The Soul of Susan Yellam Part 15

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 pa.s.s. 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 ant.i.thesis 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 a.s.surance 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 battles.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 G.o.d, 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 grat.i.tude which has been defined as a lively sense of favours to come.

Hamlin, in common with most sincere reformers, divided the world into two cla.s.ses--the helpers and hinderers. Between these lay, of course, a No Man's Land, where each cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses. From the first he had set himself the task of breaking down such barriers. He candidly admitted that most of his paris.h.i.+oners 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 s.h.i.+bboleths 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 grat.i.tude, sir."

"Good. But grat.i.tude is imponderable." For an instant he had forgotten that he was talking to his parlourmaid. Beholding a wrinkle, he said quickly: "I mean, that grat.i.tude 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 impa.s.sive 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 suns.h.i.+ne. 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 a.s.sured 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 paris.h.i.+oners 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 s.h.i.+ning example, so his father perceived, had moved mountains of too solid flesh. As yet the great recruiting campaign had not begun.