Jude the Obscure

Chapter 5

It was a little over half-past eight o'clock in the morning and he

was waiting to see her cross the road to the school, when he would

follow. At twenty minutes to nine she did cross, a light hat tossed

on her head; and he watched her as a curiosity. A new emanation,

which had nothing to do with her skill as a teacher, seemed to

surround her this morning. He went to the school also, and Sue

remained governing her class at the other end of the room, all day

under his eye. She certainly was an excellent teacher.

It was part of his duty to give her private lessons in the evening,

and some article in the Code made it necessary that a respectable,

elderly woman should be present at these lessons when the teacher and

the taught were of different sexes. Richard Phillotson thought of

the absurdity of the regulation in this case, when he was old enough

to be the girl's father; but he faithfully acted up to it; and sat

down with her in a room where Mrs. Hawes, the widow at whose house

Sue lodged, occupied herself with sewing. The regulation was,

indeed, not easy to evade, for there was no other sitting-room in the

dwelling.

Sometimes as she figured--it was arithmetic that they were working

at--she would involuntarily glance up with a little inquiring smile

at him, as if she assumed that, being the master, he must perceive

all that was passing in her brain, as right or wrong. Phillotson was

not really thinking of the arithmetic at all, but of her, in a novel

way which somehow seemed strange to him as preceptor. Perhaps she

knew that he was thinking of her thus.

For a few weeks their work had gone on with a monotony which in

itself was a delight to him. Then it happened that the children were

to be taken to Christminster to see an itinerant exhibition, in the

shape of a model of Jerusalem, to which schools were admitted at

a penny a head in the interests of education. They marched along

the road two and two, she beside her class with her simple cotton

sunshade, her little thumb c****d up against its stem; and Phillotson

behind in his long dangling coat, handling his walking-stick

genteelly, in the musing mood which had come over him since her

arrival. The afternoon was one of sun and dust, and when they

entered the exhibition room few people were present but themselves.

The model of the ancient city stood in the middle of the apartment,

and the proprietor, with a fine religious philanthropy written on his

features, walked round it with a pointer in his hand, showing the

young people the various quarters and places known to them by name

from reading their Bibles; Mount Moriah, the Valley of Jehoshaphat,

the City of Zion, the walls and the gates, outside one of which there

was a large mound like a tumulus, and on the mound a little white

cross. The spot, he said, was Calvary.

"I think," said Sue to the schoolmaster, as she stood with him a

little in the background, "that this model, elaborate as it is, is a

very imaginary production. How does anybody know that Jerusalem was

like this in the time of Christ? I am sure this man doesn't."

"It is made after the best conjectural maps, based on actual visits

to the city as it now exists."

"I fancy we have had enough of Jerusalem," she said, "considering we

are not descended from the Jews. There was nothing first-rate about

the place, or people, after all--as there was about Athens, Rome,

Alexandria, and other old cities."

"But my dear girl, consider what it is to us!"

She was silent, for she was easily repressed; and then perceived

behind the group of children clustered round the model a young man

in a white flannel jacket, his form being bent so low in his intent

inspection of the Valley of Jehoshaphat that his face was almost

hidden from view by the Mount of Olives. "Look at your cousin Jude,"

continued the schoolmaster. "He doesn't think we have had enough of

Jerusalem!"

"Ah--I didn't see him!" she cried in her quick, light voice.

"Jude--how seriously you are going into it!"

Jude started up from his reverie, and saw her. "Oh--Sue!" he said,

with a glad flush of embarrassment. "These are your school-children,

of course! I saw that schools were admitted in the afternoons, and

thought you might come; but I got so deeply interested that I didn't

remember where I was. How it carries one back, doesn't it! I could

examine it for hours, but I have only a few minutes, unfortunately;

for I am in the middle of a job out here."

"Your cousin is so terribly clever that she criticizes it

unmercifully," said Phillotson, with good-humoured satire. "She is

quite sceptical as to its correctness."

"No, Mr. Phillotson, I am not--altogether! I hate to be what is

called a clever girl--there are too many of that sort now!" answered

Sue sensitively. "I only meant--I don't know what I meant--except

that it was what you don't understand!"

"_I_ know your meaning," said Jude ardently (although he did not).

"And I think you are quite right."

