Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

by R. D. Blackmore

Now Mrs. Fox, Doctor Jemmy's mother, was an enthusiastic woman. She was twenty years younger than her husband, and felt herself fifty years his senior (when genuine wisdom was needed) and yet in enterprise fifty years junior. The velocity of her brain had been too much for the roots of her hair, as she herself maintained, and her best friends could not deny it. Except that the top of her head was snow-white, and she utterly scorned to disguise it, she looked little older than her daughter Christie, in some ways; though happily tougher. She was not too fat, and she was not too thin; which is more than most people can tell themselves, at the age of eight and forty. Into this ancient County race, which had strengthened its roots by banking, she had brought a fine vein of Devonian blood, very clearing for their complexions. She had shown some disdain for mercantile views; until she began to know better, when her father, and others of her landed lineage slipped down the hilltop into bankruptcy, without any Free-trade, or even tenants' superior rights, to excuse them. Then she perceived that mercantile views are the only ones left to ensure a quiet man a fair prospect from his own front windows. She encouraged her husband to cherish the Bank, which at one time she had derided; and she quite agreed with him, that no advances could save her own relations in their march downhill.

The elder James Fox, who like his father had refused a title—for although they were not Quakers now, they held to their old simplicity—Mr. James Fox of Foxden was a fine sample of the unmixed Englishman. He had never owed a penny of his large fortune to any unworthy trick of trade, or even to lucky gambling in stocks, or bitter mortgages. Many people called him stubborn, and they were welcome to take that view of it. In business that opinion served him well, and saved a lot of useless trouble. But he himself knew well, and his wife knew even better, that though he would never budge an inch, for claim, or threat, or lawsuit, there was no man who gave a longer ell, when drawn out by mercy, or even gentle equity.

But in the full vigour of his faculties, mental if not bodily—and the latter had not yet failed him much—that mysterious blow descended, which no human science can avert, relieve, or even to its own content explain. One moment he was robust and active, quick with the pulse of busy life, strong with the powers of insight, foresight, discrimination, promptitude—another moment, and all was gone. Only a numb lump remained, livid, pallid, deaf and dumb, sightless, breathless (beyond a wheezy snore) incapable even of a dream or moan. And knowing all these things, men are proud!

His strong heart, and firm brain, bore him through; or rather they gradually shored him up; a fabric still upon the sands of time, but waiting only for the next tidal wave.

Now the greatest physician, or metaphysician, that ever came into the world, can tell us no more than an embryo could, what the relics of the mind will be in such a case, or how far in keeping with its former self. Thoroughly pious men have turned blasphemers; very hard swearers have taken to sweet hymns; tempers have been changed from diabolical to angelic; but the change more often has been the other way. Happily for himself, and all about him, this fine old man was weakened only, and not perverted from his former healthful self. His memory was deranged, in veins and fibres, like an ostrich-plume draggled in a gale of wind and rain; but he knew his old friends, and the favoured of his heart, and before and above all, his faithful wife. He had fallen from his pride, with the lapse of other powers; and to those who had known him in his stronger days, his present gentleness was touching, and his gratitude for trifles affecting; but notwithstanding that, he was sometimes more obstinate than ever.

"I wonder why Chris stays away so long;" he said as he sat one fine day upon the terrace, for he was ordered to stay out of doors as much as possible, and his wife as usual sat beside him. "She is gone to nurse Jemmy through a very heavy cold, as I understood you to say, my dear. But my memory is not always quite clear now. But it must be some days since I heard that; and I miss little Chrissy with her cheerful face. You are enough of course, my dear Mary, and I very seldom think much of anybody else. Still I long sometimes to see my little Chrissy."

"To be sure; and so do I. The house seems very sad without her;" replied Mrs. Fox, as if it could be merry now. "We won't give her more than another day or two. But we must remember, dear, how differently poor Jemmy is placed from what we are in this comfortable house. Only one old rough Devonshire servant; and everybody knows what they are—a woman who would warm his bed, as likely as not, with a frying-pan, and make his tea out of the rain water boiler."

"He has no one to thank for it but himself."

After this delivery, the father of the family shut his mouth, which he still could do as well as ever, though one of his arms hung helpless.

"And I did hear that there was some disturbance there, something I think about the clergyman, who is a great friend of Jemmy's;" Mrs. Fox spoke this in all good faith, for Dr. Freeborn had put this turn upon a story, which had found its way into the house; "and you know what our Chris is, when she thinks any one attacks the Church—you may trust her for flying to the rescue. At any rate so far as money goes."