IX
On the morrow between nine and half-past they were journeying backto Christminster, the only two occupants of a compartment in athird-class railway-carriage. Having, like Jude, made rather ahasty toilet to catch the train, Arabella looked a little frowsy,and her face was very far from possessing the animation which hadcharacterized it at the bar the night before. When they came out ofthe station she found that she still had half an hour to spare beforeshe was due at the bar. They walked in silence a little way out ofthe town in the direction of Alfredston. Jude looked up the farhighway.
"Ah ... poor feeble me!" he murmured at last.
"What?" said she.
"This is the very road by which I came into Christminster years agofull of plans!"
"Well, whatever the road is I think my time is nearly up, as I haveto be in the bar by eleven o'clock. And as I said, I shan't ask forthe day to go with you to see your aunt. So perhaps we had betterpart here. I'd sooner not walk up Chief Street with you, since we'vecome to no conclusion at all."
"Very well. But you said when we were getting up this morning thatyou had something you wished to tell me before I left?"
"So I had--two things--one in particular. But you wouldn't promiseto keep it a secret. I'll tell you now if you promise? As an honestwoman I wish you to know it... It was what I began telling youin the night--about that gentleman who managed the Sydney hotel."Arabella spoke somewhat hurriedly for her. "You'll keep it close?"
"Yes--yes--I promise!" said Jude impatiently. "Of course I don'twant to reveal your secrets."
"Whenever I met him out for a walk, he used to say that he was muchtaken with my looks, and he kept pressing me to marry him. I neverthought of coming back to England again; and being out there inAustralia, with no home of my own after leaving my father, I at lastagreed, and did."
"What--marry him?"
"Yes."
"Regularly--legally--in church?"
"Yes. And lived with him till shortly before I left. It was stupid,I know; but I did! There, now I've told you. Don't round upon me!He talks of coming back to England, poor old chap. But if he does,he won't be likely to find me."
Jude stood pale and fixed.
"Why the devil didn't you tell me last, night!" he said.
"Well--I didn't... Won't you make it up with me, then?"
"So in talking of 'your husband' to the bar gentlemen you meant him,of course--not me!"
"Of course... Come, don't fuss about it."
"I have nothing more to say!" replied Jude. "I have nothing at allto say about the--crime--you've confessed to!"
"Crime! Pooh. They don't think much of such as that over there!Lots of 'em do it... Well, if you take it like that I shall go backto him! He was very fond of me, and we lived honourable enough, andas respectable as any married couple in the colony! How did I knowwhere you were?"
"I won't go blaming you. I could say a good deal; but perhaps itwould be misplaced. What do you wish me to do?"
"Nothing. There was one thing more I wanted to tell you; but I fancywe've seen enough of one another for the present! I shall think overwhat you said about your circumstances, and let you know."
Thus they parted. Jude watched her disappear in the direction ofthe hotel, and entered the railway station close by. Finding thatit wanted three-quarters of an hour of the time at which he couldget a train back to Alfredston, he strolled mechanically into thecity as far as to the Fourways, where he stood as he had so oftenstood before, and surveyed Chief Street stretching ahead, with itscollege after college, in picturesqueness unrivalled except by suchContinental vistas as the Street of Palaces in Genoa; the linesof the buildings being as distinct in the morning air as in anarchitectural drawing. But Jude was far from seeing or criticizingthese things; they were hidden by an indescribable consciousness ofArabella's midnight contiguity, a sense of degradation at his revivedexperiences with her, of her appearance as she lay asleep at dawn,which set upon his motionless face a look as of one accurst. If hecould only have felt resentment towards her he would have been lessunhappy; but he pitied while he contemned her.
Jude turned and retraced his steps. Drawing again towards thestation he started at hearing his name pronounced--less at the namethan at the voice. To his great surprise no other than Sue stoodlike a vision before him--her look bodeful and anxious as in a dream,her little mouth nervous, and her strained eyes speaking reproachfulinquiry.
"Oh, Jude--I am so glad--to meet you like this!" she said in quick,uneven accents not far from a sob. Then she flushed as she observedhis thought that they had not met since her marriage.
They looked away from each other to hide their emotion, took eachother's hand without further speech, and went on together awhile,till she glanced at him with furtive solicitude. "I arrived atAlfredston station last night, as you asked me to, and there wasnobody to meet me! But I reached Marygreen alone, and they told meAunt was a trifle better. I sat up with her, and as you did not comeall night I was frightened about you--I thought that perhaps, whenyou found yourself back in the old city, you were upset at--atthinking I was--married, and not there as I used to be; and that youhad nobody to speak to; so you had tried to drown your gloom--as youdid at that former time when you were disappointed about entering asa student, and had forgotten your promise to me that you never wouldagain. And this, I thought, was why you hadn't come to meet me!"
"And you came to hunt me up, and deliver me, like a good angel!"
