The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy - Chapter 29/45 (read by Bruce Pirie

XXIX. At this hour Lucetta was bounding along the road to Portbreedie, just as Elizabeth had announced. That she had chosen for her afternoon walk the road along which she had returned to Casterbridge three hours earlier, in a carriage, was curious—if anything should be called curious in concatenations of phenomena wherein each is known to have its accounting cause. It was the day of the chief market, Saturday, and Farfray for once had been missed from his cornstand in the dealer's room. Nevertheless it was known that he would be home that night, for Sunday, as Casterbridge expressed it. Lucetta, in continuing her walk, had at length reached the end of the ranked trees which bordered the highway in this and other directions out of the town. This end marked a mile, and here she stopped. The spot was a vale between two gentle acclivities, and the road, still adhering to its Roman foundation, stretched onward straight as a surveyor's line till lost to sight on the most distant ridge. There was neither hedge nor tree in the prospect now, the road clinging to the stubby expanse of cornland like a strip to an undulating garment. Near her was a barn, the single building of any kind within her horizon. She strained her eyes up the lessening road, but nothing appeared thereon, not so much as a speck. She sighed one word—Donald—and turned her face to the town for retreat. Here the case was different. A single figure was approaching her—Elizabeth Janes. Lucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a little vexed. Elizabeth's face, as soon as she recognized her friend, shaped itself into affectionate lines while yet beyond speaking distance. ''I suddenly thought I would come and meet you,'' she said, smiling. Lucetta's reply was taken from her lips by an unexpected diversion. A by-road on her right hand descended from the fields into the highway at the point where she stood, and down the track a bull was rambling uncertainly towards her and Elizabeth, who, facing the other way, did not observe him. In the latter quarter of each year, cattle were at once the mainstay and the terror of families about Casterbridge and its neighborhood, where breeding was carried on with Abrahamic success. The head of stock driven into and out of the town at this season to be sold by the local auctioneer was very large, and all these horned beasts, in traveling to and fro, sent women and children to shelter as nothing else could do. In the main the animals would have walked along quietly enough, but the Casterbridge tradition was that to drive stock it was indispensable that hideous cries, coupled with yahoo antics and gestures, should be used, large sticks flourished, stray dogs called in, and in general everything done that was likely to infuriate the viciously disposed and terrify the mild. Nothing was commoner than for a householder, on going out of his parlor, to find his hall or passage full of little children, nursemaids, aged women, or a ladies' school, who apologized for their presence by saying, a bull passing down-street from the sale. Martha and Elizabeth regarded the animal in doubt, he, meanwhile, drawing vaguely towards them. It was a large specimen of the breed, in color rich done, though disfigured at present by splotches of mud about his seamy sides. His horns were thick and tipped with brass, his two nostrils like the Thames tunnel as seen in the prospective toys of yore. Between them, through the gristle of his nose, was a stout copper ring, welded on, and irremovable as girth's collar of brass. To the ring was attached an ash staff, about a yard long, which the bull with the motions of his head flung about like a flail. It was not till they observed this dangling stick that the young women were really alarmed, for it revealed to them that the bull was an old one, too savage to be driven, which had in some way escaped, the staff being the means by which the drover controlled him and kept his horns at arm's length. They looked round for some shelter or hiding-place, and thought of the barn hard by. As long as they had kept their eyes on the bull, he had shown some deference in his manner of approach. But no sooner did they turn their backs to seek the barn than he tossed his head and decided to thoroughly terrify them. This caused the two helpless girls to run wildly, whereupon the bull advanced in a deliberate charge. The barn stood behind a green, slimy pond, and it was closed, save as to one of the usual pair of doors facing them, which had been propped open by a hurdle-stick, and for this opening they made. The interior had been cleared by a recent bout of threshing, except at one end, where there was a stack of dry clover. Elizabeth Jane took in the situation. ''We must climb up there,'' she said. But before they had even approached it, they heard the bull scampering through the pond without, and in a second he dashed into the barn, knocking down the hurdle-stick in passing. The heavy door slammed behind him, and all three were imprisoned in the barn together. The mistaken creature saw them, and stalked towards the end of the barn into which they had fled. The girls doubled so adroitly that their pursuer was against the wall when the fugitives were already half-way to the other end. By the time that his length would allow him to turn and follow them thither, they had crossed over. Thus the pursuit went on, the hot air from his nostrils blowing over them like a thoraco, and not a