Jude the Obscure
sat side by side with joined hands, till she aroused herself at some
thought.
“I can’t possibly go to that Temperance Inn, after your telegraphing
that message!”
“Why not?”
“You can see well enough!”
“Very well; there’ll be some other one open, no doubt. I have sometimes
thought, since your marrying Phillotson because of a stupid scandal,
that under the affectation of independent views you are as enslaved to
the social code as any woman I know!”
“Not mentally. But I haven’t the courage of my views, as I said before.
I didn’t marry him altogether because of the scandal. But sometimes a
woman’s _love of being loved_ gets the better of her conscience, and
though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she
encourages him to love her while she doesn’t love him at all. Then,
when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she
can to repair the wrong.”
“You simply mean that you flirted outrageously with him, poor old chap,
and then repented, and to make reparation, married him, though you
tortured yourself to death by doing it.”
“Well—if you will put it brutally!—it was a little like that—that and
the scandal together—and your concealing from me what you ought to have
told me before!”
He could see that she was distressed and tearful at his criticisms, and
soothed her, saying: “There, dear; don’t mind! Crucify me, if you will!
You know you are all the world to me, whatever you do!”
“I am very bad and unprincipled—I know you think that!” she said,
trying to blink away her tears.
“I think and know you are my dear Sue, from whom neither length nor
breadth, nor things present nor things to come, can divide me!”
Though so sophisticated in many things, she was such a child in others
that this satisfied her, and they reached the end of their journey on
the best of terms. It was about ten o’clock when they arrived at
Aldbrickham, the county town of North Wessex. As she would not go to
the Temperance Hotel because of the form of his telegram, Jude inquired
for another; and a youth who volunteered to find one wheeled their
luggage to the George farther on, which proved to be the inn at which
Jude had stayed with Arabella on that one occasion of their meeting
after their division for years.
Owing, however, to their now entering it by another door, and to his
preoccupation, he did not at first recognize the place. When they had
engaged their respective rooms they went down to a late supper. During
Jude’s temporary absence the waiting-maid spoke to Sue.
“I think, ma’am, I remember your relation, or friend, or whatever he
is, coming here once before—late, just like this, with his wife—a lady,
at any rate, that wasn’t you by no manner of means—jest as med be with
you now.”
“Oh do you?” said Sue, with a certain sickness of heart. “Though I
think you must be mistaken! How long ago was it?”
“About a month or two. A handsome, full-figured woman. They had this
room.”
When Jude came back and sat down to supper Sue seemed moping and
miserable. “Jude,” she said to him plaintively, at their parting that
night upon the landing, “it is not so nice and pleasant as it used to
be with us! I don’t like it here—I can’t bear the place! And I don’t
like you so well as I did!”
“How fidgeted you seem, dear! Why do you change like this?”
“Because it was cruel to bring me here!”
“Why?”
“You were lately here with Arabella. There, now I have said it!”
“Dear me, why—” said Jude looking round him. “Yes—it is the same! I
really didn’t know it, Sue. Well—it is not cruel, since we have come as
we have—two relations staying together.”
“How long ago was it you were here? Tell me, tell me!”
“The day before I met you in Christminster, when we went back to
Marygreen together. I told you I had met her.”
“Yes, you said you had met her, but you didn’t tell me all. Your story
was that you had met as estranged people, who were not husband and wife
at all in Heaven’s sight—not that you had made it up with her.”
“We didn’t make it up,” he said sadly. “I can’t explain, Sue.”
“You’ve been false to me; you, my last hope! And I shall never forget
it, never!”
“But by your own wish, dear Sue, we are only to be friends, not lovers!
It is so very inconsistent of you to—”
“Friends can be jealous!”
“I don’t see that. You concede nothing to me and I have to concede
everything to you. After all, you were on good terms with your husband
at that time.”
“No, I wasn’t, Jude. Oh how can you think so! And you have taken me in,
even if you didn’t intend to.” She was so mortified that he was obliged
to take her into her room and close the door lest the people should
hear. “Was it this room? Yes it was—I see by your look it was! I won’t
have it for mine! Oh it was treacherous of you to have her again! _I_
jumped out of the window!”
“But Sue, she was, after all, my legal wife, if not—”
Slipping down on her knees Sue buried her face in the bed and wept.
“I never knew such an unreasonable—such a dog-in-the-manger feeling,”
said Jude. “I am not to approach you, nor anybody else!”
“Oh don’t you _understand_ my feeling? Why don’t you? Why are you so
gross? _I_ jumped out of the window?”
“Jumped out of window?”
“I can’t explain!”
It was true that he did not understand her feelings very well. But he
did a little; and began to love her none the less.
“I—I thought you cared for nobody—desired nobody in the world but me at
that time—and ever since!” continued Sue.
“It is true. I did not, and don’t now!” said Jude, as distressed as
she.
“But you must have thought much of her! Or—”
“No—I need not—you don’t understand me either—women never do! Why
should you get into such a tantrum about nothing?”