"I thought I would come by the morning train and try to find you--incase--in case--"
"I did think of my promise to you, dear, continually! I shall neverbreak out again as I did, I am sure. I may have been doing nothingbetter, but I was not doing that--I loathe the thought of it."
"I am glad your staying had nothing to do with that. But," she said,the faintest pout entering into her tone, "you didn't come back lastnight and meet me, as you engaged to!"
"I didn't--I am sorry to say. I had an appointment at nineo'clock--too late for me to catch the train that would have metyours, or to get home at all."
Looking at his loved one as she appeared to him now, in his tenderthought the sweetest and most disinterested comrade that he had everhad, living largely in vivid imaginings, so ethereal a creaturethat her spirit could be seen trembling through her limbs, he feltheartily ashamed of his earthliness in spending the hours he hadspent in Arabella's company. There was something rude and immoralin thrusting these recent facts of his life upon the mind of one who,to him, was so uncarnate as to seem at times impossible as a humanwife to any average man. And yet she was Phillotson's. How she hadbecome such, how she lived as such, passed his comprehension as heregarded her to-day.
"You'll go back with me?" he said. "There's a train just now. Iwonder how my aunt is by this time... And so, Sue, you really cameon my account all this way! At what an early time you must havestarted, poor thing!"
"Yes. Sitting up watching alone made me all nerves for you, andinstead of going to bed when it got light I started. And now youwon't frighten me like this again about your morals for nothing?"
He was not so sure that she had been frightened about his morals fornothing. He released her hand till they had entered the train,--itseemed the same carriage he had lately got out of with another--wherethey sat down side by side, Sue between him and the window. Heregarded the delicate lines of her profile, and the small, tight,applelike convexities of her bodice, so different from Arabella'samplitudes. Though she knew he was looking at her she did not turnto him, but kept her eyes forward, as if afraid that by meeting hisown some troublous discussion would be initiated.
"Sue--you are married now, you know, like me; and yet we have been insuch a hurry that we have not said a word about it!"
"There's no necessity," she quickly returned.
"Oh well--perhaps not... But I wish"
"Jude--don't talk about ME--I wish you wouldn't!" she entreated."It distresses me, rather. Forgive
my saying it! ... Where did youstay last night?"
She had asked the question in perfect innocence, to change the topic.He knew that, and said merely, "At an inn," though it would have beena relief to tell her of his meeting with an unexpected one. But thelatter's final announcement of her marriage in Australia bewilderedhim lest what he might say should do his ignorant wife an injury.
Their talk proceeded but awkwardly till they reached Alfredston.That Sue was not as she had been, but was labelled "Phillotson,"paralyzed Jude whenever he wanted to commune with her as anindividual. Yet she seemed unaltered--he could not say why.There remained the five-mile extra journey into the country, whichit was just as easy to walk as to drive, the greater part of it beinguphill. Jude had never before in his life gone that road with Sue,though he had with another. It was now as if he carried a brightlight which temporarily banished the shady associations of theearlier time.
Sue talked; but Jude noticed that she still kept the conversationfrom herself. At length he inquired if her husband were well.
"O yes," she said. "He is obliged to be in the school all the day,or he would have come with me. He is so good and kind that toaccompany me he would have dismissed the school for once, evenagainst his principles--for he is strongly opposed to giving casualholidays--only I wouldn't let him. I felt it would be better to comealone. Aunt Drusilla, I knew, was so very eccentric; and his beingalmost a stranger to her now would have made it irksome to both.Since it turns out that she is hardly conscious I am glad I did notask him."
Jude had walked moodily while this praise of Phillotson was beingexpressed. "Mr. Phillotson obliges you in everything, as he ought,"he said.
"Of course."
"You ought to be a happy wife."
"And of course I am."
"Bride, I might almost have said, as yet. It is not so many weekssince I gave you to him, and--"
"Yes, I know! I know!" There was something in her face which beliedher late assuring words, so strictly proper and so lifelessly spokenthat they might have been taken from a list of model speeches in "TheWife's Guide to Conduct." Jude knew the quality of every vibrationin Sue's voice, could read every symptom of her mental condition; andhe was convinced that she was unhappy, although she had not been amonth married. But her rushing away thus from home, to see the lastof a relative whom she had hardly known in her life, proved nothing;for Sue naturally did such things as those.
"Well, you have my good wishes now as always, Mrs. Phillotson."
She reproached him by a glance.
"No, you are not Mrs. Phillotson," murmured Jude. "You are dear,free Sue Bridehead, only you don't know it! Wifedom has not yetsquashed up and digested you in its vast maw as an atom which has nofurther individuality."
Sue put on a look of being offended, till she answered, "Nor hashusbandom you, so far as I can see!"
"But it has!" he said, shaking his head sadly.
When they reached the lone cottage under the firs, between theBrown House and Marygreen, in which Jude and Arabella had lived andquarrelled, he turned to look at it. A squalid family lived therenow. He could not help saying to Sue: "That's the house my wife andI occupied the whole of the time we lived together. I brought herhome to that house."
