Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

Jude the Obscure
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he thought Sue would like to see him, and made a hasty tea, he set
out, notwithstanding that the evening was wet. The trees overhead
deepened the gloom of the hour, and they dripped sadly upon him,
impressing him with forebodings––illogical forebodings; for though
he knew that he loved her he also knew that he could not be more to
her than he was.
On turning the corner and entering the village the 
first sight that
greeted his eyes was that of two 
figures under one umbrella coming
out of the vicarage gate. He was too far back for them to notice him,
but he knew in a moment that they were Sue and Phillotson. The
latter was holding the umbrella over her head, and they had evi-
dently been paying a visit to the vicar––probably on some business
connected with the school work. And as they walked along the wet
and deserted lane Jude saw Phillotson place his arm round the girl’s
waist, whereupon she gently removed it; but he replaced it; and she
let it remain, looking quickly round her with an air of misgiving. She
did not look absolutely behind her, and therefore did not see Jude,
who sank into the hedge like one struck with a blight. There he
remained hidden till they had reached Sue’s cottage, and she had
passed in, Phillotson going on to the school hard by.
‘O, he’s too old for her––too old!’ cried Jude in all the terrible
sickness of hopeless, handicapped love.
He could not interfere. Was he not Arabella’s? He was unable to
go on further, and retraced his steps towards Christminster. Every
tread of his feet seemed to say to him that he must on no account
stand in the schoolmaster’s way with Sue. Phillotson was perhaps
twenty years her senior, but many a happy marriage had been made
in such conditions of age. The ironical clinch to his sorrow was
given by the thought that the intimacy between his cousin and the
schoolmaster had been brought about entirely by himself.
At Christminster
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II.–vi.
J
’s old and embittered aunt lay unwell at Marygreen, and on
the following Sunday he went to see her––a visit which was the
result of a victorious struggle against his inclination to turn
aside to the village of Lumsdon and obtain a miserable interview
with his cousin, in which the word nearest his heart could not
be spoken, and the sight which had tortured him could not be
revealed.
His aunt was now unable to leave her bed, and a great part of
Jude’s short day was occupied in making arrangements for her com-
fort. The little bakery business had been sold to a neighbour, and
with the proceeds of this and her savings she was comfortably sup-
plied with necessaries, and more, a widow of the same village living
with her and ministering to her wants. It was not till the time had
nearly come for him to leave that he obtained a quiet talk with her,
and his words tended insensibly towards his cousin.
‘Was Sue born here?’
‘She was––in this room. They were living here at that time. What
made ’ee ask that?’
‘O––I wanted to know.’
‘Now you’ve been seeing her!’ said the harsh old woman. ‘And
what did I tell ’ee?’
‘Well––that I was not to see her.’
‘Have you gossiped with her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then don’t keep it up. She was brought up by her father* to hate
her mother’s family; and she’ll look with no favour upon a working
chap like you––a townish girl as she’s become by now. I never cared
much about her. A pert little thing, that’s what she was too often,
with her tight-strained nerves. Many’s the time I’ve smacked her for
her impertinence. Why one day when she was walking into the pond
with her shoes and stockings o
ff and her petticoats pulled above her
knees, afore I could cry out for shame she said: “Move on, aunty.
This is no sight for modest eyes!” ’
‘She was a little child then.’
‘She was twelve if a day.’

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‘Well––of course. But now she’s older she’s of a thoughtful,
quivering, tender nature, and as sensitive as——’
‘Jude!’ cried his aunt, springing up in bed. ‘Don’t you be a fool
about her!’
‘No, no. Of course not.’
‘Your marrying that woman Arabella was about as bad a thing as a
man could possibly do for himself by trying hard. But she’s gone to
the other side of the world, and med never trouble you again. And
there’ll be a worse thing if you, tied and bound as you be, should
have a fancy for Sue. If your cousin is civil to you take her civility for
what it is worth. But anything more than a relation’s good wishes it
is stark madness for ’ee to give her. If she’s townish and wanton it
med bring ’ee to ruin.’
‘Don’t say anything against her, aunt! Don’t, please!’
A relief was a
fforded to him by the entry of the companion and
nurse of his aunt, who must have been listening to the conversation,
for she began a commentary on past years, introducing Sue Bride-
head as a character in her recollections.* She described what an odd
little maid Sue had been when a pupil at the village school across the
green opposite, before her father went to London: how, when the
vicar arranged readings and recitations, she appeared on the plat-
form, the smallest of them all, ‘in her little white frock, and shoes,
and pink sash’: how she recited ‘Excelsior,’* ‘There was a sound of
revelry by night,’ and ‘The Raven’.* How during the delivery she
would knit her little brows, and glare round tragically, and say to the
empty air, as if some real creature stood there––
‘Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly shore.
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!’
‘She’d bring up the nasty carrion bird that clear,’ corroborated the
sick woman reluctantly, ‘as she stood there in her little sash and
things, that you could see un a’most before your very eyes. You too,
Jude, had the same trick as a child of seeming to see things in the air.’
The neighbour told also of Sue’s accomplishments in other kinds:
‘She was not exactly a tomboy, you know; but she could do things
that only boys do as a rule. I’ve seen her hit in and steer down the
long slide on yonder pond, with her little curls blowing, one of a 
file
of twenty moving along against the sky like shapes painted on glass,
and up the back slide without stopping. All boys except herself; and
At Christminster
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then they’d cheer her, and then she’d say “Don’t be saucy, boys,”
and suddenly run indoors. They’d try to coax her out again. But ’a
wouldn’t come.’
These retrospective visions of Sue only made Jude the more mis-
erable that he was unable to woo her, and he left the cottage of his
aunt that day with a heavy heart. He would fain have glanced into the
school to see the room in which Sue’s little 
figure had so glorified
itself; but he checked his desire and went on.
It being Sunday evening some villagers who had known him dur-
ing his residence here were standing in a group in their best clothes.
Jude was startled by a salute from one of them:
‘Ye’ve got there right enough, then!’
Jude showed that he did not understand.
‘Why, to the seat of l’arning––the “City of Light” you used to talk
to us about as a little boy! Is it all you expected of it?’
‘Yes; more!’ cried Jude.
‘When I was there once for an hour I didn’t see much in it for my