"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!"