THE EMPTY PEW
After her Alfred went to the front, Mrs. Yellam's interest in the
Tommies who had been "over the top" became more acute. She listened to
everything said, regardless of a timely caution from Lionel Pomfret,
who, before he rejoined his battalion, warned her that Mr. Atkins, with
all his glorious qualities, was not too scrupulous a respecter of the
truth. When the wounded men fell to talking amongst themselves, or
before sympathetic females, the hypercritical might have noted a valiant
determination on the part of each speaker to go "one better" than his
predecessor. And the essential fact that these boys, most of them under
twenty-five years of age, laughed at and chaffed each other when
relating horrors merely piled Pelion upon Ossa in the mind of Mrs.
Yellam. It seemed to her--and to how many more mothers?--that none could
escape death or mutilation. One man was dumb from shell-shock. A "Black
Maria" had buried him and ten others. He alone survived, unable to tell
in speech what he had undergone. Mrs. Yellam paid this man particular
attention, because her imagination was lively enough to realise what
loss of speech would mean to herself. She told Jane Mucklow, with
portentous shakings of the head, that the poor lad had lost his tongue
for evermore. What else could be expected? Jane, now in happier mood,
remarked sententiously that miracles still happened. Mrs. Yellam smiled
grimly, wondering whether Jane was thinking of what George had done and
accounted that achievement a miracle. And Jane could afford to take a
rosy view of life, inasmuch as Adam was still in England, and George,
with a view to stimulating recruiting, had been given a snug billet at
the depot of his regiment. All the credit due to George had, by this
time, been assumed by Uncle. He not only took part, as has been said, in
the heart-thrilling exploit, but assured everybody that the valour of
his son had been begotten in him by a sire known far and wide to be
without fear, the Bayard of the countryside! Jane accepted this
hypothesis with creditable derision. She would say in reply to strangers
avid for details: "Do 'ee talk to Garge's father. _He was there!_ Garge
be his father's son from stem to starn. My boy'd ha' behaved hisself
very different. He'd ha' crawled down a rabbit-hole, he would, so be as
one were handy."
Some strangers, pleased with this whimsical exposition, pressed money
into Jane's hand, which she accepted with a humble and grateful heart,
adding even more slily: "Thank 'ee very kindly. Money be scarce wi' us,
since my dear husband's son won the Victoria Cross, because the father
o' such a notable hero has to drink his brave boy's health so many times
a day."
One memorable night, when most of the Tommies were asleep in the Saloon,
the dumb man burst into excited speech, and talked for about two hours,
to the delight of seventeen comrades. When Mrs. Yellam heard the
wonderful news next morning, she was immensely comforted. That afternoon
Fancy noticed a change in her, and was emboldened to strike iron when it
happened to be hot.
"Miracles do happen," she affirmed, with an odd expression upon her pale
little face.
Mrs. Yellam passed no remark on this. In her opinion, formulated long
before the war, miracles had been wrought long ago in the misty,
prehistoric times of the apostles, and not since. Fancy continued
nervously:
"A miracle happened to me."
"What do you say, child? A miracle happened to--_you_?"
Fancy nodded. As a little girl, during her school-days, she had told her
tale many times with the abominable conviction that it failed to
convince, although it might excite astonishment and sympathy. When she
grew older and more reserved she ceased to tell it, wincing from
incredulity. She hated to tell it to this austere old woman, whose
tongue could be so sharp, but impulse conquered apprehension.
"I was four years old at the time. And I was playing in the street just
opposite to our house with some other children. A great dog came rushing
down on us, snapping right and left. Folks said afterwards he was mad,
but I don't know. Someway he was killed, so Father told me, before that
was made certain; killed and buried."
"A mad dog! My!"
"The other children ran away. I--I didn't."
"Why ever not?"
"I couldn't. I stood still, all of a dreadful tremble. And he came bang
at me."
"What a fearsome tale! You pore lil' maid!"
Up to this point of the narrative, Fancy had generally received just
such sympathy, particularly when telling the story to mothers. She
paused; her cheeks flushed; but her large eyes rested tranquilly upon
the eyes of Susan Yellam.
"Well, dear, go on!"
"When the dog was quite close, I saw Mother."
Mrs. Yellam gasped.
"You saw your mother, who was dead!"
