Life's Little Ironies - Thomas Hardy (mini ebook reader .txt) 📗

unexpected and quiet grace in a throng whose natural movements did not suggest gracefulness or quietude as a rule.  By some contrivance there was imparted to each of the hobby-horses a motion which was really the triumph and perfection of roundabout inventiveness—a galloping rise and fall, so timed that, of each pair of steeds, one was on the spring while the other was on the pitch.  The riders were quite fascinated by these equine undulations in this most delightful holiday-game of our times.  There were riders as young as six, and as old as sixty years, with every age between.  At first it was difficult to catch a personality, but by and by the observer’s eyes centred on the prettiest girl out of the several pretty ones revolving.

It was not that one with the light frock and light hat whom he had been at first attracted by; no, it was the one with the black cape, grey skirt, light gloves and—no, not even she, but the one behind her; she with the crimson skirt, dark jacket, brown hat and brown gloves.  Unmistakably that was the prettiest girl.

Having finally selected her, this idle spectator studied her as well as he was able during each of her brief transits across his visual field.  She was absolutely unconscious of everything save the act of riding: her features were rapt in an ecstatic dreaminess; for the moment she did not know her age or her history or her lineaments, much less her troubles.  He himself was full of vague latter-day glooms and popular melancholies, and it was a refreshing sensation to behold this young thing then and there, absolutely as happy as if she were in a Paradise.

Dreading the moment when the inexorable stoker, grimily lurking behind the glittering rococo-work, should decide that this set of riders had had their pennyworth, and bring the whole concern of steam-engine, horses, mirrors, trumpets, drums, cymbals, and such-like to pause and silence, he waited for her every reappearance, glancing indifferently over the intervening forms, including the two plainer girls, the old woman and child, the two youngsters, the newly-married couple, the old man with a clay pipe, the sparkish youth with a ring, the young ladies in the chariot, the pair of journeyman-carpenters, and others, till his select country beauty followed on again in her place.  He had never seen a fairer product of nature, and at each round she made a deeper mark in his sentiments.  The stoppage then came, and the sighs of the riders were audible.

He moved round to the place at which he reckoned she would alight; but she retained her seat.  The empty saddles began to refill, and she plainly was deciding to have another turn.  The young man drew up to the side of her steed, and pleasantly asked her if she had enjoyed her ride.

‘O yes!’ she said, with dancing eyes.  ‘It has been quite unlike anything I have ever felt in my life before!’

It was not difficult to fall into conversation with her.  Unreserved—too unreserved—by nature, she was not experienced enough to be reserved by art, and after a little coaxing she answered his remarks readily.  She had come to live in Melchester from a village on the Great Plain, and this was the first time that she had ever seen a steam-circus; she could not understand how such wonderful machines were made.  She had come to the city on the invitation of Mrs. Harnham, who had taken her into her household to train her as a servant, if she showed any aptitude.  Mrs. Harnham was a young lady who before she married had been Miss Edith White, living in the country near the speaker’s cottage; she was now very kind to her through knowing her in childhood so well.  She was even taking the trouble to educate her.  Mrs. Harnham was the only friend she had in the world, and being without children had wished to have her near her in preference to anybody else, though she had only lately come; allowed her to do almost as she liked, and to have a holiday whenever she asked for it.  The husband of this kind young lady was a rich wine-merchant of the town, but Mrs. Harnham did not care much about him.  In the daytime you could see the house from where they were talking.  She, the speaker, liked Melchester better than the lonely country, and she was going to have a new hat for next Sunday that was to cost fifteen and ninepence.

Then she inquired of her acquaintance where he lived, and he told her in London, that ancient and smoky city, where everybody lived who lived at all, and died because they could not live there.  He came into Wessex two or three times a year for professional reasons; he had arrived from Wintoncester yesterday, and was going on into the next county in a day or two.  For one thing he did like the country better than the town, and it was because it contained such girls as herself.

Then the pleasure-machine started again, and, to the light-hearted girl, the figure of the handsome young man, the market-square with its lights and crowd, the houses beyond, and the world at large, began moving round as before, countermoving in the revolving mirrors on her right hand, she being as it were the fixed point in an undulating, dazzling, lurid universe, in which loomed forward most prominently of all the form of her late interlocutor.  Each time that she approached the half of her orbit that lay nearest him they gazed at each other with smiles, and with that unmistakable expression which means so little at the moment, yet so often leads up to passion, heart-ache, union, disunion, devotion, overpopulation, drudgery, content, resignation, despair.

When the horses slowed anew he stepped to her side and proposed another heat.  ‘Hang the expense for once,’ he said.  ‘I’ll pay!’

She laughed till the tears came.

‘Why do you laugh, dear?’ said he.

‘Because—you are so genteel that you must have plenty of money, and only say that for fun!’ she returned.

‘Ha-ha!’ laughed the young man in unison, and gallantly producing his money she was enabled to whirl on again.

