I’ve been looking for ye everywhere!”
he said, overcoming a sadness imparted by the estrangement with the
corn-merchant. “May I walk on with you as far as your street-corner?”
She thought there might be something wrong in this, but did not utter
any objection. So together they went on, first down the West Walk, and
then into the Bowling Walk, till Farfrae said, “It’s like that I’m
going to leave you soon.”
She faltered, “Why?”
“Oh—as a mere matter of business—nothing more. But we’ll not concern
ourselves about it—it is for the best. I hoped to have another dance
with you.”
She said she could not dance—in any proper way.
“Nay, but you do! It’s the feeling for it rather than the learning of
steps that makes pleasant dancers.... I fear I offended your father by
getting up this! And now, perhaps, I’ll have to go to another part o’
the warrld altogether!”
This seemed such a melancholy prospect that Elizabeth-Jane breathed a
sigh—letting it off in fragments that he might not hear her. But
darkness makes people truthful, and the Scotchman went on
impulsively—perhaps he had heard her after all:
“I wish I was richer, Miss Newson; and your stepfather had not been
offended, I would ask you something in a short time—yes, I would ask
you to-night. But that’s not for me!”
What he would have asked her he did not say, and instead of encouraging
him she remained incompetently silent. Thus afraid one of another they
continued their promenade along the walls till they got near the bottom
of the Bowling Walk; twenty steps further and the trees would end, and
the street-corner and lamps appear. In consciousness of this they
stopped.
“I never found out who it was that sent us to Durnover granary on a
fool’s errand that day,” said Donald, in his undulating tones. “Did ye
ever know yourself, Miss Newson?”
“Never,” said she.
“I wonder why they did it!”
“For fun, perhaps.”
“Perhaps it was not for fun. It might have been that they thought they
would like us to stay waiting there, talking to one another? Ay, well!
I hope you Casterbridge folk will not forget me if I go.”
“That I’m sure we won’t!” she said earnestly. “I—wish you wouldn’t go
at all.”
They had got into the lamplight. “Now, I’ll think over that,” said
Donald Farfrae. “And I’ll not come up to your door; but part from you
here; lest it make your father more angry still.”
They parted, Farfrae returning into the dark Bowling Walk, and
Elizabeth-Jane going up the street. Without any consciousness of what
she was doing she started running with all her might till she reached
her father’s door. “O dear me—what am I at?” she thought, as she pulled
up breathless.
Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae’s enigmatic
words about not daring to ask her what he fain would. Elizabeth, that
silent observing woman, had long noted how he was rising in favour
among the townspeople; and knowing Henchard’s nature now she had feared
that Farfrae’s days as manager were numbered, so that the announcement
gave her little surprise. Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge
despite his words and her father’s dismissal? His occult breathings to
her might be solvable by his course in that respect.
The next day was windy—so windy that walking in the garden she picked
up a portion of the draft of a letter on business in Donald Farfrae’s
writing, which had flown over the wall from the office. The useless
scrap she took indoors, and began to copy the calligraphy, which she
much admired. The letter began “Dear Sir,” and presently writing on a
loose slip “Elizabeth-Jane,” she laid the latter over “Sir,” making the
phrase “Dear Elizabeth-Jane.” When she saw the effect a quick red ran
up her face and warmed her through, though nobody was there to see what
she had done. She quickly tore up the slip, and threw it away. After
this she grew cool and laughed at herself, walked about the room, and
laughed again; not joyfully, but distressfully rather.
It was quickly known in Casterbridge that Farfrae and Henchard had
decided to dispense with each other. Elizabeth-Jane’s anxiety to know
if Farfrae were going away from the town reached a pitch that disturbed
her, for she could no longer conceal from herself the cause. At length
the news reached her that he was not going to leave the place. A man
following the same trade as Henchard, but on a very small scale, had
sold his business to Farfrae, who was forthwith about to start as corn
and hay merchant on his own account.
Her heart fluttered when she heard of this step of Donald’s, proving
that he meant to remain; and yet, would a man who cared one little bit
for her have endangered his suit by setting up a business in opposition
to Mr. Henchard’s? Surely not; and it must have been a passing impulse
only which had led him to address her so softly.
To solve the problem whether her appearance on the evening of the dance
were such as to inspire a fleeting love at first sight, she dressed
herself up exactly as she had dressed then—the muslin, the spencer, the
sandals, the parasol—and looked in the mirror. The picture glassed back
was in her opinion, precisely of such a kind as to inspire that
fleeting regard, and no more—“just enough to make him silly, and not
enough to keep him so,” she said luminously; and Elizabeth thought, in
a much lower key, that by this time he had discovered how plain and
homely was the informing spirit of that pretty outside.
Hence, when she felt her heart going out to him, she would say to
herself with a mock pleasantry that carried an ache with it, “No, no,
Elizabeth-Jane—such dreams are not for you!” She tried to prevent
herself from seeing him, and thinking of him; succeeding fairly well in
the former attempt, in the latter not so completely.
Henchard, who had been hurt at finding that Farfrae did not mean to put
up with his temper any longer, was incensed beyond measure when he
learnt what the young man had done as an alternative. It was in the
town-hall, after a council meeting, that he first became aware of
Farfrae’s _coup_ for establishing himself independently in the town;
and his voice might have been heard as far as the town-pump expressing
his feelings to his fellow councilmen. These tones showed that, though
under a long reign of self-control he had become Mayor and churchwarden
and what not, there was still the same unruly volcanic stuff beneath
the rind of Michael Henchard as when he had sold his wife at Weydon
Fair.
“Well, he’s a friend of mine, and I’m a friend of his—or if we are not,
what are we? ’Od send, if I’ve not been his friend, who has, I should
like to know? Didn’t he come here without a sound shoe to his voot?
Didn’t I keep him here—help him to a living? Didn’t I help him to
money, or whatever he wanted? I stuck out for no terms—I said ‘Name
your own price.’ I’d have shared my last crust with that young fellow
at one time, I liked him so well. And now he’s defied me! But damn him,
I’ll have a tussle with him now—at fair buying and selling, mind—at
fair buying and selling! And if I can’t overbid such a stripling as he,
then I’m not wo’th a varden! We’ll show that we know our business as
well as one here and there!”
His friends of the Corporation did not specially respond. Henchard was
less popular now than he had been when nearly two years before, they
had voted him to the chief magistracy on account of his amazing energy.
While they had collectively profited by this quality of the
corn-factor’s they had been made to wince individually on more than one
occasion. So he went out of the hall and down the street alone.
Reaching home he seemed to recollect something with a sour
satisfaction. He called Elizabeth-Jane. Seeing how he looked when she
entered she appeared alarmed.
“Nothing to find fault with,” he said, observing her concern. “Only I
want to caution you, my dear. That man, Farfrae—it is about him. I’ve
seen him talking to you two or three times—he danced with ’ee at the
rejoicings, and came home with ’ee. Now, now, no blame to you. But just
harken: Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone the least bit
beyond sniff and snaff at all?”
“No. I have promised him nothing.”
“Good. All’s well that ends well. I particularly wish you not to see
him again.”
“Very well, sir.”
“You promise?”