CHAPTER XIX

SUSPENSE

Sir Geoffrey returned home on Saturday, the 23rd, having achieved his purpose. From The Hague, within twenty-four hours, discreet enquiries would be made concerning Sergeant Yellam. But the answer might be delayed a week.

On Sunday and on Christmas Day Mrs. Yellam's pew was empty, but everybody knew that she was in attendance upon Fancy.

Hamlin preached what Uncle called a "very upliftin'" discourse, and Uncle made it his business to drop down to the Yellam cottage during the afternoon to learn how Fancy fared and to give his sister a synopsis of the morning's sermon. By the luck of things, the nurse had just got up, and was able to sit with Fancy, whilst Uncle talked with Susan in the kitchen.

"She be low, Habakkuk, but I be fighting for her. Oh, me! there's so little of her. And no milk for the baby."

"Lard preserve her dear life!"

Susan frowned.

"'Tis milk that be wanted."

"You be right. Bottle-babies suffer crool wi' colic."

"Not if I wash the bottles. Fancy have chosen the names."

"Ah-h-h! Susan be one of 'em; I'll lay a crown-piece on that."

"You'd lose your money. Lizzie Alfreda be the name."

Uncle considered this, and commended the choice. Then he squared his shoulders and inflated his big chest.

"You missed a rare treat this marning, Susan."

"Did I?"

She spoke with indifference. Uncle believed in "gentling" refractory horses and women. Conviction had descended upon him during the sermon that he might be the Lord's instrument to lead Susan Yellam back to her pew.

"Pa'son preached about the Babe of Bethlehem, as was right and proper, but I makes bold to say as he was thinking of 'ee, Susan, and of Lizzie Alfreda, bless 'un."

Mrs. Yellam felt strangely bored. But she knew that it was hopeless to try to stop Uncle. What did it matter what any parson said? She was wondering whether she could apply for milk to Mr. Fishpingle, at the Home Farm. Village cows, grazing by the roadside, might pick up any noxious weed.

Uncle continued solemnly:

"Me and Pa'son sees eye to eye about babes. And times, when he do drop out o' sky and walks the green earth with mortial men, I feel sure that fool-wisdom be his as 'tis mine. We sucked 'un in wi' mother's milk."

Susan said abruptly:

"I've a notion, Habakkuk, that the milk from they Freesian-Holsteen cows bain't too rich for a baby's stomach."

Uncle stared at her, anxiously. With difficulty, he assimilated her thoughts, abandoning, for the moment, his own.

"Quantity they gives, Susan, not quality. If I was lookin' after lil' Lizzie Alfreda, dang me, if I wouldn't give 'un pure cream."

"I'll be bound you would. Or old ale."

She smiled grimly. Uncle really thought that the thaw had set in. He continued joyously:

"You listen to me, Susan; I've an upliftin' message for 'ee, and it consarns what your thoughts be dwellin' on--the baby upstairs. Pa'son made that plain this marning to us old sticks. The Babe of Bethlehem brought good cheer and peace to a wicked world ten thousand years ago, and the peace o' this world, seemin'ly, lies wi' the little 'uns. And we be bound to take extry good care o' they. I tell 'ee, Pa'son talked so warm about babes that I felt it in me to raise another family."

"On pure cream?" asked Susan. But, at last, he had challenged her attention.

"Ah-h-h! You has your joke. But babes be goin' to be our salvation. 'Tis a brave, true notion. What makes a pack o' hounds, Susan? The young drafts. If they be lackin' in bone and blood, they turns out skirters, and presently the pack be streamin' all over country, runnin' riot, chasin' everything and catchin' nothing. And so, old girl, when you sets your gert mind on what milk to give lil' Lizzie, you be sarvin' the Lard and your country."