"I never think of Mother as dead. Yes, I saw Mother standing between me
and the dog. She never looked at me; she looked at the dog. And the dog
saw her."
"I never heard such a tale in all my life."
"The dog saw her. He stopped of a sudden, turned, and went
back--howling. And I howled, too. Mother turned as the dog turned, and
give me one beautiful look. Then she went."
Mrs. Yellam grasped the arms of her chair, still staring into Fancy's
artless face. But no outburst of incredulity escaped from her as Fancy
had feared it would. Her logical mind grappled with the facts as
presented. She said, after a long pause:
"You thought you saw her."
"No. I did see her--plain as plain."
"But, Fancy dear, seeing as she died afore you was born, how did 'ee
know 'twas she?"
"I'd seen Mother ever so often before."
"When and how?"
After some hesitation, Fancy narrated, with many details, her psychic
experiences not only with her mother but with the four Evangelists. The
girl's mordant anxiety that the astounding tale should be believed bit
deep into the elder woman's heart. To Fancy's delight no incredulity was
expressed. And Mrs. Yellam's face remained calm and kind. Solomon
listened, also, with singular alertness and an eager intelligence which,
to Fancy, indicated full belief. Indeed, Solomon seemed to be saying to
himself: "Yes, yes, we know about that. We see things every day that
would astonish all of you, if we were allowed to talk about them." And,
in the middle of the story, the dog, that never showed any affection for
others in the presence of his mistress, leapt suddenly into Fancy's lap
and remained there. Long afterwards, Mrs. Yellam admitted that this mark
of confidence upon Sol's part had impressed her. Inwardly she explained
things quite to her satisfaction. She beheld Fancy as a four-year-old, a
tiny mite, all eyes, physically weak, the victim of a perfervid
imagination. Her own little girl, Lizzie, physically robust, would
invent somewhat similar stories about tramps and sweeps quite as
apocryphal as these tales of communings with Matthew and Mark. She
remembered smacking Lizzie, and telling her that she was a little liar.
No doubt, Fancy's father, rather a weakling, has encouraged the mite.
Since Alfred's engagement, Mrs. Yellam had met Mr. Broomfield, and
summed him up trenchantly as half a man.
However, she kept such thoughts to herself, saying quietly:
"You be a strange girl, Fancy, but you speaks what you believes to be
sober truth, and I love 'ee."
Fancy had to be satisfied with this.
The first year of the war came to an end.
So far, Nether-Applewhite had been fortunate. None of the young men had
been killed; none had been seriously wounded. And it was generally held
that "Fritz" couldn't stick another winter. Alfred became a sergeant.
Mrs. Yellam appeared in her pew, next Sunday, wearing a new bonnet. But,
coming out of church, she met William Saint, and cut him dead. She now
thought of him, habitually, as a "Prooshian," out for world-dominion.
When her Alfred returned from the wars, he would smash William Saint.
The triumph of such a "sneak" must be short-lived. Like the Kayser, he
had sold himself, body and soul, to Satan. Satan would claim his own in
God A'mighty's good time. Renewed belief in a Personal Deity had crept
back into a heart less indurated. But He remained there, so to speak, on
sufferance. At any moment, He might be driven out, as before.
Omnipotence, so Mrs. Yellam argued during many vigils, could not be
reasonably regarded as such if Satan triumphed unduly. It is to be
feared that a daily motor-'bus service to Salisbury and back under the
auspices of William Saint would have been regarded as a Satanic triumph.
But such a service, as yet, had not been inaugurated.
Alfred wrote home once a week, alternately to Fancy and his mother. The
life agreed with him. Obviously he accepted rough and smooth
philosophically, regarding himself as a part of a vast machine that
would "rampage" on with or without him. Although he was careful to keep
from his mother and Fancy the horrors which they heard from the wounded
soldiers, now and again some careless phrase would reveal,
illuminatingly, everything that the good fellow wished to suppress.
"You enjoy your food as never was," he wrote, "when you know that any
square meal may be the last. A chum of mine got it yesterday. And he was
smoking a Woodbine I gave him. The man next him, as told me all about
it, finished the Woodbine. I couldn't help laughing."
"Sometimes," said Mrs. Yellam, deliberately, "I thinks they be all mad."
She turned almost fiercely upon Fancy. "Why did he laugh, my boy as
hated to kill a fly?"
Fancy hazarded a conjecture.
