The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy (small books to read .txt) 📕

“Do you agree?” he continued. “It is necessary that I should know at once, as the lady is soon going away, and it takes time to make up.”

“Don’t press me⁠—it worries me. I was in hopes you had thought no more of it. I can not part with it⁠—so there!”

“Now, look here, Marty,” said the barber, sitting down on the coffin-stool table. “How much do you get for making these spars?”

“Hush⁠—father’s upstairs awake, and he don’t know that I am doing his work.”

“Well, now tell me,” said the man, more softly. “How much do you get?”

“Eighteenpence a thousand,” she said, reluctantly.

“Who are you making them for?”

“Mr. Melbury, the timber-dealer, just below here.”

“And how many can you make in a day?”

“In a day and half the night, three bundles⁠—that’s a thousand and a half.”

“Two and threepence.” The barber paused. “Well, look here,” he continued, with the remains of a calculation in his tone, which calculation had been the reduction to figures of the probable monetary magnetism necessary to overpower the resistant force of her present purse and the woman’s love of comeliness, “here’s a sovereign⁠—a gold sovereign, almost new.” He held it out between his finger and thumb. “That’s as much as you’d earn in a week and a half at that rough man’s work, and it’s yours for just letting me snip off what you’ve got too much of.”

The girl’s bosom moved a very little. “Why can’t the lady send to some other girl who don’t value her hair⁠—not to me?” she exclaimed.

“Why, simpleton, because yours is the exact shade of her own, and ’tis a shade you can’t match by dyeing. But you are not going to refuse me now I’ve come all the way from Sherton o’ purpose?”

“I say I won’t sell it⁠—to you or anybody.”

“Now listen,” and he drew up a little closer beside her. “The lady is very rich, and won’t be particular to a few shillings; so I will advance to this on my own responsibility⁠—I’ll make the one sovereign two, rather than go back empty-handed.”

“No, no, no!” she cried, beginning to be much agitated. “You are a-tempting me, Mr. Percombe. You go on like the Devil to Dr. Faustus in the penny book. But I don’t want your money, and won’t agree. Why did you come? I said when you got me into your shop and urged me so much, that I didn’t mean to sell my hair!” The speaker was hot and stern.

“Marty, now hearken. The lady that wants it wants it badly. And, between you and me, you’d better let her have it. ’Twill be bad for you if you don’t.”

“Bad for me? Who is she, then?”

The barber held his tongue, and the girl repeated the question.

“I am not at liberty to tell you. And as she is going abroad soon it makes no difference who she is at all.”

“She wants it to go abroad wi’?”

Percombe assented by a nod. The girl regarded him reflectively. “Barber Percombe,” she said, “I know who ’tis. ’Tis she at the House⁠—Mrs. Charmond!”

“That’s my secret. However, if you agree to let me have it, I’ll tell you in confidence.”

“I’ll certainly not let you have it unless you tell me the truth. It is Mrs. Charmond.”

The barber dropped his voice. “Well⁠—it is. You sat in front of her in church the other day, and she noticed how exactly your hair matched her own. Ever since then she’s been hankering for it, and at last decided to get it. As she won’t wear it till she goes off abroad, she knows nobody will recognize the change. I’m commissioned to get it for her, and then it is to be made up. I shouldn’t have vamped all these miles for any less important employer. Now, mind⁠—’tis as much as my business with her is worth if it should be known that I’ve let out her name; but honor between us two, Marty, and you’ll say nothing that would injure me?”

“I don’t wish to tell upon her,” said Marty, coolly. “But my hair is my own, and I’m going to keep it.”

“Now, that’s not fair, after what I’ve told you,” said the nettled barber. “You see, Marty, as you are in the same parish, and in one of her cottages, and your father is ill, and wouldn’t like to turn out, it would be as well to oblige her. I say that as a friend. But I won’t press you to make up your mind tonight. You’ll be coming to market tomorrow, I dare say, and you can call then. If you think it over you’ll be inclined to bring what I want, I know.”

“I’ve nothing more to say,” she answered.

Her companion saw from her manner that it was useless to urge her further by speech. “As you are a trusty young woman,” he said, “I’ll put these sovereigns up here for ornament, that you may see how handsome they are. Bring the hair tomorrow, or return the sovereigns.” He stuck them edgewise into the frame of a small mantle looking-glass. “I hope you’ll bring it, for your sake and mine. I should have thought she could have suited herself elsewhere; but as it’s her fancy it must be indulged if possible. If you cut it off yourself, mind how you do it so as to keep all the locks one way.” He showed her how this was to be done.

“But I sha’nt,” she replied, with laconic indifference. “I value my looks too much to spoil ’em. She wants my hair to get another lover with; though if stories are true she’s broke the heart of many a noble gentleman already.”

“Lord, it’s wonderful how you guess things, Marty,” said the barber. “I’ve had it from them that know that there certainly is some foreign gentleman in her eye. However, mind what I ask.”

“She’s not going to get him through me.”

Percombe had retired as far as the door; he came back, planted his cane on the coffin-stool, and looked her in the face. “Marty South,” he