“I am sent to tell you, sir,” she innocently went on, “that a distant relative of yours by marriage, Susan Newson, a sailor’s widow, is in the town, and to ask whether you would wish to see her.”
The rich rouge-et-noir of his countenance underwent a slight change. “Oh — Susan is — still alive?” he asked with difficulty.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you her daughter?”
“Yes, sir — her only daughter.”
“What — do you call yourself — your Christian name?”
“Elizabeth-Jane, sir.”
“Newson?”
“Elizabeth-Jane Newson.”
This at once suggested to Henchard that the transaction of his early married life at Weydon Fair was unrecorded in the family history. It was more than he could have expected. His wife had behaved kindly to him in return for his unkindness, and had never proclaimed her wrong to her child or to the world.
“I am — a good deal interested in your news,” he said. “And as this is not a matter of business, but pleasure, suppose we go indoors.”
It was with a gentle delicacy of manner, surprising to Elizabeth, that he showed her out of the office and through the outer room, where Donald Farfrae was overhauling bins and samples with the inquiring inspection of a beginner in charge. Henchard preceded her through the door in the wall to the suddenly changed scene of the garden and flowers, and onward into the house. The dining-room to which he introduced her still exhibited the remnants of the lavish breakfast laid for Farfrae. It was furnished to profusion with heavy mahogany furniture of the deepest red-Spanish hues. Pembroke tables, with leaves hanging so low that they well-nigh touched the floor, stood against the walls on legs and feet shaped like those of an elephant, and on one lay three huge folio volumes — a Family Bible, a “Josephus,” and a “Whole Duty of Man.” In the chimney comer was a fire-grate with a fluted semicircular back, having urns and festoons cast in relief thereon, and the chairs were of the kind which, since that day, has cast lustre upon the names of Chippendale and Sheraton, though, in point of fact, their patterns may have been such as those illustrious carpenters never saw or heard of.
“Sit down — Elizabeth-Jane — sit down,” he said, with a shake in his voice as he uttered her name, and sitting down himself he allowed his hands to hang between his knees while he looked upon the carpet. “Your mother, then, is quite well?”
“She is rather worn out, sir, with travelling.”
“A sailor’s widow — when did he die?”
“Father was lost last spring.”
Henchard winced at the word “father,” thus applied. “Do you and she come from abroad — America or Australia?” he asked.
“No. We have been in England some years. I was twelve when we came here from Canada.”
“Ah; exactly.” By such conversation he discovered the circumstances which had enveloped his wife and her child in such total obscurity that he had long ago believed them to be in their graves. These things being clear, he returned to the present. “And where is your mother staying?”
“At the Three Mariners.”
“And you are her daughter Elizabeth-Jane?” repeated Henchard. He arose, came close to her, and glanced in her face. “I think,” he said, suddenly turning away with a wet eye, “you shall take a note from me to your mother. I should like to see her. . . . She is not left very well off by her late husband?” His eye fell on Elizabeth’s clothes, which, though a respectable suit of black, and her very best, were decidedly old-fashioned even to Casterbridge eyes.
“Not very well,” she said, glad that he had divined this without her being obliged to express it.
He sat down at the table and wrote a few lines, next taking from his pocket-book a five-pound note, which he put in the envelope with the letter, adding to it, as by an afterthought, five shillings. Sealing the whole up carefully, he directed it to “Mrs. Newson, Three Mariners Inn,” and handed the packet to Elizabeth.
“Deliver it to her personally, please,” said Henchard. “Well, I am glad to see you here, Elizabeth-Jane — very glad. We must have a long talk together — but not just now.”
He took her hand at parting, and held it so warmly that she, who had known so little friendship, was much affected, and tears rose to her aerial-grey eyes. The instant that she was gone Henchard’s state showed itself more distinctly; having shut the door he sat in his dining-room stiffly erect, gazing at the opposite wall as if he read his history there.
“Begad!” he suddenly exclaimed, jumping up. “I didn’t think of that. Perhaps these are impostors — and Susan and the child dead after all!”
However, a something in Elizabeth-Jane soon assured him that, as regarded her, at least, there could be little doubt. And a few hours would settle the question of her mother’s identity; for he had arranged in his note to see her that evening.
“It never rains but it pours!” said Henchard. His keenly excited interest in his new friend the Scotchman was now eclipsed by this event, and Donald Farfrae saw so little of him during the rest of the day that he wondered at the suddenness of his employer’s moods.
In the meantime Elizabeth had reached the inn. Her mother, instead of taking the note with the curiosity of a poor woman expecting assistance, was much moved at sight of it. She did not read it at once, asking Elizabeth to describe her reception, and the very words Mr. Henchard used. Elizabeth’s back was turned when her mother opened the letter. It ran thus:—
“Meet me at eight o’clock this evening, if you can, at the Ring on the Budmouth road. The place is easy to find. I can say no more now. The news upsets me almost. The girl seems to be in ignorance. Keep her so till I have seen you. M. H.”
He said nothing about the enclosure of five guineas. The amount was significant; it may tacitly have said to her that he bought her back again. She waited restlessly for the close of the day, telling Elizabeth-Jane that she was invited to see Mr. Henchard; that she would go alone. But she said nothing to show that the place of meeting was not at his house, nor did she hand the note to Elizabeth.
Chapter 11.
The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local name of one of the finest Roman Amphitheatres, if not the very finest, remaining in Britain.
Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and precinct. It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men of Rome. It was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen hundred years. He was mostly found lying on his side, in an oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees drawn up to his chest; sometimes with the remains of his spear against his arm, a fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an urn at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge street boys and men, who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiar spectacle as they passed by.
Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an unpleasantness at the discovery of a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens, were quite unmoved by these hoary shapes. They had lived so long ago, their time was so unlike the present, their hopes and motives were so widely removed from ours, that between them and the living there seemed to stretch a gulf too wide for even a spirit to pass.
The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, with a notch at opposite extremities of its diameter north and south. From its sloping internal form it might have been called the spittoon