The Mayor of Casterbridge

Chapter 17

Elizabeth-Jane had perceived from Henchard's manner that in

assenting to dance she had made a mistake of some kind. In

her simplicity she did not know what it was till a hint from

a nodding acquaintance enlightened her. As the Mayor's

step-daughter, she learnt, she had not been quite in her

place in treading a measure amid such a mixed throng as

filled the dancing pavilion.

Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin glowed like live coals

at the dawning of the idea that her tastes were not good

enough for her position, and would bring her into disgrace.

This made her very miserable, and she looked about for her

mother; but Mrs. Henchard, who had less idea of

conventionality than Elizabeth herself, had gone away,

leaving her daughter to return at her own pleasure. The

latter moved on into the dark dense old avenues, or rather

vaults of living woodwork, which ran along the town

boundary, and stood reflecting.

A man followed in a few minutes, and her face being to-wards

the shine from the tent he recognized her. It was Farfrae--

just come from the dialogue with Henchard which had

signified his dismissal.

"And it's you, Miss Newson?--and I've been looking for ye

everywhere!" he said, overcoming a sadness imparted by the

estrangement with the corn-merchant. "May I walk on with

you as far as your street-corner?"

She thought there might be something wrong in this, but did

not utter any objection. So together they went on, first

down the West Walk, and then into the Bowling Walk, till

Farfrae said, "It's like that I'm going to leave you soon."

She faltered, "Why?"

"Oh--as a mere matter of business--nothing more. But we'll

not concern ourselves about it--it is for the best. I hoped

to have another dance with you."

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

"Nay, but you do! It's the feeling for it rather than the

learning of steps that makes pleasant dancers....I fear I

offended your father by getting up this! And now, perhaps,

I'll have to go to another part o' the warrld altogether!"

This seemed such a melancholy prospect that Elizabeth-Jane

breathed a sigh--letting it off in fragments that he might

not hear her. But darkness makes people truthful, and the

Scotchman went on impulsively--perhaps he had heard her

after all:

"I wish I was richer, Miss Newson; and your stepfather had

not been offended, I would ask you something in a short

time--yes, I would ask you to-night. But that's not for

me!"

What he would have asked her he did not say, and instead of

encouraging him she remained incompetently silent. Thus

afraid one of another they continued their promenade along

the walls till they got near the bottom of the Bowling Walk;

twenty steps further and the trees would end, and the

street-corner and lamps appear. In consciousness of this

they stopped.

"I never found out who it was that sent us to Durnover

granary on a fool's errand that day," said Donald, in his

undulating tones. "Did ye ever know yourself, Miss Newson?"

"Never," said she.

"I wonder why they did it!"

"For fun, perhaps."

"Perhaps it was not for fun. It might have been that they

thought they would like us to stay waiting there, talking to

one another? Ay, well! I hope you Casterbridge folk will not

forget me if I go."

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

wouldn't go at all."

They had got into the lamplight. "Now, I'll think over

that," said Donald Farfrae. "And I'll not come up to your

door; but part from you here; lest it make your father more

angry still."

They parted, Farfrae returning into the dark Bowling Walk,

and Elizabeth-Jane going up the street. Without any

consciousness of what she was doing she started running with

all her might till she reached her father's door. "O dear

me--what am I at?" she thought, as she pulled up breathless.

Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae's

enigmatic words about not daring to ask her what he fain

would. Elizabeth, that silent observing woman, had long

noted how he was rising in favour among the townspeople; and

knowing Henchard's nature now she had feared that Farfrae's

days as manager were numbered, so that the announcement gave

her little surprise. Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge

despite his words and her father's dismissal? His occult

breathings to her might be solvable by his course in that

respect.

The next day was windy--so windy that walking in the garden

she picked up a portion of the draft of a letter on business

in Donald Farfrae's writing, which had flown over the wall

from the office. The useless scrap she took indoors, and

began to copy the calligraphy, which she much admired. The

letter began "Dear Sir," and presently writing on a loose

slip "Elizabeth-Jane," she laid the latter over "Sir,"

making the phrase "Dear Elizabeth-Jane." When she saw the

effect a quick red ran up her face and warmed her through,

though nobody was there to see what she had done. She

quickly tore up the slip, and threw it away. After this she

grew cool and laughed at herself, walked about the room, and

laughed again; not joyfully, but distressfully rather.

