CHAPTER XVIII

MISSING!

Everybody assured 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 assured 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 assigned 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 horny hand, and went back to his study.

The great sacrifice demanded of him had strained his faith. Nobody 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. Nobody, 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 passed 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 worship 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 God'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 assured 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 God 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 nobler and wider humanity, poorer in material things, richer in faith and charity. He sketched for her prehistoric man concerned only with self-preservation. He passed 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 God; 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."

"What is it, sir?"

"The peace that passes understanding. And now, Fancy, in the trial that awaits you, trust in that first faith of which I spoke, the faith that I am sure is yours. God knows what is best for us. We all try to make Him walk in our ways, instead of walking humbly in His."

She said shyly: "Thank you, sir; you have made things easier for me."

It was late when Hamlin left the Yellam cottage and bitterly cold. He walked to Pomfret Court, and found the Squire in his room. In that room hard words had passed between Squire and Parson. To-day they were friends, working together. And the marriage of their children did not adequately account for this. It was one of the unexpected results of the war.

"Dinner in five-and-twenty minutes," said Sir Geoffrey. "I'm delighted to see you, my dear fellow."

"I wish I could stop. I need your help."

The Squire rang the bell. When the butler came, dinner was postponed a quarter of an hour. Another straw to indicate a change in domestic currents. Before the war, dinner at Pomfret Court had been regarded as a sacred function, never postponed merely because the Parson wanted a word with the Squire.

"I want you to pull more strings," said Hamlin, after telling his story at some length. "You know swells at the Foreign Office. It must be possible to find out through some kind neutral at The Hague whether a prisoner of the name of Alfred Yellam was taken upon the night of the fifteenth. Very few prisoners have been taken lately; that would make the enquiry comparatively simple."

"I'll draw that cover to-morrow morning."

Hamlin thanked him and hurried away. The Squire was amazing. To travel to London in this bitter weather meant the sacrifice of what the genial Autocrat ranked high--comfort. He would go, like a terrier to a fox, straight to a Mandarin and bark at him, worry him, stick to him, till a pledge was extracted.

He thought of the trains congested by Christmas travel, the lack of porters and taxis. Obviously, the Squire recked nothing of this in his hot desire to do a kind turn to a humble neighbour.

Hamlin reflected that Christmas would be the cosier to the Autocrat after a cold excursion. He remembered hearing him say that he never appreciated his own fireside so much as after a bad day's hunting, when the wind blew chill from the north and hounds wouldn't run a yard.

Thoughts of hunting distracted the Parson as he strode back to his lonely Vicarage. What a master passion it was in everybody! The Squire hunted foxes in all weathers, regardless of weather conditions. Nothing stopped him but a hard frost. His Parson hunted men and women, a more arduous chase, hounding them out of covers where dirt, ignorance, poverty and vice hid them from view. A hard frost, such as had settled on Susan Yellam, stopped him. Others hunted fame, money, position, just as ardently. And a hard frost, like this war, stopped them.

When would the thaw set in for Mrs. Yellam?

Upon Christmas Eve Fancy's ordeal began.

Hamlin hoped and believed that tiny hands would melt the ice in an old woman's heart. Everybody knew that Susan Yellam loved children, and that her rather grim face inspired no terrors in them. She kept the large green bottle full of bull's-eyes, simply because it lured pattering feet to her door. If they trotted up too often, rebukes, not bull's-eyes, were forthcoming. A sure way to her favour, as little girls soon discovered, was to ask for a flower out of the garden. Farseeing women, over-busy on washing-days, popped torn pinafores onto their toddlers, knowing that Mrs. Yellam would be sure to take her needle and repair the damage. She could always be called upon to sit up with a sick child, provided--_bien entendu_--that she was permitted to administer her own simple medicines. Grateful mothers, with an eye upon further favours, would say to Mrs. Yellam in the presence of neighbours:

"Susan Yellam saved my Daisy's life."

And then Mrs. Yellam would nod majestically, accepting such artful homage as her just due.

To Mrs. Yellam's great relief, Fancy suffered less than she had feared and expected. Nature was kind to this soft-boned little woman, and chloroform assuaged the fiercer pangs. But the baby seemed loath to enter so cold a world. There were long and exasperating intermittencies, which Fancy endured very patiently. Throughout these periods, when Fancy wished to talk about Alfred, Mrs. Yellam dissembled. She even went so far, in her eagerness to please and distract the patient, that she accepted the sex of the tardy infant, speaking of it as "him," to Fancy's great gratification.

Finally, "He" was born at two o'clock upon Christmas Day.

And, alack! the cards had not told true. _He_ was a _She_.

Fancy did not know this for some time. Too exhausted to ask questions, she lay silent and still, a faint smile upon her white face, till she dozed off into a dreamless sleep.

