Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

Jude the Obscure
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announcement of a marriage at St. John’s Church, Waterloo Road,
under the names, ‘C
––D’, the united pair being
Arabella and the innkeeper.
‘Well, it is satisfactory,’ said Sue complacently. ‘Though, after
this, it seems rather low to do likewise,* and I am glad––However, she
is provided for now in a way, I suppose, whatever her faults, poor
thing. It is nicer that we are able to think that, than to be uneasy
about her. I ought, too, to write to Richard and ask him how he is
getting on, perhaps?’
But Jude’s attention was still absorbed. Having merely glanced at
the announcement he said in a disturbed voice: ‘Listen to this letter.
What shall I say or do?
“T
 T H, L.
“D
 J: (I won’t be so distant as to call you Mr. Fawley.)
I send to-day a newspaper, from which useful document you will learn that I
was married over again to Cartlett last Tuesday. So that business is settled
right and tight at last. But what I write about more particular is that
private a
ffair I wanted to speak to you on when I came down to Aldbrick-
ham. I couldn’t very well tell it to your lady friend, and should much have
liked to let you know it by word of mouth, as I could have explained
better than by letter. The fact is, Jude, that, though I have never informed
you before, there was a boy born of our marriage, eight months after I left
you, when I was at Sydney, living with my father and mother. All that is
easily provable. As I had separated from you before I thought such a thing
was going to happen, and I was over there, and our quarrel had been
sharp, I did not think it convenient to write about the birth. I was then
looking out for a good situation, so my parents took the child, and he has
been with them ever since. That was why I did not mention it when I met
you in Christminster, nor at the law proceedings. He is now of an intelli-
gent age, of course, and my mother and father have lately written to say
that, as they have rather a hard struggle over there, and I am settled
comfortably here, they don’t see why they should be encumbered with
the child any longer, his parents being alive. I would have him with me
here in a moment, but he is not old enough to be of any use in the bar, nor
will be for years and years, and naturally Cartlett might think him in the
way. They have however packed him o
ff to me in charge of some friends
who happened to be coming home, and I must ask you to take him when
he arrives for I don’t know what to do with him. He is lawfully yours, that
I solemnly swear. If anybody says he isn’t, call them brimstone liars, for
my sake. Whatever I may have done before or afterwards, I was honest
At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere
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to you from the time we were married till I went away, and I remain,
yours, &c.,
A
 C.”
Sue’s look was one of dismay. ‘What will you do, dear?’ she asked
faintly.
Jude did not reply, and Sue watched him anxiously, with heavy
breaths.
‘It hits me hard!’ said he in an under-voice. ‘It may be true! I can’t
make it out. Certainly, if his birth was exactly when she says, he’s
mine. I cannot think why she didn’t tell me when I met her at
Christminster and came on here that evening with her . . . Ah––I do
remember now that she said something about having a thing on her
mind that she would like me to know, if ever we lived together
again.’
‘The poor child seems to be wanted by nobody!’ Sue replied, and
her eyes 
filled.
Jude had by this time come to himself. ‘What a view of life he
must have, mine or not mine!’ he said. ‘I must say that, if I were
better o
ff, I should not stop for a moment to think whose he might
be. I would take him, and bring him up. The beggarly question of
parentage––what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come
to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little
ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time,
and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for
their own children, and their dislike of other people’s, is, like class-
feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism and other virtues, a
mean exclusiveness at bottom.’
Sue jumped up and kissed Jude with passionate devotion. ‘Yes––
so it is, dearest! And we’ll have him here! And if he isn’t yours it
makes it all the better. I do hope he isn’t––though perhaps I ought
not to feel quite that. If he isn’t, I should like so much for us to have
him as an adopted child!’
‘Well, you must assume about him what is most pleasing to you,
my curious little comrade!’ he said. ‘I feel that, anyhow, I don’t like
to leave the unfortunate little fellow to neglect. Just think of his life
in a Lambeth pothouse, and all its evil in
fluences, with a parent who
doesn’t want him, and has, indeed, hardly seen him, and a stepfather
who doesn’t know him. “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and
Jude the Obscure
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the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived!”*
That’s what the boy––my boy, perhaps––will 
find himself saying
before long!’
‘O no!’
‘As I was the petitioner, I am really entitled to his custody, I
suppose.’
‘Whether or no, we must have him. I see that. I’ll do the best I can
to be a mother to him, and we can a
fford to keep him somehow. I’ll
work harder. I wonder when he’ll arrive?’
‘In the course of a few weeks, I suppose.’
‘I wish––. When shall we have courage to marry, Jude?’
‘Whenever you have it I think I shall. It remains with you entirely,
dear. Only say the word, and it’s done.’
‘Before the boy comes?’
‘Certainly.’
‘It would make a more natural home for him perhaps,’ she
murmured.
Jude thereupon wrote in purely formal terms to request that the
boy should be sent on to them as soon as he arrived, making no
remark whatever on the surprising nature of Arabella’s information,
nor vouchsa
fing a single word of opinion on the boy’s paternity, nor
on whether, had he known all this, his conduct towards her would
have been quite the same.
In the down train that was timed to reach Aldbrickham station
about ten o’clock the next evening a small, pale child’s face could be
seen in the gloom of a third-class carriage. He had large frightened
eyes, and wore a white woollen cravat, over which a key was sus-
pended round his neck by a piece of common string, the key attract-
ing attention by its occasional shine in the lamplight. In the band of
his hat his half-ticket was stuck. His eyes remained mostly 
fixed on
the back of the seat opposite, and never turned to the window even
when a station was reached and called. On the other seat were two or
three passengers, one of them a working woman who held a basket
on her lap, in which was a tabby kitten. The woman opened the cover
now and then, whereupon the kitten would put out its head, and
indulge in playful antics. At these the fellow-passengers laughed,
except the solitary boy bearing the key and ticket, who, regarding the
kitten with his saucer eyes, seemed mutely to say: ‘All laughing
At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere
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comes from misapprehension. Rightly looked at there is no laughable
thing under the sun.’
Occasionally at a stoppage the guard would look into the com-