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

when you talked to me at the door. Well, my dear, you’ve been quick about it, and I expect my visit last night helped it on⁠—ha-ha! But I don’t want to get him away from you.”

Sue looked out at the rain, and at the dirty toilet-cover, and at the detached tail of Arabella’s hair hanging on the looking-glass, just as it had done in Jude’s time; and wished she had not come. In the pause there was a knock at the door, and the chambermaid brought in a telegram for “Mrs. Cartlett.”

Arabella opened it as she lay, and her ruffled look disappeared.

“I am much obliged to you for your anxiety about me,” she said blandly when the maid had gone; “but it is not necessary you should feel it. My man finds he can’t do without me after all, and agrees to stand by the promise to marry again over here that he has made me all along. See here! This is in answer to one from me.” She held out the telegram for Sue to read, but Sue did not take it. “He asks me to come back. His little corner public in Lambeth would go to pieces without me, he says. But he isn’t going to knock me about when he has had a drop, any more after we are spliced by English law than before!⁠ ⁠… As for you, I should coax Jude to take me before the parson straight off, and have done with it, if I were in your place. I say it as a friend, my dear.”

“He’s waiting to, any day,” returned Sue, with frigid pride.

“Then let him, in Heaven’s name. Life with a man is more businesslike after it, and money matters work better. And then, you see, if you have rows, and he turns you out of doors, you can get the law to protect you, which you can’t otherwise, unless he half runs you through with a knife, or cracks your noddle with a poker. And if he bolts away from you⁠—I say it friendly, as woman to woman, for there’s never any knowing what a man med do⁠—you’ll have the sticks o’ furniture, and won’t be looked upon as a thief. I shall marry my man over again, now he’s willing, as there was a little flaw in the first ceremony. In my telegram last night which this is an answer to, I told him I had almost made it up with Jude; and that frightened him, I expect! Perhaps I should quite have done it if it hadn’t been for you,” she said laughing; “and then how different our histories might have been from today! Never such a tender fool as Jude is if a woman seems in trouble, and coaxes him a bit! Just as he used to be about birds and things. However, as it happens, it is just as well as if I had made it up, and I forgive you. And, as I say, I’d advise you to get the business legally done as soon as possible. You’ll find it an awful bother later on if you don’t.”

“I have told you he is asking me to marry him⁠—to make our natural marriage a legal one,” said Sue, with yet more dignity. “It was quite by my wish that he didn’t the moment I was free.”

“Ah, yes⁠—you are a oneyer too, like myself,” said Arabella, eyeing her visitor with humorous criticism. “Bolted from your first, didn’t you, like me?”

“Good morning!⁠—I must go,” said Sue hastily.

“And I, too, must up and off!” replied the other, springing out of bed so suddenly that the soft parts of her person shook. Sue jumped aside in trepidation. “Lord, I am only a woman⁠—not a six-foot sojer!⁠ ⁠… Just a moment, dear,” she continued, putting her hand on Sue’s arm. “I really did want to consult Jude on a little matter of business, as I told him. I came about that more than anything else. Would he run up to speak to me at the station as I am going? You think not. Well, I’ll write to him about it. I didn’t want to write it, but never mind⁠—I will.”

III

When Sue reached home Jude was awaiting her at the door to take the initial step towards their marriage. She clasped his arm, and they went along silently together, as true comrades ofttimes do. He saw that she was preoccupied, and forbore to question her.

“O Jude⁠—I’ve been talking to her,” she said at last. “I wish I hadn’t! And yet it is best to be reminded of things.”

“I hope she was civil.”

“Yes. I⁠—I can’t help liking her⁠—just a little bit! She’s not an ungenerous nature; and I am so glad her difficulties have all suddenly ended.” She explained how Arabella had been summoned back, and would be enabled to retrieve her position. “I was referring to our old question. What Arabella has been saying to me has made me feel more than ever how hopelessly vulgar an institution legal marriage is⁠—a sort of trap to catch a man⁠—I can’t bear to think of it. I wish I hadn’t promised to let you put up the banns this morning!”

“O, don’t mind me. Any time will do for me. I thought you might like to get it over quickly, now.”

“Indeed, I don’t feel any more anxious now than I did before. Perhaps with any other man I might be a little anxious; but among the very few virtues possessed by your family and mine, dear, I think I may set staunchness. So I am not a bit frightened about losing you, now I really am yours and you really are mine. In fact, I am easier in my mind than I was, for my conscience is clear about Richard, who now has a right to his freedom. I felt we were deceiving him before.”

“Sue, you seem when you are like this to be one of the women of some grand old civilization, whom