Jude the Obscure

Chapter 8

He could not stay in his silent lodging when they were gone, and

fearing that he might be tempted to drown his misery in alcohol he

went upstairs, changed his dark clothes for his white, his thin boots

for his thick, and proceeded to his customary work for the afternoon.

But in the cathedral he seemed to hear a voice behind him, and to

be possessed with an idea that she would come back. She could not

possibly go home with Phillotson, he fancied. The feeling grew and

stirred. The moment that the clock struck the last of his working

hours he threw down his tools and rushed homeward. "Has anybody been

for me?" he asked.

Nobody had been there.

As he could claim the downstairs sitting-room till twelve o'clock

that night he sat in it all the evening; and even when the clock had

struck eleven, and the family had retired, he could not shake off

the feeling that she would come back and sleep in the little room

adjoining his own in which she had slept so many previous days. Her

actions were always unpredictable: why should she not come? Gladly

would he have compounded for the denial of her as a sweetheart and

wife by having her live thus as a fellow-lodger and friend, even on

the most distant terms. His supper still remained spread, and going

to the front door, and softly setting it open, he returned to the

room and sat as watchers sit on Old-Midsummer eves, expecting the

phantom of the Beloved. But she did not come.

Having indulged in this wild hope he went upstairs, and looked out of

the window, and pictured her through the evening journey to London,

whither she and Phillotson had gone for their holiday; their rattling

along through the damp night to their hotel, under the same sky of

ribbed cloud as that he beheld, through which the moon showed its

position rather than its shape, and one or two of the larger stars

made themselves visible as faint nebulae only. It was a new

beginning of Sue's history. He projected his mind into the future,

and saw her with children more or less in her own likeness around

her. But the consolation of regarding them as a continuation of

her identity was denied to him, as to all such dreamers, by the

wilfulness of Nature in not allowing issue from one parent alone.

Every desired renewal of an existence is debased by being half alloy.

"If at the estrangement or death of my lost love, I could go and see

her child--hers solely--there would be comfort in it!" said Jude.

And then he again uneasily saw, as he had latterly seen with more and

more frequency, the scorn of Nature for man's finer emotions, and her

lack of interest in his aspirations.

The oppressive strength of his affection for Sue showed itself on

the morrow and following days yet more clearly. He could no longer

endure the light of the Melchester lamps; the sunshine was as drab

paint, and the blue sky as zinc. Then he received news that his old

aunt was dangerously ill at Marygreen, which intelligence almost

coincided with a letter from his former employer at Christminster,

who offered him permanent work of a good class if he would come back.

The letters were almost a relief to him. He started to visit Aunt

Drusilla, and resolved to go onward to Christminster to see what

worth there might be in the builder's offer.

Jude found his aunt even worse than the communication from the Widow

Edlin had led him to expect. There was every possibility of her

lingering on for weeks or months, though little likelihood. He wrote

to Sue informing her of the state of her aunt, and suggesting that

she might like to see her aged relative alive. He would meet her at

Alfredston Road, the following evening, Monday, on his way back from

Christminster, if she could come by the up-train which crossed his

down-train at that station. Next morning, according, he went on to

Christminster, intending to return to Alfredston soon enough to keep

the suggested appointment with Sue.

The city of learning wore an estranged look, and he had lost all

feeling for its associations. Yet as the sun made vivid lights

and shades of the mullioned architecture of the fa ades, and drew

patterns of the crinkled battlements on the young turf of the

quadrangles, Jude thought he had never seen the place look more

beautiful. He came to the street in which he had first beheld Sue.

The chair she had occupied when, leaning over her ecclesiastical

scrolls, a hog-hair brush in her hand, her girlish figure had

arrested the gaze of his inquiring eyes, stood precisely in its

former spot, empty. It was as if she were dead, and nobody had been

found capable of succeeding her in that artistic pursuit. Hers was

now the city phantom, while those of the intellectual and devotional

worthies who had once moved him to emotion were no longer able to

assert their presence there.

However, here he was; and in fulfilment of his intention he went on

to his former lodging in "Beersheba," near the ritualistic church of

St. Silas. The old landlady who opened the door seemed glad to see

him again, and bringing some lunch informed him that the builder who

had employed him had called to inquire his address.

Jude went on to the stone-yard where he had worked. But the old

sheds and bankers were distasteful to him; he felt it impossible to

engage himself to return and stay in this place of vanished dreams.

He longed for the hour of the homeward train to Alfredston, where he

might probably meet Sue.

Then, for one ghastly half-hour of depression caused by these scenes,

there returned upon him that feeling which had been his undoing more

than once--that he was not worth the trouble of being taken care of

either by himself or others; and during this half-hour he met Tinker

Taylor, the bankrupt ecclesiastical ironmonger, at Fourways, who

proposed that they should adjourn to a bar and drink together.

