"Yer see red, sir. I got after a fat 'Un. Lord lumme! 'E run a fair treat, 'e did. But I stuck him to rights. I lost my 'ead though. Couldn't see nothink nor nobody except 'im. In my silly 'aste I missed some fine opportoonities."
"Opportunities?"
"Wounded 'Uns, sir, lyin' there to me 'and. I might 'ave 'ad 'arf-a-dozen notches on my old rifle, instead of one!"
"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey.
"Yer see, sir, we knows what they done to women and children."
By this time. George Mucklow and the first to join were at the front, and every Sunday, during Morning Service, Mr. Hamlin would stand up, before the Litany, and read out the names on the Roll of Honour. The congregation, after Service, remained quietly in the church till the National Anthem had been sung.
Mrs. Yellam sat alone in her pew, rigidly upright.
At home, alone in the evening, she talked to her dog. Solomon would sit in front of her, staring up into her massive face, with one ear half-cocked, very alert, very sympathetic.
"You be a wondersome dog."
Solomon's tail flickered.
"You knows more'n they donkeys as walks on two legs."
Solomon winked.
"You knows what a hard old flint I be, same as I digs up in garden."
Solomon laid a protesting paw upon her knee.
"You knows that I be tried beyond my powers, that I be mazed and dazed beyond what tongue can tell."
Solomon leaped into her lap, and attempted to lick her face.
"No, no, Solly; my kissing days be over."
Solomon refused to believe this.
"You knows, too, that my Alferd be going to the wars, and he won't come back. 'Twill kill that pore white-faced lil' maid. But 'twon't kill me, I be too tough, Sol. I be getting tougher. And I get no taste out o' life neither. I be so wicked that, times, I could lift my hand to kill they who stay behind, guzzling ale, grinning because they think theirselves so clever! I fair wonders that you can love so wicked an old 'ooman as I be."
Solomon, as a last reassuring protest, would curl up and fall asleep. Mrs. Yellam would sit on, staring into the fire, trying to adjust the workings of the Divine Mind with her own perplexed intelligence. Often kindly sleep would come to the rescue, and she would wake with a start to find the fire burnt out and the kitchen cold. But Solomon lay snug and warm against her.
Many persons, besides Mrs. Yellam, were mazed and dazed during these Spring days. At Neuve Chapelle, our cavalry had their feet in stirrup ready to ride down the enemy, when a thick mist rolled up and balked them of their prey. Jupiter Pluvius seemed to be fighting against us. The appalling earthquake in Italy was joyously affirmed by Germans to be God's judgment upon an ally who had deserted them. Strikes in the industrial parts, Irish troubles going from bad to worse, seemed to indicate the chastening hand of Omnipotence.
But we had accomplished a mighty miracle.
Five hundred thousand men were in France, and not a life lost during the perilous operations connected with transport.
And then came the crushing disaster of theLusitania. A wave of horror and rage swept over the country. Till now, Lissauer's "Hymn of Hate" had aroused ridicule, not resentment, amongst English-speaking peoples. The Belgian atrocities, known in all their horror to very few, had been accepted as the handiwork of brutes driven mad by drink and blood-lust, not as the systematic, inspired doctrine of Frightfulness. But when all Germany rose up to justify the slaughter of helpless women and children, when streets were beflagged, medals struck, and the schools held holiday, the nation began, at last, to grasp the truth. Might meant to stick at nothing.
Recruiting, in the rural districts, received a sharp stimulus.
Fancy, lying awake at night, shed many tears, but none before Mrs. Yellam. The pair, so strangely different, got on well together, because, so Susan said, the girl was not a chatter-box. Often they would meet and part without exchanging more than a dozen words. Fancy would help with the work, the never-ending cleaning and sweeping, or take some sewing and sit by the kitchen fire in silence. These quiet ways endeared her more and more to Alfred's mother, and occasionally, very seldom, Fancy would be vouchsafed a glimpse of an indurated heart. She had noticed that Mrs. Yellam avoided any direct reference to the Deity, Whose name, before the war, had been so often on her lips, the personal God, Whose guiding finger, even in trivial, domestic affairs, could be so plainly seen. One day, on the eve of Alfred's departure for France, Fancy said nervously:
"God will be with Alfred."
Mrs. Yellam said quickly:
"He be wi' the Kayser, too, seemin'ly."
Instantly she closed her lips, as if fearful that more might leak from them. Fancy remained discreetly silent. She comforted herself with this reflection: faith in works sustained this unhappy old woman. She laboured abundantly for others at Pomfret Court, and tended her garden diligently so that she might have fruit and flowers and vegetables to bestow upon poorer neighbours. In church, her responses were clear and regular, her deportment irreproachable, but she never discussed the sermon, once a favourite mental exercise, and Fancy came to the conclusion that she no longer listened to it, too much obsessed by her own perplexities.
About this time Nether-Applewhite was electrified out of its apathy by an extraordinary event, something so unexpected that Hamlin himself, who had foreshadowed such a remote possibility in his sermon on Patriotism, began to wonder if he had been inspired.
George Mucklow won the Victoria Cross!
This heavy, stolid young man, who shut both eyes when his shins were imperilled by a cricket-ball, who was "afeard wi' maids," who had been driven to the colours before the toe of a thick boot, performed one of those deeds that thrill an Empire. Fortunately for him, the tremendous opportunity of which Hamlin had spoken came at a moment when Authority was looking on, and able to record what took place. George confessed afterwards that at the time he didn't know what he did, or how he did it. Out of some subconscious zone surged the irresistible impulse blindly obeyed. A shell fell in the trenches at a moment when the officer on duty was making his rounds. Not an "Archie" or a "Black Maria" but something smaller than a football. Dozens of men were close to it. George darted past the officer and hurled himself upon it.
It didn't explode!
Within a week, George's photograph was given pride of place in half-a-dozen newspapers. And then the supreme decoration was conferred. He returned home on leave; the King pinned to his tunic the bronze cross; Jane Mucklow and Uncle witnessed the ceremony; George came back to Nether-Applewhite with his parents, and was the hero of another function when Sir Geoffrey Pomfret presented him with a gold watch and chain, a tribute from the Squire of the parish, and a well-lined purse, the gift of the parishioners.
