III
When Sue reached home Jude was awaiting her at the door to take theinitial step towards their marriage. She clasped his arm, and theywent along silently together, as true comrades oft-times do. He sawthat she was preoccupied, and forbore to question her.
"Oh Jude--I've been talking to her," she said at last. "I wish Ihadn't! And yet it is best to be reminded of things."
"I hope she was civil."
"Yes. I--I can't help liking her--just a little bit! She's notan ungenerous nature; and I am so glad her difficulties have allsuddenly ended." She explained how Arabella had been summoned back,and would be enabled to retrieve her position. "I was referringto our old question. What Arabella has been saying to me has mademe feel more than ever how hopelessly vulgar an institution legalmarriage is--a sort of trap to catch a man--I can't bear to thinkof it. I wish I hadn't promised to let you put up the banns thismorning!"
"Oh, don't mind me. Any time will do for me. I thought you mightlike to get it over quickly, now."
"Indeed, I don't feel any more anxious now than I did before.Perhaps with any other man I might be a little anxious; but among thevery few virtues possessed by your family and mine, dear, I think Imay set staunchness. So I am not a bit frightened about losing you,now I really am yours and you really are mine. In fact, I am easierin my mind than I was, for my conscience is clear about Richard, whonow has a right to his freedom. I felt we were deceiving himbefore."
"Sue, you seem when you are like this to be one of the women of somegrand old civilization, whom I used to read about in my bygone,wasted, classical days, rather than a denizen of a mere Christiancountry. I almost expect you to say at these times that you havejust been talking to some friend whom you met in the Via Sacra,about the latest news of Octavia or Livia; or have been listening toAspasia's eloquence, or have been watching Praxiteles chiselling awayat his latest Venus, while Phryne made complaint that she was tiredof posing."
They had now reached the house of the parish clerk. Sue stood back,while her lover went up to the door. His hand was raised to knockwhen she said: "Jude!"
He looked round.
"Wait a minute, would you mind?"
He came back to her.
"Just let us think," she said timidly. "I had such a horrid dreamone night! ... And Arabella--"
"What did Arabella say to you?" he asked.
"Oh, she said that when people were tied up you could getthe law of a man better if he beat you--and how when couplesquarrelled... Jude, do you think that when you must have me withyou by law, we shall be so happy as we are now? The men and womenof our family are very generous when everything depends upon theirgoodwill, but they always kick against compulsion. Don't youdread the attitude that insensibly arises out of legal obligation?Don't you think it is destructive to a passion whose essence is itsgratuitousness?"
"Upon my word, love, you are beginning to frighten me, too, with allthis foreboding! Well, let's go back and think it over."
Her face brightened. "Yes--so we will!" said she. And they turnedfrom the clerk's door, Sue taking his arm and murmuring as theywalked on homeward:
Can you keep the bee from ranging, Or the ring-dove's neck from changing? No! Nor fetter'd love ...
They thought it over, or postponed thinking. Certainly theypostponed action, and seemed to live on in a dreamy paradise.At the end of a fortnight or three weeks matters remained unadvanced,and no banns were announced to the ears of any Aldbrickhamcongregation.
Whilst they were postponing and postponing thus a letter and anewspaper arrived before breakfast one morning from Arabella.Seeing the handwriting Jude went up to Sue's room and told her,and as soon as she was dressed she hastened down. Sue opened thenewspaper; Jude the letter. After glancing at the paper she heldacross the first page to him with her finger on a paragraph; but hewas so absorbed in his letter that he did not turn awhile.
"Look!" said she.
He looked and read. The paper was one that circulated in SouthLondon only, and the marked advertisement was simply the announcementof a marriage at St. John's Church, Waterloo Road, under the names,"CARTLETT--DONN"; the united pair being Arabella and the inn-keeper.
"Well, it is satisfactory," said Sue complacently. "Though, afterthis, it seems rather low to do likewise, and I am glad. However,she is provided for now in a way, I suppose, whatever her faults,poor thing. It is nicer that we are able to think that, than to beuneasy about her. I ought, too, to write to Richard and ask him howhe is getting on, perhaps?"
But Jude's attention was still absorbed. Having merely glancedat the announcement he said in a disturbed voice: "Listen to thisletter. What shall I say or do?"
THE THREE HORNS, LAMBETH.