She looked at it. "That to you was what the school-house at Shastonis to me."
"Yes; but I was not very happy there as you are in yours."
She closed her lips in retortive silence, and they walked some waytill she glanced at him to see how he was taking it. "Of course Imay have exaggerated your happiness--one never knows," he continuedblandly.
"Don't think that, Jude, for a moment, even though you may have saidit to sting me! He's as good to me as a man can be, and gives meperfect liberty--which elderly husbands don't do in general... Ifyou think I am not happy because he's too old for me, you are wrong."
"I don't think anything against him--to you dear."
"And you won't say things to distress me, will you?"
"I will not."
He said no more, but he knew that, from some cause or other, intaking Phillotson as a husband, Sue felt that she had done what sheought not to have done.
They plunged into the concave field on the other side of which rosethe village--the field wherein Jude had received a thrashing fromthe farmer many years earlier. On ascending to the village andapproaching the house they found Mrs. Edlin standing at the door, whoat sight of them lifted her hands deprecatingly. "She's downstairs,if you'll believe me!" cried the widow. "Out o' bed she got, andnothing could turn her. What will come o't I do not know!"
On entering, there indeed by the fireplace sat the old woman, wrappedin blankets, and turning upon them a countenance like that ofSebastiano's Lazarus. They must have looked their amazement, for shesaid in a hollow voice:
"Ah--sceered ye, have I! I wasn't going to bide up there no longer,to please nobody! 'Tis more than flesh and blood can bear, to beordered to do this and that by a feller that don't know half as wellas you do yourself! ... Ah--you'll rue this marrying as well ashe!" she added, turning to Sue. "All our family do--and nearly alleverybody else's. You should have done as I did, you simpleton! AndPhillotson the schoolmaster, of all men! What made 'ee marry him?"
"What makes most women marry, Aunt?"
"Ah! You mean to say you loved the man!"
"I don't meant to say anything definite."
"Do ye love un?"
"Don't ask me, Aunt."
"I can mind the man very well. A very civil, honourable liver; butLord!--I don't want to wownd your feelings, but--there be certain menhere and there that no woman of any niceness can stomach. I shouldhave said he was one. I don't say so NOW, since you must ha' knownbetter than I--but that's what I SHOULD have said!"
Sue jumped up and went out. Jude followed her, and found her in theouthouse, crying.
"Don't cry, dear!" said Jude in distress. "She means well, but isvery crusty and queer now, you know."
"Oh no--it isn't that!" said Sue, trying to dry her eyes. "I don'tmind her roughness one bit."
"What is it, then?"
"It is that what she says is--is true!"
"God--what--you don't like him?" asked Jude.
"I don't mean that!" she said hastily. "That I ought--perhaps Iought not to have married!"
He wondered if she had really been going to say that at first.They went back, and the subject was smoothed over, and her aunt tookrather kindly to Sue, telling her that not many young women newlymarried would have come so far to see a sick old crone like her.In the afternoon Sue prepared to depart, Jude hiring a neighbour todrive her to Alfredston.
"I'll go with you to the station, if you'd like?" he said.
She would not let him. The man came round with the trap, and Judehelped her into it, perhaps with unnecessary attention, for shelooked at him prohibitively.
"I suppose--I may come to see you some day, when I am back again atMelchester?" he half-crossly observed.
She bent down and said softly: "No, dear--you are not to come yet.I don't think you are in a good mood."
"Very well," said Jude. "Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" She waved her hand and was gone.
"She's right! I won't go!" he murmured.
He passed the evening and following days in mortifying by everypossible means his wish to see her, nearly starving himself inattempts to extinguish by fasting his passionate tendency to loveher. He read sermons on discipline, and hunted up passages in Churchhistory that treated of the Ascetics of the second century. Beforehe had returned from Marygreen to Melchester there arrived a letterfrom Arabella. The sight of it revived a stronger feeling ofself-condemnation for his brief return to her society than for hisattachment to Sue.
The letter, he perceived, bore a London postmark instead of theChristminster one. Arabella informed him that a few days after theirparting in the morning at Christminster, she had been surprised by anaffectionate letter from her Australian husband, forme
rly manager ofthe hotel in Sydney. He had come to England on purpose to find her;and had taken a free, fully-licensed public, in Lambeth, where hewished her to join him in conducting the business, which was likelyto be a very thriving one, the house being situated in an excellent,densely populated, gin-drinking neighbourhood, and already doing atrade of L200 a month, which could be easily doubled.
As he had said that he loved her very much still, and implored her totell him where she was, and as they had only parted in a slight tiff,and as her engagement in Christminster was only temporary, she hadjust gone to join him as he urged. She could not help feeling thatshe belonged to him more than to Jude, since she had properly marriedhim, and had lived with him much longer than with her first husband.In thus wishing Jude good-bye she bore him no ill-will, and trustedhe would not turn upon her, a weak woman, and inform against her,and bring her to ruin now that she had a chance of improving hercircumstances and leading a genteel life.