Miss Muriel went back in the car to her friends at Chislehurst, with
the air of one who, for the sake of romance, was prepared to defy
the world. She had always been spoilt by her mother (it is fair to
myself to mention that the treatment was started before I entered the
family) and Mrs. Hillier now took her side against the rest of us,
declaring that a girl had to obey the instructions of her own heart,
that love was something which could not be directed by those outside
its influence, and that, moreover, it was a comfort to think there
was likely to be an establishment available which would enable one to
escape from the surroundings of Greenwich.
"Apart from all that," she argued, triumphantly, "a man can't help the
country he was born in."
"He ought to help it," said Master Edward. The lad was the most
strenuous of us all on the opposition side. "This chap should have gone
back directly the war started. He has no business here."
"Pardon me," said his mother, "he has a business here. And a very good
one, I am happy to say."
"I mean that when two countries are fighting each other----"
"You don't know what you mean," she asserted. "And, besides, you are
much too young to have an opinion on a subject of this kind. If your
father, sitting over there by the window, and saying nothing, had a
proper control over his children, he wouldn't allow you to talk in this
way."
"Do you want my view of the matter?" asked Mr. Hillier.
"Oh, no," she answered quickly. "No. It's all settled, and there's
nothing more to be said."
"My view is," he announced, "that I'd rather see her cleaning
doorsteps."
"I daresay!" said Mrs. Hillier, coldly. "That is because the Arsenal
work has coarsened your outlook. Vulgarised your mental attitude.
Twisted your sense of proportion."
Miss Katherine went to her father: Master Edward crossed the room to
his mother. I left them as Mr. and Mrs. Hillier were beginning to offer
apologies for hasty words. The day was Sunday, and upstairs--having
the time to spare--I wrote the drafts of two notes; one begging Miss
Muriel to come and see me and have a long talk, and the other asking
her to think of the way in which her brother John, out in France,
would receive the news of her engagement. I am supposed to be handy
with my pen, but neither of these communications satisfied me, and I
decided to take a few days to consider the matter. Instead, I wrote
a long communication to Corporal Herbert Millwood, and sent in it
an affectionate message to Master John. I tried to make the letter
cheerful. "If you come across the Kaiser on his birthday, please wish
him, for me, many unhappy returns."
* * * * *
William Richards called at London Street one afternoon. Whenever he had
happened to say anything of a specially friendly nature--as he had done
on his previous visit--William always stayed away for a considerable
time, as though desirous of allowing the memory of it to fade, and
he now seemed rather nervous; to conceal this, he told me three war
anecdotes, which, so far as I could see, had no point whatever. I
mentioned this, and he admitted that a story never improved in his
hands. He gave compliments to the shop, remarked that Peter seemed a
decent sort of lad, spoke of the large amount of traffic which was
being dealt with by the Southern railways. He had heard excellent
reports of Master Edward, and told me that the boy's appearance,
speech, and behaviour had, by good fortune, been noticed and commented
upon by the wife of the superintendent. After this interval of sanity,
William again went blundering in and amongst tales from the fighting
line.
"Now that one," he remarked, rubbing the top of his head with the peak
of his uniform cap, "that one, I'll swear, appeared funny when I first
heard it. And now it sounds simply chronic." He glanced at his large
watch. "By Ginger," he exclaimed, "but time does fly when you're in
pleasant company. There was something I wanted to tell--" He gave a
fair imitation of a puzzled look. "I've got it," he said, triumphantly.
"Piece of news I heard at Charing Cross. The Major of that lot that
your nephew, and your Master John was in: he's been took prisoner.
Good-day to you, Mary!"
The news was confirmed by a brief paragraph in the evening journal; I
said nothing of it at Gloucester Place because it is rarely wise to
go out of your way simply in order to shake hands with trouble. Far
better to wait where you are, and let trouble, if it cares to do so,
come to you. (Afterwards we discovered that all of us had seen the
announcement, and each determined to make no allusion.)
The first information of a definite nature came in a letter from a
Quartermaster-Sergeant. Addressed to Mr. Hillier, and written in pencil
it said, "I regret to tell you that your son, Corporal Hillier, has
been missing since the twenty-fifth January. He may be a prisoner, but
we do not know for certain. He asked me, should anything happen to him,
to let you know."
There followed a brief letter from my nephew, Herbert.
"We were surprised in a dug out," he wrote. "We ran in single line for
cover, with machine firing coming across. John had no rifle. That was
the last we saw of him. Tell his people to hope for the best. I was
one of the few who escaped, but I am in hospital. Nothing serious. Love
to my father, and to you."