It was quickly known in Casterbridge that Farfrae and

Henchard had decided to dispense with each other.

Elizabeth-Jane's anxiety to know if Farfrae were going away

from the town reached a pitch that disturbed her, for she

could no longer conceal from herself the cause. At length

the news reached her that he was not going to leave the

place. A man following the same trade as Henchard, but on a

very small scale, had sold his business to Farfrae, who was

forthwith about to start as corn and hay merchant on his own

account.

Her heart fluttered when she heard of this step of Donald's,

proving that he meant to remain; and yet, would a man who

cared one little bit for her have endangered his suit by

setting up a business in opposition to Mr. Henchard's?

Surely not; and it must have been a passing impulse only

which had led him to address her so softly.

To solve the problem whether her appearance on the evening

of the dance were such as to inspire a fleeting love at

first sight, she dressed herself up exactly as she had

dressed then--the muslin, the spencer, the sandals, the

para-sol--and looked in the mirror The picture glassed back

was in her opinion, precisely of such a kind as to inspire

that fleeting regard, and no more--"just enough to make him

silly, and not enough to keep him so," she said luminously;

and Elizabeth thought, in a much lower key, that by this

time he had discovered how plain and homely was the

informing spirit of that pretty outside.

Hence, when she felt her heart going out to him, she would

say to herself with a mock pleasantry that carried an ache

with it, "No, no, Elizabeth-Jane--such dreams are not for

you!" She tried to prevent herself from seeing him, and

thinking of him; succeeding fairly well in the former

attempt, in the latter not so completely.

Henchard, who had been hurt at finding that Farfrae did not

mean to put up with his temper any longer, was incensed

beyond measure when he learnt what the young man had done as

an alternative. It was in the town-hall, after a council

meeting, that he first became aware of Farfrae's coup

for establishing himself independently in the town; and his

voice might have been heard as far as the town-pump

expressing his feelings to his fellow councilmen. These

tones showed that, though under a long reign of self-control

he had become Mayor and churchwarden and what not, there was

still the same unruly volcanic stuff beneath the rind of

Michael Henchard as when he had sold his wife at Weydon

Fair.

"Well, he's a friend of mine, and I'm a friend of his--or if

we are not, what are we? 'Od send, if I've not been his

friend, who has, I should like to know? Didn't he come here

without a sound shoe to his voot? Didn't I keep him here--

help him to a living? Didn't I help him to money, or

whatever he wanted? I stuck out for no terms--I said 'Name

your own price.' I'd have shared my last crust with that

young fellow at one time, I liked him so well. And now he's

defied me! But damn him, I'll have a tussle with him now--at

fair buying and selling, mind--at fair buying and selling!

And if I can't overbid such a stripling as he, then I'm not

wo'th a varden! We'll show that we know our business as well

as one here and there!"

His friends of the Corporation did not specially respond.

Henchard was less popular now than he had been when nearly

two years before, they had voted him to the chief magistracy

on account of his amazing energy. While they had

collectively profited by this quality of the corn-factor's

they had been made to wince individually on more than one

occasion. So he went out of the hall and down the street

alone.

Reaching home he seemed to recollect something with a sour

satisfaction. He called Elizabeth-Jane. Seeing how he

looked when she entered she appeared alarmed.

"Nothing to find fault with," he said, observing her

concern. "Only I want to caution you, my dear. That man,

Farfrae--it is about him. I've seen him talking to you two

or three times--he danced with 'ee at the rejoicings, and

came home with 'ee. Now, now, no blame to you. But just

harken: Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone the

least bit beyond sniff and snaff at all?"

"No. I have promised him nothing."

"Good. All's well that ends well. I particularly wish you

not to see him again."

"Very well, sir."

"You promise?"

She hesitated for a moment, and then said--

"Yes, if you much wish it."

