CHAPTER XIII

FANCY CONSULTS THE CARDS

On the following Sunday, Mrs. Yellam's pew was empty again, conspicuously so, in the eyes of Hamlin. After luncheon he said to Fancy:

"Is Mrs. Yellam ill?"

"No, sir."

Hamlin guessed what had happened.

"No news is good news, Fancy."

"That's what the men say, sir. It ain't a mort of comfort to us women."

She looked very white, with dark, heavy lines beneath her eyes. Hamlin said a few encouraging words to which she listened attentively, nodding her head. Hamlin felt reassured. Fancy was unhappy, but she didn't despair. Before she left the study, she said slowly:

"I believe as Alfred will come back."

To the solicitude and sympathy of neighbours Mrs. Yellam exhibited a frigid indifference.

"I be just as well as never was," she remarked, when they enquired after her own health. "Time enough for such as me to fall sick if my Alferd don't come back."

No further news had reached her. To Jane Mucklow, now the village optimist, with George at home on leave for Christmas, Mrs. Yellam spoke with some bitterness. Jane meant well; her sympathy was sincere, but how could she, so high in Divine favour, understand? Nothing could shake Susan's conviction that Alfred lay somewhere in France, mortally wounded, whilst William Saint, the hypocrite and rascal, knelt among the Communicants. To kneel with him, feeling as she did, would be, in her opinion, an act of sacrilege. She reflected miserably that, since confirmation, she had never missed a Christmas Celebration of the Eucharist.

On the Monday, Hamlin came to visit her as parish priest. He had carefully considered what he should say. The faith that burned within this strong man had been a plant of slow growth, watered by suffering, pruned by constant self-analysis, and yet, in its essence, the faith of a child, a faith independent of dogma, soaring high above technicalities, resting securely upon a belief in ultimate good. He could not disguise from himself that the Churches--all of them--had crippled expectation. There had been no renascence, no uplifting movement, no real enthusiasm. Political considerations and expediencies kept the Vatican silent when a voice, thundering as from Sinai, might have awakened millions to a realisation of the issues at stake. The Church of England and the Nonconformists remained almost as stagnant, content, for the most part, with the well-oiled grooves, waiting for and watching Temporal Power, unable or unwilling to take the lead, to speak definitely, to act decisively. With rare exceptions, the gospel of Love had not been authoritatively used to vanquish the gospel of Hate. Hamlin, need it be said? was no sentimentalist. He believed with Woodrow Wilson that Prussian militarism must be wiped out. He did not believe with Wilson that the German nation, as a whole, could be exonerated from blame. Available evidence justified a different conclusion. Lust for world-dominion, regardless of consequence, animated and fortified the Central Powers because popular opinion lay behind them, unanimous save for a negligible minority. Non-resistance to a catastrophic policy of aggression, so potent, so meticulously organised threatened not only Christianity but civilisation. To turn the cheek to these smiting Huns was an unthinkable proposition to Hamlin. Nor could he find in the New Testament any injunction of the Master which could be twisted into a golden rule to be applied to States and nationalities. Christ dealt with individuals, preaching and practising the power of love as between man and man, not as between man and mankind. No text that Hamlin could find would justify forbearance towards a nation determined to inflict "Shrecklichkeit" upon the human race. On this point his mind was perfectly clear.

It was not yet, however, so clear upon issues still to be determined, such as "After the War" problems. He could not measure the stride about to be taken, provided militarism was crushed. He wondered constantly, with ever-increasing apprehension, whether love would triumph in the end, as he prayed that it might, creating a new world concerned with the happiness of the many, a world purged of the old insensate vanities and acrimonies.

Mrs. Yellam received him, as usual, a shade more formally, perhaps, with a slight tightening of her lips. Hamlin began as the personal friend of long standing, assuring the mother that her son, in all probability, was not severely wounded, that good news might be expected shortly, that very soon Alfred might be with her, out of the danger zone for a season, and able to give attention to his business. But he perceived that he was wasting words and time. She listened respectfully, saying nothing. He guessed what ebullitions of feeling were suppressed. He had been tormented by her anxieties, by her doubts. The loss of his wife had been irreparable. And when his daughter left him alone in the Vicarage, with nothing to engross him but his work, an odd distaste of life had assailed him, a slackness which he fought tooth and nail. Till then he had hardly known fatigue, as it is known to all women, that dull apathy more mental than physical which questions means and ends, exaggerating the difficulties of the former and minimising the latter, an apathy continually whispering the sad words: _cui bono_? He knew how hard Mrs. Yellam had worked for her husband, her children, and in particular for Alfred. During the last ten years all ambition, all energies had been concentrated upon him alone. She had made unconsciously, a God of him.