There came a month of suspense during which we gathered scraps of news
but nothing that re-assured us. The good Quartermaster-Sergeant, in
another letter, said there were no further particulars; they could not
say what had really happened; directly the battalion obtained definite
information he would write again.
I went up to town, and called at Wellington Barracks; Mr Hillier paid a
Saturday afternoon visit to the War Office; Miss Katherine communicated
with a girl friend at Geneva, begging her to make inquiries of the Red
Cross Society. During all this time, I noticed that Mrs. Hillier, eager
as the rest of us, showed no tears, but she became more active in the
work of the small household, and took duties that had hitherto been
performed by the rest of us. She rose each morning to see her husband
leave for the Arsenal, and kissed him before he went: kissed him again
when he returned in the evening. No complaining came from her now. If
she spoke of Master John, she referred to him hopefully.
An envelope arrived with the postmark of Cricklewood. We recognised the
handwriting, and waited anxiously for Mr. Hillier to come home and open
it.
"I am having this letter posted," wrote the Quartermaster-Sergeant,
"by a comrade who is off to England, so as to avoid it being censored.
Well, to tell you as much as possible, sir, about your son. We were
in the forward trenches on the morning of the twenty-fifth of last
month, when the enemy made an attack. Their trenches were not a hundred
yards from our own. They had under-mined our forward trenches. They
threw up some smoke bombs as a signal, and to blind their attack. At
the same time, they exploded their mines. The result was that part
of our trenches were blown up, and before you could look sideways
they were upon us in thousands. The Right Flank and the Left Flank of
our regiment stuck to their ground until overcome by sheer weight of
numbers. Then, those that possibly could, retired to a brick field
about eight hundred yards back which the remainder of the battalion
(two companies) had turned into a miniature fort. This was known as
The Keep. The Germans made violent attacks, all without any material
advantage to themselves, on this position, but were unable to take it.
And it was not lost when matters quietened down. Our trenches have now
been regained, and our boys, I am pleased to say, managed to steal some
of the German trenches.
"I am very sorry to say I can give you no good news of your son. I have
made inquiries of the regiments who held the position after it had been
regained, and one of the sergeants told me they buried over two hundred
of our men. Some of them were found dead at the 'present,' ready to
fire at the enemy, so you see it is no good telling you anything that
might build up very great hopes.
"The strength of the companies going into the trenches was two hundred
and seventy-six. Of these forty-six returned. Of course, we held a
position where we did not dare to lose ground, and although it was a
terrible business, it was a great victory for the English and French
troops. At any rate, the enemy did not score much on their Emperor's
birthday.
"You can understand how deeply I sympathise with you as none of us
knows the minute when our own people will need the same. I have a
father and mother living at Lewisham."
Mr. Hillier read this out to us, in a voice that broke now and again.
His wife took his hand when he finished, and patted it sympathetically.
"I could hug the man who wrote that nice letter," I declared.
Herbert sent a note later from the hospital at Boulogne (where he
found himself, after treatment at a dressing station) saying that he
was nearly well, and ready to go back to the fighting line. "Have you
any news of John?" he asked. "We were real good chums." The official
communication came to Gloucester Place from the War Office, stating
that Corporal Hillier was reported missing. His mother, showing greater
industry in domestic work every day, and relieving me of half my
duties, argued that the use of this word by the authorities proved that
they were not without hope; the rest of us abstained from contesting
this opinion. We knew that all the two hundred and thirty mentioned
in Quartermaster-Sergeant Cartwright's letter would be reported in
the first instance under the same heading. Mr. Hillier ventured to
allude to the question of Muriel's engagement as regarded in the new
circumstances.
"I have already written to her, dear," said Mrs. Hillier. "Don't you
let that worry you. I've told her the engagement must be cancelled.
After the way his people have treated our boy--"
"I was sure," he said, gratefully, "you would see the matter in that
light."
"You can consider it as settled," she declared. "Weston," turning to
me, "I'm going to cook supper this evening. And you are to sit down
with us, please."
I was not at all certain that I wanted to join the family party at
table, and I had my doubts concerning Mrs. Hillier's abilities to
prepare a meal. As a fact, the dish she served up was excellent, and
when we offered our congratulations she disclosed a circumstance that
had been kept from everyone but Mr. Hillier; in her early youth, it
seemed, she had been compelled to take charge of a household, and
run it with economy. "But, mother dear," protested Miss Katherine,
amazedly, "why in the world didn't you tell us this before?" Mrs.
