living, Susan! But there was every reason to suppose you and the child were dead and gone. I took every possible step to find you—travelled—advertised. My opinion at last was that you had started for some colony with that man, and had been drowned on your voyage out. Why did you keep silent like this?’
‘O Michael! because of him—what other reason could there be? I thought I owed him faithfulness to the end of one of our lives—foolishly I believed there was something solemn and binding in the bargain; I thought that even in honour I dared not desert him when he had paid so much for me in good faith. I meet you now only as his widow—I consider myself that, and that I have no claim upon you. Had he not died I should never have come—never! Of that you may be sure.’
‘Ts-s-s! How could you be so simple?’
‘I don’t know. Yet it would have been very wicked—if I had not thought like that!’ said Susan, almost crying.
‘Yes—yes—so it would. It is only that which makes me feel ’ee an innocent woman. But—to lead me into this!’
‘What, Michael?’ she asked, alarmed.
‘Why, this difficulty about our living together again, and Elizabeth-Jane. She cannot be told all—she would so despise us both that—I could not bear it!’
‘That was why she was brought up in ignorance of you. I could not bear it either.’
‘Well—we must talk of a plan for keeping her in her present belief, and getting matters straight in spite of it. You have heard I am in a large way of business here—that I am Mayor of the town, and churchwarden, and I don’t know what all?’
‘Yes,’ she murmured.
‘These things, as well as the dread of the girl discovering our disgrace, make it necessary to act with extreme caution. So that I don’t see how you two can return openly to my house as the wife and daughter I once treated badly, and banished from me; and there’s the rub o’t.’
‘We’ll go away at once. I only came to see—’
‘No, no, Susan; you are not to go—you mistake me!’ he said, with kindly severity. ‘I have thought of this plan: that you and Elizabeth take a cottage in the town as the widow Mrs Newson and her daughter; that I meet you, court you, and marry you, Elizabeth-Jane coming to my house as my step-daughter. The thing is so natural and easy that it is half done in thinking o’t. This would leave my shady, headstrong, disgraceful life as a young man absolutely unopened; the secret would be yours and mine only; and I should have the pleasure of seeing my own only child under my roof, as well as my wife.’
‘I am quite in your hands, Michael,’ she said meekly. ‘I came here for the sake of Elizabeth; for myself, if you tell me to leave again tomorrow morning, and never come near you more, I am content to go.’
‘Now, now; we don’t want to hear that,’ said Henchard gently. ‘Of course you won’t leave again. Think over the plan I have proposed for a few hours; and if you can’t hit upon a better one we’ll adopt it. I have to be away for a day or two on business, unfortunately; but during that time you can get lodgings—the only ones in the town fit for you are those over the china-shop in High Street—and you can also look for a cottage.’
‘If the lodgings are in High Street they are dear, I suppose?’
‘Never mind—you must start genteel if our plan is to be carried out. Look to me for money. Have you enough till I come back?’
‘Quite,’ said she.
‘And are you comfortable at the inn?’
‘O yes.’
‘And the girl is quite safe from learning the shame of her case and ours?—that’s what makes me most anxious of all.’
‘You would be surprised to find how unlikely she is to dream of the truth. How could she ever suppose such a thing?’
True!’
‘I like the idea of repeating our marriage,’ said Mrs Henchard, after a pause. ‘It seems the only right course, after all this. Now I think I must go back to Elizabeth-Jane, and tell her that our kinsman, Mr Henchard, kindly wishes us to stay in the town.’
‘Very well—arrange that yourself. I’ll go some way with you.’
‘No, no. Don’t run any risk!’ said his wife anxiously. ‘I can find my way back—it is not late. Please let me go alone.’
‘Right,’ said Henchard. ‘But just one word. Do you forgive me, Susan?’
She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficult to frame her answer.
‘Never mind—all in good time,’ said he. ‘Judge me by my future works—good-bye!’
He retreated, and stood at the upper side of the Amphitheatre while his wife passed out through the lower way, and descended under the trees to the town. Then Henchard himself went homeward, going so fast that by the time he reached his door he was almost upon the heels of the unconscious woman from whom he had just parted. He watched her up the street, and turned into his house.
On entering his own door after watching his wife out of sight, the Mayor walked on through the tunnel-shaped passage into the garden, and thence by the back door towards the stores and granaries. A light shone from the office-window, and there being no blind to screen the interior Henchard could see Donald Farfrae still seated where he had left him, initiating himself into the managerial work of the house by overhauling the books. Henchard entered, merely observing, ‘Don’t let me interrupt you, if ye will stay so late.’
He stood behind Farfrae’s chair, watching his dexterity in clearing up the numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard’s books as almost to baffle even the Scotchman’s perspicacity. The corn-factor’s mien was half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash of pity for the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled paper; he had in a modern sense received the education of Achilles, and found penmanship a tantalizing art.
‘You shall do no more tonight,’ he said at length, spreading his great hand over the paper. ‘There’s time enough tomorrow. Come indoors with me and have some supper. Now you shall! I am determined on’t.’ He shut the account-books with friendly force.
Donald had wished to get to his lodgings; but he already saw that his friend and employer was a man who knew no moderation in his requests and impulses, and he yielded gracefully. He liked Henchard’s warmth, even if it inconvenienced him; the great difference in their characters adding to the liking.
They locked up the office, and the young man followed his companion through the private little door which, admitting directly into Henchard’s garden, permitted a passage from the utilitarian to the beautiful at one step. The garden was silent, dewy, and full of perfume. It extended a long way back from the house, first as lawn and flower-beds, then as fruit-garden, where the long-tied espaliers, as old as the old house itself, had grown so stout, and cramped, and gnarled that they had pulled their stakes out of the ground and stood distorted and writhing in vegetable agony, like leafy Laocoöns. The flowers which smelt so sweetly were not discernible; and they passed through them into the house.
The hospitalities of that morning were repeated, and when they were over Henchard said, ‘Pull your chair round to the fireplace, my dear fellow, and let’s make a blaze—there’s nothing I hate like a black grate, even in September.’ He applied a light to the laid-in fuel, and a cheerful radiance spread around.
‘It is odd,’ said Henchard, ‘that two men should meet as we have done on a purely business ground, and that at the end of the first day I should wish to speak to ’ee on a family matter. But, damn it all, I am a lonely