Jude the Obscure
“By Gad, they are coming! I think the deed’s done!”
“No,” said Uncle Joe, following him in. “Take my word, he turned rusty
at the last minute. They are walking in a very unusual way; and that’s
the meaning of it!”
They waited in silence till the wedding-party could be heard entering
the house. First into the room came Arabella boisterously; and her face
was enough to show that her strategy had succeeded.
“Mrs. Fawley, I presume?” said Tinker Taylor with mock courtesy.
“Certainly. Mrs. Fawley again,” replied Arabella blandly, pulling off
her glove and holding out her left hand. “There’s the padlock, see…
Well, he was a very nice, gentlemanly man indeed. I mean the clergyman.
He said to me as gentle as a babe when all was done: ‘Mrs. Fawley, I
congratulate you heartily,’ he says. ‘For having heard your history,
and that of your husband, I think you have both done the right and
proper thing. And for your past errors as a wife, and his as a husband,
I think you ought now to be forgiven by the world, as you have forgiven
each other,’ says he. Yes; he was a very nice, gentlemanly man. ‘The
Church don’t recognize divorce in her dogma, strictly speaking,’ he
says: ‘and bear in mind the words of the service in your goings out and
your comings in: What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.’
Yes; he was a very nice, gentlemanly man… But, Jude, my dear, you were
enough to make a cat laugh! You walked that straight, and held yourself
that steady, that one would have thought you were going ’prentice to a
judge; though I knew you were seeing double all the time, from the way
you fumbled with my finger.”
“I said I’d do anything to—save a woman’s honour,” muttered Jude. “And
I’ve done it!”
“Well now, old deary, come along and have some breakfast.”
“I want—some—more whisky,” said Jude stolidly.
“Nonsense, dear. Not now! There’s no more left. The tea will take the
muddle out of our heads, and we shall be as fresh as larks.”
“All right. I’ve—married you. She said I ought to marry you again, and
I have straightway. It is true religion! Ha—ha—ha!”
VIII
Michaelmas came and passed, and Jude and his wife, who had lived but a
short time in her father’s house after their remarriage, were in
lodgings on the top floor of a dwelling nearer to the centre of the
city.
He had done a few days’ work during the two or three months since the
event, but his health had been indifferent, and it was now precarious.
He was sitting in an arm-chair before the fire, and coughed a good
deal.
“I’ve got a bargain for my trouble in marrying thee over again!”
Arabella was saying to him. “I shall have to keep ’ee entirely—that’s
what ’twill come to! I shall have to make black-pot and sausages, and
hawk ’em about the street, all to support an invalid husband I’d no
business to be saddled with at all. Why didn’t you keep your health,
deceiving one like this? You were well enough when the wedding was!”
“Ah, yes!” said he, laughing acridly. “I have been thinking of my
foolish feeling about the pig you and I killed during our first
marriage. I feel now that the greatest mercy that could be vouchsafed
to me would be that something should serve me as I served that animal.”
This was the sort of discourse that went on between them every day now.
The landlord of the lodging, who had heard that they were a queer
couple, had doubted if they were married at all, especially as he had
seen Arabella kiss Jude one evening when she had taken a little
cordial; and he was about to give them notice to quit, till by chance
overhearing her one night haranguing Jude in rattling terms, and
ultimately flinging a shoe at his head, he recognized the note of
genuine wedlock; and concluding that they must be respectable, said no
more.
Jude did not get any better, and one day he requested Arabella, with
considerable hesitation, to execute a commission for him. She asked him
indifferently what it was.
“To write to Sue.”
“What in the name—do you want me to write to her for?”
“To ask how she is, and if she’ll come to see me, because I’m ill, and
should like to see her—once again.”
“It is like you to insult a lawful wife by asking such a thing!”
“It is just in order not to insult you that I ask you to do it. You
know I love Sue. I don’t wish to mince the matter—there stands the
fact: I love her. I could find a dozen ways of sending a letter to her
without your knowledge. But I wish to be quite above-board with you,
and with her husband. A message through you asking her to come is at
least free from any odour of intrigue. If she retains any of her old
nature at all, she’ll come.”
“You’ve no respect for marriage whatever, or its rights and duties!”
“What _does_ it matter what my opinions are—a wretch like me! Can it
matter to anybody in the world who comes to see me for half an
hour—here with one foot in the grave! … Come, please write, Arabella!”
he pleaded. “Repay my candour by a little generosity!”
“I should think _not_!”
“Not just once?—Oh do!” He felt that his physical weakness had taken
away all his dignity.
“What do you want _her_ to know how you are for? She don’t want to see
’ee. She’s the rat that forsook the sinking ship!”
“Don’t, don’t!”
“And I stuck to un—the more fool I! Have that strumpet in the house
indeed!”
Almost as soon as the words were spoken Jude sprang from the chair, and
before Arabella knew where she was he had her on her back upon a little
couch which stood there, he kneeling above her.
“Say another word of that sort,” he whispered, “and I’ll kill you—here
and now! I’ve everything to gain by it—my own death not being the least
part. So don’t think there’s no meaning in what I say!”
“What do you want me to do?” gasped Arabella.
“Promise never to speak of her.”
“Very well. I do.”
