V
Four-and-twenty hours before this time Sue had written the followingnote to Jude:
It is as I told you; and I am leaving to-morrow evening. Richard and I thought it could be done with less obtrusiveness after dark. I feel rather frightened, and therefore ask you to be sure you are on the Melchester platform to meet me. I arrive at a little to seven. I know you will, of course, dear Jude; but I feel so timid that I can't help begging you to be punctual. He has been so VERY kind to me through it all!
Now to our meeting!
S.
As she was carried by the omnibus farther and farther down fromthe mountain town--the single passenger that evening--she regardedthe receding road with a sad face. But no hesitation was apparenttherein.
The up-train by which she was departing stopped by signal only. ToSue it seemed strange that such a powerful organization as a railwaytrain should be brought to a stand-still on purpose for her--afugitive from her lawful home.
The twenty minutes' journey drew towards its close, and Sue begangathering her things together to alight. At the moment that thetrain came to a stand-still by the Melchester platform a hand waslaid on the door and she beheld Jude. He entered the compartmentpromptly. He had a black bag in his hand, and was dressed inthe dark suit he wore on Sundays and in the evening after work.Altogether he looked a very handsome young fellow, his ardentaffection for her burning in his eyes.
"Oh Jude!" She clasped his hand with both hers, and her tense statecaused her to simmer over in a little succession of dry sobs. "I--Iam so glad! I get out here?"
"No. I get in, dear one! I've packed. Besides this bag I've only abig box which is labelled."
"But don't I get out? Aren't we going to stay here?"
"We couldn't possibly, don't you see. We are known here--I, at anyrate, am well known. I've booked for Aldbrickham; and here's yourticket for the same place, as you have only one to here."
"I thought we should have stayed here," she repeated.
"It wouldn't have done at all."
"Ah! Perhaps not."
"There wasn't time for me to write and say the place I had decidedon. Aldbrickham is a much bigger town--sixty or seventy thousandinhabitants--and nobody knows anything about us there."
"And you have given up your cathedral work here?"
"Yes. It was rather sudden--your message coming unexpectedly.Strictly, I might have been made to finish out the week. But Ipleaded urgency and I was let off. I would have deserted any day atyour command, dear Sue. I have deserted more than that for you!"
"I fear I am doing you a lot of harm. Ruining your prospects of theChurch; ruining your progress in your trade; everything!"
"The Church is no more to me. Let it lie! _I_ am not to be one of
The soldier-saints who, row on row, Burn upward each to his point of bliss,
if any such there be! My point of bliss is not upward, but here."
"Oh I seem so bad--upsetting men's courses like this!" said she,taking up in her voice the emotion that had begun in his. But sherecovered her equanimity by the time they had travelled a dozenmiles.
"He has been so good in letting me go," she resumed. "And here's anote I found on my dressing-table, addressed to you."
"Yes. He's not an unworthy fellow," said Jude, glancing at the note."And I am ashamed of myself for hating him because he married you."
"According to the rule of women's whims I suppose I ought to suddenlylove him, because he has let me go so generously and unexpectedly,"she answered smiling. "But I am so cold, or devoid of gratitude, orso something, that even this generosity hasn't made me love him, orrepent, or want to stay with him as his wife; although I do feel Ilike his large-mindedness, and respect him more than ever."
"It may not work so well for us as if he had been less kind, and youhad run away against his will," murmured Jude.
"That I NEVER would have done."
Jude's eyes rested musingly on her face. Then he suddenly kissedher; and was going to kiss her again. "No--only once now--please,Jude!"
"That's rather cruel," he answered; but acquiesced. "Such a strangething has happened to me," Jude continued after a silence. "Arabellahas actually written to ask me to get a divorce from her--in kindnessto her, she says. She wants to honestly and legally marry that manshe has already married virtually; and begs me to enable her to doit."
"What have you done?"
"I have agreed. I thought at first I couldn't do it without gettingher into trouble about that second marriage, and I don't want toinjure her in any way. Perhaps she's no worse than I am, after all!But nobody knows about it over here, and I find it will not be adifficult proceeding at all. If she wants to start afresh I haveonly too obvious reasons for not hindering her."
