CHAPTER VI

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Uncle was quick, like all practised orators, to realise the effect of his words not only upon a sister, but upon himself. He emerged from the depths, as a swimmer after a dive, shaking his head and opening his mouth to the ambient air. A happy thought occurred to him.

"Susan," he said, in a more cheerful voice, "I be mazed as you be, but things bain't so dark as they seem, and I've Squire's own word for it that figures lie to beat Satan hisself."

Mrs. Yellam looked at him interrogatively.

"I be allers, so to speak, a very calkilatin' man, rampaged by Fortin into makin' sixpence do duty for a shillin'. Now, I asks you this, and I means to put the question, fair and square, to Captain Davenant to-morrer marning. 'Tis a common saying that one Englishman be so good as ten Frenchies in a stand-up fight. That be a very comfortsome thought, old girl."

"Which I don't hold wi', for one."

"Don't 'ee? I wager the half-crown Master Lionel gi' me that you be the equal o' ten Frenchwomen, and, old as I be, I'd fair scorn to turn back on any 'arf-dozen furriners. If so be as my calkilatin' ain't out o' whack, our noble army o' two hundred thousand valiant souls be more'n equal o' two million Frenchies. And, if that be so, the Germans be up agen four millions in all. Leastways, if I bain't out in my figurin'."

Mrs. Yellam smiled faintly.

"Your figures, Habakkuk, be Satan's figures. I allows that one true Englishman can down three Frenchies, not more. Men'll be wanted--and soon."

Uncle remarked mournfully:

"Such talk takes away my appetite for cracklin'. I go my ways, dear, leavin' this mossel o' comfort behind me: they won't be askin' for widows' only sons. Good-night to 'ee."

After Uncle's departure Mrs. Yellam busied herself with her work, pausing now and again to sigh deeply. If Sir Geoffrey Pomfret said that England was coming in, why, England was in. A doubtful hypothesis became certainty. And some widows' sons, if she knew her countrymen, would fight for England, tooth and nail, even if they were not directly asked to do so.

Presently Alfred appeared, sharp-set after a good day's business. He repeated the gossip of the market-place. Russia was going to surprise the world. England must come in. A greengrocer, on intimate terms with a lady of quality, had told him as a secret that the Guards were already embarking for Belgium. Alfred concluded cheerfully:

"In Salisbury, Mother, 'tis agreed that six weeks'll see the end on't."

"Captain Davenant be talkin' o' conscription, Alferd."

"Let him talk. He's a sour man. I put my faith in God Almighty, not in the likes of him."

"Ah-h-h!"

"I say to myself, in all Christian humility, that God Almighty in His wisdom is fair fed up with the Proosians. Such talk as they use, all spitting and choking, is quite enough to sicken ordinary folks. 'Tis the swelled head that this Kayser has. However, wiser men prophesy a rare uplifting move in trade."

"Alferd--don't talk o' that. 'Tis more than I can bear to hear o' folks makin' money out o' the miseries o' others."

He stared at her, noticing at last her drawn expression.

"You ain't got the headache, Mother?"

"No."

"Wouldn't own up to it, if you had. Something's gnawing at you."

Very gravely she told him about the young Squire. Alfred's face fell, thinking of Joyce Pomfret, and then of Fancy. What would that pretty dear be feeling, if her Alfred was on the march? The light faded from his rubicund face. Till that moment the possibility of going had never occurred to him. If England did take a hand in the mighty game, surely her Army and Fleet would suffice for all eventualities. Suddenly, he banged the table with his clenched fist, startling his mother.

"Alferd--!" she exclaimed irritably.

Alfred hastened to apologise. A confounding thought had begotten a thoughtless action. He said earnestly:

"Fancy is a oner for telling fortunes with cards."

Mrs. Yellam frowned. Cards she held to be playthings of Satan, expressly invented by him together with strong drink and bad women. Alfred continued hastily:

"A lady in Salisbury, real quality, Mother, told Fancy's fortune."

"Did she? Better be using her needle, I says."

