Part 36

“I seem to see them, and almost hear them rustling. But I don’t revere all of them as I did then. I don’t believe in half of them. The theologians, the apologists, and their kin the metaphysicians, the high-handed statesmen, and others, no longer interest me. All that has been spoilt for me by the grind of stern reality!”

The expression of Jude’s corpselike face in the watery lamplight was indeed as if he saw people where there was nobody. At moments he stood still by an archway, like one watching a figure walk out; then he would look at a window like one discerning a familiar face behind it. He seemed to hear voices, whose words he repeated as if to gather their meaning.

“They seem laughing at me!”

“Who?”

“Oh—I was talking to myself! The phantoms all about here, in the college archways, and windows. They used to look friendly in the old days, particularly Addison, and Gibbon, and Johnson, and Dr. Browne, and Bishop Ken—”

“Come along do! Phantoms! There’s neither living nor dead hereabouts except a damn policeman! I never saw the streets emptier.”

“Fancy! The Poet of Liberty used to walk here, and the great Dissector of Melancholy there!”

“I don’t want to hear about ’em! They bore me.”

“Walter Raleigh is beckoning to me from that lane—Wycliffe—Harvey—Hooker—Arnold—and a whole crowd of Tractarian Shades—”

“I _don’t want_ to know their names, I tell you! What do I care about folk dead and gone? Upon my soul you are more sober when you’ve been drinking than when you have not!”

“I must rest a moment,” he said; and as he paused, holding to the railings, he measured with his eye the height of a college front. “This is old Rubric. And that Sarcophagus; and up that lane Crozier and Tudor: and all down there is Cardinal with its long front, and its windows with lifted eyebrows, representing the polite surprise of the university at the efforts of such as I.”

“Come along, and I’ll treat you!”

“Very well. It will help me home, for I feel the chilly fog from the meadows of Cardinal as if death-claws were grabbing me through and through. As Antigone said, I am neither a dweller among men nor ghosts. But, Arabella, when I am dead, you’ll see my spirit flitting up and down here among these!”

“Pooh! You mayn’t die after all. You are tough enough yet, old man.”

It was night at Marygreen, and the rain of the afternoon showed no sign of abatement. About the time at which Jude and Arabella were walking the streets of Christminster homeward, the Widow Edlin crossed the green, and opened the back door of the schoolmaster’s dwelling, which she often did now before bedtime, to assist Sue in putting things away.

Sue was muddling helplessly in the kitchen, for she was not a good housewife, though she tried to be, and grew impatient of domestic details.

“Lord love ’ee, what do ye do that yourself for, when I’ve come o’ purpose! You knew I should come.”

“Oh—I don’t know—I forgot! No, I didn’t forget. I did it to discipline myself. I have scrubbed the stairs since eight o’clock. I _must_ practise myself in my household duties. I’ve shamefully neglected them!”

“Why should ye? He’ll get a better school, perhaps be a parson, in time, and you’ll keep two servants. ’Tis a pity to spoil them pretty hands.”

“Don’t talk of my pretty hands, Mrs. Edlin. This pretty body of mine has been the ruin of me already!”

“Pshoo—you’ve got no body to speak of! You put me more in mind of a sperrit. But there seems something wrong to-night, my dear. Husband cross?”

“No. He never is. He’s gone to bed early.”

“Then what is it?”

“I cannot tell you. I have done wrong to-day. And I want to eradicate it… Well—I will tell you this—Jude has been here this afternoon, and I find I still love him—oh, grossly! I cannot tell you more.”

“Ah!” said the widow. “I told ’ee how ’twould be!”

“But it shan’t be! I have not told my husband of his visit; it is not necessary to trouble him about it, as I never mean to see Jude any more. But I am going to make my conscience right on my duty to Richard—by doing a penance—the ultimate thing. I must!”

“I wouldn’t—since he agrees to it being otherwise, and it has gone on three months very well as it is.”

“Yes—he agrees to my living as I choose; but I feel it is an indulgence I ought not to exact from him. It ought not to have been accepted by me. To reverse it will be terrible—but I must be more just to him. O why was I so unheroic!”

“What is it you don’t like in him?” asked Mrs. Edlin curiously.

“I cannot tell you. It is something… I cannot say. The mournful thing is, that nobody would admit it as a reason for feeling as I do; so that no excuse is left me.”

“Did you ever tell Jude what it was?”

“Never.”

“I’ve heard strange tales o’ husbands in my time,” observed the widow in a lowered voice. “They say that when the saints were upon the earth devils used to take husbands’ forms o’ nights, and get poor women into all sorts of trouble. But I don’t know why that should come into my head, for it is only a tale… What a wind and rain it is to-night! Well—don’t be in a hurry to alter things, my dear. Think it over.”

“No, no! I’ve screwed my weak soul up to treating him more courteously—and it must be now—at once—before I break down!”