"That's a good Jude--I know YOU believe in me!" She impulsively

seized his hand, and leaving a reproachful look on the schoolmaster

turned away to Jude, her voice revealing a tremor which she herself

felt to be absurdly uncalled for by sarcasm so gentle. She had not

the least conception how the hearts of the twain went out to her at

this momentary revelation of feeling, and what a complication she was

building up thereby in the futures of both.

The model wore too much of an educational aspect for the children not

to tire of it soon, and a little later in the afternoon they were all

marched back to Lumsdon, Jude returning to his work. He watched the

juvenile flock in their clean frocks and pinafores, filing down the

street towards the country beside Phillotson and Sue, and a sad,

dissatisfied sense of being out of the scheme of the latters' lives

had possession of him. Phillotson had invited him to walk out

and see them on Friday evening, when there would be no lessons to

give to Sue, and Jude had eagerly promised to avail himself of the

opportunity.

Meanwhile the scholars and teachers moved homewards, and the next

day, on looking on the blackboard in Sue's class, Phillotson was

surprised to find upon it, skilfully drawn in chalk, a perspective

view of Jerusalem, with every building shown in its place.

"I thought you took no interest in the model, and hardly looked at

it?" he said.

"I hardly did," said she, "but I remembered that much of it."

"It is more than I had remembered myself."

Her Majesty's school-inspector was at that time paying

"surprise-visits" in this neighbourhood to test the teaching

unawares; and two days later, in the middle of the morning lessons,

the latch of the door was softly lifted, and in walked my gentleman,

the king of terrors--to pupil-teachers.

To Mr. Phillotson the surprise was not great; like the lady in the

story he had been played that trick too many times to be unprepared.

But Sue's class was at the further end of the room, and her back was

towards the entrance; the inspector therefore came and stood behind

her and watched her teaching some half-minute before she became aware

of his presence. She turned, and realized that an oft-dreaded moment

had come. The effect upon her timidity was such that she uttered a

cry of fright. Phillotson, with a strange instinct of solicitude

quite beyond his control, was at her side just in time to prevent her

falling from faintness. She soon recovered herself, and laughed;

but when the inspector had gone there was a reaction, and she was

so white that Phillotson took her into his room, and gave her some

brandy to bring her round. She found him holding her hand.

"You ought to have told me," she gasped petulantly, "that one of the

inspector's surprise-visits was imminent! Oh, what shall I do! Now

he'll write and tell the managers that I am no good, and I shall be

disgraced for ever!"

"He won't do that, my dear little girl. You are the best teacher

ever I had!"

He looked so gently at her that she was moved, and regretted that she

had upbraided him. When she was better she went home.

Jude in the meantime had been waiting impatiently for Friday. On

both Wednesday and Thursday he had been so much under the influence

of his desire to see her that he walked after dark some distance

along the road in the direction of the village, and, on returning to

his room to read, found himself quite unable to concentrate his mind

on the page. On Friday, as soon as he had got himself up as he

thought Sue would like to see him, and made a hasty tea, he set

out, notwithstanding that the evening was wet. The trees overhead

deepened the gloom of the hour, and they dripped sadly upon him,

impressing him with forebodings--illogical forebodings; for though he

knew that he loved her he also knew that he could not be more to her

than he was.

On turning the corner and entering the village the first sight that

greeted his eyes was that of two figures under one umbrella coming

out of the vicarage gate. He was too far back for them to notice

him, but he knew in a moment that they were Sue and Phillotson. The

latter was holding the umbrella over her head, and they had evidently

been paying a visit to the vicar--probably on some business connected

with the school work. And as they walked along the wet and deserted

lane Jude saw Phillotson place his arm round the girl's waist;

whereupon she gently removed it; but he replaced it; and she let it

remain, looking quickly round her with an air of misgiving. She did

not look absolutely behind her, and therefore did not see Jude, who

sank into the hedge like one struck with a blight. There he remained

hidden till they had reached Sue's cottage and she had passed in,

Phillotson going on to the school hard by.

"Oh, he's too old for her--too old!" cried Jude in all the terrible

sickness of hopeless, handicapped love.

He could not interfere. Was he not Arabella's? He was unable to

go on further, and retraced his steps towards Christminster. Every

tread of his feet seemed to say to him that he must on no account

stand in the schoolmaster's way with Sue. Phillotson was perhaps

twenty years her senior, but many a happy marriage had been made

in such conditions of age. The ironical clinch to his sorrow was

given by the thought that the intimacy between his cousin and the

schoolmaster had been brought about entirely by himself.