He determined on huge patience and felt where the fight must lie. Nothing was clear and nothing could be clear, until he saw his wife, face to face, without witnesses. Only a far future might open any such opportunity, even if she allowed him to take it when it came. His course seemed evident to him. He must contrive through some secret channel to learn what his wife was thinking and planning. But he doubted not that, unlike himself, her mind was still in flux and no anodyne deadening her resentment. Forgiveness, in any other than a religious sense, must be vain for many days.
He leapt from one extreme to the other, and having sought an understanding instantly, out of his instinctive rage for action, now told himself that years must pass before any light could be hoped. For a full twelve months he vowed to himself that he would not raise a finger. Half his savings had been swallowed up by the trial at law. He dwelt on the necessity for hard work and increase of business, to make good this serious loss. Work had proved a panacea on many occasions of past tribulation; work had helped time to stretch a gulf between former troubles and himself. He must fall back upon work now.
His punishment had begun and he prepared to welcome it, still trusting time to bring some Indian summer for his later days. He admitted the justice of long-drawn retribution. It was right that an extended vengeance should be required. He welcomed it and bent his spirit to endure it, thus assuming a temporary pose and attitude which it was impossible that his character could sustain.
CHAPTER IV
AUNA TRIES
Margery Bullstone had never poured herself out and lost her stream in the river of her husband, after the fashion of certain devoted wives. She had loved him truly, generously, until time and chance and the wear and attrition of dissimilar natures fretted the love thin; but her own individuality persisted always, being maintained by the close touch which she kept with its sources: her parents and her old home. Without that forcible influence she might have merged more completely in Jacob and his interests; but her attitude to her mother had ever been one of great respect and reverence, and she implanted the same in her children, as they came to years of understanding. A different husband—one who saw life nearer her own vision—had, perhaps, won her completely to the diminishing of other and earlier influences; but Bullstone failed in this by his own limitations and oppositions; therefore when the culmination came and his deep-rooted sickness overthrew her home, Margery left Red House thankfully and regarded her liberty with relief.
She was sustained in this emotion until after the excitement of the trial, and everything, during the months before that event, contributed to support her spirit; but only a false activity is that of those who feed upon their wrongs; and when all was over and the business of her future life had to be faced, there came gusts of reaction to Margery and a realisation,—slow, fitful, painful—of the change for the worse. She caught herself looking back, and the alterations in her mental and physical life bore fruit. She was as one suddenly widowed; but the inevitability brought by death and the sense of a common lot was not here to help her endure the bewildering dislocation and destruction. All that she had made was gone, and she was faced with the necessity to build up a new existence, differing in every condition from the old. Even peace was denied her. She could not think for herself, for every half-spoken thought was taken out of her lips and developed by her mother. She suffered domination, but found it a sorry substitute for her old independence. She could not be a child again. Only her own children were left, and from them, also, a new mind was demanded. But they were going on with their lives: her life had stopped, and none at present guessed the psychological significance of this sudden hiatus in Margery's existence.
She felt ill when she returned from London with her father, and having participated in her triumph, slowly sickened at the aspect of the future now presented and the convulsion created by dropping from a full life into an empty one. Her old physical weakness increased. A change was urged upon her by the village doctor, who had always attended her, and she went to stay with her uncle, Lawrence Pulleyblank, at Plymouth. But associations caused her to suffer so acutely here, that it was clear nothing could be gained by present sojourn in her uncle's house. She came back to Brent, and then fell the first shadow of implicit antagonisms between herself and her mother. For Judith contrived that Margery should not see her children alone upon their constant visits; while she sought opportunity to do so. Mrs. Huxam indeed felt little need to insist upon the condition, for she had no reason to doubt of her daughter's attitude. It was only a measure of precaution, and she had instilled the need for silence upon all of them. At present she detected no premonition of mental weakness in Margery and did not anticipate it. But her daughter's health was bad; she ate too little, shirked exercise and remained melancholy, listless and indifferent. Judith held her state easy to understand, and had enough imagination to grant that it must be some time before Margery would regain nerve, courage and peace of mind; but that the woman, now idle and incapacitated, was looking back and dwelling in the past, Mrs. Huxam, though she might have granted, would not have regarded as likely. The past could offer no healing drought for Margery. She found easy present occupation, therefore, drew her daughter into the shop sometimes and contrived short errands for her. Then Barlow pointed out that to use Margery as though she were a child again was not seemly.
To her father, Jacob's wife talked in a way she would not have spoken before her mother. Indeed her rare moments of animation belonged to him, and he was glad to let her speak of the past and forget the future in so doing. She had aged and had grown indifferent to her appearance; but the old, good days could still charm her into forgetfulness, though from the pleasant memories, return to her new life always brought reaction. Her vitality grew less as her instinctive desire for a different environment increased.
It was now understood that Jacob Bullstone's name should not be spoken, and his children were directed neither to mention their father, when they came to the post-office, nor convey any information concerning their mother to Red House. Jacob accepted this arrangement, while Margery was also constrained to do so, since she did not see her children alone. John Henry abstained from Red House after his parents parted, but he saw his mother weekly and, of course, declared himself upon her side.