by Thomas Hardy
He repeated simply! “I thought — what I naturally thought. But if we are not lovers, we are not. Phillotson thought so, I am sure. See, here is what he has written to me.” He opened the letter she had brought, and read:
“I make only one condition — that you are tender and kind to her. I know you love her. But even love may be cruel at times. You are made for each other: it is obvious, palpable, to any unbiased older person. You were all along ‘the shadowy third’ in my short life with her. I repeat, take care of Sue.”
“He’s a good fellow, isn’t he!” she said with latent tears. On reconsideration she added, “He was very resigned to letting me go — too resigned almost! I never was so near being in love with him as when he made such thoughtful arrangements for my being comfortable on my journey, and offering to provide money. Yet I was not. If I loved him ever so little as a wife, I’d go back to him even now.”
“But you don’t, do you?”
“It is true — oh so terribly true! — I don’t.”
“Nor me neither, I half-fear!” he said pettishly. “Nor anybody perhaps! Sue, sometimes, when I am vexed with you, I think you are incapable of real love.”
“That’s not good and loyal of you!” she said, and drawing away from him as far as she could, looked severely out into the darkness. She added in hurt tones, without turning round: “My liking for you is not as some women’s perhaps. But it is a delight in being with you, of a supremely delicate kind, and I don’t want to go further and risk it by — an attempt to intensify it! I quite realised that, as woman with man, it was a risk to come. But, as me with you, I resolved to trust you to set my wishes above your gratification. Don’t discuss it further, dear Jude!”
“Of course, if it would make you reproach yourself… but you do like me very much, Sue? Say you do! Say that you do a quarter, a tenth, as much as I do you, and I’ll be content!”
“I’ve let you kiss me, and that tells enough.”
“Just once or so!”
“Well — don’t be a greedy boy.”
He leant back, and did not look at her for a long time. That episode in her past history of which she had told him — of the poor Christminster graduate whom she had handled thus, returned to Jude’s mind; and he saw himself as a possible second in such a torturing destiny.
“This is a queer elopement!” he murmured. “Perhaps you are making a cat’s paw of me with Phillotson all this time. Upon my word it almost seems so — to see you sitting up there so prim!”
“Now you mustn’t be angry — I won’t let you!” she coaxed, turning and moving nearer to him. “You did kiss me just now, you know; and I didn’t dislike you to, I own it, Jude. Only I don’t want to let you do it again, just yet — considering how we are circumstanced, don’t you see!”
He could never resist her when she pleaded (as she well knew). And they sat side by side with joined hands, till she aroused herself at some thought.
“I can’t possibly go to that Temperance Inn, after your telegraphing that message!”
“Why not?”
“You can see well enough!”
“Very well; there’ll be some other one open, no doubt. I have sometimes thought, since your marrying Phillotson because of a stupid scandal, that under the affectation of independent views you are as enslaved to the social code as any woman I know!”
“Not mentally. But I haven’t the courage of my views, as I said before. I didn’t marry him altogether because of the scandal. But sometimes a woman’s love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn’t love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong.”
“You simply mean that you flirted outrageously with him, poor old chap, and then repented, and to make reparation, married him, though you tortured yourself to death by doing it.”
“Well — if you will put it brutally! — it was a little like that — that and the scandal together — and your concealing from me what you ought to have told me before!”
He could see that she was distressed and tearful at his criticisms, and soothed her, saying: “There, dear; don’t mind! Crucify me, if you will! You know you are all the world to me, whatever you do!”
“I am very bad and unprincipled — I know you think that!” she said, trying to blink away her tears.
“I think and know you are my dear Sue, from whom neither length nor breadth, nor things present nor things to come, can divide me!”
Though so sophisticated in many things she was such a child in others that this satisfied her, and they reached the end of their journey on the best of terms. It was about ten o’clock when they arrived at Aldbrickham, the county town of North Wessex. As she would not go to the Temperance Hotel because of the form of his telegram, Jude inquired for another; and a youth who volunteered to find one wheeled their luggage to the George farther on, which proved to be the inn at which Jude had stayed with Arabella on that one occasion of their meeting after their division for years.
Owing, however, to their now entering it by another door, and to his preoccupation, he did not at first recognize the place. When they had engaged their respective rooms they went down to a late supper. During Jude’s temporary absence the waiting-maid spoke to Sue.
“I think, ma’am, I remember your relation, or friend, or whatever he is, coming here once before — late, just like this, with his wife — a lady, at any rate, that wasn’t you by no manner of means — jest as med be with you now.”
“Oh do you?” said Sue, with a certain sickness of heart. “Though I think you must be mistaken! How long ago was it?”
“About a month or two. A handsome, full-figured woman. They had this room.”
When Jude came back and sat down to supper Sue seemed moping and miserable. “Jude,” she said to him plaintively, at their parting that night upon the landing, “it is not so nice and pleasant as it used to be with us! I don’t like it here — I can’t bear the place! And I don’t like you so well as I did!”
“How fidgeted you seem, dear! Why do you change like this?”
“Because it was cruel to bring me here!”
“Why?”
