Jude the Obsure - Page 63/318

Having been deeply encumbered by marrying, getting a cottage, and

buying the furniture which had disappeared in the wake of his wife,

he had never been able to save any money since the time of those

disastrous ventures, and till his wages began to come in he was

obliged to live in the narrowest way. After buying a book or two

he could not even afford himself a fire; and when the nights reeked

with the raw and cold air from the Meadows he sat over his lamp in

a great-coat, hat, and woollen gloves.

From his window he could perceive the spire of the cathedral, and the

ogee dome under which resounded the great bell of the city. The tall

tower, tall belfry windows, and tall pinnacles of the college by the

bridge he could also get a glimpse of by going to the staircase.

These objects he used as stimulants when his faith in the future was

dim.

Like enthusiasts in general he made no inquiries into details of

procedure. Picking up general notions from casual acquaintance, he

never dwelt upon them. For the present, he said to himself, the one

thing necessary was to get ready by accumulating money and knowledge,

and await whatever chances were afforded to such an one of becoming

a son of the University. "For wisdom is a defence, and money is a

defence; but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life

to them that have it." His desire absorbed him, and left no part of

him to weigh its practicability.

At this time he received a nervously anxious letter from his poor old

aunt, on the subject which had previously distressed her--a fear that

Jude would not be strong-minded enough to keep away from his cousin

Sue Bridehead and her relations. Sue's father, his aunt believed,

had gone back to London, but the girl remained at Christminster. To

make her still more objectionable she was an artist or designer of

some sort in what was called an ecclesiastical warehouse, which was

a perfect seed-bed of idolatry, and she was no doubt abandoned to

mummeries on that account--if not quite a Papist. (Miss Drusilla

Fawley was of her date, Evangelical.) As Jude was rather on an intellectual track than a theological, this

news of Sue's probable opinions did not much influence him one way or

the other, but the clue to her whereabouts was decidedly interesting.

With an altogether singular pleasure he walked at his earliest spare

minutes past the shops answering to his great-aunt's description; and

beheld in one of them a young girl sitting behind a desk, who was

suspiciously like the original of the portrait. He ventured to enter

on a trivial errand, and having made his purchase lingered on the

scene. The shop seemed to be kept entirely by women. It contained

Anglican books, stationery, texts, and fancy goods: little plaster

angels on brackets, Gothic-framed pictures of saints, ebony crosses

that were almost crucifixes, prayer-books that were almost missals.

He felt very shy of looking at the girl in the desk; she was so

pretty that he could not believe it possible that she should belong

to him. Then she spoke to one of the two older women behind the

counter; and he recognized in the accents certain qualities of his

own voice; softened and sweetened, but his own. What was she doing?

He stole a glance round. Before her lay a piece of zinc, cut to

the shape of a scroll three or four feet long, and coated with a

dead-surface paint on one side. Hereon she was designing or

illuminating, in characters of Church text, the single word