Encouraged by Susan's softer expression, Uncle went on, embroidering his theme with pardonable exaggeration, setting forth prodigious statistics. Millions of babes died for lack of proper care, millions survived infancy to become rickety, misformed, wretched children. And the war was going to change all this. A nation bled white of its men must make the care of children its first and paramount consideration. When he had finished, Susan was so impressed that she said commandingly:

"'Tis true. And your duty be plain, Habakkuk."

"Meanin', Susan,----?"

"You step up so brisk as may be to Home Farm. You see Mr. Fishpingle. You tell 'un that my gran'child needs pure milk, and, if you don't get it, your powers o' speech bain't what you crack 'em up to be."

"Come wi' me, Susan. 'Twill blow some cobwebs out of 'ee."

"No; I sets in this house till----"

"Till when, you broody old hen?"

"Till Fancy be better."

After some protest, Uncle went his way alone, but he whistled as he strode along, the jolly optimist. Next Sunday he would see Susan in her pew. Soon there would be a christening, and word would come from Alfred. Uncle now shared with the Squire the conviction that Alfred, probably rushing ahead of his men, had been surrounded by Proosians and overpowered.

Upon the Tuesday, the Squire received a telegram from London, which he shewed to his wife:

"Yellam not a prisoner."

The telegram was signed by one of the most honoured names in England.

Lady Pomfret sighed. The Squire fussed and fumed, detesting mystery.

"What does it mean, Mary? If he isn't a prisoner, where the dooce is he? I have his Colonel's word for it that all the dead and wounded were brought in. This telegram is equally reliable. I ask you, where is Alfred Yellam?"

"Shell-shock affects some of them very strangely."

"What d'ye mean by that, my dear?"

"You remember John Boyce?"

The Squire was not likely to forget John Boyce, one of the quietest, gentlest, and pluckiest of the many wounded men who had passed through Pomfret Court. He had been a sufferer from shell-shock and gas, but otherwise sound of limb. One morning, as the Squire was lathering his face, word came to him that John Boyce had gone mad. Without pausing to remove the lather, wearing pyjamas and slippers, the Squire had rushed out of his dressing-room, downstairs, and into a corridor, where Boyce stood at bay, with a valiant V. A. D. in front of him. He had escaped from the ward, and happened to be close to Lionel's sitting-room. Into this room the Squire led Boyce, trying to calm him down. The poor fellow was possessed of suicidal mania. He had lost his chums and his health. He demanded a rifle and permission to go into the garden and "end it." It was piteous to hear him. As yet he had exhibited no violence. But in Lionel's room, where swords were hanging on the wall, Boyce, with his congested eyes on the naked steel, struggled desperately to get hold of a sword. The Squire was a very powerful man, and Boyce undersized, but insanity nearly mastered sanity. Suddenly, Boyce's body relaxed. All violence went out of him. Soon he went back to the saloon, quite himself again. Later, he was taken to Netley Hospital, where he recovered completely.

Lady Pomfret said slowly:

"Just between ourselves, Geoffrey, is it possible that poor Alfred, slightly wounded in the head, perhaps, is wandering somewhere in France?"

The Squire opened his mouth.

"My dear Mary, are you hinting at--desertion?"

"If he were not himself, like John Boyce?"

The Squire had to admit that this was possible. Alfred must be somewhere. Upon him would be his identification-disk. The number of this had been sent to The Hague.

"I must see Hamlin."

He did. Hamlin told him that Fancy was fluttering between life and death. Under the circumstances, it might be expedient to say nothing about the telegram. To this the Squire warmly agreed. Nobody knew what was in the telegram, except Lady Pomfret and themselves. Nobody would know till Fancy had turned the corner, one way or t'other, poor little dear!

Within twenty-four hours all Nether-Applewhite knew.

Somebody at the telegraph-office must have babbled.

What followed may be imagined. Dick told Tom, and Tom told Harry, till verisimilitude--to quote Gilbert--attached itself to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. Ultimately, the tale reached the ears of Uncle. Alfred Yellam was a deserter--such a deduction from the telegram might be considered crude, but on that very account likely to be gobbled by gaffers--with a price set upon him, alive or dead. King Garge on his throne knew it.

