The Soul of Susan Yellam Part 24

The Squire, you may be sure, shared these good tidings with many friends, who congratulated him warmly. Obviously, the wound must be light. Exasperations followed, thick and fast. Sir Geoffrey hurried to the War Office, and thence to the Admiralty, and finally to Waterloo, where, eventually, he had the joy of seeing his son step out of a train, with a much-bandaged head, but apparently fit and in the highest spirits. A bit of shrapnel had knocked him down, inflicting a superficial scalp-wound, which was healing rapidly. Across his overcoat was a perfectly-defined cut made by a bullet which had missed him and killed the man at his side. He shewed his father a scar upon his neck, where another bullet had grazed him. Lionel talked fast and fluently. He had been in innumerable small actions since Mons, and had seen whole regiments cut to bits.

His destination for the moment was a private hospital for officers in Belgrave Square. There his wound was dressed, and Sir Geoffrey talked persuasively to the Sister-in-charge and Surgeon, who, under pressure, allowed their patient to dine with his father quietly at a club.

Sir Geoffrey never forgot that dinner.

War, as soldiers see it, was brought vividly home to him by a young man who talked of indescribable horrors as if they were negligible.

Everything was accepted by Lionel as part of the "show." The father listened, thinking of the pin-p.r.i.c.ks which, since August, had so irritated his sensitive skin, and felt grievously ashamed of himself.

But, in Lionel's place, with Lionel's amazing experience, he, too, was sensible that he would talk coolly. That was part of the tradition of the Service. Tremendous issues must be so faced.

He took his son back to Belgrave Square at half-past nine.

Lionel slept soundly. The Squire lay awake most of the night. Throughout dinner, he had suppressed his feelings. And on the threshold of the nursing-home, the father had found no other words than these:

"It's jolly to have you back again, old chap."

That was all, and, perhaps, enough.

In bed, the Squire had no inclination to sleep. He wanted to think things out. He wanted to adjust past and present conditions, to strike some happy mean between them. Could he interpret the significance of this never-ending slaughter? Lionel had told him of a German regiment pushing too far ahead, and annihilated, not a man left. That had been described, also, as a "show."

More--and worse--Lionel ridiculed the suggestion of an early peace.

Kitchener was under the mark. The war was quite likely to last five years.

Five years!

Men such as his son, decent, quiet, sport-loving chaps, admitted with a laugh--with a laugh!!!--that the enemy was "hot stuff," and that attrition would determine the end--and nothing else.

Attrition.

He attempted to envisage what attrition meant where millions were engaged. Put the lot at twenty millions. How many would perish? What Divine Purpose could be accomplished by such a holocaust?

But his boy was safe for the next few weeks.

Two days later he brought him back to Pomfret Court.

Lionel received a soul-warming reception from gentle and simple within and without a five-mile radius of his home. Apart from the young man's personal charm and good looks, he happened to be the first officer to return home wounded. The fact that the wound was not serious, that he treated it as a convenient peg upon which to hang three weeks' leave, made no difference. Indeed, it increased rather than diminished his influence in Nether-Applewhite so far as recruiting was concerned. His gay voice, his happy inconsequence, the vitality that radiated from him as he moved briskly from cottage to cottage, or rode up to talk to men working upon the property, achieved effects so far-reaching that possibly Hamlin was the only man in the parish able to measure them. The Squire and Davenant had appealed trenchantly for volunteers, using the time-worn arguments of Authority and believing sincerely enough that deaf ears might hear their message if it were shouted loud enough. The Parson, wiser man, had appealed to those same ears believing, with greater conviction, that noise and violence, veiled threats, bribery in any form, would defeat their ends. Right action, he contended, would come from within, at the persuasive, insistent call of conscience.

