Jude the Obscure

Chapter 3

"She went out with her young man," said a second-year's student, who

knew about young men. "And Miss Traceley saw her at the station with

him. She'll have it hot when she does come."

"She said he was her cousin," observed a youthful new girl.

"That excuse has been made a little too often in this school to be

effectual in saving our souls," said the head girl of the year,

drily.

The fact was that, only twelve months before, there had occurred

a lamentable seduction of one of the pupils who had made the same

statement in order to gain meetings with her lover. The affair had

created a scandal, and the management had consequently been rough on

cousins ever since.

At nine o'clock the names were called, Sue's being pronounced three

times sonorously by Miss Traceley without eliciting an answer.

At a quarter past nine the seventy stood up to sing the "Evening

Hymn," and then knelt down to prayers. After prayers they went in to

supper, and every girl's thought was, Where is Sue Bridehead? Some

of the students, who had seen Jude from the window, felt that they

would not mind risking her punishment for the pleasure of being

kissed by such a kindly-faced young men. Hardly one among them

believed in the cousinship.

Half an hour later they all lay in their cubicles, their tender

feminine faces upturned to the flaring gas-jets which at intervals

stretched down the long dormitories, every face bearing the legend

"The Weaker" upon it, as the penalty of the s*x wherein they were

moulded, which by no possible exertion of their willing hearts and

abilities could be made strong while the inexorable laws of nature

remain what they are. They formed a pretty, suggestive, pathetic

sight, of whose pathos and beauty they were themselves unconscious,

and would not discover till, amid the storms and strains of

after-years, with their injustice, loneliness, child-bearing, and

bereavement, their minds would revert to this experience as to

something which had been allowed to slip past them insufficiently

regarded.

One of the mistresses came in to turn out the lights, and before

doing so gave a final glance at Sue's cot, which remained empty, and

at her little dressing-table at the foot, which, like all the rest,

was ornamented with various girlish trifles, framed photographs being

not the least conspicuous among them. Sue's table had a moderate

show, two men in their filigree and velvet frames standing together

beside her looking-glass.

"Who are these men--did she ever say?" asked the mistress. "Strictly

speaking, relations' portraits only are allowed on these tables, you

know."

"One--the middle-aged man," said a student in the next bed--"is the

schoolmaster she served under--Mr. Phillotson."

"And the other--this undergraduate in cap and gown--who is he?"

"He is a friend, or was. She has never told his name."

"Was it either of these two who came for her?"

"No."

"You are sure 'twas not the undergraduate?"

"Quite. He was a young man with a black beard."

The lights were promptly extinguished, and till they fell asleep the

girls indulged in conjectures about Sue, and wondered what games

she had carried on in London and at Christminster before she came

here, some of the more restless ones getting out of bed and looking

from the mullioned windows at the vast west front of the cathedral

opposite, and the spire rising behind it.

When they awoke the next morning they glanced into Sue's nook,

to find it still without a tenant. After the early lessons by

gas-light, in half-toilet, and when they had come up to dress for

breakfast, the bell of the entrance gate was heard to ring loudly.

The mistress of the dormitory went away, and presently came back to

say that the principal's orders were that nobody was to speak to

Bridehead without permission.

When, accordingly, Sue came into the dormitory to hastily tidy

herself, looking flushed and tired, she went to her cubicle in

silence, none of them coming out to greet her or to make inquiry.

When they had gone downstairs they found that she did not follow them

into the dining-hall to breakfast, and they then learnt that she had

been severely reprimanded, and ordered to a solitary room for a week,

there to be confined, and take her meals, and do all her reading.

At this the seventy murmured, the sentence being, they thought, too

severe. A round robin was prepared and sent in to the principal,

asking for a remission of Sue's punishment. No notice was taken.

Towards evening, when the geography mistress began dictating her

subject, the girls in the class sat with folded arms.

"You mean that you are not going to work?" said the mistress at last.

"I may as well tell you that it has been ascertained that the young

man Bridehead stayed out with was not her cousin, for the very

good reason that she has no such relative. We have written to

Christminster to ascertain."

"We are willing to take her word," said the head girl.

"This young man was discharged from his work at Christminster for

drunkenness and blasphemy in public-houses, and he has come here to

live, entirely to be near her."

However, they remained stolid and motionless, and the mistress left

the room to inquire from her superiors what was to be done.

Presently, towards dusk, the pupils, as they sat, heard exclamations

from the first-year's girls in an adjoining classroom, and one rushed

in to say that Sue Bridehead had got out of the back window of the

room in which she had been confined, escaped in the dark across the

lawn, and disappeared. How she had managed to get out of the garden

nobody could tell, as it was bounded by the river at the bottom, and

the side door was locked.

They went and looked at the empty room, the casement between the

middle mullions of which stood open. The lawn was again searched

with a lantern, every bush and shrub being examined, but she was

nowhere hidden. Then the porter of the front gate was interrogated,

and on reflection he said that he remembered hearing a sort of

splashing in the stream at the back, but he had taken no notice,

thinking some ducks had come down the river from above.