“I take your word,” he said scornfully as he loosened her. “But what it
is worth I can’t say.”
“You couldn’t kill the pig, but you could kill me!”
“Ah—there you have me! No—I couldn’t kill you—even in a passion. Taunt
away!”
He then began coughing very much, and she estimated his life with an
appraiser’s eye as he sank back ghastly pale. “I’ll send for her,”
Arabella murmured, “if you’ll agree to my being in the room with you
all the time she’s here.”
The softer side of his nature, the desire to see Sue, made him unable
to resist the offer even now, provoked as he had been; and he replied
breathlessly: “Yes, I agree. Only send for her!”
In the evening he inquired if she had written.
“Yes,” she said; “I wrote a note telling her you were ill, and asking
her to come to-morrow or the day after. I haven’t posted it yet.”
The next day Jude wondered if she really did post it, but would not ask
her; and foolish Hope, that lives on a drop and a crumb, made him
restless with expectation. He knew the times of the possible trains,
and listened on each occasion for sounds of her.
She did not come; but Jude would not address Arabella again thereon. He
hoped and expected all the next day; but no Sue appeared; neither was
there any note of reply. Then Jude decided in the privacy of his mind
that Arabella had never posted hers, although she had written it. There
was something in her manner which told it. His physical weakness was
such that he shed tears at the disappointment when she was not there to
see. His suspicions were, in fact, well founded. Arabella, like some
other nurses, thought that your duty towards your invalid was to pacify
him by any means short of really acting upon his fancies.
He never said another word to her about his wish or his conjecture. A
silent, undiscerned resolve grew up in him, which gave him, if not
strength, stability and calm. One midday when, after an absence of two
hours, she came into the room, she beheld the chair empty.
Down she flopped on the bed, and sitting, meditated. “Now where the
devil is my man gone to!” she said.
A driving rain from the north-east had been falling with more or less
intermission all the morning, and looking from the window at the
dripping spouts it seemed impossible to believe that any sick man would
have ventured out to almost certain death. Yet a conviction possessed
Arabella that he had gone out, and it became a certainty when she had
searched the house. “If he’s such a fool, let him be!” she said. “I can
do no more.”
Jude was at that moment in a railway train that was drawing near to
Alfredston, oddly swathed, pale as a monumental figure in alabaster,
and much stared at by other passengers. An hour later his thin form, in
the long great-coat and blanket he had come with, but without an
umbrella, could have been seen walking along the five-mile road to
Marygreen. On his face showed the determined purpose that alone
sustained him, but to which has weakness afforded a sorry foundation.
By the up-hill walk he was quite blown, but he pressed on; and at
half-past three o’clock stood by the familiar well at Marygreen. The
rain was keeping everybody indoors; Jude crossed the green to the
church without observation, and found the building open. Here he stood,
looking forth at the school, whence he could hear the usual sing-song
tones of the little voices that had not learnt Creation’s groan.
He waited till a small boy came from the school—one evidently allowed
out before hours for some reason or other. Jude held up his hand, and
the child came.
“Please call at the schoolhouse and ask Mrs. Phillotson if she will be
kind enough to come to the church for a few minutes.”
The child departed, and Jude heard him knock at the door of the
dwelling. He himself went further into the church. Everything was new,
except a few pieces of carving preserved from the wrecked old fabric,
now fixed against the new walls. He stood by these: they seemed akin to
the perished people of that place who were his ancestors and Sue’s.
A light footstep, which might have been accounted no more than an added
drip to the rainfall, sounded in the porch, and he looked round.
“Oh—I didn’t think it was you! I didn’t—Oh, Jude!” A hysterical catch
in her breath ended in a succession of them. He advanced, but she
quickly recovered and went back.
“Don’t go—don’t go!” he implored. “This is my last time! I thought it
would be less intrusive than to enter your house. And I shall never
come again. Don’t then be unmerciful. Sue, Sue! We are acting by the
letter; and ‘the letter killeth’!”
“I’ll stay—I won’t be unkind!” she said, her mouth quivering and her
tears flowing as she allowed him to come closer. “But why did you come,
and do this wrong thing, after doing such a right thing as you have
done?”
“What right thing?”
“Marrying Arabella again. It was in the Alfredston paper. She has never
been other than yours, Jude—in a proper sense. And therefore you did so
well—Oh so well!—in recognizing it—and taking her to you again.”
“God above—and is that all I’ve come to hear? If there is anything more
degrading, immoral, unnatural, than another in my life, it is this
meretricious contract with Arabella which has been called doing the
right thing! And you too—you call yourself Phillotson’s wife! _His_
wife! You are mine.”
“Don’t make me rush away from you—I can’t bear much! But on this point
I am decided.”
“I cannot understand how you did it—how you think it—I cannot!”
“Never mind that. He is a kind husband to me—And I—I’ve wrestled and
struggled, and fasted, and prayed. I have nearly brought my body into
complete subjection. And you mustn’t—will you—wake—”
“Oh you darling little fool; where is your reason? You seem to have
suffered the loss of your faculties! I would argue with you if I didn’t
know that a woman in your state of feeling is quite beyond all appeals
to her brains. Or is it that you are humbugging yourself, as so many