Study Guide

The Mayor of Casterbridge Chapter 30

By Thomas Hardy

Chapter 30

Farfrae is moving into Lucetta's house.
Lucetta meets him there and tells him that she hasn't had a chance yet to tell Elizabeth-Jane that they're married.
She goes upstairs to tell her.
She reminds Elizabeth-Jane of the story about the "friend" who had promised to marry one man but was prevented from it, then fell in love with someone else.
Elizabeth-Jane remembers very well and drops the charade – she knows Lucetta was talking about herself.
She has also figured out that the men were Henchard and Farfrae.
Without telling Elizabeth-Jane that she has just gotten hitched to Farfrae, Lucetta asks her what she should do now that she knows Henchard wasn't exactly a model husband.
Elizabeth-Jane says the only honest thing to do is not to marry either of them and to stay single.
Wrong answer!
When Lucetta reacts badly, at first Elizabeth-Jane thinks it's because she married Henchard. She's delighted that Lucetta did the honest thing and kept her promise.
But of course, Lucetta married Farfrae.
When Elizabeth-Jane finds out the truth, she is disappointed – both because she secretly loved Farfrae and because she thinks Lucetta did something dishonest by breaking her word to Henchard.
Lucetta insists that Elizabeth-Jane should stay and live with them, but of course Elizabeth-Jane doesn't want to.
She leaves almost immediately, rents a small apartment, and moves into it that very night.