I could not bear to go away to safety in England while Eagle stayed
behind, daily risking his life. But he would not listen to my faltering
hints that I should take up Red Cross work again in Brussels. "If you
want to give me peace of mind, go," he said. So I argued no more, and
smiled my best smile as we clasped hands for the last time. That was in
the thronged railway station, where Eagle came to see me off and help
our pilot parson steer his charges through the crowd. I was glad then
that we had said our real good-bye alone.
It took us two days to get out of Belgium at that busy time of
mobilization. We changed trains so often that we lost count, and
frequently waited for hours at wayside places in pouring rain or
broiling sun. We hadn't much to eat, but most of what we had we gave to
refugees worse off than ourselves, or to tired, hungry soldiers. It was
a hard, almost a terrible journey; but it gave me two friends, and
carried me one stage farther on the strange road along which Fate was
leading me blindfold.
The two friends were old maiden ladies, the sort of old maiden ladies
Father and Di would have avoided like a pestilence if they had met them
travelling on the Continent. They were twin sisters, exactly alike in
figure and face. Their name was Splatchley; their looks were as
repellent as their name; and their natures were angelic. They were tall
and thin and sprawling, with corrugated iron foreheads, and grizzled
hair which they crimped over it in little bunches. They had wistful,
wondering brown eyes, like dogs' eyes (if you can imagine dogs wearing
pince-nez!), the sort of noses manufactured by the gross to fit any
face, and large stick-out teeth, which made you feel sure that no man
would ever have kissed the poor ladies at any price. Their clothes and
hats and shoes resembled French caricatures of British tourists, and
they had a habit of talking together in a way to rasp the nerves. But to
me they were adorable. All their lives they had lived in a country
village, fussing happily over church work; but an uncle, who had made
jam and lots of money, died, leaving everything to his nieces. Part of
that "everything" was a large house in Fitzjohn's Avenue, Hampstead, in
which, by the uncle's will, the Miss Splatchleys were obliged to live
for nine months of the year. They had done their duty by it for the
first nine months, and had then, with great excitement and some
trepidation, started with a maid as old as themselves for their first
trip abroad. They had just conscientiously worked, by the aid of
Baedeker, from France into Belgium when the war broke out; and the
heart-rending sights they saw among refugees inspired them with a
brilliant and benevolent scheme. It occurred to them that their big
house could be turned into a home for Belgian refugees, and they
resolved to offer a thousand pounds toward the expense of bringing
penniless people over to England. They could have their largest bedrooms
altered into beehives of cubicles for single women, and stick little
families of mothers and children into the smaller rooms.
"Parkins will help," they said, as we whiled away dreary hours of
waiting in discussing over and over again their plans. And so saying
they smiled square-toothed, affectionate smiles at the old woman who had
been in their service since they were all three young together.
"But we must have at least a couple of nurses to help the poor,
distracted mothers with the children, and, of course, there must be a
second cook and another housemaid to make things comfortable," they went
on. "We must try and think of some nice young girl, too, among our
friends, who would give up her time to work with us. We're too old to
make a success alone."
Then they ran over a list of the girls they knew, in town and country,
but were able to suggest no one whom they both--Jane and Emma--could
agree upon as suitable. While these two angels were busily racking their
brains, I sat with a great idea developing in mine. I suppose I must
have looked intelligent and eager while this was happening, for Miss
Jane was moved to inquire if, by chance, I knew of anybody who would do?
"A girl who is kind, and willing, and bright and strong, and rich enough
to give up all her time for nothing," explained the dear old lady. "It's
a very difficult combination, I know. And, anyhow, your friends wouldn't
care to bother perhaps with such a middle-class institution as ours will
be. There'll be hundreds of charities organized by princesses and
duchesses, smart affairs that will do good on a grander scale than we
can, and maybe get a little fun out of it, too. But you _did_ look as if
you had something on your mind to help us out with; so you must excuse
me if I asked."
"I know a girl who would like to help you," I said, "if you'd have her.
She's willing and strong, though not at all kind, and perhaps not so
very bright. She isn't rich, either, but poor as the churchiest mouse!
