by Thomas Hardy
At nine o’clock the names were called, Sue’s being pronounced three times sonorously by Miss Traceley without eliciting an answer.
At a quarter past nine the seventy stood up to sing the “Evening Hymn,” and then knelt down to prayers. After prayers they went in to supper, and every girl’s thought was, Where is Sue Bridehead? Some of the students, who had seen Jude from the window, felt that they would not mind risking her punishment for the pleasure of being kissed by such a kindly-faced young men. Hardly one among them believed in the cousinship.
Half an hour later they all lay in their cubicles, their tender feminine faces upturned to the flaring gas-jets which at intervals stretched down the long dormitories, every face bearing the legend “The Weaker” upon it, as the penalty of the sex wherein they were moulded, which by no possible exertion of their willing hearts and abilities could be made strong while the inexorable laws of nature remain what they are. They formed a pretty, suggestive, pathetic sight, of whose pathos and beauty they were themselves unconscious, and would not discover till, amid the storms and strains of after-years, with their injustice, loneliness, child-bearing, and bereavement, their minds would revert to this experience as to something which had been allowed to slip past them insufficiently regarded.
One of the mistresses came in to turn out the lights, and before doing so gave a final glance at Sue’s cot, which remained empty, and at her little dressing-table at the foot, which, like all the rest, was ornamented with various girlish trifles, framed photographs being not the least conspicuous among them. Sue’s table had a moderate show, two men in their filigree and velvet frames standing together beside her looking-glass.
“Who are these men — did she ever say?” asked the mistress. “Strictly speaking, relations’ portraits only are allowed on these tables, you know.”
“One — the middle-aged man,” said a student in the next bed — ”is the schoolmaster she served under — Mr. Phillotson.”
“And the other — this undergraduate in cap and gown — who is he?”
“He is a friend, or was. She has never told his name.”
“Was it either of these two who came for her?”
“No.”
“You are sure ‘twas not the undergraduate?”
“Quite. He was a young man with a black beard.”
The lights were promptly extinguished, and till they fell asleep the girls indulged in conjectures about Sue, and wondered what games she had carried on in London and at Christminster before she came here, some of the more restless ones getting out of bed and looking from the mullioned windows at the vast west front of the cathedral opposite, and the spire rising behind it.
When they awoke the next morning they glanced into Sue’s nook, to find it still without a tenant. After the early lessons by gas-light, in half-toilet, and when they had come up to dress for breakfast, the bell of the entrance gate was heard to ring loudly. The mistress of the dormitory went away, and presently came back to say that the principal’s orders were that nobody was to speak to Bridehead without permission.
When, accordingly, Sue came into the dormitory to hastily tidy herself, looking flushed and tired, she went to her cubicle in silence, none of them coming out to greet her or to make inquiry. When they had gone downstairs they found that she did not follow them into the dining-hall to breakfast, and they then learnt that she had been severely reprimanded, and ordered to a solitary room for a week, there to be confined, and take her meals, and do all her reading.
At this the seventy murmured, the sentence being, they thought, too severe. A round robin was prepared and sent in to the principal, asking for a remission of Sue’s punishment. No notice was taken. Towards evening, when the geography mistress began dictating her subject, the girls in the class sat with folded arms.
“You mean that you are not going to work?” said the mistress at last. “I may as well tell you that it has been ascertained that the young man Bridehead stayed out with was not her cousin, for the very good reason that she has no such relative. We have written to Christminster to ascertain.”
“We are willing to take her word,” said the head girl.
“This young man was discharged from his work at Christminster for drunkenness and blasphemy in public-houses, and he has come here to live, entirely to be near her.”
However, they remained stolid and motionless, and the mistress left the room to inquire from her superiors what was to be done.
Presently, towards dusk, the pupils, as they sat, heard exclamations from the first-year’s girls in an adjoining classroom, and one rushed in to say that Sue Bridehead had got out of the back window of the room in which she had been confined, escaped in the dark across the lawn, and disappeared. How she had managed to get out of the garden nobody could tell, as it was bounded by the river at the bottom, and the side door was locked.
They went and looked at the empty room, the casement between the middle mullions of which stood open. The lawn was again searched with a lantern, every bush and shrub being examined, but she was nowhere hidden. Then the porter of the front gate was interrogated, and on reflection he said that he remembered hearing a sort of splashing in the stream at the back, but he had taken no notice, thinking some ducks had come down the river from above.
“She must have walked through the river!” said a mistress.
“Or drownded herself,” said the porter.
The mind of the matron was horrified — not so much at the possible death of Sue as at the possible half-column detailing that event in all the newspapers, which, added to the scandal of the year before, would give the college an unenviable notoriety for many months to come.
More lanterns were procured, and the river examined; and then, at last, on the opposite shore, which was open to the fields, some little boot-tracks were discerned in the mud, which left no doubt that the too excitable girl had waded through a depth of water reaching nearly to her shoulders — for this was the chief river of the county, and was mentioned in all the geography books with respect. As Sue had not brought disgrace upon the school by drowning herself, the matron began to speak superciliously of her, and to express gladness that she was gone.
