Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
VIII
Jude wondered if she had really left her handkerchief behind; orwhether it were that she had miserably wished to tell him of a lovethat at the last moment she could not bring herself to express.
He could not stay in his silent lodging when they were gone, andfearing that he might be tempted to drown his misery in alcohol hewent upstairs, changed his dark clothes for his white, his thin bootsfor his thick, and proceeded to his customary work for the afternoon.
But in the cathedral he seemed to hear a voice behind him, and tobe possessed with an idea that she would come back. She could notpossibly go home with Phillotson, he fancied. The feeling grew andstirred. The moment that the clock struck the last of his workinghours he threw down his tools and rushed homeward. ”Has anybody beenfor me?” he asked.
Nobody had been there.
As he could claim the downstairs sitting-room till twelve o'clockthat night he sat in it all the evening; and even when the clock hadstruck eleven, and the family had retired, he could not shake offthe feeling that she would come back and sleep in the little roomadjoining his own in which she had slept so many previous days. Heractions were always unpredictable: why should she not come? Gladlywould he have compounded for the denial of her as a sweetheart andwife by having her live thus as a fellow-lodger and friend, even onthe most distant terms. His supper still remained spread, and goingto the front door, and softly setting it open, he returned to theroom and sat as watchers sit on Old-Midsummer eves, expecting thephantom of the Beloved. But she did not come.
Having indulged in this wild hope he went upstairs, and looked out ofthe window, and pictured her through the evening journey to London,whither she and Phillotson had gone for their holiday; their rattlingalong through the damp night to their hotel, under the same sky ofribbed cloud as that he beheld, through which the moon showed itsposition rather than its shape, and one or two of the larger starsmade themselves visible as faint nebulae only. It was a newbeginning of Sue's history. He projected his mind into the future,and saw her with children more or less in her own likeness aroundher. But the consolation of regarding them as a continuation ofher identity was denied to him, as to all such dreamers, by thewilfulness of Nature in not allowing issue from one parent alone.Every desired renewal of an existence is debased by being half alloy.”If at the estrangement or death of my lost love, I could go and seeher child--hers solely--there would be comfort in it!” said Jude.And then he again uneasily saw, as he had latterly seen with more andmore frequency, the scorn of Nature for man's finer emotions, and herlack of interest in his aspirations.
The oppressive strength of his affection for Sue showed itself onthe morrow and following days yet more clearly. He could no longerendure the light of the Melchester lamps; the sunshine was as drabpaint, and the blue sky as zinc. Then he received news that his oldaunt was dangerously ill at Marygreen, which intelligence almostcoincided with a letter from his former employer at Christminster,who offered him permanent work of a good class if he would come back.The letters were almost a relief to him. He started to visit AuntDrusilla, and resolved to go onward to Christminster to see whatworth there might be in the builder's offer.
Jude found his aunt even worse than the communication from the WidowEdlin had led him to expect. There was every possibility of herlingering on for weeks or months, though little likelihood. He wroteto Sue informing her of the state of her aunt, and suggesting thatshe might like to see her aged relative alive. He would meet her atAlfredston Road, the following evening, Monday, on his way back fromChristminster, if she could come by the up-train which crossed hisdown-train at that station. Next morning, according, he went on toChristminster, intending to return to Alfredston soon enough to keepthe suggested appointment with Sue.
The city of learning wore an estranged look, and he had lost allfeeling for its associations. Yet as the sun made vivid lightsand shades of the mullioned architecture of the facades, and drewpatterns of the crinkled battlements on the young turf of thequadrangles, Jude thought he had never seen the place look morebeautiful. He came to the street in which he had first beheld Sue.The chair she had occupied when, leaning over her ecclesiasticalscrolls, a hog-hair brush in her hand, her girlish figure hadarrested the gaze of his inquiring eyes, stood precisely in itsformer spot, empty. It was as if she were dead, and nobody had beenfound capable of succeeding her in that artistic pursuit. Hers wasnow the city phantom, while those of the intellectual and devotionalworthies who had once moved him to emotion were no longer able toassert their presence there.