Still, she'll gladly give up all her time if she may stay with you,
because she has no home that she can properly call a home."
"We should _want_ her to stay with us, of course!" they protested, both
together, as usual. "But, if she isn't kind----"
"Perhaps she could learn to be kind! She would try hard," I said meekly.
"Her name is Peggy O'Malley."
They thought I was joking at first; and when I'd made them understand
that I was in dead earnest, they shook their heads and looked dubious,
fearing it "wouldn't work."
"You see, my dear," Miss Emma explained, volubly assisted by Miss Jane,
"you are the only earl's daughter, or indeed _any_ member of the
aristocracy--higher than a knight's family--we have ever met
socially--if you can speak of this as 'socially'--being actually _thrown
together_, in all senses of the word, whenever they're in too great a
hurry to couple our train nicely, or when we fall out in a heap at some
wayside place like this. We don't flatter ourselves that you'd be likely
to select us for acquaintances if you were able to _choose_ at this
time; and you mightn't be pleased with our ways at home. We have kippers
for breakfast sometimes, and always cold supper Sunday nights."
I assured them passionately that if Providence had made them both
expressly for my taste, we couldn't be better suited to each other. As
for being an "earl's daughter," said I, there was nothing in that except
extra charges from dressmakers and hotels, and having things you had
never done attributed to you in paragraphs of penny weeklies. Then I
drew on all my funds of pathos, describing myself as unwanted and
unloved. This did the trick! The twin angels took me to their hearts and
promised me a place in their home and scheme. By the time we got on
board the boat they had dropped my handle and were calling me "Peggy
dear."
In London a crowd had come to the station expressly to welcome and cheer
us returning wanderers. And London was not the same London we had left a
few weeks ago. It was a city under a spell, a London of some strange
dream, all the stranger because the only change was in the people.
Later, it changed again, becoming almost gay and lively in outer
appearance, but at this time the balance was not adjusted.
Soldiers and recruits were marching through the streets, which but for
them and those who dazedly watched them were almost empty. Instead of
the mad herds of motor omnibuses, which had gone charging up and down in
"old days," a few moved sedately, with here an ancient horse bus
unearthed from oblivion. Of the lively streams of taxis, blue and green
and black and gray, the source seemed suddenly more than half to have
dried up. Some melancholy four-wheelers and hansoms had made bold to
steal out, and were finding customers. Little boys were playing soldiers
in the middle of Pall Mall, no longer a maelstrom. There was no din of
traffic to drown the frog-like music of their sixpenny drums and penny
trumpets. Looking into the doorways of the biggest shops one saw nobody
but the attendants, waiting to serve customers who were not there and
would not come. Outside the little shops the proprietors were frankly
standing, to wonder sadly what had happened to them and to London, and
what worse thing was likely to happen next? They talked in low voices to
each other, trying to smile or read the latest war edition of some
newspaper.
Most of the people who were in the streets seemed to have come there to
look at the soldiers or to read the papers, which they did regardless of
bumping into all the others who were doing the same thing. Nobody
appeared to think of buying anything, though the shopkeepers had already
pathetically changed the aspect of their windows to suit altered
circumstances. Instead of displaying lovely dresses, they showed rolls
of khaki cloth, or linen, cotton, or flannel for shirts, and gray army
blankets. Shoemakers had bundled away their attractive paste-buckled
slippers, and put forward conspicuously thick-soled brown boots to which
they drew the attention of officers and soldiers. Chemists had hung
printed cards, advising the public to "Keep up Their Strength in War
Time" by taking So and So's Tonic Wine. But no one cared. No one bought.
There was a dazed look on most of the faces. If those who read
newspapers cannoned into each other, instead of glaring or swearing they
smiled mildly, wistfully, and perhaps fell into conversation about the
war. One felt able to guess what all the millions in London and even in
all England and Europe were talking about and thinking about at any
given moment; yet it was strange to us who had come from the hot red
heart of the war to see no other sign of it except this dreamlike
silence which hid the pain of parting from those loved best.
