CHAPTER XIV

HYMENEAL

They were married from Mr. Broomfield's house in Salisbury, and, before returning to Nether-Applewhite, Mrs. Yellam reconsidered her opinion of Fancy's father. He was more than half a man. Call him three-quarters at least. The other quarter was woman. Fancy always affirmed that her sire had played mother to her. Mrs. Yellam, after some intimate conversation with Mr. Broomfield, believed this to be true. It seemed odd to think of a farrier--the brawny blacksmith of the village chestnut-tree--helping to undress dolls and smacking them when they misbehaved themselves. But Mr. Broomfield was not brawny. He had Fancy's pale face and large, luminous eyes. He talked about books, not storybooks, which Susan Yellam disdained as "rubbishy truck," but solid, respectable treatises dealing with subjects far beyond Susan's ken, such as the better housing of the poor, communal kitchens, and a more equable wage for the working-man. About such talk hung a flavour of Radicalism, a whiff of Socialism. Mrs. Yellam gasped for breath when Mr. Broomfield "blasphemiously" labelled Christ as Socialist. As a set-off, the man actually believed in fairies! Mrs. Yellam had never met his like. But she admitted somewhat grudgingly his charm as a companion. He attended Divine Worship, regularly, observed the Sabbath, and spoke with enthusiasm of the cathedral. He could laugh at his own mild jokes. Through him, Mrs. Yellam came to a subtler understanding of her daughter-in-law. She accepted Fancy, so she informed Mr. Broomfield, as a daughter, saying trenchantly: "No 'in-laws' for me." But she ceased to regard her as a child. Fancy's artless ways, she decided, were on the surface. Beneath might be found, by a diligent delver, a remarkable little woman, sensible, very affectionate, but queer, like her father. Mr. Broomfield, apparently, could enjoy a joke against himself. Susan, with a very limited sense of humour, was incapable of such a feat. Speaking of motors, Mr. Broomfield said whimsically:

"What I've lost over 'em, Mrs. Yellam, seems to have been picked up by Alfred. So--no complaints! Good money remains in the family."

To Susan this cheerful acceptance of bludgeonings indicated Christian resignation rather than humour. She told the farrier forthwith all about William Saint--the "Proosian." Mr. Broomfield listened sympathetically. He perceived that Mrs. Yellam was disappointed because Alfred had not "man-handled" a rascal and hypocrite, but he said with an odd chuckle:

"That makes things harder for this Saint, don't it?"

"I begs your pardon, Mr. Broomfield--whatever does you mean?"

She thought for the moment that he was as light in head as in body. Fancy's father went on chuckling:

"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 Saturday 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 shore, after many buffetings, she put from her disagreeable memories of billows past.

Fancy and Alfred returned from London town full of high spirits and overbrimming 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 pass 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 analysis. Her naive 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 butter 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 peacocking 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--Hell! She envisaged as Hell 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 entitled 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 masses, 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 passages, 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 advertisements 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."

Alfred laughed loudly.

"It always seemed to me as if you women hid the things you were ashamed of. The pretty frillies flutter in the wind, where all can see 'em, and envy 'em. Nether-Applewhite knew when Rose Mucklow took to nighties trimmed with real Val."

Mrs. Yellam sighed, admitting frankly that she couldn't keep in step with the times. Alfred, conscious, possibly, that some of his mother's shafts were aimed at him, said tentatively:

"Are you miffed because I gave Fancy a fur muff and stole?"

"I don't know as I bain't. A wise man, my son, puts money in bank, not on back."

"I see you putting your savings into stockings. Blame the war, Mother, not me. I aimed to make Fancy happy, and to see her smile, whilst I'm here to see it. We're both hay-making in these March winds."

Mrs. Yellam surrendered.

What Alfred said remained in her ample mind, to be considered carefully at leisure. She abhorred extravagance. But, in March, she might have bought a warm muff for herself, had she been told by her doctor that she would die before June. Insensibly she adopted part of Alfred's new philosophy. She set before bride and groom the best plain food procurable; she piled logs on the open hearth; she put the two coffin-stools into a cupboard.

And she read her Bible diligently, believing devoutly that she was basking in heavenly sunshine.

The six weeks raced by, but Alfred's arm mended less rapidly. He was given three weeks' more leave. His business had picked up wonderfully ever since he was able to bestow upon it personal attention. Perhaps William Saint withdrew tentacles, waiting for better opportunities later on. Alfred didn't drive his 'bus, but he whipped up old customers, chaffing them pleasantly, avoiding reproaches. All the women liked his manners, which were easy without being too free. Fancy felt jealous at times, and couldn't hide it: a tribute to love which Alfred accepted in the right spirit.

"I couldn't be unfaithful to you, if I tried," he whispered to her. "I love you so dearly that my heart warms to all females. I could kiss the ugliest just because you're my sweet wife."

"Oh, Alfie, I couldn't bear that."

He never left home without finding her on his return hovering about the wicket-gate, waving her hand as he appeared round the bend of the road, and hurrying to meet him with outstretched arms. Those spoke eloquently of the suffering which approaching separation must impose. Each refrained from mention of France.

Alfred hoped that she would have something to console her, something intimately his and hers, when he went back to the front. From the first, husband and wife had discussed the possibility of children.

"Are you afraid?" he asked, thinking of her mother.

"Yes."

"Ah-h-h. I'm not surprised to hear that."

"I want to whisper something, Alfie."