“I don’t think you ought to force your nature. No woman ought to be expected to.”

“It is my duty. I will drink my cup to the dregs!”

Half an hour later when Mrs. Edlin put on her bonnet and shawl to leave, Sue seemed to be seized with vague terror.

“No—no—don’t go, Mrs. Edlin,” she implored, her eyes enlarged, and with a quick nervous look over her shoulder.

“But it is bedtime, child.”

“Yes, but—there’s the little spare room—my room that was. It is quite ready. Please stay, Mrs. Edlin!—I shall want you in the morning.”

“Oh well—I don’t mind, if you wish. Nothing will happen to my four old walls, whether I be there or no.”

She then fastened up the doors, and they ascended the stairs together.

“Wait here, Mrs. Edlin,” said Sue. “I’ll go into my old room a moment by myself.”

Leaving the widow on the landing Sue turned to the chamber which had been hers exclusively since her arrival at Marygreen, and pushing to the door knelt down by the bed for a minute or two. She then arose, and taking her night-gown from the pillow undressed and came out to Mrs. Edlin. A man could be heard snoring in the room opposite. She wished Mrs. Edlin good-night, and the widow entered the room that Sue had just vacated.

Sue unlatched the other chamber door, and, as if seized with faintness, sank down outside it. Getting up again she half opened the door, and said “Richard.” As the word came out of her mouth she visibly shuddered.

The snoring had quite ceased for some time, but he did not reply. Sue seemed relieved, and hurried back to Mrs. Edlin’s chamber. “Are you in bed, Mrs. Edlin?” she asked.

“No, dear,” said the widow, opening the door. “I be old and slow, and it takes me a long while to un-ray. I han’t unlaced my jumps yet.”

“I—don’t hear him! And perhaps—perhaps—”

“What, child?”

“Perhaps he’s dead!” she gasped. “And then—I should be _free_, and I could go to Jude! … Ah—no—I forgot _her_—and God!”

“Let’s go and hearken. No—he’s snoring again. But the rain and the wind is so loud that you can hardly hear anything but between whiles.”

Sue had dragged herself back. “Mrs. Edlin, good-night again! I am sorry I called you out.” The widow retreated a second time.

The strained, resigned look returned to Sue’s face when she was alone. “I must do it—I must! I must drink to the dregs!” she whispered. “Richard!” she said again.

“Hey—what? Is that you, Susanna?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want? Anything the matter? Wait a moment.” He pulled on some articles of clothing, and came to the door. “Yes?”

“When we were at Shaston I jumped out of the window rather than that you should come near me. I have never reversed that treatment till now—when I have come to beg your pardon for it, and ask you to let me in.”

“Perhaps you only think you ought to do this? I don’t wish you to come against your impulses, as I have said.”

“But I beg to be admitted.” She waited a moment, and repeated, “I beg to be admitted! I have been in error—even to-day. I have exceeded my rights. I did not mean to tell you, but perhaps I ought. I sinned against you this afternoon.”

“How?”

“I met Jude! I didn’t know he was coming. And—”

“Well?”

“I kissed him, and let him kiss me.”

“Oh—the old story!”

“Richard, I didn’t know we were going to kiss each other till we did!”

“How many times?”

“A good many. I don’t know. I am horrified to look back on it, and the least I can do after it is to come to you like this.”

“Come—this is pretty bad, after what I’ve done! Anything else to confess?”

“No.” She had been intending to say: “I called him my darling Love.” But, as a contrite woman always keeps back a little, that portion of the scene remained untold. She went on: “I am never going to see him any more. He spoke of some things of the past, and it overcame me. He spoke of—the children. But, as I have said, I am glad—almost glad I mean—that they are dead, Richard. It blots out all that life of mine!”

“Well—about not seeing him again any more. Come—you really mean this?” There was something in Phillotson’s tone now which seemed to show that his three months of remarriage with Sue had somehow not been so satisfactory as his magnanimity or amative patience had anticipated.

“Yes, yes!”

“Perhaps you’ll swear it on the New Testament?”

“I will.”

He went back to the room and brought out a little brown Testament. “Now then: So help you God!”

She swore.

“Very good!”

“Now I supplicate you, Richard, to whom I belong, and whom I wish to honour and obey, as I vowed, to let me in.”

“Think it over well. You know what it means. Having you back in the house was one thing—this another. So think again.”

“I have thought—I wish this!”

“That’s a complaisant spirit—and perhaps you are right. With a lover hanging about, a half-marriage should be completed. But I repeat my reminder this third and last time.”

“It is my wish! … O God!”

“What did you say ‘O God’ for?”

“I don’t know!”

“Yes you do! But …” He gloomily considered her thin and fragile form a moment longer as she crouched before him in her night-clothes. “Well, I thought it might end like this,” he said presently. “I owe you nothing, after these signs; but I’ll take you in at your word, and forgive you.”