Nobody came to meet me at the station, because, not knowing when I
should succeed in arriving, I had not tried to wire; nor would a message
have been likely to reach its destination if I had. The Miss Splatchleys
took me home with them, as if I had been an adopted child; and it was
from the appropriate address of "The Haven" that I telegraphed Father
and Diana: "Reached London safely with friends who have asked me to
visit them. Writing explanations."
Miss Jane and Miss Emma prophesied that "his lordship" would put down
his foot on our plans, but they did not know him. I did. Having received
my promised explanations, he was more genial on paper than he often took
the trouble to be for "only Peggy."
He wrote from Di's new house in Park Lane, a letter eminently fitted to
be read aloud, and to impress with his graciousness the middle classes
personified by estimable if vulgar females labelled Splatchley. He had,
it seemed, made inquiries about these ladies, and was in receipt of
quite satisfactory references. I had his permission to visit them until
further notice, and help in their good work, which he thoroughly
approved in these early trying days when everybody was organizing
something. Also, he was prepared to make me a small weekly allowance for
personal expenses and charities. He enclosed a cheque for the first
week. It was for two guineas.
Kitty added a postscript with a good many italics. She was _so_ glad
that I was safe after that terrible time when she and dear Ballyconal
had been _so_ worried about me, and would have been even _more_ anxious
if they had had any time to think of themselves. Of course, in the
circumstances, she could _quite_ understand that it would be awkward for
me to accept Major Vandyke's hospitality, so perhaps things were best as
they were, especially as I would be working for the good cause. But I
_must_ come and see them. Surely I could do that? And it would make talk
if I did not. She was sure I would be interested in the sewing guild
which Di had started. Everybody was starting a guild of some sort, but
this was a very special one, consisting of the most _top-wave swells_.
Not a woman on the list of workers whose name you couldn't find in Burke
and Debrett!
Diana also wrote, not at all hurt that I hadn't accepted her invitation.
Indeed, she seemed to have forgotten the episode, quite taking it for
granted that I was disposed of with the Miss Splatchleys for some time
to come. "Kitty and I will motor out to see you the first day we have a
chance," she said, "if we can _find_ Fitzjohn's Avenue. I never heard of
it. But then, one doesn't hear of streets in Hampstead, I suppose,
except in war, or crises like that, when we're all as democratic as
saints. You might ask your friends for a subscription to buy shirt
material for us to make up. I can get more workers than I need, but very
little money, and we need a lot, especially as some of us have had no
experience in sewing and we do waste rather a lot of material getting
things wrong at first! Still, we are persevering, and you must come and
see us at work cutting out and putting together garments for the wounded
every afternoon in my drawing-room, where the decorations are all
finished and immensely admired. We have tea, and I've engaged a palmist,
who tells us what will happen to our friends at the front and how the
war will end. She encourages us and keeps us up. Later we hope to get
convalescent officers to tell us their experiences while we sew. Could
you do any knitting for us? I remember you learnt from your nurse when
you were a small child. I thought it so irritating of you, but it might
come in useful now, if you remember the stitch. Some of us can crochet,
but it seems that won't do for socks. A good many use worsted of a
pretty colour which doesn't clash with their frocks; but as for me, I've
thrown aside _all_ vanity. Don't forget to ask the Miss Splatchleys for
a cheque, as Bally says they're rich; and I do hope you haven't jilted
poor Tony. He has gone, as of course you have heard, and the Dalziels
don't know _anything_--I mean about you and T----I see them every day.
Milly spoiled two shirts this afternoon, but her mother bought us some
beautiful readymade ones instead, with tucked fronts."
Work was so real and so pressing with us at "The Haven" that I laughed
at the picture of Diana's guild with its list of helpers from Debrett,
its palmist, and its tea. Miss Jane and Miss Emma, however, said that it
was my duty to go and see my family, as I was younger than they were,
and it was not to be expected that they could get to me. The desired
cheque I hadn't meant to mention, but in reading the funny part of the
letter aloud one of Di's references to it fell out inadvertently, and
the generous creatures caught it up. They were prepared to spend many
hundreds of pounds in turning "The Haven" into a refuge, and in
supporting the homeless Belgian women and children to whom they offered
hospitality, but they couldn't allow my sister to ask in vain. I was
given twenty guineas for the guild and told that I ought to take the
cheque myself, for I would discover that "it was the busiest people who
could always find time."