The effect on Uncle may be imagined. For ever after he associated himself with George as owning an undivided half interest in the cross, and in describing the glorious deed he assumed the royal plural, and with it some of the attributes of a monarch.
"Us was standing at attention," he would say, "as I be standing now, when the dam thing falls slam-bang in front of we. Neighbours, 'twas a moment as won't bear thinking on. Many souls all unfit for Kingdom Come. What does we do? We falls atop o' that there cannon-ball—'twas big enough to blow a thousand fellers to glory—and hugs it to our buzzums. 'Tain't a thing to brag about, but us was in the noospapers, and—and, well, you knows the end on't—Buckingham Pallis! And, believe me or not, neighbours, but this be sober truth. Me and King Garge was hobnobbing together for the space of one mortial minute, just so friendly and kind as true brothers. I nodded to 'un, as I nods to you, and, by Jo! he nods back to me."
Jane Mucklow had believed that George would perish in his first action. He had come triumphantly through half-a-dozen. And, to-day, he wore the proudest decoration that England's King can bestow. At a bound, she became an impassioned optimist. She discerned clearly the hand of Providence. King George was beheld as the Lord's Anointed. Queen Mary towered higher than he as the sacrosanct Mother. Mrs. Mucklow had her tale to tell, and told it with Uncle's unction and satisfaction.
"Queen Mary looked at my Garge as if 'twas her own dear son. Yes, she did. And then she smiles sweetly at me. I tell 'ee this—Queeny Mary was just so proud o' my Garge as I be. A good, kind 'ooman! I allows that, now and again, I ha' raised my blasphemious voice against they crowned heads, believing in my every-day way that they wore golden crowns when we pore folks was a-wearing made-over bonnets. Such wicked thoughts be clean gone from me. I be fair aching to sing 'God save the Queen' next Sunday morning."
A neighbour remarked timidly:
"Lard bless 'ee, Jane Mucklow, we sings 'God save the King.'"
Jane answered solemnly:
"You sings what you please. I began my life singing 'God save the Queen.' And I means to sing it again next Sunday."
But the glory that encompassed her nephew's thick head as with a halo flickered like a farthing dip in the mind of Susan Yellam. Her poor heart was lacerated by envy and jealousy. If George were indeed chosen by Providence to wear the Victoria Cross, what decoration would He award to her Alfred? The press had laid emphasis upon George being amongst the first to volunteer. If Queeny Mary knew the whole truth, would she have smiled sweetly at George's mother? Not she!
She laid the matter before Solomon that same night, after the memorable function which took place at the Shrine.
"Solly, my soul be in sore trouble."
Solomon considered this attentively.
"Yes, my dog, I be setting in the seat o' the scornful. I be weary o' my groanings. I ha' conceived sorrow and brought forth ungodliness."
Solomon whined.
"Why be this change come upon me, Solly? 'Tis written: Upon the ungodly He shall rain fire and brimstone, storm and tempest. But, to-day, seemingly, that be the lot o' the godly and the fatherless. To the ungodly be given Victoria Crosses."
Solomon sat up and begged his mistress to be silent.
She concluded sorrowfully:
"I be cast down, and they that trouble me will rejoice at it."
Solomon leapt into her lap, and thrust his nice cold nose against her cheek.
Hamlin visited her from time to time, but as friend, not priest. Wisely, he bided his time to speak, wondering when the right moment would come. She received him respectfully, answered his questions, enquired after Mr. Edward, who had just received his Sam Brown belt, and then relapsed into exasperating silence.
Meanwhile, Mr. William Saint had not neglected his opportunities. The man chosen by Hamlin and Alfred to "carry on" during Alfred's absence was sober and honest, but a poor talker. Saint bought a motor-'bus in May, which he used at first to take passengers to and from the railway station, some four miles distant. At the same time, he made arrangements to entertain summer guests, renting a small house with a garden overlooking the Avon, which served as an annexe for middleclass trippers, elderly spinsters who drew in water-colours, officers' wives with children, and professional men seeking a little cheap fishing. Saint drove the 'bus himself, engaging a good-looking young woman to take his place in the bar. Now and again he made expeditions to Salisbury, filling his 'bus with strangers who wished to see the Cathedral. Before June was out, he started a bi-weekly trip. In July he began carrying parcels.
Hamlin, accordingly, said a word to the Squire. But what could be done? The Squire and he stuck faithfully to the regular carrier. Others consulted their own convenience. Mrs. Yellam told Fancy that Alfred's business was steadily diminishing in volume.
"Have you told Alfred?" asked Fancy.
"No. And don't 'ee tell him, neither."
"Not me. Anyways, so long as dear Alfred be safe and well, I shan't worry about money matters."
Mrs. Yellam said tartly:
"Folks wi' no money to lose can allers sleep sound at nights." Then, realising that she had slapped an innocent cheek, she added in a pleasanter voice: "If Alferd keep safe and well, he'll downscramble this raskil so soon as he be homealong."
Fancy kissed her.
"He will be homealong soon," she whispered.
"How do 'ee know? You ain't got a letter saying so?"
"N-n-no."
Mrs. Yellam's voice became testy again.
"Then how do 'ee know?"
Fancy hesitated, blushing. But Mrs. Yellam pressed her point. Finally, the girl made confession. When Alfred went to France, she had consulted the cards.
Mrs. Yellam exploded. What ridiculous notions young maids got, to be sure! Cards, indeed! Very scornfully, she informed Fancy of the existence of a so-called wise woman, half-gypsy, who lived in a tumble-down cottage at Ocknell.
"You go and see that old grammer. 'Twill cost 'ee sixpence. For a shillin' she'll tell 'ee a fine fortin, marry 'ee to a young lord, and make 'ee the mother o' nine children. I ha' no patience wi' such tricks."
Fancy said humbly:
"Alfred thinks it foolishness, just as you do, but ..."
"Well?"
"The lady in Salisbury, as taught me, did say that I should marry a soldier. Alfred laughed at that, till—till he became one."
"You bain't married to a soldier yet."
"No. That's true."
Fancy sighed. Mrs. Yellam went on with some knitting. Suddenly, she said sharply:
"What did they cards say?"
Fancy smiled faintly.
"They said that Alfred would come back—soon."
