by Thomas Hardy
IV
He was a handy man at his trade, an all-round man, as artizans incountry-towns are apt to be. In London the man who carves the bossor knob of leafage declines to cut the fragment of moulding whichmerges in that leafage, as if it were a degradation to do the secondhalf of one whole. When there was not much Gothic moulding forJude to run, or much window-tracery on the bankers, he would go outlettering monuments or tombstones, and take a pleasure in the changeof handiwork.
The next time that he saw her was when he was on a ladder executinga job of this sort inside one of the churches. There was a shortmorning service, and when the parson entered Jude came down from hisladder, and sat with the half-dozen people forming the congregation,till the prayer should be ended, and he could resume his tapping. Hedid not observe till the service was half over that one of the womenwas Sue, who had perforce accompanied the elderly Miss Fontoverthither.
Jude sat watching her pretty shoulders, her easy, curiouslynonchalant risings and sittings, and her perfunctory genuflexions,and thought what a help such an Anglican would have been to him inhappier circumstances. It was not so much his anxiety to get on withhis work that made him go up to it immediately the worshipers beganto take their leave: it was that he dared not, in this holy spot,confront the woman who was beginning to influence him in such anindescribable manner. Those three enormous reasons why he mustnot attempt intimate acquaintance with Sue Bridehead, now that hisinterest in her had shown itself to be unmistakably of a sexual kind,loomed as stubbornly as ever. But it was also obvious that man couldnot live by work alone; that the particular man Jude, at any rate,wanted something to love. Some men would have rushed incontinentlyto her, snatched the pleasure of easy friendship which she couldhardly refuse, and have left the rest to chance. Not so Jude--atfirst.
But as the days, and still more particularly the lonely evenings,dragged along, he found himself, to his moral consternation,to be thinking more of her instead of thinking less of her, andexperiencing a fearful bliss in doing what was erratic, informal, andunexpected. Surrounded by her influence all day, walking past thespots she frequented, he was always thinking of her, and was obligedto own to himself that his conscience was likely to be the loser inthis battle.
To be sure she was almost an ideality to him still. Perhaps to knowher would be to cure himself of this unexpected and unauthorizedpassion. A voice whispered that, though he desired to know her, hedid not desire to be cured.
There was not the least doubt that from his own orthodox point ofview the situation was growing immoral. For Sue to be the loved oneof a man who was licensed by the laws of his country to love Arabellaand none other unto his life's end, was a pretty bad second beginningwhen the man was bent on such a course as Jude purposed. Thisconviction was so real with him that one day when, as was frequent,he was at work in a neighbouring village church alone, he felt it tobe his duty to pray against his weakness. But much as he wished tobe an exemplar in these things he could not get on. It was quiteimpossible, he found, to ask to be delivered from temptation whenyour heart's desire was to be tempted unto seventy times seven. Sohe excused himself. "After all," he said, "it is not altogetheran _erotolepsy_ that is the matter with me, as at that first time.I can see that she is exceptionally bright; and it is partly a wishfor intellectual sympathy, and a craving for loving-kindness in mysolitude." Thus he went on adoring her, fearing to realize thatit was human perversity. For whatever Sue's virtues, talents, orecclesiastical saturation, it was certain that those items were notat all the cause of his affection for her.
On an afternoon at this time a young girl entered the stone-mason'syard with some hesitation, and, lifting her skirts to avoid dragglingthem in the white dust, crossed towards the office.
"That's a nice girl," said one of the men known as Uncle Joe.
"Who is she?" asked another.
"I don't know--I've seen her about here and there. Why, yes, she'sthe daughter of that clever chap Bridehead who did all the wroughtironwork at St. Silas' ten years ago, and went away to Londonafterwards. I don't know what he's doing now--not much I fancy--asshe's come back here."
Meanwhile the young woman had knocked at the office door and asked ifMr. Jude Fawley was at work in the yard. It so happened that Judehad gone out somewhere or other that afternoon, which information shereceived with a look of disappointment, and went away immediately.When Jude returned they told him, and described her, whereupon heexclaimed, "Why--that's my cousin Sue!"
He looked along the street after her, but she was out of sight. Hehad no longer any thought of a conscientious avoidance of her, andresolved to call upon her that very evening. And when he reachedhis lodging he found a note from her--a first note--one of thosedocuments which, simple and commonplace in themselves, are seenretrospectively to have been pregnant with impassioned consequences.The very unconsciousness of a looming drama which is shown in suchinnocent first epistles from women to men, or _vice versa_, makesthem, when such a drama follows, and they are read over by the purpleor lurid light of it, all the more impressive, solemn, and in cases,terrible.
