Chapter: The schoolmaster sat in his homely dwelling attached to the school,
both being modern erections; and he looked across the way at the old
house in which his teacher Sue had a lodging.  The arrangement had
been concluded very quickly.  A pupil-teacher who was to have been
transferred to Mr. Phillotson's school had failed him, and Sue had
been taken as stop-gap.  All such provisional arrangements as these
could only last till the next annual visit of H.M. Inspector, whose
approval was necessary to make them permanent.  Having taught for
some two years in London, though she had abandoned that vocation of
late, Miss Bridehead was not exactly a novice, and Phillotson thought
there would be no difficulty in retaining her services, which he
already wished to do, though she had only been with him three or four
weeks.  He had found her quite as bright as Jude had described her;
and what master-tradesman does not wish to keep an apprentice who
saves him half his labour?

It was a little over half-past eight o'clock in the morning and he
was waiting to see her cross the road to the school, when he would
follow.  At twenty minutes to nine she did cross, a light hat tossed
on her head; and he watched her as a curiosity.  A new emanation,
which had nothing to do with her skill as a teacher, seemed to
surround her this morning.  He went to the school also, and Sue
remained governing her class at the other end of the room, all day
under his eye.  She certainly was an excellent teacher.

It was part of his duty to give her private lessons in the evening,
and some article in the Code made it necessary that a respectable,
elderly woman should be present at these lessons when the teacher and
the taught were of different sexes.  Richard Phillotson thought of
the absurdity of the regulation in this case, when he was old enough
to be the girl's father; but he faithfully acted up to it; and sat
down with her in a room where Mrs. Hawes, the widow at whose house
Sue lodged, occupied herself with sewing.  The regulation was,
indeed, not easy to evade, for there was no other sitting-room in the
dwelling.

Sometimes as she figured--it was arithmetic that they were working
at--she would involuntarily glance up with a little inquiring smile
at him, as if she assumed that, being the master, he must perceive
all that was passing in her brain, as right or wrong.  Phillotson was
not really thinking of the arithmetic at all, but of her, in a novel
way which somehow seemed strange to him as preceptor.  Perhaps she
knew that he was thinking of her thus.

For a few weeks their work had gone on with a monotony which in
itself was a delight to him.  Then it happened that the children were
to be taken to Christminster to see an itinerant exhibition, in the
shape of a model of Jerusalem, to which schools were admitted at
a penny a head in the interests of education.  They marched along
the road two and two, she beside her class with her simple cotton
sunshade, her little thumb cocked up against its stem; and Phillotson
behind in his long dangling coat, handling his walking-stick
genteelly, in the musing mood which had come over him since her
arrival.  The afternoon was one of sun and dust, and when they
entered the exhibition room few people were present but themselves.
The model of the ancient city stood in the middle of the apartment,
and the proprietor, with a fine religious philanthropy written on his
features, walked round it with a pointer in his hand, showing the
young people the various quarters and places known to them by name
from reading their Bibles; Mount Moriah, the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
the City of Zion, the walls and the gates, outside one of which there
was a large mound like a tumulus, and on the mound a little white
cross.  The spot, he said, was Calvary.

"I think," said Sue to the schoolmaster, as she stood with him a
little in the background, "that this model, elaborate as it is, is a
very imaginary production.  How does anybody know that Jerusalem was
like this in the time of Christ?  I am sure this man doesn't."

"It is made after the best conjectural maps, based on actual visits
to the city as it now exists."

"I fancy we have had enough of Jerusalem," she said, "considering we
are not descended from the Jews.  There was nothing first-rate about
the place, or people, after all--as there was about Athens, Rome,
Alexandria, and other old cities."

"But my dear girl, consider what it is to us!"

She was silent, for she was easily repressed; and then perceived
behind the group of children clustered round the model a young man
in a white flannel jacket, his form being bent so low in his intent
inspection of the Valley of Jehoshaphat that his face was almost
hidden from view by the Mount of Olives.  "Look at your cousin Jude,"
continued the schoolmaster.  "He doesn't think we have had enough of
Jerusalem!"

"Ah--I didn't see him!" she cried in her quick, light voice.
"Jude--how seriously you are going into it!"

Jude started up from his reverie, and saw her.  "Oh--Sue!" he said,
with a glad flush of embarrassment.  "These are your school-children,
of course!  I saw that schools were admitted in the afternoons, and
thought you might come; but I got so deeply interested that I didn't
remember where I was.  How it carries one back, doesn't it!  I could
examine it for hours, but I have only a few minutes, unfortunately;
for I am in the middle of a job out here."

"Your cousin is so terribly clever that she criticizes it
unmercifully," said Phillotson, with good-humoured satire.  "She is
quite sceptical as to its correctness."

"No, Mr. Phillotson, I am not--altogether!  I hate to be what is
called a clever girl--there are too many of that sort now!" answered
Sue sensitively.  "I only meant--I don't know what I meant--except
that it was what you don't understand!"

"_I_ know your meaning," said Jude ardently (although he did not).
"And I think you are quite right."

"That's a good Jude--I know YOU believe in me!"  She impulsively
seized his hand, and leaving a reproachful look on the schoolmaster
turned away to Jude, her voice revealing a tremor which she herself
felt to be absurdly uncalled for by sarcasm so gentle.  She had not
the least conception how the hearts of the twain went out to her at
this momentary revelation of feeling, and what a complication she was
building up thereby in the futures of both.