We were busy from six-thirty in the morning till ten-thirty at night,
with indigestibly short intervals snatched for meals; but, as the two
angels said, there was always time to do one more thing. On that
principle I contrived to go to Diana's on one of her "afternoons," armed
with the Splatchley cheque and my own knitting, strongly resolved not to
drink any of Sidney Vandyke's tea or eat one of his horrid éclairs.
I was ushered into the house by two powdered footmen far too big for it.
It is a small house for Park Lane, all up and down stairs; but the
drawing-room is of good size; and when a bishop-like butler published my
name at the door, I saw that the room was full of women, young, old, and
middle-aged, seated at sewing-machines, or standing at long tables
cutting out strange-looking shapes from hideous materials.
There were some quaint sights to be seen at "The Haven," rooms being
partitioned off into cubicles; others being turned into dormitories,
nurseries, or refectories for the refugees, who had already begun to
arrive, before things were half ready to receive them. But Diana's smart
new drawing-room in Park Lane presented a far more extraordinary study
in contrasts than anything the middle-class "Haven" could show.
Improbable Louis-Seize furniture was pushed back against white and gold
and silk-panelled walls. Gilt-legged tables and chairs were piled with
rolls of bleached and unbleached cotton, feverishly pink flannelette,
and scarlet flannel; or littered with cut-out parts of garments, some of
which (judging from the confusion and clamour about them) had got badly
mixed. On the garland-embroidered curtains of primrose yellow silk were
pinned placards announcing patriotic meetings of women who wished to
assist or form recruiting agencies; or appeals from the Red Cross
Society or the Prince of Wales' Fund. Rugs had been rolled up, and the
polished parquet floor was strewn with shirt buttons, reels of cotton,
and torn papers of pins. Scissors hid among scraps of waste material,
and on request were searched for by very young girls whose apparent
business was to supply the sewing-machines with cut-out and basted-up
garments, to fold and stack the finished things according to kind, and
to knit wildly at intervals on immense stockings with singularly long
feet which clearly could suit no one but Santa Claus.
As, according to my stepmother, all the ladies of the guild were
"top-wave swells," I'd expected to find the fair brigade of volunteers
exquisitely dressed in the latest Paris fashions of "before the war."
But no! They had invented a still later fashion of their own. It was to
be frumpish. The smart thing for the women of Great Britain was to have
their hair done plainly, with an angelic effect of putting patriotism
before vanity, and having no time to spend on self. No money, either, to
judge from their frocks! Where they had raked up their old clothes, I
can't imagine. There were skirts and blouses in that transformed
drawing-room in which, a few weeks ago, their wearers would not have
gone out to burn down a church or to be dragged to prison. Still, I must
say that most of the wearers contrived to look very distinguished, even
those at the sewing-machines, who had got tousled as children do over
unaccustomed schoolroom tasks. No one had on any jewellery except Kitty,
Mrs. Dalziel, and Milly, and one or two others who were also evidently
Americans not required to sacrifice everything for Great Britain's sake.
They, with their pretty dresses, their rings and earrings and strings of
large, glistening pearls, were like gay flowers in a kitchen garden.
Kitty, fat and fashionable, and Di, slim and elaborately frumpish, came
to meet me with pajama legs in their hands. They didn't trouble to take
off their thimbles, and I thought they seemed far from being ashamed of
the needle pricks on their fingers.