Hamlin rose up to deliver his message. Mrs. Yellam rose with him.

"I missed you in church yesterday, and on Christmas Day."

"One old 'ooman can't be missed, sir."

His eyes not his voice softened.

"You are mistaken, Mrs. Yellam. A woman of your character in this parish is missed--more than you think, perhaps."

"If Alferd comes back, you'll see me in my pew again."

"You have made that rash bargain with your God?"

She said defiantly:

"How do I know as He is my God? The Kayser claims Him."

Hamlin gazed keenly at her.

"If--if I left the matter there, Mrs. Yellam, in the firm hope and belief that God's way, inscrutable as they may appear to us when all our energies are at a low ebb, will in His time be made manifest, may I not ask you, as your parish priest, to consider the example to others, the many, possibly, who are wavering in faith as you are?"

"Fancy Broomfield bid me think of that."

"Did she? Poor girl, she is distracted with anxiety, like you. But her faith sustains her. Have you thought of what Fancy told you?"

She answered him slowly, weighing her words:

"My faith be gone, sir. It may come back wi' Alferd. And feeling so bitter as I do about William Saint, who be stealing my boy's business, who be letting others fight for him, and making a fortin for hisself, can I kneel at God's Table?"

"No."

"What be I to do? Go to church, a whited sepulchre, and pretend that I be a Christian 'ooman? Do 'ee ask me to do that for sake of others?"

Hamlin remained silent. She continued, more calmly:

"I can't bring myself to go church along, although I'd be pleased to oblige you, sir."

"It is no question of obliging me, Mrs. Yellam. Aren't you adding to your heavy burden instead of sharing it with One Who laid it upon you and Who alone can lighten it?"

Grievously she shook her head. Hamlin took his leave. As he walked away, he muttered to himself: "Civil War--devastating Civil War raging in that poor old heart."

He returned to the Vicarage with his mind dwelling upon the eternal conflict, a conflict accentuated by the world-war, because its issues seemed to enrich or impoverish everybody. By it, without a doubt, Susan Yellam had been impoverished. He himself was conscious of enrichment. But--he had not lost a son. He had five children.

After tea Fancy cycled down, as usual, to the Yellam cottage. Solomon received her boisterously. She made sure that good news awaited her. A glance at Mrs. Yellam's set face put to flight her hopes. No news had come. Mrs. Yellam greeted the girl perfunctorily, and then said sharply:

"Have you brought 'em?"

"Yes," said Fancy.

She took from a small hand-bag a much-used pack of cards. Mrs. Yellam had cleared a space upon the kitchen-table.

"Set 'em out," she commanded.

Fancy sat down, and began to shuffle the pack. Hamlin would have smiled sorrowfully, had he seen Mrs. Yellam's intent face as the girl's slim fingers dealt out the cards. So it had come to this. Rejecting the faith of sixty years, this poor old woman asked for hope and happiness from a fortuitous arrangement of bits of painted pasteboard! Comedy upon the underlying tragedy. Hamlin knew, of course, that astrologers, mediums, crystal-gazers and the like were doing a roaring trade.

Mrs. Yellam, let it be noted, asked Fancy to bring the cards. Protest had quivered upon Fancy's lips and stayed there.

"Well?"

"It is well, Mother. Alfred will come back. This makes the third time; and, do you know, when I rode up Sol barked and wagged his tail."

"Did he? The dog be full o' fun now."

Fancy went down on her knees; Sol barked at her, and then began to race round the room, playing what Fancy called "mad dog." He ended by leaping, panting, into Mrs. Yellam's lap.

"I believe he knows something, Fancy."

"I'm sure he does. Would he carry on like that if--if Alfred was real bad?"

Thus each woman, in her artless way, consoled the other.

