The Mayor of Casterbridge

Chapter 21

As a maxim glibly repeated from childhood remains

practically unmarked till some mature experience enforces

it, so did this High-Place Hall now for the first time

really show itself to Elizabeth-Jane, though her ears had

heard its name on a hundred occasions.

Her mind dwelt upon nothing else but the stranger, and the

house, and her own chance of living there, all the rest of

the day. In the afternoon she had occasion to pay a few

bills in the town and do a little shopping when she learnt

that what was a new discovery to herself had become a common

topic about the streets. High-Place Hall was undergoing

repair; a lady was coming there to live shortly; all the

shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the chance

of her being a customer.

Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touch to

information so new to her in the bulk. The lady, she said,

had arrived that day.

When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as

to render chimneys, attics, and roofs invisible, Elizabeth,

almost with a lover's feeling, thought she would like to

look at the outside of High-Place Hall. She went up the

street in that direction.

The Hall, with its grey facade and parapet, was the only

residence of its sort so near the centre of the town. It

had, in the first place, the characteristics of a country

mansion--birds' nests in its chimneys, damp nooks where

fungi grew and irregularities of surface direct from

Nature's trowel. At night the forms of passengers were

patterned by the lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls.

This evening motes of straw lay around, and other signs of

the premises having been in that lawless condition which

accompanies the entry of a new tenant. The house was

entirely of stone, and formed an example of dignity without

great size. It was not altogether aristocratic, still less

consequential, yet the old-fashioned stranger instinctively

said "Blood built it, and Wealth enjoys it" however vague

his opinions of those accessories might be.

Yet as regards the enjoying it the stranger would have been

wrong, for until this very evening, when the new lady had

arrived, the house had been empty for a year or two while

before that interval its occupancy had been irregular. The

reason of its unpopularity was soon made manifest. Some of

its rooms overlooked the market-place; and such a prospect

from such a house was not considered desirable or seemly by

its would-be occupiers.

Elizabeth's eyes sought the upper rooms, and saw lights

there. The lady had obviously arrived. The impression that

this woman of comparatively practised manner had made upon

the studious girl's mind was so deep that she enjoyed

standing under an opposite archway merely to think that the

charming lady was inside the confronting walls, and to

wonder what she was doing. Her admiration for the

architecture of that front was entirely on account of the

inmate it screened. Though for that matter the architecture

deserved admiration, or at least study, on its own account.

It was Palladian, and like most architecture erected since

the Gothic age was a compilation rather than a design. But

its reasonableness made it impressive. It was not rich, but

rich enough. A timely consciousness of the ultimate vanity

of human architecture, no less than of other human things,

had prevented artistic superfluity.

Men had still quite recently been going in and out with

parcels and packing-cases, rendering the door and hall

within like a public thoroughfare. Elizabeth trotted

through the open door in the dusk, but becoming alarmed at

her own temerity she went quickly out again by another which

stood open in the lofty wall of the back court. To her

surprise she found herself in one of the little-used alleys

of the town. Looking round at the door which had given her

egress, by the light of the solitary lamp fixed in the

alley, she saw that it was arched and old--older even than

the house itself. The door was studded, and the keystone of

the arch was a mask. Originally the mask had exhibited a

comic leer, as could still be discerned; but generations of

Casterbridge boys had thrown stones at the mask, aiming at

its open mouth; and the blows thereon had chipped off the

lips and jaws as if they had been eaten away by disease.

The appearance was so ghastly by the weakly lamp-glimmer

that she could not bear to look at it--the first unpleasant

feature of her visit.

The position of the queer old door and the odd presence of

the leering mask suggested one thing above all others as

appertaining to the mansion's past history--intrigue. By

the alley it had been possible to come unseen from all sorts

of quarters in the town--the old play-house, the old bull-

stake, the old c**k-pit, the pool wherein nameless infants

had been used to disappear. High-Place Hall could boast of

its conveniences undoubtedly.

