Argosy All-Story Weekly/Volume 124/Number 3/The Soul of Henry Jones

by Ray Cummings

 

The Soul of
Henry Jones

By Ray Cummings

AT the age of thirty-two Henry Jones one brilliant summer morning with the sudden realization that the soul in him was starving. He lay quiet, staring idly at the white ceiling above the bed, his mind groping dully with this abrupt enlightenment. After a moment of mental confusion—for the enormity of the conception stirred him profoundly—he raised himself upon one elbow in bed and looked at his wife who lay sleeping beside him.

He had always thought her pretty in a quiet, unobtrusive sort of way. He did not remember ever having noticed before the wrinkles that were beginning to show around her eyes, but he could see them there now, plainly. And her neck seemed very thin and stringy, and the line of her lean jaw very sharp. That he had never noticed before either. The thin locks of straight black hair that were spread upon her pillow were shot through with gray. The vision of a great soft, fluffy mass of wavy golden tresses flashed into his mind —the crowning glory,of no particular woman, but just an abstract picture.

Henry Jones shivered a little and fell to staring at the round white face of the tiny alarm-clock on the bureau. Then, after a time, he found himself thinking that it was unusually early for him to be awake, for the clock hands pointed to half past five.

He slid noiselessly out of bed. For a moment he stood irresolute; then he began to dress swiftly, watching his still sleeping wife with a furtive air and feeling somehow very guilty. When he was fully dressed he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and paused an instant to view the completed picture.

The mirror showed a short, rotund little man in a light gray suit, with a narrow black leather belt that bulged out prominently in front; a round, pink and white almost cherubic face, with light blue eyes, eyebrows so light they were almost unnoticeable; and sandy hair with a tiny bald spot on top.

But what Henry Jones saw was a pair of sad, wistful eyes with the soul shining out of them—a soul patiently yearning for the satisfaction of its desires.

The little suburban village in which Henry Jones lived and worked was just beginning to awaken into life.as he passed down its streets that early summer morning. He held himself very erect, with his chest expanded, breathing deep of the morning air and walking rapidly.

A girl was coming toward him down the narrow sidewalk of the maple-lined avenue—a trim, buoyant little figure. Henry Jones noticed her slim, silk-clad ankles as she drew closer. And he saw, too, that she wore neat, high-heeled shoes that were very trig and becoming. He watched the ankles and the shoes as they approached. Henry Jones was an expert on the latest styles of shoes, for he was by profession a shoe clerk. But there was in his appraising regard of this particular pair on this particular morning a look that was not wholly impersonally professional.

As: the girl passed him, Henry Jones raised his eyes to her face. She was a very pretty girl, with curving lips and soft, fluffy golden hair blowing low about her ears. He did not remember ever having seen her before, but as he met her eyes he smiled—a frank, friendly, comrady sort of smile he felt it was—and he heard his lips murmuring “Good morning,” as his hand went to his hat.

The girl did not pause, but as she passed he thought he saw that she, too, was smiling. And afterward he remembered vividly that the pink of her cheeks had deepened to a sudden red, and that her long lashes. had fallen shyly. Henry Jones threw out his chest still farther and strode forward with a song in his heart.

Six years before this important morning to the Jones family, Martha Lewis had married Henry Jones. At the age of—twenty-five—one year Henry's junior—she had felt herself in a fair way of being laid upon the shelf of perpetual maidenhood, and so she had married the prosaic, plodding Henry, as the only available eligible unattached young man of her acquaintance.

You are not to imagine Martha Lewis as an acrid, designing young female. She was merely a comparatively unattractive girl according to the standards demanded by the young men of Rosewood. Like many other girls of her type, Martha was blessed, in exchange for physical beauty, with a considerable stock of good common sense. Throughout her years of adolescence she had cherished secretly all the usual dreams and romance of young girlhood. Then, realizing gradually that their fulfilment was beyond her, she had put them resolutely away, and at her father's death, when she was twenty-four, had calmly turned to face the world with the resolution to make the best of existing circumstances.