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

When she had gone he sat down, and wrote in a heavy hand to

Farfrae thus:--

SIR,--I make request that henceforth you and my step-

daughter be as strangers to each other. She on her part has

promised to welcome no more addresses from you; and I trust,

therefore, you will not attempt to force them upon her.

M. HENCHARD

One would almost have supposed Henchard to have had policy

to see that no better modus vivendi could be arrived at

with Farfrae than by encouraging him to become his son-in-

law. But such a scheme for buying over a rival had nothing

to recommend it to the Mayor's headstrong faculties. With

all domestic finesse of that kind he was hopelessly at

variance. Loving a man or hating him, his diplomacy was as

wrongheaded as a buffalo's; and his wife had not ventured to

suggest the course which she, for many reasons, would have

welcomed gladly.

Meanwhile Donald Farfrae had opened the gates of commerce on

his own account at a spot on Durnover Hill--as far as

possible from Henchard's stores, and with every intention of

keeping clear of his former friend and employer's customers.

There was, it seemed to the younger man, room for both of

them and to spare. The town was small, but the corn and

hay-trade was proportionately large, and with his native

sagacity he saw opportunity for a share of it.

So determined was he to do nothing which should seem like

trade-antagonism to the Mayor that he refused his first

customer--a large farmer of good repute--because Henchard

and this man had dealt together within the preceding three

months.

"He was once my friend," said Farfrae, "and it's not for me

to take business from him. I am sorry to disappoint you,

but I cannot hurt the trade of a man who's been so kind to

me."

In spite of this praiseworthy course the Scotchman's trade

increased. Whether it were that his northern energy was an

overmastering force among the easy-going Wessex worthies, or

whether it was sheer luck, the fact remained that whatever

he touched he prospered in. Like Jacob in Padan-Aram, he

would no sooner humbly limit himself to the ringstraked-and-

spotted exceptions of trade than the ringstraked-and-spotted

would multiply and prevail.

But most probably luck had little to do with it. Character

is Fate, said Novalis, and Farfrae's character was just the

reverse of Henchard's, who might not inaptly be described as

Faust has been described--as a vehement gloomy being who had

quitted the ways of vulgar men without light to guide him on

a better way.

Farfrae duly received the request to discontinue attentions

to Elizabeth-Jane. His acts of that kind had been so slight

that the request was almost superfluous. Yet he had felt a

considerable interest in her, and after some cogitation he

decided that it would be as well to enact no Romeo part just

then--for the young girl's sake no less than his own. Thus

the incipient attachment was stifled down.

A time came when, avoid collision with his former friend as

he might, Farfrae was compelled, in sheer self-defence, to

close with Henchard in mortal commercial combat. He could

no longer parry the fierce attacks of the latter by simple

avoidance. As soon as their war of prices began everybody

was interested, and some few guessed the end. It was, in

some degree, Northern insight matched against Southern

doggedness--the dirk against the cudgel--and Henchard's

weapon was one which, if it did not deal ruin at the first

or second stroke, left him afterwards well-nigh at his

antagonist's mercy.

Almost every Saturday they encountered each other amid the

crowd of farmers which thronged about the market-place in

the weekly course of their business. Donald was always

ready, and even anxious, to say a few friendly words, but

the Mayor invariably gazed stormfully past him, like one who

had endured and lost on his account, and could in no sense

forgive the wrong; nor did Farfrae's snubbed manner of

perplexity at all appease him. The large farmers, corn-

merchants, millers, auctioneers, and others had each an

official stall in the corn-market room, with their names

painted thereon; and when to the familiar series of

"Henchard," "Everdene," "Shiner," "Darton," and so on, was

added one inscribed "Farfrae," in staring new letters,

Henchard was stung into bitterness; like Bellerophon, he

wandered away from the crowd, cankered in soul.

From that day Donald Farfrae's name was seldom mentioned in

Henchard's house. If at breakfast or dinner Elizabeth-

Jane's mother inadvertently alluded to her favourite's

movements, the girl would implore her by a look to be

silent; and her husband would say, "What--are you, too, my

enemy?"