The Soul of Susan Yellam Part 8

"Then he'll get her. A big strong feller like that feels wonnerful cuddlesome when he comes acrost they delicate, abstemious females. 'Tis as sartain as we be sitting here that he'll put the question in his own good time."

Mrs. Yellam sighed.

"We be on the skirts o' great happenings. If 'tis the Lard's Will, I have nothing to say."

CHAPTER IV

LE PAYS DU TENDRE

During the month that followed, Fancy was very happy. Time stands still for true lovers. Past and future seem immensely remote; the present, with its rosy hours, holds captive the happy prisoners. Alfred, it is true, had not yet put his fate to more than the touch. He had encircled a slender waist with a rea.s.suringly strong arm--no more. Being a Yellam and a carrier, he disdained haste. Fancy was well content to stroll arm in crook towards the altar. Indeed, upon more than one occasion she had checked Alfred when about to explode into speech. Behind this procrastination lay a maiden's quickening sense of the pa.s.sion she had provoked. Men whom she regarded as "devils" had accused her of being prim and cold. She happened to be neither, but it delighted her to think that she inspired restraint in her lover, that he treated her with a delicacy less rare in big strong men than is generally supposed. His dry humour appealed to her, and the rude Doric of this remote Wilts.h.i.+re village brought many a smile to lips that grew redder as kissing-time drew near. As yet Alfred had not kissed her, although he had kissed the _others_ many times. She gleaned this information from her fellow-maids, who were very sympathetic and, apparently, more impatient for a satisfactory consummation than the protagonists themselves.

Meanwhile, Alfred was learning how to drive a motor, and becoming acquainted, very slowly but surely, with the "insides" of the great beast. Already he regarded it as human, and of the same s.e.x as Fancy. He would say:

"She was ramping and roaring yesterday afternoon and spitting black smoke at me. But when I coax her, she purrs sweet as any p.u.s.s.y-cat."

Lively chaff was exchanged between the lovers upon fortunes told by real ladies, which turned out wrong. Fancy, however, still pinned her faith to an old pack of cards in her possession, and to appease her Alfred began to speak of himself as a soldier. When Fancy confided this to Molly, she said maliciously: "Soldier, eh? Well, he ain't one o' the 'onward' sort, is he?" Fancy divined that Alfred would speak when the motor-'bus was delivered; and there were moments when she asked herself anxiously which of the two "hers" he loved the better.

Toward the end of July, her mind was set at rest upon this point. After the first walk to the downs, Alfred discovered that Fancy tired easily, although her alert little mind remained active and indefatigable. His own brains moved slowly; frequently he was unable to follow the maid's divagations and speculations. For example, he had asked her soberly what she intended to mean by the expression a "poor soul," an expression used by him in an entirely different sense.

"You came nigh upsetting Mother," he told her. "Dang me, if she didn't think 'twas a biff at her."

"I meant a lean soul."

"Whatever may that be, dear?"

Always, when these problems presented themselves for solution, Fancy would hesitate and blush a little, which hugely delighted Alfred, who set himself the pleasant task of framing questions during his drives to and from Salisbury to be answered on the next Sunday.

Having taken time to collect her powers of speech, Fancy said solemnly:

"Some rich people as well as poor have lean souls."

"Rich people? Do you know any rich people?"

"No, but David says so."

"David? You don't mean David Mucklow? He's a pore soul, sure enough."

"I was speaking of King David, who wrote the Psalms. When people's bodies wax fat with riches, their souls grow lean."

Alfred nodded, feeling slightly uncomfortable. He weighed an honest fifteen stone.

"Ah-h-h! They wax so fat that they stick in the Narrer Gate?"

"Yes; I suppose so."

Alfred considered this, frowning. Then his face brightened.

"I see you slipping through that Gate like a lozenge."

"Oh, please don't say that! 'Tis a figure of speech, Mr. Yellam. Thin people may have lean souls. I sometimes think that my soul is lean, when I lie awake thinking of--of----"

"Of what, dear?"

"Of myself, and what I want for myself."

"What do you want?"

"Lots and lots of things."

She evaded further questions, arousing a keener curiosity. Her elusiveness frightened him. He couldn't understand anybody lying awake after an honest day's toil. He tried to picture her lying sleepless, with her luminous eyes gazing into the darkness. Did she think of him?

Did she really want him as he wanted her? The mere thought of her frail little body aroused a strange reverence. His mother was right. A puff of wind would blow her out of parish, blow her out of sight, blow her bang through the Narrow Gate. And feeling this, with the stabbing, ever-recurring reflection that she was the least fleshly of mortal women whom he knew, he would not willingly have added half a cubit to her stature or half a pound to her weight. In his eyes, she was just right.

Upon a never-to-be-forgotten Sunday, much rain had fallen. Fancy, who, like most servants, wore too thin shoes, perpetrated a mild joke:

"'Twill be dryer on the river than on land, Alfred."

For some time they had called each other by their Christian names.

"You're right, Fancy."

The motor-'bus, gloriously red-and-yellow, s.h.i.+ning like a sunset, had been brought homealong the night before. Alfred shewed it to Fancy, expatiating upon its superlative merits and beauties till Fancy's jealousy was kindled afresh. Oddly enough, urban though the girl was and advanced in her ideas, she felt as Mrs. Yellam did about machinery.

Whirring wheels and roarings and rampings aroused queer qualms in her.

Alfred took out the heavy silver watch which had belonged to his father, and balanced it on the radiator. Then he proceeded to "race" the engine, although he had been advised not to do so. The watch never quivered, but Fancy did. She put her hands to her small ears, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:

"O-h-h!"

"What's the matter?"

When the engine was purring gently, Fancy confessed that noise upset her. Pistols, for example, discharged suddenly in places of entertainment, made her jump. Alfred said derisively:

"What a rare wife for a soldier!"

"I thought 'twas going to explode, yes, I did."

"Not she. 'Tis a beautiful 'bus, and, maybe, she'll carry me and mine"--he glanced at her now pensive face--"to fame and fortune."

With this hope animating his heart and voice, Alfred spoke at length, and with impressive deliberation, mapping out a golden future. Already he had made arrangements to transport pa.s.sengers to Salisbury, likely boys and girls anxious to attend the High School. He predicted an ever-increasing traffic and the almost immediate necessity of running two 'buses and engaging an a.s.sistant.

"Maybe such a job would suit a young woman I know, Miss Fancy Broomfield."

Fancy hastened to a.s.sure him that such ambitions soared high above her disabilities. Alfred continued, waxing very eloquent, letting loose amazing phrases, setting forth prospects which must please and allure his listener, talking at her so persistently that Fancy became frightened.

"Alfred," she said, entreatingly, "don't make so sure of things."