Sue's was of the most artless and natural kind. She addressed himas her dear cousin Jude; said she had only just learnt by the merestaccident that he was living in Christminster, and reproached him withnot letting her know. They might have had such nice times together,she said, for she was thrown much upon herself, and had hardly anycongenial friend. But now there was every probability of her soongoing away, so that the chance of companionship would be lost perhapsfor ever.
A cold sweat overspread Jude at the news that she was going away.That was a contingency he had never thought of, and it spurred himto write all the more quickly to her. He would meet her that veryevening, he said, one hour from the time of writing, at the cross inthe pavement which marked the spot of the Martyrdoms.
When he had despatched the note by a boy he regretted that in hishurry he should have suggested to her to meet him out of doors, whenhe might have said he would call upon her. It was, in fact, thecountry custom to meet thus, and nothing else had occurred to him.Arabella had been met in the same way, unfortunately, and it mightnot seem respectable to a dear girl like Sue. However, it could notbe helped now, and he moved towards the point a few minutes beforethe hour, under the glimmer of the newly lighted lamps.
The broad street was silent, and almost deserted, although it wasnot late. He saw a figure on the other side, which turned out tobe hers, and they both converged towards the crossmark at the samemoment. Before either had reached it she called out to him:
"I am not going to meet you just there, for the first time in mylife! Come further on."
The voice, though positive and silvery, had been tremulous. Theywalked on in parallel lines, and, waiting her pleasure, Jude watchedtill she showed signs of closing in, when he did likewise, the placebeing where the carriers' carts stood in the daytime, though therewas none on the spot then.
"I am sorry that I asked you to meet me, and didn't call," began Judewith the bashfulness of a lover. "But I thought it would save timeif we were going to walk."
"Oh--I don't mind that," she said with the freedom of a friend. "Ihave really no place to ask anybody in to. What I meant was that theplace you chose was so horrid--I suppose I ought not to say horrid--Imean gloomy and inauspicious in its associations... But isn't itfunny to begin like this, when I don't know you yet?" She looked himup and down curiously, though Jude did not look much at her.
"You seem to know me more than I know you," she added.
"Yes--I have seen you now and then."
"And you knew who I was, and didn't speak? And now I am going away!"
"Yes. That's unfortunate. I have hardly any other friend. I have,indeed, one very old friend here somewhere, but I don't quite liketo call on him just yet. I wonder if you know anything of him--Mr.Phillotson? A parson somewhere about the county I think he is."
"No--I only know of one Mr. Phillotson. He lives a little way o
ut inthe country, at Lumsdon. He's a village schoolmaster."
"Ah! I wonder if he's the same. Surely it is impossible! Only aschoolmaster still! Do you know his Christian name--is it Richard?"
"Yes--it is; I've directed books to him, though I've never seen him."
"Then he couldn't do it!"
Jude's countenance fell, for how could he succeed in an enterprisewherein the great Phillotson had failed? He would have had a day ofdespair if the news had not arrived during his sweet Sue's presence,but even at this moment he had visions of how Phillotson's failure inthe grand university scheme would depress him when she had gone.
"As we are going to take a walk, suppose we go and call upon him?"said Jude suddenly. "It is not late."
She agreed, and they went along up a hill, and through some prettilywooded country. Presently the embattled tower and square turretof the church rose into the sky, and then the school-house. Theyinquired of a person in the street if Mr. Phillotson was likely tobe at home, and were informed that he was always at home. A knockbrought him to the school-house door, with a candle in his hand and alook of inquiry on his face, which had grown thin and careworn sinceJude last set eyes on him.
That after all these years the meeting with Mr. Phillotson should beof this homely complexion destroyed at one stroke the halo which hadsurrounded the school-master's figure in Jude's imagination eversince their parting. It created in him at the same time a sympathywith Phillotson as an obviously much chastened and disappointed man.Jude told him his name, and said he had come to see him as an oldfriend who had been kind to him in his youthful days.
"I don't remember you in the least," said the school-masterthoughtfully. "You were one of my pupils, you say? Yes, no doubt;but they number so many thousands by this time of my life, and havenaturally changed so much, that I remember very few except the quiterecent ones."
"It was out at Marygreen," said Jude, wishing he had not come.
"Yes. I was there a short time. And is this an old pupil, too?"
"No--that's my cousin... I wrote to you for some grammars, if yourecollect, and you sent them?"
"Ah--yes!--I do dimly recall that incident."
"It was very kind of you to do it. And it was you who first startedme on that course. On the morning you left Marygreen, when yourgoods were on the waggon, you wished me good-bye, and said yourscheme was to be a university man and enter the Church--that a degreewas the necessary hall-mark of one who wanted to do anything as atheologian or teacher."
