Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

Jude the Obscure
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pretending I am not! People who are good don’t want scolding as I
do. . . . But now that I have nobody but you, and nobody to defend
me, it is very hard that I mustn’t have my own way in deciding how
I’ll live with you, and whether I’ll be married or no!’
‘Sue, my own comrade and sweetheart, I don’t want to force you
either to marry or to do the other thing*––of course I don’t! It is too
wicked of you to be so pettish! Now we won’t say any more about it,
and go on just the same as we have done; and during the rest of our
walk we’ll talk of the meadows only, and the 
floods, and the prospect
of the farmers this coming year.’
After this the subject of marriage was not mentioned by them for
several days, though living as they were with only a landing between
them it was constantly in their minds. Sue was assisting Jude very
materially now: he had latterly occupied himself on his own account
in working and lettering headstones, which he kept in a little yard at
the back of his little house, where in the intervals of domestic duties
she marked out the letters full size for him, and blacked them in after
he had cut them. It was a lower class of handicraft than were his
former performances as a cathedral mason, and his only patrons
were the poor people who lived in his own neighbourhood, and knew
what a cheap man this ‘Jude Fawley: Monumental Mason’ (as he
called himself on his front door) was to employ for the simple
memorials they required for their dead. But he seemed more
independent than before, and it was the only arrangement under
which Sue, who particularly wished to be no burden on him, could
render any assistance.
At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere
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V.–ii.
I
 was an evening at the end of the month, and Jude had just
returned home from hearing a lecture on ancient history in the pub-
lic hall not far o
ff. When he entered Sue, who had been keeping
indoors during his absence, laid out supper for him. Contrary to
custom she did not speak. Jude had taken up some illustrated paper,
which he perused till, raising his eyes, he saw that her face was
troubled.
‘Are you depressed, Sue?’ he said.
She paused a moment. ‘I have a message for you,’ she answered.
‘Somebody has called?’
‘Yes. A woman.’ Sue’s voice quavered as she spoke, and she sud-
denly sat down from her preparations, laid her hands in her lap, and
looked into the 
fire. ‘I don’t know whether I did right or not!’ she
continued. ‘I said you were not at home, and when she said she
would wait, I said I thought you might not be able to see her.’
‘Why did you say that, dear? I suppose she wanted a headstone.
Was she in mourning?’
‘No. She wasn’t in mourning, and she didn’t want a headstone;
and I thought you couldn’t see her.’ Sue looked critically and
imploringly at him.
‘But who was she? Didn’t she say?’
‘No. She wouldn’t give her name. But I know who she was––I
think I do! It was Arabella!’
‘Heaven save us! What should Arabella come for? What made you
think it was she?’
‘O, I can hardly tell. But I know it was! I feel perfectly certain it
was––by the light in her eyes as she looked at me. She was a 
fleshy,
coarse woman.’
‘Well––I should not have called Arabella coarse exactly, except in
speech, though she may be getting so by this time under the duties of
the public-house. She was rather handsome when I knew her.’
‘Handsome! But yes!––so she is!’
‘I think I heard a quiver in your little mouth. Well, waiving that, as
she is nothing to me, and virtuously married to another man, why
should she come troubling us?’

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‘Are you sure she’s married? Have you de
finite news of it?’
‘No––not de
finite news. But that was why she asked me to release
her. She and the man both wanted to lead a proper life, as I
understood.’
‘O Jude––it was, it was Arabella!’ cried Sue, covering her eyes with
her hand. ‘And I am so miserable! It seems such an ill-omen, what-
ever she may have come for. You could not possibly see her, could
you?’
‘I don’t really think I could. It would be so very painful to talk to
her now––for her as much as for me. However, she’s gone. Did she
say she would come again?’
‘No. But she went away very reluctantly.’
Sue, whom the least thing upset, could not eat any supper, and
when Jude had 
finished his he prepared to go to bed. He had no
sooner raked out the 
fire, fastened the doors and got to the top of the
stairs than there came a knock. Sue instantly emerged from her
room, which she had but just entered.
‘There she is again!’ Sue whispered in appalled accents.
‘How do you know?’
‘She knocked like that last time.’
They listened, and the knocking came again. No servant was kept
in the house, and if the summons were to be responded to one of
them would have to do it in person. ‘I’ll open a window,’ said Jude.
‘Whoever it is cannot be expected to be let in at this time.’
He accordingly went into his bedroom and lifted the sash. The
lonely street of early retiring work-people was empty from end to
end save of one 
figure, that of a woman walking up and down by the
lamp a few yards o
ff.
‘Who’s there?’ he asked.
‘Is that Mr. Fawley?’ came up from the woman, in a voice which
was unmistakably Arabella’s.
Jude replied that it was.
‘Is it she?’ asked Sue from the door, with lips apart.
‘Yes, dear,’ said Jude. ‘What do you want, Arabella?’ he inquired.
‘I beg your pardon, Jude, for disturbing you,’ said Arabella hum-
bly. ‘But I called earlier––I wanted particularly to see you to-night, if
I could. I am in trouble, and have nobody to help me.’
‘In trouble, are you?’
‘Yes.’