Chapter XI: Jacob Lives

A trained nurse arrived before noon on the following day and Dr. Cousins drove her up. The physician found that Jacob was responding to his remedies and no special symptoms of any gravity had appeared. The disease promised to run its course, but whether it would destroy the patient remained to be seen. He was dangerously ill and still delirious. Jacob could not state his case, but the doctor inclined to hope that he suffered less of acute pain. He assured Auna that she had every reason to be hopeful and the nurse, at a later hour in the day, declared the same. She was chiefly concerned with the sick man's reserves of strength and, seeing his powerful frame, felt sanguine.

William went home on his pony after the doctor's visit, and an hour later John Henry and Peter came up together, bringing fresh milk and other comforts. They did not see their father, but they stopped with Auna for an hour or two and spoke of the Huxams.

Great decisions had been made and their grandparents were returning to the post-office, while Jeremy and Jane would occupy the new house for the present, until the time came to let it furnished for the summer.

John Henry now saw through his uncle and spoke scornfully of him.

"A worthless waster--that's all he is--and no good for anything. All talk and smiles and fine manners; and under 'em nothing. He ain't got any brains and he ain't got any guts; and everybody in the land knows it but grandmother."

"Does she like going back?" asked Auna.

"Yes--else she wouldn't go. I believe she's been at a loose end ever since she left the shop. She hates doing nothing and being waited on. It's contrary to her nature, and she's been very queer lately and frightened grandfather off and on. She'll be jolly glad to get back into the midst of things, and so will he. There's a lot of work in 'em both yet and it's good for their money and for the rest of the family that they're going back. There wouldn't have been any business left if Uncle Jeremy had messed about there much longer."

"To think we thought him such a wonder when we were little!" said Peter.

"When you get up to be a man yourself, you soon see what most men are worth," answered John Henry. "He'll never do anything and, if his children are like him, they'll all go in the workhouse soon or late; and if they're workers, then he'll live on them come he grows old."

Auna asked after her sister and heard that she was well. Then the brothers departed and Peter promised to return ere long.

"In about three days Nurse Woolcombe says we shall know for certain if father's going to live," Auna told them; "but I know now. I'm positive sure he's going to live."

"'Tis doubtful if it would be a good thing," declared John Henry. "I speak for himself, of course. I'm sure nobody wants him to die."

"It will be the turning point for father perhaps," thought Peter. "He might quiet down after a shaking like this."

Jacob Bullstone suffered for many days and it was a fortnight before Auna could find herself sleeping natural sleep and waking without dread. The sick man mended and fell back again. His strength wore down and a first relapse found him in the gravest danger, for his heart was weary. But he pulled up again with devoted nursing and skilled attention. To Auna, Nurse Woolcombe became as a goddess, and she sealed a friendship with the widow that lasted for life. They worked together and the younger was skilful and understanding.

The head symptoms continued distressing and Bullstone lapsed into delirium on several occasions after periods of sanity. His temperature puzzled the nurse and she strove to distract the patient's mind from himself. But, for a time, he continued impatient and declared that no friendly hand would have desired to prolong his life. Then he grew more reasonable, and when the crisis was past and his sons were permitted to see him, while secretly amazed at the sight of the pallid and shrunken ghost they called their father, both found him peaceful and in a frame of mind they hardly remembered.

His face was white and a growth of beard also helped to disguise the countenance they knew; but his great, dark eyes no longer roamed restlessly over them. They were dimmed by much pain, yet they were gentle and steady. He spoke little and his voice had weakened to a whisper; but he listened and nodded affirmation. His chief concern was with Avis.

"Is her child born?" he asked thrice, at intervals.

"The child's due," said John Henry, "and she's very well, so Bob tells me."

He looked up at the great lads solemnly.

"John Henry and Peter," he said--"my two sons come up to see me. That's good."

"And lots to show you when you're about again, father. You'll be surprised at 'Red House Rover's' new puppies."

"The old dog ran home. He thought I was going to die; but he didn't bargain for doctor and Auna. They've saved me I suppose."

"The Lord of Hosts have saved you, father," declared John Henry, who had great faith in his God.

"Believe it if you can," said Jacob.

They spoke of the Huxams, but found him not interested.

"Is the child of Avis born?" he asked again.

They left him and told Auna that they were well pleased and that he had been kind to them.

"He won't die now; but I expect he'll be a bed-lier for evermore. You've got to face that, Auna," said John Henry.

"So long as he lives till he's at peace, nothing else matters," she answered. "But he'll be better than a bed-lier. Nurse says he'll walk in a month and get back his nature mighty quick, when he can eat strong food again."

Jacob mended slowly and the weather held against him, for the spring was harsh and chill. The light increased with the cold and early March found snow on the moors and a harsh spell of wind from the north-east. The doctor begged Jacob to return to Red House, that his cure might be hastened; but this he declined to do. He was calm and patient now, though very weak. He liked to be alone and he expressed a great desire to see William Marydrew.

