Jude the Obscure
been a school inspector by this time, or a reverend, if you hadn’t been
so weak about her.”
“I did myself irreparable damage—I know it.”
“Once you’ve got her housed again, stick to her.”
Phillotson was more evasive to-night. He did not care to admit clearly
that his taking Sue to him again had at bottom nothing to do with
repentance of letting her go, but was, primarily, a human instinct
flying in the face of custom and profession. He said, “Yes—I shall do
that. I know woman better now. Whatever justice there was in releasing
her, there was little logic, for one holding my views on other
subjects.”
Gillingham looked at him, and wondered whether it would ever happen
that the reactionary spirit induced by the world’s sneers and his own
physical wishes would make Phillotson more orthodoxly cruel to her than
he had erstwhile been informally and perversely kind.
“I perceive it won’t do to give way to impulse,” Phillotson resumed,
feeling more and more every minute the necessity of acting up to his
position. “I flew in the face of the Church’s teaching; but I did it
without malice prepense. Women are so strange in their influence that
they tempt you to misplaced kindness. However, I know myself better
now. A little judicious severity, perhaps…”
“Yes; but you must tighten the reins by degrees only. Don’t be too
strenuous at first. She’ll come to any terms in time.”
The caution was unnecessary, though Phillotson did not say so. “I
remember what my vicar at Shaston said, when I left after the row that
was made about my agreeing to her elopement. ‘The only thing you can do
to retrieve your position and hers is to admit your error in not
restraining her with a wise and strong hand, and to get her back again
if she’ll come, and be firm in the future.’ But I was so headstrong at
that time that I paid no heed. And that after the divorce she should
have thought of doing so I did not dream.”
The gate of Mrs. Edlin’s cottage clicked, and somebody began crossing
in the direction of the school. Phillotson said “Good-night.”
“Oh, is that Mr. Phillotson,” said Mrs. Edlin. “I was going over to see
’ee. I’ve been upstairs with her, helping her to unpack her things; and
upon my word, sir, I don’t think this ought to be!”
“What—the wedding?”
“Yes. She’s forcing herself to it, poor dear little thing; and you’ve
no notion what she’s suffering. I was never much for religion nor
against it, but it can’t be right to let her do this, and you ought to
persuade her out of it. Of course everybody will say it was very good
and forgiving of ’ee to take her to ’ee again. But for my part I
don’t.”
“It’s her wish, and I am willing,” said Phillotson with grave reserve,
opposition making him illogically tenacious now. “A great piece of
laxity will be rectified.”
“I don’t believe it. She’s his wife if anybody’s. She’s had three
children by him, and he loves her dearly; and it’s a wicked shame to
egg her on to this, poor little quivering thing! She’s got nobody on
her side. The one man who’d be her friend the obstinate creature won’t
allow to come near her. What first put her into this mood o’ mind, I
wonder!”
“I can’t tell. Not I certainly. It is all voluntary on her part. Now
that’s all I have to say.” Phillotson spoke stiffly. “You’ve turned
round, Mrs. Edlin. It is unseemly of you!”
“Well, I knowed you’d be affronted at what I had to say; but I don’t
mind that. The truth’s the truth.”
“I’m not affronted, Mrs. Edlin. You’ve been too kind a neighbour for
that. But I must be allowed to know what’s best for myself and Susanna.
I suppose you won’t go to church with us, then?”
“No. Be hanged if I can… I don’t know what the times be coming to!
Matrimony have growed to be that serious in these days that one really
do feel afeard to move in it at all. In my time we took it more
careless; and I don’t know that we was any the worse for it! When I and
my poor man were jined in it we kept up the junketing all the week, and
drunk the parish dry, and had to borrow half a crown to begin
housekeeping!”
When Mrs. Edlin had gone back to her cottage Phillotson spoke moodily.
“I don’t know whether I ought to do it—at any rate quite so rapidly.”
“Why?”
“If she is really compelling herself to this against her
instincts—merely from this new sense of duty or religion—I ought
perhaps to let her wait a bit.”
“Now you’ve got so far you ought not to back out of it. That’s my
opinion.”
“I can’t very well put it off now; that’s true. But I had a qualm when
she gave that little cry at sight of the licence.”
“Now, never you have qualms, old boy. I mean to give her away to-morrow
morning, and you mean to take her. It has always been on my conscience
that I didn’t urge more objections to your letting her go, and now
we’ve got to this stage I shan’t be content if I don’t help you to set
the matter right.”
Phillotson nodded, and seeing how staunch his friend was, became more
frank. “No doubt when it gets known what I’ve done I shall be thought a
soft fool by many. But they don’t know Sue as I do. Though so elusive,
hers is such an honest nature at bottom that I don’t think she has ever
done anything against her conscience. The fact of her having lived with
Fawley goes for nothing. At the time she left me for him she thought
she was quite within her right. Now she thinks otherwise.”
The next morning came, and the self-sacrifice of the woman on the altar
of what she was pleased to call her principles was acquiesced in by
these two friends, each from his own point of view. Phillotson went
across to the Widow Edlin’s to fetch Sue a few minutes after eight
o’clock. The fog of the previous day or two on the low-lands had
travelled up here by now, and the trees on the green caught armfuls,
and turned them into showers of big drops. The bride was waiting,
ready; bonnet and all on. She had never in her life looked so much like
the lily her name connoted as she did in that pallid morning light.
