Part 18 (2/2)
I'll go away and not see you till to-morrow, or when you like, and then I'll show 'ee papers to prove my words. There, I am gone, and won't disturb you any more....'Twas I that chose your name, my daughter; your mother wanted it Susan. There, don't forget 'twas I gave you your name!”
He went out at the door and shut her softly in, and she heard him go away into the garden. But he had not done. Before she had moved, or in any way recovered from the effect of his disclosure, he reappeared.
”One word more, Elizabeth,” he said. ”You'll take my surname now--hey?
Your mother was against it, but it will be much more pleasant to me.
'Tis legally yours, you know. But n.o.body need know that. You shall take it as if by choice. I'll talk to my lawyer--I don't know the law of it exactly; but will you do this--let me put a few lines into the newspaper that such is to be your name?”
”If it is my name I must have it, mustn't I?” she asked.
”Well, well; usage is everything in these matters.”
”I wonder why mother didn't wish it?”
”Oh, some whim of the poor soul's. Now get a bit of paper and draw up a paragraph as I shall tell you. But let's have a light.”
”I can see by the firelight,” she answered. ”Yes--I'd rather.”
”Very well.”
She got a piece of paper, and bending over the fender wrote at his dictation words which he had evidently got by heart from some advertis.e.m.e.nt or other--words to the effect that she, the writer, hitherto known as Elizabeth-Jane Newson, was going to call herself Elizabeth-Jane Henchard forthwith. It was done, and fastened up, and directed to the office of the Casterbridge Chronicle.
”Now,” said Henchard, with the blaze of satisfaction that he always emitted when he had carried his point--though tenderness softened it this time--”I'll go upstairs and hunt for some doc.u.ments that will prove it all to you. But I won't trouble you with them till to-morrow.
Good-night, my Elizabeth-Jane!”
He was gone before the bewildered girl could realize what it all meant, or adjust her filial sense to the new center of gravity. She was thankful that he had left her to herself for the evening, and sat down over the fire. Here she remained in silence, and wept--not for her mother now, but for the genial sailor Richard Newson, to whom she seemed doing a wrong.
Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs. Papers of a domestic nature he kept in a drawer in his bedroom, and this he unlocked. Before turning them over he leant back and indulged in reposeful thought. Elizabeth was his at last and she was a girl of such good sense and kind heart that she would be sure to like him. He was the kind of man to whom some human object for pouring out his heart upon--were it emotive or were it choleric--was almost a necessity. The craving for his heart for the re-establishment of this tenderest human tie had been great during his wife's lifetime, and now he had submitted to its mastery without reluctance and without fear. He bent over the drawer again, and proceeded in his search.
Among the other papers had been placed the contents of his wife's little desk, the keys of which had been handed to him at her request. Here was the letter addressed to him with the restriction, ”NOT TO BE OPENED TILL ELIZABETH-JANE'S WEDDING-DAY.”
Mrs. Henchard, though more patient than her husband, had been no practical hand at anything. In sealing up the sheet, which was folded and tucked in without an envelope, in the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, she had overlaid the junction with a large ma.s.s of wax without the requisite under-touch of the same. The seal had cracked, and the letter was open.
Henchard had no reason to suppose the restriction one of serious weight, and his feeling for his late wife had not been of the nature of deep respect. ”Some trifling fancy or other of poor Susan's, I suppose,” he said; and without curiosity he allowed his eyes to scan the letter:--
MY DEAR MICHAEL,--For the good of all three of us I have kept one thing a secret from you till now. I hope you will understand why; I think you will; though perhaps you may not forgive me. But, dear Michael, I have done it for the best. I shall be in my grave when you read this, and Elizabeth-Jane will have a home. Don't curse me Mike--think of how I was situated. I can hardly write it, but here it is. Elizabeth-Jane is not your Elizabeth-Jane--the child who was in my arms when you sold me.
No; she died three months after that, and this living one is my other husband's. I christened her by the same name we had given to the first, and she filled up the ache I felt at the other's loss. Michael, I am dying, and I might have held my tongue; but I could not. Tell her husband of this or not, as you may judge; and forgive, if you can, a woman you once deeply wronged, as she forgives you.
SUSAN HENCHARD
Her husband regarded the paper as if it were a window-pane through which he saw for miles. His lips twitched, and he seemed to compress his frame, as if to bear better. His usual habit was not to consider whether destiny were hard upon him or not--the shape of his ideals in cases of affliction being simply a moody ”I am to suffer, I perceive.” ”This much scourging, then, it is for me.” But now through his pa.s.sionate head there stormed this thought--that the blasting disclosure was what he had deserved.
His wife's extreme reluctance to have the girl's name altered from Newson to Henchard was now accounted for fully. It furnished another ill.u.s.tration of that honesty in dishonesty which had characterized her in other things.
He remained unnerved and purposeless for near a couple of hours; till he suddenly said, ”Ah--I wonder if it is true!”
He jumped up in an impulse, kicked off his slippers, and went with a candle to the door of Elizabeth-Jane's room, where he put his ear to the keyhole and listened. She was breathing profoundly. Henchard softly turned the handle, entered, and shading the light, approached the bedside. Gradually bringing the light from behind a screening curtain he held it in such a manner that it fell slantwise on her face without s.h.i.+ning on her eyes. He steadfastly regarded her features.
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