Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

by Thomas Hardy

  The farcical yet melancholy event was the beginning of a serious illness for him; and he lay in his lonely bed in the pathetic state of mind of a middle-aged man who perceives at length that his life, intellectual and domestic, is tending to failure and gloom. Gillingham came to see him in the evenings, and on one occasion mentioned Sue’s name.

  “She doesn’t care anything about me!” said Phillotson. “Why should she?”

  “She doesn’t know you are ill.”

  “So much the better for both of us.”

  “Where are her lover and she living?”

  “At Melchester — I suppose; at least he was living there some time ago.”

  When Gillingham reached home he sat and reflected, and at last wrote an anonymous line to Sue, on the bare chance of its reaching her, the letter being enclosed in an envelope addressed to Jude at the diocesan capital. Arriving at that place it was forwarded to Marygreen in North Wessex, and thence to Aldbrickham by the only person who knew his present address — the widow who had nursed his aunt.

  Three days later, in the evening, when the sun was going down in splendour over the lowlands of Blackmoor, and making the Shaston windows like tongues of fire to the eyes of the rustics in that vale, the sick man fancied that he heard somebody come to the house, and a few minutes after there was a tap at the bedroom door. Phillotson did not speak; the door was hesitatingly opened, and there entered — Sue.

  She was in light spring clothing, and her advent seemed ghostly — like the flitting in of a moth. He turned his eyes upon her, and flushed; but appeared to check his primary impulse to speak.

  “I have no business here,” she said, bending her frightened face to him. “But I heard you were ill — very ill; and — and as I know that you recognize other feelings between man and woman than physical love, I have come.”

  “I am not very ill, my dear friend. Only unwell.”

  “I didn’t know that; and I am afraid that only a severe illness would have justified my coming!”

  “Yes… yes. And I almost wish you had not come! It is a little too soon — that’s all I mean. Still, let us make the best of it. You haven’t heard about the school, I suppose?”

  “No — what about it?”

  “Only that I am going away from here to another place. The managers and I don’t agree, and we are going to part — that’s all.”

  Sue did not for a moment, either now or later, suspect what troubles had resulted to him from letting her go; it never once seemed to cross her mind, and she had received no news whatever from Shaston. They talked on slight and ephemeral subjects, and when his tea was brought up he told the amazed little servant that a cup was to be set for Sue. That young person was much more interested in their history than they supposed, and as she descended the stairs she lifted her eyes and hands in grotesque amazement. While they sipped Sue went to the window and thoughtfully said, “It is such a beautiful sunset, Richard.”

  “They are mostly beautiful from here, owing to the rays crossing the mist of the vale. But I lose them all, as they don’t shine into this gloomy corner where I lie.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to see this particular one? It is like heaven opened.”

  “Ah yes! But I can’t.”

  “I’ll help you to.”

  “No — the bedstead can’t be shifted.”

  “But see how I mean.”

  She went to where a swing-glass stood, and taking it in her hands carried it to a spot by the window where it could catch the sunshine, moving the glass till the beams were reflected into Phillotson’s face.

  “There — you can see the great red sun now!” she said. “And I am sure it will cheer you — I do so hope it will!” She spoke with a childlike, repentant kindness, as if she could not do too much for him.

  Phillotson smiled sadly. “You are an odd creature!” he murmured as the sun glowed in his eyes. “The idea of your coming to see me after what has passed!”

  “Don’t let us go back upon that!” she said quickly. “I have to catch the omnibus for the train, as Jude doesn’t know I have come; he was out when I started; so I must return home almost directly. Richard, I am so very glad you are better. You don’t hate me, do you? You have been such a kind friend to me!”

  “I am glad to know you think so,” said Phillotson huskily. “No. I don’t hate you!”

  It grew dusk quickly in the gloomy room during their intermittent chat, and when candles were brought and it was time to leave she put her hand in his or rather allowed it to flit through his; for she was significantly light in touch. She had nearly closed the door when he said, “Sue!” He had noticed that, in turning away from him, tears were on her face and a quiver in her lip.

  It was bad policy to recall her — he knew it while he pursued it. But he could not help it. She came back.

  “Sue,” he murmured, “do you wish to make it up, and stay? I’ll forgive you and condone everything!”

  “Oh you can’t, you can’t!” she said hastily. “You can’t condone it now!”

  “He is your husband now, in effect, you mean, of course?”

  “You may assume it. He is obtaining a divorce from his wife Arabella.”

  “His wife! It is altogether news to me that he has a wife.”

  “It was a bad marriage.”

  “Like yours.”

  “Like mine. He is not doing it so much on his own account as on hers. She wrote and told him it would be a kindness to her, since then she could marry and live respectably. And Jude has agreed.”

  “A wife… A kindness to her. Ah, yes; a kindness to her to release her altogether… But I don’t like the sound of it. I can forgive, Sue.”

  “No, no! You can’t have me back now I have been so wicked — as to do what I have done!”