As he stood smiling there in the motley crowd, with his pipe in his hand, and clad in the rough pea-jacket and wideawake that he had put on for his stroll, who would have supposed him to be Charles Bradford Raye, Esquire, stuff-gownsman, educated at Wintoncester, called to the Bar at Lincoln’s-Inn, now going the Western Circuit, merely detained in Melchester by a small arbitration after his brethren had moved on to the next county-town?

CHAPTER II

The square was overlooked from its remoter corner by the house of which the young girl had spoken, a dignified residence of considerable size, having several windows on each floor.  Inside one of these, on the first floor, the apartment being a large drawing-room, sat a lady, in appearance from twenty-eight to thirty years of age.  The blinds were still undrawn, and the lady was absently surveying the weird scene without, her cheek resting on her hand.  The room was unlit from within, but enough of the glare from the market-place entered it to reveal the lady’s face.  She was what is called an interesting creature rather than a handsome woman; dark-eyed, thoughtful, and with sensitive lips.

A man sauntered into the room from behind and came forward.

‘O, Edith, I didn’t see you,’ he said.  ‘Why are you sitting here in the dark?’

‘I am looking at the fair,’ replied the lady in a languid voice.

‘Oh?  Horrid nuisance every year!  I wish it could be put a stop to’

‘I like it.’

‘H’m.  There’s no accounting for taste.’

For a moment he gazed from the window with her, for politeness sake, and then went out again.

In a few minutes she rang.

‘Hasn’t Anna come in?’ asked Mrs. Harnham.

‘No m’m.’

‘She ought to be in by this time.  I meant her to go for ten minutes only.’

‘Shall I go and look for her, m’m?’ said the house-maid alertly.

‘No.  It is not necessary: she is a good girl and will come soon.’

However, when the servant had gone Mrs. Harnham arose, went up to her room, cloaked and bonneted herself, and proceeded downstairs, where she found her husband.

‘I want to see the fair,’ she said; ‘and I am going to look for Anna.  I have made myself responsible for her, and must see she comes to no harm.  She ought to be indoors.  Will you come with me?’

‘Oh, she’s all right.  I saw her on one of those whirligig things, talking to her young man as I came in.  But I’ll go if you wish, though I’d rather go a hundred miles the other way.’

‘Then please do so.  I shall come to no harm alone.’

She left the house and entered the crowd which thronged the market-place, where she soon discovered Anna, seated on the revolving horse.  As soon as it stopped Mrs. Harnham advanced and said severely, ‘Anna, how can you be such a wild girl?  You were only to be out for ten minutes.’

Anna looked blank, and the young man, who had dropped into the background, came to her assistance.

‘Please don’t blame her,’ he said politely.  ‘It is my fault that she has stayed.  She looked so graceful on the horse that I induced her to go round again.  I assure you that she has been quite safe.’

‘In that case I’ll leave her in your hands,’ said Mrs. Harnham, turning to retrace her steps.

But this for the moment it was not so easy to do.  Something had attracted the crowd to a spot in their rear, and the wine-merchant’s wife, caught by its sway, found herself pressed against Anna’s acquaintance without power to move away.  Their faces were within a few inches of each other, his breath fanned her cheek as well as Anna’s.  They could do no other than smile at the accident; but neither spoke, and each waited passively.  Mrs. Harnham then felt a man’s hand clasping her fingers, and from the look of consciousness on the young fellow’s face she knew the hand to be his: she also knew that from the position of the girl he had no other thought than that the imprisoned hand was Anna’s.  What prompted her to refrain from undeceiving him she could hardly tell.  Not content with holding the hand, he playfully slipped two of his fingers inside her glove, against her palm.  Thus matters continued till the pressure lessened; but several minutes passed before the crowd thinned sufficiently to allow Mrs. Harnham to withdraw.

‘How did they get to know each other, I wonder?’ she mused as she retreated.  ‘Anna is really very forward—and he very wicked and nice.’

She was so gently stirred with the stranger’s manner and voice, with the tenderness of his idle touch, that instead of re-entering the house she turned back again and observed the pair from a screened nook.  Really she argued (being little less impulsive than Anna herself) it was very excusable in Anna to encourage him, however she might have contrived to make his acquaintance; he was so gentlemanly, so fascinating, had such beautiful eyes.  The thought that he was several years her junior produced a reasonless sigh.

At length the couple turned from the roundabout towards the door of Mrs. Harnham’s house, and the young man could be heard saying that he would accompany her home.  Anna, then, had found a lover, apparently a very devoted one.  Mrs. Harnham was quite interested in him.  When they drew near the door of the wine-merchant’s house, a comparatively deserted spot by this time, they stood invisible for a little while in the shadow of a wall, where they separated, Anna going on to the entrance, and her acquaintance returning across the square.

‘Anna,’ said Mrs. Harnham, coming up.  ‘I’ve been looking at you!  That young man kissed you at parting I am almost sure.’

‘Well,’ stammered Anna; ‘he said, if I didn’t mind—it would do me no