by Thomas Hardy
IV
The man whom Sue, in her mental _volte-face_, was now regarding asher inseparable husband, lived still at Marygreen.
On the day before the tragedy of the children, Phillotson had seenboth her and Jude as they stood in the rain at Christminster watchingthe procession to the theatre. But he had said nothing of it at themoment to his companion Gillingham, who, being an old friend, wasstaying with him at the village aforesaid, and had, indeed, suggestedthe day's trip to Christminster.
"What are you thinking of?" said Gillingham, as they went home. "Theuniversity degree you never obtained?"
"No, no," said Phillotson gruffly. "Of somebody I saw to-day." In amoment he added, "Susanna."
"I saw her, too."
"You said nothing."
"I didn't wish to draw your attention to her. But, as you did seeher, you should have said: 'How d'ye do, my dear-that-was?'"
"Ah, well. I might have. But what do you think of this: I have goodreason for supposing that she was innocent when I divorced her--thatI was all wrong. Yes, indeed! Awkward, isn't it?"
"She has taken care to set you right since, anyhow, apparently."
"H'm. That's a cheap sneer. I ought to have waited, unquestionably."
At the end of the week, when Gillingham had gone back to his schoolnear Shaston, Phillotson, as was his custom, went to Alfredstonmarket; ruminating again on Arabella's intelligence as he walked downthe long hill which he had known before Jude knew it, though hishistory had not beaten so intensely upon its incline. Arrived inthe town he bought his usual weekly local paper; and when he had satdown in an inn to refresh himself for the five miles' walk back, hepulled the paper from his pocket and read awhile. The account of the"strange suicide of a stone-mason's children" met his eye.
Unimpassioned as he was, it impressed him painfully, and puzzled himnot a little, for he could not understand the age of the elder childbeing what it was stated to be. However, there was no doubt that thenewspaper report was in some way true.
"Their cup of sorrow is now full!" he said: and thought and thoughtof Sue, and what she had gained by leaving him.
Arabella having made her home at Alfredston, and the schoolmastercoming to market there every Saturday, it was not wonderful that ina few weeks they met again--the precise time being just after herreturn from Christminster, where she had stayed much longer than shehad at first intended, keeping an interested eye on Jude, though Judehad seen no more of her. Phillotson was on his way homeward when heencountered Arabella, and she was approaching the town.
"You like walking out this way, Mrs. Cartlett?" he said.
"I've just begun to again," she replied. "It is where I livedas maid and wife, and all the past things of my life that areinteresting to my feelings are mixed up with this road. And theyhave been stirred up in me too, lately; for I've been visiting atChristminster. Yes; I've seen Jude."
"Ah! How do they bear their terrible affliction?"
"In a ve-ry strange way--ve-ry strange! She don't live with him anylonger. I only heard of it as a certainty just before I left; thoughI had thought things were drifting that way from their manner when Icalled on them."
"Not live with her husband? Why, I should have thought 'twould haveunited them more."
"He's not her husband, after all. She has never really married himalthough they have passed as man and wife so long. And now, insteadof this sad event making 'em hurry up, and get the thing donelegally, she's took in a queer religious way, just as I was in myaffliction at losing Cartlett, only hers is of a more 'sterical sortthan mine. And she says, so I was told, that she's your wife in theeye of Heaven and the Church--yours only; and can't be anybody else'sby any act of man."
"Ah--indeed? ... Separated, have they!"
"You see, the eldest boy was mine--"
"Oh--yours!"
"Yes, poor little fellow--born in lawful wedlock, thank God. Andperhaps she feels, over and above other things, that I ought to havebeen in her place. I can't say. However, as for me, I am soon offfrom here. I've got Father to look after now, and we can't live insuch a hum-drum place as this. I hope soon to be in a bar again atChristminster, or some other big town."
They parted. When Phillotson had ascended the hill a few steps hestopped, hastened back, and called her.
"What is, or was, their address?"
Arabella gave it.
