Jude the Obscure

VII

Tidings from Sue a day or two after passed across Jude like awithering blast.

Before reading the letter he was led to suspect that its contentswere of a somewhat serious kind by catching sight of thesignature--which was in her full name, never used in hercorrespondence with him since her first note:

MY DEAR JUDE,--I have something to tell you which perhaps you will not be surprised to hear, though certainly it may strike you as being accelerated (as the railway companies say of their trains). Mr. Phillotson and I are to be married quite soon--in three or four weeks. We had intended, as you know, to wait till I had gone through my course of training and obtained my certificate, so as to assist him, if necessary, in the teaching. But he generously says he does not see any object in waiting, now I am not at the training school. It is so good of him, because the awkwardness of my situation has really come about by my fault in getting expelled.

Wish me joy. Remember I say you are to, and you mustn't refuse!--Your affectionate cousin,

SUSANNA FLORENCE MARY BRIDEHEAD.

Jude staggered under the news; could eat no breakfast; and kept ondrinking tea because his mouth was so dry. Then presently he wentback to his work and laughed the usual bitter laugh of a man soconfronted. Everything seemed turning to satire. And yet, whatcould the poor girl do? he asked himself, and felt worse thanshedding tears.

”O Susanna Florence Mary!” he said as he worked. ”You don't knowwhat marriage means!”

Could it be possible that his announcement of his own marriage hadpricked her on to this, just as his visit to her when in liquor mayhave pricked her on to her engagement? To be sure, there seemed toexist these other and sufficient reasons, practical and social, forher decision; but Sue was not a very practical or calculating person;and he was compelled to think that a pique at having his secretsprung upon her had moved her to give way to Phillotson's probablerepresentations, that the best course to prove how unfounded were thesuspicions of the school authorities would be to marry him off-hand,as in fulfilment of an ordinary engagement. Sue had, in fact, beenplaced in an awkward corner. Poor Sue!

He determined to play the Spartan; to make the best of it, andsupport her; but he could not write the requested good wishes for aday or two. Meanwhile there came another note from his impatientlittle dear:

Jude, will you give me away? I have nobody else who could do it so conveniently as you, being the only married relation I have here on the spot, even if my father were friendly enough to be willing, which he isn't. I hope you won't think it a trouble? I have been looking at the marriage service in the prayer-book, and it seems to me very humiliating that a giver-away should be required at all. According to the ceremony as there printed, my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure; but I don't choose him. Somebody GIVES me to him, like a she-ass or she-goat, or any other domestic animal. Bless your exalted views of woman, O churchman! But I forget: I am no longer privileged to tease you.--Ever,

SUSANNA FLORENCE MARY BRIDEHEAD.

Jude screwed himself up to heroic key; and replied:

MY DEAR SUE,--Of course I wish you joy! And also of course I will give you away. What I suggest is that, as you have no house of your own, you do not marry from your school friend's, but from mine. It would be more proper, I think, since I am, as you say, the person nearest related to you in this part of the world.

I don't see why you sign your letter in such a new and terribly formal way? Surely you care a bit about me still!--Ever your affectionate,

JUDE.

What had jarred on him even more than the signature was a littlesting he had been silent on--the phrase ”married relation”--What anidiot it made him seem as her lover! If Sue had written that insatire, he could hardly forgive her; if in suffering--ah, that wasanother thing!

His offer of his lodging must have commended itself to Phillotsonat any rate, for the schoolmaster sent him a line of warm thanks,accepting the convenience. Sue also thanked him. Jude immediatelymoved into more commodious quarters, as much to escape the espionageof the suspicious landlady who had been one cause of Sue's unpleasantexperience as for the sake of room.

Then Sue wrote to tell him the day fixed for the wedding; and Judedecided, after inquiry, that she should come into residence on thefollowing Saturday, which would allow of a ten days' stay in the cityprior to the ceremony, sufficiently representing a nominal residenceof fifteen.

