Jude the Obsure

"Don't say anything against her, Aunt! Don't, please!"

A relief was afforded to him by the entry of the companion and nurse

of his aunt, who must have been listening to the conversation, for

she began a commentary on past years, introducing Sue Bridehead as

a character in her recollections. She described what an odd little

maid Sue had been when a pupil at the village school across the green

opposite, before her father went to London--how, when the vicar

arranged readings and recitations, she appeared on the platform, the

smallest of them all, "in her little white frock, and shoes, and pink

sash"; how she recited "Excelsior," "There was a sound of revelry by

night," and "The Raven"; how during the delivery she would knit her

little brows and glare round tragically, and say to the empty air, as

if some real creature stood there--

"Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven,

wandering from the Nightly shore,

Tell me what thy lordly name is

on the Night's Plutonian shore!"

"She'd bring up the nasty carrion bird that clear," corroborated the

sick woman reluctantly, "as she stood there in her little sash and

things, that you could see un a'most before your very eyes. You too,

Jude, had the same trick as a child of seeming to see things in the

air."

The neighbour told also of Sue's accomplishments in other kinds: "She was not exactly a tomboy, you know; but she could do things that

only boys do, as a rule. I've seen her hit in and steer down the

long slide on yonder pond, with her little curls blowing, one of

a file of twenty moving along against the sky like shapes painted

on glass, and up the back slide without stopping. All boys except

herself; and then they'd cheer her, and then she'd say, 'Don't be

saucy, boys,' and suddenly run indoors. They'd try to coax her out

again. But 'a wouldn't come."

These retrospective visions of Sue only made Jude the more miserable

that he was unable to woo her, and he left the cottage of his aunt

that day with a heavy heart. He would fain have glanced into the

school to see the room in which Sue's little figure had so glorified

itself; but he checked his desire and went on.

It being Sunday evening some villagers who had known him during his

residence here were standing in a group in their best clothes. Jude

was startled by a salute from one of them: "Ye've got there right enough, then!"