Chastened, world-weary, remorseful, the strain on her nerves had preyed
upon her flesh and bones, and she appeared smaller in outline than she
had formerly done, though Sue had not been a large woman in her days of
rudest health.
“Prompt,” said the schoolmaster, magnanimously taking her hand. But he
checked his impulse to kiss her, remembering her start of yesterday,
which unpleasantly lingered in his mind.
Gillingham joined them, and they left the house, Widow Edlin continuing
steadfast in her refusal to assist in the ceremony.
“Where is the church?” said Sue. She had not lived there for any length
of time since the old church was pulled down, and in her preoccupation
forgot the new one.
“Up here,” said Phillotson; and presently the tower loomed large and
solemn in the fog. The vicar had already crossed to the building, and
when they entered he said pleasantly: “We almost want candles.”
“You do—wish me to be yours, Richard?” gasped Sue in a whisper.
“Certainly, dear; above all things in the world.”
Sue said no more; and for the second or third time he felt he was not
quite following out the humane instinct which had induced him to let
her go.
There they stood, five altogether: the parson, the clerk, the couple,
and Gillingham; and the holy ordinance was resolemnized forthwith. In
the nave of the edifice were two or three villagers, and when the
clergyman came to the words, “What God hath joined,” a woman’s voice
from among these was heard to utter audibly:
“God hath jined indeed!”
It was like a re-enactment by the ghosts of their former selves of the
similar scene which had taken place at Melchester years before. When
the books were signed the vicar congratulated the husband and wife on
having performed a noble, and righteous, and mutually forgiving act.
“All’s well that ends well,” he said smiling. “May you long be happy
together, after thus having been ‘saved as by fire.’”
They came down the nearly empty building, and crossed to the
schoolhouse. Gillingham wanted to get home that night, and left early.
He, too, congratulated the couple. “Now,” he said in parting from
Phillotson, who walked out a little way, “I shall be able to tell the
people in your native place a good round tale; and they’ll all say
‘Well done,’ depend on it.”
When the schoolmaster got back Sue was making a pretence of doing some
housewifery as if she lived there. But she seemed timid at his
approach, and compunction wrought on him at sight of it.
“Of course, my dear, I shan’t expect to intrude upon your personal
privacy any more than I did before,” he said gravely. “It is for our
good socially to do this, and that’s its justification, if it was not
my reason.” Sue brightened a little.
VI
The place was the door of Jude’s lodging in the out-skirts of
Christminster—far from the precincts of St. Silas’ where he had
formerly lived, which saddened him to sickness. The rain was coming
down. A woman in shabby black stood on the doorstep talking to Jude,
who held the door in his hand.
“I am lonely, destitute, and houseless—that’s what I am! Father has
turned me out of doors after borrowing every penny I’d got, to put it
into his business, and then accusing me of laziness when I was only
waiting for a situation. I am at the mercy of the world! If you can’t
take me and help me, Jude, I must go to the workhouse, or to something
worse. Only just now two undergraduates winked at me as I came along.
’Tis hard for a woman to keep virtuous where there’s so many young
men!”
The woman in the rain who spoke thus was Arabella, the evening being
that of the day after Sue’s remarriage with Phillotson.
“I am sorry for you, but I am only in lodgings,” said Jude coldly.
“Then you turn me away?”
“I’ll give you enough to get food and lodging for a few days.”
“Oh, but can’t you have the kindness to take me in? I cannot endure
going to a public house to lodge; and I am so lonely. Please, Jude, for
old times’ sake!”
“No, no,” said Jude hastily. “I don’t want to be reminded of those
things; and if you talk about them I shall not help you.”
“Then I suppose I must go!” said Arabella. She bent her head against
the doorpost and began sobbing.
“The house is full,” said Jude. “And I have only a little extra room to
my own—not much more than a closet—where I keep my tools, and
templates, and the few books I have left!”
“That would be a palace for me!”
“There is no bedstead in it.”
“A bit of a bed could be made on the floor. It would be good enough for
me.”
Unable to be harsh with her, and not knowing what to do, Jude called
the man who let the lodgings, and said this was an acquaintance of his
in great distress for want of temporary shelter.
“You may remember me as barmaid at the Lamb and Flag formerly?” spoke
up Arabella. “My father has insulted me this afternoon, and I’ve left
him, though without a penny!”
The householder said he could not recall her features. “But still, if
you are a friend of Mr. Fawley’s we’ll do what we can for a day or
two—if he’ll make himself answerable?”
“Yes, yes,” said Jude. “She has really taken me quite unawares; but I
should wish to help her out of her difficulty.” And an arrangement was
ultimately come to under which a bed was to be thrown down in Jude’s
lumber-room, to make it comfortable for Arabella till she could get out
of the strait she was in—not by her own fault, as she declared—and
return to her father’s again.
While they were waiting for this to be done Arabella said: “You know
the news, I suppose?”
“I guess what you mean; but I know nothing.”
“I had a letter from Anny at Alfredston to-day. She had just heard that
the wedding was to be yesterday: but she didn’t know if it had come
off.”
“I don’t wish to talk of it.”