“Indeed! I wish I had been able to do so.”
“You should try,” replied the widow, from the serene heights of a soul conscious not only of spiritual but of social superiority. “I make no boast of my awakening, but I’m not what I was. After Cartlett’s death I was passing the chapel in the street next ours, and went into it for shelter from a shower of rain. I felt a need of some sort of support under my loss, and, as ’twas righter than gin, I took to going there regular, and found it a great comfort. But I’ve left London now, you know, and at present I am living at Alfredston, with my friend Anny, to be near my own old country. I’m not come here to the fair today. There’s to be the foundation-stone of a new chapel laid this afternoon by a popular London preacher, and I drove over with Anny. Now I must go back to meet her.”
Then Arabella wished Sue goodbye, and went on.
VIII
In the afternoon Sue and the other people bustling about Kennetbridge fair could hear singing inside the placarded hoarding further down the street. Those who peeped through the opening saw a crowd of persons in broadcloth, with hymnbooks in their hands, standing round the excavations for the new chapel-walls. Arabella Cartlett and her weeds stood among them. She had a clear, powerful voice, which could be distinctly heard with the rest, rising and falling to the tune, her inflated bosom being also seen doing likewise.
It was two hours later on the same day that Anny and Mrs. Cartlett, having had tea at the Temperance Hotel, started on their return journey across the high and open country which stretches between Kennetbridge and Alfredston. Arabella was in a thoughtful mood; but her thoughts were not of the new chapel, as Anny at first surmised.
“No—it is something else,” at last said Arabella sullenly. “I came here today never thinking of anybody but poor Cartlett, or of anything but spreading the Gospel by means of this new tabernacle they’ve begun this afternoon. But something has happened to turn my mind another way quite. Anny, I’ve heard of un again, and I’ve seen her!”
“Who?”
“I’ve heard of Jude, and I’ve seen his wife. And ever since, do what I will, and though I sung the hymns wi’ all my strength, I have not been able to help thinking about ’n; which I’ve no right to do as a chapel member.”
“Can’t ye fix your mind upon what was said by the London preacher today, and try to get rid of your wandering fancies that way?”
“I do. But my wicked heart will ramble off in spite of myself!”
“Well—I know what it is to have a wanton mind o’ my own, too! If you on’y knew what I do dream sometimes o’ nights quite against my wishes, you’d say I had my struggles!” (Anny, too, had grown rather serious of late, her lover having jilted her.)
“What shall I do about it?” urged Arabella morbidly.
“You could take a lock of your late-lost husband’s hair, and have it made into a mourning brooch, and look at it every hour of the day.”
“I haven’t a morsel!—and if I had ’twould be no good. … After all that’s said about the comforts of this religion, I wish I had Jude back again!”
“You must fight valiant against the feeling, since he’s another’s. And I’ve heard that another good thing for it, when it afflicts volupshious widows, is to go to your husband’s grave in the dusk of evening, and stand a long while a-bowed down.”
“Pooh! I know as well as you what I should do; only I don’t do it!”
They drove in silence along the straight road till they were within the horizon of Marygreen, which lay not far to the left of their route. They came to the junction of the highway and the cross-lane leading to that village, whose church-tower could be seen athwart the hollow. When they got yet further on, and were passing the lonely house in which Arabella and Jude had lived during the first months of their marriage, and where the pig-killing had taken place, she could control herself no longer.
“He’s more mine than hers!” she burst out. “What right has she to him, I should like to know! I’d take him from her if I could!”
“Fie, Abby! And your husband only six weeks gone! Pray against it!”
“Be damned if I do! Feelings are feelings! I won’t be a creeping hypocrite any longer—so there!”
Arabella had hastily drawn from her pocket a bundle of tracts which she had brought with her to distribute at the fair, and of which she had given away several. As she spoke she flung the whole remainder of the packet into the hedge. “I’ve tried that sort o’ physic and have failed wi’ it. I must be as I was born!”
“Hush! You be excited, dear! Now you come along home quiet, and have a cup of tea, and don’t let us talk about un no more. We won’t come out this road again, as it leads to where he is, because it inflames ’ee so. You’ll be all right again soon.”
Arabella did calm herself down by degrees; and they crossed the ridgeway. When they began to descend the long, straight hill, they saw plodding along in front of them an elderly man of spare stature and thoughtful gait. In his hand he carried a basket; and there was a touch of slovenliness in his attire, together with that indefinable something in his whole appearance which suggested one who was his own housekeeper, purveyor,