"Then you'll be free?"
"Yes, I shall be free."
"Where are we booked for?" she asked, with the discontinuity thatmarked her to-night.
"Aldbrickham, as I said."
"But it will be very late when we get there?"
"Yes. I thought of that, and I wired for a room for us at theTemperance Hotel there."
"One?"
"Yes--one."
She looked at him. "Oh Jude!" Sue bent her forehead against thecorner of the compartment. "I thought you might do it; and that Iwas deceiving you. But I didn't mean that!"
In the pause which followed, Jude's eyes fixed themselves witha stultified expression on the opposite seat. "Well!" hesaid... "Well!"
He remained in silence; and seeing how discomfited he was she put herface against his cheek, murmuring, "Don't be vexed, dear!"
"Oh--there's no harm done," he said. "But--I understood it likethat... Is this a sudden change of mind?"
"You have no right to ask me such a question; and I shan't answer!"she said, smiling.
"My dear one, your happiness is more to me than anything--although weseem to verge on quarrelling so often!--and your will is law to me.I am something more than a mere--selfish fellow, I hope. Have it asyou wish!" On reflection his brow showed perplexity. "But perhapsit is that you don't love me--not that you have become conventional!Much as, under your teaching, I hate convention, I hope it IS that,not the other terrible alternative!"
Even at this obvious moment for candour Sue could not be quite candidas to the state of that mystery, her heart. "Put it down to mytimidity," she said with hurried evasiveness; "to a woman's naturaltimidity when the crisis comes. I may feel as well as you that Ihave a perfect right to live with you as you thought--from thismoment. I may hold the opinion that, in a proper state of society,the father of a woman's child will be as much a private matter ofhers as the cut of her underlinen, on whom nobody will have anyright to question her. But partly, perhaps, because it is by hisgenerosity that I am now free, I would rather not be other than alittle rigid. If there had been a rope-ladder, and he had run afterus with pistols, it would have seemed different, and I may have actedotherwise. But don't press me and criticize me, Jude! Assume thatI haven't the courage of my opinions. I know I am a poor miserablecreature. My nature is not so passionate as yours!"
He repeated simply! "I thought--what I naturally thought. But if weare not lovers, we are not. Phillotson thought so, I am sure. See,here is what he has written to me." He opened the letter she hadbrought, and read:
"I make only one condition--that you are tender and kind to her. Iknow you love her. But even love may be cruel at times. You aremade for each other: it is obvious, palpable, to any unbiased olderperson. You were all along 'the shadowy third' in my short life withher. I repeat, take care of Sue."
"He's a good fellow, isn't he!" she said with latent tears. Onreconsideration she added, "He was very resigned to letting mego--too resigned almost! I never was so near being in love with himas when he made such thoughtful arrangements for my being comfortableon my journey, and offering to provide money. Yet I was not. If Iloved him ever so little
as a wife, I'd go back to him even now."
"But you don't, do you?"
"It is true--oh so terribly true!--I don't."
"Nor me neither, I half-fear!" he said pettishly. "Nor anybodyperhaps! Sue, sometimes, when I am vexed with you, I think you areincapable of real love."
"That's not good and loyal of you!" she said, and drawing away fromhim as far as she could, looked severely out into the darkness. Sheadded in hurt tones, without turning round: "My liking for you isnot as some women's perhaps. But it is a delight in being with you,of a supremely delicate kind, and I don't want to go further and riskit by--an attempt to intensify it! I quite realized that, as womanwith man, it was a risk to come. But, as me with you, I resolved totrust you to set my wishes above your gratification. Don't discussit further, dear Jude!"
"Of course, if it would make you reproach yourself... but you dolike me very much, Sue? Say you do! Say that you do a quarter, atenth, as much as I do you, and I'll be content!"
"I've let you kiss me, and that tells enough."
"Just once or so!"
"Well--don't be a greedy boy."
