Chapter VIII: Jeremy

Slowly but certainly Barlow Huxam discovered that his wife was slipping from her old self, and for a time he set it down to age, but then he discovered other reasons for the change in her outlook upon life. Stern she had always been and definite in her pronouncements. She was not wont to criticise and wasted no time in lamenting the evil around her; yet a certain quality of contentment had marked Judith in the past, and now her husband perceived that this failed her. She became very taciturn, and Barlow wrongly decided that this silence arose from the fact that Mrs. Huxam had so little to talk about. The shop had been her solitary subject outside religion, and now, not only was the shop less and less upon her tongue, but the master subject of life seemed sunk too deeply within her to offer material for casual speech.

The disturbance that followed her daughter's death had apparently passed, leaving only a new gravity; but it was not to their common loss that the old postmaster attributed the change. Indeed Margery's death had been a gain to Judith and resolved her greatest and most terrible problem. Then the explanation of the change was, in his own opinion, clearly revealed to Barlow, and he discovered it in his own experience. For he, too, was changed and the expected thing--the peace of retirement, the absence of daily demand upon his energies and time--by no means produced that state of contentment and satisfaction he had anticipated from it. Various causes combined to frustrate his hopes and he attributed the disappointment to one reason; whereas in truth the explanation lay elsewhere. He suspected that Jeremy was to blame, and Jeremy certainly did serve to keep him in an atmosphere of anxiety, from which he had supposed retirement would set him free; but beyond Jeremy, and the too certain fact that he was falling short at the post-office, another and a more vital elucidation of Barlow's disillusion lay at his hand.

He was a man without resources and his resolute endeavour, to fill life with his villa residence, had failed him. He worked hard, because work alone made existence tolerable. He laboured in his garden, cut the front patch into stars and moons and planted rose trees and other shrubs. He toiled likewise behind, where the vegetables grew, and raised crops for the house. He read books upon the subject and proceeded intelligently. The work kept his body strong, and the open air made him feel ten years younger; but these energies still left a void, for Mrs. Huxam did not share them. In the old days they had been one in every enterprise. They employed two servants now, and Judith having trained the maidens into her way and introduced them both into the ranks of the Chosen Few, found time hang heavily upon her, the more so that her thoughts became darkened with personal melancholy.

She never complained; she censured Barlow, when sometimes he grumbled that there was so little to do; but she secretly sympathised with him and long before he had arrived at the conclusion that an error confronted them, she was of the same opinion. In his case frank weariness of the present monotony began to whisper the need for change; but her consciousness, that they were making a mistake, was wakened by more than weariness. He wanted something to think about and something more to do, and there was work under his own eyes that called him rather loudly; she also wanted something to do--something to deaden thought and distract it into other channels than those that now bred an increasing gloom within.

For some time neither would confide in the other, or confess that their present days lacked justification; but Judith had perceived the unrest and discontent in her husband long before he began to suspect her; and she waited, therefore, until his emotions broke out in words. They had passed through nearly a year of the new existence and tested its every phase, when Barlow's wife heard much that she expected to hear, together with much that surprised her.

It was a winter afternoon and she had been reading the Book of Exodus until a passage familiar enough gave her pleasant pause. The fact that One had said the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, had always given her quiet regret; but where authorities differed, her bent of mind inclined Judith to the Old Testament rather than the New. It chimed better with her own genius and uncompromising principles. The earlier dispensation never failed to find her in harmony; and when she read again the Commandment and its drastic and detailed direction, she felt it was enough. Consideration of the texts led to gloom, however. If the Lord found one day in seven sufficient for His rest, how came it about that she and her husband, while still in possession of energy and health, were resting seven days a week?

Upon this question returned Barlow from the post-office and, unaware of the matter in her mind, displayed some irritation. Not until he lighted the gas did she observe that his face was puckered and his eyes perturbed.

"Things are coming to a climax," he said, "and after tea I should like to have a tell, Judy. I'm not at all content with a good deal that's happening."

Mrs. Huxam rang for tea to be brought. Her dark eyes brightened.

"We'll have it and get it out of the way," she said. "And one thing I never shall like here in the planning. The parlour is a desert island for all you know what's doing in the kitchen."

They ate their meal, which was of a solid character and the last serious food for the day, since they had given up taking supper and found themselves better without it. Then the tea things were cleared, and hardly had the door shut when Mr. Huxam began.

"It's just fifty-three years ago, Judith, since I, as a lad, took the first telegram that ever came to Brent out to Beggar's Bush to the master of the Otter Hounds, I was eleven years old at the time."

