Jude the Obscure

ne week’s end Jude was as usual walking out to his aunt’s at Marygreen
from his lodging in Alfredston, a walk which now had large attractions
for him quite other than his desire to see his aged and morose
relative. He diverged to the right before ascending the hill with the
single purpose of gaining, on his way, a glimpse of Arabella that
should not come into the reckoning of regular appointments. Before
quite reaching the homestead his alert eye perceived the top of her
head moving quickly hither and thither over the garden hedge. Entering
the gate he found that three young unfattened pigs had escaped from
their sty by leaping clean over the top, and that she was endeavouring
unassisted to drive them in through the door which she had set open.
The lines of her countenance changed from the rigidity of business to
the softness of love when she saw Jude, and she bent her eyes
languishingly upon him. The animals took advantage of the pause by
doubling and bolting out of the way.

“They were only put in this morning!” she cried, stimulated to pursue
in spite of her lover’s presence. “They were drove from Spaddleholt
Farm only yesterday, where Father bought ’em at a stiff price enough.
They are wanting to get home again, the stupid toads! Will you shut the
garden gate, dear, and help me to get ’em in. There are no men folk at
home, only Mother, and they’ll be lost if we don’t mind.”

He set himself to assist, and dodged this way and that over the potato
rows and the cabbages. Every now and then they ran together, when he
caught her for a moment and kissed her. The first pig was got back
promptly; the second with some difficulty; the third a long-legged
creature, was more obstinate and agile. He plunged through a hole in
the garden hedge, and into the lane.

“He’ll be lost if I don’t follow ’n!” said she. “Come along with me!”

She rushed in full pursuit out of the garden, Jude alongside her,
barely contriving to keep the fugitive in sight. Occasionally they
would shout to some boy to stop the animal, but he always wriggled past
and ran on as before.

“Let me take your hand, darling,” said Jude. “You are getting out of
breath.” She gave him her now hot hand with apparent willingness, and
they trotted along together.

“This comes of driving ’em home,” she remarked. “They always know the
way back if you do that. They ought to have been carted over.”

By this time the pig had reached an unfastened gate admitting to the
open down, across which he sped with all the agility his little legs
afforded. As soon as the pursuers had entered and ascended to the top
of the high ground it became apparent that they would have to run all
the way to the farmer’s if they wished to get at him. From this summit
he could be seen as a minute speck, following an unerring line towards
his old home.

“It is no good!” cried Arabella. “He’ll be there long before we get
there. It don’t matter now we know he’s not lost or stolen on the way.
They’ll see it is ours, and send un back. Oh dear, how hot I be!”

Without relinquishing her hold of Jude’s hand she swerved aside and
flung herself down on the sod under a stunted thorn, precipitately
pulling Jude on to his knees at the same time.

“Oh, I ask pardon—I nearly threw you down, didn’t I! But I am so
tired!”

She lay supine, and straight as an arrow, on the sloping sod of this
hill-top, gazing up into the blue miles of sky, and still retaining her
warm hold of Jude’s hand. He reclined on his elbow near her.

“We’ve run all this way for nothing,” she went on, her form heaving and
falling in quick pants, her face flushed, her full red lips parted, and
a fine dew of perspiration on her skin. “Well—why don’t you speak,
deary?”

“I’m blown too. It was all up hill.”

They were in absolute solitude—the most apparent of all solitudes, that
of empty surrounding space. Nobody could be nearer than a mile to them
without their seeing him. They were, in fact, on one of the summits of
the county, and the distant landscape around Christminster could be
discerned from where they lay. But Jude did not think of that then.

“Oh, I can see such a pretty thing up this tree,” said Arabella. “A
sort of a—caterpillar, of the most loveliest green and yellow you ever
came across!”

“Where?” said Jude, sitting up.

“You can’t see him there—you must come here,” said she.

He bent nearer and put his head in front of hers. “No—I can’t see it,”
he said.

“Why, on the limb there where it branches off—close to the moving
leaf—there!” She gently pulled him down beside her.

“I don’t see it,” he repeated, the back of his head against her cheek.
“But I can, perhaps, standing up.” He stood accordingly, placing
himself in the direct line of her gaze.

“How stupid you are!” she said crossly, turning away her face.

“I don’t care to see it, dear: why should I?” he replied looking down
upon her. “Get up, Abby.”

“Why?”

“I want you to let me kiss you. I’ve been waiting to ever so long!”

She rolled round her face, remained a moment looking deedily aslant at
him; then with a slight curl of the lip sprang to her feet, and
exclaiming abruptly “I must mizzle!” walked off quickly homeward. Jude
followed and rejoined her.

“Just one!” he coaxed.

“Shan’t!” she said.

He, surprised: “What’s the matter?”