And so she had married Henry Jones—deliberately, because she wanted to. She was in love with him, of course, just as she knew he was with her. It was not the love of her dreams, but a steadfast, practical, common sense love. Probably it was the better kind, she often told herself; and yet—because she was only human, and especially because she was a woman—there were times when, underneath the prosaic contentment of the daily routine of her married life, she found herself wanting something more. For Henry was neither in looks nor by nature inspiring to the female mind. But he made her a good husband; Martha knew that, and she loved him and was content.

This was Henry Jones's wife—not the woman he knew—but the real woman, as she was on this summer morning when his soul suddenly expanded.

Martha was in the kitchen preparing the meal when he returned. He pecked her upon the cheek, hastily mumbled something about not feeling well; and going out to get the morning air, and then escaped into the dining-room with his morning paper.

During the meal he sat silent, pretending to read.

“Eat your eggs,” said his wife abruptly.

Henry Jones came back with a start from the rippling little stream beside which he had been lying, and ate his eggs almost—sullenly.

Martha was glancing at the newspaper. “I see the shoe factories are in trouble again. That 'll put up your prices at the store.”

“Yes,” said Henry, and went on eating his eggs.

Martha waited a moment. “How's the new clerk getting on, Hen?” she volunteered again. “Are you going to keep him?”

“Guess so,” said Henry. His inner being shuddered at the nickname his wife used so frequently; but outwardly he felt he was maintaining his composure.

“It must have been that salad last night that upset you,” went on Martha after another interval of silence; to which Henry answered nothing.

All that day at the store Henry's work revolted him as nothing had ever revolted him before. He longed for freedom. He wanted to wander through dim, cool, mossy woods; or to lie beside babbling brooks upon his back and watch the birds in the trees overhead; or to sit braced against a tree-trunk with a book upon his knee, reading poetry to a pair of blue eyes staring up into his face. Henry had never read much poetry, but he knew now he wanted to.

And she would brush back her straying locks of golden hair and implore him to read more. And then he—

“That hurts my corn;” said Henry Jones's customer irritably. “Can't you give me one a little wider at the toe?”

At dinner that evening Henry's malady was unimproved. He ate very little, seemed disinclined to talk, and equally unable to read his evening newspaper. To Martha's anxious questions concerning his health Henry guessed his “liver was out of order “—a surmise that the pink and white of his cheeks and the clearness of his little eyes stoutly denied.

He would have none of the pills she tried to force upon him, but promised, if he could be allowed to spend the evening at Williams's Billiard Parlor, watching the games, to take it when he came home in the event of his not feeling better by then.

So, immediately after the meal was over, Henry put on his hat and escaped from the oppression of domesticity into the freedom of the great outdoors. But he did not go to Williams's Billiard Parlor. Instead he turned sharply, as soon as he was out of sight of his home, and headed in exactly the opposite direction.

Now you can readily understand that in this state of mind it was inevitable that sooner or later Henry should meet the other woman. That is in no way peculiar; but it is rather surprising that in Henry's case she came into his life this very first evening.

There is a little lake near Rosewood, which during the summer months is ideal for canoeing. It was toward this lake that Henry bent his steps. The night was warm, but not unpleasantly so, for there was a stiff breeze blowing. Almest a full moon hung overhead, with scudding, low-flying clouds passing swiftly across its face at intervals. Henry jammed his straw hat down firmly on his head and strode forward with rapid steps into the wind.

Not that Henry was particularly interested in canoeing. Mr. and Mrs. Jones had, in fact, never been in a canoe together. Henry had never been in one in his life, for he was an. indifferent swimmer in spite of his fleshiness, and the obvious frailty of this form of boat held no appeal for him; and if his wife had ever been in one he did not know it. She had never suggested it except once—soon after they were married—and that he had long since forgotten.