She turned to come away in the nearest direction homeward,

which was down the alley, but hearing footsteps approaching

in that quarter, and having no great wish to be found in

such a place at such a time she quickly retreated. There

being no other way out she stood behind a brick pier till

the intruder should have gone his ways.

Had she watched she would have been surprised. She would

have seen that the pedestrian on coming up made straight for

the arched doorway: that as he paused with his hand upon the

latch the lamplight fell upon the face of Henchard.

But Elizabeth-Jane clung so closely to her nook that she

discerned nothing of this. Henchard passed in, as ignorant

of her presence as she was ignorant of his identity, and

disappeared in the darkness. Elizabeth came out a second

time into the alley, and made the best of her way home.

Henchard's chiding, by begetting in her a nervous fear of

doing anything definable as unladylike, had operated thus

curiously in keeping them unknown to each other at a

critical moment. Much might have resulted from recognition--

at the least a query on either side in one and the self-

same form: What could he or she possibly be doing there?

Henchard, whatever his business at the lady's house, reached

his own home only a few minutes later than Elizabeth-Jane.

Her plan was to broach the question of leaving his roof this

evening; the events of the day had urged her to the course.

But its execution depended upon his mood, and she anxiously

awaited his manner towards her. She found that it had

changed. He showed no further tendency to be angry; he

showed something worse. Absolute indifference had taken the

place of irritability; and his coldness was such that it

encouraged her to departure, even more than hot temper could

have done.

"Father, have you any objection to my going away?" she

asked.

"Going away! No--none whatever. Where are you going?"

She thought it undesirable and unnecessary to say anything

at present about her destination to one who took so little

interest in her. He would know that soon enough. "I have

heard of an opportunity of getting more cultivated and

finished, and being less idle," she answered, with

hesitation. "A chance of a place in a household where I can

have advantages of study, and seeing refined life."

"Then make the best of it, in Heaven's name--if you can't

get cultivated where you are."

"You don't object?"

"Object--I? Ho--no! Not at all." After a pause he said, "But

you won't have enough money for this lively scheme without

help, you know? If you like I should be willing to make you

an allowance, so that you not be bound to live upon the

starvation wages refined folk are likely to pay 'ee."

She thanked him for this offer.

"It had better be done properly," he added after a pause.

"A small annuity is what I should like you to have--so as to

be independent of me--and so that I may be independent of

you. Would that please ye?"

Certainly.

"Then I'll see about it this very day." He seemed relieved

to get her off his hands by this arrangement, and as far as

they were concerned the matter was settled. She now simply

waited to see the lady again.

The day and the hour came; but a drizzling rain fell.

Elizabeth-Jane having now changed her orbit from one of gay

independence to laborious self-help, thought the weather

good enough for such declined glory as hers, if her friend

would only face it--a matter of doubt. She went to the

boot-room where her pattens had hung ever since her

apotheosis; took them down, had their mildewed leathers

blacked, and put them on as she had done in old times. Thus

mounted, and with cloak and umbrella, she went off to the

place of appointment--intending, if the lady were not there,

to call at the house.

One side of the churchyard--the side towards the weather--

was sheltered by an ancient thatched mud wall whose eaves

overhung as much as one or two feet. At the back of the

wall was a corn-yard with its granary and barns--the place

wherein she had met Farfrae many months earlier. Under the

projection of the thatch she saw a figure. The young lady

had come.

Her presence so exceptionally substantiated the girl's

utmost hopes that she almost feared her good fortune.

Fancies find rooms in the strongest minds. Here, in a

churchyard old as civilization, in the worst of weathers,

was a strange woman of curious fascinations never seen

elsewhere: there might be some devilry about her presence.

However, Elizabeth went on to the church tower, on whose

summit the rope of a flagstaff rattled in the wind; and thus

she came to the wall.

The lady had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzle that

Elizabeth forgot her fancy. "Well," said the lady, a little

of the whiteness of her teeth appearing with the word

through the black fleece that protected her face, "have you

decided?"

"Yes, quite," said the other eagerly.

"Your father is willing?"

