Children of men

by Eden Phillpotts

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."