He inclined his head. She kissed his ear, murmuring:

"I _am_ afraid--afraid it mayn't come. That's the only fear I have."

He was profoundly moved, sensible that his feelings were the more tender because, before the war, he would have accepted paternity and all it implied as an ordinary happening. Till he had suffered himself--his wound had caused him intense pain--he had never thought of what women endure every time a child is born into the world.

"What a brave dear you are!"

She whispered again:

"Would you like a He or a She?"

Alfred insisted that first choice lay with her.

"I want a boy."

"I believe I should love a lil' maid best."

"Better than you love me, maybe?"

Having answered this in his own way, Alfred said abruptly:

"If 'tis a maid, you must call her Lizzie. 'Twill please Mother. I can see the child traipsin' after her."

Fancy said doubtfully:

"Lizzie ain't a pretty name, Alfie. I thought of Alfreda--Freda for short."

"Been thinking of that already, have you? Let it be Lizzie, Fancy. Promise me, dear!"

She promised, and then laughed gaily:

"Ain't we counting our chicks before they're hatched?"

"We might be worse employed."

"And if one comes, Alfie, I know 'twill be a big baby boy."

"You have it your own way. I allow it concerns you more'n me."

April was nearly over before Alfred went back. He might have been transferred to his depot, following the example of the hero. Sir Geoffrey was quite willing to pull more strings, and hinted as much to Sergeant Yellam. Alfred refused the kind offer, pledging the Squire to secrecy. Something he couldn't define, some dominating, irresistible impulse drew him to his own men. He admitted to the Squire that he was sorely tempted.

"I know my job, Sir Geoffrey. And I know how bad we are wanted."

Upon the eve of departure Fancy told him that she hoped, she believed, she was almost sure that the wish of both their hearts would be granted. If he got Yuletide leave, he might be in time for a christening.

Mother and wife travelled to Southampton to speed the Sergeant on his way. No tears were shed till his broad back was turned on them at the dock-gates. They were spared that heart-twisting spectacle, the slow warping from the wharf of a great transport, the strains of "The Girl he left behind Him," the long line of faces packed close above the bulwarks, the interminable wait till the ship became a blur upon the waters.

In silence they returned by train to Salisbury, sitting side by side, gripping each other's hands. A drizzle of rain obscured the landscape. Fancy told herself that sunshine would have been hard to bear. Capricious Nature seemed to be mourning with her, dropping soft tears upon a past four months so enchanting that they seemed, to-day, unreal, a mirage, too beautiful to be seen again. But Spring laughs through her showers. Before Nether-Applewhite was reached, the sun shone below the clouds, setting in a blaze of crimson splendour. Solomon greeted the women joyously; in the water meadows the Squire's black-and-white Frisian-Holsteins were grazing quietly; now and again Fancy heard the bleat of a calf. The plaintive cry seemed to turn her from a girl into a woman. She realised that never again could she be the girl of yesterday. Alfred would kiss a matron when he returned.

After supper, when things were washed up, and Mrs. Yellam had taken up her sewing, Fancy disappeared for a moment, returning with her pack of cards. Mrs. Yellam made no comment at first, but she fidgeted in her armchair. As Fancy shuffled the pack, she said quietly:

"Don't, dear!"

"I must, Mother. They told true before."

"Very well."

Resolutely she turned her eyes to her needle, not daring to look at Fancy's face. She found herself wondering whether Fancy would be tempted to cheat, to shuffle back some card of ill-omen. After an eternity of suspense, she heard Fancy's clear voice:

"It's quite all right. He's coming back."

Mrs. Yellam laid down her sewing, and rose majestically. In a small cupboard, a special sanctuary to the right of the hearth, she kept some home-made cordials: mead, currant wine, and ginger-brandy. Upon very special occasions she would produce such strong waters, and drink one small glass, not more. Her feelings might be gauged by the cordial selected. Mead was well enough after village christenings and churchings; the currant wine was stronger tipple, and very heartening after a wedding. The ginger-brandy warmed bodies chilled by winter funerals.

She took down the currant wine, and fetched two glasses. Having filled them to the brim, she gave one to Fancy and held up the other.

"Alferd."

They clinked glasses and drank, very solemnly. Mrs. Yellam replaced the bottle of wine and washed the glasses. Returning to her chair, she perceived that Fancy was re-shuffling the cards.

"Leave well alone, child."

"I want to try something else."

"What, you queer creature?"

"I'm wondering whether IT will be a He or a She?"

"What notions you has, to be sure!"

Fancy laughed and dealt on. Mrs. Yellam sat down, looking into the smouldering embers, seeing, possibly, the shadowy forms of the children she had lost. The wooden cradle which had rocked them to sleep stood in its place to the left of the fireplace--full of logs. It would serve for Fancy's child, for her own grandchild. And upstairs, in an old chest of drawers, lay some little things, tiny shifts and frocks with lavender between them. Once, in a moment of dull despair, she had resolved to burn them. A kindlier thought had urged her to give them, away. She had put that thought from her frowningly. How deeply the gain of others magnifies and distorts our own loss! Happy instinct must have constrained her to keep these garments made by her own hands, although at the time she never recked that they might be worn, so long afterwards, by flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone.

"Mother...."

"Ah-h-h! You've settled the affair, have 'ee?"

"Yes. 'Tis a boy--another Alfred. Ain't you glad?"

"I be ready to welcome any babe, boy or girl, as belongs to Alferd--and you."

Solomon, dreaming blissfully of rats, woke up and wagged his tail.