Jude the Obsure - Page 158/318

"I thought," she began with nervous quickness, "that it would be

so sad to let you attend the funeral alone! And so--at the last

moment--I came."

"Dear faithful Sue!" murmured Jude.

With the elusiveness of her curious double nature, however, Sue did

not stand still for any further greeting, though it wanted some

time to the burial. A pathos so unusually compounded as that which

attached to this hour was unlikely to repeat itself for years, if

ever, and Jude would have paused, and meditated, and conversed. But

Sue either saw it not at all, or, seeing it more than he, would not

allow herself to feel it.

The sad and simple ceremony was soon over, their progress to the

church being almost at a trot, the bustling undertaker having a more

important funeral an hour later, three miles off. Drusilla was put

into the new ground, quite away from her ancestors. Sue and Jude

had gone side by side to the grave, and now sat down to tea in the

familiar house; their lives united at least in this last attention

to the dead.

"She was opposed to marriage, from first to last, you say?" murmured

Sue.

"Yes. Particularly for members of our family."

Her eyes met his, and remained on him awhile.

"We are rather a sad family, don't you think, Jude?"

"She said we made bad husbands and wives. Certainly we make unhappy

ones. At all events, I do, for one!"

Sue was silent. "Is it wrong, Jude," she said with a tentative

tremor, "for a husband or wife to tell a third person that they are

unhappy in their marriage? If a marriage ceremony is a religious

thing, it is possibly wrong; but if it is only a sordid contract,

based on material convenience in householding, rating, and taxing,

and the inheritance of land and money by children, making it

necessary that the male parent should be known--which it seems to

be--why surely a person may say, even proclaim upon the housetops,

that it hurts and grieves him or her?"

"I have said so, anyhow, to you."

Presently she went on: "Are there many couples, do you think, where

one dislikes the other for no definite fault?"

"Yes, I suppose. If either cares for another person, for instance."

"But even apart from that? Wouldn't the woman, for example, be very

bad-natured if she didn't like to live with her husband; merely"--her

voice undulated, and he guessed things--"merely because she had a

personal feeling against it--a physical objection--a fastidiousness,

or whatever it may be called--although she might respect and be

grateful to him? I am merely putting a case. Ought she to try to

overcome her pruderies?"