The Mayor of Casterbridge

Chapter 13

The cottage which Michael Henchard hired for his wife Susan

under her name of Newson--in pursuance of their plan--was in

the upper or western part of the town, near the Roman wall,

and the avenue which overshadowed it. The evening sun seemed

to shine more yellowly there than anywhere else this autumn--

stretching its rays, as the hours grew later, under the

lowest sycamore boughs, and steeping the ground-floor of the

dwelling, with its green shutters, in a substratum of

radiance which the foliage screened from the upper parts.

Beneath these sycamores on the town walls could be seen from

the sitting-room the tumuli and earth forts of the distant

uplands; making it altogether a pleasant spot, with the

usual touch of melancholy that a past-marked prospect lends.

As soon as the mother and daughter were comfortably

installed, with a white-aproned servant and all complete,

Henchard paid them a visit, and remained to tea. During the

entertainment Elizabeth was carefully hoodwinked by the very

general tone of the conversation that prevailed--a

proceeding which seemed to afford some humour to Henchard,

though his wife was not particularly happy in it. The visit

was repeated again and again with business-like

determination by the Mayor, who seemed to have schooled

himself into a course of strict mechanical rightness towards

this woman of prior claim, at any expense to the later one

and to his own sentiments.

One afternoon the daughter was not indoors when Henchard

came, and he said drily, "This is a very good opportunity

for me to ask you to name the happy day, Susan."

The poor woman smiled faintly; she did not enjoy

pleasantries on a situation into which she had entered

solely for the sake of her girl's reputation. She liked

them so little, indeed, that there was room for wonder why

she had countenanced deception at all, and had not bravely

let the girl know her history. But the flesh is weak; and

the true explanation came in due course.

"O Michael!" she said, "I am afraid all this is taking up

your time and giving trouble--when I did not expect any such

thing!" And she looked at him and at his dress as a man of

affluence, and at the furniture he had provided for the

room--ornate and lavish to her eyes.

"Not at all," said Henchard, in rough benignity. "This is

only a cottage--it costs me next to nothing. And as to

taking up my time"--here his red and black visage kindled

with satisfaction--"I've a splendid fellow to superintend my

business now--a man whose like I've never been able to lay

hands on before. I shall soon be able to leave everything

to him, and have more time to call my own than I've had for

these last twenty years."

Henchard's visits here grew so frequent and so regular that

it soon became whispered, and then openly discussed in

Casterbridge that the masterful, coercive Mayor of the town

was raptured and enervated by the genteel widow Mrs. Newson.

His well-known haughty indifference to the society of

womankind, his silent avoidance of converse with the s*x,

contributed a piquancy to what would otherwise have been an

unromantic matter enough. That such a poor fragile woman

should be his choice was inexplicable, except on the ground

that the engagement was a family affair in which sentimental

passion had no place; for it was known that they were

related in some way. Mrs. Henchard was so pale that the

boys called her "The Ghost." Sometimes Henchard overheard

this epithet when they passed together along the Walks--as

the avenues on the walls were named--at which his face would

darken with an expression of destructiveness towards the

speakers ominous to see; but he said nothing.

He pressed on the preparations for his union, or rather

reunion, with this pale creature in a dogged, unflinching

spirit which did credit to his conscientiousness. Nobody

would have conceived from his outward demeanour that there

was no amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as stimulant

to the bustle going on in his gaunt, great house; nothing

but three large resolves--one, to make amends to his

neglected Susan, another, to provide a comfortable home for

Elizabeth-Jane under his paternal eye; and a third, to

castigate himself with the thorns which these restitutory

acts brought in their train; among them the lowering of his

dignity in public opinion by marrying so comparatively

humble a woman.

Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the first time in her

life when she stepped into the plain brougham which drew up

at the door on the wedding-day to take her and Elizabeth-

Jane to church. It was a windless morning of warm November

rain, which floated down like meal, and lay in a powdery

form on the nap of hats and coats. Few people had gathered

round the church door though they were well packed within.

The Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was of course the

only one present, beyond the chief actors, who knew the true

situation of the contracting parties. He, however, was too

inexperienced, too thoughtful, too judicial, too strongly

conscious of the serious side of the business, to enter into

the scene in its dramatic aspect. That required the special

genius of Christopher Coney, Solomon Longways, Buzzford, and

their fellows. But they knew nothing of the secret; though,

as the time for coming out of church drew on, they gathered

on the pavement adjoining, and expounded the subject

according to their lights.