In the parlour downstairs, where a fire had been lighted in the doctor's honour, Mrs. Yellam received another blow. There had been no complications in the case; the baby was perfectly formed and normal in every way. Nevertheless, the doctor looked worried and refused such refreshment as had been provided. Obviously, too, he was in a hurry to be gone, but he lingered.

"She is very weak," he said, in a low, impressive voice.

"That's natural."

"Keep her as quiet as possible. I shall return about ten. The nurse has my instructions. Great lack of vitality is indicated. Needless to say, there is no question of her nursing the child. You are a strong, sensible woman, Mrs. Yellam, and able to hide any anxiety you may feel from the patient."

The poor heart, just beginning to thaw, felt an icy hand closing about it.

"I know how to behave," she muttered.

"I must prepare you for a possible change--not for the better."

"Yes."

She spoke so calmly, that the doctor glanced at her keenly. Was she indifferent? It might be so. Relations, as he well knew, were often strained between elderly women of strong character and their sons' wives. He knew that Alfred had been reported missing. The monthly nurse might be regarded as a professional, like himself, willing and able to do her duty. More than this might be required. He reflected swiftly that he must make the situation even plainer to this somewhat hard-faced, hard-eyed woman.

"She might sink from anaemia, Mrs. Yellam."

"I understand, sir."

He slipped on his heavy coat, picked up hat and gloves and turned to leave the room. His motor was gently purring outside. Mrs. Yellam prided herself upon her manners. But she never moved to open the door, till the doctor had his hand upon it.

"Sir----?"

"Yes?"

She approached him. Her face remained calm, but he saw that her strong, capable hands were twitching. Her voice, too, quavered a little.

"She be very dear to me, so dear that I be ready to fight for her life harder than I would for my own. That's all."

The doctor, ashamed of too hasty conclusions, took both her hands in his.

"That is much," he said gravely; "and it may make all the difference. Good-night, Mrs. Yellam."

"Good-morning, sir," she admonished him.

Left alone, she sat down, palsied by despair.

And this was Christmas Day!

Upon the table, near the window, the big Bible caught her eye. She stared at it, thinking of the page upon which, soon, she might be called upon to make three entries--two deaths and one birth. Heavy antimacassars embellished the horsehair-covered sofa and the armchairs. Mrs. Yellam rose up, snatched three antimacassars from their abiding-place and covered the Bible with them. Then she sat down again, looking about her, glaring at the familiar objects, so eloquent of the past. Upon each side of a large mirror, with its gilt frame protected by muslin from flies that had never dared to enter the room, hung two enlarged photographs of herself and her husband, taken some five-and-twenty years ago. They seemed to stare unblushingly and aggressively at her, as if they were rude strangers overbrimming with self-importance, smug with prosperity.

"Fools," said Mrs. Yellam, scornfully.

She looked at the other photographs, each in turn, portraits of the children who lay in the churchyard.

"You be the lucky ones," she said, in the same derisive tone.

There were many photographs of Alfred in all stages of development: Alfred sucking his thumb with an expression upon his year-old countenance as if he were thinking regretfully of something more nourishing; Alfred in a much be-ribanded frock; Alfred in knickerbockers; Alfred in a kilt; Alfred in trowsers, evidently on good terms with himself and all the world; Alfred as he appeared in his Sunday best, about to take the air with an audacious parlourmaid; and, lastly, Alfred in khaki and Fancy, arm in crook.

She glanced hastily at other photographs, of Sir Geoffrey and Lady Pomfret and Master Lionel. They smiled so pleasantly that she frowned. How dared they smile?

She was not needed yet upstairs. So she sat on in the gate of her sorrows, alone in the valley of Achor.

She heard Solomon scratching at the door. She had left him asleep in his basket, always placed each night by the kitchen hearth. Mrs. Yellam let the dog scratch, but when he began whining she let him in, because Fancy might be disturbed, not because she wanted her dog.

Solomon looked at her, and knew.

He governed himself accordingly. Mrs. Yellam had returned to her chair. Solomon lay down at her feet. When she wanted to talk to him, she would do so. He kept one ear cocked for the first word.

During twenty minutes no word was said. The nurse was in charge of Fancy and the baby. Mrs. Yellam had looked forward to assisting at these first rites. The expected pleasure had turned into a grinding pain.

Fancy was going, drifting out of life. Probably her baby would not survive her many days. But she, the old woman, would remain. She gazed down the long perspective of the years to come, cold, dull days without one gleam of sunshine, full of inevitable pain.

"I can't bear it," she said aloud. "It be too much for me."

Solomon heard. He knew, of course, that the long-awaited words were not addressed to him, but they sounded a clarion note of distress.

