第91章 At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere(7)

As I had separated from you before I thought such a thing was going to happen,and I was over there,and our quarrel had been sharp,I did not think it convenient to write about the birth.I was then looking out for a good situation,so my parents took the child,and he has been with them ever since.That was why I did not mention it when I met you in Christminster,nor at the law proceedings.He is now of an intelligent age,of course,and my mother and father have lately written to say that,as they have rather a hard struggle over there,and I am settled comfortably here,they don't see why they should be encumbered with the child any longer,his parents being alive.I would have him with me here in a moment,but he is not old enough to be of any use in the bar nor will be for years and years,and naturally Cartlett might think him in the way.They have,however,packed him off to me in charge of some friends who happened to be coming home,and I must ask you to take him when he arrives,for I don't know what to do with him.He is lawfully yours,that I solemnly swear.If anybody says he isn't,call them brimstone liars,for my sake.Whatever I may have done before or afterwards,I was honest to you from the time we were married till I went away,and I remain,yours,&c.,Arabella Cartlett.Sue's look was one of dismay.'What will you do,dear?'she asked faintly.

Jude did not reply,and Sue watched him anxiously,with heavy breaths.

'It hits me hard!'said he in an under-voice.'It may be true!I can't make it out.Certainly,if his birth was exactly when she says,he's mine.I cannot think why she didn't tell me when I met her at Christminster,and came on here that evening with her!...Ah -I do remember now that she said something about having a thing on her mind that she would like me to know,if ever we lived together again.'

'The poor child seems to be wanted by nobody!'Sue replied,and her eyes filled.

Jude had by this time come to himself.'What a view of life he must have,mine or not mine!'he said.'I must say that,if I were better off,I should not stop for a moment to think whose he might be.I would take him and bring him up.The beggarly question of parentage -what is it,after all?What does it matter,when you come to think of it,whether a child is yours by blood or not?All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time,and entitled to our general care.

That excessive regard of parents for their own children,and their dislike of other people's,is,like class-feeling,patriotism,save-your-own-soul-ism,and other virtues,a mean exclusiveness at bottom.'

Sue jumped up and kissed Jude with passionate devotion.'Yes -so it is,dearest!And we'll have him here!And if he isn't yours it makes it all the better.I do hope he isn't -though perhaps I ought not to feel quite that!If he isn't,I should like so much for us to have him as an adopted child!'

'Well,you must assume about him what is most pleasing to you,my curious little comrade!'he said.'I feel that,anyhow,I don't like to leave the unfortunate little fellow to neglect.Just think of his life in a Lambeth pothouse,and all its evil influences,with a parent who doesn't want him,and has,indeed,hardly seen him,and a stepfather who doesn't know him.'Let the day perish wherein I was born,and the night in which it was said,There is a man child conceived!'That's what the boy -my boy,perhaps,will find himself saying before long!'

'Oh no!'

'As I was the petitioner,I am really entitled to his custody,I suppose.'

'Whether or no,we must have him.I see that.I'll do the best I can to be a mother to him,and we can afford to keep him somehow.I'll work harder.I wonder when he'll arrive?'

'In the course of a few weeks,I suppose.'

'I wish -When shall we have courage to marry,Jude?'

'Whenever you have it,I think I shall.It remains with you entirely,dear.Only say the word,and it's done.'

'Before the boy comes?'

'Certainly.'

'It would make a more natural home for him,perhaps,'she murmured.

Jude thereupon wrote in purely formal terms to request that the boy should be sent on to them as soon as he arrived,making no remark whatever on the surprising nature of Arabella's information,nor vouchsafing a single word of opinion on the boy's paternity,nor on whether,had he known all this,his conduct towards her would have been quite the same.

In the down-train that was timed to reach Aldbrickham station about ten o'clock the next evening,a small,pale child's face could be seen in the gloom of a third-class carriage.He had large,frightened eyes,and wore a white woollen cravat,over which a key was suspended round his neck by a piece of common string:the key attracting attention by its occasional shine in the lamplight.In the band of his hat his half-ticket was stuck.

His eyes remained mostly fixed on the back of the seat opposite,and never turned to the window even when a station was reached and called.On the other seat were two or three passengers,one of them a working woman who held a basket on her lap,in which was a tabby kitten.The woman opened the cover now and then,whereupon the kitten would put out its head,and indulge in playful antics.At these the fellow-passengers laughed,except the solitary boy bearing the key and ticket,who,regarding the kitten with his saucer eyes,seemed mutely to say:'All laughing comes from misapprehension.

Rightly looked at there is no laughable thing under the sun.'

Occasionally at a stoppage the guard would look into the compartment and say to the boy,'All right,my man.Your box is safe in the van.'The boy would say,'Yes,'without animation,would try to smile,and fail.

He was Age masquerading as Juvenility,and doing it so badly that his real self showed through crevices.A ground-swell from ancient years of night seemed now and then to lift the child in this his morning-life,when his face took a back view over some great Atlantic of Time,and appeared not to care about what it saw.