"Men are not so very, very different from us women. I often laugh to
save myself crying."
Mrs. Yellam admitted that there might be something in this.
The Squire was busy with his bailiff, fattening bullocks, and, generally
speaking, trying to increase his flocks and herds. In this task, he
found an enthusiastic partner in Fishpingle, who possessed two obsessing
interests: love of the land and love of the Pomfrets. Nobody, except the
Squire and Lady Pomfret knew that this quiet, handsome old man, so
distinguished in appearance, and so choice in his use of words, might
have been lord of the manor, had he marched into life along the broad
highway which leads from the altar. Fate ordained otherwise. Fishpingle
had been constrained to stroll placidly along a by-path. He hoped that
he would so walk till the end.
His point of view was characteristic. Of the more complex designs of
Providence, which such men as Hamlin were seeking to elucidate,
Fishpingle took no cognisance. He admitted gravely that they lay beyond
his vision. But he was quite certain that the land, the backbone of
England, must and would receive the attention which, before the war, had
been so unwisely withheld. He had always wanted to see his country
independent of necessary supplies--wheat, cattle, sheep and
hogs--imported from other countries. Upon that peg he had hung his
philosophy. And now, towards the close of his days, he believed that
what he had prayed for might come to pass. To that end he was prepared
to consecrate such energies as were left to him. Incidentally, his
enthusiasm served to wean Sir Geoffrey's mind from acrimonious criticism
of politicians. To provide in the present means that might fill the
inexorable demand of the future absorbed the thoughts of Squire and
Bailiff.
Towards the middle of September, two Nether-Applewhite men were killed
in action. A week later, Lionel Pomfret was reported "severely wounded."
Sir Geoffrey crossed over to France. Lady Pomfret remained at the Court
in command of the hospital. She moved amongst the men with the same
gracious smile upon her lips; courage and faith--those great twin
brethren--sustained her; but the news was very bad, so serious that Mrs.
Yellam hardened once more her heart. Lionel had been shot through the
back, and lay, half-paralysed and in constant pain, in a receiving
hospital. Upon the Sunday after these details reached Nether-Applewhite,
Susan Yellam sat huddled up in her pew, and almost mumbled the
responses. Alone with Fancy, her sorrow broke into words:
"I be thinking o' keeping away from church next Sunday."
"Mother--!"
The dear word escaped from Fancy's lips unconsciously. She had never
used it before, except in her thoughts.
"What be you callin' me?"
Fancy knelt beside her, stroking her rough hand.
"I called you 'Mother.' Do you mind?"
"No, no; but I bain't worthy to be your mother. If Master Lionel be
taken, Alferd'll go, too. I can't bring myself to look at my lady. I
can't look Pa'son square i' the face, neither. I reads the Bible, Fancy,
and the holy words do seem to mock me. I ain't been near those two pore
souls as ha' lost their boys. For why? I ain't got no comfort for 'em."
Fancy said desperately:
"If you keep away from church, others will pass remarks."
"As if I keered about that!"
"Wouldn't you care if I stayed away, just because you did?"
Mrs. Yellam considered this. Her face relaxed.
"Maybe. Anyways, I'll go next Sunday; But, child, it be sinful to sit in
God's House wi' such a soul as mine."
Fancy said in a low voice:
"Your _soul_ is right. You mind what Mr. Hamlin said about that? George
Mucklow won his Cross because our souls are always right."
Mrs. Yellam shook her head. Then an idea came to her. A faint smile
flickered about her lips.
"Souls may take a notion to leave us for a spell. My soul seems to have
flown out o' winder, as it did when Lizzie died."
"But it came back."
"Yes; that be true; it came back. Forgi' me, child, for shovin' my
wickedness on your lil' shoulders."
"Dear Mother, you must talk to somebody."
"When I be alone, evenings, I talks to Solly."
"Well, I never!"
"And he understands me, yas, he do. He be very human, and a gert
sinner."
Fancy laughed; and the pretty trickle of sound may have melted a little
ice. Susan Yellam laughed with her.
"Solly--a sinner?"
"Ay. He be a black murderer. He killed a cat day afore yesterday, and
come back to me, all over scratches, and wi' a look as if--as if he'd
been churched."
"What a naughty hypocrite! I wish he hadn't killed the poor cat."