He leant back, and did not look at her for a long time. Thatepisode in her past history of which she had told him--of the poorChristminster graduate whom she had handled thus, returned to Jude'smind; and he saw himself as a possible second in such a torturingdestiny.
"This is a queer elopement!" he murmured. "Perhaps you are makinga cat's paw of me with Phillotson all this time. Upon my word italmost seems so--to see you sitting up there so prim!"
"Now you mustn't be angry--I won't let you!" she coaxed, turning andmoving nearer to him. "You did kiss me just now, you know; and Ididn't dislike you to, I own it, Jude. Only I don't want to let youdo it again, just yet--considering how we are circumstanced, don'tyou see!"
He could never resist her when she pleaded (as she well knew). Andthey sat side by side with joined hands, till she aroused herself atsome thought.
"I can't possibly go to that Temperance Inn, after your telegraphingthat message!"
"Why not?"
"You can see well enough!"
"Very well; there'll be some other one open, no doubt. I havesometimes thought, since your marrying Phillotson because of a stupidscandal, that under the affectation of independent views you are asenslaved to the social code as any woman I know!"
"Not mentally. But I haven't the courage of my views, as I saidbefore. I didn't marry him altogether because of the scandal.But sometimes a woman's LOVE OF BEING LOVED gets the better of herconscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating aman cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't lovehim at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in,and she does what she can to repair the wrong."
"You simply mean that you flirted outrageously with him, poor oldchap, and then repented, and to make reparation, married him, thoughyou tortured yourself to death by doing it."
"Well--if you will put it brutally!--it was a little like that--thatand the scandal together--and your concealing from me what you oughtto have told me before!"
He could see that she was distressed and tearful at his criticisms,and soothed her, saying: "There, dear; don't mind! Crucify me, ifyou will! You know you are all the world to me, whatever you do!"
"I am very bad and unprincipled--I know you think that!" she said,trying to blink away her tears.
"I think and know you are my dear Sue, from whom neither length norbreadth, nor things present nor things to come, can divide me!"
Though so sophisticated in many things, she was such a child in othersthat this satisfied her, and they reached the end of their journeyon the best of terms. It was about ten o'clock when they arrived atAldbrickham, the county town of North Wessex. As she would not goto the Temperance Hotel because of the form of his telegram, Judeinquired for another; and a youth who volunteered to find one wheeledtheir luggage to the George farther on, which proved to be the inn atwhich Jude had stayed with Arabella on that one occasion of theirmeeting after their division for years.
Owing, however, to their now entering it by another door, and to hispreoccupation, he did not at first recognize the place. When theyhad engaged their respective rooms they went down to a late supper.During Jude's temporary absence the waiting-maid spoke to Sue.
"I think, ma'am, I remember your relation, or friend, or whatever heis, coming here once before--late, just like this, with his wife--alady, at any rate, that wasn't you by no manner of means--jest as medbe with you now."
"Oh do you?" said Sue, with a certain sickness of heart. "Though Ithink you must be mistaken! How long ago was it?"
"About a month or two. A handsome, full-figured woman. They hadthis room."
When Jude came back and sat down to supper Sue seemed moping andmiserable. "Jude," she said to him plaintively, at their partingthat night upon the landing, "it is not so nice and pleasant as itused to be with us! I don't like it here--I can't bear the place!And I don't like you so well as I did!"
"How fidgeted you seem, dear! Why do you change like this?"
"Because it was cruel to bring me here!"
"Why?"
"You were lately here with Arabella. There, now I have said it!"
"Dear me, why--" said Jude looking round him. "Yes--it is the same!I really didn't know it, Sue. Well--it is not cruel, since we havecome as we have--two relations staying together."
"How long ago was it you were here? Tell me, tell me!"
"The day before I met you in Christminster, when we went back toMarygreen together. I told you I had met her."
"Yes, you said you had met her, but you didn't tell me all. Yourstory was that you had met as estranged people, who were not husbandand wife at all in Heaven's sight--not that you had made it up withher."
"We didn't make it up," he said sadly. "I can't explain, Sue."