Poor Uncle became distraught. If it were true, he could never carry a high head again. Stoutly he refused to believe it, breathing strange oaths and threatening violence to all and sundry. If such a wicked lie reached Fancy's ears, it would kill her. He strode into the forest to cool himself. Could he face his fellow-men in church? He beheld two empty pews, and gnashed his teeth.

Returning from the forest, somewhat easier in mind, he decided that Susan must be warned. Very wisely he went to Hamlin first, who confirmed the telegram, agreeing with Uncle that Mrs. Yellam should be told the truth and what it had been twisted into by wagging tongues. Sensible of Uncle's excitement and indignation, he said quietly:

"You must rise above this gossip. It is not unnatural and not ill-natured."

"I begs your pardon, sir?"

"Sir Geoffrey says that Alfred must be somewhere. For my part, I prefer to think of him in the care, perhaps, of some friendly French peasant, tending a man who may not remember his own name."

"That be a mort o' comfort. Twice in my long life, I minds forgetting my own name. I took a notion that I were the village idiot. Bad ale's tricksy stuff. But desartion be a tarr'ble word."

Hamlin clapped him hard on the shoulder.

"Nobody who knows Alfred, or his mother, or you, would credit such a monstrous perversion of the truth."

Uncle, much heartened, betook himself to his sister's cottage, where the surprise of his life awaited him. Susan literally jumped at this new hypothesis. She burst into excited speech.

"If Squire thinks that, 'tis so. Parson be a wonnerful man, but, as you says, Habakkuk, sky-high above we. Squire be clay, a gert human bein' wise wi' the wisdom that I understands. If he holds that my Alferd be wanderin', pore dear, in France, 'tis so. I feels a different 'ooman to-night. And Fancy be better, too, wi' some sart o' appetite for her victuals. I be fightin' hard for her life, Habakkuk, and I believes to-night that all will be well. 'Tis queer, Fancy keeps on a-sayin' to me: 'Alferd'll come back.'"

"Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Pa'son be prayin' in church for Alferd. 'Twould seem more respectful-like if you jined in wi' your loud voice."

At once Mrs. Yellam's face hardened.

"I bide at home till Alferd comes back."

"Ah-h-h! You be set as never was on guidin' yourself, Susan. Now, what about tellin' Fancy?"

"I tells her the moment you be gone. 'Twill perk her up, better'n ginger-brandy. And what do I keer what they says in village? Let 'un talk. Squire be right. Alferd must be somewheres."

Fancy was told within the hour. It will never be known whether the news affected her for good or ill. Mrs. Yellam lacked imagination. Fancy, we may believe, conjured up a lamentable picture of her Alfred, bereft of his wits, wandering in a strange land, homeless and half-starving, at the mercy of the elements in mid-winter. But she repeated the main clause in her creed:

"Alfred'll come back."

Napoleon has assured us that repetition is the greatest figure of rhetoric. The stone is worn away by the ever-falling drop of water. Fancy's reiterated phrase fell persistently upon the ice in Susan Yellam's heart and melted some of it, not all.

Upon the Thursday morning the Squire received a letter from the Colonel commanding Sergeant Yellam's battalion. He read it to Lady Pomfret.

"My dear Sir:

"With deep regret I have to inform you of the death of Sergeant Alfred Yellam upon the night of the fifteenth of December. All the facts have come to light, beyond dispute. One of our wounded men has been lying unconscious in our receiving hospital. Last night he became conscious. It seems that Yellam was close to him when a shell from a trench howitzer burst literally upon poor Yellam. According to the evidence of the wounded man Yellam disappeared. That was the last indelible impression of the only witness, who was struck by a splinter from the same shell, and lost consciousness immediately afterwards.

"Sergeant Yellam had earned the affection and confidence of all ranks. He was the type of man we value most, cool in danger, modest at all times, cheerful, energetic and capable. Peace be with him!

