The only way of getting a single pleasant thought to go to sleep upon after this was by recalling the lady she had seen that day, and hoping she might see her again.
Meanwhile Henchard was sitting up, thinking over his jealous folly in forbidding Farfrae to pay his addresses to this girl who did not belong to him, when if he had allowed them to go on he might not have been encumbered with her.
At last he said to himself with satisfaction as he jumped up and went to the writing-table:
“Ah! he’ll think it means peace, and a marriage portion—not that I don’t want my house to be troubled with her, and no portion at all!”
He wrote as follows:—
Sir,—On consideration, I don’t wish to interfere with your courtship of Elizabeth-Jane, if you care for her.
I therefore withdraw my objection; excepting in this—that the business be not carried on in my house.—
Yours, M. HENCHARD. Mr. Farfrae.
The morrow, being fairly fine, found Elizabeth-Jane again in the churchyard, but while looking for the lady she was startled by the apparition of Farfrae, who passed outside the gate.
He glanced up for a moment from a pocket-book in which he appeared to be making figures as he went; whether or not he saw her he took no notice, and disappeared.
Unduly depressed by a sense of her own superfluity she thought he probably scorned her; and quite broken in spirit sat down on a bench.
She fell into painful thought on her position, which ended with her saying quite loud,
“O, I wish I was dead with dear mother!”
Behind the bench was a little promenade under the wall where people sometimes walked instead of on the gravel.
The bench seemed to be touched by something, she looked round, and a face was bending over her, veiled, but still distinct, the face of the young woman she had seen yesterday.
Elizabeth-Jane looked confounded for a moment, knowing she had been overheard, though there was pleasure in her confusion.
“Yes, I heard you,” said the lady, in a vivacious voice, answering her look. “What can have happened?”
“I don’t—I can’t tell you,” said Elizabeth, putting her hand to her face to hide a quick flush that had come.
There was no movement or word for a few seconds; then the girl felt that the young lady was sitting down beside her.
“I guess how it is with you,” said the latter. “That was your mother.” She waved her hand towards the tombstone.
Elizabeth looked up at her as if inquiring of herself whether there should be confidence.
The lady’s manner was so desirous, so anxious, that the girl decided there should be confidence.
“It was my mother,” she said, “my only friend.”
“But your father, Mr. Henchard. He is living?”
“Yes, he is living,” said Elizabeth-Jane.
“Is he not kind to you?”
“I’ve no wish to complain of him.”
“There has been a disagreement?”
“A little.”
“Perhaps you were to blame,” suggested the stranger.
“I was—in many ways,” sighed the meek Elizabeth. “I swept up the coals when the servants ought to have done it; and I said I was leery;—and he was angry with me.”
The lady seemed to warm towards her for that reply.
“Do you know the impression your words give me?” she said ingenuously. “That he is a hot-tempered man—a little proud—perhaps ambitious; but not a bad man.”
Her anxiety not to condemn Henchard while siding with Elizabeth was curious.
“O no; certainly not BAD,” agreed the honest girl. “And he has not even been unkind to me till lately—since mother died.
But it has been very much to bear while it has lasted.
All is owing to my defects, I daresay; and my defects are owing to my history.”
“What is your history?”
Elizabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her questioner.
She found that her questioner was looking at her, turned her eyes down; and then seemed compelled to look back again.
“My history is not gay or attractive,” she said. “And yet I can tell it, if you really want to know.”
The lady assured her that she did want to know; whereupon Elizabeth-Jane told the tale of her life as she understood it, which was in general the true one, except that the sale at the fair had no part therein.
Contrary to the girl’s expectation her new friend was not shocked.
This cheered her; and it was not till she thought of returning to that home in which she had been treated so roughly of late that her spirits fell.
“I don’t know how to return,” she murmured. “I think of going away.
But what can I do?
Where can I go?”
“Perhaps it will be better soon,” said her friend gently. “So I would not go far.
Now what do you think of this: I shall soon want somebody to live in my house, partly as housekeeper, partly as companion; would you mind coming to me?
But perhaps—”