II
However, if God disposed not, woman did. The next morning but onebrought him this note from her:
Don't come next week. On your own account don't! We were too free, under the influence of that morbid hymn and the twilight. Think no more than you can help of
SUSANNA FLORENCE MARY.
The disappointment was keen. He knew her mood, the look of her face,when she subscribed herself at length thus. But, whatever her mood, hecould not say she was wrong in her view. He replied:
I acquiesce. You are right. It is a lesson in renunciation which I suppose I ought to learn at this season.
JUDE.
He despatched the note on Easter Eve, and there seemed a finalityin their decisions. But other forces and laws than theirs were inoperation. On Easter Monday morning he received a message from theWidow Edlin, whom he had directed to telegraph if anything serioushappened:
Your aunt is sinking. Come at once.
He threw down his tools and went. Three and a half hours later hewas crossing the downs about Marygreen, and presently plunged intothe concave field across which the short cut was made to the village.As he ascended on the other side a labouring man, who had beenwatching his approach from a gate across the path, moved uneasily,and prepared to speak. "I can see in his face that she is dead,"said Jude. "Poor Aunt Drusilla!"
It was as he had supposed, and Mrs. Edlin had sent out the man tobreak the news to him.
"She wouldn't have knowed 'ee. She lay like a doll wi' glass eyes;so it didn't matter that you wasn't here," said he.
Jude went on to the house, and in the afternoon, when everything wasdone, and the layers-out had finished their beer, and gone, he satdown alone in the silent place. It was absolutely necessary tocommunicate with Sue, though two or three days earlier they hadagreed to mutual severance. He wrote in the briefest terms:
Aunt Drusilla is dead, having been taken almost suddenly. The funeral is on Friday afternoon.
He remained in and about Marygreen through the intervening days,went out on Friday morning to see that the grave was finished, andwondered if Sue would come. She had not written, and that seemed tosignify rather that she would come than that she would not. Havingtimed her by her only possible train, he locked the door aboutmid-day, and crossed the hollow field to the verge of the upland bythe Brown House, where he stood and looked over the vast prospectnorthwards, and over the nearer landscape in which Alfredston stood.Two miles behind it a jet of white steam was travelling from the leftto the right of the picture.
There was a long time to wait, even now, till he would know if shehad arrived. He did wait, however, and at last a small hired vehiclepulled up at the bottom of the hill, and a person alighted, theconveyance going back, while the passenger began ascending thehill. He knew her; and she looked so slender to-day that it seemedas if she might be crushed in the intensity of a too passionateembrace--such as it was not for him to give. Two-thirds of the wayup her head suddenly took a solicitous poise, and he knew that shehad at that moment recognized him. Her face soon began a pensivesmile, which lasted till, having descended a little way, he met her.
"I thought," she began with nervous quickness, "that it would beso sad to let you attend the funeral alone! And so--at the lastmoment--I came."
"Dear faithful Sue!" murmured Jude.
With the elusiveness of her curious double nature, however, Sue didnot stand still for any further greeting, though it wanted sometime to the burial. A pathos so unusually compounded as that whichattached to this hour was unlikely to repeat itself for years, ifever, and Jude would have paused, and meditated, and conversed. ButSue either saw it not at all, or, seeing it more than he, would notallow herself to feel it.
The sad and simple ceremony was soon over, their progress to thechurch being almost at a trot, the bustling undertaker having a moreimportant funeral an hour later, three miles off. Drusilla was putinto the new ground, quite away from her ancestors. Sue and Judehad gone side by side to the grave, and now sat down to tea in thefamiliar house; their lives united at least in this last attentionto the dead.
"She was opposed to marriage, from first to last, you say?" murmuredSue.
"Yes. Particularly for members of our family."
Her eyes met his, and remained on him awhile.
"We are rather a sad family, don't you think, Jude?"
"She said we made bad husbands and wives. Certainly we make unhappyones. At all events, I do, for one!"
Sue was silent. "Is it wrong, Jude," she said with a tentativetremor, "for a husband or wife to tell a third person that they areunhappy in their marriage? If a marriage ceremony is a religiousthing, it is possibly wrong; but if it is only a sordid contract,based on material convenience in householding, rating, and taxing,and the inheritance of land and money by children, making itnecessary that the male parent should be known--which it seems tobe--why surely a person may say, even proclaim upon the housetops,that it hurts and grieves him or her?"
"I have said so, anyhow, to you."
Presently she went on: "Are there many couples, do you think, whereone dislikes the other for no definite fault?"
"Yes, I suppose. If either cares for another person, for instance."
"But even apart from that? Wouldn't the woman, for example, be verybad-natured if she didn't like to live with her husband; merely"--hervoice undulated, and he guessed things--"merely because she had apersonal feeling against it--a physical objection--a fastidiousness,or whatever it may be called--although she might respect and begrateful to him? I am merely putting a case. Ought she to try toovercome her pruderies?"