DEAR JUDE (I won't be so distant as to call you Mr. Fawley),--I send to-day a newspaper, from which useful document you will learn that I was married over again to Cartlett last Tuesday. So that business is settled right and tight at last. But what I write about more particular is that private affair I wanted to speak to you on when I came down to Aldbrickham. I couldn't very well tell it to your lady friend, and should much have liked to let you know it by word of mouth, as I could have explained better than by letter. The fact is, Jude, that, though I have never informed you before, there was a boy born of our marriage, eight months after I left you, when I was at Sydney, living with my father and mother. All that is easily provable. As I had separated from you before I thought such a thing was going to happen, and I was over there, and our quarrel had been sharp, I did not think it convenient to write about the birth. I was then looking out for a good situation, so my parents took the child, and he has been with them ever since. That was why I did not mention it when I met you in Christminster, nor at the law proceedings. He is now of an intelligent age, of course, and my mother and father have lately written to say that, as they have rather a hard struggle over there, and I am settled comfortably here, they don't see why they should be encumbered with the child any longer, his parents being alive. I would have him with me here in a moment, but he is not old enough to be of any use in the bar nor will be for years and years, and naturally Cartlett might think him in the way. They have, however, packed him off to me in charge of some friends who happened to be coming home, and I must ask you to take him when he arrives, for I don't know what to do with him. He is lawfully yours, that I solemnly swear. If anybody says he isn't, call them brimstone liars, for my sake. Whatever I may have done before or afterwards, I was honest to you from the time we were married till I went away, and I remain, yours, &c.,
ARABELLA CARTLETT.
Sue's look was one of dismay. "What will you do, dear?" she askedfaintly.
Jude did not reply, and Sue watched him anxiously, with heavybreaths.
"It hits me hard!" said he in an under-voice. "It MAY be true!I can't make it out. Certainly, if his birth was exactly whenshe says, he's mine. I cannot think why she didn't tell me whenI met her at Christminster, and came on here that evening withher! ... Ah--I do remember now that she said something about havinga thing on her mind that she would like me to know, if ever we livedtogether again."
"The poor child seems to be wanted by nobody!" Sue replied, and hereyes filled.
Jude had by this time come to himself. "What a view of life hemust have, mine or not mine!" he said. "I must say that, if I werebetter off, I should not stop for a moment to think whose he mightbe. I would take him and bring him up. The beggarly question ofparentage--what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you cometo think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All thelittle ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults ofthe time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard ofparents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's,is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and othervirtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom."
Sue jumped up
and kissed Jude with passionate devotion. "Yes--soit is, dearest! And we'll have him here! And if he isn't yours itmakes it all the better. I do hope he isn't--though perhaps I oughtnot to feel quite that! If he isn't, I should like so much for usto have him as an adopted child!"
"Well, you must assume about him what is most pleasing to you, mycurious little comrade!" he said. "I feel that, anyhow, I don't liketo leave the unfortunate little fellow to neglect. Just think ofhis life in a Lambeth pothouse, and all its evil influences, with aparent who doesn't want him, and has, indeed, hardly seen him, anda stepfather who doesn't know him. 'Let the day perish wherein Iwas born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man childconceived!' That's what the boy--MY boy, perhaps, will find himselfsaying before long!"
"Oh no!"
"As I was the petitioner, I am really entitled to his custody, Isuppose."
"Whether or no, we must have him. I see that. I'll do the best Ican to be a mother to him, and we can afford to keep him somehow.I'll work harder. I wonder when he'll arrive?"
"In the course of a few weeks, I suppose."
"I wish--When shall we have courage to marry, Jude?"
"Whenever you have it, I think I shall. It remains with youentirely, dear. Only say the word, and it's done."
"Before the boy comes?"
"Certainly."
"It would make a more natural home for him, perhaps," she murmured.
Jude thereupon wrote in purely formal terms to request that the boyshould be sent on to them as soon as he arrived, making no remarkwhatever on the surprising nature of Arabella's information, norvouchsafing a single word of opinion on the boy's paternity, nor onwhether, had he known all this, his conduct towards her would havebeen quite the same.
In the down-train that was timed to reach Aldbrickham station aboutten o'clock the next evening, a small, pale child's face couldbe seen in the gloom of a third-class carriage. He had large,frightened eyes, and wore a white woollen cravat, over which akey was suspended round his neck by a piece of common string: thekey attracting attention by its occasional shine in the lamplight.In the band of his hat his half-ticket was stuck. His eyesremained mostly fixed on the back of the seat opposite, and neverturned to the window even when a station was reached and called.On the other seat were two or three passengers, one of them a workingwoman who held a basket on her lap, in which was a tabby kitten.The woman opened the cover now and then, whereupon the kitten wouldput out its head, and indulge in playful antics. At these thefellow-passengers laughed, except the solitary boy bearing the keyand ticket, who, regarding the kitten with his saucer eyes, seemedmutely to say: "All laughing comes from misapprehension. Rightlylooked at, there is no laughable thing under the sun."
Occasionally, at a stoppage, the guard would look into the compartmentand say to the boy, "All right, my man. Your box is safe in thevan." The boy would say, "Yes," without animation, would try tosmile, and fail.
He was Age masquerading as Juvenility, and doing it so badly thathis real self showed through crevices. A ground-swell from ancientyears of night seemed now and then to lift the child in this hismorning-life, when his face took a back view over some great Atlanticof Time, and appeared not to care about what it saw.
When the other travellers closed their eyes, which they did one byone--even the kitten curling itself up in the basket, weary of itstoo circumscribed play--the boy remained just as before. He thenseemed to be doubly awake, like an enslaved and dwarfed divinity,sitting passive and regarding his companions as if he saw their wholerounded lives rather than their immediate figures.