They walked along the street till they stood before one of the

great palpitating centres of Christminster life, the inn wherein he

formerly had responded to the challenge to rehearse the Creed in

Latin--now a popular tavern with a spacious and inviting entrance,

which gave admittance to a bar that had been entirely renovated and

refitted in modern style since Jude's residence here.

Tinker Taylor drank off his glass and departed, saying it was too

stylish a place now for him to feel at home in unless he was drunker

than he had money to be just then. Jude was longer finishing his,

and stood abstractedly silent in the, for the minute, almost empty

place. The bar had been gutted and newly arranged throughout,

mahogany fixtures having taken the place of the old painted

ones, while at the back of the standing-space there were stuffed

sofa-benches. The room was divided into compartments in the approved

manner, between which were screens of ground glass in mahogany

framing, to prevent topers in one compartment being put to the blush

by the recognitions of those in the next. On the inside of the

counter two barmaids leant over the white-handled beer-engines,

and the row of little silvered taps inside, dripping into a pewter

trough.

Feeling tired, and having nothing more to do till the train left,

Jude sat down on one of the sofas. At the back of the barmaids rose

bevel-edged mirrors, with glass shelves running along their front,

on which stood precious liquids that Jude did not know the name

of, in bottles of topaz, sapphire, ruby and amethyst. The moment

was enlivened by the entrance of some customers into the next

compartment, and the starting of the mechanical tell-tale of monies

received, which emitted a ting-ting every time a coin was put in.

The barmaid attending to this compartment was invisible to Jude's

direct glance, though a reflection of her back in the glass behind

her was occasionally caught by his eyes. He had only observed this

listlessly, when she turned her face for a moment to the glass to set

her hair tidy. Then he was amazed to discover that the face was

Arabella's.

If she had come on to his compartment she would have seen him.

But she did not, this being presided over by the maiden on the other

side. Abby was in a black gown, with white linen cuffs and a broad

white collar, and her figure, more developed than formerly, was

accentuated by a bunch of daffodils that she wore on her left bosom.

In the compartment she served stood an electro-plated fountain of

water over a spirit-lamp, whose blue flame sent a steam from the top,

all this being visible to him only in the mirror behind her; which

also reflected the faces of the men she was attending to--one of them

a handsome, dissipated young fellow, possibly an undergraduate, who

had been relating to her an experience of some humorous sort.

"Oh, Mr. Cockman, now! How can you tell such a tale to me in my

innocence!" she cried gaily. "Mr. Cockman, what do you use to make

your moustache curl so beautiful?" As the young man was clean shaven

the retort provoked a laugh at his expense.

"Come!" said he, "I'll have a cura ao; and a light, please."

She served the liqueur from one of the lovely bottles and striking

a match held it to his cigarette with ministering archness while he

whiffed.

"Well, have you heard from your husband lately, my dear?" he asked.

"Not a sound," said she.

"Where is he?"

"I left him in Australia; and I suppose he's there still."

Jude's eyes grew rounder.

"What made you part from him?"

"Don't you ask questions, and you won't hear lies."

"Come then, give me my change, which you've been keeping from me for

the last quarter of an hour; and I'll romantically vanish up the

street of this picturesque city."

She handed the change over the counter, in taking which he caught her

fingers and held them. There was a slight struggle and titter, and

he bade her good-bye and left.

Jude had looked on with the eye of a dazed philosopher. It was

extraordinary how far removed from his life Arabella now seemed to

be. He could not realize their nominal closeness. And, this being

the case, in his present frame of mind he was indifferent to the fact

that Arabella was his wife indeed.

The compartment that she served emptied itself of visitors, and

after a brief thought he entered it, and went forward to the counter.

Arabella did not recognize him for a moment. Then their glances met.

She started; till a humorous impudence sparkled in her eyes, and she

spoke.

"Well, I'm blest! I thought you were underground years ago!"

"Oh!"

"I never heard anything of you, or I don't know that I should

have come here. But never mind! What shall I treat you to this

afternoon? A Scotch and soda? Come, anything that the house will

afford, for old acquaintance' sake!"

"Thanks, Arabella," said Jude without a smile. "But I don't want

anything more than I've had." The fact was that her unexpected

presence there had destroyed at a stroke his momentary taste for

strong liquor as completely as if it had whisked him back to his

milk-fed infancy.

"That's a pity, now you could get it for nothing."

"How long have you been here?"

"About six weeks. I returned from Sydney three months ago. I always

liked this business, you know."

"I wonder you came to this place!"

"Well, as I say, I thought you were gone to glory, and being in

London I saw the situation in an advertisement. Nobody was likely to

know me here, even if I had minded, for I was never in Christminster

in my growing up."

"Why did you return from Australia?"

"Oh, I had my reasons... Then you are not a don yet?"

"No."

"Not even a reverend?"

"No."