"No doubt. 'Tis a very odd thing, and food for sober thought, but the lady did foretell as Fancy'd marry a soldier."

"A very foolish, mischievous notion to put i' the maid's head."

Alfred nodded. Then he said portentously:

"It might come true, Mother, if the pessimists be right."

"Pessimists?"

"'Tis a new word to me, and means--crokers, as looks on the dark side of the cloud."

"Well, what do they tell 'ee?"

"'Twas a solitary he. A shoemaker by trade, and a radical. The smell of leather be enough to account for his politics and gloomy views. When I take shoes to him, we always pass time o' day, and I come away thinking 'tis just before dawn on a cold, drizzling, November morning. He says to me: 'My lad, these Proosians may be drinking ale in Salisbury before this war's over.' I laughed at him. And he told me I'd laugh t'other side of my face in six months."

Mrs. Yellam made no comment, a strange abstention. Her firm jaws set beneath strongly-marked brows, her eyes glowered into the future. Mother and son finished the meal in silence.

These things were talked over on Monday, the 2nd of August.

On the Wednesday all England knew that we were at war with Germany.

The first effect of this stupendous happening was comical. The banks were closed; many people found themselves without money and unable to borrow it. Fishpingle, the bailiff at the Home Farm, had to lend Lionel Pomfret five pounds to take him to Winchester. Some pessimists predicted a financial panic. The foreign stock exchanges transacted no business. All this affected Nether-Applewhite but mildly; tongues wagged a little faster than usual; very few believed that an Expeditionary Force would be sent to France. Sir Geoffrey Pomfret walked down to the village and talked with his people. His jolly face and hearty voice indicated immense relief. He--and thousands like him--had been tormented by the fear that a nation stigmatised as shopkeepers would place self-interest before honour. He writhed when he recalled the cynical gibe of the Russian to England's ambassador at a time when England did "keep out." Old Captain Davenant and the Squire were types of men whom the more Radical press derided as reactionary and fire-eaters. Let the verdict of history speak for such after the war. Few, to-day, will deny that the privileged classes with most at stake stood shoulder to shoulder in their determination to scrap everything except scraps of paper bearing England's sign-manual.

The villagers listened agape to Sir Geoffrey and Captain Davenant. Then each went his way perfectly satisfied that others would dance to war's pipings and alarums, whilst they "carried on" as before.

Old Gilbert Parish, a great-granfer, was convinced that war had been declared with the hereditary foe. He asked Mr. Hamlin shrilly, holding hand to ear:

"What I wants to know, Pa'son, be this--whatever shall we do wi' they Frenchies when us have beat'h 'em?"

Mr. Hamlin answered gravely: "I suppose we shall have to eat them, Master Gilbert."

The nonagenarian displayed toothless gums.

"Ah-h-h! That's what the Dook said at Waterloo. 'Up, Guards, and eat 'en,' he says. _And they did!_"

"Was you there, Granfer, on that notable day?" asked a bystander.

The old fellow cackled joyously.

"'Tis so far back along, I disremembers. To speak sober truth, my lad, the Dook won that gert battle wi'out me. 'Tis a fact beyond gainsayin' that I be here, and hale and hearty, because, maybe, I was not there."

His humour so tickled him that he hobbled forthwith to the _Sir John Barleycorn_ to wet a still serviceable whistle. Many followed his example; the two taverns sold much ale.

In a miraculously short time village life ambled on as before. The small boys played at soldiers; some of the more prescient mothers laid in stores. Lionel Pomfret returned from Winchester with the assurance, hot from the mouth of the officer commanding the depot, that every regular would be sent abroad. The Squire was absorbed in the details. Each officer would be allowed thirty pounds of kit, such kit to be snugly packed in a pale-green carry-all. It comprised one change, two blankets, a few surgical dressings, a folding-lamp, a pair of wire-cutters, and under-linen. The Territorials and Yeomanry would defend our shores. According to experts, invasion might be deemed practicable, if unlikely. Next day Lionel went to London, to the War Office. He came back with a Captain's commission.