Henry struck the lake near its upper end, where it was wildest. He was glad to find himself quite alone; he laid his hat on the ground and sat down close beside the shore, facing the wind that blew strongly toward him from across the water. The lake was rough, and the sound of its little angry waves beating against the pebbly beach at his feet thrilled him. After a moment the moon came from behind a flying cloud and the water was lighted with silver. Henry sighed rapturously.

For perhaps ten minutes he sat motionless. Then abruptly coming from up the lake he saw.a lone canoe. It was hardly more than two hundred feet off shore, and was heading downward, across the wind. Henry could see it plainly in the moonlight—a canoe with a single occupant, a girl, seated in its stern and paddling with a single paddle. The empty bow of the canoe rose high in the air.

Henry watched it with furiously beating heart as it rose and fell on the silvery waves. The girl was paddling desperately, and evidently with waning strength to keep its bow from blowing around toward the shore.

The wind increased with a sudden gust, and all at once the girl stopped paddling. The bow of the canoe, acting almost like a sail, swung rapidly around. The canoe rode more quietly now, but drifted steadily shoreward. After a moment the girl started paddling again, and came slanting across the waves in a direction that Henry realized with a start would land her almost at his feet.

Another gust forced her to increase the force of her strokes, but still she could not hold her own. She was almost opposite Henry, and hardly fifty feet off shore, when she gave up again; this time evidently for good, for she held the paddle idle across her knees.

The canoe blew inshore rapidly. Henry was sitting in the shadow of a tree and knew the girl had not seen him. Another moment passed and the bow of the canoe grated upon the pebbly beach, hardly ten feet from where he sat.

Henry started to his feet. The girl was standing up, gingerly trying to walk shoreward in the rocking little craft. Henry shouted. The girl looked up, startled; and at the same instant a wave struck the stern quarter of the caoe, slueing it around. The girl lost her' balance and fell overboard.

Henry leaped forward to the beach. He was not a bit frightened, he told himself afterward; instead, there was joy in his heart—a fierce, reckless joy. For this at last was life!

The canoe, partly filled, rolled sidewise to the waves and grounded. The girl struggled to her feet, knee-deep in the water and soaking wet. Henry ran past the canoe, and without hesitating, waded out and stood facing her.

“I fell overboard,” announced the girl.

“Yes, I—I saw you,” said Henry. “I was sitting there.” He waved his hand vaguely toward the shore. His heart was almost smothering him; yet he felt no surprise, for it seemed only natural and right that she should come to him so unexpectedly and so soon. For Henry at once recognized this girl standing beside him in the lake as the girl he had passed and smiled at that morning.

And then, in a flash, he knew also that it was to her beautiful blue eyes he had been reading poetry all that day, and it was her wayward golden tresses that had floated before him and would not go away, even when the customer was annoyed because a shoe pinched.

“Why, you're all wet,” said Henry.

“So are you,' rejoined the girl. Then suddenly she laughed—a little silvery peal, like far-off bells at sunset, Henry thought. “How silly of us.: Let's go ashore,” she added.

“Let's,” said Henry. “Let me help you.” He put his hand upon her arm; her dress was wet and cold, but the touch made him tremble.

It was only a few steps to the dry beach. The girl shook her. skirts and sat down in the grass, shivering a little. Henry took off his coat instantly. It was quite dry, and he wrapped it around her shoulders. The girl smiled at him gratefully.

“What a silly thing! I got down there at the end of the lake, and when the wind came up stronger I couldn't get back. You can't hold it up against the wind when you're alone, you know.”

Henry didn't know exactly, but he nodded confidently.

The girl took off her little slippers and emptied the water out of them.

“I live about a mile beyond the point—on this side.” She pointed down the lake. “I don't know how I'm going to get home—I'd hate to walk out in the road looking like this.” She glanced ruefully at the clinging wetness of her filmy dress. “And I wouldn't want to leave the canoe here anyway.”