He put his arm round her to lift her up. Sue started back.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, speaking for the first time sternly. “You shrink from me again?—just as formerly!”

“No, Richard—I—I—was not thinking—”

“You wish to come in here?”

“Yes.”

“You still bear in mind what it means?”

“Yes. It is my duty!”

Placing the candlestick on the chest of drawers he led her through the doorway, and lifting her bodily, kissed her. A quick look of aversion passed over her face, but clenching her teeth she uttered no cry.

Mrs. Edlin had by this time undressed, and was about to get into bed when she said to herself: “Ah—perhaps I’d better go and see if the little thing is all right. How it do blow and rain!”

The widow went out on the landing, and saw that Sue had disappeared. “Ah! Poor soul! Weddings be funerals ’a b’lieve nowadays. Fifty-five years ago, come Fall, since my man and I married! Times have changed since then!”

X

Despite himself Jude recovered somewhat, and worked at his trade for several weeks. After Christmas, however, he broke down again.

With the money he had earned he shifted his lodgings to a yet more central part of the town. But Arabella saw that he was not likely to do much work for a long while, and was cross enough at the turn affairs had taken since her remarriage to him. “I’m hanged if you haven’t been clever in this last stroke!” she would say, “to get a nurse for nothing by marrying me!”

Jude was absolutely indifferent to what she said, and indeed, often regarded her abuse in a humorous light. Sometimes his mood was more earnest, and as he lay he often rambled on upon the defeat of his early aims.

“Every man has some little power in some one direction,” he would say. “I was never really stout enough for the stone trade, particularly the fixing. Moving the blocks always used to strain me, and standing the trying draughts in buildings before the windows are in always gave me colds, and I think that began the mischief inside. But I felt I could do one thing if I had the opportunity. I could accumulate ideas, and impart them to others. I wonder if the founders had such as I in their minds—a fellow good for nothing else but that particular thing? … I hear that soon there is going to be a better chance for such helpless students as I was. There are schemes afoot for making the university less exclusive, and extending its influence. I don’t know much about it. And it is too late, too late for me! Ah—and for how many worthier ones before me!”

“How you keep a-mumbling!” said Arabella. “I should have thought you’d have got over all that craze about books by this time. And so you would, if you’d had any sense to begin with. You are as bad now as when we were first married.”

On one occasion while soliloquizing thus he called her “Sue” unconsciously.

“I wish you’d mind who you are talking to!” said Arabella indignantly. “Calling a respectable married woman by the name of that—” She remembered herself and he did not catch the word.

But in the course of time, when she saw how things were going, and how very little she had to fear from Sue’s rivalry, she had a fit of generosity. “I suppose you want to see your—Sue?” she said. “Well, I don’t mind her coming. You can have her here if you like.”

“I don’t wish to see her again.”

“Oh—that’s a change!”

“And don’t tell her anything about me—that I’m ill, or anything. She has chosen her course. Let her go!”

One day he received a surprise. Mrs. Edlin came to see him, quite on her own account. Jude’s wife, whose feelings as to where his affections were centred had reached absolute indifference by this time, went out, leaving the old woman alone with Jude. He impulsively asked how Sue was, and then said bluntly, remembering what Sue had told him: “I suppose they are still only husband and wife in name?”

Mrs. Edlin hesitated. “Well, no—it’s different now. She’s begun it quite lately—all of her own free will.”

“When did she begin?” he asked quickly.

“The night after you came. But as a punishment to her poor self. He didn’t wish it, but she insisted.”

“Sue, my Sue—you darling fool—this is almost more than I can endure! … Mrs. Edlin—don’t be frightened at my rambling—I’ve got to talk to myself lying here so many hours alone—she was once a woman whose intellect was to mine like a star to a benzoline lamp: who saw all _my_ superstitions as cobwebs that she could brush away with a word. Then bitter affliction came to us, and her intellect broke, and she veered round to darkness. Strange difference of sex, that time and circumstance, which enlarge the views of most men, narrow the views of women almost invariably. And now the ultimate horror has come—her giving herself like this to what she loathes, in her enslavement to forms! She, so sensitive, so shrinking, that the very wind seemed to blow on her with a touch of deference… As for Sue and me when we were at our own best, long ago—when our minds were clear, and our love of truth fearless—the time was not ripe for us! Our ideas were fifty years too soon to be any good to us. And so the resistance they met with brought reaction in her, and recklessness and ruin on me! … There—this, Mrs. Edlin, is how I go on to myself continually, as I lie here. I must be boring you awfully.”

“Not at all, my dear boy. I could hearken to ’ee all day.”

As Jude reflected more and more on her news, and grew more restless, he began in his mental agony to use terribly profane language about social conventions, which started a fit of coughing. Presently there came a knock at the door downstairs. As nobody answered it Mrs. Edlin herself went down.