  There had arisen in Sue’s face that incipient fright which showed itself whenever he changed from friend to husband, and which made her adopt any line of defence against marital feeling in him. “I must go now. I’ll come again — may I?”

  “I don’t ask you to go, even now. I ask you to stay.”

  “I thank you, Richard; but I must. As you are not so ill as I thought, I cannot stay!”

  “She’s his — his from lips to heel!” said Phillotson; but so faintly that in closing the door she did not hear it. The dread of a reactionary change in the schoolmaster’s sentiments, coupled, perhaps, with a faint shamefacedness at letting even him know what a slipshod lack of thoroughness, from a man’s point of view, characterized her transferred allegiance, prevented her telling him of her, thus far, incomplete relations with Jude; and Phillotson lay writhing like a man in hell as he pictured the prettily dressed, maddening compound of sympathy and averseness who bore his name, returning impatiently to the home of her lover.

  Gillingham was so interested in Phillotson’s affairs, and so seriously concerned about him, that he walked up the hill-side to Shaston two or three times a week, although, there and back, it was a journey of nine miles, which had to be performed between tea and supper, after a hard day’s work in school. When he called on the next occasion after Sue’s visit his friend was downstairs, and Gillingham noticed that his restless mood had been supplanted by a more fixed and composed one.

  “She’s been here since you called last,” said Phillotson.

  “Not Mrs. Phillotson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah! You have made it up?”

  “No… She just came, patted my pillow with her little white hand, played the thoughtful nurse for half an hour, and went away.”

  “Well — I’m hanged! A little hussy!”

  “What do you say?”

  “Oh — nothing!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what a tantalising, capricious little woman! If she were not your wife — ”

  “She is not; she’s another man’s except in name and law. And I have been thinking — it was suggested to me by a conversation I had with her — that, in kindness to her, I oug
ht to dissolve the legal tie altogether; which, singularly enough, I think I can do, now she has been back, and refused my request to stay after I said I had forgiven her. I believe that fact would afford me opportunity of doing it, though I did not see it at the moment. What’s the use of keeping her chained on to me if she doesn’t belong to me? I know — I feel absolutely certain — that she would welcome my taking such a step as the greatest charity to her. For though as a fellow-creature she sympathizes with, and pities me, and even weeps for me, as a husband she cannot endure me — she loathes me — there’s no use in mincing words — she loathes me, and my only manly, and dignified, and merciful course is to complete what I have begun… And for worldly reasons, too, it will be better for her to be independent. I have hopelessly ruined my prospects because of my decision as to what was best for us, though she does not know it; I see only dire poverty ahead from my feet to the grave; for I can be accepted as teacher no more. I shall probably have enough to do to make both ends meet during the remainder of my life, now my occupation’s gone; and I shall be better able to bear it alone. I may as well tell you that what has suggested my letting her go is some news she brought me — the news that Fawley is doing the same.”

  “Oh — he had a spouse, too? A queer couple, these lovers!”

  “Well — I don’t want your opinion on that. What I was going to say is that my liberating her can do her no possible harm, and will open up a chance of happiness for her which she has never dreamt of hitherto. For then they’ll be able to marry, as they ought to have done at first.”

  Gillingham did not hurry to reply. “I may disagree with your motive,” he said gently, for he respected views he could not share. “But I think you are right in your determination — if you can carry it out. I doubt, however, if you can.”

  PART FIFTH: AT ALDBRICKHAM AND ELSEWHERE

  “Thy aerial part, and all the fiery parts which are mingled in thee, though by nature they have an upward tendency, still in obedience to the disposition of the universe they are over-powered here in the compound mass the body.” — M. Antoninus (Long).

  CHAPTER I

  How Gillingham’s doubts were disposed of will most quickly appear by passing over the series of dreary months and incidents that followed the events of the last chapter, and coming on to a Sunday in the February of the year following.

  Sue and Jude were living in Aldbrickham, in precisely the same relations that they had established between themselves when she left Shaston to join him the year before. The proceedings in the law-courts had reached their consciousness, but as a distant sound and an occasional missive which they hardly understood.

  They had met, as usual, to breakfast together in the little house with Jude’s name on it, that he had taken at fifteen pounds a year, with three-pounds-ten extra for rates and taxes, and furnished with his aunt’s ancient and lumbering goods, which had cost him about their full value to bring all the way from Marygreen. Sue kept house, and managed everything.

  As he entered the room this morning Sue held up a letter she had just received.

  “Well; and what is it about?” he said after kissing her.

  “That the decree nisi in the case of Phillotson versus Phillotson and Fawley, pronounced six months ago, has just been made absolute.”

  “Ah,” said Jude, as he sat down.

  The same concluding incident in Jude’s suit against Arabella had occurred about a month or two earlier. Both cases had been too insignificant to be reported in the papers, further than by name in a long list of other undefended cases.

  “Now then, Sue, at any rate, you can do what you like!” He looked at his sweetheart curiously.

  “Are we — you and I — just as free now as if we had never married at all?”