A few of the girls I knew already, and some of the older women. All had
heard from Di or from the Dalziels that I had been doing a little
amateur work as a nurse in Belgium, but no one--not even Di
herself--expressed curiosity as to details. They had so much to think of
that interested them more; and I was thankful for the self-absorption of
Kitty and Di which saved me from awkward questions as to how I had
contrived to get out of Liége. It was simply taken for granted by my
family that, according to my own written account, I had made the journey
home with thoroughly reputable refugees. I felt sure that Tony had not
given his mother and sister any indiscreet information about "Monsieur
Mars." Neither did he appear to have told them that our engagement was
definitely broken off. Their unsuspecting friendliness made me feel
guilty, and I decided that I ought sooner or later to let them know the
truth.
That day at Di's, however, they gave me no chance to speak, even if I'd
had strength of mind to snatch it. Tony was safely on his way to
America, travelling in the steerage, having given up his cabin to as
many ladies as it could hold. He was admiringly mentioned, and then
dismissed as a subject of conversation in favour of others more exciting
to his family and closer at hand. Milly, while sewing spasmodically on a
weirdly shaped shirt which could only be got on or off by a weirdly
shaped man, talked about Stefan and produced a letter from him, which
she cherished inside her blouse. He had been wounded, seriously though
not dangerously, in Poland, and invalided home. It was not thought that
he would be able to do any more fighting, and so when he was strong
enough, he hoped to try and reach England in order that they might be
married at once, if Milly would not mind taking an invalid for a
husband. Apparently Milly did not mind in what condition she took her
count provided she was sure of getting him. She was looking forward, if
all went well, to becoming a Russian countess within a few weeks, for
Stefan expected to arrive in a ship from Archangel along a sea route
protected by the British navy. She had so little fear of anything going
wrong that she was "encouraging dressmakers" by starting her trousseau,
and had begun to study the Russian language as a surprise for her
fiancé. Mrs. Dalziel talked about Stefan, too, and how she would help
nurse him back to health in a suite at the Savoy, when he and Milly were
married. Meanwhile, mother and daughter were giving themselves up to
good works, it seemed, whenever they had a minute to spare from their
own affairs. Milly went three times a week to the Russian Embassy to sew
for the Russians, and came twice a week to Diana's guild. Mrs. Dalziel
had joined two committees got up by stranded Americans at the Savoy: one
to supply money for moneyless millionaires, and the other to find
clothes for clotheless millionairesses.
Whenever one of Diana's workers collapsed with fatigue, she was given
tea or something to eat, and allowed an interval's repose in Di's
boudoir, which had become the temporary consulting-room of Madame
Mesmerre. The tame clairvoyant was expressly forbidden to foretell
anything depressing; if she could not get visions of husbands, sons, and
lovers coming safely home, it was distinctly understood with Diana (who
paid by the afternoon) that she mustn't have any visions at all. This
arrangement, however, was a family secret, which Kitty betrayed to me in
confidence. Every one said that Madame Mesmerre was wonderful, but I
didn't consult her.
I don't understand much about sewing or other really useful things of
that sort, but I've picked up enough (thanks to helping my poor friends
at Ballyconal) to know that men's shirts ought to have armholes bigger
than those for little boys, and that they shouldn't be as short as bibs,
or as long as surplices. Even this small amount of knowledge made me
unexpectedly useful at the guild, where every member seemed to have her
own original conception of what shape a shirt ought to be, and what it
should be made of. Even my brief apprenticeship with the Miss
Splatchleys, to whom most kinds of domestic work was as easy as
breathing, made these fashionable women's desperate efforts at doing
good seem pathetic. I agreed to return whenever I could, but no one
would promise to come and see the "Haven Home for Belgian Refugees."
They were all too busy working, by day; and at night it was a _duty_ to
go to a theatre or music hall, because the performance was given for the
benefit of some fund, or else somebody sang a patriotic song to
encourage recruiting.
We grew busier and busier at "The Haven" as the days went by. Refugees
poured in. There was hardly time to be sad or anxious in the daytime;
but at night always, always, my brain ceased to feel like a brain, and
became a battlefield, as before in Belgium. The horror and anguish of
war poured into my soul as water pours into a leaking ship. The most
dreadful thoughts could be warded off in the busy hours of the day; but
in the night stillness they found me without defence, and I surrendered.