moment being attainable by Elizabeth or Lucetta in which to open the door. What might have happened, had their situation continued, cannot be said. But in a few moments a rattling of the door distracted their adversary's attention, and a man appeared. He ran forward towards the leading staff, seized it, and wrenched the animal's head as if he would snap it off. The wrench was in reality so violent that the thick neck seemed to have lost its stiffness and to become half-paralyzed, whilst the nose dropped blood. The premeditated human contrivance of the nose-ring was too cunning for impulsive brute force, and the creature flinched. The man was seen in the partial gloom to be large-framed and unhesitating. He led the bull to the door, and the light revealed Hanchard. He made the bull fast without, and re-entered to the sucker of Lucetta, for he had not perceived Elizabeth who had climbed on to the clover-heap. Lucetta was hysterical, and Hanchard took her in his arms and carried her to the door. ''You have saved me,'' she cried as soon as she could speak. ''I have returned your kindness,'' he responded tenderly. ''You once saved me. How comes it to be you, you?'' she asked, not heeding his reply. ''I came out here to look for you. I have been wanting to tell you something these two or three days, but you have been away, and I could not. Perhaps you cannot talk now?'' ''Oh, no. Where is Elizabeth?'' ''Here I am,'' cried the missing one cheerfully, and without waiting for the ladder to be placed she slid down the face of the clover-stack to the floor. After supporting Lucetta on one side and Elizabeth Jane on the other, they went slowly along the rising road. They had reached the top, and were descending again, when Lucetta, now much recovered, recollected that she had dropped her muff in the barn. ''I'll run back,'' said Elizabeth Jane, ''I don't mind it at all, as I am not tired as you are.'' She thereupon hastened down again to the barn, the others pursuing their way. Elizabeth soon found the muff, such an article being by no means small at that time. Coming out, she paused to look for a moment at the bull, now rather to be pitied with his bleeding nose, having perhaps rather intended a practical joke than a murder. Henshard had secured him by jamming the staff into the hinge of the barn door, and wedging it there with a stake. At length she turned to hasten onward after her contemplation, when she saw a green and black gig approaching from the contrary direction, the vehicle being driven by farfray. His presence here seemed to explain Lucetta's walk that way. Donald saw her, drew up, and was hastily made acquainted with what had happened. At Elizabeth Jane mentioning how greatly Lucetta had been jeopardized, he exhibited an agitation different in kind, no less than in intensity, from any she had seen in him before. He became so absorbed in the circumstance that he scarcely had sufficient knowledge of what he was doing to think of helping her up beside him. ''She has gone on with Mr. Henshard, you say?'' he inquired at last. ''Yes, he is taking her home. They are almost there by this time.'' ''And you are sure she can get home?'' Elizabeth Jane was quite sure. ''Your stepfather saved her?'' ''Entirely.'' Farfray checked his horse's pace. She guessed why. He was thinking that it would be best not to intrude on the other two just now. Henshard had saved Lucetta, and to provoke a possible exhibition of her deeper affection for himself was as ungenerous as it was unwise. The immediate subject of their talk being exhausted, she felt more embarrassed at sitting beside her past lover, but soon the two figures of the others were visible at the entrance to the town. The face of the woman was frequently turned back, but Farfray did not whip on the horse. When these reached the town walls, Henshard and his companion had disappeared down the street. Farfray set down Elizabeth Jane, on her expressing a particular wish to alight there, and drove round to the stables at the back of his lodgings. On this account he entered the house through his garden, and going up to his apartments found them in a particularly disturbed state, his boxes being hauled out upon the landing, and his bookcase standing in three pieces. These phenomena, however, seemed to cause him not the least surprise. ''When will everything be sent up?'' he said to the mistress of the house who was superintending. ''I am afraid not before eight, sir,'' said she. ''You see we wasn't aware till this morning that you were going to move, or we could have been forwarder.'' ''Ah, well, never mind, never mind,'' said Farfray cheerily. ''Eight o'clock will do well enough if it be not later. Now don't you be standing here talking, or it will be twelve, I doubt.'' Thus speaking he went out by the front door, and up the street. During this interval Henshardt and Lucetta had had experiences of a different kind. After Elizabeth's departure for the Moff, the corn-merchant opened himself frankly, holding her hand within his arm, though she would fain have withdrawn it. ''Dear Lucetta, I have been very, very anxious to see you these two or three days,'' he said, ''ever since I saw you last. I have thought over the way I got your promise that night. You said to me if I were a man I should not insist. That cut me deep. I felt that there was some truth in it. I don't want to make you wretched, and to marry me just now would do that as nothing else could. It is but too plain. Therefore I agree to an indefinite engagement, to put off all thought of marriage