Hillier considered for a moment before replying. "I can think of
no other excuse," she said, "than that of foolish pride." From that
moment, I began to feel a new regard for Mrs. Hillier. It needed some
courage to make an admission of the nature before her own children,
and in front of me. We were very cheerful that evening (partly, I
think, because we had resolved to keep each other's spirits up) and
Miss Katherine, recalling a comment of mine when the letter from France
was being read, sketched out a romantic episode in the life of the
Quartermaster-Sergeant to take place after the war, with a wedding at
St. Alphege's, and the bride offering a charming appearance in the
latest confection from Dover Street. She suggested that business could
be combined with sentiment if all the gifts were purchased at the
bride's establishment in London Street.
"But I've never set eyes upon the man," I protested.
"The moment he sets eyes upon you, Weston," prophesied Miss Katherine,
"his fate will be sealed."
"He may be married already."
"If he has, which I very much doubt, for he spoke of parents at
Lewisham, but said nothing about a wife--if he has, I say, she is
suffering from a nervous affection that will take her off in the nick
of time."
"None of your widowers for me," I declared.
The affair of Miss Muriel's engagement was not settled so easily as
we had hoped. She wrote expressing regret at the absence of definite
news concerning her brother; she was also sorry to find that her mother
had allowed herself to be impressed by occurrences which had no real
bearing on plans agreed upon earlier. Her marriage was to take place on
the twenty-seventh. Mr. Schloss had decided to set up a new home in the
West of England: this, owing to prejudices which were being shown by
folk of the neighbourhood who ought to know better, but were seemingly
unwilling to listen to reasonable argument. Miss Muriel enclosed some
verses of hers beginning, "True love knows no barriers."
My brother-in-law met with a slight accident whilst on the way to his
work, and came home to London Street, depressed by the thought that
he would be prevented for some time from assisting in munition tasks,
discouraged by the knowledge that his wages would cease. I set him
right on this second question by engaging him to look after the shop
which he had once owned, and I gave Peter instructions to look after
him and to see that he did not over-exert himself. Peter had joined the
Boy Scouts, and had become such a dependable lad and so well spoken
that Millwood announced he was prepared now for miracles of all sorts.
(Peter's mother called one day at the shop and denounced me, up hill
and down dale, on the grounds that I had marred and spoilt her views
regarding the boy; she intended, it seemed, that he should follow
the example of her two other children, and qualify himself for being
sent by a magistrate to an Industrial School where the State would
have accepted the responsibility of making a man of him. "And all my
plans set aside," she lamented, "owing to your clumsy interference!")
Millwood was glad to be able to go with the aid of a couple of sticks
to his club again of an evening, although he complained that with
Radicals and Tories working in hearty agreement over philanthropic
matters, all the pepper and mustard had gone out of the institution.
Millwood had given up alcoholic beverages for the duration of the war.
"Really," he explained to me, confidentially, "I did that because I
fancied it might please young 'Erb. I'd rather like the boy not to be
ashamed of me."
It was near the end of the month that I went to town to see a customer,
recommended to me by the doctor who set up the home of old furniture.
He lived in North Street, behind the Abbey, and on the way back I
looked in at Whitehall, and made inquiries. The officials there,
although badgered by anxious folk, answered me politely. No news of
Corporal Hillier. I returned from Charing Cross, where I happened to
see William Richards.
"Hope on, hope ever!" said William, encouragingly.
I told myself in the train for Greenwich that I had come to the limits
of my optimism, and that Master John was to be henceforth only a
memory. I thought of his early days when I had first come into the
Hillier establishment; thought of the pride we all took, later, over
his first song; wondered whether there was perhaps some young girl, not
known to us, who sorrowed for the loss of him. Crossing by the subway
at Greenwich station, and coming up the steps I caught sight of Master
Edward, on his way to late duty, and, to my pain and astonishment,
dancing on the platform. His train came in before I could reach him,
and give him a word of reproof.
At Gloucester Place, Mrs. Hillier waved gaily from the balcony;
I assumed this was but a part of her new and improved method of
conducting life. She disappeared, and a few minutes later came
running--actually running--along to meet me.
"Sorry to say, ma'am," I remarked, "that I have no good news."
"But we have, Weston," she cried, exultantly. "The dear boy is safe.
The dear boy is wounded, but he's alive. Come indoors, and see the card
for yourself!"
It was a beautifully clean, white card, headed on the front "Field
postkarte. Kriegsgefangenen--sendung," and endorsed "Geprüft pass
zentrale, gouvernement--Lille." On the back the words, "Envoyez
directement à la Famille." Underneath, the entries filled in with
Master John's own handwriting.
"Je me trouve à.... Lille."
There followed Nom et prénoms, Regiment, Compagnie, Escadron. Then this
message under the word Notices.
"Painfully wounded left leg, and rather weak."
I observed that, for the first time since the beginning of the war,
Master John's mother had tears in her eyes.