Then came good news and Auna had the joy of telling him.

"Avis has got a girl baby, father; and 'tis a beautiful, perfect little child with Bob's eyes. And Avis is doing well and the baby's going to be called 'Margery.' And Margery Elvin's a pretty name Nurse Woolcombe says; and so it is."

The news did Bullstone good service and occupied his mind.

"The name of 'Margery' will be upon my tongue again," he said, "and I must school myself to speak it and hear it, Auna. I shall be very glad to see the little creature. You're worthy to be your mother's daughter, and that's the highest praise you'll ever get from human lips. And may the child of Avis be worthy to be her granddaughter."

Auna felt very happy.

"It never rains but it pours, father," she said. "I've had a letter to-day--a letter from Great-Uncle Lawrence Pulleyblank. His writing's gone very spindley and up and down, because he's so old; but when you're equal to it he wants you to travel to Plymouth for the sea air; and if you won't go, then he wants for me to go, when you can spare me for a week or two."

"Wishful for me to go?"

She began to speak, but stopped, since her words would have to deal with the incidents of her mother's death.

"I dearly hope you'll do it when you can."

"No, no; but thank the man. You shall go to him. I won't be so selfish about you as I have been. I've kept your light under a bushel too long, because you were all I had left. Others must share you, I reckon. You're pale as a davered rose through so much nursing. You shall go presently and make a good holiday with the old chap."

He asked constantly for William, and hoped that each fine day might bring him.

"I've got a wonderful thing to tell him, that only such a man would understand," he explained to Nurse Woolcombe.

They concealed the fact that Mr. Marydrew had been ill with bronchitis.

Then Auna went to see him and was able to tell her father that Billy had returned to health, after a chill.

"He's all right and is coming up the first soft day in May," she promised.

Jacob himself began to regain strength, and there fell a morning when Auna went to Brent to bid a barber climb to Huntingdon and shave him.

"He's a proper ghost, and you mustn't be frightened, Mr. Prynn," she said; "but he's going on all right, and now he's wishful to have his beard away."

Yet, before the barber came, Jacob changed his mind again.

"I'll wear it for a sign," he said. "I'll let it be."

At last William arrived and Jacob greeted him with affection. The old man and Auna sat one on each side of his chair and Auna held her father's hand.

"I'm going downstairs again next week," explained Jacob. He was sitting by the fire.

William expressed great pleasure at his appearance,

"A far different creature from what I left," he said. "Then you was a burning, fiery furnace, my dear. But now you be glad for a bit of fire outside yourself. Can you catch heat from it?"

"And you--you've been bad, too, I'm vexed to learn."

"Only the tubes," explained William. "My tubes was filled up, so as I had to fight for air a bit; but us old oaks takes a lot of throwing. I'm good for another summer anyway. Spring's afoot down the vale."

"I've had great thoughts in the shadow of death, William. I've come through, as you see, and shall live a bit longer. At death's door I knocked and they wouldn't let me enter in. You can't get so close, though, without learning many things. Yet I wouldn't be without what I know. It points to peace--a withered sort of peace, where no hope is."

"You can't live without hope, my dear man. It's so needful as the air you breathe."

"Yes, you can live without it; you can do your duty without it. I heard a laugh yesterday night--'twas myself. Nature made me laugh, because to be without hope is almost beyond reason, and anything outside reason makes us laugh."

William regarded him doubtfully.

"I thought to find you'd thrown over all these silly fancies," he said. "You must keep a hand on yourself, Jacob, now you've come through and are going to live. It's bad to laugh when there's nothing to laugh at. You mustn't do that. Emma Andrews laughed for three days; and she went down to the river and drowned herself on the fourth."

"I'm all right. Between ourselves, Billy, I had bats in the belfry for a time after my wife died. I know it now and I'm surprised that none marked it. After the trial came a great flash of light to my mind. From within it came and made all the past look dark--burned it to dust and cinders. Only the future mattered, and it wasn't the judge and jury showed me I had been wrong--it wasn't them at all. It was the flash of light. Then hope got hold on me like a giant and I hoped too much. That was my punishment--to hope too much and not see hope had died. But my sickness has drained the poison out of me, and though my frame is weak, my brain is clear. I see and I can put things together. I've come to a great thought--a shattering thing but true."

"A comforting thing then."

"No--truth is seldom comforting. But it puts firm ground under you and shows you where to stand and how to protect yourself against hope. I'm a well-educated man, William, and though I've fallen far below all that I was taught as a boy, I've risen again now. But life's too short for most of us to learn how to live it. Too short to get away from our feelings, or look at it all from outside. But I can now. I've reached to that. I can look at myself, and skin myself, and feel no more than if I was peeling a potato."

William began to be uneasy.

"Leave yourself alone. Have you seen your granddaughter yet?"

