The Soul of Susan Yellam Part 43

Mrs. Yellam never forgot this date. Word came to her some days later. On the fifteenth of December, a night attack was made upon German trenches, an affair of small importance, not even mentioned in the papers. When the men returned to their dug-outs, Sergeant Yellam was reported--_Missing_.

CHAPTER XVIII

MISSING!

Everybody a.s.sured Mrs. Yellam that Alfred had been taken prisoner. Uncle was doubtful whether any nephew of his could be taken prisoner, but he did not say this before his sister. The Squire, good fellow, spent time and money over telegrams to the Colonel commanding Alfred's battalion.

And the answer confirmed popular opinion that Alfred, by now, was in Germany, where prisoners of war--so Sir Geoffrey a.s.sured Mrs. Yellam, received more humane treatment. The dead and wounded, after the night attack, had been brought in. Alfred was not amongst them. And therefore a prisoner. His Colonel, without a word from Sir Geoffrey, expressed that as his positive belief.

Fancy, very white and anxious, hugged such belief to her small bosom.

She said to Mrs. Yellam:

"Alfred will come back."

Mrs. Yellam kissed her, muttering:

"Yes, yes. You be a brave lil' 'ooman."

But Susan Yellam was dissembling. Iron had entered her soul again, iron and ice. To Uncle and Solomon she admitted this.

"He be dead, Habakkuk. I knows it. They Proosians 'd never take Alferd alive. He be dead, and so be I."

Poor Uncle fell back upon fool-wisdom.

"Now, Susan, in these high matters, the truth be revealed to simple minds, like Fancy's. Me and you, dear, be too clever. I've often thought that gert brains, like yours, be a crool burden in such times as these.

You be too far-seein'. Fancy be wise as a bird. If she sticks to it as Alferd be comin' back, come back he will, whatever you thinks."

But Mrs. Yellam refused to be comforted.

Next Sunday her pew was empty. Many charitably a.s.signed this to Fancy's condition. Hamlin and Uncle knew better. And they took counsel together.

"Can anything be said or done, Uncle?" asked the Parson.

Uncle answered wisely:

"She be past man's help, sir. Me and you has seen this a-comin' from afar. The pore soul can guide herself so well as any 'ooman I knows, but she do hate to be guided. Allers, she walked wi' the Lard in health, but not in sickness. 'Tis wondersome, but it works t'other way about wi' me.

In health I seems to wander from the Lard, do what I will."

"I tried once before--and failed."

"Ah-h-h! You be a faithful shepherd, Mr. Hamlin; we all knows that. If you ask my advice, sir----"

"I do. I do."

"Leave her in the Lard's Hands. None can deny that she be a faithful servant o' His. He'll take pity on the pore dear in His good time."

Hamlin seldom asked for advice from his fellow-men. He nodded his head, shook Uncle's h.o.r.n.y hand, and went back to his study.

The great sacrifice demanded of him had strained his faith. n.o.body would ever know that. For a few hours he had sat alone, stunned by sorrow. He told himself fiercely that he could have spared any one of his sons except Teddy. The worldly ambitions which this man had renounced for himself bloomed more vigorously for Teddy. He had all the qualities which carry a young man far on any road: robust health, excellent brains, untiring energy, and a kind heart. His jolly laugh, as Hamlin knew, had secured him advancement, quite apart from his ability. Others had ability. The happy combination of laughter and energy had fetched four hundred a year in the open market. And Hamlin knew, none better, what such men are worth to the world, what a stimulus a cheery word and smile may be to the weary and sad. Why had Teddy been taken?

Ultimately, he answered that question.

He must be wanted elsewhere. Hamlin held definite opinions about a future life. He believed that death involved little change. He believed, further, that the conflict between good and evil went on upon the Other Side, that souls expanded or diminished over there just as here. Upon that belief he had built up his philosophy of life. It explained and justified apparent injustices and inequalities very perplexing to him as a young man. He believed, also, that good or evil inspired all human endeavour. The clay was informed by the spirit. Great writers, influencing millions, were merely the mouthpiece, the megaphone, of invisible spirits, guardian angels, to use the homely nursery expression, who whispered their message to the vessel appointed to receive it. n.o.body, for many years, had heard him praise enthusiastically an individual. He praised the work that each had been inspired to do. In Nether-Applewhite, there happened to be a village idiot, whose great lolling head and vacuous eyes excited terror in children and often revulsion in adults. And the man was past middle age, helpless and gibbering from birth. Hamlin never pa.s.sed him without reflecting that death would release an imprisoned soul destined, perhaps, to an undreamed-of development hereafter, the greater because it had been denied expression on earth. And, inversely, when he met, as he did occasionally, men pre-eminent in science, or art, or industry, he seemed to see clearly the man standing sharply apart from his work, often a very ordinary person, undistinguished save for the amazing fact that he had been selected, out of millions, to accomplish something vital to the progress of the world.