Lionel Pomfret hit the trail--to use the Western expression--which wanders between the high road and the low. Looking at the gallant fellow, sitting erect on his horse, it seemed clear even to eyes dimmed by living in the twilight of unintellectual surroundings, that he impersonated something which captivates the rural mind more than anything else--excitement. Lionel told the labourers, none of whom had been farther afield than Salisbury or Southampton, stories of France bubbling over with humour and high spirits. And if this light-heartedness had astonished his father, we can imagine what bewilderment it begat in simpler minds. Many of them realised that in holding back they were missing _fun_! One hardly dares to use such a word. But it burst, like a bomb, from the lips of a man who had been "out there," who had been "through it," who bore scars, and who laughed at them.

Many joined up; more held back.

Laugh as he did about everything that concerned his own adventures and misadventures, Lionel became intensely serious concerning the main issue, trembling still in the balance. Kitchener of Khartoum must have more and more men. Otherwise, the sacrifices made and the hardships endured by the splendid Seven Divisions would be in vain, and, ultimately, directly or indirectly, the enemy would triumph.

Charles, the second footman, and the odd man, enlisted within a week of Lionel's return home. Their places in the establishment were taken by maids.

Upon the first Sunday in February fill-d.y.k.e, Alfred Yellam walked out, as usual, with Fancy. She had noticed, during the Morning Service, that Mrs. Yellam's responses were not quite so fervent as usual, and the sermon, a good one, seemed to fail to hold Alfred's attention.

Servant-maids are acute observers where their interests are concerned.

They divine a frown before the master's forehead is wrinkled; they antic.i.p.ate a harsh word before it is spoken by the mistress. Alfred walked beside Fancy in silence. This, taken by itself, was not disturbing. The more privileged cla.s.ses often wonder why humbler couples sitting upon benches in the parks, or walking aimlessly amongst the trees, appear to be so satisfied with a silence which they stigmatise as stupidity. If, on the other hand, curiosity led our Olympians to interrogate the more thoughtful of these couples, they might be astonished to discover that the never-ending chatter in our drawing-rooms provokes much the same indictment from those whom they regard as far below them. The shrill screams of laughter, the parrot-house babble, fox-trotting, and the bacchantic waving of arms bare to the shoulder are often summed up as--"monkey-shines." To men and women who work desperately hard throughout the week, the silences of Sunday steal unawares, lapping them to a rest which is real refreshment.

Fancy, for example, loved to stroll beside Alfred, feeling his st.u.r.dy arm about her waist, and knowing from its convincing pressure that his thoughts were dwelling upon her as hers dwelt upon him, revelling in a future which would bring them closer together.

But, to-day, somehow, his silence was not so rea.s.suring.

For the time of year, the weather happened to be mild. Spring was abroad in the land. Fancy heard her voice in the bleating of the new-born lambs; she beheld her in the snow-drops; Spring's sweet breath beat upon a pink cheek when the south-west breeze sighed in the yews and pine-tops.

And yet, misgivings a.s.sailed the maid.

They had walked from the Vicarage, through Nether-Applewhite, and past Mrs. Yellam's cottage whither they would return for tea. Fancy had learnt to love the village with its general air of sleepy, comfortable prosperity. She would be perfectly content to live here all her days.

Occasional jaunts to Sarum or to the exciting side-shows of Bos...o...b.. and Bournemouth could only serve to enhance the more solid charms of home.

Alfred had spoken once, at the moment when they left the _Sir John Barleycorn_ tavern behind them.

"Do you like William Saint, Fancy?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I don't know, Alfie. I ain't never spoken to him, nor him to me. 'Tis his face, I suppose."

"Mother thinks he's a danger to me."

"Gracious!"

"William moves with the times, a far-seeing man. And snug, with money in bank and credit, too. Mother says he's after my business. I got ahead by buying my motor-'bus. Yes--William Saint might have sneaked my good business. He knows folk far and wide, as I do. That's bread and cheese to a carrier. And he knows how to tickle 'em with pleasant words. That's cakes and ale."