He laid his head against her knee.

She looked at him, meeting his clear young eyes. They seemed to be full of interrogation.

"If you want to talk, why not talk to me instead of to yourself?"

She patted his head, and let her hand rest upon it. According to Uncle, fool-wisdom in dogs warned them of impending disaster. Mrs. Yellam knew that Solomon had behaved strangely upon the fifteenth of December. Uncle had drawn conclusions from this which he shared with Fancy and his sister. If fool-wisdom on the part of dogs could be interpreted by man, and he held that he was the man to do it, why, then, the fact of Solomon acting "queer" during the day of the fifteenth surely indicated fore-knowledge of Alfred's danger. But the attack had taken place at night. And the dog had exhibited no "queerness" after sundown. Fancy had been much impressed. In his heart, however, Uncle could not envisage Alfred as a prisoner. And we know that Mrs. Yellam shared this view. At the same time, with her loss of faith in the mercy of Omnipotence, and filling the vacuum which Hamlin so abhorred, came the old craving to clutch at "signs." It is quite likely that if the cards had "told true," and if a boy were now lying in the cradle upstairs, that Mrs. Yellam would have fought despair more valiantly. She might have persuaded herself that Fancy would "pull through" and that Alfred would come back.

At this moment she was at a low ebb mentally, although physically able to confront any emergency. Despair destroys _morale_, as soldiers know, and, paralysing action, heightens sensation. Mrs. Yellam's overwrought brain refused to function normally.

Solomon, she reflected, was not acting "queer."

If Uncle were right----! If fool-wisdom could be trusted----!

She asked Solomon a question.

"How be you feeling, my dog?"

Solomon left her tired mind in no doubt on that point. He wagged his tail, wriggling convulsively, ready to bark with any encouragement.

"Shush-h-h! Don't 'ee bark, till I gives leave. What do 'ee think about Fancy? Be she so bad as Doctor makes out?"

Solomon tried to lick her hand.

"That bain't an answer, Solly."

He wagged his tail.

Astounding as it may seem, this comforted Mrs. Yellam. She went upstairs, peeped into her former room, perceived that Fancy was asleep, and said to the nurse:

"She be in a be-utiful sleep. Let's see the baby."

The two women looked at the baby, and agreed that it was a fine specimen. Mrs. Yellam said impressively:

"Pore dear soul! She thinks it a He. Maybe 'twill be best not to undeceive her."

"She'll find out, Mrs. Yellam."

"Ah-h-h! A crool shock. I allows that it be my duty to prepare her."

"She's low," said the nurse, in a professional tone. Mrs. Yellam knew that the doctor, before leaving, had given the nurse instructions. The nurse, however, made light of apprehension, saying incisively:

"We'll pull her through, Mrs. Yellam. Nothing needed but constant care for the first few days. Doctors always scare the gizzards out of us because they think that we won't be careful unless they do."

This was comforting. After more talk, Mrs. Yellam prevailed upon the nurse to lie down. She proposed to sit by Fancy. The baby could be trusted to be quiet, being a She, and, seemingly, blessed with a pleasant temper.

Fancy still slept.

Mrs. Yellam took the chair by the bedside. If nothing but care and vigilance were needed, they should be forthcoming. She vowed to herself that she would fight, tooth and nail, for this life, neglect no precaution, run no risk. Physically, she braced herself for the combat. Long ago, she had fought for the life of a child--and won! Doctor and mother had despaired. It was a case of pneumonia. Hour after hour Mrs. Yellam had applied hot cloths to the child's breast. And she had willed fiercely that the child should live. Her strong will _had_ saved it. Everybody admitted that, even the doctor.

Fancy slept for some hours. She awoke refreshed, free from pain, but pitifully feeble. After obediently swallowing some food, she asked to see the "boy."

"All in good time," said Mrs. Yellam blandly.

"But I may drop off to sleep again."

"And a very good thing, too. The baby is asleep."

"Has he blue eyes?"

"Baby's eyes be allers blue at first."

"Is he like Alfred?"

"The living image. Now, don't 'ee talk."

"If you bring him to me, I'll be ever so quiet."

"I'll bring the child directly minute. 'Tis a lil' beauty, and a real credit to 'ee. Alferd'll be tickled to death. Unbeknownst to yourself, dear, you bore him what he wanted, and what I wanted. Now, I'll bring her in."

"Her----!"

Fancy closed her eyes. Mrs. Yellam watched her anxiously. She saw two tears trickle down the disappointed mother's cheeks. But she was smiling, quick to see the joke against herself.

She gave a little laugh, an attenuated sound, but the genuine article.

"Let's see her, Mother."

The Beauty was brought in.