"Nor so much as a rather reverend dissenting gentleman?"

"I am as I was."

"True--you look so." She idly allowed her fingers to rest on the

pull of the beer-engine as she inspected him critically. He observed

that her hands were smaller and whiter than when he had lived with

her, and that on the hand which pulled the engine she wore an

ornamental ring set with what seemed to be real sapphires--which they

were, indeed, and were much admired as such by the young men who

frequented the bar.

"So you pass as having a living husband," he continued.

"Yes. I thought it might be awkward if I called myself a widow, as I

should have liked."

"True. I am known here a little."

"I didn't mean on that account--for as I said I didn't expect you.

It was for other reasons."

"What were they?"

"I don't care to go into them," she replied evasively. "I make a

very good living, and I don't know that I want your company."

Here a chappie with no chin, and a moustache like a lady's eyebrow,

came and asked for a curiously compounded drink, and Arabella was

obliged to go and attend to him. "We can't talk here," she said,

stepping back a moment. "Can't you wait till nine? Say yes, and

don't be a fool. I can get off duty two hours sooner than usual, if

I ask. I am not living in the house at present."

He reflected and said gloomily, "I'll come back. I suppose we'd

better arrange something."

"Oh, bother arranging! I'm not going to arrange anything!"

"But I must know a thing or two; and, as you say, we can't talk here.

Very well; I'll call for you."

Depositing his unemptied glass he went out and walked up and down the

street. Here was a rude flounce into the pellucid sentimentality of

his sad attachment to Sue. Though Arabella's word was absolutely

untrustworthy, he thought there might be some truth in her

implication that she had not wished to disturb him, and had really

supposed him dead. However, there was only one thing now to be done,

and that was to play a straightforward part, the law being the law,

and the woman between whom and himself there was no more unity than

between east and west being in the eye of the Church one person with

him.

Having to meet Arabella here, it was impossible to meet Sue at

Alfredston as he had promised. At every thought of this a pang

had gone through him; but the conjuncture could not be helped.

Arabella was perhaps an intended intervention to punish him for his

unauthorized love. Passing the evening, therefore, in a desultory

waiting about the town wherein he avoided the precincts of every

cloister and hall, because he could not bear to behold them, he

repaired to the tavern bar while the hundred and one strokes were

resounding from the Great Bell of Cardinal College, a coincidence

which seemed to him gratuitous irony. The inn was now brilliantly

lighted up, and the scene was altogether more brisk and gay. The

faces of the barmaidens had risen in colour, each having a pink

flush on her cheek; their manners were still more vivacious than

before--more abandoned, more excited, more sensuous, and they

expressed their sentiments and desires less euphemistically, laughing

in a lackadaisical tone, without reserve.

The bar had been crowded with men of all sorts during the previous

hour, and he had heard from without the hubbub of their voices; but

the customers were fewer at last. He nodded to Arabella, and told

her that she would find him outside the door when she came away.

"But you must have something with me first," she said with great

good humour. "Just an early night-cap: I always do. Then you can

go out and wait a minute, as it is best we should not be seen going

together." She drew a couple of liqueur glasses of brandy; and

though she had evidently, from her countenance, already taken in

enough alcohol either by drinking or, more probably, from the

atmosphere she had breathed for so many hours, she finished hers

quickly. He also drank his, and went outside the house.

In a few minutes she came, in a thick jacket and a hat with a black

feather. "I live quite near," she said, taking his arm, "and can let

myself in by a latch-key at any time. What arrangement do you want

to come to?"

"Oh--none in particular," he answered, thoroughly sick and tired, his

thoughts again reverting to Alfredston, and the train he did not go

by; the probable disappointment of Sue that he was not there when

she arrived, and the missed pleasure of her company on the long and

lonely climb by starlight up the hills to Marygreen. "I ought to

have gone back really! My aunt is on her deathbed, I fear."

"I'll go over with you to-morrow morning. I think I could get a day

off."

There was something particularly uncongenial in the idea of Arabella,

who had no more sympathy than a tigress with his relations or him,

coming to the bedside of his dying aunt, and meeting Sue. Yet he

said, "Of course, if you'd like to, you can."

"Well, that we'll consider... Now, until we have come to some

agreement it is awkward our being together here--where you are known,

and I am getting known, though without any suspicion that I have

anything to do with you. As we are going towards the station,

suppose we take the nine-forty train to Aldbrickham? We shall be

there in little more than half an hour, and nobody will know us for

one night, and we shall be quite free to act as we choose till we

have made up our minds whether we'll make anything public or not."

"As you like."

"Then wait till I get two or three things. This is my lodging.

Sometimes when late I sleep at the hotel where I am engaged, so

nobody will think anything of my staying out."

She speedily returned, and they went on to the railway, and made the

half-hour's journey to Aldbrickham, where they entered a third-rate

inn near the station in time for a late supper.