Jude the Obscure

“o-morrow is our grand day, you know. Where shall we go?”

“I have leave from three till nine. Wherever we can get to and come
back from in that time. Not ruins, Jude—I don’t care for them.”

“Well—Wardour Castle. And then we can do Fonthill if we like—all in the
same afternoon.”

“Wardour is Gothic ruins—and I hate Gothic!”

“No. Quite otherwise. It is a classic building—Corinthian, I think;
with a lot of pictures.”

“Ah—that will do. I like the sound of Corinthian. We’ll go.”

Their conversation had run thus some few weeks later, and next morning
they prepared to start. Every detail of the outing was a facet
reflecting a sparkle to Jude, and he did not venture to meditate on the
life of inconsistency he was leading. His Sue’s conduct was one lovely
conundrum to him; he could say no more.

There duly came the charm of calling at the college door for her; her
emergence in a nunlike simplicity of costume that was rather enforced
than desired; the traipsing along to the station, the porters’ “B’your
leave!,” the screaming of the trains—everything formed the basis of a
beautiful crystallization. Nobody stared at Sue, because she was so
plainly dressed, which comforted Jude in the thought that only himself
knew the charms those habiliments subdued. A matter of ten pounds spent
in a drapery-shop, which had no connection with her real life or her
real self, would have set all Melchester staring. The guard of the
train thought they were lovers, and put them into a compartment all by
themselves.

“That’s a good intention wasted!” said she.

Jude did not respond. He thought the remark unnecessarily cruel, and
partly untrue.

They reached the park and castle and wandered through the
picture-galleries, Jude stopping by preference in front of the
devotional pictures by Del Sarto, Guido Reni, Spagnoletto,
Sassoferrato, Carlo Dolci, and others. Sue paused patiently beside him,
and stole critical looks into his face as, regarding the Virgins, Holy
Families, and Saints, it grew reverent and abstracted. When she had
thoroughly estimated him at this, she would move on and wait for him
before a Lely or Reynolds. It was evident that her cousin deeply
interested her, as one might be interested in a man puzzling out his
way along a labyrinth from which one had one’s self escaped.

When they came out a long time still remained to them and Jude proposed
that as soon as they had had something to eat they should walk across
the high country to the north of their present position, and intercept
the train of another railway leading back to Melchester, at a station
about seven miles off. Sue, who was inclined for any adventure that
would intensify the sense of her day’s freedom, readily agreed; and
away they went, leaving the adjoining station behind them.

It was indeed open country, wide and high. They talked and bounded on,
Jude cutting from a little covert a long walking-stick for Sue as tall
as herself, with a great crook, which made her look like a shepherdess.
About half-way on their journey they crossed a main road running due
east and west—the old road from London to Land’s End. They paused, and
looked up and down it for a moment, and remarked upon the desolation
which had come over this once lively thoroughfare, while the wind
dipped to earth and scooped straws and hay-stems from the ground.

They crossed the road and passed on, but during the next half-mile Sue
seemed to grow tired, and Jude began to be distressed for her. They had
walked a good distance altogether, and if they could not reach the
other station it would be rather awkward. For a long time there was no
cottage visible on the wide expanse of down and turnip-land; but
presently they came to a sheepfold, and next to the shepherd, pitching
hurdles. He told them that the only house near was his mother’s and
his, pointing to a little dip ahead from which a faint blue smoke
arose, and recommended them to go on and rest there.

This they did, and entered the house, admitted by an old woman without
a single tooth, to whom they were as civil as strangers can be when
their only chance of rest and shelter lies in the favour of the
householder.

“A nice little cottage,” said Jude.

“Oh, I don’t know about the niceness. I shall have to thatch it soon,
and where the thatch is to come from I can’t tell, for straw do get
that dear, that ’twill soon be cheaper to cover your house wi’ chainey
plates than thatch.”

They sat resting, and the shepherd came in. “Don’t ’ee mind I,” he said
with a deprecating wave of the hand; “bide here as long as ye will. But
mid you be thinking o’ getting back to Melchester to-night by train?
Because you’ll never do it in this world, since you don’t know the lie
of the country. I don’t mind going with ye some o’ the ways, but even
then the train mid be gone.”

They started up.

“You can bide here, you know, over the night—can’t ’em, Mother? The
place is welcome to ye. ’Tis hard lying, rather, but volk may do
worse.” He turned to Jude and asked privately: “Be you a married
couple?”

“Hsh—no!” said Jude.

“Oh—I meant nothing ba’dy—not I! Well then, she can go into Mother’s
room, and you and I can lie in the outer chimmer after they’ve gone
through. I can call ye soon enough to catch the first train back.
You’ve lost this one now.”

On consideration they decided to close with this offer, and drew up and
shared with the shepherd and his mother the boiled bacon and greens for
supper.

“I rather like this,” said Sue, while their entertainers were clearing
away the dishes. “Outside all laws except gravitation and germination.”

“You only think you like it; you don’t: you are quite a product of
civilization,” said Jude, a recollection of her engagement reviving his
soreness a little.

“Indeed I am not, Jude. I like reading and all that, but I crave to get
back to the life of my infancy and its freedom.”

“Do you remember it so well? You seem to me to have nothing
unconventional at all about you.”

“Oh, haven’t I! You don’t know what’s inside me.”

“What?”

“The Ishmaelite.”

“An urban miss is what you are.”

She looked severe disagreement, and turned away.

The shepherd aroused them the next morning, as he had said. It was
bright and clear, and the four miles to the train were accomplished
pleasantly. When they had reached Melchester, and walked to the Close,
and the gables of the old building in which she was again to be immured
rose before Sue’s eyes, she looked a little scared. “I expect I shall
catch it!” she murmured.

They rang the great bell and waited.

“Oh, I bought something for you, which I had nearly forgotten,” she
said quickly, searching her pocket. “It is a new little photograph of
me. Would you like it?”

“Would I!” He took it gladly, and the porter came. There seemed to be
an ominous glance on his face when he opened the gate. She passed in,
looking back at Jude, and waving her hand.