Chapter XIII: At the Barbican

Mrs. Huxam had made up her mind and conscious that the period of danger must now be brief, determined to take Margery beyond it. That she was in no case to travel did not influence her mother, who dealt with issues far more tremendous than life or death. Indeed, so absolutely was human instinct quelled by the more potent fervours of faith, that the old woman experienced not one pang of mental suffering before the physical suffering she now caused.

Salvation only lay by way of flight, for Auna could not be trusted. She explained to Barlow what she was about to do, bade him get a closed carriage as quickly as possible, herself sent a telegram to Lawrence Pulleyblank at Plymouth, and within an hour had dressed Margery and set off upon the long and secret drive to her brother's home.

The sick woman protested, but she had no strength to oppose. Judith took food with her and at Plympton stopped and made Margery drink a hot cup of tea. To her daughter's repeated questions as to why this had been done, Mrs. Huxam promised a future answer. She concealed her purpose during the journey and, before they had reached the house on the Barbican, Margery was past questions. She sank into a great silence, which was never again broken, and she appeared to be nearly unconscious when they arrived. Mr. Pulleyblank, full of wonder and pity, himself picked her up and carried her to the room she always occupied when visiting him. Then, when she was settled in and a doctor sent for, Judith explained to her brother.

"Thank God we're in sight of victory!" she said with exulting eyes. "Margery's dying, by the blessing of her Maker; but the devil have had a hard tussle for her. With her last remaining strength he forced her to try and get back to Jacob Bullstone; and she'd have been found dead with her sins upon her, but for me. I saved her, and now we've only got to block the man for a little longer. Then she'll escape for ever. It's been a fight, Lawrence. I've shortened my life for Margery. Perhaps I've shortened hers; but that's a small thing. A dumbness has come upon her. The Lord has sealed her lips for safety."

"Dying!" he said. "D'you mean to tell me my pretty bird's really dying?"

"Quickly, I do hope and pray. Bringing her here will hasten it. You see so long as the man didn't know she wanted to go back, he was powerless; but once it gets to him that she did want to, then well I know he'll be on us like Apollyon. The Evil One used her. I heard him speak to her child, through her lips, and the child, Auna, looked a lie though she promised not to give the message. I couldn't trust her; but it's no odds now--not even if Bullstone does hear it, for Barlow will withstand him."

"And if he came here, so would I," said Mr. Pulleyblank. "Better the poor dear goes down to her grave this minute than listen to any word from that villain."

His sister gave details and presently a doctor came, heard particulars of Margery's physical state, and expressed dismay that she had been taken upon a journey. But Mrs. Huxam did not trouble herself to regret his strictures, and that he should think her an ignorant woman was no grief to her. He could do nothing, but directed how best to relieve the patient and desired to send in a nurse. This, however, Judith refused to permit.

"I'll nurse her," she said. "I'm her mother."

The physician called again at a later hour, but Margery, though a trifle stronger, was only semi-conscious. He warned them that she could hardly survive the night, but promised to return in the morning. The sick woman slept heavily and seemed no worse when day broke. This fact Judith telegraphed to Barlow; and he had repeated it when his grandson arrived from Red House for news.

But during that day Margery began to sink, and she had passed far into the shadow on the following morning, when Jacob at dawn rode to his father-in-law. For he had saddled a horse, being unable to trust his leg to walk to Brent. He trembled with anger to think that she had wanted him, and sought him, and been denied; but against his indignation there rose one satisfaction. That she was well enough to travel reconciled him in some measure to the fact that she had done so. Her state, he reflected, must be better than was reported if she could make even a brief journey. He felt tolerably sure that she had gone to her uncle at Plymouth and, ignorant of the truth, wondered why his mother-in-law thus attempted an impossible thing. For to keep him from Margery, now that he knew that she wanted to come back to him, was impossible. No power existed competent legally to stand between them now; and when presently he arrived at the post-office after daybreak, while a winter sun glinted over the edge of the earth, he asserted this fact to Barlow Huxam.

The postmaster was already up, waiting with anxiety for news by letter or telegram from Plymouth; for while Judith had inspired him with her own fervour and won his entire support two days before, now, alone, faced with the dreary ordeal of waiting for tragic news and stricken by the knowledge that he would never see Margery again, Mr. Huxam had fallen into a nervous and melancholy agitation.