"Yes."

"Then come along."

"When?"

"Now--as soon as you like. I had a good mind to send to you

to come to my house, thinking you might not venture up here

in the wind. But as I like getting out of doors, I thought

I would come and see first."

"It was my own thought."

"That shows we shall agree. Then can you come to-day? My

house is so hollow and dismal that I want some living thing

there."

"I think I might be able to," said the girl, reflecting.

Voices were borne over to them at that instant on the wind

and raindrops from the other side of the wall. There came

such words as "sacks," "quarters," "threshing," "tailing,"

"next Saturday's market," each sentence being disorganized

by the gusts like a face in a cracked mirror. Both the

women listened.

"Who are those?" said the lady.

"One is my father. He rents that yard and barn."

The lady seemed to forget the immediate business in

listening to the technicalities of the corn trade. At last

she said suddenly, "Did you tell him where you were going

to?"

"No."

"O--how was that?"

"I thought it safer to get away first--as he is so uncertain

in his temper."

"Perhaps you are right....Besides, I have never told you my

name. It is Miss Templeman....Are they gone--on the other

side?"

"No. They have only gone up into the granary."

"Well, it is getting damp here. I shall expect you to-day--

this evening, say, at six."

"Which way shall I come, ma'am?"

"The front way--round by the gate. There is no other that I

have noticed."

Elizabeth-Jane had been thinking of the door in the alley.

"Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your destination, you

may as well keep silent upon it till you are clear off. Who

knows but that he may alter his mind?"

Elizabeth-Jane shook her head. "On consideration I don't

fear it," she said sadly. "He has grown quite cold to me."

"Very well. Six o'clock then."

When they had emerged upon the open road and parted, they

found enough to do in holding their bowed umbrellas to the

wind. Nevertheless the lady looked in at the corn-yard

gates as she passed them, and paused on one foot for a

moment. But nothing was visible there save the ricks, and

the humpbacked barn cushioned with moss, and the granary

rising against the church-tower behind, where the smacking

of the rope against the flag-staff still went on.

Now Henchard had not the slightest suspicion that Elizabeth-

Jane's movement was to be so prompt. Hence when, just

before six, he reached home and saw a fly at the door from

the King's Arms, and his step-daughter, with all her little

bags and boxes, getting into it, he was taken by surprise.

"But you said I might go, father?" she explained through the

carriage window.

"Said!--yes. But I thought you meant next month, or next

year. 'Od, seize it--you take time by the forelock! This,

then, is how you be going to treat me for all my trouble

about ye?"

"O father! how can you speak like that? It is unjust of

you!" she said with spirit.

"Well, well, have your own way," he replied. He entered the

house, and, seeing that all her things had not yet been

brought down, went up to her room to look on. He had never

been there since she had occupied it. Evidences of her

care, of her endeavours for improvement, were visible all

around, in the form of books, sketches, maps, and little

arrangements for tasteful effects. Henchard had known

nothing of these efforts. He gazed at them, turned suddenly

about, and came down to the door.

"Look here," he said, in an altered voice--he never called

her by name now--"don't 'ee go away from me. It may be I've

spoke roughly to you--but I've been grieved beyond

everything by you--there's something that caused it."

"By me?" she said, with deep concern. "What have I done?"

"I can't tell you now. But if you'll stop, and go on living

as my daughter, I'll tell you all in time."

But the proposal had come ten minutes too late. She was in

the fly--was already, in imagination, at the house of the

lady whose manner had such charms for her. "Father," she

said, as considerately as she could, "I think it best for us

that I go on now. I need not stay long; I shall not be far

away, and if you want me badly I can soon come back again."

He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decision and

no more. "You are not going far, you say. What will be

your address, in case I wish to write to you? Or am I not to

know?"

"Oh yes--certainly. It is only in the town--High-Place

Hall!"

"Where?" said Henchard, his face stilling.

She repeated the words. He neither moved nor spoke, and

waving her hand to him in utmost friendliness she signified

to the flyman to drive up the street.