"No; but my heart goes out to her. Don't look fearful: I'm all right. I haven't done with my children, or their children. I'm human still. I can take stock of myself, thanks to my forgotten wisdom--lost when Margery died, and found again. A bit ago I was growing awful cold. I felt not unkindly to the world, you must know, but cold was creeping into me, body and soul. I didn't love as I used, nor hate as I used, nor care as I used. I didn't want to see what I couldn't see, nor do what I couldn't do. All was fading out in a cold mist. Then I had my great illness, and there was no more mist, and I began to link up again with the world. Nothing could have done it but that. And then I got the bird's-eye view denied to most of us, but reached by me through great trials.

"For look at it, Billy. First there was my faulty nature and little experience. No experience of life--an only son, kept close by loving parents--and with the awful proneness to be jealous hid in me, like poison in a root. Then fate, or chance, to play trick after trick upon me after marriage and build up, little by little, the signs of my great, fancied wrong. Signs that another man would have laughed at, but proofs--deadly proofs of ruin to my jaundiced sight. And the cunning, the craft to heap these things on my head--all shadows to a sane man; but real as death to me! First one, then another--each a grain of sand in itself, but growing, growing, till the heap was too heavy for me to bear.

"And whose work was it? 'God' you say, since He's responsible for all and willed it so. God, to plan a faulty man and start him to his own destruction; God, to make me love a woman with a mother like Margery's, so that, when the wounds might be healed, there was that fiend ever ready and willing and watchful to keep 'em open. God, to will that I should never hear my wife forgive me, though she had forgiven me; God, to let her die before I could get to her and kneel at her feet!

"No, William, a tale like this leaves a man honest, or else mad. And I'll be honest and say that no loving, merciful, all-powerful Father ever treated his children so. Mark how calm I am--no fury, no lamentation, no rage now. Just clear sight to see and show the way of my downfall. Your God could have given me a pinch of fine character to save me. He could have made me more generous, more understanding of my pure wife, less suspicious, less secret, less proud, less mean. He could have built me not to head myself off from everything and bring back night and ruin on my head. But no.

"We'll allow I got all I deserved--we'll confess that as I was made cracked, I had to break. But what about Margery? Did she get what she deserved? Did she earn what she was called to suffer--a creature, sweet as an open bud, to be drawn through dirt and horror and things evil and foul to early death? Was that the work of the all powerful and all just?"

"Always remember there's the next world, Jacob."

"Can fifty next worlds undo the work of this one? Can eternity alter what I did and what she suffered here? The next world's no way out, William. The balance isn't struck there, because evil never can turn into good, either in earth, or heaven. You can wipe away tears, but you can't wipe away what caused them to flow. And where have I come to now, think you? Another great light I've seen, like the light that blazed to Paul; but it blazed a different story to me. When I see a man praising God, I'm reminded of a mouse that runs to hide in the fur of the cat that's killing it. I no longer believe in God, William, and I'll tell you why. Because I think too well of God to believe in Him. D'you understand that? I wish He existed; I wish we could see His handicraft and feel His love; but let us be brave and not pretend. The sight of my little life and the greater sight of the whole world as it is--these things would drive God's self into hell if He was just. He'd tumble out of His heaven and call on the smoke of the pit to hide Him and His horrible works. And so I've come to the blessed, grey calm of knowing that what I suffered there was none to save me from. It's a sign of the greatness of man that he could give all his hard-won credit to God, William, and invent a place where justice would be done by a Being far nobler, finer, truer and stronger than himself. But proofs against are too many and too fearful. The world's waiting now for another Christ to wake us to the glory of Man, William, because the time has come when we're old enough to trust ourselves, and walk alone, and put away childish things. We deserve a good God--or none."

The ancient listened patiently.

"Your mind is working like a river--I see that," he answered. "But be patient still, Jacob. Keep yourself in hand. You'll find yourself yet; you be on the right road I expect; and when you do find yourself, you'll find your God was only hid, not dead."

He uttered kindly thoughts and they talked for an hour together. Then Auna and William descended to the kitchen and he ate with her. He was happy at what he had seen rather than at what he had heard.

"Forget all your father says," begged William. "He's going to be a strong and healthy man. I mark the promise in him. A great victory for doctor and you and nurse. There's a bit of fever in his mind yet; but the mind be always the last to clean up again after a great illness. His talk be only the end of his torments running away--like dirty water after a freshet."

"Do you think, if we could get him down to see Margery Elvin christened, it would be a useful thing, Mr. Marydrew?" asked Auna, and William approved the idea.

"By rights he ought to go to Church and thank God for sparing him," he said. "But, be that as it will, if he saw his grandchild made a faithful follower and heard a hymn sung out and the organs rolling, it might all help to do the good work."

"I'll try to bring it about, though it may be a very difficult thing to manage," she said.

"You make a valiant effort," urged William, "and tell your sister to hold over the event till her father's man enough to come down and lend a hand."

He returned to Jacob before he left Huntingdon.