On the self-same evening Jude sat in his lodgings by the Close Gate. Often at this hour after dusk he would enter the silent Close, and stand opposite the house that contained Sue, and watch the shadows of the girls’ heads passing to and fro upon the blinds, and wish he had nothing else to do but to sit reading and learning all day what many of the thoughtless inmates despised. But to-night, having finished tea and brushed himself up, he was deep in the perusal of the Twenty-ninth Volume of Pusey’s Library of the Fathers, a set of books which he had purchased of a second-hand dealer at a price that seemed to him to be one of miraculous cheapness for that invaluable work. He fancied he heard something rattle lightly against his window; then he heard it again. Certainly somebody had thrown gravel. He rose and gently lifted the sash.
“Jude!” (from below).
“Sue!”
“Yes — it is! Can I come up without being seen?”
“Oh yes!”
“Then don’t come down. Shut the window.”
Jude waited, knowing that she could enter easily enough, the front door being opened merely by a knob which anybody could turn, as in most old country towns. He palpitated at the thought that she had fled to him in her trouble as he had fled to her in his. What counterparts they were! He unlatched the door of his room, heard a stealthy rustle on the dark stairs, and in a moment she appeared in the light of his lamp. He went up to seize her hand, and found she was clammy as a marine deity, and that her clothes clung to her like the robes upon the figures in the Parthenon frieze.
“I’m so cold!” she said through her chattering teeth. “Can I come by your fire, Jude?”
She crossed to his little grate and very little fire, but as the water dripped from her as she moved, the idea of drying herself was absurd. “Whatever have you done, darling?” he asked, w
ith alarm, the tender epithet slipping out unawares.
“Walked through the largest river in the county — that’s what I’ve done! They locked me up for being out with you; and it seemed so unjust that I couldn’t bear it, so I got out of the window and escaped across the stream!” She had begun the explanation in her usual slightly independent tones, but before she had finished the thin pink lips trembled, and she could hardly refrain from crying.
“Dear Sue!” he said. “You must take off all your things! And let me see — you must borrow some from the landlady. I’ll ask her.”
“No, no! Don’t let her know, for God’s sake! We are so near the school that they’ll come after me!”
“Then you must put on mine. You don’t mind?”
“Oh no.”
“My Sunday suit, you know. It is close here.” In fact, everything was close and handy in Jude’s single chamber, because there was not room for it to be otherwise. He opened a drawer, took out his best dark suit, and giving the garments a shake, said, “Now, how long shall I give you?”
“Ten minutes.”
Jude left the room and went into the street, where he walked up and down. A clock struck half-past seven, and he returned. Sitting in his only arm-chair he saw a slim and fragile being masquerading as himself on a Sunday, so pathetic in her defencelessness that his heart felt big with the sense of it. On two other chairs before the fire were her wet garments. She blushed as he sat down beside her, but only for a moment.
“I suppose, Jude, it is odd that you should see me like this and all my things hanging there? Yet what nonsense! They are only a woman’s clothes — sexless cloth and linen… I wish I didn’t feel so ill and sick! Will you dry my clothes now? Please do, Jude, and I’ll get a lodging by and by. It is not late yet.”
“No, you shan’t, if you are ill. You must stay here. Dear, dear Sue, what can I get for you?”
“I don’t know! I can’t help shivering. I wish I could get warm.” Jude put on her his great-coat in addition, and then ran out to the nearest public-house, whence he returned with a little bottle in his hand. “Here’s six of best brandy,” he said. “Now you drink it, dear; all of it.”
“I can’t out of the bottle, can I?” Jude fetched the glass from the dressing-table, and administered the spirit in some water. She gasped a little, but gulped it down, and lay back in the armchair.
She then began to relate circumstantially her experiences since they had parted; but in the middle of her story her voice faltered, her head nodded, and she ceased. She was in a sound sleep. Jude, dying of anxiety lest she should have caught a chill which might permanently injure her, was glad to hear the regular breathing. He softly went nearer to her, and observed that a warm flush now rosed her hitherto blue cheeks, and felt that her hanging hand was no longer cold. Then he stood with his back to the fire regarding her, and saw in her almost a divinity.
CHAPTER IV
Jude’s reverie was interrupted by the creak of footsteps ascending the stairs.
He whisked Sue’s clothing from the chair where it was drying, thrust it under the bed, and sat down to his book. Somebody knocked and opened the door immediately. It was the landlady.
“Oh, I didn’t know whether you was in or not, Mr. Fawley. I wanted to know if you would require supper. I see you’ve a young gentleman — ”
“Yes, ma’am. But I think I won’t come down to-night. Will you bring supper up on a tray, and I’ll have a cup of tea as well.”
It was Jude’s custom to go downstairs to the kitchen, and eat his meals with the family, to save trouble. His landlady brought up the supper, however, on this occasion, and he took it from her at the door.