Looking up from the quilt she pouted provokingly: “If it hadn’t been
for that, perhaps I would have gone on to the Temperance Hotel, after
all, as you proposed; for I was beginning to think I did belong to
you!”
“Oh, it is of no consequence!” said Jude distantly.
“I thought, of course, that she had never been really your wife since
she left you of her own accord years and years ago! My sense of it was,
that a parting such as yours from her, and mine from him, ended the
marriage.”
“I can’t say more without speaking against her, and I don’t want to do
that,” said he. “Yet I must tell you one thing, which would settle the
matter in any case. She has married another man—really married him! I
knew nothing about it till after the visit we made here.”
“Married another? … It is a crime—as the world treats it, but does not
believe.”
“There—now you are yourself again. Yes, it is a crime—as you don’t
hold, but would fearfully concede. But I shall never inform against
her! And it is evidently a prick of conscience in her that has led her
to urge me to get a divorce, that she may remarry this man legally. So
you perceive I shall not be likely to see her again.”
“And you didn’t really know anything of this when you saw her?” said
Sue more gently, as she rose.
“I did not. Considering all things, I don’t think you ought to be
angry, darling!”
“I am not. But I shan’t go to the Temperance Hotel!”
He laughed. “Never mind!” he said. “So that I am near you, I am
comparatively happy. It is more than this earthly wretch called Me
deserves—you spirit, you disembodied creature, you dear, sweet,
tantalizing phantom—hardly flesh at all; so that when I put my arms
round you I almost expect them to pass through you as through air!
Forgive me for being gross, as you call it! Remember that our calling
cousins when really strangers was a snare. The enmity of our parents
gave a piquancy to you in my eyes that was intenser even than the
novelty of ordinary new acquaintance.”
“Say those pretty lines, then, from Shelley’s ‘Epipsychidion’ as if
they meant me!” she solicited, slanting up closer to him as they stood.
“Don’t you know them?”
“I know hardly any poetry,” he replied mournfully.
“Don’t you? These are some of them:
There was a Being whom my spirit oft
Met on its visioned wanderings far aloft.
* * * * * * * * *
A seraph of Heaven, too gentle to be human,
Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman…
Oh it is too flattering, so I won’t go on! But say it’s me! Say it’s
me!”
“It is you, dear; exactly like you!”
“Now I forgive you! And you shall kiss me just once there—not very
long.” She put the tip of her finger gingerly to her cheek; and he did
as commanded. “You do care for me very much, don’t you, in spite of my
not—you know?”
“Yes, sweet!” he said with a sigh; and bade her good-night.
VI
In returning to his native town of Shaston as schoolmaster Phillotson
had won the interest and awakened the memories of the inhabitants, who,
though they did not honour him for his miscellaneous acquirements as he
would have been honoured elsewhere, retained for him a sincere regard.
When, shortly after his arrival, he brought home a pretty
wife—awkwardly pretty for him, if he did not take care, they said—they
were glad to have her settle among them.
For some time after her flight from that home Sue’s absence did not
excite comment. Her place as monitor in the school was taken by another
young woman within a few days of her vacating it, which substitution
also passed without remark, Sue’s services having been of a provisional
nature only. When, however, a month had passed, and Phillotson casually
admitted to an acquaintance that he did not know where his wife was
staying, curiosity began to be aroused; till, jumping to conclusions,
people ventured to affirm that Sue had played him false and run away
from him. The schoolmaster’s growing languor and listlessness over his
work gave countenance to the idea.
Though Phillotson had held his tongue as long as he could, except to
his friend Gillingham, his honesty and directness would not allow him
to do so when misapprehensions as to Sue’s conduct spread abroad. On a
Monday morning the chairman of the school committee called, and after
attending to the business of the school drew Phillotson aside out of
earshot of the children.
“You’ll excuse my asking, Phillotson, since everybody is talking of it:
is this true as to your domestic affairs—that your wife’s going away
was on no visit, but a secret elopement with a lover? If so, I condole
with you.”
“Don’t,” said Phillotson. “There was no secret about it.”
“She has gone to visit friends?”
“No.”
“Then what has happened?”
“She has gone away under circumstances that usually call for condolence
with the husband. But I gave my consent.”
The chairman looked as if he had not apprehended the remark.
“What I say is quite true,” Phillotson continued testily. “She asked
leave to go away with her lover, and I let her. Why shouldn’t I? A
woman of full age, it was a question of her own conscience—not for me.
I was not her gaoler. I can’t explain any further. I don’t wish to be
questioned.”
The children observed that much seriousness marked the faces of the two
men, and went home and told their parents that something new had
happened about Mrs. Phillotson. Then Phillotson’s little maidservant,
who was a schoolgirl just out of her standards, said that Mr.
Phillotson had helped in his wife’s packing, had offered her what money
she required, and had written a friendly letter to her young man,
telling him to take care of her. The chairman of committee thought the
matter over, and talked to the other managers of the school, till a
request came to Phillotson to meet them privately. The meeting lasted a
long time, and at the end the school-master came home, looking as usual
pale and worn. Gillingham was sitting in his house awaiting him.
“Well; it is as you said,” observed Phillotson, flinging himself down