Mrs. Yellam knitted on. After a long pause, she pronounced a verdict.
"I bain't one to talk about what I don't understand. If so be as Alfred comes back soon, and if he marries 'ee, I may own up that cards do tell truth sometimes."
After her Alfred went to the front, Mrs. Yellam's interest in the Tommies who had been "over the top" became more acute. She listened to everything said, regardless of a timely caution from Lionel Pomfret, who, before he rejoined his battalion, warned her that Mr. Atkins, with all his glorious qualities, was not too scrupulous a respecter of the truth. When the wounded men fell to talking amongst themselves, or before sympathetic females, the hypercritical might have noted a valiant determination on the part of each speaker to go "one better" than his predecessor. And the essential fact that these boys, most of them under twenty-five years of age, laughed at and chaffed each other when relating horrors merely piled Pelion upon Ossa in the mind of Mrs. Yellam. It seemed to her—and to how many more mothers?—that none could escape death or mutilation. One man was dumb from shell-shock. A "Black Maria" had buried him and ten others. He alone survived, unable to tell in speech what he had undergone. Mrs. Yellam paid this man particular attention, because her imagination was lively enough to realise what loss of speech would mean to herself. She told Jane Mucklow, with portentous shakings of the head, that the poor lad had lost his tongue for evermore. What else could be expected? Jane, now in happier mood, remarkedsententiouslythat miracles still happened. Mrs. Yellam smiled grimly, wondering whether Jane was thinking of what George had done and accounted that achievement a miracle. And Jane could afford to take a rosy view of life, inasmuch as Adam was still in England, and George, with a view to stimulating recruiting, had been given a snug billet at the dépôt of his regiment. All the credit due to George had, by this time, been assumed by Uncle. He not only took part, as has been said, in the heart-thrilling exploit, but assured everybody that the valour of his son had been begotten in him by a sire known far and wide to be without fear, the Bayard of the countryside! Jane accepted this hypothesis with creditable derision. She would say in reply to strangers avid for details: "Do 'ee talk to Garge's father.He was there!Garge be his father's son from stem to starn. My boy'd ha' behaved hisself very different. He'd ha' crawled down a rabbit-hole, he would, so be as one were handy."
Some strangers, pleased with this whimsical exposition, pressed money into Jane's hand, which she accepted with a humble and grateful heart, adding even more slily: "Thank 'ee very kindly. Money be scarce wi' us, since my dear husband's son won the Victoria Cross, because the father o' such a notable hero has to drink his brave boy's health so many times a day."
One memorable night, when most of the Tommies were asleep in the Saloon, the dumb man burst into excited speech, and talked for about two hours, to the delight of seventeen comrades. When Mrs. Yellam heard the wonderful news next morning, she was immensely comforted. That afternoon Fancy noticed a change in her, and was emboldened to strike iron when it happened to be hot.
"Miracles do happen," she affirmed, with an odd expression upon her pale little face.
Mrs. Yellam passed no remark on this. In her opinion, formulated long before the war, miracles had been wrought long ago in the misty, prehistoric times of the apostles, and not since. Fancy continued nervously:
"A miracle happened to me."
"What do you say, child? A miracle happened to—you?"
Fancy nodded. As a little girl, during her school-days, she had told her tale many times with the abominable conviction that it failed to convince, although it might excite astonishment and sympathy. When she grew older and more reserved she ceased to tell it, wincing from incredulity. She hated to tell it to this austere old woman, whose tongue could be so sharp, but impulse conquered apprehension.
"I was four years old at the time. And I was playing in the street just opposite to our house with some other children. A great dog came rushing down on us, snapping right and left. Folks said afterwards he was mad, but I don't know. Someway he was killed, so Father told me, before that was made certain; killed and buried."
"A mad dog! My!"
"The other children ran away. I—I didn't."
"Why ever not?"
"I couldn't. I stood still, all of a dreadful tremble. And he came bang at me."
"What a fearsome tale! You pore lil' maid!"
Up to this point of the narrative, Fancy had generally received just such sympathy, particularly when telling the story to mothers. She paused; her cheeks flushed; but her large eyes rested tranquilly upon the eyes of Susan Yellam.
"Well, dear, go on!"
"When the dog was quite close, I saw Mother."
Mrs. Yellam gasped.
"You saw your mother, who was dead!"
"I never think of Mother as dead. Yes, I saw Mother standing between me and the dog. She never looked at me; she looked at the dog. And the dog saw her."
"I never heard such a tale in all my life."
"The dog saw her. He stopped of a sudden, turned, and went back—howling. And I howled, too. Mother turned as the dog turned, and give me one beautiful look. Then she went."
Mrs. Yellam grasped the arms of her chair, still staring into Fancy's artless face. But no outburst of incredulity escaped from her as Fancy had feared it would. Her logical mind grappled with the facts as presented. She said, after a long pause:
"You thought you saw her."
"No. I did see her—plain as plain."
"But, Fancy dear, seeing as she died afore you was born, how did 'ee know 'twas she?"
"I'd seen Mother ever so often before."
"When and how?"
After some hesitation, Fancy narrated, with many details, her psychic experiences not only with her mother but with the four Evangelists. The girl's mordant anxiety that the astounding tale should be believed bit deep into the elder woman's heart. To Fancy's delight no incredulity was expressed. And Mrs. Yellam's face remained calm and kind. Solomon listened, also, with singular alertness and an eager intelligence which, to Fancy, indicated full belief. Indeed, Solomon seemed to be saying to himself: "Yes, yes, we know about that. We see things every day that would astonish all of you, if we were allowed to talk about them." And, in the middle of the story, the dog, that never showed any affection for others in the presence of his mistress, leapt suddenly into Fancy's lap and remained there. Long afterwards, Mrs. Yellam admitted that this mark of confidence upon Sol's part had impressed her. Inwardly she explained things quite to her satisfaction. She beheld Fancy as a four-year-old, a tiny mite, all eyes, physically weak, the victim of a perfervid imagination. Her own little girl, Lizzie, physically robust, would invent somewhat similar stories about tramps and sweeps quite as apocryphal as these tales of communings with Matthew and Mark. She remembered smacking Lizzie, and telling her that she was a little liar. No doubt, Fancy's father, rather a weakling, has encouraged the mite. Since Alfred's engagement, Mrs. Yellam had met Mr. Broomfield, and summed him up trenchantly as half a man.
