The Soul of Susan Yellam Part 29

"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 "Proos.h.i.+an," 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 G.o.d 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. n.o.body, 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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d's House wi' such a soul as mine."

Fancy said in a low voice:

"Your _soul_ is 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 trespa.s.ses. 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 the _Sir John Barleycorn_.