However, here he was; and in fulfilment of his intention he went onto his former lodging in ”Beersheba,” near the ritualistic church ofSt. Silas. The old landlady who opened the door seemed glad to seehim again, and bringing some lunch informed him that the builder whohad employed him had called to inquire his address.
Jude went on to the stone-yard where he had worked. But the oldsheds and bankers were distasteful to him; he felt it impossible toengage himself to return and stay in this place of vanished dreams.He longed for the hour of the homeward train to Alfredston, where hemight probably meet Sue.
Then, for one ghastly half-hour of depression caused by these scenes,there returned upon him that feeling which had been his undoing morethan once--that he was not worth the trouble of being taken care ofeither by himself or others; and during this half-hour he met TinkerTaylor, the bankrupt ecclesiastical ironmonger, at Fourways, whoproposed that they should adjourn to a bar and drink together.They walked along the street till they stood before one of thegreat palpitating centres of Christminster life, the inn wherein heformerly had responded to the challenge to rehearse the Creed inLatin--now a popular tavern with a spacious and inviting entrance,which gave admittance to a bar that had been entirely renovated andrefitted in modern style since Jude's residence here.
Tinker Taylor drank off his glass and departed, saying it was toostylish a place now for him to feel at home in unless he was drunkerthan he had money to be just then. Jude was longer finishing his,and stood abstractedly silent in the, for the minute, almost emptyplace. The bar had been gutted and newly arranged throughout,mahogany fixtures having taken the place of the old paintedones, while at the back of the standing-space there were stuffedsofa-benches. The room was divided into compartments in the approvedmanner, between which were screens of ground glass in mahoganyframing, to prevent topers in one compartment being put to the blushby the recognitions of those in the next. On the inside of thecounter two barmaids leant over the white-handled beer-engines,and the row of little silvered taps inside, dripping into a pewtertrough.
Feeling tired, and having nothing more to do till the train left,Jude sat down on one of the sofas. At the back of the barmaids rosebevel-edged mirrors, with glass shelves running along their front,on which stood precious liquids that Jude did not know the nameof, in bottles of topaz, sapphire, ruby and amethyst. The momentwas enlivened by the entrance of some customers into the nextcompartment, and the starting of the mechanical tell-tale of moniesreceived, which emitted a ting-ting every time a coin was put in.
The barmaid attending to this compartment was invisible to Jude'sdirect glance, though a reflection of her back in the glass behindher was occasionally caught by his eyes. He had only observed thislistlessly, when she turned her face for a moment to the glass to sether hair tidy. Then he was amazed to discover that the face wasArabella's.
If she had come on to his compartment she would have seen him.But she did not, this being presided over by the maiden on the otherside. Abby was in a black gown, with white linen cuffs and a broadwhite collar, and her figure, more developed than formerly, wasaccentuated by a bunch of daffodils that she wore on her left bosom.In the compartment she served stood an electro-plated fountain ofwater over a spirit-lamp, whose blue flame sent a steam from the top,all this being visible to him only in the mirror behind her; whichalso reflected the faces of the men she was attending to--one of thema handsome, dissipated young fellow, possibly an undergraduate, whohad been relating to her an experience of some humorous sort.
”Oh, Mr. Cockman, now! How can you tell such a tale to me in myinnocence!” she cried gaily. ”Mr. Cockman, what do you use to makeyour moustache curl so beautiful?” As the young man was clean shaven,the retort provoked a laugh at his expense.
”Come!” said he, ”I'll have a curacao; and a light, please.”
She served the liqueur from one of the lovely bottles and strikinga match held it to his cigarette with ministering archness while hewhiffed.
”Well, have you heard from your husband lately, my dear?” he asked.
”Not a sound,” said she.
”Where is he?”
”I left him in Australia; and I suppose he's there still.”
Jude's eyes grew rounder.
”What made you part from him?”
”Don't you ask questions, and you won't hear lies.”
”Come then, give me my change, which you've been keeping from me forthe last quarter of an hour; and I'll romantically vanish up thestreet of this picturesque city.”
She handed the change over the counter, in taking which he caught herfingers and held them. There was a slight struggle and titter, andhe bade her good-bye and left.
Jude had looked on with the eye of a dazed philosopher. It wasextraordinary how far removed from his life Arabella now seemed tobe. He could not realize their nominal closeness. And, this beingthe case, in his present frame of mind he was indifferent to the factthat Arabella was his wife indeed.
