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Passage Illustrated Farfrae arrives when Lucetta expects Henchard at High Place Hall

When the messenger returned her mistress gave directions that if a gentleman called he was to be admitted at once, and sat down to await results.

Sentimentally she did not much care to see him — his delays had wearied her, but it was necessary; and with a sigh she arranged herself picturesquely in the chair; first this way, then that; next so that the light fell over her head. Next she flung herself on the couch in the cyma-recta curve which so became her, and with her arm over her brow looked towards the door. This, she decided, was the best position after all, and thus she remained till a man’s step was heard on the stairs. Whereupon Lucetta, forgetting her curve (for Nature was too strong for Art as yet), jumped up and ran and hid herself behind one of the window-curtains in a freak of timidity. In spite of the waning of passion the situation was an agitating one — she had not seen Henchard since his (supposed) temporary parting from her in Jersey.

She could hear the servant showing the visitor into the room, shutting the door upon him, and leaving as if to go and look for her mistress. Lucetta flung back the curtain with a nervous greeting. The man before her was not Henchard. [Close of Chapter XXII, in serial 270; in volume, 187]

Commentary: Expecting Mr. Henchard to pay a Call

HIGH-PLACE HALL
MY DEAR MR. HENCHARD, — Don’t be surprised. It is for your good and mine, as I hope, that I have come to live at Casterbridge — for how long I cannot tell. That depends upon another; and he is a man, and a merchant, and a Mayor, and one who has the first right to my affections.

Seriously, mon ami, I am not so light-hearted as I may seem to be from this. I have come here in consequence of hearing of the death of your wife — whom you used to think of as dead so many years before! Poor woman, she seems to have been a sufferer, though uncomplaining, and though weak in intellect not an imbecile. I am glad you acted fairly by her. As soon as I knew she was no more, it was brought home to me very forcibly by my conscience that I ought to endeavour to disperse the shade which my étourderie flung over my name, by asking you to carry out your promise to me. I hope you are of the same mind, and that you will take steps to this end. As, however, I did not know how you were situated, or what had happened since our separation, I decided to come and establish myself here before communicating with you.

You probably feel as I do about this. I shall be able to see you in a day or two. Till then, farewell. — Yours,
LUCETTA. [Serial, 270; volume, pp. 175-176]

Having sent her former lover (and, in the serial, husband) such a charming epistle, and having clarified that "Lucetta Templeman" lately of Bath is actually "Miss Lucette Le Sueur" of Jersey, the writer naturally expects the widower to call almost as soon as he has read her letter. What, then, prevents Henchard's paying a call, and Donald Farfrae's appearing in her parlour at High Place Hall instead? After all, Lucetta has already attended to the proprieties by inviting the Mayor's step-daughter to live with her as her companion.

And, of course, the value of the illustration is establishing the basis for the sort of romantic triangle that is the sine qua non of Sensation fiction: Henchard will be in love with the "second woman" of the novel, but she will fall in love with — and marry — the handsome young Scot, thereby forestalling Elizabeth-Jane's romance. And the root cause is Henchard's reluctance to look again on the visage of his step-daughter since he now sees the face of the genial Richard Newson, her natural father, whenever he contemplates her face. Henchard, knowing Elizabeth-Jane is at High Place Hall, defers the visit, but her presence there attracts Donald Farfrae in the last line of Chapter Twenty-two. Thus, the picture signals new directions in romance and fresh plot complications. But of course we do not learn the vistor's identity until the beginning of the next chapter, conforming to the serial novel pattern of curtain/mystery/explanation. However, only the volume reader experiences this pattern, for the serial reader of 1886 (whether of The Graphic or of Harper's Weekly) recognizes both Lucetta and Farfrae in the headpiece, or, rather, regards Farfrae as a now-familiar figure from illustrations four, six, and seven, and deduces from her face that the fashionably dressed woman at the window is not Elizabeth-Jane, and must therefore be the attractive Francophone newcomer who sends Henchard the beguiling message at the opening of Chapter XXII, precisely when the serial reader encounters the illustration of the fashionably-dressed young adults.

The Eight Illustrations depicting Donald Farfrae: Graphing his developing role

• Young Farfrae repeated the last verse. It was plain that nothing so pathetic had been heard at the King of Prussia for a considerable time. (23 Jan.)
• "Then it's somebody wanting to see us both.""Then it's somebody wanting to see us both." (6 Feb.)
• Farfrae was footing a quaint little dance with Elizabeth Jane. (13 Feb.)
• The man before her was not Henchard. (6 March)
• "She has gone on with Mr. Henchard, you say?" (27 March)
• "Well, Lucetta, I've a bit of news for ye," he said gaily. (17 April)
• "Now," said Henchard between gasps, "Your life is in my hands." (24 April)
• "Elizabeth, my child, come and hearken to what we are talking about and not bide staring out o' window as if ye didn't hear." (8 May)

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "A Consideration of Robert Barnes' Illustrations for Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge as Serialised in the London Graphic: 2 January-15 May, 1886." Victorian Periodicals Review 28, 1 (Spring 1995): pp. 27-39

Foster, Vanda. A Visual History of Costume: The Nineteenth Century.London: B. T. Batsford, 1984.

Hardy, Florence Emily. The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1891. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1928.

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Graphic 33 (2 January-15 May 1886).

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge: A Story of a Man of Character. London: Osgood McIlvaine, 1895.

Jackson, Arlene. "The Mayor of Casterbridge: Realism and Metaphor."Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981. Pp. 96-104.

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