Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

parted, and a 
fine dew of perspiration on her skin. ‘Well––why don’t
you speak, deary?’
‘I’m blown too. It was all up hill.’
They were in absolute solitude––the most apparent of all soli-
tudes, that of empty surrounding space. Nobody could be nearer
than a mile to them without their seeing him. They were, in fact, on
one of the summits of the county, and the distant landscape around
Christminster could be discerned from where they lay. But Jude did
not think of that then.
‘O, I can see such a pretty thing up this tree,’ said Arabella. ‘A sort
of a caterpillar, of the most loveliest green and yellow you ever came
across!’
‘Where?’ said Jude, sitting up.
‘You can’t see him there––you must come here,’ said she.
At Marygreen


---

He bent nearer and put his head in front of hers. ‘No––I can’t see
it,’ he said.
‘Why, on the limb there where it branches o
ff––close to the mov-
ing leaf––there!’ She gently pulled him down beside her.
‘I don’t see it,’ he repeated, the back of his head against her cheek.
‘But I can, perhaps, standing up.’ He stood accordingly, placing him-
self in the direct line of her gaze.
‘How stupid you are!’ she said crossly, turning away her face.
‘I don’t care to see it, dear: why should I?’ he replied, looking
down upon her, ‘Get up, Abby.’
‘Why?’
‘I want you to let me kiss you. I’ve been waiting to ever so long!’
She rolled round her face, remained a moment looking deedily
aslant at him; then with a slight curl of the lip sprang to her feet, and
exclaiming abruptly ‘I must mizzel!’ walked o
ff quickly homeward.
Jude followed and rejoined her.
‘Just one!’ he coaxed.
‘Shan’t!’ she said.
He, surprised: ‘What’s the matter?’
She kept her two lips resentfully together, and Jude followed her
like a pet lamb till she slackened her pace and walked beside him,
talking calmly on indi
fferent subjects, and always checking him if he
tried to take her hand or clasp her waist. Thus they descended to the
precincts of her father’s homestead, and Arabella went in, nodding
good-bye to him with a supercilious, a
ffronted air.
‘I expect I took too much liberty with her, somehow,’ Jude said to
himself, as he withdrew with a sigh and went on to Marygreen.
On Sunday morning the interior of Arabella’s home was, as usual,
the scene of a grand weekly cooking, the preparation of the special
Sunday dinner. Her father was shaving before a little glass hung on
the mullion of the window, and her mother and Arabella herself were
shelling beans hard by. A neighbour passed on her way home from
morning service at the nearest church, and seeing Donn engaged at
the window with the razor, nodded and came in.
She at once spoke playfully to Arabella: ‘I zeed ’ee running with
’un––hee-hee! I hope ’tis coming to something?’
Arabella merely threw a look of consciousness into her face with-
out raising her eyes.
‘He’s for Christminster, I hear, as soon as he can get there.’
Jude the Obscure


---

‘Have you heard that lately––quite lately?’ asked Arabella with a
jealous, tigerish indrawing of breath.
‘O no. But it has been known a long time that it is his plan. He’s
on’y waiting here for an opening. Ah well: he must walk about with
somebody I s’pose. Young men don’t mean much now-a-days. ’Tis a
sip here and sip there with ’em. ’Twas di
fferent in my time.’
When the gossip had departed Arabella said suddenly to her
mother: ‘I want you and father to go and inquire how the Edlins be,
this evening after tea. Or no––there’s evening service at
Fensworth––you can walk to that.’
‘Oh? What’s up to-night, then?’
‘Nothing. Only I want the house to myself. He’s shy; and I can’t
get un to come in when you are here. I shall let him slip through my
fingers if I don’t mind, much as I care for ’n!’
‘If it is 
fine we med as well go, since you wish.’
In the afternoon Arabella met and walked with Jude, who had now
for weeks ceased to look into a book of Greek, Latin, or any other
tongue. They wandered up the slopes till they reached the green
track along the ridge, which they followed to the circular British
earth-bank adjoining, Jude thinking of the great age of the trackway,
and of the drovers who had frequented it, probably before the
Romans knew the country. Up from the level lands below them
floated the chime of church bells. Presently they were reduced to one
note, which quickened, and stopped.
‘Now we’ll go back,’ said Arabella, who had attended to the sounds.
Jude assented. So long as he was near her he minded little where
he was. When they arrived at her house he said lingeringly: ‘I won’t
come in. Why are you in such a hurry to go in to-night? It is not near
dark.’
‘Wait a moment,’ said she. She tried the handle of the door and
found it locked.
‘Ah––they are gone to church,’ she added. And searching behind
the scraper she found the key and unlocked the door. ‘Now, you’ll
come in a moment?’ she asked lightly. ‘We shall be all alone.’
‘Certainly,’ said Jude with alacrity, the case being unexpectedly
altered.
Indoors they went. Did he want any tea? No, it was too late: he
would rather sit and talk to her. She took o
ff her jacket and hat, and
they sat down––naturally enough close together.