Upon the Tuesday, details reached Mrs. Yellam. Alfred had been shot in the arm; the bone was badly broken; his destination was Netley.

Strings were pulled by Sir Geoffrey. Before the week was out Alfred arrived at Pomfret Court. He looked much the same, not quite so rubicund; he carried his left arm in a sling. Upon the following Sunday, Mrs. Yellam appeared in her pew, and the fervour of her responses excited some comment.

She said to Fancy:

"The cards told true. Now, the sooner you and Alferd becomes man and wife the better."

The doctor, who visited Pomfret Court daily, raised no objections. Alfred's arm would keep him in Nether-Applewhite for many weeks, because small splinters, from time to time, would have to be extracted, a tedious process. Mrs. Yellam, when she heard this, said with twinkling eyes:

"Alfred, dear, why didn't you get wounded in both arms?"

To which Alfred replied slily:

"I kept my right arm, Mother, to slip round Fancy's waist."

He told many stories to which Fancy and Mrs. Yellam listened entranced, and he spoke of the enemy with respect and without rancour. Upon one occasion, as his battalion moved into the trenches, a German had shouted out in excellent English:

"Be you the Wiltsheers?"

A reply in the affirmative provoked a request for "pozzy" (jam). But a tall sergeant, who stood up to hurl a can of preserve into the German trench, was shot dead. This aroused tremendous wrath, as quickly allayed when the same voice shouted again, asking if the sergeant who threw the jam had been hurt. He was soon satisfied on that point, and, immediately, a hubbub arose in the enemy trench, and a shot was heard. Soon afterwards the Wiltshires learnt from the lips of the first speaker that the man who treacherously slew the sergeant had been "done in."

"They ain't all bad," said Alfred.

To Mrs. Yellam's amazement, her son merely laughed when she told him of Willum Saint's activities.

"'Tis life, Mother. Down river, if a trout's caught behind an old stump, another takes his pitch before night."

Mrs. Yellam, however, noted with satisfaction that although Alfred was incapacitated from driving his motor-'bus, the business, since his arrival in Nether-Applewhite, had leaped ahead again with a renewed impetus. William Saint looked sour.

Fancy bought her modest trousseau, and, incidentally, put on several pounds in weight. The weather happened to be bitter, but she never felt cold when walking out with Alfred. He spoke with enthusiasm of his officers:

"They're fine gentlemen, Fancy. And those in the ranks are finest of all." Then he told her a story about two men in a London regiment, both privates and chums. One was an East-ender; the father of the other owned a house in Park Lane. The Cockney asked his chum if he had ever visited Whitechapel. The other remembered that he had bought a bull-terrier from a fancier in the Mile End Road. He remembered, also, that he had been handsomely "done" over the deal. After a pause, the Cockney said with a grin: "I sold you that dawg, Algy. What a mug you was then!"

But Fancy remarked one amazing change in her lover. He never spoke of the future. His enjoyment of the present was unmistakable. This abstention from a topic which formerly had engrossed him became more and more significant. The girl realised what Alfred had been through, although, unlike most of the wounded men at the Court, he recited no "horrors." Gradually, too, she perceived a change in his face: he had "fined down"; his eyes were more alert, with a curiously steadfast expression. She had never talked with him about religion. That was taken for granted, and might be summed up as a cut-and-dried sense of certain obligations such as church-going, honourable dealings with neighbours, loyalty to the Sovereign, and sobriety of conduct. He knew nothing about the empty pew.

"Mother took my going awful hard. Did she talk to you about it?"

Fancy told him what had taken place. Alfred held his tongue till she had finished.

"Thought she'd lost her soul, did she? Poor dear!"

"William Saint doing so well and cutting into your business worried her dreadful. I think it worries her still that you takes it so easy."

Alfred meditated upon this. When he answered her, he conveyed to her mind an extraordinary sense of detachment, as if he, the strong man, so enterprising as a carrier, so alert for "orders," had become suddenly an onlooker at the game of life. Perhaps surroundings lent themselves to this impression. They had climbed slowly to the high downs, and were standing near a noted landmark, a small tower known as the Pepper Box. A sharp frost had silvered the downs. The air was very still. Upon each side of them stretched the uplands, melting into distant woods. No animals were to be seen, not a sheep, not a bird. They seemed to stand alone in a beautiful, deserted world.

