Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

party went o
ff. He thought it hardly worth while to call at the shop
for his provisions at that hour, Donn and his daughter being prob-
ably not up, if they caroused late the night before. However he found
in passing that the door was open, and he could hear voices within,
though the shutters of the meat-stall were not down. He went and
tapped at the sitting-room door, and opened it.
‘Well––to be sure!’ he said, astonished.
Hosts and guests were sitting card-playing, smoking, and talking,
precisely as he had left them eleven hours earlier; the gas was burn-
ing and the curtains drawn, though it had been broad daylight for
two hours out of doors.
‘Yes!’ cried Arabella, laughing. ‘Here we are, just the same. We
ought to be ashamed of ourselves, oughtn’t we! But it is a sort of
housewarming, you see; and our friends are in no hurry. Come in
Mr. Taylor, and sit down.’
The tinker, or rather reduced ironmonger, was nothing loth, and
entered and took a seat. ‘I shall lose a quarter, but never mind,’ he
said. ‘Well, really, I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked in! It
seemed as if I was 
flung back again into last night, all of a sudden.’
‘So you are. Pour out for Mr. Taylor.’
He now perceived that she was sitting beside Jude, her arm being
round his waist. Jude, like the rest of the company, bore on his face
the signs of how deeply he had been indulging.
‘Well, we’ve been waiting for certain legal hours to arrive, to tell
the truth,’ she continued bashfully, and making her spirituous crim-
son look as much like a maiden blush as possible. ‘Jude and I have
decided to make up matters between us by tying the knot again, as
we 
find we can’t do without one another after all. So, as a bright
notion, we agreed to sit on till it was late enough, and go and do it
o
ff-hand.’
Jude seemed to pay no great heed to what she was announcing, or
indeed to anything whatever. The entrance of Taylor infused fresh
spirit into the company, and they remained sitting, till Arabella
whispered to her father: ‘Now we may as well go.’
‘But the parson don’t know?’
‘Yes, I told him last night that we might come between eight and
nine, as there were reasons of decency for doing it as early and quiet
At Christminster Again


---

as possible, on account of it being our second marriage, which might
make people curious to look on if they knew. He highly approved.’
‘O very well: I’m ready,’ said her father, getting up and shaking
himself.
‘Now old darling,’ she said to Jude. ‘Come along, as you
promised.’
‘When did I promise anything?’ asked he, whom she had made so
tipsy by her special knowledge of that line of business as almost to
have made him him sober again––or to seem so to those who did not
know him.
‘Why!’ said Arabella, a
ffecting dismay. ‘You’ve promised to marry
me several times as we’ve sat here to-night. These gentlemen have
heard you.’
‘I don’t remember it,’ said Jude doggedly. ‘There’s only one
woman––but I won’t mention her in this Capharnaum!’*
Arabella looked towards her father. ‘Now, Mr. Fawley, be honour-
able,’ said Donn. ‘You and my daughter have been living here
together these three or four days, quite on the understanding that
you were going to marry her. Of course I shouldn’t have had such
goings on in my house if I hadn’t understood that. As a point of
honour you must do it now.’
‘Don’t say anything against my honour!’ enjoined Jude hotly,
standing up. ‘I’d marry the W—— of Babylon rather than do any-
thing dishonourable! No re
flection on you, my dear. It is a mere
rhetorical 
figure––what they call in the books . . . hyperbole.’
‘Keep your 
figures for your debts to friends who shelter you,’ said
Donn.
‘If I am bound in honour to marry her––as I suppose I am––
though how I came to be here with her I know no more than a dead
man––marry her I will, so help me God. I have never behaved dis-
honourably to a woman, or to any living thing. I am not a man who
wants to save himself at the expense of the weaker among us.’
‘There––never mind him, deary,’ said she, putting her cheek
against Jude’s. ‘Come up and wash your face, and just put yourself
tidy, and o
ff we’ll go. Make it up with father.’
They shook hands. Jude went upstairs with her, and soon came
down looking tidy and calm. Arabella, too, had hastily arranged her-
self, and accompanied by Donn away they went.
‘Don’t go,’ she said to the guests at parting. ‘I’ve told the little
Jude the Obscure


---

maid to get the breakfast while we are gone; and when we come back
we’ll all have some. A good strong cup of tea will set everybody right
for going home.’
When Arabella, Jude and Donn had disappeared on their matri-
monial errand the assembled guests yawned themselves wider awake,
and discussed the situation with great interest. Tinker Taylor, being
the most sober, reasoned the most lucidly.
‘I don’t wish to speak against friends,’ he said. ‘But it do seem a
rare curiosity for a couple to marry over again! If they couldn’t get
on the 
first time when their minds were limp, they won’t the second,
by my reckoning.’
‘Do you think he’ll do it?’
‘He’s been put upon his honour by the woman, so he med.’
‘He’d hardly do it straight o
ff like this. He’s got no license nor
anything.’
‘She’s got that, bless you. Didn’t you hear her say so to her
father?’
‘Well,’ said Tinker Taylor re-lighting his pipe at the gas-jet. ‘Take
her all together, limb by limb, she’s not such a bad-looking piece––