She kept her two lips resentfully together, and Jude followed her like
a pet lamb till she slackened her pace and walked beside him, talking
calmly on indifferent subjects, and always checking him if he tried to
take her hand or clasp her waist. Thus they descended to the precincts
of her father’s homestead, and Arabella went in, nodding good-bye to
him with a supercilious, affronted air.

“I expect I took too much liberty with her, somehow,” Jude said to
himself, as he withdrew with a sigh and went on to Marygreen.

On Sunday morning the interior of Arabella’s home was, as usual, the
scene of a grand weekly cooking, the preparation of the special Sunday
dinner. Her father was shaving before a little glass hung on the
mullion of the window, and her mother and Arabella herself were
shelling beans hard by. A neighbour passed on her way home from morning
service at the nearest church, and seeing Donn engaged at the window
with the razor, nodded and came in.

She at once spoke playfully to Arabella: “I zeed ’ee running with
’un—hee-hee! I hope ’tis coming to something?”

Arabella merely threw a look of consciousness into her face without
raising her eyes.

“He’s for Christminster, I hear, as soon as he can get there.”

“Have you heard that lately—quite lately?” asked Arabella with a
jealous, tigerish indrawing of breath.

“Oh no! But it has been known a long time that it is his plan. He’s
on’y waiting here for an opening. Ah well: he must walk about with
somebody, I s’pose. Young men don’t mean much now-a-days. ’Tis a sip
here and a sip there with ’em. ’Twas different in my time.”

When the gossip had departed Arabella said suddenly to her mother: “I
want you and Father to go and inquire how the Edlins be, this evening
after tea. Or no—there’s evening service at Fensworth—you can walk to
that.”

“Oh? What’s up to-night, then?”

“Nothing. Only I want the house to myself. He’s shy; and I can’t get un
to come in when you are here. I shall let him slip through my fingers
if I don’t mind, much as I care for ’n!”

“If it is fine we med as well go, since you wish.”

In the afternoon Arabella met and walked with Jude, who had now for
weeks ceased to look into a book of Greek, Latin, or any other tongue.
They wandered up the slopes till they reached the green track along the
ridge, which they followed to the circular British earth-bank
adjoining, Jude thinking of the great age of the trackway, and of the
drovers who had frequented it, probably before the Romans knew the
country. Up from the level lands below them floated the chime of church
bells. Presently they were reduced to one note, which quickened, and
stopped.

“Now we’ll go back,” said Arabella, who had attended to the sounds.

Jude assented. So long as he was near her he minded little where he
was. When they arrived at her house he said lingeringly: “I won’t come
in. Why are you in such a hurry to go in to-night? It is not near
dark.”

“Wait a moment,” said she. She tried the handle of the door and found
it locked.

“Ah—they are gone to church,” she added. And searching behind the
scraper she found the key and unlocked the door. “Now, you’ll come in a
moment?” she asked lightly. “We shall be all alone.”

“Certainly,” said Jude with alacrity, the case being unexpectedly
altered.

Indoors they went. Did he want any tea? No, it was too late: he would
rather sit and talk to her. She took off her jacket and hat, and they
sat down—naturally enough close together.

“Don’t touch me, please,” she said softly. “I am part egg-shell. Or
perhaps I had better put it in a safe place.” She began unfastening the
collar of her gown.

“What is it?” said her lover.

“An egg—a cochin’s egg. I am hatching a very rare sort. I carry it
about everywhere with me, and it will get hatched in less than three
weeks.”

“Where do you carry it?”

“Just here.” She put her hand into her bosom and drew out the egg,
which was wrapped in wool, outside it being a piece of pig’s bladder,
in case of accidents. Having exhibited it to him she put it back, “Now
mind you don’t come near me. I don’t want to get it broke, and have to
begin another.”

“Why do you do such a strange thing?”

“It’s an old custom. I suppose it is natural for a woman to want to
bring live things into the world.”

“It is very awkward for me just now,” he said, laughing.

“It serves you right. There—that’s all you can have of me”

She had turned round her chair, and, reaching over the back of it,
presented her cheek to him gingerly.

“That’s very shabby of you!”

“You should have catched me a minute ago when I had put the egg down!
There!” she said defiantly, “I am without it now!” She had quickly
withdrawn the egg a second time; but before he could quite reach her
she had put it back as quickly, laughing with the excitement of her
strategy. Then there was a little struggle, Jude making a plunge for it
and capturing it triumphantly. Her face flushed; and becoming suddenly
conscious he flushed also.

They looked at each other, panting; till he rose and said: “One kiss,
now I can do it without damage to property; and I’ll go!”

But she had jumped up too. “You must find me first!” she cried.

Her lover followed her as she withdrew. It was now dark inside the
room, and the window being small he could not discover for a long time
what had become of her, till a laugh revealed her to have rushed up the
stairs, whither Jude rushed at her heels.