The Soul of Susan Yellam Part 33

"Well, from what you tell me of Alfred, and seeing what a big, strong man he is, I expect that William Saint is worrying. Like as not he looked for a row and wanted to get it over. Now, I reckon, being the coward you say he is, that he lies awake wondering when he'll catch it.

Once, when I was a boy, I had to wait for a good whipping from Sat.u.r.day till Monday. I've forgotten the whipping, Mrs. Yellam, but I remember that miserable Sunday."

Mrs. Yellam was much impressed with this point of view, admitting cautiously that it opened new vistas. Disturbed nights must be William Saint's portion and punishment. Mr. Broomfield hammered home his nail:

"'Tis the same way with sinners--and this Saint seems a crafty sinner--outwardly they look fat and prosperous, but inwardly I reckon they give uneasy thought to a Day o' Judgment when they won't be invited to stand amongst the sheep. I've neighbours in this town, Mrs. Yellam, who have done the dirty on me. I never think of them. It dirties my mind to do so. I like to think of my friends instead."

"You be a true Christian man."

Later, she told Uncle, who set, perhaps, an undue value on chest-measurements, that Mr. Broomfield was very much of a gentleman, and repeated what had been said about Saint. Uncle saw the funny side of it, and smacked his thigh.

"Saint Willum--! I shall call 'un that in his own bar. 'Tis a rare jest.

Saint Willum living amongst us sheep and knowing full well that he be a goat. He do act the goat, too, when the sheep be grazin' away from he. I could tell 'ee stories, Susan...."

"Don't, Habakkuk! Mr. Broomfield be right. I means to think o' my friends, and I refuses to dirty my mind wi' listenin' to stories o'

goats."

Her responses in church became louder and more fervent. Having gained the sh.o.r.e, after many buffetings, she put from her disagreeable memories of billows past.

Fancy and Alfred returned from London town full of high spirits and overbr.i.m.m.i.n.g with talk. Fancy looked prettier than ever hanging upon the right arm of her sergeant. His left arm still hung in a sling. The doctor, who examined it periodically, said solemnly:

"I'm very sorry, Sergeant, but I can't pa.s.s you as fit for duty."

Alfred grinned:

"You do pull my pore arm about, sir, but don't pull my leg, please."

The doctor laughed.

"You may count on six weeks at home, perhaps more."

The momentary pain of having small splinters of bone extracted was negligible compared with six weeks of married bliss.

Fancy's happiness defies a.n.a.lysis. Her nave ecstasies astounded Mrs.

Yellam, to whom marriage had been rather a prosaic affair. She wondered occasionally if this had been her fault. Why had dull contentment set in so soon? As a young wife, she may have overbusied herself with domestic duties. Fancy practised wiles and guiles with Alfred. She planned quaint little surprises, played dexterously with an imagination which became as lively as her own. One evening, when Fancy was upstairs, Alfred took from his pocket some pieces of white paper, all that was left of three packets of food. Abroad on business, Alfred had lunched under a hedge by himself, far from home. Upon the paper were pencilings in Fancy's handwriting. Mrs. Yellam wiped her spectacles and put them on. She read three sentences:--"Meat sandwiches. Don't gobble 'em! Say grace and think of Fancy." Upon the next piece of paper this was scribbled:--"Bread and b.u.t.ter and cheese--and _kisses_." And then the third:--"Rich cake stolen from Mother by a loving thief. P. S. Another fat kiss has just started to grow. F. Y."

Mrs. Yellam returned the papers. Alfred folded them carefully, and placed them in the inner pocket of his tunic.

"They go back with me to France," he said quietly.

Mrs. Yellam sighed.

"You be a lucky man, Alferd."

He nodded and went upstairs. Mrs. Yellam heard a tinkle of laughter. She sat on, thinking; a frown wrinkled her broad forehead. She had never played the game of love as Fancy played it. It occurred to her that she had missed something all her life without knowing what it was. It might be wise to consult Solomon, who was gazing at her interrogatively, with his head on one side. She did so.

"Be they a pair o' fools, Solly?"

Solomon never budged. This might be taken to mean an answer in the negative.

"There be wisdom in folly, my dog, and folly in wisdom. You knows that?"