The compartment that she served emptied itself of visitors, andafter a brief thought he entered it, and went forward to the counter.Arabella did not recognize him for a moment. Then their glances met.She started; till a humorous impudence sparkled in her eyes, and shespoke.
”Well, I'm blest! I thought you were underground years ago!”
”Oh!”
”I never heard anything of you, or I don't know that I shouldhave come here. But never mind! What shall I treat you to thisafternoon? A Scotch and soda? Come, anything that the house willafford, for old acquaintance' sake!”
”Thanks, Arabella,” said Jude without a smile. ”But I don't wantanything more than I've had.” The fact was that her unexpectedpresence there had destroyed at a stroke his momentary taste forstrong liquor as completely as if it had whisked him back to hismilk-fed infancy.
”That's a pity, now you could get it for nothing.”
”How long have you been here?”
”About six weeks. I returned from Sydney three months ago. I alwaysliked this business, you know.”
”I wonder you came to this place!”
”Well, as I say, I thought you were gone to glory, and being inLondon I saw the situation in an advertisement. Nobody was likely toknow me here, even if I had minded, for I was never in Christminsterin my growing up.”
”Why did you return from Australia?”
”Oh, I had my reasons... Then you are not a don yet?”
”No.”
”Not even a reverend?”
”No.”
”Nor so much as a rather reverend dissenting gentleman?”
”I am as I was.”
”True--you look so.” She idly allowed her fingers to rest on thepull of the beer-engine as she inspected him critically. He observedthat her hands were smaller and whiter than when he had lived withher, and that on the hand which pulled the engine she wore anornamental ring set with what seemed to be real sapphires--which theywere, indeed, and were much admired as such by the young men whofrequented the bar.
”So you pass as having a living husband,” he continued.
”Yes. I thought it might be awkward if I called myself a widow, as Ishould have liked.”
”True. I am known here a little.”
”I didn't mean on that account--for as I said I didn't expect you.It was for other reasons.”
”What were they?”
”I don't care to go into them,” she replied evasively. ”I make avery good living, and I don't know that I want your company.”
Here a chappie with no chin, and a moustache like a lady's eyebrow,came and asked for a curiously compounded drink, and Arabella wasobliged to go and attend to him. ”We can't talk here,” she said,stepping back a moment. ”Can't you wait till nine? Say yes, anddon't be a fool. I can get off duty two hours sooner than usual, ifI ask. I am not living in the house at present.”
He reflected and said gloomily, ”I'll come back. I suppose we'dbetter arrange something.”
”Oh, bother arranging! I'm not going to arrange anything!”
”But I must know a thing or two; and, as you say, we can't talk here.Very well; I'll call for you.”
Depositing his unemptied glass he went out and walked up and down thestreet. Here was a rude flounce into the pellucid sentimentality ofhis sad attachment to Sue. Though Arabella's word was absolutelyuntrustworthy, he thought there might be some truth in herimplication that she had not wished to disturb him, and had reallysupposed him dead. However, there was only one thing now to be done,and that was to play a straightforward part, the law being the law,and the woman between whom and himself there was no more unity thanbetween east and west, being in the eye of the Church one person withhim.
Having to meet Arabella here, it was impossible to meet Sue atAlfredston as he had promised. At every thought of this a panghad gone through him; but the conjuncture could not be helped.Arabella was perhaps an intended intervention to punish him for hisunauthorized love. Passing the evening, therefore, in a desultorywaiting about the town wherein he avoided the precincts of everycloister and hall, because he could not bear to behold them, herepaired to the tavern bar while the hundred and one strokes wereresounding from the Great Bell of Cardinal College, a coincidencewhich seemed to him gratuitous irony. The inn was now brilliantlylighted up, and the scene was altogether more brisk and gay. Thefaces of the barmaidens had risen in colour, each having a pinkflush on her cheek; their manners were still more vivacious thanbefore--more abandoned, more excited, more sensuous, and theyexpressed their sentiments and desires less euphemistically, laughingin a lackadaisical tone, without reserve.