He had found Authority for this personal belief in the New Testament.

Hamlin sat still by his fire and thought of Mrs. Yellam. He desired to help her with an intensity which few would have suspected. Her empty pew, as before, stood out in his mind as a vacuum which he abhorred. Not because he was a parson. Churchgoing, in one sense, the sense in which William Saint regarded it, touched his humour. To go to church because it was respectable and pleased the Squire, to mumble prayers, to preserve a smug deportment, and rattle coins into an offertory plate, approximated closely to comic opera! Mrs. Yellam attended church to wors.h.i.+p her Maker. Her abstention from Divine Service indicated loss of faith, the most grievous loss that can be imposed upon human beings.

Faith filled Mrs. Yellam's pew; faithlessness emptied it. And if she, the strong woman, the helper in so many good works, stayed away from G.o.d's House, what would be the effect on the faith of others who looked up to her as a pattern and example?

His fighting instincts were strongly stirred. But Uncle was right. For the moment, Susan Yellam stood alone, beyond man's help.

He went to see her as a friend. As before, she received him with perfect self-possession, answered his questions quietly, and a.s.sured him that her own health caused her no anxiety. Hamlin thought of a chapel standing by itself upon a high hill near Abbotsbury, in perfect condition without, stripped within, an empty and deserted temple.

Presently Fancy came in, and Mrs. Yellam went out. After the first greeting, Fancy exclaimed eagerly:

"I know that Alfred will come back. I feel it here."

She touched her bosom.

He perceived, with poignant regret, the ravages wrought by suspense. But this, he soon discovered, was not due to apprehension concerning herself. She was worrying because Alfred would not get enough to eat.

She talked confidently of his escape from bondage. Alfred was a man of resource, quick to seize opportunity. Dozens had got through to Holland.

Why not he?

Then she spoke of the war. What did it all mean, this never-ending slaughter? Was G.o.d angry with the world?

Hamlin felt more at ease with this softer specimen of womanhood, who had served him faithfully. He admitted frankly, despite the evidence of the Old Testament, that he could not conceive of Omnipotence as "angry."

Then he appealed to her imagination, evoking out of his own hopes and hypotheses a new world of nations, linked together by a n.o.bler and wider humanity, poorer in material things, richer in faith and charity. He sketched for her prehistoric man concerned only with self-preservation.

He pa.s.sed from this ape-man to his successor informed by love of his own family. From him again to the chief concerned with the welfare of his tribe. And thence to the monarch and his nation.

"We must come, sooner or later, to Universal Brotherhood. That, I think, Fancy, may come sooner because of this war. The gain to those who are not yet born may be ten thousand times greater than our loss."

Her pale cheeks flushed.

"I'd like to think that." She paused, adding modestly: "Although my thoughts don't matter."

"But they do," he hastened to say. "This war is forcing people to think, who have never thought before. Perhaps we preachers and teachers have been unwise in asking others to accept our thoughts, instead of encouraging them to think for themselves. Don't be afraid of thinking things out. And when it comes to matters of religion, of faith...."

He paused, trying to find simple words, struck by the intensity of her glance, knowing that what he might say would be pondered over by a quick intelligence.

"Yes, sir----?"

"There would seem to be two kinds of faith, Fancy; the faith that falls like the dew from heaven upon some little children, a free gift from G.o.d; and the faith which we have to work for, and suffer for, and fight for with every fibre of our being. I have had to work for my faith; I have had to dig down and down till I came at last to some rock upon which I could stand. I could hardly bear the cruelty of these times, if I had not found that rock."

"What is that rock, sir?"

"A conviction that this life is only a part, a small part of a tremendous whole which our finite minds are unable to grasp. That conviction comes from experience. It is independent of what is called revealed religion, although it has been revealed by all religions, inasmuch as it must come from within to be of any real value and comfort. It must be worked for, as I say, and paid for. The reward, when that rock is reached, is very great."