He said no more. Fancy felt vaguely troubled. She had taken Alfred's profitable business for granted. Fellow-servants and villagers had a.s.sured her, with a sub-acid inflection underlying congratulation, that she was lucky indeed to have got so warm a man as the carrier. Like most of her cla.s.s, she entertained nebulous ideas about how money was made, although she had been constrained all her life to use such money as came to her thriftily and with a very lively sense of its elusive attributes in slipping through careless fingers. The slow building-up of a business had never engrossed her thoughts. But she knew well enough, poor child, how rapidly such a business may disintegrate, and fall to pieces. That calamity had been her father's bitter experience.

They followed the Avon, strolling leisurely up-stream till they reached a small covert much beloved by hunting-men because it always harboured a stout fox.

"Let's go in wood," said Alfred.

"Won't it be damp, dear?"

"I want to talk to you."

Her heart beat faster. Something was coming--What?

Alfred led the way to a hurdler's hut, a rough shed, where the lovers sat down upon a heap of dry chips. A delicious smell of bark filled the air. George Mucklow had worked here often, before he was dragooned into the Army. With the smell of bark, dominating it, rose the odour of damp earth, always so significant, bearing its double message. From earth we have come; to it we must return. Fancy's sensitive nose could detect yet another odour. An ancient coat, much soiled by time and weather, had been thrown upon the pile of chips. In an olfactory sense the coat was eloquent of labour, of long perspiring hours and all that such hours hold. Fancy's nostrils were not offended. But she refused to sit on it.

Alfred, wearing his Sunday best, was not so particular.

He wasted little time in preliminaries. And he spoke with a geniality a.s.sumed, as Fancy guessed, for her benefit.

"The young Captain," he began, "has stirred us all up with his pleasant tongue. Now don't jump! Let me tell my tale."

He told it simply. Upon the previous Friday, it appeared, Alfred had fallen into talk with the Pavey boys, who worked on a farm between Nether-Applewhite and Salisbury. The Paveys were reckoned by Sir Geoffrey to be stout specimens of sound breeding. Jemima Pavey, it may be recalled, "walked out" with William Busketts, the odd man. It is likely, therefore, that the enlistment of William affected profoundly Jemima's brothers, both single, both of military age. Alfred, urged on, no doubt, by Lionel Pomfret, had taken upon himself the task of persuading the Paveys to follow William to the wars. According to Alfred, a hot discussion had ensued. The Paveys were regarded by the Squire as sound in body but weak and plastic of mind. Wiser men than the Autocrat of Nether-Applewhite consistently underrated the intelligence of young men like the Paveys, abnormally acute when stimulated by self-interest. Ultimately, so Alfred said, the Paveys had twitted him offensively upon the fact that he preached what he did not practise.

And, oddly enough, poor Alfred was not prepared for this sudden turning of tables. He, too, was single and of military age. The fact that he happened to be engaged in a lucrative business served to sharpen railing tongues. At long last, after much vituperation (as Alfred admitted) on both sides, the Paveys had delivered a momentous ultimatum. They pledged themselves to enlist at once, if Alfred agreed to join them. More, they were prepared to answer for half-a-dozen others. To gain time for thought, Alfred invited them to obtain some similar pledge from these others. And, before Service that morning, the pledge had been forthcoming. In time, if Alfred donned khaki, eight of the best would follow so striking an example. Alfred concluded pleasantly:

"You see, Fancy, that I'm up against it."

Engrossed with his own exciting narrative, he had failed to notice her.

From the beginning of the tale to the end, she never moved. The impending sword had fallen upon her frail body, lacerating cruelly every fibre of her being. All fears, all sensibilities which from birth had differentiated her from more robust young women, sensibilities which dwelt upon things spiritual rather than material, sensibilities which had been further quickened by her father's unmerited misfortunes, constraining her early in life to envisage the future as likely to hold more pain than pleasure, these rose up and choked utterance. Had Alfred looked at her, at this poignant moment, his decision--not as yet reached---might have been different. He looked away from her, staring through the open side of the hut, seeing the rows and rows of trees, standing like soldiers, awaiting the inevitable axe.