The Soul of Susan Yellam Part 5

"Well, Jane, how be you?"

Mrs. Mucklow answered dolorously:

"I be no better than I was las' Sunday."

"That's bad."

"No, it ain't. I expected to be worse. Very soon I shall be lying along o' Mother. She suffered wi' her innards, pore soul, just as I do."

"She got comfort out of it, too, just as you do, dear. Sit you down, and let's hear the news."

Jane Mucklow sighed, and sat down. Unlike her sister-in-law, she strayed daily into the cottages of her neighbours, picking up gossip, and repeating it with embellishments of her own. As she removed white cotton gloves, she said sharply:

"I want your news first, Susan."

"But I haven't any, Jane; nothing, that is to say, which you don't well know already."

"Maybe. But I wanted it from your own lips."

"Bless the woman! Whatever do 'ee want?"

"What you prides yourself on giving--information. Don't sit there so genteel, and pretend to me that you don't know what your Alferd be up to this very minute!"

"I don't--and nor do you."

"Yas, I do. Your Alferd was over to Vicarage las' Sunday. To-day, he's traipsin' the Park with Miss Fancy Broomfield."

From her p.r.o.nunciation of the name, it was quite evident that the young person in question was not what diplomats call _gratissima_ to Mrs.

Mucklow. And the sniff that followed was aggressive. Mrs. Yellam poured out a large cup of tea with an impa.s.sive face. Inwardly, she winced.

Alfred had kept his plans to himself, doing so, moreover, in accordance with advice well rubbed into him ever since he had affairs of his own to attend to. But a mother--and such a mother--might be deemed an exception to a golden rule. Mrs. Yellam said calmly:

"Is he? Who is your Rose walking out wi'?"

The question was ungrammatical and unkind. Rose, large, plain, and red-headed, sighed for swains who did not walk out with her. She might have been comfortably married to Alfred at this minute. The older families in Nether-Applewhite fancied intermarriage, much to the exasperation of Sir George Pomfret. And so far--the stock being exceptionally sound--no great evil had come of this. Within the year Prudence Rockley had married her first cousin. In Mrs. Mucklow's opinion marriages between near of kin were preferable to alliances with outsiders. Town girls, she regarded, not without reason, as hussies.

"My Rose be a good girl, and well you knows it."

"Maybe you have something agen this Fancy Broomfield? If so, Jane, out wi' it."

"Townbred girls be all alike."

Mrs. Yellam replied tranquilly:

"I bain't an upholder o' they, but I keep faith in my Alferd's good sense and judgment. He's walked out wi' a baker's dozen o' maids afore this 'un, and why not? I've allers told Alferd to pick an' choose."

Mrs. Mucklow attacked the b.u.t.tered toast almost viciously.

"'Tis true, I suppose, that his father's van ain't good enough for _your_ son?"

Inwardly Mrs. Yellam winced again. Alfred had made his decision "on his own." But she answered as tranquilly as before:

"Seemin'ly it ain't. G.o.d A'mighty knows what us be coming to, and He don't tell. As a Christian woman I bows afore Him."

Poor Mrs. Mucklow, continually contrasting the prosperity of Alfred with the ill-luck, as she deemed it, of her own three sons, sniffed again.

Not long since the three Mucklows had contemplated emigration to Canada.

They had been anch.o.r.ed in Nether-Applewhite by Mr. Fishpingle, sometime butler to Sir Geoffrey, now bailiff at the Home Farm. They happened to pursue avocations such as hurdling, spar-making, hedging and ditching, which were precariously dependent upon a demand that varied tremendously, a demand that, year by year, shewed inexorable signs of failing. And Mrs. Mucklow was uneasily conscious that her sons' ill luck was regarded by her sister-in-law as part of a Divine dispensation. In the same complacent spirit the good-luck of Alfred became, in Susan Yellam's eyes, a mark of Divine favour. It may be imagined how this rankled in the heart of a woman who held herself to be as good a Christian as her neighbours, and perhaps better. Mrs. Mucklow retorted tartly:

"You be allers shovin' your Christian feelin's down our throats, Susan.

But I say this--you ain't been tried as I hev."

Mrs. Yellam dealt with this drastically.

"I be thankful for G.o.d's mercies. I might be less thankful if so be as I mixed up my victuals as you do. Faith in A'mighty G.o.d have more to do wi' the stomach than most folks think on. As for being tried--I tend four graves in churchyard to your one."

Mrs. Mucklow's small beady eyes softened.

"Yas--you've had your sore trials, Susan. And the graves be a credit to 'ee. But I've said it afore, and I say it again, small fam'lies make for righteousness. Keepin' my childern in shoe-leather alone took a deal o'

saintliness out o' me. Be that cake?"

"I hopes so. Have a slice?"

"Your rich cake allers lies heavy on my pore stomach, but 'twould be ungenteel to refuse."

Mrs. Yellam cut a large slice. As Mrs. Mucklow consumed it, Mrs. Yellam said impressively:

"I'll tell 'ee something, Jane, as betwixt us two. I ain't one to brag unduly, and 'tis true that I be proud o' my Christian feelings. For why?

Because, long ago, I come mighty near to losing 'em."

Mrs. Mucklow gasped; a piece of cake stuck in her throat.

"I never did! Come near to losin' 'em, did 'ee?"

"Yas." Mrs. Yellam's voice became solemn. "When I buried my pore husband...."

"That was a rare funeral, Susan. Squire and my lady there, flowers from the Hall, a very moving set-out. Was I interrupting of 'ee?"

"You was, Jane, but never mind. As I laid my husband to rest, I says to myself: 'The Lard gave and the Lard ha' taken away.'"

"Very proper."

"The pore man suffered so bad with rheumatics that it seemed G.o.d's mercy to take 'un. He'd no pleasure in life onless he were talking of his aches and pains. And allers the misery o' telling me what he'd like to eat an' drink--and couldn't. That fair tore him, and me. He was a rare doer, like Alferd. When he was taken, I did not rebel."

Mrs. Mucklow was so interested that she suspended operations with the cake, awaiting the climax of an astounding tale, arrested by a strange expression upon her sister-in-law's face. The pupils of Mrs. Yellam's eyes seemed to contract; her lips became set. She continued very impressively:

"When my children died, 'twas different. Seemed to me like as if I was buryin' part o' myself. 'Twere bad enough when the two boys went, but when Lizzie sickened, my own lil' maid, why then, Jane, I did rebel."

"And no wonder!"

"I watched her slippin' away, and I says, 'No more churchgoin'.'"