"You've been false to me; you, my last hope! And I shall neverforget it, never!"
"But by your own wish, dear Sue, we are only to be friends, notlovers! It is so very inconsistent of you to--"
"Friends can be jealous!"
"I don't see that. You concede nothing to me and I have to concedeeverything to you. After all, you were on good terms with yourhusband at that time."
"No, I wasn't, Jude. Oh how can you think so! And you have taken mein, even if you didn't intend to." She was so mortified that he wasobliged to take her into her room and close the door lest the peopleshould hear. "Was it this room? Yes it was--I see by your look itwas! I won't have it for mine! Oh it was treacherous of you to haveher again! _I_ jumped out of the window!"
"But Sue, she was, after all, my legal wife, if not--"
Slipping down on her knees Sue buried her face in the bed and wept.
"I never knew such an unreasonable--such a dog-in-the-mangerfeeling," said Jude. "I am not to approach you, nor anybody else!"
"Oh don't you UNDERSTAND my feeling? Why don't you? Why are you sogross? _I_ jumped out of the window!"
"Jumped out of window?"
"I can't explain!"
It was true that he did not understand her feelings very well. Buthe did a little; and began to love her none the less.
"I--I thought you cared for nobody--desired nobody in the world butme at that time--and ever since!" continued Sue.
"It is true. I did not, and don't now!" said Jude, as distressed asshe.
"But you must have thought much of her! Or--"
"No--I need not--you don't understand me either--women never do! Whyshould you get into such a tantrum about nothing?"
Looking up from the quilt she pouted provokingly: "If it hadn't beenfor that, perhaps I would have gone on to the Temperance Hotel, afterall, as you proposed; for I was beginning to think I did belong toyou!"
"Oh, it is of no consequence!" said Jude distantly.
"I thought, of course, that she had never been really your wife sinceshe left you of her own accord years and years ag
o! My sense of itwas, that a parting such as yours from her, and mine from him, endedthe marriage."
"I can't say more without speaking against her, and I don't wantto do that," said he. "Yet I must tell you one thing, which wouldsettle the matter in any case. She has married another man--reallymarried him! I knew nothing about it till after the visit we madehere."
"Married another? ... It is a crime--as the world treats it, butdoes not believe."
"There--now you are yourself again. Yes, it is a crime--as you don'thold, but would fearfully concede. But I shall never inform againsther! And it is evidently a prick of conscience in her that has ledher to urge me to get a divorce, that she may remarry this manlegally. So you perceive I shall not be likely to see her again."
"And you didn't really know anything of this when you saw her?" saidSue more gently, as she rose.
"I did not. Considering all things, I don't think you ought to beangry, darling!"
"I am not. But I shan't go to the Temperance Hotel!"
He laughed. "Never mind!" he said. "So that I am near you, I amcomparatively happy. It is more than this earthly wretch called Medeserves--you spirit, you disembodied creature, you dear, sweet,tantalizing phantom--hardly flesh at all; so that when I put my armsround you I almost expect them to pass through you as through air!Forgive me for being gross, as you call it! Remember that ourcalling cousins when really strangers was a snare. The enmity of ourparents gave a piquancy to you in my eyes that was intenser even thanthe novelty of ordinary new acquaintance."
"Say those pretty lines, then, from Shelley's 'Epipsychidion' as ifthey meant me!" she solicited, slanting up closer to him as theystood. "Don't you know them?"
"I know hardly any poetry," he replied mournfully.
"Don't you? These are some of them:
There was a Being whom my spirit oft Met on its visioned wanderings far aloft.
* * * * *
A seraph of Heaven, too gentle to be human, Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman...
Oh it is too flattering, so I won't go on! But say it's me! Sayit's me!"
"It is you, dear; exactly like you!"
"Now I forgive you! And you shall kiss me just once there--not verylong." She put the tip of her finger gingerly to her cheek; and hedid as commanded. "You do care for me very much, don't you, in spiteof my not--you know?"
"Yes, sweet!" he said with a sigh; and bade her good-night.