第44章 At Melchester(3)

'Oh,Sue!...But of course it is right -you couldn't have done better!'

He glanced at her and their eyes met,the reproach in his own belying his words.Then he drew his hand quite away from hers,and turned his face in estrangement from her to the window.Sue regarded him passively without moving.

'I knew you would be angry!'she said with an air of no emotion whatever.'Very well -I am wrong,I suppose!I ought not to have let you come to see me!We had better not meet again;and we'll only correspond at long intervals,on purely business matters!'

This was just the one thing he would not be able to bear,as she probably knew,and it brought him round at once.'Oh yes,we will,'he said quickly.'Your being engaged can make no difference to me whatever.

I have a perfect right to see you when I want to;and I shall!'

'Then don't let us talk of it any more.It is quite spoiling our evening together.What does it matter about what one is going to do two years hence!'

She was something of a riddle to him,and he let the subject drift away.'Shall we go and sit in the cathedral?'he asked,when their meal was finished.

'Cathedral?Yes.Though I think I'd rather sit in the railway station,'she answered,a remnant of vexation still in her voice.'That's the centre of the town life now.The cathedral has had its day!'

'How modern you are!'

'So would you be if you had lived so much in the Middle Ages as I have done these last few years!The cathedral was a very good place four or five centuries ago;but it is played out now ...I am not modern,either.

I am more ancient than mediaevalism,if you only knew.'

Jude looked distressed.

'There -I won't say any more of that!'she cried.'Only you don't know how bad I am,from your point of view,or you wouldn't think so much of me,or care whether I was engaged or not.Now there's just time for us to walk round the Close,then I must go in,or I shall be locked out for the night.'

He took her to the gate and they parted.Jude had a conviction that his unhappy visit to her on that sad night had precipitated this marriage engagement,and it did anything but add to his happiness.Her reproach had taken that shape,then,and not the shape of words.However,next day he set about seeking employment,which it was not so easy to get as at Christminster,there being,as a rule,less stone-cutting in progress in this quiet city,and hands being mostly permanent.But he edged himself in by degrees.His first work was some carving at the cemetery on the hill;and ultimately he became engaged on the labour he most desired -the cathedral repairs,which were very extensive,the whole interior stonework having been overhauled,to be largely replaced by new.It might be a labour of years to get it all done,and he had confidence enough in his own skill with the mallet and chisel to feel that it would be a matter of choice with himself how long he would stay.

The lodgings he took near the Close Gate would not have disgraced a curate,the rent representing a higher percentage on his wages than mechanics of any sort usually care to pay.His combined bed and sitting-room was furnished with framed photographs of the rectories and deaneries at which his landlady had lived as trusted servant in her time,and the parlour downstairs bore a clock on the mantelpiece inscribed to the effect that it was presented to the same serious-minded woman by her fellow-servants on the occasion of her marriage.Jude added to the furniture of his room by unpacking photographs of the ecclesiastical carvings and monuments that he had executed with his own hands;and he was deemed a satisfactory acquisition as tenant of the vacant apartment.

He found an ample supply of theological books in the city book-shops,and with these his studies were recommenced in a different spirit and direction from his former course.As a relaxation from the Fathers,and such stock works as Paley and Butler,he read Newman,Pusey,and many other modern lights.He hired a harmonium,set it up in his lodging,and practised chants thereon,single and double.

'To-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,Ithink;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.