It was distinctly hard lines for Lady Barbara, who came of good
fighting stock, and was one of the bravest women of her generation,
that her son should be so undisguisedly a coward. Whatever good
qualities Lester Slaggby may have possessed, and he was in some
respects charming, courage could certainly never be imputed to him. As
a child he had suffered from childish timidity, as a boy from unboyish
funk, and as a youth he had exchanged unreasoning fears for others
which were more formidable from the fact of having a carefully
thought-out basis. He was frankly afraid of animals, nervous with
firearms, and never crossed the Channel without mentally comparing the
numerical proportion of lifebelts to passengers. On horseback he
seemed to require as many hands as a Hindu god, at least four for
clutching the reins, and two more for patting the horse soothingly on
the neck. Lady Barbara no longer pretended not to see her son's
prevailing weakness; with her usual courage she faced the knowledge of
it squarely, and, mother-like, loved him none the less.
Continental travel, anywhere away from the great tourist tracks, was a
favoured hobby with Lady Barbara, and Lester joined her as often as
possible. Eastertide usually found her at Knobaltheim, an upland
township in one of those small princedoms that make inconspicuous
freckles on the map of Central Europe.
A long-standing acquaintanceship with the reigning family made her a
personage of due importance in the eyes of her old friend the
Burgomaster, and she was anxiously consulted by that worthy on the
momentous occasion when the Prince made known his intention of coming
in person to open a sanatorium outside the town. All the usual items
in a programme of welcome, some of them fatuous and commonplace, others
quaint and charming, had been arranged for, but the Burgomaster hoped
that the resourceful English lady might have something new and tasteful
to suggest in the way of loyal greeting. The Prince was known to the
outside world, if at all, as an old-fashioned reactionary, combating
modern progress, as it were, with a wooden sword; to his own people he
was known as a kindly old gentleman with a certain endearing
stateliness which had nothing of standoffishness about it. Knobaltheim
was anxious to do its best. Lady Barbara discussed the matter with
Lester and one or two acquaintances in her little hotel, but ideas were
difficult to come by.
"Might I suggest something to the Gnädige Frau?" asked a sallow
high-cheek-boned lady to whom the Englishwoman had spoken once or
twice, and whom she had set down in her mind as probably a Southern
Slav.
"Might I suggest something for the Reception Fest?" she went on, with a
certain shy eagerness. "Our little child here, our baby, we will dress
him in little white coat, with small wings, as an Easter angel, and he
will carry a large white Easter egg, and inside shall be a basket of
plover eggs, of which the Prince is so fond, and he shall give it to
his Highness as Easter offering. It is so pretty an idea we have seen
it done once in Styria."
Lady Barbara looked dubiously at the proposed Easter angel, a fair,
wooden-faced child of about four years old. She had noticed it the day
before in the hotel, and wondered rather how such a towheaded child
could belong to such a dark-visaged couple as the woman and her
husband; probably, she thought, an adopted baby, especially as the
couple were not young.
"Of course Gnädige Frau will escort the little child up to the Prince,"
pursued the woman; "but he will be quite good, and do as he is told."
"We haf some pluffers' eggs shall come fresh from Wien," said the
husband.
The small child and Lady Barbara seemed equally unenthusiastic about
the pretty idea; Lester was openly discouraging, but when the
Burgomaster heard of it he was enchanted. The combination of sentiment
and plovers' eggs appealed strongly to his Teutonic mind.
On the eventful day the Easter angel, really quite prettily and
quaintly dressed, was a centre of kindly interest to the gala crowd
marshalled to receive his Highness. The mother was unobtrusive and
less fussy than most parents would have been under the circumstances,
merely stipulating that she should place the Easter egg herself in the
arms that had been carefully schooled how to hold the precious burden.
Then Lady Barbara moved forward, the child marching stolidly and with
grim determination at her side. It had been promised cakes and
sweeties galore if it gave the egg well and truly to the kind old
gentleman who was waiting to receive it. Lester had tried to convey to
it privately that horrible smackings would attend any failure in its
share of the proceedings, but it is doubtful if his German caused more
than an immediate distress. Lady Barbara had thoughtfully provided
herself with an emergency supply of chocolate sweetmeats; children may
sometimes be time-servers, but they do not encourage long accounts. As
they approached nearer to the princely daïs Lady Barbara stood
discreetly aside, and the stolid-faced infant walked forward alone,
with staggering but steadfast gait, encouraged by a murmur of elderly
approval. Lester, standing in the front row of the onlookers, turned
to scan the crowd for the beaming faces of the happy parents. In a
side-road which led to the railway station he saw a cab; entering the
cab with every appearance of furtive haste were the dark-visaged couple
who had been so plausibly eager for the "pretty idea." The sharpened
instinct of cowardice lit up the situation to him in one swift flash.
The blood roared and surged to his head as though thousands of
floodgates had been opened in his veins and arteries, and his brain was
the common sluice in which all the torrents met. He saw nothing but a
blur around him. Then the blood ebbed away in quick waves, till his
very heart seemed drained and empty, and he stood nervelessly,
helplessly, dumbly watching the child, bearing its accursed burden with
slow, relentless steps nearer and nearer to the group that waited
sheep-like to receive him. A fascinated curiosity compelled Lester to
turn his head towards the fugitives; the cab had started at hot pace in
the direction of the station.
The next moment Lester was running, running faster than any of those
present had ever seen a man run, and--he was not running away. For
that stray fraction of his life some unwonted impulse beset him, some
hint of the stock he came from, and he ran unflinchingly towards
danger. He stooped and clutched at the Easter egg as one tries to
scoop up the ball in Rugby football. What he meant to do with it he had
not considered, the thing was to get it. But the child had been
promised cakes and sweetmeats if it safely gave the egg into the hands
of the kindly old gentleman; it uttered no scream, but it held to its
charge with limpet grip. Lester sank to his knees, tugging savagely at
the tightly clasped burden, and angry cries rose from the scandalized
onlookers. A questioning, threatening ring formed round him, then
shrank back in recoil as he shrieked out one hideous word. Lady
Barbara heard the word and saw the crowd race away like scattered
sheep, saw the Prince forcibly hustled away by his attendants; also she
saw her son lying prone in an agony of overmastering terror, his spasm
of daring shattered by the child's unexpected resistance, still
clutching frantically, as though for safety, at that white-satin
gew-gaw, unable to crawl even from its deadly neighbourhood, able only
to scream and scream and scream. In her brain she was dimly conscious
of balancing, or striving to balance, the abject shame which had him
now in thrall against the one compelling act of courage which had flung
him grandly and madly on to the point of danger. It was only for the
fraction of a minute that she stood watching the two entangled figures,
the infant with its woodenly obstinate face and body tense with dogged
resistance, and the boy limp and already nearly dead with a terror that
almost stifled his screams; and over them the long gala streamers
flapping gaily in the sunshine. She never forgot the scene; but then,
it was the last she ever saw.
Lady Barbara carries her scarred face with its sightless eyes as
bravely as ever in the world, but at Eastertide her friends are careful
to keep from her ears any mention of the children's Easter symbol.