by Thomas Hardy
V.-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 nisidc 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 re-marry 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 upstairs 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 Nemesisdd 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.”
Sue, who was regarding the distance, had acquired a guilty look; and she suddenly replied in a tragic voice: “I don’t think I like you to-day so well as I did, Jude!”
“Don’t you? Why?”
“0, well—you are not nice—too sermony. Though I suppose I am so bad and worthless that I deserve the utmost rigour of lecturing!”
“No, you are not bad. You are a dear. But as slippery as an eel when I want to get a confession from you.”
“0 yes I am bad, and obstinate, and all sorts! It is no use your pretending I am not! People who are good don’t want scolding as I do.... But now that I have nobody but you, and nobody to defend me, it is very hard that I mustn’t have my own way in deciding how I’ll live with you, and whether I’ll be married or no!”
“Sue, my own comrade and sweetheart, I don’t want to force you either to marry or to do the other thing—of course I don’t! It is too wicked of you to be so pettish! Now we won’t say any more about it, and go on just the same as we have done; and during the rest of our walk we’ll talk of the meadows only, and the floods, and the prospect of the farmers this coming year.”
After this the subject of marriage was not mentioned by them for several days, though living as they were with only a landing between them it was constantly in their minds. Sue was assisting Jude very materially now: he had latterly occupied himself on his own account in working and lettering headstones, which he kept in a little yard at the back of his little house, where in the intervals of domestic duties she marked out the letters full size for him, and blacked them in after he had cut them. It was a lower class of handicraft than were his former performances as a cathedral mason, and his only patrons were the poor people who lived in his own neighbourhood, and knew what a cheap man this “Jude Fawley: Monumental Mason” (as he called himself on his front door) was to employ for the simple memorials they required for their dead. But he seemed more independent than before, and it was the only arrangement under which Sue, who particularly wished to be no burden on him, could render any assistance.
V.-II.
IT WAS AN EVENING at the end of the month, and Jude had just returned home from hearing a lecture on ancient history in the public hall not far off. When he entered Sue, who had been keeping indoors during his absence, laid out supper for him. Contrary to custom she did not speak. Jude had taken up some illustrated paper, which he perused till, raising his eyes, he saw that her face was troubled.
“Are you depressed, Sue?” he said.
She paused a moment. “I have a message for you,” she answered.
“Somebody has called?”
“Yes. A woman.” Sue’s voice quavered as she spoke, and she suddenly sat down from her preparations, laid her hands in her lap, and looked into the fire. “I don’t know whether I did right or not!” she continued. “I said you were not at home, and when she said she would wait, I said I thought you might not be able to see her.”
“Why did you say that, dear? I suppose she wanted a headstone. Was she in mourning?”
“No. She wasn’t in mourning, and she didn’t want a headstone; and I thought you couldn’t see her.” Sue looked critically and imploringly at him.
“But who was she? Didn’t she say?”
“No. She wouldn’t give her name. But I know who she was—I think I do! It was Arabella!”
“Heaven save us! What should Arabella come for? What made you think it was she?”
“O, I can hardly tell. But I know it was! I feel perfectly certain it was—by the light in her eyes as she looked at me. She was a fleshy, coarse woman.”
“Well—I should not have called Arabella coarse exactly, except in speech, though she may be getting so by this time under the duties of the public-house. She was rather handsome when I knew her.”
“Handsome! But yes!—so she is!”
“I think I heard a quiver in your little mouth. Well, waiving that, as she is nothing to me, and virtuously married to another man, why should she come troubling us?”
“Are you sure she’s married? Have you definite news of it?”
“No—not definite news. But that was why she asked me to release her. She and the man both wanted to lead a proper life, as I understood.”
“0 Jude—it was, it was Arabella!” cried Sue, covering her eyes with her hand. “And I am so miserable! It seems such an ill-omen, whatever she may have come for. You could not possibly see her, could you?”
“I don’t really think I could. It would be so very painful to talk to her now—for her as much as for me. However, she’s gone. Did she say she would come again?”
“No. But she went away very reluctantly.”
Sue, whom the least thing upset, could not eat any supper, and when Jude had finished his he prepared to go to bed. He had no sooner raked out the fire, fastened the doors, and got to the top of the stairs than there came a knock. Sue instantly emerged from her room, which she had but just entered.
“There she is again!” Sue whispered in appalled accents.
“How do you know?”