She arrived by the ten o'clock train on the day aforesaid, Jude notgoing to meet her at the station, by her special request, that heshould not lose a morning's work and pay, she said (if this wereher true reason). But so well by this time did he know Sue that theremembrance of their mutual sensitiveness at emotional crises might,he thought, have weighed with her in this. When he came home todinner she had taken possession of her apartment.

She lived in the same house with him, but on a different floor, andthey saw each other little, an occasional supper being the only mealthey took together, when Sue's manner was something like that of ascared child. What she felt he did not know; their conversation wasmechanical, though she did not look pale or ill. Phillotson camefrequently, but mostly when Jude was absent. On the morning of thewedding, when Jude had given himself a holiday, Sue and her cousinhad breakfast together for the first and last time during thiscurious interval; in his room--the parlour--which he had hired forthe period of Sue's residence. Seeing, as women do, how helpless hewas in making the place comfortable, she bustled about.

”What's the matter, Jude?” she said suddenly.

He was leaning with his elbows on the table and his chin on hishands, looking into a futurity which seemed to be sketched out on thetablecloth.

”Oh--nothing!”

”You are 'father', you know. That's what they call the man who givesyou away.”

Jude could have said ”Phillotson's age entitles him to be calledthat!” But he would not annoy her by such a cheap retort.

She talked incessantly, as if she dreaded his indulgence inreflection, and before the meal was over both he and she wished theyhad not put such confidence in their new view of things, and hadtaken breakfast apart. What oppressed Jude was the thought that,having done a wrong thing of this sort himself, he was aiding andabetting the woman he loved in doing a like wrong thing, instead ofimploring and warning her against it. It was on his tongue to say,”You have quite made up your mind?”

After breakfast they went out on an errand together moved by a mutualthought that it was the last opportunity they would have of indulgingin unceremonious companionship. By the irony of fate, and thecurious trick in Sue's nature of tempting Providence at criticaltimes, she took his arm as they walked through the muddy street--athing she had never done before in her life--and on turning thecorner they found themselves close to a grey perpendicular churchwith a low-pitched roof--the church of St. Thomas.

”That's the church,” said Jude.

”Where I am going to be married?”

”Yes.”

”Indeed!” she exclaimed with curiosity. ”How I should like to go inand see what the spot is like where I am so soon to kneel and do it.”

Again he said to himself, ”She does not realize what marriage means!”

He passively acquiesced in her wish to go in, and they entered bythe western door. The only person inside the gloomy building wasa charwoman cleaning. Sue still held Jude's arm, almost as if sheloved him. Cruelly sweet, indeed, she had been to him that morning;but his thoughts of a penance in store for her were tempered by anache:

... I can find no way How a blow should fall, such as falls on men, Nor prove too much for your womanhood!

They strolled undemonstratively up the nave towards the altarrailing, which they stood against in silence, turning then andwalking down the nave again, her hand still on his arm, preciselylike a couple just married. The too suggestive incident, entirelyof her making, nearly broke down Jude.

”I like to do things like this,” she said in the delicate voice of anepicure in emotions, which left no doubt that she spoke the truth.

”I know you do!” said Jude.

”They are interesting, because they have probably never been donebefore. I shall walk down the church like this with my husband inabout two hours, shan't I!”

”No doubt you will!”

”Was it like this when you were married?”

”Good God, Sue--don't be so awfully merciless! ... There, dear one,I didn't mean it!”

”Ah--you are vexed!” she said regretfully, as she blinked away anaccess of eye moisture. ”And I promised never to vex you! ... Isuppose I ought not to have asked you to bring me in here. Oh, Ioughtn't! I see it now. My curiosity to hunt up a new sensationalways leads me into these scrapes. Forgive me! ... You will, won'tyou, Jude?”

The appeal was so remorseful that Jude's eyes were even wetter thanhers as he pressed her hand for Yes.