He was not much astonished to see Jacob. Indeed he greeted him without emotion, called a boy to hold the rider's horse and bade him enter.

"Barlow Huxam," said Bullstone. "One word is as good as a thousand in this matter. I hear that some time ago my wife wanted to come back to her home, and to me. She was withstood, and that's contrary to law as you, well know. She's ill--very ill so doctor says--and she has been taken away against her own wish. You're an honourable Christian and I've wronged you and yours, and have confessed it and suffered as few are called to suffer. But now--now that my wife wants me, and actually tried to come to me, I ask you, man to man, to tell me where her mother has taken her. Not for regard of myself do I ask it, but for Margery's sake. Be merciful in this matter, as you'd ask for mercy if you stood where I stand."

"Mercy is not for us," answered Barlow. "And if I wanted to show mercy I could not, because it's not in my power. And who knows what mercy is? What you want may not be mercy at all. In your ignorance you may be asking for worse things than you've earned even, or your Maker intends."

"Let that all go. I'm not here to split religious straws. She wants me, and are you to stand between your sick daughter and one she's forgiven for his sins and wants again? Are you going to prevent her from coming back to the home she's made, and the home she's loved? It might be the turning point; it might save her and make her strong again to come back to all that's so dear to her."

Mr. Huxam was affected, more by the appearance of Jacob than his words. He perceived now, in the presence of the man and in the sound of his voice, something of what had happened to him. And there was worse to happen, for Bullstone spoke in ignorance of the situation. Yet for the moment, while moved, Barlow preserved an attitude laid down by his wife, and felt no inclination to yield.

"I must tell you things that you're not likely to understand," he answered. "As to splitting religious straws, I never have, nor never will do it. But we're concerned not with straws, but large, deep mysteries; and one of them has happened. And you must clearly understand that in my judgment and my wife's, it was not any heart-felt wish of Margery's to see you that Auna heard."

"What was it then? She tried to come; she told Auna that she wanted to come--to come to me, and wanted me to come to her."

"Auna heard those words," admitted Huxam, "but who shall say that Margery spoke them? In the shadow of death she lies, and we well know that while there's life there's fear--fear of death--not the death of the body, but the soul."

He elaborated this opinion, while the other stared, hearing Judith Huxam rather than her husband.

"Oh, God--to what you and the likes of you can come!" he said. "You--the father of her, who have seen her sinless, spotless life, and the good she has done and the evil she has suffered--you to think her a mouthpiece for a devil. What do you make of God? Are you so blind that you don't know goodness and honour and patience when you see them? Let me speak with the tongues of the pit, if you please; flout me--condemn me--spit upon me. That is just; but to stand there--a man experienced in life, who knows human nature and believes in an all-powerful, all-loving Father--to stand there and tell me that her natural, woman's longing to see the home she made, and her heavenly forgiveness, ready to return to a worthless man like me--to say all that was the devil whispering through her lips--why, what damned filth do you believe about heaven and hell?"

Barlow felt a twinge before this indictment. He was too prone to accept Judith's interpretation of all that happened, too prone to assume that earnestness so tremendous and a faith that could move mountains, must of necessity enable his wife to probe more deeply into truth than saner people.

"Use your reason," added Jacob. "I've come of late through much torment of mind and grief of body, to see that reason's a gift of God, without which we fall back very quickly into the night of our forefathers. It was loss of reason that ruined me and my home. Let faith do her work, Barlow Huxam, but don't flout reason with nonsense about devils, or tell me that a saint like Margery could ever be the plaything of the Enemy of Mankind. Think for one moment, with the brains God gave you to use, and you'll know that is a foul, mad thought--a thought far liker to be bred of the devil than any that your daughter's mind could harbour, or her lips speak. She wants to see me and her home again; and I ask you, as one well thought upon for sense and human wisdom, if it will throw any shadow on her white soul to hold my hand, and let me hear her forgive me. You're married. You know the deep bond that makes woman and man one sooner or later, no matter how vast the gulf that folly and ignorance, or wickedness, may rip up between them. You know that a sinner may repent and be forgiven; and if by God, then why not by his own, faulty, fellow-creatures? She wants to come to her home, Barlow. She wants to come to her home, and there's no right or justice in hiding her, knowing that if she was strong enough she would come back to me. She's ill--terribly serious her illness--then so much the more reason that a wish, that may be among her last wishes, should be granted. Don't stand in the way any more. If I thought that I would do her harm, in body or soul, I wouldn't ask; but who am I to do her harm? I'm human. I've done all the harm I shall ever do. My life--what's left--will be bent on atoning and doing good--first to her, then to the rest of the world. I only live for that. My own life is but a means for that. Oh, man, don't you understand what my days are now--what I've made of them? Can you come between me and the last ray of light that's left for me?"

