Life's Little Ironies, by Thomas Hardy

Transcribed from the 1920 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES a set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS

by
THOMAS HARDY

with a map of wessex

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1920

COPYRIGHT

First Collected Edition 1894.  New Edition and reprints 1896-1900
First published by Macmillan & Co., Crown 8ov, 1903.  Reprinted 1910, 1915
Pockets Edition 1907, 1910, 1913, 1916, 1919 (twice), 1920
Wessex Edition 1912

The Son’s Veto
For Conscience’ Sake
A Tragedy of Two Ambitions
On the Western Circuit
To Please his Wife
The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four
A Few Crusted Characters

THE SON’S VETO

CHAPTER I

To the eyes of a man viewing it from behind, the nut-brown hair was a wonder and a mystery.  Under the black beaver hat, surmounted by its tuft of black feathers, the long locks, braided and twisted and coiled like the rushes of a basket, composed a rare, if somewhat barbaric, example of ingenious art.  One could understand such weavings and coilings being wrought to last intact for a year, or even a calendar month; but that they should be all demolished regularly at bedtime, after a single day of permanence, seemed a reckless waste of successful fabrication.

And she had done it all herself, poor thing.  She had no maid, and it was almost the only accomplishment she could boast of.  Hence the unstinted pains.

She was a young invalid lady—not so very much of an invalid—sitting in a wheeled chair, which had been pulled up in the front part of a green enclosure, close to a bandstand, where a concert was going on, during a warm June afternoon.  It had place in one of the minor parks or private gardens that are to be found in the suburbs of London, and was the effort of a local association to raise money for some charity.  There are worlds within worlds in the great city, and though nobody outside the immediate district had ever heard of the charity, or the band, or the garden, the enclosure was filled with an interested audience sufficiently informed on all these.

As the strains proceeded many of the listeners observed the chaired lady, whose back hair, by reason of her prominent position, so challenged inspection.  Her face was not easily discernible, but the aforesaid cunning tress-weavings, the white ear and poll, and the curve of a cheek which was neither flaccid nor sallow, were signals that led to the expectation of good beauty in front.  Such expectations are not infrequently disappointed as soon as the disclosure comes; and in the present case, when the lady, by a turn of the head, at length revealed herself, she was not so handsome as the people behind her had supposed, and even hoped—they did not know why.