Children of men

by Eden Phillpotts

At first the case centred with Margery herself, and while his boys and girls were little children, he had almost resented the abundant worship they bestowed upon her rather than him; but now the situation had developed, though they were still too young to hide their predilections. Nor did they turn to their father, as he expected the boys at least to do. They had declared frank affection where least he expected it. Their mother was indeed first, and then came in their regard not Jacob, but their grandparents; and he found to his surprise that the Huxams attracted his sons and eldest daughter. It puzzled him, even angered him; but he rarely exhibited his secret annoyance and never to any but Margery.

He was scornful to her occasionally and she admitted, or professed, a kindred astonishment. Indeed she did not know why the boys had not naturally turned to their father, since there existed no reason in his treatment of them to lessen natural affection. He was kind and generous. He supported their youthful hopes and ambitions; he went further in that direction than Margery herself; for she had desired higher education for John Henry and Peter, while their father, to her disappointment, held it worthless, seeing the nature of their hopes and abilities. In a year or two both would be free to leave the secondary school at which they studied, and Jacob held that his eldest son must then take up practical farming under experienced tuition, while Peter was to join a veterinary surgeon for a time, then come back to Red House and the Irish terriers. His decisions troubled Margery and seemed, in her mind, a slight to her sons. For Jacob had been himself well educated and knew the value of learning.

Thus husband and wife developed points of difference at this stage of their united lives, though they lived placidly on the surface and were exemplars of what marriage should be in the eyes of their neighbours. The invisible friction was concealed and all ran smoothly in general opinion.

Jacob Bullstone was exacting in trifles, and Margery, while she had waived certain pleasures that meant much to her in her early married days, always hoped to gratify them when her children were grown out of babyhood and life still beckoned. Now, in sight of their crucial years together, it was too late, and having from the first fallen in with her husband's solitary mode of life, she found it had become impossible to make him more gregarious and sociable. She loved her fellow-creatures and companionship; he preferred loneliness and found the company of his family more than sufficient. She was ambitious to entertain a little and loved to see friends at Red House, or visit them; he cared not for hospitality and could seldom be prevailed upon either to accept it, or offer it. He was always craving for peace, while she found so much solitude to be melancholy, and often sighed for distraction. She was but thirty-four and her cheerful nature and ready sympathy made her popular. He was fifty and regarded the life he liked as more dignified and worthy of respect, excusing his hermit instinct in this manner. She loved to talk of her own and praise her children in the ears of other mothers. He deprecated this desire strongly and was morbidly sensitive about praising anything that belonged to him. At the same time he would grow silent if others took his own cue, or ventured to criticise unfavourably so much as a dog that he esteemed.

Margery concentrated on Jacob's goodness, for she knew that he was good; and at moments of depression, when life looked more grey than usual and its promise but bleak, after her children should be gone, she would remember many incidents to her husband's credit. He was very patient; he worked hard; he helped many a lame dog over a stile; he forgave wrongs; he was slow to think evil. He failed as a judge of character, which was natural in a man of his temperament; but his disappointments bred neither irony nor bitterness. She believed that he thought well of human nature, so long as it did not intrude too much upon his privacy; and she perceived that he took men at their own valuation until they proved that he was wrong to do so.

There was one golden link, and sometimes Margery confessed to her father, though not to her mother, that Auna, the baby of the family, held all together and might be called the little saviour of the situation and the central fact of the home. She was physically her mother again—more like Margery when eighteen, than Margery herself now was. She had her mother's eyes and hair, her long, slim legs, her sudden laugh. She was an attractive child, but very shy with strangers. Yet her good nature made her fight this instinct and she pleased better in her gentle way than her more boisterous sister. Her brothers made Avis their heroine, since she could do all they could themselves and play boys' games; but Auna found this no sorrow. Her father was supreme in her affections and his own regard for her echoed her adoration.

He made no favourites openly, yet the situation could not be hidden and none was jealous of Auna, since none ever had any ground for grievance. His regard for Auna surpassed that for the others, and she loved him far better than they did. Margery would not quarrel with the fact, and Jacob explained it in a manner which left her no cause for complaint.

"It's natural that, after you, she should come first with me," he told his wife privately—indeed he often repeated the sentiment. "She's you over again—you, to every trick and turn—you, even to the tiny fraction your right eyebrow's higher than your left. In body she's you, and in mind she'll be you and me rolled into one. And she loves me more than the others all put together, just as you love me more than they do. So never wonder; and never fear I'll do less than my whole duty to every child of mine."

She never did fear that and was only sorry for him, that life had drawn this difference. With such a man it was inevitable that he would react fiercely in heart, though not out of reason. He was sensitive and knew himself not popular; and when he confessed as much and she told him that the fault was his own, since he would not court his neighbours and give them opportunity to learn his worth, he would laugh and say she was doubtless right. Yet, of the few friends that he had, he was very jealous, and when a man offered friendship and presently cooled off, as sometimes happened, by accident rather than intent, Jacob suffered secretly and puzzled himself to invent explanations, when often enough the other, pressed by a harder life than his own, had merely let him slip a little from force of circumstances, yet still imagined him a friend.

Margery regretted her mother-in-law very heartily, for she had been a valued factor in the home and acted as anodyne of trouble on many occasions. She had taught her son's wife some precious truths concerning Jacob and made her feet firm in certain particulars. She had won the affection of her grandchildren also and she always possessed an art to satisfy Jacob himself. But she was gone and with her much that Margery had only dimly appreciated, but now missed. The wife also tended to forget a point or two that had been wiselier remembered.