"Thank you. Good afternoon."
Arabella smiled grimly as she resumed her way, and practiseddimple-making all along the road from where the pollard willows beginto the old almshouses in the first street of the town.
Meanwhile Phillotson ascended to Marygreen, and for the first timeduring a lengthened period he lived with a forward eye. On crossingunder the large trees of the green to the humble schoolhouse to whichhe had been reduced he stood a moment, and pictured Sue coming out ofthe door to meet him. No man had ever suffered more inconveniencefrom his own charity, Christian or heathen, than Phillotson had donein letting Sue go. He had been knocked about from pillar to post atthe hands of the virtuous almost beyond endurance; he had been nearlystarved, and was now dependent entirely upon the very small stipendfrom the school of this village (where the parson had got ill-spokenof for befriending him). He had often thought of Arabella's remarksthat he should have been more severe with Sue, that her recalcitrantspirit would soon have been broken. Yet such was his obstinate andillogical disregard of opinion, and of the principles in which he hadbeen trained, that his convictions on the rightness of his coursewith his wife had not been disturbed.
Principles which could be subverted by feeling in one direction wereliable to the same catastrophe in another. The instincts which hadallowed him to give Sue her liberty now enabled him to regard heras none the worse for her life with Jude. He wished for her still,in his curious way, if he did not love her, and, apart from policy,soon felt that he would be gratified to have her again as his, alwaysprovided that she came willingly.
But artifice was necessary, he had found, for stemming the cold andinhumane blast of the world's contempt. And here were the materialsready made. By getting Sue back and remarrying her on therespectable plea of having entertained erroneous views of her, andgained his divorce wrongfully, he might acquire some comfort, resumehis old courses, perhaps return to the Shaston school, if not even tothe Church as a licentiate.
He thought he would write to Gillingham to inquire his views, andwhat he thought of his, Phillotson's, sending a letter to her.Gillingham replied, naturally, that now she was gone it were best tolet her be, and considered that if she were anybody's wife she wasthe wife of the man to whom she had borne three children and owedsuch tragical adventures. Probably, as his attachment to her seemedunusually strong, the singular pair would make their union legal incourse of time, and all would be well, and decent, and in order.
"But they won't--Sue won't!" exclaimed Phillotson to himself."Gillingham is so matter of fact. She's affected by Christminstersentiment and teaching. I can see her views on the indissolubilityof marriage well enough, and I know where she got them. They are notmine; but I shall make use of them to further mine."
He wrote a brief reply to Gillingham. "I know I am entirely wrong,but I don't agree with you. As to her having lived with and hadthree children by him, my feeling is (though I can advance no logicalor moral defence of it, on the old lines) that it has done littlemore than finish her education. I shall write to her, and learnwhether what that woman said is true or no."
As he had made up his mind to do this before he had written to hisfriend, there had not been much reason for writing to the latter atall. However, it was Phillotson's way to act thus.
He accordingly addressed a carefully considered epistle to Sue, and,knowing her emotional temperament, threw a Rhadamanthine strictnessinto the lines here and there, carefully hiding his heterodoxfeelings, not to frighten her. He stated that, it having come to hisknowledge that her views had considerably changed, he felt compelledto say
that his own, too, were largely modified by events subsequentto their parting. He would not conceal from her that passionatelove had little to do with his communication. It arose from a wishto make their lives, if not a success, at least no such disastrousfailure as they threatened to become, through his acting on whathe had considered at the time a principle of justice, charity, andreason.
To indulge one's instinctive and uncontrolled sense of justice andright, was not, he had found, permitted with impunity in an oldcivilization like ours. It was necessary to act under an acquiredand cultivated sense of the same, if you wished to enjoy an averageshare of comfort and honour; and to let crude loving kindness takecare of itself.
He suggested that she should come to him there at Marygreen.
On second thoughts he took out the last paragraph but one; and havingrewritten the letter he dispatched it immediately, and in someexcitement awaited the issue.