"Yours faithfully, "Courtenay Tring.

"P. S.--The official communication will reach Sergeant Yellam's widow in due course. This letter will precede it, and I leave it to your discretion what to do."

"What shall we do?" groaned the Squire.

Before telling the news to anybody else, Sir Geoffrey walked to the Vicarage. Hamlin read the letter.

"Susan Yellam must be told," he said slowly. "She can intercept the official communication. Such news would kill Fancy."

"Who will tell Susan?"

"I will take the letter to her."

The Squire looked at his face. He wondered why Hamlin was so affected. The Parson had sat down, as if he had received a personal blow. He rested his austere face upon his hand, thinking not of the young wife, so full of faith and courage, but of the old woman. Sir Geoffrey said impulsively:

"I wish that you could be spared this, Hamlin."

"So do I."

"You might let Jane Mucklow do it, or Uncle."

"Susan Yellam is my parishioner. God's hand lies heavy on her--how heavy I am unable to determine. I have never felt, Pomfret, so conscious of my disabilities, of anaemic faith in such cases as this."

The Squire stood confounded.

"I wish I had your faith, Hamlin."

"What is faith?" asked Hamlin, almost fiercely. "Is it merely a belief that satisfies and helps oneself? The faith that burned in the Apostles was more than that. It saved others. Virtue, at a touch, went out of the faithful into the faithless. If I could touch this poor old woman----!"

"You will," said the Squire, with assurance.

"No. And that is why I wish that I could be spared another--failure."

Soon afterwards he left the Vicarage, and, passing the church, paused a moment. He went in and stood near the Font, staring at the Christmas decorations and then at the Pomfret achievements emblazoned upon many of the windows. The decorations served to remind the smallest child in his congregation that another Child had been born into the world; the achievements reminded the more sophisticated of the Pomfrets who had died. The Child had been born to save others; the Pomfrets, many of them worthy, God-fearing persons, had been mainly concerned in preserving their own bodies and souls.

"He saved others; Himself He cannot save."

The wonderful line came into his mind, as his thoughts dwelt upon the millions of seemingly righteous, respectable men and women bent on saving their own souls, with but little regard for the souls of others. The Salvation Army, so derided and condemned by Church and State when he was a boy, had accomplished work which could not be ignored by priest and prelate, work undertaken by labourers with no outshining qualifications except faith in their ability to convince others, others as humble in condition as themselves, who stood, for the most part, beyond the pale of organised charity and richly-endowed religious denominations.

Did this war, in relation to such thoughts, assume a new significance? Could regeneration, reconstruction come from below, from the masses, for example, out of which General Booth had enlisted his soldiers? Would a privilege, the noblest in the world, the sacrosanct prerogative to touch others to finer issues, emanate from the unprivileged? Hamlin could not answer the question. Or, as seemed more likely, would light shine from above, from a purified aristocracy, purged of self-interest by sacrifice, proud and eager to remove intolerable burdens from their less fortunate fellow-men? Or, a happier hypothesis than either, would the complex problem be solved by co-operation of masses and classes made one by sorrow and suffering, born anew through blood and tears? It might well be so.

He left the church, and walked through the village. Much rain had fallen. He noticed that the Avon was swollen, and ready to overflow its banks. The wind blew cold upon his cheeks. The sun moved behind heavy clouds ready to discharge vast accumulations of moisture. In short, a raw, drizzling day, one of the last of an unhappy year.

When Hamlin reached the cottage, a small girl, who came in during the morning to do house-work, the scrubbing and cleaning so dear to Susan, told the Parson that Mrs. Yellam was upstairs. She believed that Mrs. Alfred had passed a nice night. The baby was doing "lovely."

Susan appeared within a minute. A glance at Hamlin's face was enough for her. In silence he took her hand and pressed it.

"You has news of Alferd, sir?"

Her voice was perfectly calm, calmer than his.

"I have a letter from his Commanding Officer. Sit down, and read it."

