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