The Government had taken over the railroads, and, at first, trains were inconveniently belated. Liege was covering herself with imperishable glory, holding up hordes of Germans. In the rural districts the comforting impression prevailed that the All-Highest War Lord had gone stark, staring mad, and that a peace-loving nation would kick him and his out of the country. Hamlin, reading feverishly papers and reviews, neglecting, for the first time in his life, parochial duties, rejoiced in the premature conclusion that there burned no hate in English hearts against the German people to whom civilisation owed so much. He adumbrated peace before Christmas, and believed that a world-war would end war. For a parish priest, he might be reckoned, intellectually, far above the average. Men of keener and bigger brains shared his views. Sir Geoffrey Pomfret, as might be expected, thought otherwise. There is no pessimist like your optimist when he finds that the prognostications of his less robust moments have come to pass. He said almost truculently to his wife:

"It is some comfort to reflect, my dear Mary, that _we_ were right, and all these axe-grinding demagogues wrong. I could hang Haldane with my own hand. And I feel in my bones that this is going to be a long business--a full year at least."

The Squire was sorely taken aback, when Lord Kitchener trebled this estimate. He cursed politicians of his own party when Namur fell. Indeed, he blamed politicians and publicists of every colour and creed, pinning his faith to Army and Navy, sorely disgruntled with the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service. No more unhappy man gazed across his broad acres wondering miserably whether they would be his in three years' time.

There ensued, as will be remembered, an amazing epidemic of national apathy, which aroused trenchant criticism in neutral countries. People bought maps and pins, and forgot to move the pins. Small things became again of paramount importance. The King had demanded half a million more regulars. But business went on as usual. A famous scribe has chronicled the supreme event of this transition period. Carpentier defeated Bombadier Wells! Possibly, the general indifference, an indifference largely due to ignorance, was superficial. It is significant that thousands of holiday-makers returned quietly to their own homes.

Lionel Pomfret and his wife moved to Winchester, where Lionel was kept busy at the depot. For the moment, his own battalion of the Rifle Brigade was in India. Another battalion had joined the Expeditionary Force. Lionel might be called upon to join it at twenty-four hours' notice. Joyce Pomfret, his wife, perceived that he wanted to do so.

An American, with the liveliest powers of observation, visiting Nether-Applewhite, and talking, let us say, to Mrs. Yellam and Fancy, would have gone away convinced that both these women, each the antithesis of the other, were unconcerned with the war. Really the thought of it obsessed them night and day. But they rarely spoke of it. Mrs. Yellam deliberately put from her the possibility of losing her son, partly because she had a positive assurance from the Parson that Alfred, as a public carrier, would be exempted from military service if conscription became necessary, and partly because the fact that she tended four graves in the churchyard must surely be taken into account by an All-wise and Merciful Providence. Like most of us, she had constructed her own particular statute of limitations and liabilities. She had endured more than her proper share of bludgeonings. Accordingly, her mind dwelt upon the war as affecting others. She grieved for Lady Pomfret and the Squire. If Master Lionel were taken--! The only son and heir to such a fine property--!

Fancy, sister of a beloved brother serving in a battleship, fell a prey to more intimate and poignant considerations. As the child of a delicate mother who had died in giving her birth, pre-natal influence, perhaps, had endowed her with sensibilities common to all women who are physically weaker than they should be, with minds and imaginations more active than their bodies. From her tenderest years Fancy had indulged in meditations concerning angels. Her father habitually spoke of his wife as an angel hovering close to one whom she had never held in her arms. Fancy believed him absolutely. Darkness had no terrors for the child, when she went to bed, because, in addition to her mother, the four evangelists guarded her cot. She was quite positive that she had seen her mother, clothed in shining tissues, with wings like a dove. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John became personal friends with whom the mite affirmed solemnly that she talked and played. Her father, a dreamer rather than a doer, encouraged these fancies, which justified his selection of her Christian name in obstinate defiance of the wishes of his family.