"'Twas a vagabond cat, no better than she should be. I scolded Solly,
and told 'un to kill William Saint's tabby, if so be as he couldn't help
breaking the Sixth Commandment. I be no better than Solly."
Fancy looked round.
"Where is the naughty dog?"
"Ah-h-h! He be courtin' some four-legged hussy. I knows 'un. Last night
he come in after bed-time, so pleased as Punch. There be Original Sin in
animals, as ther be in us. And feeling as I does, 'tis easy to forgive
Solly his trespasses. Now you knows nearly everything."
As the days succeeded each other, slightly better news came from France
about Lionel Pomfret. At the end of the month the Squire brought him
home. He lay upon his back; pain had become intermittent instead of
constant. A great specialist said that he might, in time, recover the
use of his lower limbs. Not a complaint leaked from his lips. Susan
Yellam accepted this partial recovery from what had been deemed a lethal
wound as a sign vouchsafed to her. Jealousy, however, was kindled by the
professional nurse, who kept from her patient an old friend lavish with
bull's-eyes in happier days and doubly anxious on that account to
minister faithfully to him in the unhappy present.
London was visited by Zeppelins. Nether-Applewhite would have accepted
this fresh proof of Hun "frightfulness" with more Christian resignation,
if one of the villagers had not happened to be present during the
October raid which caused such destruction in the Strand. Uncle heard
the tale at first hand, and repeated it everywhere. Martin Mowland, the
bricklayer, had travelled to London to see his son, who was lying,
desperately wounded, in the Charing Cross Hospital. According to Martin
the Zeppelin had hovered just above his head, about tree-high. Then
bombs had fallen with terrifying explosions. Uncle supplied
supplementary detail to his own audience at the _Sir John Barleycorn_.
"I says to Martin: 'What did 'ee do, old friend?' And he says to me:
'Uncle,' he says, 'I thought my hour was come, but I legs it away so
fast as I can to my lodgings....'"
At this point Uncle, being an accomplished _raconteur_, would pause.
Then he would add impressively:
"Neighbours, I don't blame 'un, although speaking for myself, I knows
that I should ha' stood still, onless, maybe, I'd seen some nice lil'
ale-house handy. Well, Martin, he legs it homealong so fast as if a
hornet's nest were tied to his starn-sheets, and presently he pulls up
like to catch his breath. And then he takes a squint upwards. Dang me,
'tis hard to believe some true stories. But Martin Mowland do take his
oath to this. He'd run the most of a mile, giving tongue, too, I'll
warrant. And when he looks up, as I be a Christian man, that there Zep
had follered he, and was slam bang over his head."
"Lard preserve us! Whatever did 'un do?"
Uncle solemnly put the finishing touch to the narrative.
"What did Martin do? He stands stone-still, and puts up his old
umbrella."
Many persons in the village believe to this day that Martin Mowland
saved his life by putting up his ancient umbrella. Unquestionably
Providence had stretched forth a Hand to preserve a worthy man who, as
bricklayer, could ill be spared.
During November, it will be remembered, Conscription was admitted to be
inevitable, and shirkers were adjured to join up before they were
"fetched." Many did so. Near Salisbury was established a vast camp of
Canadians, jolly fellows who swung, route-marching, through
Nether-Applewhite, winking gaily at the girls, and setting an inspiring
example to the young men still clinging to the soil.
Susan Yellam, spectacles upon nose, read all articles in her paper which
dealt drastically with recalcitrants.
Would they take William Saint?
This question obsessed her. William was single and of military age. But
his usefulness in the village could not be gainsaid, even by Captain
Davenant. Of late, William had begun to cough, particularly in his
sanded bar-parlour, or when he happened to be talking to Squire or
Parson. His yellow gills confirmed the general opinion that he enjoyed
poor health. Susan Yellam maintained that Willum was malingering, and
deserved such obloquy as descended upon the empty head of Ezekiel
Busketts, the brother of the sometime "odd man" at Pomfret Court.
Ezekiel, presenting himself for examination before a medical board, had
provided himself with an ancient truss, once the property of a deceased
father. Unfortunately, he adjusted the truss so improperly that
detection and ridicule fell upon him. Uncle, being distantly of kin to
Ezekiel, covered his retreat with no harsher comment than this:
"'Twas a very sad mishap."
Susan, to return to William Saint, asked for a "sign," which, if
unfavourable, might be taken to indicate how deeply she had incurred
Divine displeasure. Some people, with greater advantages than Mrs.