"I remember I thought all that privately; but I wonder I did not keepmy own counsel. The idea was given up years ago."
"I have never forgotten it. It was that which brought me to thispart of the country, and out here to see you to-night."
"Come in," said Phillotson. "And your cousin, too."
They entered the parlour of the school-house, where there was a lampwith a paper shade, which threw the light down on three or fourbooks. Phillotson took it off, so that they could see each otherbetter, and the rays fell on the nervous little face and vivaciousdark eyes and hair of Sue, on the earnest features of her cousin,and on the schoolmaster's own maturer face and figure, showing himto be a spare and thoughtful personage of five-and-forty, with athin-lipped, somewhat refined mouth, a slightly stooping habit, anda black frock coat, which from continued frictions shone a little atthe shoulder-blades, the middle of the back, and the elbows.
The old friendship was imperceptibly renewed, the schoolmasterspeaking of his experiences, and the cousins of theirs. He told themthat he still thought of the Church sometimes, and that though hecould not enter it as he had intended to do in former years he mightenter it as a licentiate. Meanwhile, he said, he was comfortable inhis present position, though he was in want of a pupil-teacher.
They did not stay to supper, Sue having to be indoors before it grewlate, and the road was retraced to Christminster. Though they hadtalked of nothing more than general subjects, Jude was surprised tofind what a revelation of woman his cousin was to him. She was sovibrant that everything she did seemed to have its source in feeling.An exciting thought would make her walk ahead so fast that he couldhardly keep up with her; and her sensitiveness on some pointswas such that it might have been misread as vanity. It was withheart-sickness he perceived that, while her sentiments towards himwere those of the frankest friendliness only, he loved her more thanbefore becoming acquainted with her; and the gloom of the walk homelay not in the night overhead, but in the thought of her departure.
"Why must you leave Christminster?" he said regretfully. "How canyou do otherwise than cling to a city in whose history such men asNewman, Pusey, Ward, Keble, loom so large!"
"Yes--they do. Though how large do they loom in the history of theworld? ... What a funny reason for caring to stay! I should neverhave thought of it!" She laughed.
"Well--I must go," she continued. "Miss Fontover, one of thepartners whom I serve, is offended with me, and I with her; and itis best to go."
"How did that happen?"
"She broke some statuary of mine."
"Oh? Wilfully?"
"Yes. She found it in my room, and though it was my property shethrew it on the floor and stamped on it, because it was not accordingto her taste, and ground the arms and the head of one of the figuresall to bits with her heel--a horrid thing!"
"Too Catholic-Apostolic for her, I suppose? No doubt she called thempopish images and talked of the invocation of saints."
"No... No, she didn't do that. She saw the matter quitedifferently."
"Ah! Then I am surprised!"
"Yes. It was for quite some other reason that she didn't like mypatron-saints. So I was led to retort upon her; and the end of itwas that I resolved not to stay, but to get into an occupation inwhich I shall be more independent."
"Why don't you try teaching again? You once did, I heard."
"I never thought of resuming it; for I was getting on as anart-designer."
"DO let me ask Mr. Phillotson to let you try your hand in hisschool? If you like it, and go to a training college, and become afirst-class certificated mistress, you get twice as large an incomeas any designer or church artist, and twice as much freedom."
"Well--ask him. Now I must go in. Good-bye, dear Jude! I am soglad we have met at last. We needn't quarrel because our parentsdid, need we?"
Jude did not like to let her see quite how much he agreed with her,and went his way to the remote street in which he had his lodging.
To keep Sue Bridehead near him was now a desire which operatedwithout regard of consequences, and the next evening he again set outfor Lumsdon, fearing to trust to the persuasive effects of a noteonly. The school-master was unprepared for such a proposal.
"What I rather wanted was a second year's transfer, as it is called,"he said. "Of course your cousin would do, personally; but she hashad no experience. Oh--she has, has she? Does she really think ofadopting teaching as a profession?"
Jude said she was disposed to do so, he thought, and his ingeniousarguments on her natural fitness for assisting Mr. Phillotson, ofwhich Jude knew nothing whatever, so influenced the schoolmaster thathe said he would engage her, assuring Jude as a friend that unlesshis cousin really meant to follow on in the same course, and regardedthis step as the first stage of an apprenticeship, of which hertraining in a normal school would be the second stage, her time wouldbe wasted quite, the salary being merely nominal.
The day after this visit Phillotson received a letter from Jude,containing the information that he had again consulted his cousin,who took more and more warmly to the idea of tuition; and thatshe had agreed to come. It did not occur for a moment to theschoolmaster and recluse that Jude's ardour in promoting thearrangement arose from any other feelings towards Sue than theinstinct of co-operation common among members of the same family.