"'Tis five-and-forty years since I had my settlement in this

here town," said Coney; "but daze me if I ever see a man

wait so long before to take so little! There's a chance even

for thee after this, Nance Mockridge." The remark was

addressed to a woman who stood behind his shoulder--the same

who had exhibited Henchard's bad bread in public when

Elizabeth and her mother entered Casterbridge.

"Be cust if I'd marry any such as he, or thee either,"

replied that lady. "As for thee, Christopher, we know what

ye be, and the less said the better. And as for he--well,

there--(lowering her voice) 'tis said 'a was a poor parish

'prentice--I wouldn't say it for all the world--but 'a was a

poor parish 'prentice, that began life wi' no more belonging

to 'en than a carrion crow."

"And now he's worth ever so much a minute," murmured

Longways. "When a man is said to be worth so much a minute,

he's a man to be considered!"

Turning, he saw a circular disc reticulated with creases,

and recognized the smiling countenance of the fat woman who

had asked for another song at the Three Mariners. "Well,

Mother Cuxsom," he said, "how's this? Here's Mrs. Newson, a

mere skellinton, has got another husband to keep her, while

a woman of your tonnage have not."

"I have not. Nor another to beat me....Ah, yes, Cuxsom's

gone, and so shall leather breeches!"

"Yes; with the blessing of God leather breeches shall go."

"'Tisn't worth my old while to think of another husband,"

continued Mrs. Cuxsom. "And yet I'll lay my life I'm as

respectable born as she."

"True; your mother was a very good woman--I can mind her.

She were rewarded by the Agricultural Society for having

begot the greatest number of healthy children without parish

assistance, and other virtuous marvels."

"'Twas that that kept us so low upon ground--that great

hungry family."

"Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash runs thin."

"And dostn't mind how mother would sing, Christopher?"

continued Mrs. Cuxsom, kindling at the retrospection; "and

how we went with her to the party at Mellstock, do ye mind?--

at old Dame Ledlow's, farmer Shinar's aunt, do ye mind?--

she we used to call Toad-skin, because her face were so

yaller and freckled, do ye mind?"

"I do, hee-hee, I do!" said Christopher Coney.

"And well do I--for I was getting up husband-high at that

time--one-half girl, and t'other half woman, as one may say.

And canst mind"--she prodded Solomon's shoulder with her

finger-tip, while her eyes twinkled between the crevices of

their lids--"canst mind the sherry-wine, and the zilver-

snuffers, and how Joan Dummett was took bad when we were

coming home, and Jack Griggs was forced to carry her through

the mud; and how 'a let her fall in Dairyman Sweet-apple's

cow-barton, and we had to clane her gown wi' grass--never

such a mess as a' were in?"

"Ay--that I do--hee-hee, such doggery as there was in them

ancient days, to be sure! Ah, the miles I used to walk then;

and now I can hardly step over a furrow!"

Their reminiscences were cut short by the appearance of the

reunited pair--Henchard looking round upon the idlers with

that ambiguous gaze of his, which at one moment seemed to

mean satisfaction, and at another fiery disdain.

"Well--there's a difference between 'em, though he do call

himself a teetotaller," said Nance Mockridge. "She'll wish

her cake dough afore she's done of him. There's a blue-

beardy look about 'en; and 'twill out in time."

"Stuff--he's well enough! Some folk want their luck

buttered. If I had a choice as wide as the ocean sea I

wouldn't wish for a better man. A poor twanking woman like

her--'tis a godsend for her, and hardly a pair of jumps or

night-rail to her name."

The plain little brougham drove off in the mist, and the

idlers dispersed. "Well, we hardly know how to look at

things in these times!" said Solomon. "There was a man

dropped down dead yesterday, not so very many miles from

here; and what wi' that, and this moist weather, 'tis scarce

worth one's while to begin any work o' consequence to-day.

I'm in such a low key with drinking nothing but small table

ninepenny this last week or two that I shall call and warm

up at the Mar'ners as I pass along."

"I don't know but that I may as well go with 'ee, Solomon,"

said Christopher; "I'm as clammy as a cockle-snail."