Now Henchard had not the slightest suspicion that Elizabeth-Jane’s movement was to be so prompt.
Hence when, just before six, he reached home and saw a fly at the door from the King’s Arms, and his step-daughter, with all her little bags and boxes, getting into it, he was taken by surprise.
“But you said I might go, father?” she explained through the carriage window.
“Said!—yes.
But I thought you meant next month, or next year.
‘Od, seize it—you take time by the forelock!
This, then, is how you be going to treat me for all my trouble about ye?”
“O father! how can you speak like that?
It is unjust of you!” she said with spirit.
“Well, well, have your own way,” he replied.
He entered the house, and, seeing that all her things had not yet been brought down, went up to her room to look on.
He had never been there since she had occupied it.
Evidences of her care, of her endeavours for improvement, were visible all around, in the form of books, sketches, maps, and little arrangements for tasteful effects.
Henchard had known nothing of these efforts.
He gazed at them, turned suddenly about, and came down to the door.
“Look here,” he said, in an altered voice—he never called her by name now—“don’t ‘ee go away from me. It may be I’ve spoke roughly to you—but I’ve been grieved beyond everything by you—there’s something that caused it.”
“By me?” she said, with deep concern. “What have I done?”
“I can’t tell you now.
But if you’ll stop, and go on living as my daughter, I’ll tell you all in time.”
But the proposal had come ten minutes too late.
She was in the fly—was already, in imagination, at the house of the lady whose manner had such charms for her.
“Father,” she said, as considerately as she could, “I think it best for us that I go on now.
I need not stay long; I shall not be far away, and if you want me badly I can soon come back again.”
He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decision and no more.
“You are not going far, you say.
What will be your address, in case I wish to write to you?
Or am I not to know?”
“Oh yes—certainly.
It is only in the town—High-Place Hall!”
“Where?” said Henchard, his face stilling.
She repeated the words.
He neither moved nor spoke, and waving her hand to him in utmost friendliness she signified to the flyman to drive up the street.
22.
We go back for a moment to the preceding night, to account for Henchard’s attitude.
At the hour when Elizabeth-Jane was contemplating her stealthy reconnoitring excursion to the abode of the lady of her fancy, he had been not a little amazed at receiving a letter by hand in Lucetta’s well-known characters.
The self-repression, the resignation of her previous communication had vanished from her mood; she wrote with some of the natural lightness which had marked her in their early acquaintance.
HIGH-PLACE HALL
MY DEAR MR. HENCHARD,—Don’t be surprised.
It is for your good and mine, as I hope, that I have come to live at Casterbridge—for how long I cannot tell.
That depends upon another; and he is a man, and a merchant, and a Mayor, and one who has the first right to my affections.
Seriously, mon ami, I am not so light-hearted as I may seem to be from this.
I have come here in consequence of hearing of the death of your wife—whom you used to think of as dead so many years before!
Poor woman, she seems to have been a sufferer, though uncomplaining, and though weak in intellect not an imbecile.
I am glad you acted fairly by her.
As soon as I knew she was no more, it was brought home to me very forcibly by my conscience that I ought to endeavour to disperse the shade which my etourderie flung over my name, by asking you to carry out your promise to me.
I hope you are of the same mind, and that you will take steps to this end.
As, however, I did not know how you were situated, or what had happened since our separation, I decided to come and establish myself here before communicating with you.
You probably feel as I do about this.
I shall be able to see you in a day or two.
Till then, farewell.—Yours, LUCETTA.