When she had descended he set the teapot on the hob, and drew out Sue’s clothes anew; but they were far from dry. A thick woollen gown, he found, held a deal of water. So he hung them up again, and enlarged his fire and mused as the steam from the garments went up the chimney.
Suddenly she said, “Jude!”
“Yes. All right. How do you feel now?”
“Better. Quite well. Why, I fell asleep, didn’t I? What time is it? Not late surely?”
“It is past ten.”
“Is it really? What shall I do!” she said, starting up.
“Stay where you are.”
“Yes; that’s what I want to do. But I don’t know what they would say! And what will you do?”
“I am going to sit here by the fire all night, and read. To-morrow is Sunday, and I haven’t to go out anywhere. Perhaps you will be saved a severe illness by resting there. Don’t be frightened. I’m all right. Look here, what I have got for you. Some supper.”
When she had sat upright she breathed plaintively and said, “I do feel rather weak still. I thought I was well; and I ought not to be here, ought I?” But the supper fortified her somewhat, and when she had had some tea and had lain back again she was bright and cheerful.
The tea must have been green, or too long drawn, for she seemed preternaturally wakeful afterwards, though Jude, who had not taken any, began to feel heavy; till her conversation fixed his attention.
“You called me a creature of civilization, or something, didn’t you?” she said, breaking a silence. “It was very odd you should have done that.”
“Why?”
“Well, because it is provokingly wrong. I am a sort of negation of it.”
“You are very philosophical. ‘A negation’ is profound talking.”
“Is it? Do I strike you as being learned?” she asked, with a touch of raillery.
“No — not learned. Only you don’t talk quite like a girl — well, a girl who has had no advantages.”
“I have had advantages. I don’t know Latin and Greek, though I know the grammars of those tongues. But I know most of the Greek and Latin classics through translations, and other books too. I read Lemprière, Catullus, Martial, Juvenal, Lucian, Beaumont and Fletcher, Boccaccio, Scarron, De Brantôme, Sterne, De Foe, Smollett, Fielding, Shakespeare, the Bible, and other such; and found that all interest in the unwholesome part of those books ended with its mystery.”
“You have read more than I,” he said with a sigh. “How came you to read some of those queerer ones?”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “it was by accident. My life has been entirely shaped by what people call a peculiarity in me. I have no fear of men, as such, nor of their books. I have mixed with them — one or two of them particularly — almost as one of their own sex. I mean I have not felt about them as most women are taught to feel — to be on their guard against attacks on their virtue; for no average man — no man short of a sensual savage — will molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him. Until she says by a look ‘Come on’ he is always afraid to, and if you never say it, or look it, he never comes. However, what I was going to say is that when I was eighteen I formed a friendly intimacy with an undergraduate at Christminster, and he taught me a great deal, and lent me books which I should never have got hold of otherwise.”
“Is your friendship broken off?”
“Oh yes. He died, poor fellow, two or three years after he had taken his degree and left Christminster.”
“You saw a good deal of him, I suppose?”
“Yes. We used to go about together — on walking tours, reading tours, and things of that sort — like two men almost. He asked me to live with him, and I agreed to by letter. But when I joined him in London I found he meant a different thing from what I meant. He wanted me to be his mistress, in fact, but I wasn’t in love with him — and on my saying I should go away if he didn’t agree to my plan, he did so. We shared a sitting-room for fifteen months; and he became a leader-writer for one of the great London dailies; till he was taken ill, and had to go abroad. He said I was breaking his heart by holding out against him so long at such close quarters; he could never have believed it of woman. I might play that game once too often, he said. He came home merely to die. His death caused a terrible remorse in me fo
r my cruelty — though I hope he died of consumption and not of me entirely. I went down to Sandbourne to his funeral, and was his only mourner. He left me a little money — because I broke his heart, I suppose. That’s how men are — so much better than women!”
“Good heavens! — what did you do then?”
“Ah — now you are angry with me!” she said, a contralto note of tragedy coming suddenly into her silvery voice. “I wouldn’t have told you if I had known!”
“No, I am not. Tell me all.”
“Well, I invested his money, poor fellow, in a bubble scheme, and lost it. I lived about London by myself for some time, and then I returned to Christminster, as my father — who was also in London, and had started as an art metal-worker near Long-Acre — wouldn’t have me back; and I got that occupation in the artist-shop where you found me… I said you didn’t know how bad I was!”
Jude looked round upon the arm-chair and its occupant, as if to read more carefully the creature he had given shelter to. His voice trembled as he said: “However you have lived, Sue, I believe you are as innocent as you are unconventional!”
“I am not particularly innocent, as you see, now that I have
‘twitched the robe
From that blank lay-figure your fancy draped,’“
said she, with an ostensible sneer, though he could hear that she was brimming with tears. “But I have never yielded myself to any lover, if that’s what you mean! I have remained as I began.”
“I quite believe you. But some women would not have remained as they began.”
“Perhaps not. Better women would not. People say I must be cold-natured — sexless — on account of it. But I won’t have it! Some of the most passionately erotic poets have been the most self-contained in their daily lives.”