“You mustn't trust yourself on that water again to-night,” said Henry. And something made him add doggedly: “I won't let you do that.”

“I couldn't make it alone across that wind,” said the girl. “But I could easily if”—she hesitated—“if you'd paddle down with me. Would you mind?”

Henry's heart almost stopped beating.

“It's easy enough for two,” the girl went on, “when the bow's not up in the air—and there's an extra paddle. The wind's letting up anyway. If it wouldn't be troubling you too much—it isn't far by water.”

“No—I mean yes—of course I will,” said Henry.

The girl stood up. “I'm cold—good gracious, look at that canoe; we'll have to empty it out.”

Together they lifted the canoe. The water came spilling out of Henry's end, wetting him still more, and they both laughed. Then his coat slipped off her shoulders into the: lake, and again they both laughed.

“Dog-gone it, I didn't want that coat to get wet,” said Henry ruefully. A wonderful feeling of comradeship had sprung up within him; he almost forgot his apprehensions of the coming canoe ride.

“I'm sorry,” laughed the girl, rescuing the coat.

“I mean I wanted to keep it dry so—so you wouldn't be cold,” Henry explained.

“Oh,” said the girl, and smiled. And again Henry remembered afterward that her lashes had fallen shyly; and he was sure that in the moonlight he had seen the flush that came to her cheeks.

“I'll sit in the bow,” said the girl when they were ready.

They pointed the canoe out into the lake. The wind had gone down considerably, and the little waves were perceptibly less high. At the girl's direction Henry steadied the canoe while she climbed its length and sat down on the bow seat with her back to him. Then he drew a long breath and waded recklessly a few steps into the lake, pushing the canoe in front of him. Then somehow he managed to clamber into it.

The canoe rocked violently, but did not overturn. He sat erect and rigid upon the stern seat holding his breath, the little paddle gripped tightly in his hand.

“I'll paddle on the left, if you don't mind,” said the girl. 'I'm tired of the other side.”

Henry blessed the good fortune that had placed her with her back toward him. He was surprised that. they were still float; and more surprised that they seemed continuing to stay afloat.

The canoe, pointing directly into the wind, rode easily. Henry found he could put the paddle over the gunwale into the water and still they did not upset. The girl took a stroke. He held his paddle as she was holding hers and took a stroke also—awkwardly but nevertheless with some effect.

“We go that way—down the lake,” said the girl; and pointed on his side. Then she paddled harder.

As the canoe swung around broadside to the waves it began to roll. Henry felt a wild desire to drop his paddle and grip the sides with his hands.

“It's a beautiful night, isn't it?” the girl remarked.

Henry remembered then that the moon was shining. But he was afraid to look up; he kept his eyes fixed upon the girl and imitated her strokes as nearly as he could.

Aftera moment he suddenly found that he could bend at the waist with the roll of the canoe, keeping his shoulders level. And paddling didn't really seem so difficult; and every moment as they approached the narrower part of the lake the waves were getting less high.

At the end of the fifteen-minute trip, Henry's soul, temporarily compressed, had expanded again, bigger, freer, more dominant than ever. They landed on another little beach, almost in still water, in front of a little cottage. Henry manfully pulled the canoe well up on shore and stood again facing the girl.

“My name is Elsie Morton,” she said. “Tm awfully obliged to you. Won't you come in a minute and get dry, Mr.—”

“Jones—Henry Jones,” said Henry. “No, I think I'd—it's pretty late; I'd better get on home. I'm glad you're safe.”

The girl took the paddle from his hand. “I'm awfully obliged,” she repeated. “It was a silly scrape to get into, wasn't it. I'm sorry you got wet.”

“'Sall right,” said Henry. “I'm glad you're safe.”

“Stop in and see me, then—soon. Mother will want to thank you.”

Henry looked into her eyes earnestly. “I will,” he said abruptly. “Good night.” He shook her hand swiftly and turned away.

“Good night, “Mr. Jones—and thank you,” she called after him.