The bar had been crowded with men of all sorts during the previoushour, and he had heard from without the hubbub of their voices; butthe customers were fewer at last. He nodded to Arabella, and toldher that she would find him outside the door when she came away.
”But you must have something with me first,” she said with greatgood humour. ”Just an early night-cap: I always do. Then you cango out and wait a minute, as it is best we should not be seen goingtogether.” She drew a couple of liqueur glasses of brandy; andthough she had evidently, from her countenance, already taken inenough alcohol either by drinking or, more probably, from theatmosphere she had breathed for so many hours, she finished hersquickly. He also drank his, and went outside the house.
In a few minutes she came, in a thick jacket and a hat with a blackfeather. ”I live quite near,” she said, taking his arm, ”and can letmyself in by a latch-key at any time. What arrangement do you wantto come to?”
”Oh--none in particular,” he answered, thoroughly sick and tired, histhoughts again reverting to Alfredston, and the train he did not goby; the probable disappointment of Sue that he was not there whenshe arrived, and the missed pleasure of her company on the long andlonely climb by starlight up the hills to Marygreen. ”I ought tohave gone back really! My aunt is on her deathbed, I fear.”
”I'll go over with you to-morrow morning. I think I could get a dayoff.”
There was something particularly uncongenial in the idea of Arabella,who had no more sympathy than a tigress with his relations or him,coming to the bedside of his dying aunt, and meeting Sue. Yet hesaid, ”Of course, if you'd like to, you can.”
”Well, that we'll consider... Now, until we have come to someagreement it is awkward our being together here--where you are known,and I am getting known, though without any suspicion that I haveanything to do with you. As we are going towards the station,suppose we take the nine-forty train to Aldbrickham? We shall bethere in little more than half an hour, and nobody will know us forone night, and we shall be quite free to act as we choose till wehave made up our minds whether we'll make anything public or not.”
”As you like.”
”Then wait till I get two or three things. This is my lodging.Sometimes when late I sleep at the hotel where I am engaged, sonobody will think anything of my staying out.”
She speedily returned, and they went on to the railway, and made thehalf-hour's journey to Aldbrickham, where they entered a third-rateinn near the station in time for a late supper.
Jude wondered if she had really left her handkerchief behind; orwhether it were that she had miserably wished to tell him of a lovethat at the last moment she could not bring herself to express.
He could not stay in his silent lodging when they were gone, andfearing that he might be tempted to drown his misery in alcohol hewent upstairs, changed his dark clothes for his white, his thin bootsfor his thick, and proceeded to his customary work for the afternoon.
But in the cathedral he seemed to hear a voice behind him, and tobe possessed with an idea that she would come back. She could notpossibly go home with Phillotson, he fancied. The feeling grew andstirred. The moment that the clock struck the last of his workinghours he threw down his tools and rushed homeward. ”Has anybody beenfor me?” he asked.
Nobody had been there.
As he could claim the downstairs sitting-room till twelve o'clockthat night he sat in it all the evening; and even when the clock hadstruck eleven, and the family had retired, he could not shake offthe feeling that she would come back and sleep in the little roomadjoining his own in which she had slept so many previous days. Heractions were always unpredictable: why should she not come? Gladlywould he have compounded for the denial of her as a sweetheart andwife by having her live thus as a fellow-lodger and friend, even onthe most distant terms. His supper still remained spread, and goingto the front door, and softly setting it open, he returned to theroom and sat as watchers sit on Old-Midsummer eves, expecting thephantom of the Beloved. But she did not come.
Having indulged in this wild hope he went upstairs, and looked out ofthe window, and pictured her through the evening journey to London,whither she and Phillotson had gone for their holiday; their rattlingalong through the damp night to their hotel, under the same sky ofribbed cloud as that he beheld, through which the moon showed itsposition rather than its shape, and one or two of the larger starsmade themselves visible as faint nebulae only. It was a newbeginning of Sue's history. He projected his mind into the future,and saw her with children more or less in her own likeness aroundher. But the consolation of regarding them as a continuation ofher identity was denied to him, as to all such dreamers, by thewilfulness of Nature in not allowing issue from one parent alone.Every desired renewal of an existence is debased by being half alloy.”If at the estrangement or death of my lost love, I could go and seeher child--hers solely--there would be comfort in it!” said Jude.And then he again uneasily saw, as he had latterly seen with more andmore frequency, the scorn of Nature for man's finer emotions, and herlack of interest in his aspirations.
