The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (books under 200 pages .txt) 📕

“Why?” said Elizabeth, with a start.

“I⁠—wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae.”

“O mother!” Elizabeth-Jane bent down her head so much that she looked quite into her own lap. But as her mother did not go on, she said, “What reason?”

“Well, I had a reason. ’Twill out one day. I wish it could have been in my time! But there⁠—nothing is as you wish it! Henchard hates him.”

“Perhaps they’ll be friends again,” murmured the girl.

“I don’t know⁠—I don’t know.” After this her mother was silent, and dozed; and she spoke on the subject no more.

Some little time later on Farfrae was passing Henchard’s house on a Sunday morning, when he observed that the blinds were all down. He rang the bell so softly that it only sounded a single full note and a small one; and then he was informed that Mrs. Henchard was dead⁠—just dead⁠—that very hour.

At the town-pump there were gathered when he passed a few old inhabitants, who came there for water whenever they had, as at present, spare time to fetch it, because it was purer from that original fount than from their own wells. Mrs. Cuxsom, who had been standing there for an indefinite time with her pitcher, was describing the incidents of Mrs. Henchard’s death, as she had learnt them from the nurse.

“And she was white as marble-stone,” said Mrs. Cuxsom. “And likewise such a thoughtful woman, too⁠—ah, poor soul⁠—that a’ minded every little thing that wanted tending. ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘when I’m gone, and my last breath’s blowed, look in the top drawer o’ the chest in the back room by the window, and you’ll find all my coffin clothes; a piece of flannel⁠—that’s to put under me, and the little piece is to put under my head; and my new stockings for my feet⁠—they are folded alongside, and all my other things. And there’s four ounce pennies, the heaviest I could find, a-tied up in bits of linen, for weights⁠—two for my right eye and two for my left,’ she said. ‘And when you’ve used ’em, and my eyes don’t open no more, bury the pennies, good souls and don’t ye go spending ’em, for I shouldn’t like it. And open the windows as soon as I am carried out, and make it as cheerful as you can for Elizabeth-Jane.’ ”

“Ah, poor heart!”

“Well, and Martha did it, and buried the ounce pennies in the garden. But if ye’ll believe words, that man, Christopher Coney, went and dug ’em up, and spent ’em at the Three Mariners. ‘Faith,’ he said, ‘why should death rob life o’ fourpence? Death’s not of such good report that we should respect ’en to that extent,’ says he.”

“ ’Twas a cannibal deed!” deprecated her listeners.

“Gad, then I won’t quite ha’e it,” said Solomon Longways. “I say it today, and ’tis a Sunday morning, and I wouldn’t speak wrongfully for a zilver zixpence at such a time. I don’t see noo harm in it. To respect the dead is sound doxology; and I wouldn’t sell skellintons⁠—leastwise respectable skellintons⁠—to be varnished for ’natomies, except I were out o’ work. But money is scarce, and throats get dry. Why shoulddeath rob life o’ fourpence? I say there was no treason in it.”

“Well, poor soul; she’s helpless to hinder that or anything now,” answered Mother Cuxsom. “And all her shining keys will be took from her, and her cupboards opened; and little things a’ didn’t wish seen, anybody will see; and her wishes and ways will all be as nothing!”

Henchard and Elizabeth sat conversing by the fire. It was three weeks after Mrs. Henchard’s funeral; the candles were not lighted, and a restless, acrobatic flame, poised on a coal, called from the shady walls the smiles of all shapes that could respond⁠—the old pier-glass, with gilt columns and huge entablature, the picture-frames, sundry knobs and handles, and the brass rosette at the bottom of each riband bell-pull on either side of the chimneypiece.

“Elizabeth, do you think much of old times?” said Henchard.

“Yes, sir; often,” she said.

“Who do you put in your pictures of ’em?”

“Mother and father⁠—nobody else hardly.”

Henchard always looked like one bent on resisting pain when Elizabeth-Jane spoke of Richard Newson as “father.” “Ah! I am out of all that, am I not?” he said.⁠ ⁠… “Was Newson a kind father?”

“Yes, sir; very.”

Henchard’s face settled into an expression of stolid loneliness which gradually modulated into something softer. “Suppose I had been your real father?” he said. “Would you have cared for me as much as you cared for Richard Newson?”

“I can’t think it,” she said quickly. “I can think of no other as my father, except my father.”

Henchard’s wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend and helper Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by ignorance. It seemed to him that only one of them could possibly be recalled, and that was the girl. His mind began vibrating between the wish to reveal himself to her and the policy of leaving well alone, till he could no longer sit still. He walked up and down, and then he came and stood behind her chair, looking down upon the top of her head. He could no longer restrain his impulse. “What did your mother tell you about me⁠—my history?” he asked.

“That you were related by marriage.”

“She should have told more⁠—before you knew me! Then my task would not have been such a hard one.⁠ ⁠… Elizabeth, it is I who am your father, and not Richard Newson. Shame alone prevented your wretched parents from owning this to you while both of ’em were alive.”

The back of Elizabeth’s head remained still, and her shoulders did not denote even the movements of breathing. Henchard went on: “I’d rather have your scorn, your fear, anything than your ignorance; ’tis that I hate! Your mother and I were man and wife when we were young. What you saw was our second marriage. Your mother was too honest. We had thought each other dead⁠—and⁠—Newson became her husband.”

This was the