Solomon wagged his tail. Mrs. Yellam continued:

"I be learning things, Solly, old as I be. I wish I'd ha' learned 'em earlier. I might ha' been a happier 'ooman. I might ha' made my man happier. Why do such knowledge come to us too late?"

Solomon gazed at his mistress intently. From his expression Mrs. Yellam divined that all her questions could be answered exhaustively by any dog able to wag his tongue instead of his tail.

The war went on.

Conscription began to dislocate small trades and industries, but Nether-Applewhite hardly felt the pinch of this. A few of the young women disappeared, seeking higher wages in munition-works. One or two returned to the village wearing coney-seal coats, and peac.o.c.king into church with bold eyes challenging attention from wounded heroes. Mrs.

Yellam was much exasperated. All strikes she regarded as sinful. Satan, and his dark legions, had been the first to rebel against Authority.

Hence--h.e.l.l! She envisaged as h.e.l.l industrial England, with its blast-furnaces vomiting flames and smoke day and night, with its black hordes of angry strikers disgracefully overpaid in comparison with the pittance doled out to Sergeant Yellam. Coney-seal coats "dirtied" her mind. Many of them, no doubt, were the obvious wages of sin. She rebuked Alfred severely, when he proposed to buy one for Fancy. Alfred defended himself and the wearers of the coats.

"It's one of the signs of the times, Mother. I thought you were an 'Onward' one."

"Lard help us! Not 'Onward and downward.'"

"It's all the result of the war," affirmed Alfred. "Money's scarcer amongst the quality, but poor folks are richer. Why shouldn't our girls have a good time? They're working hard for the country."

Mrs. Yellam retorted viciously:

"Being a man, wi' an eye for a pretty face, you sticks up for the girls.

But what about they miners, a-smoking silling cigars and a-drinking champagne, when our boys are dying at one-and-tuppence a day? And some o' they strikers, so they tells me, 'd as lief live under Kayser Bill as under King Garge."

"Is that their fault, Mother?"

"What do you say? Gracious! Be you telling me that such wickedness be _my_ fault?"

Alfred smiled pleasantly. He was not ent.i.tled to full credit for his answer; he had been talking upon the subject with Lionel Pomfret.

"It's the fault of the quality, Mother."

"What a tale!"

Alfred proceeded to explain. Although his brains worked slowly, and despite the lack of an adequate vocabulary, he could be trusted to repeat faithfully anything that had made a deep impression. He pointed out to Mrs. Yellam, in language she could understand, that the weak in mind and body were ever at the mercy of the strong. The quality, before the war, had been strong. They had exercised their strength, speaking generally, at the expense of the weak, fortifying their own impregnable position. The ma.s.ses, with rare exceptions, had submitted to imposed conditions. They struggled on in the gloom, groping here and there for illumination. Ill-educated, ill-fed, ill-clothed, they became gradually conscious that things might be better and could hardly be worse. It made precious little difference to them, poor Bezonians, under which king they lived or died. The real advantages of living under King George were patent to others, not to these unhappy prisoners in bondage to their taskmasters. Alfred informed his mother, in conclusion, that within the memory of living man children of tenderest years had been driven to work in deep coal-mines, half-starved and half-naked, and kept at work, under the lash, in rabbit-holes of pa.s.sages, because such work by warping their poor backs enabled them to get coal out of places where the straight-backed could not go. Conditions had changed for the better since those days, but not much, not nearly enough.

Mrs. Yellam was visibly impressed.

Alfred went on in his own quiet way:

"I've talked with such fellers in the trenches, Mother. You be sure of this: they ain't going back to slavery."

"Slavery, Alfred, in England!"

"There are slaves in Ocknell, to-day, Mother. Some pore devils had to be 'fetched.' They didn't know enough to get out of their hog-wallows. 'Tis rank slavery for a man to bring up wife and six little 'uns on fifteen bob a week."

"Anyways," replied Mrs. Yellam, tartly, "I don't hold wi' fur coats on the backs o' hussies whose mothers can't afford decent underlinen. And that minds me o' the advertis.e.m.e.nts in my paper. I fair blush to look at 'un. Pictures o' garments that I hangs up to dry out o' sight in my back yard."