Jude the Obsure
Page 316"Oh yes--sleeping quite sound. He won't wake yet," she said
hurriedly.
They went with the crowd down Cardinal Street, where they presently
reached the bridge, and the gay barges burst upon their view. Thence
they passed by a narrow slit down to the riverside path--now dusty,
hot, and thronged. Almost as soon as they had arrived the grand
procession of boats began; the oars smacking with a loud kiss on the
face of the stream, as they were lowered from the perpendicular.
"Oh, I say--how jolly! I'm glad I've come," said Arabella. "And--it
can't hurt my husband--my being away."
On the opposite side of the river, on the crowded barges, were
gorgeous nosegays of feminine beauty, fashionably arrayed in green,
centre of interest, beneath which a band in red uniform gave out the
notes she had already heard in the death-chamber. Collegians of all
sorts, in canoes with ladies, watching keenly for "our" boat, darted
up and down. While she regarded the lively scene somebody touched
Arabella in the ribs, and looking round she saw Vilbert.
"That philtre is operating, you know!" he said with a leer. "Shame
on 'ee to wreck a heart so!"
"I shan't talk of love to-day."
"Why not? It is a general holiday."
She did not reply. Vilbert's arm stole round her waist, which act
could be performed unobserved in the crowd. An arch expression
eyes on the river as if she did not know of the embrace.
The crowd surged, pushing Arabella and her friends sometimes nearly
into the river, and she would have laughed heartily at the horse-play
that succeeded, if the imprint on her mind's eye of a pale,
statuesque countenance she had lately gazed upon had not sobered her
a little.
The fun on the water reached the acme of excitement; there were
immersions, there were shouts: the race was lost and won, the pink
and blue and yellow ladies retired from the barges, and the people
who had watched began to move.
"Well--it's been awfully good," cried Arabella. "But I think I must
had better get back."
"What's your hurry?"
"Well, I must go... Dear, dear, this is awkward!"
At the narrow gangway where the people ascended from the riverside
path to the bridge the crowd was literally jammed into one hot
mass--Arabella and Vilbert with the rest; and here they remained
motionless, Arabella exclaiming, "Dear, dear!" more and more
impatiently; for it had just occurred to her mind that if Jude were
discovered to have died alone an inquest might be deemed necessary.