However, she kept such thoughts to herself, saying quietly:
"You be a strange girl, Fancy, but you speaks what you believes to be sober truth, and I love 'ee."
Fancy had to be satisfied with this.
The first year of the war came to an end.
So far, Nether-Applewhite had been fortunate. None of the young men had been killed; none had been seriously wounded. And it was generally held that "Fritz" couldn't stick another winter. Alfred became a sergeant. Mrs. Yellam appeared in her pew, next Sunday, wearing a new bonnet. But, coming out of church, she met William Saint, and cut him dead. She now thought of him, habitually, as a "Prooshian," out for world-dominion. When her Alfred returned from the wars, he would smash William Saint. The triumph of such a "sneak" must be short-lived. Like the Kayser, he had sold himself, body and soul, to Satan. Satan would claim his own in God A'mighty's good time. Renewed belief in a Personal Deity had crept back into a heart less indurated. But He remained there, so to speak, on sufferance. At any moment, He might be driven out, as before. Omnipotence, so Mrs. Yellam argued during many vigils, could not be reasonably regarded as such if Satan triumphed unduly. It is to be feared that a daily motor-'bus service to Salisbury and back under the auspices of William Saint would have been regarded as a Satanic triumph. But such a service, as yet, had not been inaugurated.
Alfred wrote home once a week, alternately to Fancy and his mother. The life agreed with him. Obviously he accepted rough and smooth philosophically, regarding himself as a part of a vast machine that would "rampage" on with or without him. Although he was careful to keep from his mother and Fancy the horrors which they heard from the wounded soldiers, now and again some careless phrase would reveal, illuminatingly, everything that the good fellow wished to suppress.
"You enjoy your food as never was," he wrote, "when you know that any square meal may be the last. A chum of mine got it yesterday. And he was smoking a Woodbine I gave him. The man next him, as told me all about it, finished the Woodbine. I couldn't help laughing."
"Sometimes," said Mrs. Yellam, deliberately, "I thinks they be all mad." She turned almost fiercely upon Fancy. "Why did he laugh, my boy as hated to kill a fly?"
Fancy hazarded a conjecture.
"Men are not so very, very different from us women. I often laugh to save myself crying."
Mrs. Yellam admitted that there might be something in this.
The Squire was busy with his bailiff, fattening bullocks, and, generally speaking, trying to increase his flocks and herds. In this task, he found an enthusiastic partner in Fishpingle, who possessed two obsessing interests: love of the land and love of the Pomfrets. Nobody, except the Squire and Lady Pomfret knew that this quiet, handsome old man, so distinguished in appearance, and so choice in his use of words, might have been lord of the manor, had he marched into life along the broad highway which leads from the altar. Fate ordained otherwise. Fishpingle had been constrained to stroll placidly along a by-path. He hoped that he would so walk till the end.
His point of view was characteristic. Of the more complex designs of Providence, which such men as Hamlin were seeking to elucidate, Fishpingle took no cognisance. He admitted gravely that they lay beyond his vision. But he was quite certain that the land, the backbone of England, must and would receive the attention which, before the war, had been so unwisely withheld. He had always wanted to see his country independent of necessary supplies—wheat, cattle, sheep and hogs—imported from other countries. Upon that peg he had hung his philosophy. And now, towards the close of his days, he believed that what he had prayed for might come to pass. To that end he was prepared to consecrate such energies as were left to him. Incidentally, his enthusiasm served to wean Sir Geoffrey's mind from acrimonious criticism of politicians. To provide in the present means that might fill the inexorable demand of the future absorbed the thoughts of Squire and Bailiff.
Towards the middle of September, two Nether-Applewhite men were killed in action. A week later, Lionel Pomfret was reported "severely wounded." Sir Geoffrey crossed over to France. Lady Pomfret remained at the Court in command of the hospital. She moved amongst the men with the same gracious smile upon her lips; courage and faith—those great twin brethren—sustained her; but the news was very bad, so serious that Mrs. Yellam hardened once more her heart. Lionel had been shot through the back, and lay, half-paralysed and in constant pain, in a receiving hospital. Upon the Sunday after these details reached Nether-Applewhite, Susan Yellam sat huddled up in her pew, and almost mumbled the responses. Alone with Fancy, her sorrow broke into words:
"I be thinking o' keeping away from church next Sunday."
"Mother—!"
The dear word escaped from Fancy's lips unconsciously. She had never used it before, except in her thoughts.
"What be you callin' me?"
Fancy knelt beside her, stroking her rough hand.
"I called you 'Mother.' Do you mind?"
"No, no; but I bain't worthy to be your mother. If Master Lionel be taken, Alferd'll go, too. I can't bring myself to look at my lady. I can't look Pa'son square i' the face, neither. I reads the Bible, Fancy, and the holy words do seem to mock me. I ain't been near those two pore souls as ha' lost their boys. For why? I ain't got no comfort for 'em."
Fancy said desperately:
"If you keep away from church, others will pass remarks."
"As if I keered about that!"
"Wouldn't you care if I stayed away, just because you did?"
Mrs. Yellam considered this. Her face relaxed.
"Maybe. Anyways, I'll go next Sunday; But, child, it be sinful to sit in God's House wi' such a soul as mine."
Fancy said in a low voice:
"Yoursoulis right. You mind what Mr. Hamlin said about that? George Mucklow won his Cross because our souls are always right."
Mrs. Yellam shook her head. Then an idea came to her. A faint smile flickered about her lips.
"Souls may take a notion to leave us for a spell. My soul seems to have flown out o' winder, as it did when Lizzie died."
"But it came back."
"Yes; that be true; it came back. Forgi' me, child, for shovin' my wickedness on your lil' shoulders."
"Dear Mother, you must talk to somebody."
"When I be alone, evenings, I talks to Solly."
"Well, I never!"
"And he understands me, yas, he do. He be very human, and a gert sinner."
Fancy laughed; and the pretty trickle of sound may have melted a little ice. Susan Yellam laughed with her.
"Solly—a sinner?"
"Ay. He be a black murderer. He killed a cat day afore yesterday, and come back to me, all over scratches, and wi' a look as if—as if he'd been churched."