“You were lately here with Arabella. There, now I have said it!”
“Dear me, why — ” said Jude looking round him. “Yes — it is the same! I really didn’t know it, Sue. Well — it is not cruel, since we have come as we have — two relations staying together.”
“How long ago was it you were here? Tell me, tell me!”
“The day before I met you in Christminster, when we went back to Marygreen together. I told you I had met her.”
“Yes, you said you had met her, but you didn’t tell me all. Your story was that you had met as estranged people, who were not husband and wife at all in Heaven’s sight — not that you had made it up with her.”
“We didn’t make it up,” he said sadly. “I can’t explain, Sue.”
“You’ve been false to me; you, my last hope! And I shall never forget it, never!”
“But by your own wish, dear Sue, we are only to be friends, not lovers! It is so very inconsistent of you to — ”
“Friends can be jealous!”
“I don’t see that. You concede nothing to me and I have to concede everything to you. After all, you were on good terms with your husband at that time.”
“No, I wasn’t, Jude. Oh how can you think so! And you have taken me in, even if you didn’t intend to.” She was so mortified that he was obliged to take her into her room and close the door lest the people should hear. “Was it this room? Yes it was — I see by your look it was! I won’t have it for mine! Oh it was treacherous of you to have her again! I jumped out of the window!”
“But Sue, she was, after all, my legal wife, if not — ”
Slipping down on her knees Sue buried her face in the bed and wept.
�
�I never knew such an unreasonable — such a dog-in-the-manger feeling,” said Jude. “I am not to approach you, nor anybody else!”
“Oh don’t you understand my feeling! Why don’t you! Why are you so gross! I jumped out of the window!”
“Jumped out of window?”
“I can’t explain!”
It was true that he did not understand her feelings very well. But he did a little; and began to love her none the less.
“I — I thought you cared for nobody — desired nobody in the world but me at that time — and ever since!” continued Sue.
“It is true. I did not, and don’t now!” said Jude, as distressed as she.
“But you must have thought much of her! Or — ”
“No — I need not — you don’t understand me either — women never do! Why should you get into such a tantrum about nothing?”
Looking up from the quilt she pouted provokingly: “If it hadn’t been for that, perhaps I would have gone on to the Temperance Hotel, after all, as you proposed; for I was beginning to think I did belong to you!”
“Oh, it is of no consequence!” said Jude distantly.
“I thought, of course, that she had never been really your wife since she left you of her own accord years and years ago! My sense of it was, that a parting such as yours from her, and mine from him, ended the marriage.”
“I can’t say more without speaking against her, and I don’t want to do that,” said he. “Yet I must tell you one thing, which would settle the matter in any case. She has married another man — really married him! I knew nothing about it till after the visit we made here.”
“Married another? … It is a crime — as the world treats it, but does not believe.”
“There — now you are yourself again. Yes, it is a crime — as you don’t hold, but would fearfully concede. But I shall never inform against her! And it is evidently a prick of conscience in her that has led her to urge me to get a divorce, that she may remarry this man legally. So you perceive I shall not be likely to see her again.”
“And you didn’t really know anything of this when you saw her?” said Sue more gently, as she rose.
“I did not. Considering all things, I don’t think you ought to be angry, darling!”
“I am not. But I shan’t go to the Temperance Hotel!”
He laughed. “Never mind!” he said. “So that I am near you, I am comparatively happy. It is more than this earthly wretch called Me deserves — you spirit, you disembodied creature, you dear, sweet, tantalising phantom — hardly flesh at all; so that when I put my arms round you I almost expect them to pass through you as through air! Forgive me for being gross, as you call it! Remember that our calling cousins when really strangers was a snare. The enmity of our parents gave a piquancy to you in my eyes that was intenser even than the novelty of ordinary new acquaintance.”
“Say those pretty lines, then, from Shelley’s ‘Epipsychidion’ as if they meant me!” she solicited, slanting up closer to him as they stood. “Don’t you know them?”
“I know hardly any poetry,” he replied mournfully.
“Don’t you? These are some of them:
There was a Being whom my spirit oft
Met on its visioned wanderings far aloft.
* * * *
A seraph of Heaven, too gentle to be human,
Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman…
Oh it is too flattering, so I won’t go on! But say it’s me! Say it’s me!”
“It is you, dear; exactly like you!”
“Now I forgive you! And you shall kiss me just once there — not very long.” She put the tip of her finger gingerly to her cheek; and he did as commanded. “You do care for me very much, don’t you, in spite of my not — you know?”
“Yes, sweet!” he said with a sigh; and bade her good-night.
CHAPTER VI
In returning to his native town of Shaston as schoolmaster Phillotson had won the interest and awakened the memories of the inhabitants, who, though they did not honour him for his miscellaneous aquirements as he would have been honoured elsewhere, retained for him a sincere regard. When, shortly after his arrival, he brought home a pretty wife — awkwardly pretty for him, if he did not take care, they said — they were glad to have her settle among them.