This was Arabella's boy. With her usual carelessness, she hadpostponed writing to Jude about him till the eve of his landing,when she could absolutely postpone no longer, though she had knownfor weeks of his approaching arrival, and had, as she truly said,visited Aldbrickham mainly to reveal the boy's existence and his nearhome-coming to Jude. This very day on which she had received herformer husband's answer at some time in the afternoon, the childreached the London Docks, and the family in whose charge he had come,having put him into a cab for Lambeth and directed the cabman to hismother's house, bade him good-bye, and went their way.
On his arrival at the Three Horns, Arabella had looked him over withan expression that was as good as saying, "You are very much what Iexpected you to be," had given him a good meal, a little money, and,late as it was getting, dispatched him to Jude by the next train,wishing her husband Cartlett, who was out, not to see him.
The train reached Aldbrickham, and the boy was deposited on thelonely platform beside his box. The collector took his ticket, and,with a meditative sense of the unfitness of things, asked him wherehe was going by himself at that time of night.
"Going to Spring Street," said the little one impassively.
"Why, that's a long way from here; a'most out in the country; and thefolks will be gone to bed."
"I've got to go there."
"You must have a fly for your box."
"No. I must walk."
"Oh well: you'd better leave your box here and send for it. There'sa 'bus goes half-way, but you'll have to walk the rest."
"I am not afraid."
"Why didn't your friends come to meet 'ee?"
"I suppose they didn't know I was coming."
"Who is your friends?"
"Mother didn't wish me to say."
"All I can do, then, is to take charge of this. Now walk as fast asyou can."
Saying nothing further the boy came out into the street, lookinground to see that nobody followed or observed him. When hehad walked some little distance he asked for the street of hisdestination. He was told to go straight on quite into the outskirtsof the place.
The child fell into a steady mechanical creep which had in it animpersonal quality--the movement of the wave, or of the breeze, orof the cloud. He followed his directions literally, without aninquiring gaze at anything. It could have been seen that the boy'sideas of life were different from those of the local boys. Childrenbegin with detail, and learn up to the general; they begin with thecontiguous, and gradually comprehend the universal. The boy seemedto have begun with the generals of life, and never to have concernedhimself with the particulars. To him the houses, the willows,the obscure fields beyond, were apparently regarded not as brickresidences, pollards, meadows; but as human dwellings in theabstract, vegetation, and the wide dark world.
He found the way to the little lane, and knocked at the door ofJude's house. Jude had just retired to bed, and Sue was about toenter her chamber adjoining when she heard the knock and came down.
"Is this where Father lives?" asked the child.
"Who?"
"Mr. Fawley, that's his name."
Sue ran up to Jude's room and told him, and he hurried down as soonas he could, though to her impatience he seemed long.
"What--is it he--so soon?" she asked as Jude came.
She scrutinized the child's features, and suddenly went away into thelittle sitting-room adjoining. Jude lifted the boy to a level withhimself, keenly regarded him with gloomy tenderness, and telling himhe would have been met if they had known of his coming so soon, sethim provisionally in a chair whilst he went to look for Sue, whosesupersensitiveness was disturbed, as he knew. He found her in thedark, bending over an arm-chair. He enclosed her with his arm, andputting his face by hers, whispered, "What's the matter?"
"What Arabella says is true--true! I see you in him!"
"Well: that's one thing in my life as it should be, at any rate."
"But the other half of him is--SHE! And that's what I can't bear!But I ought to--I'll try to get used to it; yes, I ought!"
"Jealous little Sue! I withdraw all remarks about your sexlessness.Never mind! Time may right things... And Sue, darling; I have anidea! We'll educate and train him with a view to the university.What I couldn't accomplish in my own person perhaps I can carry outthrough him? They are making it easier for poor students now, youknow."
>
"Oh you dreamer!" said she, and holding his hand returned to thechild with him. The boy looked at her as she had looked at him."Is it you who's my REAL mother at last?" he inquired.
"Why? Do I look like your father's wife?"
"Well, yes; 'cept he seems fond of you, and you of him. Can I callyou Mother?"
Then a yearning look came over the child and he began to cry. Suethereupon could not refrain from instantly doing likewise, being aharp which the least wind of emotion from another's heart could maketo vibrate as readily as a radical stir in her own.
"You may call me Mother, if you wish to, my poor dear!" she said,bending her cheek against his to hide her tears.
"What's this round your neck?" asked Jude with affected calmness.
"The key of my box that's at the station."
They bustled about and got him some supper, and made him up atemporary bed, where he soon fell asleep. Both went and looked athim as he lay.
"He called you Mother two or three times before he dropped off,"murmured Jude. "Wasn't it odd that he should have wanted to!"
"Well--it was significant," said Sue. "There's more for us to thinkabout in that one little hungry heart than in all the stars of thesky... I suppose, dear, we must pluck up courage, and get thatceremony over? It is no use struggling against the current, and Ifeel myself getting intertwined with my kind. Oh Jude, you'll loveme dearly, won't you, afterwards? I do want to be kind to thischild, and to be a mother to him; and our adding the legal form toour marriage might make it easier for me."