The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy (best books for 8th graders .TXT) đ
- Author: Thomas Hardy
Book online «The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy (best books for 8th graders .TXT) đ». Author Thomas Hardy
It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tentâ âonce thriving, cleanly, white-aproned, and chinking with moneyâ ânow tentless, dirty, owning no tables or benches, and having scarce any customers except two small whity-brown boys, who came up and asked for âA haâpâorth, pleaseâ âgood measure,â which she served in a couple of chipped yellow basins of commonest clay.
âShe was here at that time,â resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as if to draw nearer.
âDonât speak to herâ âit isnât respectable!â urged the other.
âI will just say a wordâ âyou, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay here.â
The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured prints while her mother went forward. The old woman begged for the latterâs custom as soon as she saw her, and responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newsonâs request for a pennyworth with more alacrity than she had shown in selling six-pennyworths in her younger days. When the soi-disant widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for the rich concoction of the former time, the hag opened a little basket behind the fire, and looking up slyly, whispered, âJust a thought oâ rum in it?â âsmuggled, you knowâ âsay two pennâorthâ ââtwill make it slip down like cordial!â
Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of the old trick, and shook her head with a meaning the old woman was far from translating. She pretended to eat a little of the furmity with the leaden spoon offered, and as she did so said blandly to the hag, âYouâve seen better days?â
âAh, maâamâ âwell ye may say it!â responded the old woman, opening the sluices of her heart forthwith. âIâve stood in this fairground, maid, wife, and widow, these nine-and-thirty years, and in that time have known what it was to do business with the richest stomachs in the land! Maâam youâd hardly believe that I was once the owner of a great pavilion-tent that was the attraction of the fair. Nobody could come, nobody could go, without having a dish of Mrs. Goodenoughâs furmity. I knew the clergyâs taste, the dandy gentâs taste; I knew the townâs taste, the countryâs taste. I even knowed the taste of the coarse shameless females. But Lordâs my lifeâ âthe worldâs no memory; straightforward dealings donât bring profitâ ââtis the sly and the underhand that get on in these times!â
Mrs. Newson glanced roundâ âher daughter was still bending over the distant stalls. âCan you call to mind,â she said cautiously to the old woman, âthe sale of a wife by her husband in your tent eighteen years ago today?â
The hag reflected, and half shook her head. âIf it had been a big thing I should have minded it in a moment,â she said. âI can mind every serious fight oâ married parties, every murder, every manslaughter, even every pocket-pickingâ âleastwise large onesâ âthat ât has been my lot to witness. But a selling? Was it done quiet-like?â
âWell, yes. I think so.â
The furmity woman half shook her head again. âAnd yet,â she said, âI do. At any rate, I can mind a man doing something oâ the sortâ âa man in a cord jacket, with a basket of tools; but, Lord bless ye, we donât giâe it headroom, we donât, such as that. The only reason why I can mind the man is that he came back here to the next yearâs fair, and told me quite private-like that if a woman ever asked for him I was to say he had gone toâ âwhere?â âCasterbridgeâ âyesâ âto Casterbridge, said he. But, Lordâs my life, I shouldnât haâ thought of it again!â
Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her small means afforded had she not discreetly borne in mind that it was by that unscrupulous personâs liquor her husband had been degraded. She briefly thanked her informant, and rejoined Elizabeth, who greeted her with, âMother, do letâs get onâ âit was hardly respectable for you to buy refreshments there. I see none but the lowest do.â
âI have learned what I wanted, however,â said her mother quietly. âThe last time our relative visited this fair he said he was living at Casterbridge. It is a long, long way from here, and it was many years ago that he said it, but there I think weâll go.â
With this they descended out of the fair, and went onward to the village, where they obtained a nightâs lodging.
IVHenchardâs wife acted for the best, but she had involved herself in difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon the point of telling her daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragical crisis of which had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much older than the girl now beside her. But she had refrained. An innocent maiden had thus grown up in the belief that the relations between the genial sailor and her mother were the ordinary ones that they had always appeared to be. The risk of endangering a childâs strong affection by disturbing ideas which had grown with her growth was to Mrs. Henchard too fearful a thing to contemplate. It had seemed, indeed, folly to think of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.
But Susan Henchardâs fear of losing her dearly loved daughterâs heart by a revelation had little to do with any sense of wrongdoing on her own part. Her simplicityâ âthe original ground of Henchardâs contempt for herâ âhad allowed her to live on in the conviction that Newson had acquired a morally real and justifiable right to her by his purchaseâ âthough the exact bearings and legal limits of that right were vague. It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that a sane young matron could believe in the seriousness of such a transfer; and were there not numerous
Comments (0)