I acquiesce. You are right. It is a lesson in
renunciation which I suppose I ought to learn at this
season.
JUDE.
He despatched the note on Easter Eve, and there seemed a finality
in their decisions. But other forces and laws than theirs were in
operation. On Easter Monday morning he received a message from the
Widow Edlin, whom he had directed to telegraph if anything serious
happened:
Your aunt is sinking. Come at once.
He threw down his tools and went. Three and a half hours later he
was crossing the downs about Marygreen, and presently plunged into
the concave field across which the short cut was made to the village.
As he ascended on the other side a labouring man, who had been
watching his approach from a gate across the path, moved uneasily,
and prepared to speak. "I can see in his face that she is dead,"
said Jude. "Poor Aunt Drusilla!"
It was as he had supposed, and Mrs. Edlin had sent out the man to
break the news to him.
"She wouldn't have knowed 'ee. She lay like a doll wi' glass eyes;
so it didn't matter that you wasn't here," said he.
Jude went on to the house, and in the afternoon, when everything was
done, and the layers-out had finished their beer, and gone, he sat
down alone in the silent place. It was absolutely necessary to
communicate with Sue, though two or three days earlier they had
agreed to mutual severance. He wrote in the briefest terms:
Aunt Drusilla is dead, having been taken almost suddenly.
The funeral is on Friday afternoon.
He remained in and about Marygreen through the intervening days,
went out on Friday morning to see that the grave was finished, and
wondered if Sue would come. She had not written, and that seemed to
signify rather that she would come than that she would not. Having
timed her by her only possible train, he locked the door about
mid-day, and crossed the hollow field to the verge of the upland by
the Brown House, where he stood and looked over the vast prospect
northwards, and over the nearer landscape in which Alfredston stood.
Two miles behind it a jet of white steam was travelling from the left
to the right of the picture.
There was a long time to wait, even now, till he would know if she
had arrived. He did wait, however, and at last a small hired vehicle
pulled up at the bottom of the hill, and a person alighted, the
conveyance going back, while the passenger began ascending the
hill. He knew her; and she looked so slender to-day that it seemed
as if she might be crushed in the intensity of a too passionate
embrace--such as it was not for him to give. Two-thirds of the way
up her head suddenly took a solicitous poise, and he knew that she
had at that moment recognized him. Her face soon began a pensive
smile, which lasted till, having descended a little way, he met her.