Yellam, believe devoutly in signs. Lionel Pomfret's slow recovery had
been thankfully accepted by Susan as a sign that Satan was not having it
all his own way in Nether-Applewhite. If William Saint was removed from
the scene of his time-serving activities, Mrs. Yellam felt that a signal
victory over the powers of Evil would have been achieved. Such a
victory, in a true religious sense, would re-tighten the spiritual
fibres that, before the war, had bound her so closely to Omnipotence.
Nay, more; she dared to presume that if Willum went, her Alfred would
return, and pick up the scattered parcels of his good business as of
yore.
She confided all this to Solomon, but not to Fancy.
Uncle furthered her wishes without any "mumbudgetting" between brother
and sister. He disliked Saint, because his ale was watered. But he liked
to meet his cronies at the _Sir John Barleycorn_. Being a brave, candid
fellow, with a half-interest in the V. C., he told Saint to his face
what he thought of the ale.
"I likes my ale, and I bain't ashamed on't. I see eye to eye wi' this
yere Horatio Bottomley about they pumpuritans, which I make bold to say
includes milkmen" (Saint sold milk) "so well as publicans. Me and
Bottomley do think just alike about knaves, hypocrites, and they as
grinds the face o' the pore. Much o' what I read in Johnny Bull might
ha' been written by me. I comes back to my tankard o' ale."
"You allers do, Uncle."
"What I likes about my first tankard be this. If 'tis good ale, such as
used to be set afore a man, I drinks it wi' a grateful heart, a-smackin'
my lips over the tankard to foller. If 'tis wishwash, I nourishes most
onChristian feelin's, and loses my thirst."
William Saint would reply imperturbably:
"For a patriotic man, you surprise me, Uncle. The ale is not what it was
because good barley is needed for better purposes."
"I knows nothing about that."
"A man with your great knowledge of everything ought to know."
Uncle marked the irony, and resented it. In argument, as he well knew,
Saint was too much for him. He began to study the publican and his
hollow cough. He noted his manoeuvres: the tiny bit of land ploughed up,
the buying of horses for remount agents, the sale of forage to the same
interested parties, who might be trusted to speak up, when Conscription
came, for an indispensable and indefatigable subject of the King. Uncle
passed some not disagreeable moments speculating concerning the fouling
of a well-lined nest.
As the season of Peace and Goodwill approached, Lionel Pomfret was just
able to hobble the length of the terrace with the assistance of a pair
of crutches. His campaigning days were over. It was doubtful whether he
would be seen again in the hunting-field. But high spirits remained
inalienably his. He plunged with renewed ardour into schemes for the
more intensive culture of a thin soil, and displayed remarkable
aptitudes fortified by hard grinding at text-books. Hamlin spent many
hours with him. In Lionel he seemed to see a type, the son of an ancient
house, born with the silver spoon in his mouth, cradled in ease and
luxury, popped on a pony to ride through life as soon as he was
short-coated, sent to a great public-school, not to acquire learning,
but manners and skill at games, pitchforked later into a famous
regiment, with a handsome allowance, not to study the stern arts of war,
but to hold his own at polo and pig-sticking.
Hamlin had deplored such upbringing. But the results confounded him,
forcing him once again to thrust carefully-considered judgments into the
melting-pot. The fact bristled in front of him that Lionel, and
thousands like him, had "made good" against all odds, vindicating an
education which consistently disdained efficiency except at games and
sport. What a gulf yawned between Prussian and English officers! The
Prussians had scrapped everything to attain efficiency. They had got it.
And what an atrocious use had been made of it! But their efficiency had
constrained young men like Lionel to an efficiency greater because the
inspiration of a fine cause lay behind it. That must be the keystone of
any arch--inspiration. Whether for good or evil, it fired men to supreme
endeavour.
Out of Hamlin's four sons, three were now in the Army. Teddy, however,
was the only one in France. The eldest son, in Orders, was still at
Cambridge; the second, after passing through the O. T. C., had sailed
for Salonika; the third had enlisted as a Bombardier.
Christmas, therefore, seemed likely to be happy, if not merry.
Upon Christmas Eve, Mrs. Yellam heard, officially, that Alfred was
wounded.
Upon Christmas Day, at Morning Service, her pew was empty.