"A soul is in the balance," said Mr. Huxam uneasily.

"Granted. But whose soul? Not hers--not Margery's. You're not going to pretend that anything I could say, or do, will endanger a soul as far above me as light above darkness. Say my soul's in the balance if you like, and pray God's mercy on a sinful and erring man. Be large-hearted even for me. We don't make ourselves. We don't sit at the Almighty's elbow when He plans us, and tell Him what to put into us; we can't stand beside Him fortified with the experience of human life and say, 'Make me brave; make me honest; make me patient; leave lust out of me; leave jealousy out of me.' We don't ask God to fashion us true and plumb, of stuff fine enough to withstand the trials and temptations common to all flesh. We can't demand faith, or sense, or the power to move our neighbour to goodness by example and precept. We have no hand in our havage, no hand in our understanding, no hand in our weakness of will. Then what, in the name of Christ, is left for us but to be merciful one with another? What is left but for the strong to deal tenderly with the weak? You stand among the strong ones. You've been blessed with a clear head, good health, perseverance, self-control and a sense of reality that keeps your mind sweet. You married a strong woman. You rise above the traps and snares of life and go your appointed way. You had a good daughter, married to an erring and faulty man. And he's ruined her life and brought her through dark places, where such a woman should never have had to tread. But she's not tainted--there's no stain on her--and now--now, at the eleventh hour, she stretches out her hands to him. And who knows best? Do you know better than she does? Is her mother wiser than she is? God tells her to want me, Barlow--God--God! For His own ends--for His own ends."

The other did not speak. This appeal, coming on his own knowledge that his daughter was dying, distressed him much. But it was still the face staring into his--a face written closely over with intense pain--a face haggard and a head growing grey--that caused him more misery than Jacob's words.

Barlow began to cry, where he was sitting, with his hand on his forehead by a table, and the tears fell down.

Bullstone said no more for some time. Then he spoke again--a brief entreaty.

"Help me to believe in the justice of God," he said. "Don't take my last hope. If she is so ill, do not deny me the one and only blessing left to me in this world: to see her again before the end."

"Who shall come between a man and his Maker?" asked Huxam. "Who can do that, Jacob? I wish my wife was here. Perhaps you would have thrown a light for her. It's contrary to reason to suppose such a woman should be led wrong, but so it is contrary to reason to suppose that Margery should be led wrong. I grant that--I grant that. I never did like to think it was the devil in her. No--no. You're right there. The Lord don't desert His jewels in the Dark Valley. That's where He's nearest and strongest. Perhaps, in her fine fury to save her child, my wife overlooked a thing or two."

There came a knock at the door.

"A telegram for you, Mr. Huxam," said the post-office clerk, and Barlow took it from her hands. There was but one word: 'Sinking.' He held it out to Jacob and then he spoke.

"Come," he said. "We'll go together. And God must do as He pleases."

"Where is she?"

"At Plymouth along with her uncle."

Mr. Huxam looked at his watch, then put it into his pocket hurriedly.

"We can just catch the eight-thirty down. Go forward and get two tickets. I'll come after you."

In twenty minutes they were on their way to Plymouth in a third-class carriage, empty save for themselves.

Two immense facts strove in Barlow's mind and presently he spoke, trying with the one to condone the other.

"Death goes before all," he said. "Before death all doors are opened. Therefore my wife must pardon me for doing a thing she will not easily understand. It would be well if we pardoned oftener where we don't understand, Jacob."

The other was staring from the window and hardly heard.

