by Thomas Hardy
V
The schoolmaster sat in his homely dwelling attached to the school,both being modern erections; and he looked across the way at the oldhouse in which his teacher Sue had a lodging. The arrangement hadbeen concluded very quickly. A pupil-teacher who was to have beentransferred to Mr. Phillotson's school had failed him, and Sue hadbeen taken as stop-gap. All such provisional arrangements as thesecould only last till the next annual visit of H.M. Inspector, whoseapproval was necessary to make them permanent. Having taught forsome two years in London, though she had abandoned that vocation oflate, Miss Bridehead was not exactly a novice, and Phillotson thoughtthere would be no difficulty in retaining her services, which healready wished to do, though she had only been with him three or fourweeks. He had found her quite as bright as Jude had described her;and what master-tradesman does not wish to keep an apprentice whosaves him half his labour?
It was a little over half-past eight o'clock in the morning and hewas waiting to see her cross the road to the school, when he wouldfollow. At twenty minutes to nine she did cross, a light hat tossedon her head; and he watched her as a curiosity. A new emanation,which had nothing to do with her skill as a teacher, seemed tosurround her this morning. He went to the school also, and Sueremained governing her class at the other end of the room, all dayunder his eye. She certainly was an excellent teacher.
It was part of his duty to give her private lessons in the evening,and some article in the Code made it necessary that a respectable,elderly woman should be present at these lessons when the teacher andthe taught were of different sexes. Richard Phillotson thought ofthe absurdity of the regulation in this case, when he was old enoughto be the girl's father; but he faithfully acted up to it; and satdown with her in a room where Mrs. Hawes, the widow at whose houseSue lodged, occupied herself with sewing. The regulation was,indeed, not easy to evade, for there was no other sitting-room in thedwelling.
Sometimes as she figured--it was arithmetic that they were workingat--she would involuntarily glance up with a little inquiring smileat him, as if she assumed that, being the master, he must perceiveall that was passing in her brain, as right or wrong. Phillotson wasnot really thinking of the arithmetic at all, but of her, in a novelway which somehow seemed strange to him as preceptor. Perhaps sheknew that he was thinking of her thus.
For a few weeks their work had gone on with a monotony which initself was a delight to him. Then it happened that the children wereto be taken to Christminster to see an itinerant exhibition, in theshape of a model of Jerusalem, to which schools were admitted ata penny a head in the interests of education. They marched alongthe road two and two, she beside her class with her simple cottonsunshade, her little thumb cocked up against its stem; and Phillotsonbehind in his long dangling coat, handling his walking-stickgenteelly, in the musing mood which had come over him since herarrival. The afternoon was one of sun and dust, and when theyentered the exhibition room few people were present but themselves.The model of the ancient city stood in the middle of the apartment,and the proprietor, with a fine religious philanthropy written on hisfeatures, walked round it with a pointer in his hand, showing theyoung people the various quarters and places known to them by namefrom reading their Bibles; Mount Moriah, the Valley of Jehoshaphat,the City of Zion, the walls and the gates, outside one of which therewas a large mound like a tumulus, and on the mound a little whitecross. The spot, he said, was Calvary.
"I think," said Sue to the schoolmaster, as she stood with him alittle in the background, "that this model, elaborate as it is, is avery imaginary production. How does anybody know that Jerusalem waslike this in the time of Christ? I am sure this man doesn't."
"It is made after the best conjectural maps, based on actual visitsto the city as it now exists."
"I fancy we have had enough of Jerusalem," she said, "considering weare not descended from the Jews. There was nothing first-rate aboutthe place, or people, after all--as there was about Athens, Rome,Alexandria, and other old cities."
"But my dear girl, consider what it is to us!"
She was silent, for she was easily repressed; and then perceivedbehind the group of children clustered round the model a young manin a white flannel jacket, his form being bent so low in his intentinspection of the Valley of Jehoshaphat that his face was almosthidden from view by the Mount of Olives. "Look at your cousin Jude,"continued the schoolmaster. "He doesn't think we have had enough ofJerusalem!"
"Ah--I didn't see him!" she cried in her quick, light voice."Jude--how seriously you are going into it!"
Jude started up from his reverie, and saw her. "Oh--Sue!" he said,with a glad flush of embarrassment. "These are your school-children,of course! I saw that schools were admitted in the afternoons, andthought you might come; but I got so deeply interested that I didn'tremember where I was. How it carries one back, doesn't it! I couldexamine it for hours, but I have only a few minutes, unfortunately;for I am in the middle of a job out here."
"Your cousin is so terribly clever that she criticizes itunmercifully," said Phillotson, with good-humoured satire. "She isquite sceptical as to its correctness."