They were alone in the parlour. The antimacassars had been taken from the big Bible and replaced. But no fire burned in the grate. To Hamlin the room stood for all that he detested and assailed in English life and character. In its humble way, it positively exuded pretension. The carpet, a crudely-coloured body Brussels, the ornaments on the mantel-shelf, the enlarged photographs, the horse-hair and mahogany furniture, the prim bookcase, glazed and glaringly varnished, imprisoning, under lock and key, books that nobody read or could read, the mirror, the velveteen curtains with imitation lace under-curtains, all had been bought to impress neighbours! It was pathetic to reflect that Mrs. Yellam thought this hideous parlour a thing of beauty, whereas her kitchen, a joy to behold, was merely regarded as utilitarian. And yet the kitchen expressed sincerely all that was finest in Mrs. Yellam; the parlour set forth blatantly the defects of her strong personality.

She read the letter.

"May I keep it, sir?"

"Yes. Colonel Tring tells us, Mrs. Yellam, what we all know here. Alfred was a son to be proud of."

Her face remained impassive. She agreed respectfully that it would be unwise to tell Fancy the truth till some measure of strength returned to her. Hamlin had thought out a score of simple sentences. He said none of them. In all his long life he had never realised so acutely the illimitable space which may divide two human beings. At this moment Parson and Parishioner stood far apart as the poles. He had intended to allude to his own son. But she might fling in his teeth the cutting reminder that he had others and a daughter. And in this cold, ugly room, looking upon her frozen face, sympathy congealed at its source. He withheld condolence, because it must hurt instead of help. In silence he commended her soul to God, and went away.

Mrs. Yellam unlocked her brass-cornered desk, and placed the letter amongst other papers. Then, idly, she looked out of the window, which faced the road and river. Before Hamlin came, she had stood at the window upstairs, staring out upon the same familiar landscape. And she had asked for a sign. She had looked at the heavy clouds even as Fancy had looked at her cards. If light shone through them, she might believe that for her spring and summer would bloom again.

The sign had not been vouchsafed.

Now, she stood at the window again, with features slightly relaxed. Such an expression informed her face as may be seen, sometimes, on the faces of steerage passengers upon trans-Atlantic boats taking leave for ever of their native land.

She turned from the window and went, heavily, into the kitchen.

Had she waited a minute longer, she would have seen a sign. Through the falling rain shone a strange light, palely amber. It illuminated the dull water-meadows, evoking colour--iridescent, opaline tints--where colour had ceased to be. It transmuted, magically, the sombre lead of the swollen river into sparkling gold. And then, swiftly, the light failed, the vision splendid vanished like a mirage, leaving behind a desert.

She went up stairs. Fancy said eagerly:

"What does Mr. Hamlin say, Mother?"

Mrs. Yellam hesitated, for one second only. She was unprepared for this question; she had forgotten the small maid who had scuttled into the room, saying that the Parson wanted to see Mrs. Yellam. With a tremendous effort she lied superbly, this woman who loathed lies because, in her masculine wisdom, she knew that lies made all ordinary matters worse instead of better.

She held up her finger.

"You be much too curious, my girl. Mr. Hamlin dropped in, very friendly-like, to ask me about the baby's christening. He be a oner for gettin' the lambs into the fold so quick as may be."

Fancy was quite satisfied.

"I told 'un," continued Mrs. Yellam placidly, embroidering her theme after a fashion which surely would have provoked envy and commendation from Uncle, "that you'd be up and about in no time. We passed a few cheerful remarks about this be-utiful weather, and then off he goes."

"I'd like to wait for Alfred," murmured Fancy. "I've a notion that he'll come before the New Year. If he ain't a prisoner, he will come. I wonder if he knows how bad I want him."

"Ah-h-h!" She paused, and then added sharply: "If wanting 'd bring Alferd, he'd be here now. You eat more and think less, and then we'll all be happy."

With that Mrs. Yellam went abruptly out of the room.