”Now we'll hurry away, and I won't do it any more!” she continuedhumbly; and they came out of the building, Sue intending to goon to the station to meet Phillotson. But the first person theyencountered on entering the main street was the schoolmaster himself,whose train had arrived sooner than Sue expected. There was nothingreally to demur to in her leaning on Jude's arm; but she withdrew herhand, and Jude thought that Phillotson had looked surprised.

”We have been doing such a funny thing!” said she, smiling candidly.”We've been to the church, rehearsing as it were. Haven't we, Jude?”

”How?” said Phillotson curiously.

Jude inwardly deplored what he thought to be unnecessary frankness;but she had gone too far not to explain all, which she accordinglydid, telling him how they had marched up to the altar.

Seeing how puzzled Phillotson seemed, Jude said as cheerfully as hecould, ”I am going to buy her another little present. Will you bothcome to the shop with me?”

”No,” said Sue, ”I'll go on to the house with him”; and requestingher lover not to be a long time she departed with the schoolmaster.

Jude soon joined them at his rooms, and shortly after they preparedfor the ceremony. Phillotson's hair was brushed to a painfulextent, and his shirt collar appeared stiffer than it had been forthe previous twenty years. Beyond this he looked dignified andthoughtful, and altogether a man of whom it was not unsafe to predictthat he would make a kind and considerate husband. That he adoredSue was obvious; and she could almost be seen to feel that she wasundeserving his adoration.

Although the distance was so short he had hired a fly from the RedLion, and six or seven women and children had gathered by the doorwhen they came out. The schoolmaster and Sue were unknown, thoughJude was getting to be recognized as a citizen; and the couple werejudged to be some relations of his from a distance, nobody supposingSue to have been a recent pupil at the training school.

In the carriage Jude took from his pocket his extra littlewedding-present, which turned out to be two or three yards of whitetulle, which he threw over her bonnet and all, as a veil.

”It looks so odd over a bonnet,” she said. ”I'll take the bonnetoff.”

”Oh no--let it stay,” said Phillotson. And she obeyed.

When they had passed up the church and were standing in their placesJude found that the antecedent visit had certainly taken off the edgeof this performance, but by the time they were half-way on with theservice he wished from his heart that he had not undertaken thebusiness of giving her away. How could Sue have had the temerity toask him to do it--a cruelty possibly to herself as well as to him?Women were different from men in such matters. Was it that theywere, instead of more sensitive, as reputed, more callous, and lessromantic; or were they more heroic? Or was Sue simply so perversethat she wilfully gave herself and him pain for the odd and mournfulluxury of practising long-suffering in her own person, and of beingtouched with tender pity for him at having made him practise it? Hecould perceive that her face was nervously set, and when they reachedthe trying ordeal of Jude giving her to Phillotson she could hardlycommand herself; rather, however, as it seemed, from her knowledge ofwhat her cousin must feel, whom she need not have had there at all,than from self-consideration. Possibly she would go on inflictingsuch pains again and again, and grieving for the sufferer again andagain, in all her colossal inconsistency.

Phillotson seemed not to notice, to be surrounded by a mist whichprevented his seeing the emotions of others. As soon as they hadsigned their names and come away, and the suspense was over, Judefelt relieved.

The meal at his lodging was a very simple affair, and at two o'clockthey went off. In crossing the pavement to the fly she looked back;and there was a frightened light in her eyes. Could it be that Suehad acted with such unusual foolishness as to plunge into she knewnot what for the sake of asserting her independence of him, ofretaliating on him for his secrecy? Perhaps Sue was thus venturesomewith men because she was childishly ignorant of that side of theirnatures which wore out women's hearts and lives.

When her foot was on the carriage-step she turned round, saying thatshe had forgotten something. Jude and the landlady offered to getit.

”No,” she said, running back. ”It is my handkerchief. I know whereI left it.”

Jude followed her back. She had found it, and came holding it in herhand. She looked into his eyes with her own tearful ones, and herlips suddenly parted as if she were going to avow something. But shewent on; and whatever she had meant to say remained unspoken.