The first effect of the war upon Fancy, apart from her sisterly anxieties, was a tightening of the bond between master and maid. Mr. Hamlin held strong democratic opinions, a source of friction between himself and Sir Geoffrey Pomfret. He desired ardently a more equable distribution, not merely of wealth, but of health and intelligence. He believed absolutely in the equality of souls before God, and he recognised with ever-increasing satisfaction the potentialities of bodies and minds, if taken in hand early in life. His disabilities as a teacher shewed themselves in a too direct manner of speech, an abruptness caused by an excess rather than a lack of sympathy and perception. As Man and Priest, he shunned those easy by-paths beloved by many of us when we have disagreeable duties to perform. He marched straight to his objectives, regardless of objections.

At first sight, Mr. Hamlin recognised in his parlourmaid qualities of which she herself was delightfully unconscious. As parson of a country parish which outwardly and inwardly had changed but little since the eighteenth century, he had fought desperately against the mental and spiritual apathy of his flock, seizing any weapon that lay to his hand. He worked with people for people, using Peter to convert Paul, constantly disappointed but rarely discouraged. He had been offered preferment; his sermons challenged interest outside Nether-Applewhite but he had no personal ambition beyond the consuming desire to help those whom he knew and loved to help themselves. Sir Geoffrey Pomfret supported him in this, but Parson and Squire worked upon diametrically opposing lines. All the instincts of the lord of the manor were protective. To that end he had made and was prepared to go on making personal sacrifices of leisure, pleasure and money. According to Hamlin, this encouraged helplessness and ignorance. Poverty held out eager hands for doles, displaying that comical form of gratitude which has been defined as a lively sense of favours to come.

Hamlin, in common with most sincere reformers, divided the world into two classes--the helpers and hinderers. Between these lay, of course, a No Man's Land, where each class wandered aimlessly; the helpers, like the Squire, became hinderers and hinderers, like Uncle, might become, unexpectedly, helpers. Fancy, he acclaimed as a helper in or out of the debateable territory. Insensibly, her refinement and modesty would raise the tone in his kitchen, and radiate purer beams from a house hospitably accessible to all his congregation. From time to time, when he was alone at meals, he would ask the maid odd questions, and listen attentively to her replies. Such questions were disconcerting to Fancy, but, as was intended, they provoked intelligence to answer them. Ever since ordination, Hamlin had realised the almost insuperable barriers interposed by tradition, by training, by a thousand and one conditions and consequences, between the privileged and unprivileged classes. From the first he had set himself the task of breaking down such barriers. He candidly admitted that most of his parishioners were liars and hypocrites when it came to dealing with them frankly as between man and man, and still more so as between man and woman. They said, respectfully, what each felt that the Parson wished them to say, repeating the old shibboleths and sesames which opened, possibly, purses but not hearts.

After the fall of Namur, he said to Fancy:

"Do you feel patriotic?"

The question of patriotism had been raised (and not laid) by a publicist in one of the current reviews, but the writer had presented a point of view coloured and discoloured by intimate knowledge of industrial England. He had not touched upon his theme as it affected the rural districts.

"I hope so, sir," replied Fancy.

"How far, I wonder, would your patriotism carry you?"

He knew that Fancy was engaged to Alfred Yellam, and had congratulated her sincerely. He knew, also, that she had no intention of getting married for some time to come.

Fancy stood at attention, much perplexed, but flattered. She had wit enough to realise that her master put the question in certain faith that she would endeavour to answer it truthfully.

"I can't tell," she faltered. "Sounds silly, don't it, sir?"

"Not at all. I am wondering how far my patriotism would carry me. What is patriotism, Fancy?"

"Love of country, sir."

"Why do we feel it?"

His keen eyes rested quietly on hers.

Fancy grappled with this, struggling to rise adequately to the occasion.

"I suppose 'tis gratitude, sir."

"Good. But gratitude is imponderable." For an instant he had forgotten that he was talking to his parlourmaid. Beholding a wrinkle, he said quickly: "I mean, that gratitude is not easy to weigh or measure. It is immense," he smiled at her, "when it marches hand in hand with self-interest. It shrinks horribly when self-interest marches or runs in the opposite direction. Do you follow me?"