"And sixty-four now," she said.

"Yes, we're both sixty-four, and mark this--young for sixty-four. Thanks to our manner of life, I wouldn't say that either of us need count more than sixty in the things that matter."

"So far as this world's concerned, you're right," she admitted.

"Very well then. And now don't get upset or nothing like that; but I'm going to say this: that taking one thing with another, I feel terrible doubtful if our life in this residence is all it might be, or even all it should be."

Mrs. Huxam stared at him with deep interest.

"I half thought your views had settled down. When did this come over you?" she asked.

"It came, as such things do come--gradual. Here a little and there a little, till I was surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, Judy. Granted for the sake of argument--though I won't grant it for any other sake--that we was a bit over-moiled with work and worry, and wanted to get away from the shop and the post-office for a rest and refreshment. Granted we did--what then?"

"Then we've had it," she declared. "We've had a year of it."

"Exactly so; and I'm like a giant refreshed with wine. And I should say you, in your quieter way, was up for anything also. For my part, even if all was suent and just so with the shop--which it is not--I'd be exceeding pleased to go back thereto, and feel myself in the heart of life and at the helm of my own ship again."

She raised a question, though she knew the answer.

"When you say things are not 'just so,' would you mean Jane, or Jeremy?"

"Jane's all right, as far as it's humanly possible with her growing family. Another coming in April I hear. But she does pretty well, though the stocks are far too low and, of course, she doesn't understand buying; but with regard to Jeremy, it's idle to pretend, and for that matter I won't pretend. He's letting it down--not out of malice, of course, but simply for the reason he lacks the needful qualities. Nobody ever had a better shop manner and a kinder heart, and nobody was ever more wishful to please his customers; but smiles and cheerful remarks about the weather don't take the place of the things people come into a shop to buy; and when a person hears that Jeremy's out of this, or out of that, or don't keep a thing in stock, it won't open the till for him to say the corn is coming on nice, or ask a woman how her baby is. When people want to buy needles, it ain't no manner of use telling them you've got a fine assortment of pins. Jeremy's all right, in a manner of speaking, so long as he's got a better to boss him. The spirit is willing, but the brain isn't built for all the work that must go on out of sight if a business is to pay. In a word he ought to be in somebody else's shop, not his own."

"He's going to let it down."

"He has let it down, and I tell you, when I run over the accounts and lend Jane a hand with the books, my heart bleeds. To see what we made so fine and four-square and the foremost affair in Brent going back, and to know Hasking, at the corner, and that little old maid with the Berlin wools and gim-cracks--Miss Moss I mean--to know such as them are lapping up custom and can find what Jeremy can't--it's a punishing thing. Very soon I shall keep out of the shop, or else my temper will suffer and I may say what I should be sorry to say."

"I know how you feel about it. My fingers itch every time I pass the window and I want to fly to the shelves when a customer comes in; but well I know that if I did, I'd find little but empty cardboards."

"And no law nor order," murmured Barlow. "Not a thing in its place and many a melancholy five minutes wasted in hunting for what ain't there to find. Last autumn a lot of holiday people were about and I've seen strangers come into the shop full of hope for some everyday thing--socks for their children or sunbonnets or elastic or what not; and then Jane and Jeremy would go pecking about, like a pair of birds in a strange field, and hope would fade off the faces of the visitors, and they'd just creep out. And very possibly, ten minutes after they were gone, what they wanted would be found."

"An unexpected chastening for us," said Judith.

"I know you find it so," he answered, "but what I feel is that the situation may not be past praying for; and that brings me to the tremendous idea that's taking shape in my mind. It came over me like a flame of fire last time I was with the Chosen Few. I thought of what used to be, and my manhood rebelled, and a voice seemed to say, 'It's not too late--it's not too late.'"

He looked at his wife and she nodded and wiped her spectacles but said nothing. Still he fenced with the subject, though she knew to what he was coming.

"How is it you sleep so bad nowadays?" he asked. "I'll tell you, since you don't know. For this reason, because the residence faces different from the old home, and there's a lot more light and air in our present chamber, and the noise of the wild birds singing of a morning strikes in upon you. In our old bedroom we were much more favourably situated, and custom is everything, Judy, and I very much doubt if you can sleep in one room for forty years and more and ever take kindly to another. And I'll be bold to say that if you was back in our old room you'd know sleep again and wake fresh as the dew on the fleece. All of which only points one way."