"She must have walked through the river!" said a mistress.

"Or drownded herself," said the porter.

The mind of the matron was horrified--not so much at the possible

death of Sue as at the possible half-column detailing that event in

all the newspapers, which, added to the scandal of the year before,

would give the college an unenviable notoriety for many months to

come.

More lanterns were procured, and the river examined; and then, at

last, on the opposite shore, which was open to the fields, some

little boot-tracks were discerned in the mud, which left no doubt

that the too excitable girl had waded through a depth of water

reaching nearly to her shoulders--for this was the chief river of the

county, and was mentioned in all the geography books with respect.

As Sue had not brought disgrace upon the school by drowning herself,

the matron began to speak superciliously of her, and to express

gladness that she was gone.

On the self-same evening Jude sat in his lodgings by the Close Gate.

Often at this hour after dusk he would enter the silent Close, and

stand opposite the house that contained Sue, and watch the shadows of

the girls' heads passing to and fro upon the blinds, and wish he had

nothing else to do but to sit reading and learning all day what many

of the thoughtless inmates despised. But to-night, having finished

tea and brushed himself up, he was deep in the perusal of the

Twenty-ninth Volume of Pusey's Library of the Fathers, a set of books

which he had purchased of a second-hand dealer at a price that seemed

to him to be one of miraculous cheapness for that invaluable work. He

fancied he heard something rattle lightly against his window; then he

heard it again. Certainly somebody had thrown gravel. He rose and

gently lifted the sash.

"Jude!" (from below).

"Sue!"

"Yes--it is! Can I come up without being seen?"

"Oh yes!"

"Then don't come down. Shut the window."

Jude waited, knowing that she could enter easily enough, the front

door being opened merely by a knob which anybody could turn, as

in most old country towns. He palpitated at the thought that she

had fled to him in her trouble as he had fled to her in his. What

counterparts they were! He unlatched the door of his room, heard a

stealthy rustle on the dark stairs, and in a moment she appeared in

the light of his lamp. He went up to seize her hand, and found she

was clammy as a marine deity, and that her clothes clung to her like

the robes upon the figures in the Parthenon frieze.

"I'm so cold!" she said through her chattering teeth. "Can I come by

your fire, Jude?"

She crossed to his little grate and very little fire, but as the

water dripped from her as she moved, the idea of drying herself was

absurd. "Whatever have you done, darling?" he asked, with alarm, the

tender epithet slipping out unawares.

"Walked through the largest river in the county--that's what I've

done! They locked me up for being out with you; and it seemed so

unjust that I couldn't bear it, so I got out of the window and

escaped across the stream!" She had begun the explanation in her

usual slightly independent tones, but before she had finished the

thin pink lips trembled, and she could hardly refrain from crying.

"Dear Sue!" he said. "You must take off all your things! And let me

see--you must borrow some from the landlady. I'll ask her."

"No, no! Don't let her know, for God's sake! We are so near the

school that they'll come after me!"

"Then you must put on mine. You don't mind?"

"Oh no."

"My Sunday suit, you know. It is close here." In fact, everything

was close and handy in Jude's single chamber, because there was not

room for it to be otherwise. He opened a drawer, took out his best

dark suit, and giving the garments a shake, said, "Now, how long

shall I give you?"

"Ten minutes."

Jude left the room and went into the street, where he walked up and

down. A clock struck half-past seven, and he returned. Sitting in

his only arm-chair he saw a slim and fragile being masquerading as

himself on a Sunday, so pathetic in her defencelessness that his

heart felt big with the sense of it. On two other chairs before the

fire were her wet garments. She blushed as he sat down beside her,

but only for a moment.

"I suppose, Jude, it is odd that you should see me like this and all

my things hanging there? Yet what nonsense! They are only a woman's

clothes--sexless cloth and linen... I wish I didn't feel so ill and

sick! Will you dry my clothes now? Please do, Jude, and I'll get a

lodging by and by. It is not late yet."

"No, you shan't, if you are ill. You must stay here. Dear, dear

Sue, what can I get for you?"

"I don't know! I can't help shivering. I wish I could get warm."

Jude put on her his great-coat in addition, and then ran out to the

nearest public-house, whence he returned with a little bottle in his

hand. "Here's six of best brandy," he said. "Now you drink it,

dear; all of it."

"I can't out of the bottle, can I?" Jude fetched the glass from the

dressing-table, and administered the spirit in some water. She

gasped a little, but gulped it down, and lay back in the armchair.

She then began to relate circumstantially her experiences since

they had parted; but in the middle of her story her voice faltered,

her head nodded, and she ceased. She was in a sound sleep. Jude,

dying of anxiety lest she should have caught a chill which might

permanently injure her, was glad to hear the regular breathing. He

softly went nearer to her, and observed that a warm flush now rosed

her hitherto blue cheeks, and felt that her hanging hand was no

longer cold. Then he stood with his back to the fire regarding her,

and saw in her almost a divinity.