Jude threw a troubled look at her. He said, looking away: "It wouldbe just one of those cases in which my experiences go contrary to mydogmas. Speaking as an order-loving man--which I hope I am, thoughI fear I am not--I should say, yes. Speaking from experience andunbiased nature, I should say, no.... Sue, I believe you are nothappy!"
"Of course I am!" she contradicted. "How can a woman be unhappy whohas only been married eight weeks to a man she chose freely?"
"'Chose freely!'"
"Why do you repeat it? ... But I have to go back by the six o'clocktrain. You will be staying on here, I suppose?"
"For a few days to wind up Aunt's affairs. This house is gone now.Shall I go to the train with you?"
A little laugh of objection came from Sue. "I think not. You maycome part of the way."
"But stop--you can't go to-night! That train won't take you toShaston. You must stay and go back to-morrow. Mrs. Edlin has plentyof room, if you don't like to stay here?"
"Very well," she said dubiously. "I didn't tell him I would come forcertain."
Jude went to the widow's house adjoining, to let her know; andreturning in a few minutes sat down again.
"It is horrible how we are circumstanced, Sue--horrible!" he saidabruptly, with his eyes bent to the floor.
"No! Why?"
"I can't tell you all my part of the gloom. Your part is that youought not to have married him. I saw it before you had done it, butI thought I mustn't interfere. I was wrong. I ought to have!"
"But what makes you assume all this, dear?"
"Because--I can see you through your feathers, my poor little bird!"
Her hand lay on the table, and Jude put his upon it. Sue drew hersaway.
"That's absurd, Sue," cried he, "after what we've been talking about!I am more strict and formal than you, if it comes to that; and thatyou should object to such an innocent action shows that you areridiculously inconsistent!"
"Perhaps it was too prudish," she said repentantly. "Only I havefancied it was a sort of trick of ours--too frequent perhaps. There,you may hold it as much as you like. Is that good of me?"
"Yes; very."
"But I must tell him."
"Who?"
"Richard."
"Oh--of course, if you think it necessary. But as it means nothingit may be
bothering him needlessly."
"Well--are you sure you mean it only as my cousin?"
"Absolutely sure. I have no feelings of love left in me."
"That's news. How has it come to be?"
"I've seen Arabella."
She winced at the hit; then said curiously, "When did you see her?"
"When I was at Christminster."
"So she's come back; and you never told me! I suppose you will livewith her now?"
"Of course--just as you live with your husband."
She looked at the window pots with the geraniums and cactuses,withered for want of attention, and through them at the outerdistance, till her eyes began to grow moist. "What is it?" saidJude, in a softened tone.
"Why should you be so glad to go back to her if--if what you used tosay to me is still true--I mean if it were true then! Of course itis not now! How could your heart go back to Arabella so soon?"
"A special Providence, I suppose, helped it on its way."
"Ah--it isn't true!" she said with gentle resentment. "You areteasing me--that's all--because you think I am not happy!"
"I don't know. I don't wish to know."
"If I were unhappy it would be my fault, my wickedness; not thatI should have a right to dislike him! He is considerate to me ineverything; and he is very interesting, from the amount of generalknowledge he has acquired by reading everything that comes in hisway.... Do you think, Jude, that a man ought to marry a woman hisown age, or one younger than himself--eighteen years--as I am thanhe?"
"It depends upon what they feel for each other."
He gave her no opportunity of self-satisfaction, and she had to go onunaided, which she did in a vanquished tone, verging on tears:
"I--I think I must be equally honest with you as you have been withme. Perhaps you have seen what it is I want to say?--that though Ilike Mr. Phillotson as a friend, I don't like him--it is a torture tome to--live with him as a husband!--There, now I have let it out--Icouldn't help it, although I have been--pretending I am happy.--Nowyou'll have a contempt for me for ever, I suppose!" She bent downher face upon her hands as they lay upon the cloth, and silentlysobbed in little jerks that made the fragile three-legged tablequiver.
"I have only been married a month or two!" she went on, stillremaining bent upon the table, and sobbing into her hands. "And itis said that what a woman shrinks from--in the early days of hermarriage--she shakes down to with comfortable indifference in half adozen years. But that is much like saying that the amputation of alimb is no affliction, since a person gets comfortably accustomed tothe use of a wooden leg or arm in the course of time!"
Jude could hardly speak, but he said, "I thought there was somethingwrong, Sue! Oh, I thought there was!"
"But it is not as you think!--there is nothing wrong except my ownwickedness, I suppose you'd call it--a repugnance on my part, for areason I cannot disclose, and what would not be admitted as one bythe world in general! ... What tortures me so much is the necessityof being responsive to this man whenever he wishes, good as he ismorally!--the dreadful contract to feel in a particular way in amatter whose essence is its voluntariness! ... I wish he would beatme, or be faithless to me, or do some open thing that I could talkabout as a justification for feeling as I do! But he does nothing,except that he has grown a little cold since he has found out how Ifeel. That's why he didn't come to the funeral... Oh, I am verymiserable--I don't know what to do! ... Don't come near me, Jude,because you mustn't. Don't--don't!"
But he had jumped up and put his face against hers--or rather againsther ear, her face being inaccessible.