"What a naughty hypocrite! I wish he hadn't killed the poor cat."
"'Twas a vagabond cat, no better than she should be. I scolded Solly, and told 'un to kill William Saint's tabby, if so be as he couldn't help breaking the Sixth Commandment. I be no better than Solly."
Fancy looked round.
"Where is the naughty dog?"
"Ah-h-h! He be courtin' some four-legged hussy. I knows 'un. Last night he come in after bed-time, so pleased as Punch. There be Original Sin in animals, as ther be in us. And feeling as I does, 'tis easy to forgive Solly his trespasses. Now you knows nearly everything."
As the days succeeded each other, slightly better news came from France about Lionel Pomfret. At the end of the month the Squire brought him home. He lay upon his back; pain had become intermittent instead of constant. A great specialist said that he might, in time, recover the use of his lower limbs. Not a complaint leaked from his lips. Susan Yellam accepted this partial recovery from what had been deemed a lethal wound as a sign vouchsafed to her. Jealousy, however, was kindled by the professional nurse, who kept from her patient an old friend lavish with bull's-eyes in happier days and doubly anxious on that account to minister faithfully to him in the unhappy present.
London was visited by Zeppelins. Nether-Applewhite would have accepted this fresh proof of Hun "frightfulness" with more Christian resignation, if one of the villagers had not happened to be present during the October raid which caused such destruction in the Strand. Uncle heard the tale at first hand, and repeated it everywhere. Martin Mowland, the bricklayer, had travelled to London to see his son, who was lying, desperately wounded, in the Charing Cross Hospital. According to Martin the Zeppelin had hovered just above his head, about tree-high. Then bombs had fallen with terrifying explosions. Uncle supplied supplementary detail to his own audience at theSir John Barleycorn.
"I says to Martin: 'What did 'ee do, old friend?' And he says to me: 'Uncle,' he says, 'I thought my hour was come, but I legs it away so fast as I can to my lodgings....'"
At this point Uncle, being an accomplishedraconteur, would pause. Then he would add impressively:
"Neighbours, I don't blame 'un, although speaking for myself, I knows that I should ha' stood still, onless, maybe, I'd seen some nice lil'ale-househandy. Well, Martin, he legs it homealong so fast as if a hornet's nest were tied to his starn-sheets, and presently he pulls up like to catch his breath. And then he takes a squint upwards. Dang me, 'tis hard to believe some true stories. But Martin Mowland do take his oath to this. He'd run the most of a mile, giving tongue, too, I'll warrant. And when he looks up, as I be a Christian man, that there Zep had follered he, and was slam bang over his head."
"Lard preserve us! Whatever did 'un do?"
Uncle solemnly put the finishing touch to the narrative.
"What did Martin do? He stands stone-still, and puts up his old umbrella."
Many persons in the village believe to this day that Martin Mowland saved his life by putting up his ancient umbrella. Unquestionably Providence had stretched forth a Hand to preserve a worthy man who, as bricklayer, could ill be spared.
During November, it will be remembered, Conscription was admitted to be inevitable, and shirkers were adjured to join up before they were "fetched." Many did so. Near Salisbury was established a vast camp of Canadians, jolly fellows who swung, route-marching, through Nether-Applewhite, winking gaily at the girls, and setting an inspiring example to the young men still clinging to the soil.
Susan Yellam, spectacles upon nose, read all articles in her paper which dealt drastically with recalcitrants.
Would they take William Saint?
This question obsessed her. William was single and of military age. But his usefulness in the village could not be gainsaid, even by Captain Davenant. Of late, William had begun to cough, particularly in his sanded bar-parlour, or when he happened to be talking to Squire or Parson. His yellow gills confirmed the general opinion that he enjoyed poor health. Susan Yellam maintained that Willum was malingering, and deserved such obloquy as descended upon the empty head of Ezekiel Busketts, the brother of the sometime "odd man" at Pomfret Court. Ezekiel, presenting himself for examination before a medical board, had provided himself with an ancient truss, once the property of a deceased father. Unfortunately, he adjusted the truss so improperly that detection and ridicule fell upon him. Uncle, being distantly of kin to Ezekiel, covered his retreat with no harsher comment than this:
"'Twas a very sad mishap."
Susan, to return to William Saint, asked for a "sign," which, if unfavourable, might be taken to indicate how deeply she had incurred Divine displeasure. Some people, with greater advantages than Mrs. Yellam, believe devoutly in signs. Lionel Pomfret's slow recovery had been thankfully accepted by Susan as a sign that Satan was not having it all his own way in Nether-Applewhite. If William Saint was removed from the scene of his time-serving activities, Mrs. Yellam felt that a signal victory over the powers of Evil would have been achieved. Such a victory, in a true religious sense, would re-tighten the spiritual fibres that, before the war, had bound her so closely to Omnipotence. Nay, more; she dared to presume that if Willum went, her Alfred would return, and pick up the scattered parcels of his good business as of yore.
She confided all this to Solomon, but not to Fancy.
Uncle furthered her wishes without any "mumbudgetting" between brother and sister. He disliked Saint, because his ale was watered. But he liked to meet his cronies at theSir John Barleycorn. Being a brave, candid fellow, with a half-interest in the V. C., he told Saint to his face what he thought of the ale.
"I likes my ale, and I bain't ashamed on't. I see eye to eye wi' this yere Horatio Bottomley about they pumpuritans, which I make bold to say includes milkmen" (Saint sold milk) "so well as publicans. Me and Bottomley do think just alike about knaves, hypocrites, and they as grinds the face o' the pore. Much o' what I read in Johnny Bull might ha' been written by me. I comes back to my tankard o' ale."
"You allers do, Uncle."
"What I likes about my first tankard be this. If 'tis good ale, such as used to be set afore a man, I drinks it wi' a grateful heart, a-smackin' my lips over the tankard to foller. If 'tis wishwash, I nourishes most onChristian feelin's, and loses my thirst."
William Saint would reply imperturbably:
"For a patriotic man, you surprise me, Uncle. The ale is not what it was because good barley is needed for better purposes."
"I knows nothing about that."
"A man with your great knowledge of everything ought to know."
