The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previous character, even to the voices and rattle2 from the neighbouring village down, that it might for that matter have been the afternoon following the previously3 recorded episode. Change was only to be observed in details; but here it was obvious that a long procession of years had passed by. One of the two who walked the road was she who had figured as the young wife of Henchard on the previous occasion; now her face had lost much of its rotundity; her skin had undergone a textural5 change; and though her hair had not lost colour it was considerably6 thinner than heretofore. She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. Her companion, also in black, appeared as a wellformed young woman about eighteen, completely possessed7 of that ephemeral precious essence youth, which is itself beauty, irrespective of complexion8 or contour.
A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was Susan Henchard's grown-up daughter. While life's middle summer had set its hardening mark on the mother's face, her former spring-like specialities were transferred so dexterously9 by Time to the second figure, her child, that the absence of certain facts within her mother's knowledge from the girl's mind would have seemed for the moment, to one reflecting on those facts, to be a curious imperfection in Nature's powers of continuity.
They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceived that this was the act of simple affection. The daughter carried in her outer hand a withy basket of old-fashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, which contrasted oddly with her black stuff gown.
Reaching the outskirts10 of the village they pursued the same track as formerly11, and ascended12 to the fair. Here, too it was evident that the years had told. Certain mechanical improvements might have been noticed in the roundabouts and high-fliers, machines for testing rustic13 strength and weight, and in the erections devoted14 to shooting for nuts. But the real business of the fair had considerably dwindled15. The new periodical great markets of neighbouring towns were beginning to interfere16 seriously with the trade carried on here for centuries. The pens for sheep, the tie-ropes for horses, were about half as long as they had been. The stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen-drapers, and other such trades had almost disappeared, and the vehicles were far less numerous. The mother and daughter threaded the crowd for some little distance, and then stood still.
"Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you wished to get onward17?" said the maiden18.
"Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane," explained the other. "But I had a fancy for looking up here."
"Why?"
"It was here I first met with Newson--on such a day as this."
"First met with father here? Yes, you have told me so before. And now he's drowned and gone from us!" As she spoke19 the girl drew a card from her pocket and looked at it with a sigh. It was edged with black, and inscribed20 within a design resembling a mural tablet were the words, "In affectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner21, who was unfortunately lost at sea, in the month of November 184--, aged22 forty-one years."
"And it was here," continued her mother, with more hesitation23, "that I last saw the relation we are going to look for--Mr. Michael Henchard."
"What is his exact kin4 to us, mother? I have never clearly had it told me."
"He is, or was--for he may be dead--a connection by marriage," said her mother deliberately24.
"That's exactly what you have said a score of times before!" replied the young woman, looking about her inattentively. "He's not a near relation, I suppose?"
"Not by any means."
"He was a hay-trusser, wasn't he, when you last heard of him?
"He was."
"I suppose he never knew me?" the girl innocently continued.
Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and answered un-easily, "Of course not, Elizabeth-Jane. But come this way." She moved on to another part of the field.
"It is not much use inquiring here for anybody, I should think," the daughter observed, as she gazed round about. "People at fairs change like the leaves of trees; and I daresay you are the only one here to-day who was here all those years ago."
"I am not so sure of that," said Mrs. Newson, as she now called herself, keenly eyeing something under a green bank a little way off. "See there."
The daughter looked in the direction signified. The object pointed25 out was a tripod of sticks stuck into the earth, from which hung a three-legged crock, kept hot by a smouldering wood fire beneath. Over the pot stooped an old woman haggard, wrinkled, and almost in rags. She stirred the contents of the pot with a large spoon, and occasionally croaked26 in a broken voice, "Good furmity sold here!"
It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tent--once thriving, cleanly, white-aproned, and chinking with money-now tentless, dirty, owning no tables or benches, and having scarce any customers except two small whity-brown boys, who came up and asked for "A ha'p'orth, please--good measure," which she served in a couple of chipped yellow basins of commonest clay.
"She was here at that time," resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as if to draw nearer.
"Don't speak to her--it isn't respectable!" urged the other.
"I will just say a word--you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay here."
The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured prints while her mother went forward. The old woman begged for the latter's custom as soon as she saw her, and responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson's request for a pennyworth with more alacrity27 than she had shown in selling sixpennyworths in her younger days. When the soi-disant widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for the rich concoction28 of the former time, the hag opened a little basket behind the fire, and looking up slily, whispered, "Just a thought o' rum in it?--smuggled, you know--say two penn'orth--'twill make it slip down like cordial!"
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 blandly29 to the hag, "You've seen better days?"
"Ah, ma'am--well ye may say it!" responded the old woman, opening the sluices30 of her heart forthwith. "I've stood in this fair-ground, maid, wife, and widow, these nine-andthirty years, and in that time have known what it was to do business with the richest stomachs in the land! Ma'am you'd 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. Goodenough's furmity. I knew the clergy's taste, the dandy gent's taste; I knew the town's taste, the country's taste. I even knowed the taste of the coarse shameless females. But Lord's my life--the world's no memory; straightforward31 dealings don't bring profit--'tis the sly and the underhand that get on in these times!"
Mrs. Newson glanced round--her daughter was still bending over the distant stalls. "Can you call to mind," she said cautiously to the old woman, "the sale of a wife by her husband in your tent eighteen years ago to-day?"
The hag reflected, and half shook her head. "If it had been a big thing I should have minded it in a moment," she said. "I can mind every serious fight o' married parties, every murder, every manslaughter, even every pocket-picking-leastwise large ones--that 't has been my lot to witness. But a selling? Was it done quiet-like?"
"Well, yes. I think so."
The furmity woman half shook her head again. "And yet," she said, "I do. At any rate, I can mind a man doing something o' the sort--a man in a cord jacket, with a basket of tools; but, Lord bless ye, we don't gi'e it head-room, we don't, such as that. The only reason why I can mind the man is that he came back here to the next year's fair, and told me quite private-like that if a woman ever asked for him I was to say he had gone to--where?--Casterbridge--yes--to Casterbridge, said he. But, Lord's my life, I shouldn't ha' thought of it again!"
Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her small means afforded had she not discreetly32 borne in mind that it was by that unscrupulous person's liquor her husband had been degraded. She briefly33 thanked her informant, and rejoined Elizabeth, who greeted her with, "Mother, do let's get on--it was hardly respectable for you to buy refreshments34 there. I see none but the lowest do."
"I have learned what I wanted, however," said her mother quietly. "The 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 we'll go."
With this they descended35 out of the fair, and went onward to the village, where they obtained a night's lodging36.
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1
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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2
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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3
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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4
kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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5
textural
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| adj. 组织上的, 构造上的 | |
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6
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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7
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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8
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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9
dexterously
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| adv.巧妙地，敏捷地 | |
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10
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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12
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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14
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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15
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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17
onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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18
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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19
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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20
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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21
mariner
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| n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者 | |
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22
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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23
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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24
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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25
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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26
croaked
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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27
alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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28
concoction
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| n.调配(物)；谎言 | |
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29
blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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30
sluices
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| n.水闸( sluice的名词复数 )；（用水闸控制的）水；有闸人工水道；漂洗处v.冲洗( sluice的第三人称单数 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
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31
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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32
discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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33
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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34
refreshments
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| n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
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35
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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36
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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