"Jeremy was saying not so long ago that he felt to be in a good deal of need of change," murmured Mrs. Huxam. "Not grumbling, or anything like that; but down-daunted and weary. He's getting to look too old for his years in my opinion. Patient and sensible and no temper, but a bit under the weather."

"As we all are when we're over-weighted," answered Barlow. "And if he wants a change, and Jane wants a bit of peace and quiet against April, then I say to you in all seriousness that it's well within our power to let 'em have a change."

"Where to?"

"To the residence! Let 'em come here for a few months, and he can do the garden and Jane can look after her family; and you and me will go back to town. I feel, for my own part, that it would do me a power of good, because messing with rose-bushes and French runner beans--after all it's not man's work for a man like me. But I'm not putting myself forward. I'm thinking a lot more about you, and I well know time's hanging terrible heavy on your hands, else you wouldn't do such a lot of reading and look so wisht over it."

"You voice a good bit that's in my own mind. You can think too much. I think too much; and thought often takes you into places where the spirit had best not to be. We'll make it a matter of prayer if you're in earnest."

"I have been making it a matter of prayer since Christmas," he replied. "I've been taking the thing to the Throne ever since I knew the game was up, so far as Jeremy was concerned. And it wasn't until the prayer was answered that I've broached it to you. I see my way very clear indeed if you do. But your word's my law now as always. The only problem that rose before me was this house, and that won't run away because we go back to the post-office in the fulness of our strength. Put them in here for a few months, and then, when the Lord's solved the position so far as they're concerned, we can let it for the summer, furnished, for very fair money indeed."

"It's almost too good to be true in my opinion," she said.

"Far from it," he assured her. "It can come true in rather less than no time if you think it ought."

"I'll set it before my Maker, Barlow."

"I'm sure you will," he answered with confidence, "and if you and Him don't see eye to eye, it will be the first time."

He was much elated, for he felt that all must now happen as he desired; and then further fortune fell out to assist the project, for his son came over after closing time, and arrived at a moment perfectly chosen by chance to affirm the situation for Mr. Huxam.

The ineffectual Jeremy trailed his attractive person before his parents, announced that he had come to see his mother and declared that he was very tired; whereupon Barlow judged it politic to leave them for a time, feeling in no doubt as to the nature of his son's mood.

Jeremy began with his usual tact and sympathy.

"Father tells me you don't seem quite yourself, and I was a good deal put about to hear it," he said.

She nodded.

"Who is quite themselves as you call it?" she asked. "While we're in the flesh, we can't be quite ourselves, Jeremy. Ourselves belong somewhere else far beyond this Vale."

"I know--I know it better and better, as I grow older, mother. I'm in sight of forty now, remember, and if I haven't found out this life is a Vale and no more, it's a pity. Why don't you go down to Uncle Lawrence for a bit and get some sea air?"

She shook her head.

"My body is strong enough--too strong in a sort of way. For it shakes the soul a bit, Jeremy, to see the body living in idleness when it might be doing something useful."

"You've done your mountain of work I'm sure."

"So I have then, but maybe there's a molehill of work still left in me. I'm not easy about it and your father's not easy about it either."

"As for me," he answered, "work's beginning to tell. Jane, catching the light in my hair a few days ago, broke it to me that there's a little bald spot showing to the naked eye on my crown. The beginning of the end I suppose. I'm a very weary man indeed."

"Are you?"

"Yes, mother. My nature properly calls out for rest. I don't solve the problems of life so easy as I did."

"What's the matter then?"

He did not immediately reply, but changed the subject.

"Have you heard what that man, Jacob Bullstone, has done? He made over Bullstone Farm to John Henry on his twenty-first birthday; and he's going to give Red House and the business to Peter presently."

"Yes--not his work but the Lord's. 'The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just' in Bible words."

"Now there's only Auna of them four--Margery's children."

"I had very near given up hoping for Auna; but that was wrong. Of all the souls I've helped to bring in this world, Auna's the only doubtful one, and I'm going to fight again in that quarter."

"She cleaves to her father, and he's dragging her up to that den on the moors. A very wrong thing, mother."

"Very wrong, and little hope for Auna till we get her away. The time may come. She's much in my mind."

"I went to Plymouth last week to buy a few odds and ends--not for myself--and I looked in and had a dish of tea with Uncle Lawrence. He's getting a lot older, I find, and a lot less peart than he was. Margery's death hit him very hard."

"No it didn't. He's too steadfast to be hit by the death of a saved soul. He's up home seventy, and his heart is weak, because he lived a very hard life in early manhood following the sea."