Uncle marked the irony, and resented it. In argument, as he well knew, Saint was too much for him. He began to study the publican and his hollow cough. He noted his manœuvres: the tiny bit of land ploughed up, the buying of horses for remount agents, the sale of forage to the same interested parties, who might be trusted to speak up, when Conscription came, for an indispensable and indefatigable subject of the King. Uncle passed some not disagreeable moments speculating concerning the fouling of a well-lined nest.
As the season of Peace and Goodwill approached, Lionel Pomfret was just able to hobble the length of the terrace with the assistance of a pair of crutches. His campaigning days were over. It was doubtful whether he would be seen again in the hunting-field. But high spirits remained inalienably his. He plunged with renewed ardour into schemes for the more intensive culture of a thin soil, and displayed remarkable aptitudes fortified by hard grinding at text-books. Hamlin spent many hours with him. In Lionel he seemed to see a type, the son of an ancient house, born with the silver spoon in his mouth, cradled in ease and luxury, popped on a pony to ride through life as soon as he was short-coated, sent to a great public-school, not to acquire learning, but manners and skill at games, pitchforked later into a famous regiment, with a handsome allowance, not to study the stern arts of war, but to hold his own at polo and pig-sticking.
Hamlin had deplored such upbringing. But the results confounded him, forcing him once again to thrust carefully-considered judgments into the melting-pot. The fact bristled in front of him that Lionel, and thousands like him, had "made good" against all odds, vindicating an education which consistently disdained efficiency except at games and sport. What a gulf yawned between Prussian and English officers! The Prussians had scrapped everything to attain efficiency. They had got it. And what an atrocious use had been made of it! But their efficiency had constrained young men like Lionel to an efficiency greater because the inspiration of a fine cause lay behind it. That must be the keystone of any arch—inspiration. Whether for good or evil, it fired men to supreme endeavour.
Out of Hamlin's four sons, three were now in the Army. Teddy, however, was the only one in France. The eldest son, in Orders, was still at Cambridge; the second, after passing through the O. T. C., had sailed for Salonika; the third had enlisted as a Bombardier.
Christmas, therefore, seemed likely to be happy, if not merry.
Upon Christmas Eve, Mrs. Yellam heard, officially, that Alfred was wounded.
Upon Christmas Day, at Morning Service, her pew was empty.
On the following Sunday, Mrs. Yellam's pew was empty again, conspicuously so, in the eyes of Hamlin. After luncheon he said to Fancy:
"Is Mrs. Yellam ill?"
"No, sir."
Hamlin guessed what had happened.
"No news is good news, Fancy."
"That's what the men say, sir. It ain't a mort of comfort to us women."
She looked very white, with dark, heavy lines beneath her eyes. Hamlin said a few encouraging words to which she listened attentively, nodding her head. Hamlin felt reassured. Fancy was unhappy, but she didn't despair. Before she left the study, she said slowly:
"I believe as Alfred will come back."
To the solicitude and sympathy of neighbours Mrs. Yellam exhibited a frigid indifference.
"I be just as well as never was," she remarked, when they enquired after her own health. "Time enough for such as me to fall sick if my Alferd don't come back."
No further news had reached her. To Jane Mucklow, now the village optimist, with George at home on leave for Christmas, Mrs. Yellam spoke with some bitterness. Jane meant well; her sympathy was sincere, but how could she, so high in Divine favour, understand? Nothing could shake Susan's conviction that Alfred lay somewhere in France, mortally wounded, whilst William Saint, the hypocrite and rascal, knelt among the Communicants. To kneel with him, feeling as she did, would be, in her opinion, an act of sacrilege. She reflected miserably that, since confirmation, she had never missed a Christmas Celebration of the Eucharist.
On the Monday, Hamlin came to visit her as parish priest. He had carefully considered what he should say. The faith that burned within this strong man had been a plant of slow growth, watered by suffering, pruned by constant self-analysis, and yet, in its essence, the faith of a child, a faith independent of dogma, soaring high above technicalities, resting securely upon a belief in ultimate good. He could not disguise from himself that the Churches—all of them—had crippled expectation. There had been no renascence, no uplifting movement, no real enthusiasm. Political considerations and expediencies kept the Vatican silent when a voice, thundering as from Sinai, might have awakened millions to a realisation of the issues at stake. The Church of England and the Nonconformists remained almost as stagnant, content, for the most part, with the well-oiled grooves, waiting for and watching Temporal Power, unable or unwilling to take the lead, to speak definitely, to act decisively. With rare exceptions, the gospel of Love had not been authoritatively used to vanquish the gospel of Hate. Hamlin, need it be said? was no sentimentalist. He believed with Woodrow Wilson that Prussian militarism must be wiped out. He did not believe with Wilson that the German nation, as a whole, could be exonerated from blame. Available evidence justified a different conclusion. Lust for world-dominion, regardless of consequence, animated and fortified the Central Powers because popular opinion lay behind them, unanimous save for a negligible minority. Non-resistance to a catastrophic policy of aggression, so potent, so meticulously organised threatened not only Christianity but civilisation. To turn the cheek to these smiting Huns was an unthinkable proposition to Hamlin. Nor could he find in the New Testament any injunction of the Master which could be twisted into a golden rule to be applied to States and nationalities. Christ dealt with individuals, preaching and practising the power of love as between man and man, not as between man and mankind. No text that Hamlin could find would justify forbearance towards a nation determined to inflict "Shrecklichkeit" upon the human race. On this point his mind was perfectly clear.
It was not yet, however, so clear upon issues still to be determined, such as "After the War" problems. He could not measure the stride about to be taken, provided militarism was crushed. He wondered constantly, with ever-increasing apprehension, whether love would triumph in the end, as he prayed that it might, creating a new world concerned with the happiness of the many, a world purged of the old insensate vanities and acrimonies.