for a year or two.'' ''But, but, can I do nothing of a different kind?'' said Lucetta. ''I am full of gratitude to you. You have saved my life, and your care of me is like coals of fire on my head. I am a moneyed person now. Surely I can do something in return for your goodness, something practical.'' Henshardt remained in thought. He had evidently not expected this. ''There is one thing you might do, Lucetta,'' he said, ''but not exactly of that kind.'' ''Then of what kind is it?'' she asked with renewed misgiving. ''I must tell you a secret to ask it. You may have heard that I have been unlucky this year. I did what I have never done before, speculated rashly, and I lost. That's just put me in a strait.'' ''And you would wish me to advance some money?'' ''No, no,'' said Henshardt, almost in anger, ''I'm not the man to sponge on a woman even though she may be so nearly my own as you. No, Lucetta, what you can do is this, and it would save me. My great creditor is Grower, and it is at his hands I shall suffer if at anybody's, while a fortnight's forbearance on his part would be enough to allow me to pull through. This may be got out of him in one way, that you would let it be known to him that you are my intended, that we are to be quietly married in the next fortnight. Now stop, you haven't heard all. Let him have this story, without, of course, any prejudice to the fact that the actual engagement between us is to be a long one. Nobody else need know. You could go with me to Mr. Grower, and just let me speak to ye before him as if we were on such terms. We'll ask him to keep it secret. He will willingly wait, then. At the fortnight's end I shall be able to face him, and I can coolly tell him all is postponed between us for a year or two. Not a soul in the town need know how you've helped me. Since you wish to be of use, there's your way. It being now what the people called the ''pinking in'' of the day, that is, the quarter hour just before dusk, he did not at first observe the result of his own words upon her. If it were anything else, she began, and the dryness of her lips was represented in her voice. ''But it is such a little thing,'' he said with a deep reproach, ''less than you have offered, just the beginning of what you have so lately promised. I could have told him as much myself, but he would not have believed me.'' ''It is not because I won't. It is because I absolutely can't,'' she said with rising distress. ''You are provoking,'' he burst out. ''It is enough to make me force you to carry out at once what you have promised.'' ''I cannot,'' she insisted desperately. ''Why, when I have only within these few minutes released you from your promise to do the thing offhand?'' ''Because he was a witness.'' ''Witness? Of what?'' ''If I must tell you—'' ''Don't, don't upbraid me.'' ''Well, let's hear what you mean.'' ''Witness of my marriage. Mr. Grower was—'' ''Marriage?'' ''Yes, with Mr. Farfray. Oh, Michael, I am already his wife. We were married this week at Portbreedie. There were reasons against our doing it here. Mr. Grower was a witness because he happened to be at Portbreedie at the time.'' Hanchard stood as if idiotized. She was so alarmed at his silence that she murmured something about lending him sufficient money to tide over the perilous fortnight. ''Married him?'' said Hanchard at length. ''My good—what, married him whilst bound to marry me?'' ''It was like this,'' she explained, with tears in her eyes and quavers in her voice. ''Don't, don't be cruel. I loved him so much, and I thought you might tell him of the past, and that grieved me. And then, when I had promised you, I learnt of the rumor that you had sold your first wife at a fair like a horse or cow. How could I keep my promise after hearing that? I could not risk myself in your hands. It would have been letting myself down to take your name after such a scandal. But I knew I should lose Donald if I did not secure him at once, for you would carry out your threat of telling him of our former acquaintance, as long as there was a chance of keeping me for yourself by doing so. But you will not do so now, will you, Michael, for it is too late to separate us?'' The notes of St. Peter's bells in full peal had been wafted to them while she spoke, and now the genial thumping of the town band, renowned for its unstinted use of the drumstick, throbbed down the street. ''Then this racket they are making is on account of it, I suppose?'' said he. ''Yes, I think he has told them, or else Mr. Grower has. May I leave you now? My—he was detained at Portbreedie to-day, and sent me on a few hours before him. Then it is his wife's life I have saved this afternoon. Yes, and he will be forever grateful to you. I am much obliged to him. ''Oh, you false woman,'' burst from Henshardt, ''you promised me. Yes, yes, but it was under compulsion, and I did not know all your past. And now I have a mind to punish you as you deserve. One word to this brand-new husband of how you courted me, and your precious happiness is blown to atoms. Michael, pity me, and be generous. You don't deserve pity. You did, but you don't now. I'll help you to pay off your debt." A pensioner, a far-phrased wife, not I, don't stay with me longer, I shall say something worse. Go home. She disappeared under the trees of the South Walk as the band came round the corner, awaking the echoes of every stalk and stone in celebration of her happiness. Lusetta took no heed, but ran up the back street, and reached her own home unperceived. End of chapter twenty-nine