"Seventy's nothing for a Pulleyblank. I wonder what he's done with his money, now that poor Margery's gone home."

"I couldn't tell you."

"By rights, me being nearest, I ought to have it."

"He may see it like that."

"I took occasion to tell him that all Margery's children was well provided for--not so mine."

"I don't like this," said Mrs. Huxam. "To be doubtful about your children's welfare is next thing to being godless, Jeremy. You're talking in a very loose sort of way, and to speak, or think, of your uncle's money is indecent."

"Then I'm sorry I so far forgot myself as to do so," he answered at once. "It wasn't for myself; and I'm well able and very willing to look after my own. But there's a cloud. I don't mean Teddy, who will never have the full use of his legs and be a care all his life. He came from God like that, and I can face him according and labour double tides for him if needs must; but I mean a passing thing, though very serious I'm afraid."

"What is it then?"

Again he evaded the great matter and dallied.

"I'll tell you, of course, mother. I'm not a man to run away from trouble. It came over me, strangely enough, in the churchyard, where I went on Sunday afternoon with my sons past Margery's grave. And I properly hate that stone Bullstone has stuck there. It oughtn't to be allowed. And he's set wild plants upon it--just moor weeds. Father's greatly vexed, as well he may be."

"What does it matter? It's a weakness of the weak to garden on graves and fidget over the dust of the dead. Let it go."

"Very different to my brother's grave--so dignified and all that. The face wants a wash: it's gone green, and next Saturday I'll go up and rub it."

Mrs. Huxam had set words from the Wisdom of Solomon on the tomb of her dead son and Jeremy brought them to her mind. She looked back through the years, saw again the sturdy boy, who had died doing his duty, and quoted:

"'He being made perfect, in a short time fulfilled a long time: For his soul pleased the Lord; therefore hasted He to take him away from among the wicked.'"

She kept silence a few minutes, then returned to Jeremy's affairs.

"And what is it that came to you in the churchyard?"

"A very sad shock," he answered. "I did most firmly believe and think, when I followed you and father at the post-office, that I'd come to harbour after all my storms, and was taking up the work the Lord had all along meant me to do. I brought all my strength and a properly prayerful spirit to the great task, and I will say of Jane that she's done her very best from the first and put all she knows into the business. We've been faithful, mother; but the bitter English of it is that faith ain't enough, and work ain't enough, and sleepless thought and care ain't enough--not in a linen-draper's. There's something above all that, and you and father had it, and I and Jane have not. I've fought against the truth and I've not spared myself; but there it is--just the final touch that makes the difference between success and failure. In a word, I've still to find the vital thing I'm made to do. And, as I went through the churchyard, I felt a sudden pang that I was still a wanderer. I wouldn't believe it at first, but Jane's known it for months and I'm very much afraid that father has. There's an inclination in father to be short and sharp with me, and it has given me many a heartache on the quiet. And now, such is the state of my nerves, that weak nature properly drives me out of the shop on many a day when I ought to be in it. The scent of haberdashery has got to be a curse and puts me off my food."

"It was the same with the smell of the greengrocer's."

"Exactly the same," admitted Jeremy, "and I have come to the conclusion that there's only one shop smell I could ever be easy under; and that's a chemist's. Strong and varied though it is, it soothes. I've been into the chemist's a good deal lately--for sleeping medicine. I must sleep, else I shall be ill. And in the chemist's a calm comes over me. And if I was in a position to do it, I'd take up the subject from the beginning, and burn the midnight oil, and qualify to be a chemist with the sweat of my brow. For that's where the Hand points, mother; and the sad thing is that I was never allowed to see it years ago!"

"Your father and me will turn it over," said Mrs. Huxam. She was neither annoyed nor indignant. All her values changed and her judgment proceeded on a modified code when Jeremy was the subject. "This may be meant," she continued. "There are changes in the air. I wouldn't say but what everything will work out pretty much as you might wish."

"I know what happens will be for the best, and if I must stop where I am, I shall bite on the bullet," answered Jeremy. "Life is real, and never more so, it seems, than when you're in sight of forty. But the idea of being a dispensing chemist--it's like a ray of light through the encircling gloom, mother. There's such dignity to it--a learned profession you might say--and such a power of well-doing! And if, in your deep judgment, that was really hidden all along in the far future for me, then I should devote all my spare time to study, and rise up early and late take rest, till I'd mastered its secrets and passed my examinations. And once launched into that, there's no doubt I should be a changed man."

"You'd better try some paraffin oil if your hair's falling out," said Mrs. Huxam.