Chapter 20 - Page 2

that would have stamped a woman as
Minerva's own in more recent days. But other ideas reigned
then: Henchard's creed was that proper young girls wrote
ladies'-hand--nay, he believed that bristling characters
were as innate and inseparable a part of refined womanhood
as sex itself. Hence when, instead of scribbling, like the
Princess Ida,--

"In such a hand as when a field of corn
Bows all its ears before the roaring East,"

Elizabeth-Jane produced a line of chain-shot and sand-bags,
he reddened in angry shame for her, and, peremptorily
saying, "Never mind--I'll finish it," dismissed her there
and then.

Her considerate disposition became a pitfall to her now.
She was, it must be admitted, sometimes provokingly and
unnecessarily willing to saddle herself with manual labours.
She would go to the kitchen instead of ringing, "Not to make
Phoebe come up twice." She went down on her knees, shovel in
hand, when the cat overturned the coal-scuttle; moreover,
she would persistently thank the parlour-maid for
everything, till one day, as soon as the girl was gone from
the room, Henchard broke out with, "Good God, why dostn't
leave off thanking that girl as if she were a goddess-born!
Don't I pay her a dozen pound a year to do things for 'ee?"
Elizabeth shrank so visibly at the exclamation that he
became sorry a few minutes after, and said that he did not
mean to be rough.

These domestic exhibitions were the small protruding
needlerocks which suggested rather than revealed what was
underneath. But his passion had less terror for her than
his coldness. The increasing frequency of the latter mood
told her the sad news that he disliked her with a growing
dislike. The more interesting that her appearance and
manners became under the softening influences which she
could now command, and in her wisdom did command, the more
she seemed to estrange him. Sometimes she caught him
looking at her with a louring invidiousness that she could
hardly bear. Not knowing his secret it was cruel mockery
that she should for the first time excite his animosity when
she had taken his surname.

But the most terrible ordeal was to come. Elizabeth had
latterly been accustomed of an afternoon to present a cup of
cider or ale and bread-and-cheese to Nance Mockridge, who
worked in the yard wimbling hay-bonds. Nance accepted this
offering thankfully at first; afterwards as a matter of
course. On a day when Henchard was on the premises he saw
his step-daughter enter the hay-barn on this errand; and, as
there was no clear spot on which to deposit the provisions,
she at once set to work arranging two trusses of hay as a
table, Mockridge meanwhile standing with her hands on her