He knew what they were saying and thinking. "I am very, very sorry,
Father and Mother," he said. "But please don't mind!--I can't help
it. I should like the flowers very very much, if I didn't keep on
thinking they'd be all withered in a few days!"
VI
The unnoticed lives that the pair had hitherto led began, from the
day of the suspended wedding onwards, to be observed and discussed by
other persons than Arabella. The society of Spring Street and the
neighbourhood generally did not understand, and probably could not
have been made to understand, Sue and Jude's private minds, emotions,
positions, and fears. The curious facts of a child coming to them
unexpectedly, who called Jude "Father," and Sue "Mother," and a hitch
in a marriage ceremony intended for quietness to be performed at a
registrar's office, together with rumours of the undefended cases in
the law-courts, bore only one translation to plain minds.
Little Time--for though he was formally turned into "Jude," the apt
nickname stuck to him--would come home from school in the evening,
and repeat inquiries and remarks that had been made to him by the
other boys; and cause Sue, and Jude when he heard them, a great deal
of pain and sadness.
The result was that shortly after the attempt at the registrar's the
pair went off--to London it was believed--for several days, hiring
somebody to look to the boy. When they came back they let it be
understood indirectly, and with total indifference and weariness
of mien, that they were legally married at last. Sue, who had
previously been called Mrs. Bridehead now openly adopted the name of
Mrs. Fawley. Her dull, cowed, and listless manner for days seemed
to substantiate all this.
But the mistake (as it was called) of their going away so secretly
to do the business, kept up much of the mystery of their lives; and
they found that they made not such advances with their neighbours as
they had expected to do thereby. A living mystery was not much less
interesting than a dead scandal.
The baker's lad and the grocer's boy, who at first had used to lift
their hats gallantly to Sue when they came to execute their errands,
in these days no longer took the trouble to render her that homage,
and the neighbouring artizans' wives looked straight along the
pavement when they encountered her.
Nobody molested them, it is true; but an oppressive atmosphere began
to encircle their souls, particularly after their excursion to the
show, as if that visit had brought some evil influence to bear on
them. And their temperaments were precisely of a kind to suffer from
this atmosphere, and to be indisposed to lighten it by vigorous and
open statements. Their apparent attempt at reparation had come too
late to be effective.