Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere
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selling cakes talk like that!’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go back to
school-keeping?’
Sue shook her head. ‘They won’t have me.’
‘Because of the divorce, I suppose?’
‘That and other things. And there is no reason to wish it. We gave
up all ambition, and were never so happy in our lives till his illness
came.’
‘Where are you living?’
‘I don’t care to say.’
‘Here in Kennetbridge?’
Sue’s manner showed Arabella that her random guess was right.
‘Here comes the boy back again,’ continued Arabella. ‘My boy
and Jude’s!’
Sue’s eyes darted a spark. ‘You needn’t throw that in my face!’ she
cried.
‘Very well––though I half feel as if I should like to have him with
me! . . . But Lord, I don’t want to take him from ’ee––ever I should
sin to speak so profane––though I should think you must have
enough of your own! He’s in very good hands, that I know; and I am
not the woman to 
find fault with what the Lord has ordained. I’ve
reached a more resigned frame of mind.’
‘Indeed! I wish I had been able to do so.’
‘You should try,’ replied the widow, from the serene heights of a
soul conscious not only of spiritual but of social superiority. ‘I make
no boast of my awakening, but I’m not what I was. After Cartlett’s
death I was passing the chapel in the street next ours, and went into
it for shelter from a shower of rain. I felt a need of some sort of
support under my loss, and, as ’twas righter than gin, I took to going
there regular, and found it a great comfort. But I’ve left London
now, you know, and at present I am living at Alfredston, with my
friend Anny, to be near my own old country. I’m not come here to the
fair to-day. There’s to be the foundation-stone of a new chapel laid
this afternoon by a popular London preacher, and I drove over with
Anny. Now I must go back to meet her.’
Then Arabella wished Sue good-bye, and went on.
Jude the Obscure
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V.–viii.
I
 the afternoon Sue and the other people bustling about Ken-
netbridge fair could hear singing inside the placarded hoarding fur-
ther down the street. Those who peeped through the opening saw a
crowd of persons in broadcloth, with hymn-books in their hands,
standing round the excavations for the new chapel-walls. Arabella
Cartlett and her weeds stood among them. She had a clear, powerful
voice, which could be distinctly heard with the rest, rising and falling
to the tune, her breast’s superb abundance being also seen doing
likewise.
It was two hours later on the same day that Anny and Mrs.
Cartlett, having had tea at the Temperance hotel, started on their
return journey across the high and open country which stretches
between Kennetbridge and Alfredston. Arabella was in a thoughtful
mood; but her thoughts were not of the new chapel, as Anny at 
first
surmised.
‘No––it is something else,’ at last said Arabella sullenly. ‘I came
here to-day never thinking of anybody but poor Cartlett, or of any-
thing but spreading the Gospel by means of this new tabernacle
they’ve begun this afternoon. But something has happened to turn
my mind another way quite. Anny, I’ve heard of un again, and I’ve
seen her!’
‘Who?’
‘I’ve heard of Jude, and I’ve seen his wife. And ever since, do what
I will, and though I sung the hymns wi’ all my strength, I have not
been able to help thinking about ’n; which I’ve no right to do as a
chapel member.’
‘Can’t ye 
fix your mind upon what was said by the London
preacher to-day, and try to get rid of your wandering fancies that
way?’
‘I do. But my wicked heart will ramble o
ff in spite of myself!’
‘Well––I know what it is to have a wanton mind o’ my own, too! If
you on’y knew what I do dream sometimes o’ nights quite against my
wishes, you’d say I had my struggles!’ (Anny, too, had grown rather
serious of late, her lover having jilted her.)
‘What shall I do about it?’ urged Arabella morbidly.

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‘You could take a lock of your late-lost husband’s hair, and have it
made into a mourning brooch, and look at it every hour of the day.’
‘I haven’t a morsel!––and if I had ’twould be no good. . . . After all
that’s said about the comforts of this religion, I wish I had Jude back
again!’
‘You must 
fight valiant against the feeling, since he’s another’s.
And I’ve heard that another good thing for it, when it a
fflicts volup-
shious widows, is to go to your husband’s grave in the dusk of
evening, and stand a long while a-bowed down.’
‘Pooh! I know as well as you what I should do; only I don’t do it!’
They drove in silence along the straight road till they were within
the horizon of Marygreen, which lay not far to the left of their route.
They came to the junction of the highway and the cross-lane leading
to that village, whose church-tower could be seen athwart the hollow.
When they got yet further on, and were passing the lonely house in
which Arabella and Jude had lived during the 
first months of their
marriage, and where the pig-killing had taken place, she could
control herself no longer.
‘He’s more mine than hers!’ she burst out. ‘What right has she to
him, I should like to know! I’d take him from her if I could!’
‘Fie, Abby! And your husband only six weeks gone! Pray against
it!’
‘Be damned if I do! Feelings are feelings! I won’t be a creeping
hypocrite any longer––so there!’
Arabella had hastily drawn from her pocket a bundle of tracts
which she had brought with her to distribute at the fair, and of which
she had given away several. As she spoke she 
flung the whole
remainder of the packet into the hedge. ‘I’ve tried that sort o’ physic.
And have failed wi’ it. I must be as I was born!’
‘Hush! You be excited, dear! Now you come along home quiet,
and have a cup of tea, and don’t let us talk about un no more. We
won’t come out this road again, as it leads to where he is, because it
in
flames ’ee so. You’ll be all right again soon.’
Arabella did calm herself down by degrees; and they crossed the
Ridge-way. When they began to descend the long, straight hill, they
saw plodding along in front of them an elderly man of spare stature
and thoughtful gait. In his hand he carried a basket; and there was a
touch of slovenliness in his attire, together with that inde
finable
something in his whole appearance which suggested one who was his