"According to the rule of women"s whims I suppose I ought to suddenly love him, because he has let me go so generously and unexpectedly," she answered smiling. "But I am so cold, or devoid of grat.i.tude, or so something, that even this generosity hasn"t made me love him, or repent, or want to stay with him as his wife; although I do feel I like his large-mindedness, and respect him more than ever."
"It may not work so well for us as if he had been less kind, and you had run away against his will," murmured Jude.
"That I never would have done."
Jude"s eyes rested musingly on her face. Then he suddenly kissed her; and was going to kiss her again. "No-only once now-please, Jude!"
"That"s rather cruel," he answered; but acquiesced. "Such a strange thing has happened to me," Jude continued after a silence. "Arabella has actually written to ask me to get a divorce from her-in kindness to her, she says. She wants to honestly and legally marry that man she has already married virtually; and begs me to enable her to do it."
"What have you done?"
"I have agreed. I thought at first I couldn"t do it without getting her into trouble about that second marriage, and I don"t want to injure her in any way. Perhaps she"s no worse than I am, after all! But n.o.body knows about it over here, and I find it will not be a difficult proceeding at all. If she wants to start afresh I have only too obvious reasons for not hindering her."
"Then you"ll be free?"
"Yes, I shall be free."
"Where are we booked for?" she asked, with the discontinuity that marked her to-night.
"Aldbrickham, as I said."
"But it will be very late when we get there?"
"Yes. I thought of that, and I wired for a room for us at the Temperance Hotel there."
"One?"
"Yes-one."
She looked at him. "Oh Jude!" Sue bent her forehead against the corner of the compartment. "I thought you might do it; and that I was deceiving you. But I didn"t mean that!"
In the pause which followed, Jude"s eyes fixed themselves with a stultified expression on the opposite seat. "Well!" he said... "Well!"
He remained in silence; and seeing how discomfited he was she put her face against his cheek, murmuring, "Don"t be vexed, dear!"
"Oh-there"s no harm done," he said. "But-I understood it like that... Is this a sudden change of mind?"
"You have no right to ask me such a question; and I shan"t answer!" she said, smiling.
"My dear one, your happiness is more to me than anything-although we seem to verge on quarrelling so often!-and your will is law to me. I am something more than a mere-selfish fellow, I hope. Have it as you wish!" On reflection his brow showed perplexity. "But perhaps it is that you don"t love me-not that you have become conventional! Much as, under your teaching, I hate convention, I hope it is that, not the other terrible alternative!"
Even at this obvious moment for candour Sue could not be quite candid as to the state of that mystery, her heart. "Put it down to my timidity," she said with hurried evasiveness; "to a woman"s natural timidity when the crisis comes. I may feel as well as you that I have a perfect right to live with you as you thought-from this moment. I may hold the opinion that, in a proper state of society, the father of a woman"s child will be as much a private matter of hers as the cut of her underlinen, on whom n.o.body will have any right to question her. But partly, perhaps, because it is by his generosity that I am now free, I would rather not be other than a little rigid. If there had been a rope-ladder, and he had run after us with pistols, it would have seemed different, and I may have acted otherwise. But don"t press me and criticize me, Jude! a.s.sume that I haven"t the courage of my opinions. I know I am a poor miserable creature. My nature is not so pa.s.sionate as yours!"
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 realized 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 circ.u.mstanced, 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 Wess.e.x. 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."