Mrs. Yellam received him, as usual, a shade more formally, perhaps, with a slight tightening of her lips. Hamlin began as the personal friend of long standing, assuring the mother that her son, in all probability, was not severely wounded, that good news might be expected shortly, that very soon Alfred might be with her, out of the danger zone for a season, and able to give attention to his business. But he perceived that he was wasting words and time. She listened respectfully, saying nothing. He guessed what ebullitions of feeling were suppressed. He had been tormented by her anxieties, by her doubts. The loss of his wife had been irreparable. And when his daughter left him alone in the Vicarage, with nothing to engross him but his work, an odd distaste of life had assailed him, a slackness which he fought tooth and nail. Till then he had hardly known fatigue, as it is known to all women, that dull apathy more mental than physical which questions means and ends, exaggerating the difficulties of the former and minimising the latter, an apathy continually whispering the sad words:cui bono? He knew how hard Mrs. Yellam had worked for her husband, her children, and in particular for Alfred. During the last ten years all ambition, all energies had been concentrated upon him alone. She had made unconsciously, a God of him.
Hamlin rose up to deliver his message. Mrs. Yellam rose with him.
"I missed you in church yesterday, and on Christmas Day."
"One old 'ooman can't be missed, sir."
His eyes not his voice softened.
"You are mistaken, Mrs. Yellam. A woman of your character in this parish is missed—more than you think, perhaps."
"If Alferd comes back, you'll see me in my pew again."
"You have made that rash bargain with your God?"
She said defiantly:
"How do I know as He is my God? The Kayser claims Him."
Hamlin gazed keenly at her.
"If—if I left the matter there, Mrs. Yellam, in the firm hope and belief that God's way, inscrutable as they may appear to us when all our energies are at a low ebb, will in His time be made manifest, may I not ask you, as your parish priest, to consider the example to others, the many, possibly, who are wavering in faith as you are?"
"Fancy Broomfield bid me think of that."
"Did she? Poor girl, she is distracted with anxiety, like you. But her faith sustains her. Have you thought of what Fancy told you?"
She answered him slowly, weighing her words:
"My faith be gone, sir. It may come back wi' Alferd. And feeling so bitter as I do about William Saint, who be stealing my boy's business, who be letting others fight for him, and making a fortin for hisself, can I kneel at God's Table?"
"No."
"What be I to do? Go to church, a whited sepulchre, and pretend that I be a Christian 'ooman? Do 'ee ask me to do that for sake of others?"
Hamlin remained silent. She continued, more calmly:
"I can't bring myself to go church along, although I'd be pleased to oblige you, sir."
"It is no question of obliging me, Mrs. Yellam. Aren't you adding to your heavy burden instead of sharing it with One Who laid it upon you and Who alone can lighten it?"
Grievously she shook her head. Hamlin took his leave. As he walked away, he muttered to himself: "Civil War—devastating Civil War raging in that poor old heart."
He returned to the Vicarage with his mind dwelling upon the eternal conflict, a conflict accentuated by the world-war, because its issues seemed to enrich or impoverish everybody. By it, without a doubt, Susan Yellam had been impoverished. He himself was conscious of enrichment. But—he had not lost a son. He had five children.
After tea Fancy cycled down, as usual, to the Yellam cottage. Solomon received her boisterously. She made sure that good news awaited her. A glance at Mrs. Yellam's set face put to flight her hopes. No news had come. Mrs. Yellam greeted the girl perfunctorily, and then said sharply:
"Have you brought 'em?"
"Yes," said Fancy.
She took from a small hand-bag a much-used pack of cards. Mrs. Yellam had cleared a space upon the kitchen-table.
"Set 'em out," she commanded.
Fancy sat down, and began to shuffle the pack. Hamlin would have smiled sorrowfully, had he seen Mrs. Yellam's intent face as the girl's slim fingers dealt out the cards. So it had come to this. Rejecting the faith of sixty years, this poor old woman asked for hope and happiness from a fortuitous arrangement of bits of painted pasteboard! Comedy upon the underlying tragedy. Hamlin knew, of course, that astrologers, mediums, crystal-gazers and the like were doing a roaring trade.
Mrs. Yellam, let it be noted, asked Fancy to bring the cards. Protest had quivered upon Fancy's lips and stayed there.
"Well?"
"It is well, Mother. Alfred will come back. This makes the third time; and, do you know, when I rode up Sol barked and wagged his tail."
"Did he? The dog be full o' fun now."
Fancy went down on her knees; Sol barked at her, and then began to race round the room, playing what Fancy called "mad dog." He ended by leaping, panting, into Mrs. Yellam's lap.
"I believe he knows something, Fancy."
"I'm sure he does. Would he carry on like that if—if Alfred was real bad?"
Thus each woman, in her artless way, consoled the other.
Upon the Tuesday, details reached Mrs. Yellam. Alfred had been shot in the arm; the bone was badly broken; his destination was Netley.
Strings were pulled by Sir Geoffrey. Before the week was out Alfred arrived at Pomfret Court. He looked much the same, not quite so rubicund; he carried his left arm in a sling. Upon the following Sunday, Mrs. Yellam appeared in her pew, and the fervour of her responses excited some comment.
She said to Fancy:
"The cards told true. Now, the sooner you and Alferd becomes man and wife the better."
The doctor, who visited Pomfret Court daily, raised no objections. Alfred's arm would keep him in Nether-Applewhite for many weeks, because small splinters, from time to time, would have to be extracted, a tedious process. Mrs. Yellam, when she heard this, said with twinkling eyes:
"Alfred, dear, why didn't you get wounded in both arms?"
To which Alfred replied slily:
"I kept my right arm, Mother, to slip round Fancy's waist."
He told many stories to which Fancy and Mrs. Yellam listened entranced, and he spoke of the enemy with respect and without rancour. Upon one occasion, as his battalion moved into the trenches, a German had shouted out in excellent English:
"Be you the Wiltsheers?"
A reply in the affirmative provoked a request for "pozzy" (jam). But a tall sergeant, who stood up to hurl a can of preserve into the German trench, was shot dead. This aroused tremendous wrath, as quickly allayed when the same voice shouted again, asking if the sergeant who threw the jam had been hurt. He was soon satisfied on that point, and, immediately, a hubbub arose in the enemy trench, and a shot was heard. Soon afterwards the Wiltshires learnt from the lips of the first speaker that the man who treacherously slew the sergeant had been "done in."
"They ain't all bad," said Alfred.
To Mrs. Yellam's amazement, her son merely laughed when she told him of Willum Saint's activities.
"'Tis life, Mother. Down river, if a trout's caught behind an old stump, another takes his pitch before night."