The model wore too much of an educational aspect for the children not
to tire of it soon, and a little later in the afternoon they were all
marched back to Lumsdon, Jude returning to his work.  He watched the
juvenile flock in their clean frocks and pinafores, filing down the
street towards the country beside Phillotson and Sue, and a sad,
dissatisfied sense of being out of the scheme of the latters' lives
had possession of him.  Phillotson had invited him to walk out
and see them on Friday evening, when there would be no lessons to
give to Sue, and Jude had eagerly promised to avail himself of the
opportunity.

Meanwhile the scholars and teachers moved homewards, and the next
day, on looking on the blackboard in Sue's class, Phillotson was
surprised to find upon it, skilfully drawn in chalk, a perspective
view of Jerusalem, with every building shown in its place.

"I thought you took no interest in the model, and hardly looked at
it?" he said.

"I hardly did," said she, "but I remembered that much of it."

"It is more than I had remembered myself."

Her Majesty's school-inspector was at that time paying
"surprise-visits" in this neighbourhood to test the teaching
unawares; and two days later, in the middle of the morning lessons,
the latch of the door was softly lifted, and in walked my gentleman,
the king of terrors--to pupil-teachers.

To Mr. Phillotson the surprise was not great; like the lady in the
story, he had been played that trick too many times to be unprepared.
But Sue's class was at the further end of the room, and her back was
towards the entrance; the inspector therefore came and stood behind
her and watched her teaching some half-minute before she became aware
of his presence.  She turned, and realized that an oft-dreaded moment
had come.  The effect upon her timidity was such that she uttered a
cry of fright.  Phillotson, with a strange instinct of solicitude
quite beyond his control, was at her side just in time to prevent her
falling from faintness.  She soon recovered herself, and laughed;
but when the inspector had gone there was a reaction, and she was
so white that Phillotson took her into his room, and gave her some
brandy to bring her round.  She found him holding her hand.

"You ought to have told me," she gasped petulantly, "that one of the
inspector's surprise-visits was imminent!  Oh, what shall I do!  Now
he'll write and tell the managers that I am no good, and I shall be
disgraced for ever!"

"He won't do that, my dear little girl.  You are the best teacher
ever I had!"

He looked so gently at her that she was moved, and regretted that she
had upbraided him.  When she was better she went home.

Jude in the meantime had been waiting impatiently for Friday.  On
both Wednesday and Thursday he had been so much under the influence
of his desire to see her that he walked after dark some distance
along the road in the direction of the village, and, on returning to
his room to read, found himself quite unable to concentrate his mind
on the page.  On Friday, as soon as he had got himself up as he
thought Sue would like to see him, and made a hasty tea, he set
out, notwithstanding that the evening was wet.  The trees overhead
deepened the gloom of the hour, and they dripped sadly upon him,
impressing him with forebodings--illogical forebodings; for though he
knew that he loved her he also knew that he could not be more to her
than he was.

On turning the corner and entering the village the first sight that
greeted his eyes was that of two figures under one umbrella coming
out of the vicarage gate.  He was too far back for them to notice
him, but he knew in a moment that they were Sue and Phillotson.  The
latter was holding the umbrella over her head, and they had evidently
been paying a visit to the vicar--probably on some business connected
with the school work.  And as they walked along the wet and deserted
lane Jude saw Phillotson place his arm round the girl's waist;
whereupon she gently removed it; but he replaced it; and she let it
remain, looking quickly round her with an air of misgiving.  She did
not look absolutely behind her, and therefore did not see Jude, who
sank into the hedge like one struck with a blight.  There he remained
hidden till they had reached Sue's cottage and she had passed in,
Phillotson going on to the school hard by.

"Oh, he's too old for her--too old!" cried Jude in all the terrible
sickness of hopeless, handicapped love.

He could not interfere.  Was he not Arabella's?  He was unable to
go on further, and retraced his steps towards Christminster.  Every
tread of his feet seemed to say to him that he must on no account
stand in the schoolmaster's way with Sue.  Phillotson was perhaps
twenty years her senior, but many a happy marriage had been made
in such conditions of age.  The ironical clinch to his sorrow was
given by the thought that the intimacy between his cousin and the
schoolmaster had been brought about entirely by himself.

 Sue proves to be quite a success as a teacher, and Phillotson is happy with her work. But he soon begins to be interested in her as a woman. He starts giving her lessons in the evening with her landlady as chaperone. One day Sue and Phillotson take the school children to Christminster to see an exhibition of a model of the city of Jerusalem. Sue is skeptical about its accuracy and critiques Jerusalem as an ancient city. Phillotson mildly reprimands her. Then they see Jude at the exhibition. He is greatly fascinated by the model. Phillotson repeats Sue's criticism to Jude, and Sue turns to Jude for comfort. The next day, in school, Sue draws on the blackboard an accurate model, which demonstrates her remarkable powers of observation. That same day the school inspector pays a surprise visit to the school. Sue is very upset, due to her inexperience. Phillotson's protective instincts are aroused, and he revives Sue's spirits with brandy and encouraging words. A few days later Jude comes to visit her in the rain. He catches sight of Sue and Phillotson leaving the vicarage under one umbrella; Phillotson's arm is around Sue. He is overcome with jealousy and returns without calling on them. He knows Phillotson is about twenty years older than Sue and rues the fact that it was he who brought them together.