"What is that to me? See you to that yourself," he answered.

The slow train seemed bent on torturing both men by its delay. It stopped to pick up a cattle-truck and a horse-box at Ivybridge. It dawdled again outside Plymouth. Nearly an hour had passed before they reached Millbay and took a cab.

"You must prepare for the worst, for I think she's gone," said Barlow. "I feel terrible certain that it is so, Jacob; and if that has happened, I beg and pray you'll make no great upstore about it."

The younger shook his head.

"You cannot know she's gone. We may be in time."

At the moment he spoke Margery, indeed, still lived, but was on the brink of death and only drew faint and fitful breaths. Her mother sat by her and held her hand. She did not know if any measure of consciousness remained, but spoke without ceasing in a flood of texts and exhortations. She was very white and drawn. She stopped presently and put down her head to listen; but still the woman's breast flickered, though the breath could not be heard.

"You'll soon be with the Lamb; you'll soon be with the Lamb. You'll soon wear your heavenly crown, my pretty," Judith kept saying. She longed for the end, but felt no fear now. Then, upon her security, came the sound of wheels over the cobbled street. They stopped at the door and, instantly alert, fearing harm, she hastened to the window and saw, first Jacob, then her husband, alight. Jacob pushed straight into the house, but Barlow stopped a moment to pay the cabman.

Mrs. Huxam rushed to the door and screamed to her brother who was below.

"Lawrence, quick for God's sake! Stop him--hit him down if he won't stop!"

Then she returned to the sick-room and locked the door of it.

"Death--death come to her! God take her home, God take her home!" she implored on her knees by the bed; and now her ears were first strained for voices below and then brought back to her child. Others might have supposed that Margery was beyond reach of any danger; but not so Mrs. Huxam. With Jacob's arrival an awful dread came upon her and a fury of fear. For who could tell what spark of consciousness remained to receive the contagion of her husband's speech? Noisy voices were raised below. Then her husband spoke swiftly and silenced the others. She heard him coming upstairs, while her brother and Jacob followed. If they defied her they might easily break the door down, for the devil was most surely with them. Her mind worked furiously, broken free of reason, stung to passion and fierce hatred of the evil forces now creeping upon her child's soul. Margery lay as good as dead. Each senseless breath was delayed longer than the last; while salvation's gate stood open, with her Saviour standing at the portal.

Lawrence Pulleyblank spoke from the other side of the door.

"Barlow and the man. 'Tis well and in reason they should come, Judith. They've made me see that. It's God's wish he should----"

The devil was now in her brother's heart also; and he must have captured her husband's, otherwise Barlow would not be there. Judith saw the trail of the Enemy step by step--Auna's broken promise, Jacob deluding Huxam, winning him and now at the door, in this supreme moment, to catch his prey--a masterpiece of craft and cunning.

"Open for God's love, Mrs. Huxam," implored Bullstone.

"Open, Judy--'tis all ordained that he should see her once more," entreated Barlow. But she neither opened nor answered. She prayed for time. She bent close to Margery and believed her dead. She made herself believe it. Her hand trembled over the woman's mouth. She rested it there a moment. Then came another faint suspiration. What was one worthless breath, more or less, against eternity? She took her hand off again and listened.

Now Lawrence Pulleyblank sternly bade his sister open the door; but still she refused, answering nothing. Then she heard that they were breaking it down.

She went back quickly to the bed, while blows fell slowly from some heavy object with which the men were battering.

In two minutes the door crashed open, and Jacob, followed by the others, entered.

They saw Mrs. Huxam standing before them with a great light blazing in her eyes and her features distorted. She appeared to be insane.

"To God be the praise! To God be the praise! To God be the praise!" she shrieked. Then she flung up her arms; the flame went out of her countenance and she fell forward and fainted.

Where the bed stood, a sheet had been drawn up over Margery's face. Jacob approached and turned it down. Then he knelt and bent close to her. Warmth rose from his wife; her open eyes were still lustrous and reflected his in their unwavering mirrors; but she breathed no more. He kissed the grey shadow of the lips he had known so red, gazed steadily upon her, pressed the hands crossed on her breast, then rose and went away quietly, for he knew that she was dead.