She looked at it. "That to you was what the school-house at Shaston
is to me."
"Yes; but I was not very happy there as you are in yours."
She closed her lips in retortive silence, and they walked some way
till she glanced at him to see how he was taking it. "Of course I
may have exaggerated your happiness--one never knows," he continued
blandly.
"Don't think that, Jude, for a moment, even though you may have said
it to sting me! He's as good to me as a man can be, and gives me
perfect liberty--which elderly husbands don't do in general... If
you think I am not happy because he's too old for me, you are wrong."
"I don't think anything against him--to you dear."
"And you won't say things to distress me, will you?"
"I will not."
He said no more, but he knew that, from some cause or other, in
taking Phillotson as a husband, Sue felt that she had done what she
ought not to have done.
They plunged into the concave field on the other side of which rose
the village--the field wherein Jude had received a thrashing from
the farmer many years earlier. On ascending to the village and
approaching the house they found Mrs. Edlin standing at the door, who
at sight of them lifted her hands deprecatingly. "She's downstairs,
if you'll believe me!" cried the widow. "Out o' bed she got, and
nothing could turn her. What will come o't I do not know!"
On entering, there indeed by the fireplace sat the old woman, wrapped
in blankets, and turning upon them a countenance like that of
Sebastiano's Lazarus. They must have looked their amazement, for she
said in a hollow voice: "Ah--sceered ye, have I! I wasn't going to bide up there no longer,
to please nobody! 'Tis more than flesh and blood can bear, to be
ordered to do this and that by a feller that don't know half as well
as you do yourself! ... Ah--you'll rue this marrying as well as
he!" she added, turning to Sue. "All our family do--and nearly all
everybody else's. You should have done as I did, you simpleton! And
Phillotson the schoolmaster, of all men! What made 'ee marry him?"
"What makes most women marry, Aunt?"
"Ah! You mean to say you loved the man!"
"I don't meant to say anything definite."
"Do ye love un?"
"Don't ask me, Aunt."