"I told you not to, Jude!"
"I know you did--I only wish to--console you! It all arose throughmy being married before we met, didn't it? You would have been mywife, Sue, wouldn't you, if it hadn't been for that?"
Instead of replying she rose quickly, and saying she was going towalk to her aunt's grave in the churchyard to recover herself, wentout of the house. Jude did not follow her. Twenty minutes later hesaw her cross the village green towards Mrs. Edlin's, and soon shesent a little girl to fetch her bag, and tell him she was too tiredto see him again that night.
In the lonely room of his aunt's house, Jude sat watching thecottage of the Widow Edlin as it disappeared behind the night shade.He knew that Sue was sitting within its walls equally lonely anddisheartened; and again questioned his devotional motto that all wasfor the best.
He retired to rest early, but his sleep was fitful from the sensethat Sue was so near at hand. At some time near two o'clock, whenhe was beginning to sleep more soundly, he was aroused by a shrillsqueak that had been familiar enough to him when he lived regularlyat Marygreen. It was the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin. As wasthe little creature's habit, it did not soon repeat its cry; andprobably would not do so more than once or twice; but would remainbearing its torture till the morrow when the trapper would come andknock it on the head.
He who in his childhood had saved the lives of the earthworms nowbegan to picture the agonies of the rabbit from its lacerated leg.If it were a "bad catch" by the hind-leg, the animal would tugduring the ensuing six hours till the iron teeth of the trap hadstripped the leg-bone of its flesh, when, should a weak-springedinstrument enable it to escape, it would die in the fields from themortification of the limb. If it were a "good catch," namely, by thefore-leg, the bone would be broken and the limb nearly torn in two inattempts at an impossible escape.
Almost half an hour passed, and the rabbit repeated its cry. Judecould rest no longer till he had put it out of its pain, so dressinghimself quickly he descended, and by the light of the moon wentacross the green in the direction of the sound. He reached the hedgebordering the widow's garden, when he stood still. The faint clickof the trap as dragged about by the writhing animal guided him now,and reaching the spot he struck the rabbit on the back of the neckwith the side of his palm, and it stretched itself out dead.
He was turning away when he saw a woman looking out of the opencasement at a window on the ground floor of the adjacent cottage."Jude!" said a voice timidly--Sue's voice. "It is you--is it not?"
"Yes, dear!"
"I haven't been able to sleep at all, and then I heard the rabbit,and couldn't help thinking of what it suffered, till I felt I mustcome down and kill it! But I am so glad you got there first... Theyought not to be allowed to set these steel traps, ought they!"
Jude had reached the window, which was quite a low one, so that shewas visible down to her waist. She let go the casement-stay and puther hand upon his, her moonlit face regarding him wistfully.
"Did it keep you awake?" he said.
"No--I was awake."
"How was that?"
"Oh, you know--now! I know you, with your religious doctrines, thinkthat a married woman in trouble of a kind like mine commits a mortalsin in making a man the confidant of it, as I did you. I wish Ihadn't, now!"
"Don't wish it, dear," he said. "That may have BEEN my view; but mydoctrines and I begin to part company."
"I knew it--I knew it! And that's why I vowed I wouldn't disturbyour belief. But--I am SO GLAD to see you!--and, oh, I didn't meanto see you again, now the last tie between us, Aunt Drusilla, isdead!"
Jude seized her hand and kissed it. "There is a stronger one left!"he said. "I'll never care about my doctrines or my religion anymore! Let them go! Let me help you, even if I do love you, and evenif you..."
"Don't say it!--I know what you mean; but I can't admit so much asthat. There! Guess what you like, but don't press me to answerquestions!"
"I wish you were happy, whatever I may be!"
"I CAN'T be! So few could enter into my feeling--they would say'twas my fanciful fastidiousness, or something of that sort, andcondemn me... It is none of the natural tragedies of love that'slove's usual tragedy in civilized life, but a tragedy artificiallymanufactured for people who in a natural state would find relief inparting! ... It would have been wrong, perhaps, for m
e to tell mydistress to you, if I had been able to tell it to anybody else. ButI have nobody. And I MUST tell somebody! Jude, before I marriedhim I had never thought out fully what marriage meant, even though Iknew. It was idiotic of me--there is no excuse. I was old enough,and I thought I was very experienced. So I rushed on, when I had gotinto that training school scrape, with all the cock-sureness of thefool that I was! ... I am certain one ought to be allowed to undowhat one had done so ignorantly! I daresay it happens to lots ofwomen, only they submit, and I kick... When people of a later agelook back upon the barbarous customs and superstitions of the timesthat we have the unhappiness to live in, what WILL they say!"
"You are very bitter, darling Sue! How I wish--I wish--"
"You must go in now!"
In a moment of impulse she bent over the sill, and laid her face uponhis hair, weeping, and then imprinting a scarcely perceptible littlekiss upon the top of his head, withdrawing quickly, so that he couldnot put his arms round her, as otherwise he unquestionably would havedone. She shut the casement, and he returned to his cottage.