“She knocked like that last time.”
They listened, and the knocking came again. No servant was kept in the house, and if the summons were to be responded to one of them would have to do it in person. “I’ll open a window,” said Jude. “Whoever it is cannot be expected to be let in at this time.”
He accordingly went into his bedroom and lifted the sash. The lonely street of early retiring work-people was empty from end to end save of one figure—that of a woman walking up and down by the lamp a few yards off.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“Is that Mr. Fawley?” came up from the woman, in a voice which was unmistakably Arabella’s.
Jude replied that it was.
“Is it she?” asked Sue from the door, with lips apart.
“Yes, dear,” said Jude. “What do you want, Arabella?” he inquired.
“I beg your pardon, Jude, for disturbing you,” said Arabella humbly. “But I called earlier—I wanted particularly to see you tonight, if I could. I am in trouble, and have nobody to help me!”
“In trouble, are you?”
“Yes.”
There was a silence. An inconvenient sympathy seemed to be rising in Jude’s breast at the appeal. “But aren’t you married?” he said.
Arabella hesitated. “No, Jude, I am not,” she returned. “He wouldn’t, after all. And I am in great difficulty. I hope to get another situation as barmaid soon. But it takes time, and I really am in great distress, because of a sudden responsibility that’s been sprung upon me from Australia; or I wouldn’t trouble you—believe me I wouldn’t. I want to tell you about it.”
Sue remained at gaze, in painful tension, hearing every word, but speaking none.
“You are not really in want of money, Arabella?” he asked, in a distinctly softened tone.
“I have enough to pay for the night’s lodging I have obtained, but barely enough to take me back again.”
“Where are you living?”
“In London still.” She was about to give the address, but she said, “I am afraid somebody may hear, so I don’t like to call out particulars of myself so loud. If you could come down and walk a little way with me towards the Prince Inn, where I am staying to-night, I would explain all. You may as well, for old time’s sake!”
“Poor thing!—I must do her the kindness of hearing what’s the matter, I suppose,” said Jude in much perplexity. “As she’s going back to-morrow it can’t make much difference.”
“But you can go and see her to-morrow, Jude! Don’t go now, Jude!” came in plaintive accents from the doorway. “0, it is only to entrap you, I know it is, as she did before! Don’t, don’t go, dear! She is such a low-passioned woman—I can see it in her shape, and hear it in her voice!”
“But I shall go,” said Jude. “Don’t attempt to detain me, Sue. God knows I love her little enough now, but I don’t want to be cruel
to her.” He turned to the stairs.
“But she’s not your wife!” cried Sue distractedly. “And I———”
“And you are not either, dear, yet,” said Jude.
“O, but are you going to her? Don’t! Stay at home! Please, please stay at home, Jude, and not go to her, now she’s not your wife any more than I!”
“Well, she is, rather more than you, come to that,” he said, taking his hat determinedly. “I’ve wanted you to be, and I’ve waited with the patience of Job, and I don’t see that I’ve got anything by my self-denial. I shall certainly give her something, and hear what it is she is so anxious to tell me; no man could do less!”
There was that in his manner which she knew it would be futile to oppose. She said no more, but, turning to her room as meekly as a martyr, heard him go downstairs, unbolt the door, and close it behind him. With a woman’s disregard of her dignity when in the presence of nobody but herself, she also trotted down, sobbing articulately as she went. She listened. She knew exactly how far it was to the inn that Arabella had named as her lodging. It would occupy about seven minutes to get there at an ordinary walking pace; seven to come back again. If he did not return in fourteen minutes he would have lingered. She looked at the clock. It was twenty-five minutes to eleven. He might enter the inn with Arabella, as they would reach it before closing time; she might get him to drink with her; and Heaven only knew what disasters would befall him then.
In a still suspense she waited on. It seemed as if the whole time had nearly elapsed when the door was opened again, and Jude appeared.
Sue gave a little ecstatic cry. “0, I knew I could trust you!—how good you are!”—she began.
“I can’t find her anywhere in this street, and I went out in my slippers only. She has walked on, thinking I’ve been so hard-hearted as to refuse her requests entirely, poor woman. I’ve come back for my boots, as it is beginning to rain.”
“0, but why should you take such trouble for a woman who has served you so badly!” said Sue in a jealous burst of disappointment.
“But, Sue, she’s a woman, and I once cared for her; and one can’t be a brute in such circumstances.”