The oppressive strength of his affection for Sue showed itself onthe morrow and following days yet more clearly. He could no longerendure the light of the Melchester lamps; the sunshine was as drabpaint, and the blue sky as zinc. Then he received news that his oldaunt was dangerously ill at Marygreen, which intelligence almostcoincided with a letter from his former employer at Christminster,who offered him permanent work of a good class if he would come back.The letters were almost a relief to him. He started to visit AuntDrusilla, and resolved to go onward to Christminster to see whatworth there might be in the builder's offer.
Jude found his aunt even worse than the communication from the WidowEdlin had led him to expect. There was every possibility of herlingering on for weeks or months, though little likelihood. He wroteto Sue informing her of the state of her aunt, and suggesting thatshe might like to see her aged relative alive. He would meet her atAlfredston Road, the following evening, Monday, on his way back fromChristminster, if she could come by the up-train which crossed hisdown-train at that station. Next morning, according, he went on toChristminster, intending to return to Alfredston soon enough to keepthe suggested appointment with Sue.
The city of learning wore an estranged look, and he had lost allfeeling for its associations. Yet as the sun made vivid lightsand shades of the mullioned architecture of the facades, and drewpatterns of the crinkled battlements on the young turf of thequadrangles, Jude thought he had never seen the place look morebeautiful. He came to the street in which he had first beheld Sue.The chair she had occupied when, leaning over her ecclesiasticalscrolls, a hog-hair brush in her hand, her girlish figure hadarrested the gaze of his inquiring eyes, stood precisely in itsformer spot, empty. It was as if she were dead, and nobody had beenfound capable of succeeding her in that artistic pursuit. Hers wasnow the city phantom, while those of the intellectual and devotionalworthies who had once moved him to emotion were no longer able toassert their presence there.
However, here he was; and in fulfilment of his intention he went onto his former lodging in ”Beersheba,” near the ritualistic church ofSt. Silas. The old landlady who opened the door seemed glad to seehim again, and bringing some lunch informed him that the builder whohad employed him had called to inquire his address.
Jude went on to the stone-yard where he had worked. But the oldsheds and bankers were distasteful to him; he felt it impossible toengage himself to return and stay in this place of vanished dreams.He longed for the hour of the homeward train to Alfredston, where hemight probably meet Sue.
Then, for one ghastly half-hour of depression caused by these scenes,there returned upon him that feeling which had been his undoing morethan once--that he was not worth the trouble of being taken care ofeither by himself or others; and during this half-hour he met TinkerTaylor, the bankrupt ecclesiastical ironmonger, at Fourways, whoproposed that they should adjourn to a bar and drink together.They walked along the street till they stood before one of thegreat palpitating centres of Christminster life, the inn wherein heformerly had responded to the challenge to rehearse the Creed inLatin--now a popular tavern with a spacious and inviting entrance,which gave admittance to a bar that had been entirely renovated andrefitted in modern style since Jude's residence here.
Tinker Taylor drank off his glass and departed, saying it was toostylish a place now for him to feel at home in unless he was drunkerthan he had money to be just then. Jude was longer finishing his,and stood abstractedly silent in the, for the minute, almost emptyplace. The bar had been gutted and newly arranged throughout,mahogany fixtures having taken the place of the old paintedones, while at the back of the standing-space there were stuffedsofa-benches. The room was divided into compartments in the approvedmanner, between which were screens of ground glass in mahoganyframing, to prevent topers in one compartment being put to the blushby the recognitions of those in the next. On the inside of thecounter two barmaids leant over the white-handled beer-engines,and the row of little silvered taps inside, dripping into a pewtertrough.
Feeling tired, and having nothing more to do till the train left,Jude sat down on one of the sofas. At the back of the barmaids rosebevel-edged mirrors, with glass shelves running along their front,on which stood precious liquids that Jude did not know the nameof, in bottles of topaz, sapphire, ruby and amethyst. The momentwas enlivened by the entrance of some customers into the nextcompartment, and the starting of the mechanical tell-tale of moniesreceived, which emitted a ting-ting every time a coin was put in.