"Yes, sir; thank you, sir."

"Don't thank me," he said, with a touch of irritation. He continued quietly: "We must all try to weigh our patriotism, because every one of us will be asked to exercise it. Leaving out the men able to bear arms, I am thinking for the moment of the women, young and old. An immense burden is about to be imposed on them. That is why I am speaking to you. I held the mistaken view that this war would soon be over. But it is plain that we are fighting an enemy overwhelmingly strong, who is setting all laws, human and divine, at defiance. I want to measure our patriotism, my own, yours, everybody's; but I do so in fear and trembling."

Fancy, outwardly calm, presenting the impassive mask of the well-trained servant, became conscious of tingling and throbbing pulses. A strong man appeals most strenuously to the sympathy of a woman, when he permits her to have a glimpse of his weakness. She spoke impulsively, quite forgetting her "place," as she told herself afterwards.

"You be thinking of Mr. Edward."

It was a flash of intuition.

The Parson had four stout sons, but Teddy, the youngest, was his Benjamin. Teddy and Joyce had inherited from Mrs. Hamlin joyous temperaments. The other sons resembled their father. All of them were "doing well" in a worldly sense. The eldest was a don at Cambridge, Fellow and Tutor of his College. The others were in business, climbing hand over hand the commercial ladder. Teddy, with not so good a start as his brothers, had entered the Railway Service. Since Fancy's arrival at the Vicarage he had spent a too short holiday at home. His jolly, unaffected ways captivated Fancy instantly. Life, as the maids put it, entered a dull house and filled it with sunshine. Teddy brought with him to Nether-Applewhite wonderful news. He had been offered and had accepted a billet worth four hundred a year--startling advancement for so young a man. His unaffected joy in his own good fortune warmed all sympathetic hearts.

The Parson looked up sharply.

"Yes," he answered curtly. He had finished breakfast, but still sat at table. Fancy saw that he was nervously crumbling a small piece of bread.

"But Mr. Edward won't have to go, sir."

Hamlin hesitated. But, inviting confidence, he was not the man to withhold it churlishly. He said slowly:

"Between ourselves, Fancy, Mr. Edward wishes to go. I have a letter from him this morning, asking for my advice on the subject. It means, for him and me, a great sacrifice."

Fancy gasped.

"Oh, dear! You'll never let him go--surely?"

Hamlin rose, a tall, gaunt figure.

"My patriotism," he said grimly, "is not quite so lively, Fancy, as it was last night."

He went out of the room. Fancy began to clear away the breakfast things, much troubled, sorely perplexed, alive to her finger-tips with the dismal consciousness that life had become suddenly confoundingly difficult. If Alfred took a notion to enlist, and if he consulted her about it, as surely he would, to what sort of strain would her patriotism be subjected? She, too, approached the question in fear and trembling. At the moment "things," as she vaguely expressed it, were going better and better for Alfred. War seemed to have oiled all commercial wheels. On Sundays her happy swain soared into an empyrean of prosperity and opulence where he sat enthroned high above her, talking exuberantly of a future she dared not envisage. The good fellow assured her that the Germans would soon be on the run, with English sabres hewing them down, with English bayonets in their fat backs. Would such a man, travelling at excess speed into Tom Tiddler's Ground, fingering daily larger and ever larger pieces of silver and gold, stop suddenly and abandon everything?

He might.

If patriotism seized him, as it had seized Mr. Edward, the strangling grip would choke ambition, self-interest, and woman's love.

She told herself miserably that Mr. Edward would go. More, his father would not raise a finger to stop him. As the Parson left the dining-room, she guessed that his decision had been made already.

Within a week it became common knowledge in the village that Mr. Edward Hamlin had enlisted in the Guards. He would appear amongst his father's parishioners in a private's kit, and salute respectfully his old friend, Captain Pomfret.

He was the first "gentleman" in those parts to relinquish fortune at the call of duty. And his shining example, so his father perceived, had moved mountains of too solid flesh. As yet the great recruiting campaign had not begun.

Two days afterwards George Mucklow followed the parson's son into the ranks.