The visitor said blandly: “The Doctor.” The lanky form was that of Physician Vilbert, who had been called in by Arabella.

“How is my patient at present?” asked the physician.

“Oh bad—very bad! Poor chap, he got excited, and do blaspeam terribly, since I let out some gossip by accident—the more to my blame. But there—you must excuse a man in suffering for what he says, and I hope God will forgive him.”

“Ah. I’ll go up and see him. Mrs. Fawley at home?”

“She’s not in at present, but she’ll be here soon.”

Vilbert went; but though Jude had hitherto taken the medicines of that skilful practitioner with the greatest indifference whenever poured down his throat by Arabella, he was now so brought to bay by events that he vented his opinion of Vilbert in the physician’s face, and so forcibly, and with such striking epithets, that Vilbert soon scurried downstairs again. At the door he met Arabella, Mrs. Edlin having left. Arabella inquired how he thought her husband was now, and seeing that the Doctor looked ruffled, asked him to take something. He assented.

“I’ll bring it to you here in the passage,” she said. “There’s nobody but me about the house to-day.”

She brought him a bottle and a glass, and he drank.

Arabella began shaking with suppressed laughter. “What is this, my dear?” he asked, smacking his lips.

“Oh—a drop of wine—and something in it.” Laughing again she said: “I poured your own love-philtre into it, that you sold me at the agricultural show, don’t you re-member?”

“I do, I do! Clever woman! But you must be prepared for the consequences.” Putting his arm round her shoulders he kissed her there and then.

“Don’t don’t,” she whispered, laughing good-humouredly. “My man will hear.”

She let him out of the house, and as she went back she said to herself: “Well! Weak women must provide for a rainy day. And if my poor fellow upstairs do go off—as I suppose he will soon—it’s well to keep chances open. And I can’t pick and choose now as I could when I was younger. And one must take the old if one can’t get the young.”

XI

The last pages to which the chronicler of these lives would ask the reader’s attention are concerned with the scene in and out of Jude’s bedroom when leafy summer came round again.

His face was now so thin that his old friends would hardly have known him. It was afternoon, and Arabella was at the looking-glass curling her hair, which operation she performed by heating an umbrella-stay in the flame of a candle she had lighted, and using it upon the flowing lock. When she had finished this, practised a dimple, and put on her things, she cast her eyes round upon Jude. He seemed to be sleeping, though his position was an elevated one, his malady preventing him lying down.

Arabella, hatted, gloved, and ready, sat down and waited, as if expecting some one to come and take her place as nurse.

Certain sounds from without revealed that the town was in festivity, though little of the festival, whatever it might have been, could be seen here. Bells began to ring, and the notes came into the room through the open window, and travelled round Jude’s head in a hum. They made her restless, and at last she said to herself: “Why ever doesn’t Father come?”

She looked again at Jude, critically gauged his ebbing life, as she had done so many times during the late months, and glancing at his watch, which was hung up by way of timepiece, rose impatiently. Still he slept, and coming to a resolution she slipped from the room, closed the door noiselessly, and descended the stairs. The house was empty. The attraction which moved Arabella to go abroad had evidently drawn away the other inmates long before.

It was a warm, cloudless, enticing day. She shut the front door, and hastened round into Chief Street, and when near the theatre could hear the notes of the organ, a rehearsal for a coming concert being in progress. She entered under the archway of Oldgate College, where men were putting up awnings round the quadrangle for a ball in the hall that evening. People who had come up from the country for the day were picnicking on the grass, and Arabella walked along the gravel paths and under the aged limes. But finding this place rather dull she returned to the streets, and watched the carriages drawing up for the concert, numerous Dons and their wives, and undergraduates with gay female companions, crowding up likewise. When the doors were closed, and the concert began, she moved on.

The powerful notes of that concert rolled forth through the swinging yellow blinds of the open windows, over the housetops, and into the still air of the lanes. They reached so far as to the room in which Jude lay; and it was about this time that his cough began again and awakened him.

As soon as he could speak he murmured, his eyes still closed: “A little water, please.”

Nothing but the deserted room received his appeal, and he coughed to exhaustion again—saying still more feebly: “Water—some water—Sue—Arabella!”

The room remained still as before. Presently he gasped again: “Throat—water—Sue—darling—drop of water—please—oh please!”

No water came, and the organ notes, faint as a bee’s hum, rolled in as before.

While he remained, his face changing, shouts and hurrahs came from somewhere in the direction of the river.

“Ah—yes! The Remembrance games,” he murmured. “And I here. And Sue defiled!”

The hurrahs were repeated, drowning the faint organ notes. Jude’s face changed more: he whispered slowly, his parched lips scarcely moving:

_“Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived.”_

(“Hurrah!”)

_“Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.”_

(“Hurrah!”)