Those were the hours when it seemed to me impossible that any of the men
I knew, and above all, Eagle March, could ever escape from the slaughter
alive. The Miss Splatchleys said that I looked pale and thin, with blue
shadows under my eyes, and begged me not to work so hard. But I could
have worked twice as hard without realizing that I was tired, if some
one who knew the future, as no crystal-gazer can know it, had told me
that Eagle would come out of the war unharmed.
Even when there was scarcely time for a decent meal, there was time to
read the war news. All night long I existed for the moment in the
morning when the two papers which the Miss Splatchleys took in should
arrive, and I could bolt the big headlines and secretly search for the
name of "Monsieur Mars." Then, whether I found it or not, the same
suspense had to be lived through till the afternoon, when the evening
editions came out; and after that again until the hour for the "Last War
Extra."
Often the name of Mars started up to my eyes from the closely printed
columns and set my heart beating and my blood flying to my head. No one
seemed to have identified him as Captain March, not even the British or
American war correspondents who occasionally reported his exploits. Or
if they did, they respected his wish to keep it secret.
"Mars, the Belgian Air Scout," he was generally called, for few
journalists appeared to know that he was a foreigner who had offered his
services to the brave little country. Wonderful, almost miraculous,
feats were attributed to him. Sometimes they were denied; but usually
they proved to be true.
One morning I read that he had made a daring flight of two hundred miles
over German territory, had dropped bombs on an ammunition train, had
been fired on, and returned to his base "somewhere in Flanders" with the
wings of his machine riddled by ninety-eight bullets. Again he and Sorel
(who had been at Liége when we were there) went reconnoitring over the
great German fortress of Metz, hoping to destroy the Zeppelin sheds.
Quickly they were detected, although nearly three thousand feet above
the forts. Up came shots from high-angle guns, spattering around them
like spray from a fountain; but they persevered, making for the
direction of the drill ground. Then suddenly Mars' motor ceased to work.
It seemed that all was over for him, and the task left for Sorel to
finish alone. But Mars, said the papers, resolved not to give his life
away for nothing. Sweeping down in a bold volplane he launched his bomb,
and had abandoned himself for lost when suddenly the motor started
again; whereupon he darted off defiantly, following Simon Sorel, who had
thrown his bomb also, and escaped.
If this had been all, I might have borne it somehow in my pride of
Eagle. But there was always something more. I read of his monoplane
being struck by a fragment of bursting shell over the enemy's lines, and
his volplaning with a disabled engine, to drop into safety and a French
stone quarry with important information to give concerning the
disposition of German forces. When Paris was threatened and almost
despairing, Mars flew over the sad city letting fall leaflets with the
inspiring message, "Prenez courage, tout va bien." Over Brussels also he
maneuvered, dropping his leaflets, and while angry German soldiers took
aim at him and his monoplane he "looped the loop" far above their noses.
His cool remark after this exploit was said to have been: "These Germans
do shoot badly!" He had more than one duel in the air with hostile war
planes, having vowed with the Belgian airmen to ram all enemy aircraft
whenever possible. There was a fearsome account to read, one morning, of
his bringing down an aeroplane which had dropped bombs on the heads of
French troops, helping out the wounded aviator and military observer,
and then setting fire to their machine. In this adventure the _Golden
Eagle_ was injured, and another monoplane was lent the airman while his
own was being put to rights. The "Elusive Mars," newspapers began to
name him, because in the face of almost certain destruction he
invariably escaped in the nick of time and within an inch of his life.
At last, however, one October day of good news for the Allies, there was
bad news for me. They had put it in big headlines on the most important
page:
"Mars, the Belgian Airman, Caught at Last. While Reconnoitring His
Machine is Disabled, and Falls in Enemy's Lines. He is Believed to
be Wounded, and is Certainly a Prisoner."
I had no heart to rejoice in the tidings which made the rest of my world
happy that day. And for many days afterward--days each one of which
seemed a lifetime of suspense--there was no other news of Eagle March. I
felt as if the future were a very long, dim corridor, in whose chill
twilight I groped, my eyes straining toward the distance.
So a month dragged itself away, and then came news at last.