The Soul of Susan Yellam

by Horace Annesley Vachell

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.