  “Just as free — except, I believe, that a clergyman may object personally to remarry you, and hand the job on to somebody else.”

  “But I wonder — do you think it is really so with us? I know it is generally. But I have an uncomfortable feeling that my freedom has been obtained under false pretences!”

  “How?”

  “Well — if the truth about us had been known, the decree wouldn’t have been pronounced. It is only, is it, because we have made no defence, and have led them into a false supposition? Therefore is my freedom lawful, however proper it may be?”

  “Well — why did you let it be under false pretences? You have only yourself to blame,” he said mischievously.

  “Jude — don’t! You ought not to be touchy about that still. You must take me as I am.”

  “Very well, darling: so I will. Perhaps you were right. As to your question, we were not obliged to prove anything. That was their business. Anyhow we are living together.”

  “Yes. Though not in their sense.”

  “One thing is certain, that however the decree may be brought about, a marriage is dissolved when it is dissolved. There is this advantage in being poor obscure people like us — that these things are done for us in a rough and ready fashion. It was the same with me and Arabella. I was afraid her criminal second marriage would have been discovered, and she punished; but nobody took any interest in her — nobody inquired, nobody suspected it. If we’d been patented nobilities we should have had infinite trouble, and days and weeks would have been spent in investigations.”

  By degrees Sue acquired her lover’s cheerfulness at the sense of freedom, and proposed that they should take a walk in the fields, even if they had to put up with a cold dinner on account of it. Jude agreed, and Sue went up-stairs and prepared to start, putting on a joyful coloured gown in observance of her liberty; seeing which Jude put on a lighter tie.

  “Now we’ll strut arm and arm,” he said, “like any other engaged couple. We’ve a legal right to.”

  They rambled out of the town, and along a path over the low-lying lands that bordered it, though these were frosty now, and the extensive seed-fields were bare of colour and produce. The pair, however, were so absorbed in their own situation that their surroundings were little in their consciousness.

  “Well, my dearest, the result of all this is that we can marry after a decent interval.”

  “Yes; I suppose we can,” said Sue, without enthusiasm.

  “And aren’t we going to?”

  “I don’t like to say no, dear Jude; but I feel just the same about it now as I have done all along. I have just the same dread lest an iron contract should extinguish your tenderness for me, and mine for you, as it did between our unfortunate parents.”

  “Still, what can we do? I do love you, as you know, Sue.”

  “I know it abundantly. But I think I would much rather go on living always as lovers, as we are living now, and only meeting by day. It is so much sweeter — for the woman at least, and when she is sure of the man. And henceforward we needn’t be so particular as we have been about appearances.”

  “Our experiences of matrimony with others have not been encouraging, I own,” said he with some gloom; “either owing to our own dissatisfied, unpractical natures, or by our misfortune. But we two — ”

  “Should be two dissatisfied ones linked together, which would be twice as bad as before… I think I should begin to be afraid of you, Jude, the moment you had contracted to cherish me under a Government stamp, and I was licensed to be loved on the premises by you — Ugh, how horrible and sordid! Although, as you are, free, I trust you more than any other man in the world.”

  “No, no — don’t say I should change!” he expostulated; yet there was misgiving in his own voice also.

  “Apart from ourselves, and our unhappy peculiarities, it is foreign to a man’s nature to go on loving a person when he is told that he must and shall be that person’s lover. There would be a much likelier chance of his doing it if he were told not to love. If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other’s society as much as
possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There’d be little cooling then.”

  “Yes; but admitting this, or something like it, to be true, you are not the only one in the world to see it, dear little Sue. People go on marrying because they can’t resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month’s pleasure with a life’s discomfort. No doubt my father and mother, and your father and mother, saw it, if they at all resembled us in habits of observation. But then they went and married just the same, because they had ordinary passions. But you, Sue, are such a phantasmal, bodiless creature, one who — if you’ll allow me to say it — has so little animal passion in you, that you can act upon reason in the matter, when we poor unfortunate wretches of grosser substance can’t.”

  “Well,” she sighed, “you’ve owned that it would probably end in misery for us. And I am not so exceptional a woman as you think. Fewer women like marriage than you suppose, only they enter into it for the dignity it is assumed to confer, and the social advantages it gains them sometimes — a dignity and an advantage that I am quite willing to do without.”

  Jude fell back upon his old complaint — that, intimate as they were, he had never once had from her an honest, candid declaration that she loved or could love him. “I really fear sometimes that you cannot,” he said, with a dubiousness approaching anger. “And you are so reticent. I know that women are taught by other women that they must never admit the full truth to a man. But the highest form of affection is based on full sincerity on both sides. Not being men, these women don’t know that in looking back on those he has had tender relations with, a man’s heart returns closest to her who was the soul of truth in her conduct. The better class of man, even if caught by airy affectations of dodging and parrying, is not retained by them. A Nemesis attends the woman who plays the game of elusiveness too often, in the utter contempt for her that, sooner or later, her old admirers feel; under which they allow her to go unlamented to her grave.”