Part 23 (1/2)
But Henchard was not left long in suspense. Lucetta was rather addicted to scribbling, as had been shown by the torrent of letters after the fiasco in their marriage arrangements, and hardly had Elizabeth gone away when another note came to the Mayor's house from High-Place Hall.
”I am in residence,” she said, ”and comfortable, though getting here has been a wearisome undertaking. You probably know what I am going to tell you, or do you not? My good Aunt Templeman, the banker's widow, whose very existence you used to doubt, much more her affluence, has lately died, and bequeathed some of her property to me. I will not enter into details except to say that I have taken her name--as a means of escape from mine, and its wrongs.
”I am now my own mistress, and have chosen to reside in Casterbridge--to be tenant of High-Place Hall, that at least you may be put to no trouble if you wish to see me. My first intention was to keep you in ignorance of the changes in my life till you should meet me in the street; but I have thought better of this.
”You probably are aware of my arrangement with your daughter, and have doubtless laughed at the--what shall I call it?--practical joke (in all affection) of my getting her to live with me. But my first meeting with her was purely an accident. Do you see, Michael, partly why I have done it?--why, to give you an excuse for coming here as if to visit HER, and thus to form my acquaintance naturally. She is a dear, good girl, and she thinks you have treated her with undue severity. You may have done so in your haste, but not deliberately, I am sure. As the result has been to bring her to me I am not disposed to upbraid you.--In haste, yours always,
”LUCETTA.”
The excitement which these announcements produced in Henchard's gloomy soul was to him most pleasurable. He sat over his dining-table long and dreamily, and by an almost mechanical transfer the sentiments which had run to waste since his estrangement from Elizabeth-Jane and Donald Farfrae gathered around Lucetta before they had grown dry. She was plainly in a very coming-on disposition for marriage. But what else could a poor woman be who had given her time and her heart to him so thoughtlessly, at that former time, as to lose her credit by it?
Probably conscience no less than affection had brought her here. On the whole he did not blame her.
”The artful little woman!” he said, smiling (with reference to Lucetta's adroit and pleasant manoeuvre with Elizabeth-Jane).
To feel that he would like to see Lucetta was with Henchard to start for her house. He put on his hat and went. It was between eight and nine o'clock when he reached her door. The answer brought him was that Miss Templeman was engaged for that evening; but that she would be happy to see him the next day.
”That's rather like giving herself airs!” he thought. ”And considering what we--” But after all, she plainly had not expected him, and he took the refusal quietly. Nevertheless he resolved not to go next day. ”These cursed women--there's not an inch of straight grain in 'em!” he said.
Let us follow the train of Mr. Henchard's thought as if it were a clue line, and view the interior of High-Place Hall on this particular evening.
On Elizabeth-Jane's arrival she had been phlegmatically asked by an elderly woman to go upstairs and take off her things. She replied with great earnestness that she would not think of giving that trouble, and on the instant divested herself of her bonnet and cloak in the pa.s.sage.
She was then conducted to the first floor on the landing, and left to find her way further alone.
The room disclosed was prettily furnished as a boudoir or small drawing-room, and on a sofa with two cylindrical pillows reclined a dark-haired, large-eyed, pretty woman, of unmistakably French extraction on one side or the other. She was probably some years older than Elizabeth, and had a sparkling light in her eye. In front of the sofa was a small table, with a pack of cards scattered upon it faces upward.
The att.i.tude had been so full of abandonment that she bounded up like a spring on hearing the door open.
Perceiving that it was Elizabeth she lapsed into ease, and came across to her with a reckless skip that innate grace only prevented from being boisterous.
”Why, you are late,” she said, taking hold of Elizabeth-Jane's hands.
”There were so many little things to put up.”
”And you seem dead-alive and tired. Let me try to enliven you by some wonderful tricks I have learnt, to kill time. Sit there and don't move.”
She gathered up the pack of cards, pulled the table in front of her, and began to deal them rapidly, telling Elizabeth to choose some.
”Well, have you chosen?” she asked flinging down the last card.
”No,” stammered Elizabeth, arousing herself from a reverie. ”I forgot, I was thinking of--you, and me--and how strange it is that I am here.”
Miss Templeman looked at Elizabeth-Jane with interest, and laid down the cards. ”Ah! never mind,” she said. ”I'll lie here while you sit by me; and we'll talk.”
Elizabeth drew up silently to the head of the sofa, but with obvious pleasure. It could be seen that though in years she was younger than her entertainer in manner and general vision she seemed more of the sage.
Miss Templeman deposited herself on the sofa in her former flexuous position, and throwing her arm above her brow--somewhat in the pose of a well-known conception of t.i.tian's--talked up at Elizabeth-Jane invertedly across her forehead and arm.
”I must tell you something,” she said. ”I wonder if you have suspected it. I have only been mistress of a large house and fortune a little while.”
”Oh--only a little while?” murmured Elizabeth-Jane, her countenance slightly falling.
”As a girl I lived about in garrison towns and elsewhere with my father, till I was quite flighty and unsettled. He was an officer in the army. I should not have mentioned this had I not thought it best you should know the truth.”