For some time after her flight from that home Sue’s absence did not excite comment. Her place as monitor in the school was taken by another young woman within a few days of her vacating it, which substitution also passed without remark, Sue’s services having been of a provisional nature only. When, however, a month had passed, and Phillotson casually admitted to an acquaintance that he did not know where his wife was staying, curiosity began to be aroused; till, jumping to conclusions, people ventured to affirm that Sue had played him false and run away from him. The schoolmaster’s growing languor and listlessness over his work gave countenance to the idea.
Though Phillotson had held his tongue as long as he could, except to his friend Gillingham, his honesty and directness would not allow him to do so when misapprehensions as to Sue’s conduct spread abroad. On a Monday morning the chairman of the school committee called, and after attending to the business of the school drew Phillotson aside out of earshot of the children.
“You’ll excuse my asking, Phillotson, since everybody is talking of it: is this true as to your domestic affairs — that your wife’s going away was on no visit, but a secret elopement with a lover? If so, I condole with you.”
“Don’t,” said Phillotson. “There was no secret about it.”
“She has gone to visit friends?”
“No.”
“Then what has happened?”
“She has gone away under circumstances that usually call for condolence with the husband. But I gave my consent.”
The chairman looked as if he had not apprehended the remark.
“What I say is quite true,” Phillotson continued testily. “She asked leave to go away with her lover, and I let her. Why shouldn’t I? A woman of full age, it was a question of her own conscience — not for me. I was not her gaoler. I can’t explain any further. I don’t wish to be questioned.”
The children observed that much seriousness marked the faces of the two men, and went home and told their parents that something new had happened about Mrs. Phillotson. Then Phillotson’s little maidservant, who was a schoolgirl just out of her standards, said that Mr. Phillotson had helped in his wife’s packing, had offered her what money she required, and had written a friendly letter to her young man, telling him to take care of her. The chairman of committee thought the matter over, and talked to the other managers of the school, till a request came to Phillotson to meet them privately. The meeting lasted a long time, and at the end the school-master came home, looking as usual pale and worn. Gillingham was sitting in his house awaiting him.
“Well; it is as you said,” observed Phillotson, flinging himself down wearily in a chair. “They have requested me to send in my resignation on account of my scandalous conduct in giving my tortured wife her liberty — or, as they call it, condoning her adultery. But I shan’t resign!”
“I think I would.”
“I won’t. It is no business of theirs. It doesn’t affect me in my public capacity at all. They may expel me if they like.”
“If you make a fuss it will get into the papers, and you’ll never get appointed to another school. You see, they have to consider what you did as done by a teacher of youth — and its effects as such upon the morals of the town; and, to ordinary opinion, your position is indefensible. You must let me say that.”
To this good advice, however, Phillotson would not listen.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t go unless I am turned out. And for this reason; that by resigning I acknowledge I have acted wrongly by her; when I am more and more convinced every day that in the sight of Heaven and by all natural, straightforward humanity, I have acted rightly.”
Gillingham saw
that his rather headstrong friend would not be able to maintain such a position as this; but he said nothing further, and in due time — indeed, in a quarter of an hour — the formal letter of dismissal arrived, the managers having remained behind to write it after Phillotson’s withdrawal. The latter replied that he should not accept dismissal; and called a public meeting, which he attended, although he looked so weak and ill that his friend implored him to stay at home. When he stood up to give his reasons for contesting the decision of the managers he advanced them firmly, as he had done to his friend, and contended, moreover, that the matter was a domestic theory which did not concern them. This they over-ruled, insisting that the private eccentricities of a teacher came quite within their sphere of control, as it touched the morals of those he taught. Phillotson replied that he did not see how an act of natural charity could injure morals.
All the respectable inhabitants and well-to-do fellow-natives of the town were against Phillotson to a man. But, somewhat to his surprise, some dozen or more champions rose up in his defence as from the ground.
It has been stated that Shaston was the anchorage of a curious and interesting group of itinerants, who frequented the numerous fairs and markets held up and down Wessex during the summer and autumn months. Although Phillotson had never spoken to one of these gentlemen they now nobly led the forlorn hope in his defence. The body included two cheap Jacks, a shooting-gallery proprietor and the ladies who loaded the guns, a pair of boxing-masters, a steam-roundabout manager, two travelling broom-makers, who called themselves widows, a gingerbread-stall keeper, a swing-boat owner, and a “test-your-strength” man.
This generous phalanx of supporters, and a few others of independent judgment, whose own domestic experiences had been not without vicissitude, came up and warmly shook hands with Phillotson; after which they expressed their thoughts so strongly to the meeting that issue was joined, the result being a general scuffle, wherein a black board was split, three panes of the school windows were broken, an inkbottle was spilled over a town-councillor’s shirt front, a churchwarden was dealt such a topper with the map of Palestine that his head went right through Samaria, and many black eyes and bleeding noses were given, one of which, to everybody’s horror, was the venerable incumbent’s, owing to the zeal of an emancipated chimney-sweep, who took the side of Phillotson’s party. When Phillotson saw the blood running down the rector’s face he deplored almost in groans the untoward and degrading circumstances, regretted that he had not resigned when called upon, and went home so ill that next morning he could not leave his bed.