第56章 At Melchester(15)

'O Susanna Florence Mary!'he said as he worked.'You don't know what marriage means!'

Could it be possible that his announcement of his own marriage had pricked her on to this,just as his visit to her when in liquor may have pricked her on to her engagement?To be sure,there seemed to exist these other and sufficient reasons,practical and social,for her decision;but Sue was not a very practical or calculating person;and he was compelled to think that a pique at having his secret sprung upon her had moved her to give way to Phillotson's probable representations,that the best course to prove how unfounded were the suspicions of the school authorities would be to marry him off-hand,as in fulfilment of an ordinary engagement.Sue had,in fact,been placed in an awkward corner.Poor Sue!

He determined to play the Spartan;to make the best of it,and support her;but he could not write the requested good wishes for a day or two.Meanwhile there came another note from his impatient little dear:

Jude,will you give me away?I have nobody else who could do it so conveniently as you,being the only married relation I have here on the spot,even if my father were friendly enough to be willing,which he isn't.I hope you won't think it a trouble?I have been looking at the marriage service in the prayer-book,and it seems to me very humiliating that a giver-away should be required at all.According to the ceremony as there printed,my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure;but I don't choose him.Somebody gives me to him,like a she-ass or she-goat,or any other domestic animal.Bless your exalted views of woman,O churchman!But I forget:I am no longer privileged to tease you.

-Ever,Susanna Florence Mary Bridehead .Jude screwed himself up to heroic key;and replied:

My dear Sue,-Of course I wish you joy!And also of course I will give you away.What I suggest is that,as you have no house of your own,you do not marry from your school friend's,but from mine.It would be more proper,I think,since I am,as you say,the person nearest related to you in this part of the world.

I don't see why you sign your letter in such a new and terribly formal way?Surely you care a bit about me still!-Ever your affectionate,Jude.What had jarred on him even more than the signature was a little sting he had been silent on -the phrase 'married relation'-What an idiot it made him seem as her lover!If Sue had written that in satire,he could hardly forgive her;if in suffering -ah,that was another thing!

His offer of his lodging must have commended itself to Phillotson at any rate,for the schoolmaster sent him a line of warm thanks,accepting the convenience.Sue also thanked him.Jude immediately moved into more commodious quarters,as much to escape the espionage of the suspicious landlady who had been one cause of Sue's unpleasant experience as for the sake of room.

Then Sue wrote to tell him the day fixed for the wedding;and Jude decided,after inquiry,that she should come into residence on the following Saturday,which would allow of a ten days'stay in the city prior to the ceremony,sufficiently representing a nominal residence of fifteen.

She arrived by the ten o'clock train on the day aforesaid,Jude not going to meet her at the station,by her special request,that he should not lose a morning's work and pay,she said (if this were her true reason).

But so well by this time did he know Sue that the remembrance of their mutual sensitiveness at emotional crises might,he thought,have weighed with her in this.When he came home to dinner she had taken possession of her apartment.

She lived in the same house with him,but on a different floor,and they saw each other little,an occasional supper being the only meal they took together,when Sue's manner was something like that of a scared child.What she felt he did not know;their conversation was mechanical,though she did not look pale or ill.Phillotson came frequently,but mostly when Jude was absent.On the morning of the wedding,when Jude had given himself a holiday,Sue and her cousin had breakfast together for the first and last time during this curious interval;in his room -the parlour -which he had hired for the period of Sue's residence.Seeing,as women do,how helpless he was in making the place comfortable,she bustled about.

'What's the matter,Jude?'she said suddenly.

He was leaning with his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands,looking into a futurity which seemed to be sketched out on the tablecloth.

'Oh -nothing!'

'You are 'father',you know.That's what they call the man who gives you away.'

Jude could have said 'Phillotson's age entitles him to be called that!'But he would not annoy her by such a cheap retort.

She talked incessantly,as if she dreaded his indulgence in reflection,and before the meal was over both he and she wished they had not put such confidence in their new view of things,and had taken breakfast apart.

What oppressed Jude was the thought that,having done a wrong thing of this sort himself,he was aiding and abetting the woman he loved in doing a like wrong thing,instead of imploring and warning her against it.It was on his tongue to say,'You have quite made up your mind?'

After breakfast they went out on an errand together moved by a mutual thought that it was the last opportunity they would have of indulging in unceremonious companionship.By the irony of fate,and the curious trick in Sue's nature of tempting Providence at critical times,she took his arm as they walked through the muddy street -a thing she had never done before in her life -and on turning the corner they found themselves close to a grey perpendicular church with a low-pitched roof -the church of St.Thomas.

'That's the church,'said Jude.

'Where I am going to be married?'

'Yes.'

'Indeed!'she exclaimed with curiosity.'How I should like to go in and see what the spot is like where I am so soon to kneel and do it.'