Jude the Obsure

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.