"No, Mr. Phillotson, I am not--altogether! I hate to be what iscalled a clever girl--there are too many of that sort now!" answeredSue sensitively. "I only meant--I don't know what I meant--exceptthat it was what you don't understand!"
"_I_ know your meaning," said Jude ardently (although he did not)."And I think you are quite right."
"That's a good Jude--I know YOU believe in me!" She impulsivelyseized his hand, and leaving a reproachful look on the schoolmasterturned away to Jude, her voice revealing a tremor which she herselffelt to be absurdly uncalled for by sarcasm so gentle. She had notthe least conception how the hearts of the twain went out to her atthis momentary revelation of feeling, and what a complication she wasbuilding up thereby in the futures of both.
The model wore too much of an educational aspect for the children notto tire of it soon, and a little later in the afternoon they were allmarched back to Lumsdon, Jude returning to his work. He watched thejuvenile flock in their clean frocks and pinafores, filing down thestreet towards the country beside Phillotson and Sue, and a sad,dissatisfied sense of being out of the scheme of the latters' liveshad possession of him. Phillotson had invited him to walk outand see them on Friday evening, when there would be no lessons togive to Sue, and Jude had eagerly promised to avail himself of theopportunity.
Meanwhile the scholars and teachers moved homewards, and the nextday, on looking on the blackboard in Sue's class, Phillotson wassurprised to find upon it, skilfully drawn in chalk, a perspectiveview of Jerusalem, with every building shown in its place.
"I thought you took no interest in the model, and hardly looked atit?" he said.
"I hardly did," said she, "but I remembered that much of it."
"It is more than I had remembered myself."
Her Majesty's school-inspector was at that time paying"surprise-visits" in this neighbourhood to test the teachingunawares; and two days later, in the middle of the morning lessons,the latch of the door was softly lifted, and in walked my gentleman,the king of terrors--to pupil-teachers.
To Mr. Phillotson the surprise was not great; like the lady in thestory, he had been played that trick too many times to be unprepared.But Sue's class was at the further end of the room, and her back wastowards the entrance; the inspector therefore came and stood behindher and watched her teaching some half-minute before she became awareof his presence. She turned, and realized that an oft-dreaded momenthad come. The effect upon her timidity was such that she uttered acry of fright. Phillotson, with a strange instinct of solicitudequite beyond his control, was at her side just in time to prevent herfalling from faintness. She soon recovered herself, and laughed;but when the inspector had gone there was a reaction, and she wasso white that Phillotson took her into his room, and gave her somebrandy to bring her round. She found him holding her hand.
"You ought to have
told me," she gasped petulantly, "that one of theinspector's surprise-visits was imminent! Oh, what shall I do! Nowhe'll write and tell the managers that I am no good, and I shall bedisgraced for ever!"
"He won't do that, my dear little girl. You are the best teacherever I had!"
He looked so gently at her that she was moved, and regretted that shehad upbraided him. When she was better she went home.
Jude in the meantime had been waiting impatiently for Friday. Onboth Wednesday and Thursday he had been so much under the influenceof his desire to see her that he walked after dark some distancealong the road in the direction of the village, and, on returning tohis room to read, found himself quite unable to concentrate his mindon the page. On Friday, as soon as he had got himself up as hethought Sue would like to see him, and made a hasty tea, he setout, notwithstanding that the evening was wet. The trees overheaddeepened the gloom of the hour, and they dripped sadly upon him,impressing him with forebodings--illogical forebodings; for though heknew that he loved her he also knew that he could not be more to herthan he was.
On turning the corner and entering the village the first sight thatgreeted his eyes was that of two figures under one umbrella comingout of the vicarage gate. He was too far back for them to noticehim, but he knew in a moment that they were Sue and Phillotson. Thelatter was holding the umbrella over her head, and they had evidentlybeen paying a visit to the vicar--probably on some business connectedwith the school work. And as they walked along the wet and desertedlane Jude saw Phillotson place his arm round the girl's waist;whereupon she gently removed it; but he replaced it; and she let itremain, looking quickly round her with an air of misgiving. She didnot look absolutely behind her, and therefore did not see Jude, whosank into the hedge like one struck with a blight. There he remainedhidden till they had reached Sue's cottage and she had passed in,Phillotson going on to the school hard by.
"Oh, he's too old for her--too old!" cried Jude in all the terriblesickness of hopeless, handicapped love.
He could not interfere. Was he not Arabella's? He was unable togo on further, and retraced his steps towards Christminster. Everytread of his feet seemed to say to him that he must on no accountstand in the schoolmaster's way with Sue. Phillotson was perhapstwenty years her senior, but many a happy marriage had been madein such conditions of age. The ironical clinch to his sorrow wasgiven by the thought that the intimacy between his cousin and theschoolmaster had been brought about entirely by himself.