The plight of Henry Jones in facing his astonished wife that evening might well have alarmed a far more expert evader than he. All the way home he planned what he should say to Martha.

He ended by telling part of the literal truth but none of the actual truth: that he had met a friend and gone in a canoe, and they had upset and never, positively never, would he ever go out in a canoe again.

And Martha, when her first shock of surprise was over, had laughed. Henry never knew whether she believed him or not. For she said nothing, but put him to bed at once—without the pill, since he declared earnestly that the evening's exercise had made him feel much better.

After this first rapturous adventure, Henry's soul-malady grew rapidly worse. And with its development came- a corresponding ability for dissimulation with his wife. He ate his meals; he discussed with her the petty details of his business, and entered into her own gossip of the neighbors, just as he always had. But underneath it all a seething torrent of emotions possessed him, threatening every moment to tear away the anchor of his life and hurl him adrift. And Henry did not care. He did not have the least idea for what he was headed; he never stopped to reason it out. He only knew he was happy—riotously, wonderfully happy—and free—free in spirit at last.

Now I would not have you believe that all this happened to Henry's soul that first day. It did not. It progressed onward with steady growth over a period of nearly a month.

Henry developed, after that first evening, a sudden passion for billiards; and later for poker, which he told Martha some friends were starting as a twice-a-week lit- tle game. And Martha had listened to his swaggering statement that “a man must have some vices,” with inscrutable eyes, and let him go. Perhaps now she fathomed—in part at least, for she was wiser far than Henry—the malady with which he was suffering. And so she did nothing, but waited; which you shall see was perhaps the wisest thing she could have done.

Henry called upon Miss Morton some—ten times that month—always in the evening. Miss Morton, it appeared, was living with her mother for the summer only, in this tiny cottage which they had rented. They had been in it hardly more than a month, and fortunately, neither during that time nor subsequently during Henry's regular evening visits, had either of them needed to purchase a pair of shoes at Dale's.

About himself Henry was reticent. What he told of his affairs was fictitious but plausible. Miss Morton having few—friends in the neighborhood, seemed hospitably to welcome his calls. Upon the occasion of his second visit, he had told her frankly, but with some embarrassment, that he had never been in a canoe before that first evening with her. And he was still more confused, and a little hurt, when she showed not the least surprise at his confession.

“But I want to learn, Miss Morton,” he added earnestly. “Won't you teach me?”

Miss Morton would. And so began the series of canoe rides and lessons with which their friendship developed to its climax, and Henry's soul underwent its next and final great change.

You are to picture Henry, then, on this momentous tenth evening, sitting very erect and manly upon the stern seat of Miss Morton's canoe, in his shirt-sleeves, bis forearms bared, hatless, and with his hair rumpled and pushed straight back—almost, but not quite, covering his bald spot. Miss Morton herself lay at his feet in the bottom of the canoe on a pile of cushions—her golden hair nestling against one of flaming red, and her baby blue eyes looking up into Henry's face. And Henry was supremely happy—an unreasoning, turbulent happiness—as with long, swift strokes he sent the canoe skimming over the shimmering silver lake.

The moon overhead hung in a cloudless, starry sky; a soft, gentle summer breeze fanned his flushed face.. Distant music from a talking machine on one of the cottage porches floated distinct across the lake. Henry looked at the girl's gracefully reclining figure with a heart too full for words.

“I love the sound of music over water, don't you?” asked Miss Morton softly.

Henry let his paddle trail idly in his left hand. A sudden madness possessed him. He leaned down and put his other hand over the girl's as it lay in her lap.

“I love you—Elsie,” he said huskily.

Miss Morton gasped; she stared for an instant into Henry's flushed, eager face with its pleading eyes. Then she laughed.

“Why you—you funny little fat man,” she cried.

Henry withdrew his hand as though from a red-hot stove.

