Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy [top 100 novels of all time TXT] 📗

“He’s a nice-looking chap, too! You ought to ha’ stuck to un, Arabella.”

“I don’t know but I ought,” murmured she.

Anny laughed. “That’s you, Arabella! Always wanting another man than your own.”

“Well, and what woman don’t I should like to know? As for that body with him⁠—she don’t know what love is⁠—at least what I call love! I can see in her face she don’t.”

“And perhaps, Abby dear, you don’t know what she calls love.”

“I’m sure I don’t wish to!⁠ ⁠… Ah⁠—they are making for the Art Department. I should like to see some pictures myself. Suppose we go that way?⁠—Why, if all Wessex isn’t here, I verily believe! There’s Dr. Vilbert. Haven’t seen him for years, and he’s not looking a day older than when I used to know him. How do you do, Physician? I was just saying that you don’t look a day older than when you knew me as a girl.”

“Simply the result of taking my own pills regular, ma’am. Only two and threepence a box⁠—warranted efficacious by the Government stamp. Now let me advise you to purchase the same immunity from the ravages of Time by following my example? Only two-and-three.”

The physician had produced a box from his waistcoat pocket, and Arabella was induced to make the purchase.

“At the same time,” continued he, when the pills were paid for, “you have the advantage of me, Mrs.⁠—Surely not Mrs. Fawley, once Miss Donn, of the vicinity of Marygreen?”

“Yes. But Mrs. Cartlett now.”

“Ah⁠—you lost him, then? Promising young fellow! A pupil of mine, you know. I taught him the dead languages. And believe me, he soon knew nearly as much as I.”

“I lost him; but not as you think,” said Arabella drily. “The lawyers untied us. There he is, look, alive and lusty; along with that young woman, entering the Art exhibition.”

“Ah⁠—dear me! Fond of her, apparently.”

“They say they are cousins.”

“Cousinship is a great convenience to their feelings, I should say?”

“Yes. So her husband thought, no doubt, when he divorced her.⁠ ⁠… Shall we look at the pictures, too?”

The trio followed across the green and entered. Jude and Sue, with the child, unaware of the interest they were exciting, had gone up to a model at one end of the building, which they regarded with considerable attention for a long while before they went on. Arabella and her friends came to it in due course, and the inscription it bore was: “Model of Cardinal College, Christminster; by J. Fawley and S. F. M. Bridehead.”

“Admiring their own work,” said Arabella. “How like Jude⁠—always thinking of Colleges and Christminster, instead of attending to his business!”

They glanced cursorily at the pictures, and proceeded to the bandstand. When they had stood a little while listening to the music of the military performers, Jude, Sue, and the child came up on the other side. Arabella did not care if they should recognize her; but they were too deeply absorbed in their own lives, as translated into emotion by the military band, to perceive her under her beaded veil. She walked round the outside of the listening throng, passing behind the lovers, whose movements had an unexpected fascination for her today. Scrutinizing them narrowly from the rear she noticed that Jude’s hand sought Sue’s as they stood, the two standing close together so as to conceal, as they supposed, this tacit expression of their mutual responsiveness.

“Silly fools⁠—like two children!” Arabella whispered to herself morosely, as she rejoined her companions, with whom she preserved a preoccupied silence.

Anny meanwhile had jokingly remarked to Vilbert on Arabella’s hankering interest in her first husband.

“Now,” said the physician to Arabella, apart; “do you want anything such as this, Mrs. Cartlett? It is not compounded out of my regular pharmacopoeia, but I am sometimes asked for such a thing.” He produced a small phial of clear liquid. “A love-philtre, such as was used by the Ancients with great effect. I found it out by study of their writings, and have never known it to fail.”

“What is it made of?” asked Arabella curiously.

“Well⁠—a distillation of the juices of doves’ hearts⁠—otherwise pigeons’⁠—is one of the ingredients. It took nearly a hundred hearts to produce that small bottle full.”

“How do you get pigeons enough?”

“To tell a secret, I get a piece of rock-salt, of which pigeons are inordinately fond, and place it in a dovecote on my roof. In a few hours the birds come to it from all points of the compass⁠—east, west, north, and south⁠—and thus I secure as many as I require. You use the liquid by contriving that the desired man shall take about ten drops of it in his drink. But remember, all this is told you because I gather from your questions that you mean to be a purchaser. You must keep faith with me?”

“Very well⁠—I don’t mind a bottle⁠—to give some friend or other to try it on her young man.” She produced five shillings, the price asked, and slipped the phial in her capacious bosom. Saying presently that she was due at an appointment with her husband she sauntered away towards the refreshment bar, Jude, his companion, and the child having gone on to the horticultural tent, where Arabella caught a glimpse of them standing before a group of roses in bloom.

She waited a few minutes observing them, and then proceeded to join her spouse with no very amiable sentiments. She found him seated on a stool by the bar, talking to one of the gaily dressed maids who had served him with spirits.

“I should think you had enough of this business at home!” Arabella remarked gloomily. “Surely you didn’t come fifty miles from your own bar to stick in another? Come, take me round the show, as other men do their wives! Dammy, one would think you were a young bachelor, with nobody to look after but yourself!”

“But we agreed to meet here; and what could I do but wait?”

“Well, now we have met, come along,” she returned, ready to quarrel with