"I suppose," he said, "that 'tis like this. Before the war, I might have felt different towards William Saint. And after the war, Fancy, if I'm here, I shall try hard to get back my own again. But to-day I'm thinking of peace. Fed-up with war I am. I want to live quiet with you and Mother. I talked a lot of foolishness once about making big money. You didn't cotton much to the notion. Maybe you feared it would take me away from you?"

"I did."

"Well, maybe it would. Money drives some folks apart, and the want of it brings 'em together. And, out there, plotting and planning seems silly, because one may be--'next.'"

She clutched his arm. He smiled at her, continuing slowly:

"'Tain't so terrible a thought. Most of us fears pain more'n death. I see more frightened folks in Nether-Applewhite than in the dug outs. Queer thoughts have come to me, my maid, since we two parted."

"Tell them to me, Alfie."

"'Tisn't easy unless a man has the gift of words. Times, especially at night, when an attack is expected I've lain still as a dormouse, thinking that 'twas unreal, a dream like, and that soon I should wake up and find myself somewhere else."

"I often feel just that way."

"Ah-h-h! Another queer notion is this: the best seem to go first, Fancy; some of the young officers. Why? I figure it out that death is a big prize to such. It does explain things a bit, don't it? They get their reward---quick! And then I set to figuring who is best. God Almighty knows. One feller in my platoon, before I got my stripes, was a right-down scallywag, a gaol-bird."

"My!"

"'Twas his notion about death being a prize for the lucky ones. And he told me that he loved to think how bad he'd been, because he reckoned himself safe, sure to be one of the last to be called. Next week, he was blown to a pulp, except his face, and on that was the queerest smile I ever saw. I helped to carry in what was left."

She clung closer to him. He said in his ordinary genial tones:

"I feel myself again in Blighty, dear. But I want no unpleasantness with William Saint or any one else. I think, night and day, of you, soon to be my dear wife."

Love-making rolled on smoothly, as before the war.

But what Alfred had said remained in Fancy's mind. It explained much that had puzzled her ever since she was able to think: her father's ill-health and ill-fortune, her mother's premature death, and the big casualty-lists. If life was a dream--! If reality lay beyond--! Then all the mysteries, the inequalities, the apparent injustices, could be explained. Such an explanation is old as human thought. It can be found in the Vedas, in the Bible, in the writings of the Gnostics, in some of the pagan and modern philosophies. Fancy, however, was neither concerned nor interested in speculations veiled in words she could not understand. Alfred's queer notions were his and hers, rushlights shining in the darkness. But terror touched her heart, when she applied the obvious conclusion to herself. If the best were taken, why then Alfred would be numbered amongst them.

As her wedding-day approached, this apprehension grew fainter and then disappeared for a time. She resolved to live in the present, not in the shadows of past or future. Such resolution has been a fairy godmother's gift to young women in Fancy's class of life. They turn their eyes gratefully to the sun whenever it shines upon them.

She had never been so happy before.

It was arranged that part of the honeymoon should be spent in London. After three days' sight-seeing, the pair would return to Mrs. Yellam's cottage. Alfred bestowed upon Fancy a black fur stole and muff, a wrist-watch, and a pair of silver-backed hair-brushes.

She placed these oblations upon a chair near her bed, so that her eyes could gloat upon them the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning.

Sergeant George Mucklow, V. C., promised to act as best man.

Mrs. Yellam was nearly as happy as Fancy. One fly settled in her ointment. Conscription had become the law of the land. But the local tribunal exempted William Saint. Uncle predicted that he would be called up later. Jane, of course, contradicted this on general principles. With Mrs. Yellam she believed that Satan would take good care of his own.

The men at Pomfret Court gave a sing-song in Alfred's honour upon the afternoon before he left them. Fancy sat beside the bridegroom-elect amongst the quality. She liked one new song so much that she clapped her hands and called out "Encore" before anybody else. The chorus of that song is now known to every English-speaking soldier in the world.

There's a long, long trail a-winding Into the land of my dreams; Where the nightingales are singing, And a white moon beams. There's a long, long night of waiting Until my dreams all come true; Till the day when I'll be going down That long, long trail with you.

Her dreams had come true; the night of waiting was past.