“No—no, I didn't mean that. Oh, I'm sorry—really, I am, Mr. Jones. I didn't mean to hurt you—really I didn't. But you are funny, you know, when you talk like that.” The girl poured out the words swiftly. Her tone was contrite, but the merriment did not die out of her eyes.

Henry sat up very stiff and straight, staring out over the glistening water.

“I didn't know it was funny,” he said; the words came hardly above a whisper. “'Sall right, Miss Morton. Only—I didn't know it would be funny.”

His eyes, with a dumb, hurt look in them like the look of a wounded dog, fell to hers an instant. Then in silence he turned the canoe and paddled back to her home.

Let us not pry too deeply into Henry's feelings that terrible night. They can be imagined, but they cannot be told. He did not close his eyes until dawn, but sat propped up in bed, staring blankly across the moonlit little bedroom. Once in the middle of the night he became aware that his wife was not asleep, but lying wide awake watching him.

As he turned to face her, she put her hand gently upon his.

“What is it, dear?” she asked softly.

“'Sall right,” said Henry. He felt the answering pressure of her hand. In the dim moonlight, her face suffused with love and tenderness, seemed suddenly very beautiful. “'Sall right, Martha. I was just thinking. You go to sleep.”

Thus, in the gray light of dawn, in the agony of disillusionment, and with his sleeping wife's hand in his, Henry Jones faced and solved his great problem. The change—for like all the rest it was only a change in him—came gradually. The turbulence of his thoughts slowly calmed; the ache in his heart grew less.

And then, clear and shining as a beacon light this new idea, this new feeling, rose in his mind. He seized it, lingered over it, gazed at it from every aspect. And then came a great sense of rest and peace stealing over him. He sighed, gripped his wife's hand tighter, and fell into a dream-less sleep.

At breakfast next morning Henry was abnormally cheerful. Martha made no reference to his long vigil the night before, nor did he. But his eyes followed her around with a strange light, and his usually pink face was flushed even pinker with excitement.

After breakfast as he started for the store, he kissed her good-by with extraordinary enthusiasm.

“If its a good night to-night I've a surprise for you,” he said mysteriously. With which cryptic remark he turned abruptly and left the house.

The weather was perfect that evening—'a full moon in a cloudless sky, and only a gentle breeze.

Refusing explanation, Henry led his wondering wife immediately after supper directly to the public boat-house at the lower end of the lake, hardly more than a mile from their home.

“I took the morning off,” was all he would say. “I bought something for you as a surprise.”

Into the boat-house he took her, expectant and thrilled, and there he proudly displayed a tiny green-painted canoe, lying upon a little platform that sloped down into 'the water. °

“'For you, Martha,” he said. “I bought it for you to-day.”

“Oh, Henry, a canoe for us!”

“I bought it for you—this morning. Don't you see, Martha—that's what I've been doing all these weeks—learning to canoe so I can take you out.”

“Oh, Henry—dear!” Martha put her hand timidly upon his arm.

“I'm an expert canoeist, now, Martha—you'll see.”

In the dimness of the boat-house he put a sturdy arm about her waist; he could feel she was trembling.

“I'll take you out now,” he went on. “Wait—I've got some cushions.”

He was back in an instant with his arms full of pillows, which he tossed carelessly Into the canoe with the paddles. Then with ostentatious skill he slid it down into the water, and tenderly placed his silent, trembling little wife in the bottom upon the cushions, so that she would be at his feet as he sat in its stern.

Out upon the lake he paddled with lusty strokes, straight into the shining ribbon of moonlight. Martha lay quiet, gazing up at him as he silently bent to his work. Music floated to them over the water. Another canoe passed, with a boy and girl in it—a girl who reclined in the bottom playing a guitar. Henry—with a great consciousness of equality—waved to them in friendly greeting.

Then all at once he shipped his paddle and leaned down to his wife, letting the canoe slip forward unguided. Her eyes were wet and shining; her hand stole upward to meet his.

“Life and—and everything is wonderful, isn't it, dear?” said Henry Jones.