Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

parted the omnibus-man had no other idea than that she was going
for a short visit.
When Phillotson got back into the house he went upstairs and
opened the window in the direction the omnibus had taken. Soon the
noise of its wheels died away. He came down then, his face com-
pressed like that of one bearing pain; he put on his hat and went out,
following by the same route for nearly a mile. Suddenly turning
round he came home.
He had no sooner entered than the voice of his friend Gillingham
greeted him from the front room.
‘I could make nobody hear; so 
finding your door open I walked in,
and made myself comfortable. I said I would call, you remember.’
‘Yes. I am much obliged to you, Gillingham, particularly for
coming to-night.’
‘How is Mrs.——’
‘She is quite well. She is gone––just gone. That’s her tea-cup, that
she drank out of only an hour ago. And that’s the plate she––’
Phillotson’s throat got choked up, and he could not go on. He turned
and pushed the tea-things aside.
‘Have you had any tea, by-the-bye?’ he asked presently in a
renewed voice.
‘No––yes––never mind,’ said Gillingham, preoccupied. ‘Gone,
you say she is?’
‘Yes. . . . I would have died for her; but I wouldn’t be cruel to her
in the name of the law. She is, as I understand, gone to join her lover.
What they are going to do I cannot say. Whatever it may be she has
my full consent to.’
There was a stability, a ballast, in Phillotson’s pronouncement
which restrained his friend’s comment. ‘Shall I––leave you?’ he
asked.
Jude the Obscure


---

‘No, no. It is a mercy to me that you have come. I have some
articles to arrange and clear away. Would you help me?’
Gillingham assented; and having gone to the upper rooms the
schoolmaster opened drawers, and began taking out all Sue’s things
that she had left behind, and laying them in a large box. ‘She
wouldn’t take all I wanted her to,’ he continued. ‘But when I made
up my mind to her going to live in her own way I did make up my
mind.’
‘Some men would have stopped at an agreement to separate.’
‘I’ve gone into all that, and don’t wish to argue it. I was, and am,
the most old-fashioned man in the world on the question of
marriage––in fact I had never thought critically about its ethics at all.
But certain facts stared me in the face, and I couldn’t go against
them.’
They went on with the packing silently. When it was done
Phillotson closed the box and turned the key.
‘There,’ he said. ‘To adorn her in somebody’s eyes; never again in
mine.’
At Shaston


---

IV.–v.
F
-- hours before this time Sue had written the
following note to Jude:
‘It is as I told you; and I am leaving to-morrow evening. Richard and I
thought it could be done with less obtrusiveness after dark. I feel rather
frightened, and therefore ask you to be sure you are on the Melchester
platform to meet me. I arrive at a little to seven. I know you will, of course,
dear Jude; but I feel so timid that I can’t help begging you to be punctual.
He has been so very kind to me through it all!
‘Now to our meeting!
S.’
As she was carried by the omnibus further and further down from
the mountain town––the single passenger that evening––she
regarded the receding road with a sad face. But no hesitation was
apparent therein.
The up-train by which she was departing stopped by signal only.
To Sue it seemed strange that such a powerful organization as a
railway-train should be brought to a standstill on purpose for her ––a
fugitive from her lawful home.
The twenty minutes’ journey drew towards its close, and Sue
began gathering her things together to alight. At the moment that
the train came to a standstill by the Melchester platform a hand was
laid on the door, and she beheld Jude. He entered the compartment
promptly. He had a black bag in his hand, and was dressed in the
dark suit he wore on Sundays and in the evening after work.
Altogether he looked a very handsome young fellow, his ardent
a
ffection for her burning in his eyes.
‘O Jude!’ She clasped his hand with both hers, and her tense state
caused her to simmer over in a little succession of dry sobs. ‘I––I am
so glad! I get out here?’
‘No. I get in, dear one. I’ve packed. Besides this bag I’ve only a big
box, which is labelled.’
‘But don’t I get out? Aren’t we going to stay here?’
‘We couldn’t possibly, don’t you see. We are known here––I, at any
rate, am well known. I’ve booked for Aldbrickham; and here’s your
ticket for the same place, as you have only one to here.’

---

‘I thought we should have stayed here,’ she repeated.
‘It wouldn’t have done at all.’
‘Ah––Perhaps not.’
‘There wasn’t time for me to write and say the place I had decided
on. Aldbrickham is a much bigger town––sixty or seventy thousand
inhabitants––and nobody knows anything about us there.’
‘And you have given up your Cathedral work here?’
‘Yes. It was rather sudden––your message coming unexpectedly.
Strictly, I might have been made to 
finish out the week. But I pleaded
urgency and I was let o
ff. I would have deserted any day at your
command, dear Sue. I have deserted more than that for you!’
‘I fear I am doing you a lot of harm. Ruining your prospects of the
Church; ruining your progress in your trade; everything!’
‘The Church is no more to me. Let it lie! I am not be one of
“The soldier-saints who, row on row,
Burn upward each to his point of bliss,”*
if any such there be! My point of bliss is not upward, but here.’*
‘O I seem so bad––upsetting men’s courses like this!’ said she,
taking up in her voice the emotion that had begun in his. But she
recovered her equanimity by the time they had travelled a dozen
miles.
‘He has been so good in letting me go,’ she resumed. ‘And here’s a
note I found on my dressing-table addressed to you.’
‘Yes. He’s not an unworthy fellow,’ said Jude, glancing at the note.
‘And I am ashamed of myself for hating him because he married
you.’
‘According to the rule of women’s whims I suppose I ought to
suddenly love him, because he has let me go so generously and
unexpectedly,’ she answered smiling. ‘But I am so cold, or devoid of
gratitude, or so something, that even this generosity hasn’t made me
love him, or repent, or want to stay with him as his wife; although I
do feel I like his large-mindedness, and respect him more than ever.’
‘It may not work so well for us as if he had been less kind, and you
had run away against his will,’ murmured Jude.
‘That I never would have done.’
Jude’s eyes rested musingly on her face. Then he suddenly kissed
her; and was going to kiss her again. ‘No––only once now––please,
Jude!’