Mrs. Yellam, however, noted with satisfaction that although Alfred was incapacitated from driving his motor-'bus, the business, since his arrival in Nether-Applewhite, had leaped ahead again with a renewed impetus. William Saint looked sour.
Fancy bought her modest trousseau, and, incidentally, put on several pounds in weight. The weather happened to be bitter, but she never felt cold when walking out with Alfred. He spoke with enthusiasm of his officers:
"They're fine gentlemen, Fancy. And those in the ranks are finest of all." Then he told her a story about two men in a London regiment, both privates and chums. One was an East-ender; the father of the other owned a house in Park Lane. The Cockney asked his chum if he had ever visited Whitechapel. The other remembered that he had bought a bull-terrier from a fancier in the Mile End Road. He remembered, also, that he had been handsomely "done" over the deal. After a pause, the Cockney said with a grin: "I sold you that dawg, Algy. What a mug you was then!"
But Fancy remarked one amazing change in her lover. He never spoke of the future. His enjoyment of the present was unmistakable. This abstention from a topic which formerly had engrossed him became more and more significant. The girl realised what Alfred had been through, although, unlike most of the wounded men at the Court, he recited no "horrors." Gradually, too, she perceived a change in his face: he had "fined down"; his eyes were more alert, with a curiously steadfast expression. She had never talked with him about religion. That was taken for granted, and might be summed up as a cut-and-dried sense of certain obligations such as church-going, honourable dealings with neighbours, loyalty to the Sovereign, and sobriety of conduct. He knew nothing about the empty pew.
"Mother took my going awful hard. Did she talk to you about it?"
Fancy told him what had taken place. Alfred held his tongue till she had finished.
"Thought she'd lost her soul, did she? Poor dear!"
"William Saint doing so well and cutting into your business worried her dreadful. I think it worries her still that you takes it so easy."
Alfred meditated upon this. When he answered her, he conveyed to her mind an extraordinary sense of detachment, as if he, the strong man, so enterprising as a carrier, so alert for "orders," had become suddenly an onlooker at the game of life. Perhaps surroundings lent themselves to this impression. They had climbed slowly to the high downs, and were standing near a noted landmark, a small tower known as the Pepper Box. A sharp frost had silvered the downs. The air was very still. Upon each side of them stretched the uplands, melting into distant woods. No animals were to be seen, not a sheep, not a bird. They seemed to stand alone in a beautiful, deserted world.
"I suppose," he said, "that 'tis like this. Before the war, I might have felt different towards William Saint. And after the war, Fancy, if I'm here, I shall try hard to get back my own again. But to-day I'm thinking of peace. Fed-up with war I am. I want to live quiet with you and Mother. I talked a lot of foolishness once about making big money. You didn't cotton much to the notion. Maybe you feared it would take me away from you?"
"I did."
"Well, maybe it would. Money drives some folks apart, and the want of it brings 'em together. And, out there, plotting and planning seems silly, because one may be—'next.'"
She clutched his arm. He smiled at her, continuing slowly:
"'Tain't so terrible a thought. Most of us fears pain more'n death. I see more frightened folks in Nether-Applewhite than in the dug outs. Queer thoughts have come to me, my maid, since we two parted."
"Tell them to me, Alfie."
"'Tisn't easy unless a man has the gift of words. Times, especially at night, when an attack is expected I've lain still as a dormouse, thinking that 'twas unreal, a dream like, and that soon I should wake up and find myself somewhere else."
"I often feel just that way."
"Ah-h-h! Another queer notion is this: the best seem to go first, Fancy; some of the young officers. Why? I figure it out that death is a big prize to such. It does explain things a bit, don't it? They get their reward—-quick! And then I set to figuring who is best. God Almighty knows. One feller in my platoon, before I got my stripes, was a right-down scallywag, a gaol-bird."
"My!"
"'Twas his notion about death being a prize for the lucky ones. And he told me that he loved to think how bad he'd been, because he reckoned himself safe, sure to be one of the last to be called. Next week, he was blown to a pulp, except his face, and on that was the queerest smile I ever saw. I helped to carry in what was left."
She clung closer to him. He said in his ordinary genial tones:
"I feel myself again in Blighty, dear. But I want no unpleasantness with William Saint or any one else. I think, night and day, of you, soon to be my dear wife."
Love-making rolled on smoothly, as before the war.
But what Alfred had said remained in Fancy's mind. It explained much that had puzzled her ever since she was able to think: her father's ill-health and ill-fortune, her mother's premature death, and the big casualty-lists. If life was a dream—! If reality lay beyond—! Then all the mysteries, the inequalities, the apparent injustices, could be explained. Such an explanation is old as human thought. It can be found in the Vedas, in the Bible, in the writings of the Gnostics, in some of the pagan and modern philosophies. Fancy, however, was neither concerned nor interested in speculations veiled in words she could not understand. Alfred's queer notions were his and hers, rushlights shining in the darkness. But terror touched her heart, when she applied the obvious conclusion to herself. If the best were taken, why then Alfred would be numbered amongst them.
As her wedding-day approached, this apprehension grew fainter and then disappeared for a time. She resolved to live in the present, not in the shadows of past or future. Such resolution has been a fairy godmother's gift to young women in Fancy's class of life. They turn their eyes gratefully to the sun whenever it shines upon them.
She had never been so happy before.
It was arranged that part of the honeymoon should be spent in London. After three days' sight-seeing, the pair would return to Mrs. Yellam's cottage. Alfred bestowed upon Fancy a black fur stole and muff, a wrist-watch, and a pair of silver-backed hair-brushes.
She placed these oblations upon a chair near her bed, so that her eyes could gloat upon them the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning.
Sergeant George Mucklow, V. C., promised to act as best man.
Mrs. Yellam was nearly as happy as Fancy. One fly settled in her ointment. Conscription had become the law of the land. But the local tribunal exempted William Saint. Uncle predicted that he would be called up later. Jane, of course, contradicted this on general principles. With Mrs. Yellam she believed that Satan would take good care of his own.
The men at Pomfret Court gave a sing-song in Alfred's honour upon the afternoon before he left them. Fancy sat beside the bridegroom-elect amongst the quality. She liked one new song so much that she clapped her hands and called out "Encore" before anybody else. The chorus of that song is now known to every English-speaking soldier in the world.