The speaker concluded by nodding her head at Henchard and folding her arms.
Everybody looked at Henchard.
His face seemed strange, and in tint as if it had been powdered over with ashes.
“We don’t want to hear your life and adventures,” said the second magistrate sharply, filling the pause which followed. “You’ve been asked if you’ve anything to say bearing on the case.”
“That bears on the case.
It proves that he’s no better than I, and has no right to sit there in judgment upon me.”
“‘Tis a concocted story,” said the clerk. “So hold your tongue!”
“No—‘tis true.” The words came from Henchard. “‘Tis as true as the light,” he said slowly. “And upon my soul it does prove that I’m no better than she!
And to keep out of any temptation to treat her hard for her revenge, I’ll leave her to you.”
The sensation in the court was indescribably great.
Henchard left the chair, and came out, passing through a group of people on the steps and outside that was much larger than usual; for it seemed that the old furmity dealer had mysteriously hinted to the denizens of the lane in which she had been lodging since her arrival, that she knew a queer thing or two about their great local man Mr. Henchard, if she chose to tell it.
This had brought them hither.
“Why are there so many idlers round the Town Hall to-day?” said Lucetta to her servant when the case was over.
She had risen late, and had just looked out of the window.
“Oh, please, ma’am, ‘tis this larry about Mr. Henchard.
A woman has proved that before he became a gentleman he sold his wife for five guineas in a booth at a fair.”
In all the accounts which Henchard had given her of the separation from his wife Susan for so many years, of his belief in her death, and so on, he had never clearly explained the actual and immediate cause of that separation.
The story she now heard for the first time.
A gradual misery overspread Lucetta’s face as she dwelt upon the promise wrung from her the night before.
At bottom, then, Henchard was this.
How terrible a contingency for a woman who should commit herself to his care.
During the day she went out to the Ring and to other places, not coming in till nearly dusk.
As soon as she saw Elizabeth-Jane after her return indoors she told her that she had resolved to go away from home to the seaside for a few days—to Port-Bredy; Casterbridge was so gloomy.
Elizabeth, seeing that she looked wan and disturbed, encouraged her in the idea, thinking a change would afford her relief.
She could not help suspecting that the gloom which seemed to have come over Casterbridge in Lucetta’s eyes might be partially owing to the fact that Farfrae was away from home.
Elizabeth saw her friend depart for Port-Bredy, and took charge of High-Place Hall till her return.
After two or three days of solitude and incessant rain Henchard called at the house.
He seemed disappointed to hear of Lucetta’s absence and though he nodded with outward indifference he went away handling his beard with a nettled mien.
The next day he called again.
“Is she come now?” he asked.
“Yes.
She returned this morning,” replied his stepdaughter. “But she is not indoors.
She has gone for a walk along the turnpike-road to Port-Bredy.
She will be home by dusk.”
After a few words, which only served to reveal his restless impatience, he left the house again.
29.
At this hour Lucetta was bounding along the road to Port-Bredy just as Elizabeth had announced.
That she had chosen for her afternoon walk the road along which she had returned to Casterbridge three hours earlier in a carriage was curious—if anything should be called curious in concatenations of phenomena wherein each is known to have its accounting cause.
It was the day of the chief market—Saturday—and Farfrae for once had been missed from his corn-stand in the dealers’ room.
Nevertheless, it was known that he would be home that night—“for Sunday,” as Casterbridge expressed it.
Lucetta, in continuing her walk, had at length reached the end of the ranked trees which bordered the highway in this and other directions out of the town.
This end marked a mile; and here she stopped.
The spot was a vale between two gentle acclivities, and the road, still adhering to its Roman foundation, stretched onward straight as a surveyor’s line till lost to sight on the most distant ridge.
There was neither hedge nor tree in the prospect now, the road clinging to the stubby expanse of corn-land like a strip to an undulating garment.
Near her was a barn—the single building of any kind within her horizon.
She strained her eyes up the lessening road, but nothing appeared thereon—not so much as a speck.
She sighed one word—“Donald!” and turned her face to the town for retreat.
Here the case was different.
A single figure was approaching her—Elizabeth-Jane’s.
Lucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a little vexed.