Arabella looked at him, and looked again, till at length she spoke. “If I don’t mistake I am talking to Mr. Phillotson?”
The wayfarer faced round and regarded her in turn. “Yes; my name is Phillotson,” he said. “But I don’t recognize you, ma’am.”
“I remember you well enough when you used to be schoolmaster out at Marygreen, and I one of your scholars. I used to walk up there from Cresscombe every day, because we had only a mistress down at our place, and you taught better. But you wouldn’t remember me as I should you?—Arabella Donn.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said politely, “I don’t recall the name. And I should hardly recognize in your present portly self the slim school child no doubt you were then.”
“Well, I always had plenty of flesh on my bones. However, I am staying down here with some friends at present. You know, I suppose, who I married?”
“No.”
“Jude Fawley—also a scholar of yours—at least a night scholar—for some little time I think? And known to you afterwards, if I am not mistaken.”
“Dear me, dear me,” said Phillotson, starting out of his stiffness. “You Fawley’s wife? To be sure—he had a wife! And he—I understood—”
“Divorced her—as you did yours—perhaps for better reasons.”
“Indeed?”
“Well—he med have been right in doing it—right for both; for I soon married again, and all went pretty straight till my husband died lately. But you—you were decidedly wrong!”
“No,” said Phillotson, with sudden testiness. “I would rather not talk of this, but—I am convinced I did only what was right, and just, and moral. I have suffered for my act and opinions, but I hold to them; though her loss was a loss to me in more ways than one!”
“You lost your school and good income through her, did you not?”
“I don’t care to talk of it. I have recently come back here—to Marygreen, I mean.”
“You are keeping the school there again, just as formerly?”
The pressure of a sadness that would out unsealed him. “I am there,” he replied. “Just as formerly, no. Merely on sufferance. It was a last resource—a small thing to return to after my move upwards, and my long indulged hopes—a returning to zero, with all its humiliations. But it is a refuge. I like the seclusion of the place, and the vicar having known me before my so-called eccentric conduct towards my wife had ruined my reputation as a schoolmaster, he accepted my services when all other schools were closed against me. However, although I take fifty pounds a year here after taking above two hundred elsewhere, I prefer it to running the risk of having my old domestic experiences raked up against me, as I should do if I tried to make a move.”
“Right you are. A contented mind is a continual feast. She has done no better.”
“She is not doing well, you mean?”
“I met her by accident at Kennetbridge this very day, and she is anything but thriving. Her husband is ill, and she anxious. You made a fool of a mistake about her, I tell ’ee again, and the harm you did yourself by dirting your own nest serves you right, excusing the liberty.”
“How?”
“She was innocent.”
“But nonsense! They did not even defend the case!”
“That was because they didn’t care to. She was quite innocent of what obtained you your freedom, at the time you obtained it. I saw her just afterwards, and proved it to myself completely by talking to her.”
Phillotson grasped the edge of the spring-cart, and appeared to be much stressed and worried by the information. “Still—she wanted to go,” he said.
“Yes. But you shouldn’t have let her. That’s the only way with these fanciful women that chaw high—innocent or guilty. She’d have come round in time. We all do! Custom does it! it’s all the same in the end! However, I think she’s fond of her man still—whatever he med be of her. You were too quick about her. I shouldn’t have let her go! I should have kept her chained on—her spirit for kicking would have been broke soon enough! There’s nothing like bondage and a stone-deaf taskmaster for taming us women. Besides, you’ve got the laws on your side. Moses knew. Don’t you call to mind what he says?”
“Not for the moment, ma’am, I regret to say.”
“Call yourself a schoolmaster! I used to think o’t when they read it in church, and I was carrying on a bit. ‘Then shall the man be guiltless; but the woman shall bear her iniquity.’ Damn rough on us women; but we must grin and put up wi’ it!—Haw haw!—Well; she’s got her deserts now.”
“Yes,” said Phillotson, with biting sadness. “Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can’t get out of it if we would!”
“Well—don’t you forget to try it next time, old man.”
“I cannot answer you, madam. I have never known much of womankind.”
They had now reached the low levels bordering Alfredston, and passing through the outskirts approached a mill, to which Phillotson said his errand led him; whereupon they drew up, and he alighted, bidding them good night in a preoccupied mood.
In the meantime Sue, though remarkably successful in her cake-selling experiment at Kennetbridge fair, had lost the temporary brightness which had begun to sit upon her sadness on account of that success. When all her “Christminster” cakes had been disposed of she took upon her arm the empty basket, and the cloth which had covered the standing she had hired, and giving the other things to the boy left the street with him. They followed a lane to a distance of half a mile, till they met an old woman carrying a child in short clothes, and leading a toddler in the other hand.
Sue kissed the children,
