X
JUDE returned to Melchester, which had the questionable recommendation of
being only a dozen and a half miles from his Sue's now permanent residence.
At first he felt that this nearness was a distinct reason for not going
southward at all; but Christminster was too sad a place to bear,
while the proximity of Shaston to Melchester might afford him the glory
of worsting the Enemy in a close engagement, such as was deliberately sought
by the priests and virgins of the early Church, who, disdaining an ignominious
flight from temptation, became even chamber-partners with impunity.
Jude did not pause to remember that, in the laconic words of the historian,
"insulted Nature sometimes vindicated her rights" in such circumstances.
He now returned with feverish desperation to his study for the priesthood--
in the recognition that the single-mindedness of his aims, and his
fidelity to the cause, had been more than questionable of late.
His passion for Sue troubled his soul; yet his lawful abandonment to the
society of Arabella for twelve hours seemed instinctively a worse thing--
even though she had not told him of her Sydney husband till afterwards.
He had, he verily believed, overcome all tendency to fly to liquor--
which, indeed, he had never done from taste, but merely as an escape
from intolerable misery of mind. Yet he perceived with despondency that,
taken all round, he was a man of too many passions to make a good clergyman;
the utmost he could hope for was that in a life of constant internal
warfare between flesh and spirit the former might not always
be victorious.
As a hobby, auxiliary to his readings in Divinity, he developed
his slight skill in church-music and thorough-bass, till
he could join in part-singing from notation with some accuracy.
A mile or two from Melchester there was a restored village church,
to which Jude had originally gone to fix the new columns
and capitals. By this means he had become acquainted with
the organist, and the ultimate result was that he joined
the choir as a bass voice.
He walked out to this parish twice every Sunday, and sometimes in the week.
One evening about Easter the choir met for practice, and a new hymn which Jude
had heard of as being by a Wessex composer was to be tried and prepared for
the following week. It turned out to be a strangely emotional composition.
As they all sang it over and over again its harmonies grew upon Jude,
and moved him exceedingly.
When they had finished he went round to the organist to make inquiries.
The score was in manuscript, the name of the composer being at the head,
together with the title of the hymn: "The Foot of the Cross."
"Yes," said the organist. "He is a local man. He is a professional musician
at Kennetbridge--between here and Christminster. The vicar knows him.
He was brought up and educated in Christminster traditions, which accounts
for the quality of the piece. I think he plays in the large church there,
and has a surpliced choir. He comes to Melchester sometimes, and once tried
to get the cathedral organ when the post was vacant. The hymn is getting
about everywhere this Easter."
As he walked humming the air on his way home, Jude fell to
musing on its composer, and the reasons why he composed it.
What a man of sympathies he must be! Perplexed and harassed
as he himself was about Sue and Arabella, and troubled
as was his conscience by the complication of his position,
how he would like to know that man!" He of all men would
understand my difficulties," said the impulsive Jude.
If there were any person in the world to choose as a confidant,
this composer would be the one, for he must have suffered,
and throbbed, and yearned.
In brief, ill as he could afford the time and money for the journey,
Fawley resolved, like the child that he was, to go to Kennetbridge
the very next Sunday. He duly started, early in the morning, for it
was only by a series of crooked railways that he could get to the town.
About mid-day he reached it, and crossing the bridge into the quaint old
borough he inquired for the house of the composer.
They told him it was a red brick building some little way further on.
Also that the gentleman himself had just passed along the street not five
minutes before.
"Which way?" asked Jude with alacrity.
"Straight along homeward from church."
Jude hastened on, and soon had the pleasure of observing a man in a black
coat and a black slouched felt hat no considerable distance ahead.
Stretching out his legs yet more widely he stalked after. "A hungry soul
in pursuit of a full soul!" he said. "I must speak to that man!"
He could not, however, overtake the musician before he had entered his own
house, and then arose the question if this were an expedient time to call.
Whether or not he decided to do so there and then, now that he had got here,
the distance home being too great for him to wait till late in the afternoon.
This man of soul would understand scant ceremony, and might be quite
a perfect adviser in a case in which an earthly and illegitimate passion
had cunningly obtained entrance into his heart through the opening afforded
for religion.
Jude accordingly rang the bell, and was admitted.
The musician came to him in a moment, and being respectably dressed,
good-looking, and frank in manner, Jude obtained a favourable reception.
He was nevertheless conscious that there would be a certain awkwardness in
explaining his errand.
"I have been singing in the choir of a little church near Melchester,"
he said. "And we have this week practised 'The Foot of the Cross,'
which I understand, sir, that you composed?"
"I did--a year or so ago."
"I--like it. I think it supremely beautiful!"
"Ah well--other people have said so too. Yes, there's money in it,
if I could only see about getting it published. I have other
compositions to go with it, too; I wish I could bring them out;
for I haven't made a five-pound note out of any of them yet.
These publishing people--they want the copyright of an obscure
composer's work, such as mine is, for almost less than I should have
to pay a person for making, a fair manuscript copy of the score.
The one you speak of I have lent to various friends about
here and Melchester, and so it has got to be sung a little.
But music is a poor staff to lean on--I am giving it up entirely.
You must go into trade if you want to make money nowadays.
The wine business is what I am thinking of. This is my forthcoming list--
it is not issued yet--but you can take one."
He handed Jude an advertisement list of several pages in booklet shape,
ornamentally margined with a red line, in which were set forth
the various clarets, champagnes, ports, sherries, and other wines
with which he purposed to initiate his new venture. It took Jude
more than by surprise that the man with the soul was thus and thus;
and he felt that he could not open up his confidences.
They talked a little longer, but constrainedly, for when the musician found
that Jude was a poor man his manner changed from what it had been while Jude's
appearance and address deceived him as to his position and pursuits.
Jude stammered out something about his feelings in wishing to congratulate
the author on such an exalted composition, and took an embarrassed leave.
All the way home by the slow Sunday train, sitting in the fireless
waiting-rooms on this cold spring day, he was depressed enough at
his simplicity in taking such a journey. But no sooner did he reach
his Melchester lodging than he found awaiting him a letter which had
arrived that morning a few minutes after he had left the house.
It was a contrite little note from Sue, in which she said,
with sweet humility, that she felt she had been horrid in telling
him he was not to come to see her, that she despised herself
for having been so conventional; and that he was to be sure to come
by the eleven-forty-five train that very Sunday, and have dinner
with them at half-past one.
Jude almost tore his hair at having missed this letter till it
was too late to act upon its contents; but he had chastened himself
considerably of late, and at last his chimerical expedition
to Kennetbridge really did seem to have been another special
intervention of Providence to keep him away from temptation.
But a growing impatience of faith, which he had noticed in himself
more than once of late, made him pass over in ridicule the idea
that God sent people on fools' errands. He longed to see her;
he was angry at having missed her: and he wrote instantly,
telling her what had happened, and saying he had not enough
patience to wait till the following Sunday, but would come any day
in the week that she liked to name.
Since he wrote a little over-ardently, Sue, as her manner was,
delayed her reply till Thursday before Good Friday,
when she said he might come that afternoon if he wished,
this being the earliest day on which she could welcome him,
for she was now assistant-teacher in her husband's school.
Jude therefore got leave from the cathedral works at the trifling
expense of a stoppage of pay, and went.