The barmaid attending to this compartment was invisible to Jude'sdirect glance, though a reflection of her back in the glass behindher was occasionally caught by his eyes. He had only observed thislistlessly, when she turned her face for a moment to the glass to sether hair tidy. Then he was amazed to discover that the face wasArabella's.
If she had come on to his compartment she would have seen him.But she did not, this being presided over by the maiden on the otherside. Abby was in a black gown, with white linen cuffs and a broadwhite collar, and her figure, more developed than formerly, wasaccentuated by a bunch of daffodils that she wore on her left bosom.In the compartment she served stood an electro-plated fountain ofwater over a spirit-lamp, whose blue flame sent a steam from the top,all this being visible to him only in the mirror behind her; whichalso reflected the faces of the men she was attending to--one of thema handsome, dissipated young fellow, possibly an undergraduate, whohad been relating to her an experience of some humorous sort.
”Oh, Mr. Cockman, now! How can you tell such a tale to me in myinnocence!” she cried gaily. ”Mr. Cockman, what do you use to makeyour moustache curl so beautiful?” As the young man was clean shaven,the retort provoked a laugh at his expense.
”Come!” said he, ”I'll have a curacao; and a light, please.”
She served the liqueur from one of the lovely bottles and strikinga match held it to his cigarette with ministering archness while hewhiffed.
”Well, have you heard from your husband lately, my dear?” he asked.
”Not a sound,” said she.
”Where is he?”
”I left him in Australia; and I suppose he's there still.”
Jude's eyes grew rounder.
”What made you part from him?”
”Don't you ask questions, and you won't hear lies.”
”Come then, give me my change, which you've been keeping from me forthe last quarter of an hour; and I'll romantically vanish up thestreet of this picturesque city.”
She handed the change over the counter, in taking which he caught herfingers and held them. There was a slight struggle and titter, andhe bade her good-bye and left.
Jude had looked on with the eye of a dazed philosopher. It wasextraordinary how far removed from his life Arabella now seemed tobe. He could not realize their nominal closeness. And, this beingthe case, in his present frame of mind he was indifferent to the factthat Arabella was his wife indeed.
The compartment that she served emptied itself of visitors, andafter a brief thought he entered it, and went forward to the counter.Arabella did not recognize him for a moment. Then their glances met.She started; till a humorous impudence sparkled in her eyes, and shespoke.
”Well, I'm blest! I thought you were underground years ago!”
”Oh!”
”I never heard anything of you, or I don't know that I shouldhave come here. But never mind! What shall I treat you to thisafternoon? A Scotch and soda? Come, anything that the house willafford, for old acquaintance' sake!”
”Thanks, Arabella,” said Jude without a smile. ”But I don't wantanything more than I've had.” The fact was that her unexpectedpresence there had destroyed at a stroke his momentary taste forstrong liquor as completely as if it had whisked him back to hismilk-fed infancy.
”That's a pity, now you could get it for nothing.”
”How long have you been here?”
”About six weeks. I returned from Sydney three months ago. I alwaysliked this business, you know.”
”I wonder you came to this place!”
”Well, as I say, I thought you were gone to glory, and being inLondon I saw the situation in an advertisement. Nobody was likely toknow me here, even if I had minded, for I was never in Christminsterin my growing up.”
”Why did you return from Australia?”
”Oh, I had my reasons... Then you are not a don yet?”
”No.”
”Not even a reverend?”
”No.”
”Nor so much as a rather reverend dissenting gentleman?”
”I am as I was.”
”True--you look so.” She idly allowed her fingers to rest on thepull of the beer-engine as she inspected him critically. He observedthat her hands were smaller and whiter than when he had lived withher, and that on the hand which pulled the engine she wore anornamental ring set with what seemed to be real sapphires--which theywere, indeed, and were much admired as such by the young men whofrequented the bar.
”So you pass as having a living husband,” he continued.
”Yes. I thought it might be awkward if I called myself a widow, as Ishould have liked.”
”True. I am known here a little.”
”I didn't mean on that account--for as I said I didn't expect you.It was for other reasons.”
”What were they?”
”I don't care to go into them,” she replied evasively. ”I make avery good living, and I don't know that I want your company.”
Here a chappie with no chin, and a moustache like a lady's eyebrow,came and asked for a curiously compounded drink, and Arabella wasobliged to go and attend to him. ”We can't talk here,” she said,stepping back a moment. ”Can't you wait till nine? Say yes, anddon't be a fool. I can get off duty two hours sooner than usual, ifI ask. I am not living in the house at present.”
He reflected and said gloomily, ”I'll come back. I suppose we'dbetter arrange something.”
”Oh, bother arranging! I'm not going to arrange anything!”
”But I must know a thing or two; and, as you say, we can't talk here.Very well; I'll call for you.”
Depositing his unemptied glass he went out and walked up and down thestreet. Here was a rude flounce into the pellucid sentimentality ofhis sad attachment to Sue. Though Arabella's word was absolutelyuntrustworthy, he thought there might be some truth in herimplication that she had not wished to disturb him, and had reallysupposed him dead. However, there was only one thing now to be done,and that was to play a straightforward part, the law being the law,and the woman between whom and himself there was no more unity thanbetween east and west, being in the eye of the Church one person withhim.
Having to meet Arabella here, it was impossible to meet Sue atAlfredston as he had promised. At every thought of this a panghad gone through him; but the conjuncture could not be helped.Arabella was perhaps an intended intervention to punish him for hisunauthorized love. Passing the evening, therefore, in a desultorywaiting about the town wherein he avoided the precincts of everycloister and hall, because he could not bear to behold them, herepaired to the tavern bar while the hundred and one strokes wereresounding from the Great Bell of Cardinal College, a coincidencewhich seemed to him gratuitous irony. The inn was now brilliantlylighted up, and the scene was altogether more brisk and gay. Thefaces of the barmaidens had risen in colour, each having a pinkflush on her cheek; their manners were still more vivacious thanbefore--more abandoned, more excited, more sensuous, and theyexpressed their sentiments and desires less euphemistically, laughingin a lackadaisical tone, without reserve.
The bar had been crowded with men of all sorts during the previoushour, and he had heard from without the hubbub of their voices; butthe customers were fewer at last. He nodded to Arabella, and toldher that she would find him outside the door when she came away.
”But you must have something with me first,” she said with greatgood humour. ”Just an early night-cap: I always do. Then you cango out and wait a minute, as it is best we should not be seen goingtogether.” She drew a couple of liqueur glasses of brandy; andthough she had evidently, from her countenance, already taken inenough alcohol either by drinking or, more probably, from theatmosphere she had breathed for so many hours, she finished hersquickly. He also drank his, and went outside the house.
In a few minutes she came, in a thick jacket and a hat with a blackfeather. ”I live quite near,” she said, taking his arm, ”and can letmyself in by a latch-key at any time. What arrangement do you wantto come to?”
”Oh--none in particular,” he answered, thoroughly sick and tired, histhoughts again reverting to Alfredston, and the train he did not goby; the probable disappointment of Sue that he was not there whenshe arrived, and the missed pleasure of her company on the long andlonely climb by starlight up the hills to Marygreen. ”I ought tohave gone back really! My aunt is on her deathbed, I fear.”
”I'll go over with you to-morrow morning. I think I could get a dayoff.”
There was something particularly uncongenial in the idea of Arabella,who had no more sympathy than a tigress with his relations or him,coming to the bedside of his dying aunt, and meeting Sue. Yet hesaid, ”Of course, if you'd like to, you can.”
”Well, that we'll consider... Now, until we have come to someagreement it is awkward our being together here--where you are known,and I am getting known, though without any suspicion that I haveanything to do with you. As we are going towards the station,suppose we take the nine-forty train to Aldbrickham? We shall bethere in little more than half an hour, and nobody will know us forone night, and we shall be quite free to act as we choose till wehave made up our minds whether we'll make anything public or not.”
”As you like.”
”Then wait till I get two or three things. This is my lodging.Sometimes when late I sleep at the hotel where I am engaged, sonobody will think anything of my staying out.”
She speedily returned, and they went on to the railway, and made thehalf-hour's journey to Aldbrickham, where they entered a third-rateinn near the station in time for a late supper.