Vivie and her mother found the banks closed and likewise the railway

station. They now had but one thought: to get back as quickly as

possible to Villa Beau-séjour, and fortunately for their dry-mouthed

impatience their farmer friend was of the same mind. Along the

Tervueren road they met numbers of peasant refugees in carts and on

foot, driving cattle, geese or pigs towards the capital; urging on

the tugging dogs with small carts and barrows loaded with personal

effects, trade-goods, farm produce, or crying children. All of them

had a distraught, haggard appearance and were constantly looking

behind them. From the east, indeed, came the distant sounds of

explosions and intermittent rifle firing. Mrs. Warren was blanched

with fear, her cheeks a dull peach colour. She questioned the people

in French and Flemish, but they only answered vaguely in raucous

voices: "Les Allemands!" "De Duitscher."

One old woman, however, had flung herself down by the roadside,

while her patient dog lay between the shafts of the little cart till

she should be pleased to go on. She was more communicative and told

Mrs. Warren a tale too horrible to be believed, about husband, son,

son-in-law all killed, daughter violated and killed too, cottage in

flames, livestock driven off. Recovering from her exhaustion she

rose and shook herself. "I've no business to be here. I should be

with _them_. I was just packing this cart for the market when it

happened. Why did I go away? Oh for shame! I'll go back--to

_them_..." And forthwith she turned the dog round and trudged the

same way they were going.

At last they came opposite the courtyard of the Villa and saw the

lawn and gravel sweep full of helmeted soldiers in green-grey

uniform, their bodies hung with equipment--bags, great-coats,

rolled-up blankets, trench spades, cartridge bandoliers. Vivie

jumped down quickly, said to her mother in a low firm voice: "Leave

everything to me. Say as little as possible." Then to the farmer:

"Nous vous remercions infiniment. Vous aurez mille choses à faire

chez vous, je n'en doute. Nous réglerons notre compte tout-à

l'heure.... Pour le moment, adieu." She clutched the handbags of

valuables, slung them somehow on her left arm, while with her other

she piloted the nearly swooning Mrs. Warren into the court.

They were at once stopped by a non-commissioned officer who asked

them in abrupt, scarcely understandable German what they wanted.

Vivie guessing his meaning said in English--she scarcely knew any

German: "This is our house. We have been absent in Brussels. We want

to see the officer in command." The soldier knew no English, but

likewise guessed at their meaning. He ordered them to wait where

they were. Presently he came out of the Villa and said the Herr

Oberst would see them. Vivie led her mother into the gay little

hall--how pleasant and cool it had looked in the early morning! It

was now full of surly-looking soldiers. Without hesitating she took

a chair from one soldier and placed her mother in it. "You rest

there a moment, dearest, while I go in and see the officer in

command." The corporal she had first spoken with beckoned her into

the pretty sitting-room at the back where they had had their early

breakfast that morning.

Here she saw seated at a table consulting plans of Brussels and

other papers a tall, handsome man of early middle age, who might

indeed have passed for a young man, had he not looked very tired and

care-worn and exhibited a bald patch at the back of his head,

rendered the more apparent because the brown-gold curls round it

were dank with perspiration. He rose to his feet, clicked his heels

together and saluted. "An English young lady, I am told, rather ...

a ... surprise ... on ... the ... outskirts ... of Brussels..." (His

English was excellent, if rather staccato and spaced.) "It ... is

... not ... usual ... for ... Englishwomen ... to ... be owners ...

of chateaux ... in Belgium. But I ... hear ... it ... is ... your

mother ... who is the owner ... from long time, and you are her

daughter newly arrived from England? Nicht wahr? Sie verstehen nicht

Deutsch, gnädiges Fraulein?"

"No," said Vivie, "I don't speak much German, and fortunately you

speak such perfect English that it is not necessary."

"I have stayed some time in England," was the reply; "I was once

military attaché in London. Both your voice and your face seem--what

should one say? Familiar to me. Are you of London?"

"Yes, I suppose I may say I am a Londoner, though I believe I was

born in Brussels. But I don't want to beat about the bush: there is

so much to be said and explained, and all this time I am very

anxious about my mother. She is in the hall outside--feels a little

faint I think with shock--might she--might I?"--

"But my dear Miss--?"

"Miss Warren--"

"My dear Miss Warren, of course. We are enemies--pour le moment--but

we Germans are not monsters. ("What about those peasants' stories?"

said Vivie to herself.) Your lady mother must come in here and take

that fauteuil. Then we can talk better at our ease."

Vivie got up and brought her mother in.

"Now you shall tell me everything--is it not so? Better to be quite

frank. À la guerre comme à la guerre. First, you are English?"

"Yes. My mother is Mrs. Warren, I am her daughter, Vivien Warren. My

mother has lived many years in Belgium, though also in other places,

in Germany, Austria and France. Of late, however, she has lived

entirely here. This place belongs to her."

"And you?"

"I? I have just been released from prison in London, Holloway

Prison..."

"My dear young lady! You are surely joking--what do you say? You

pull my leg? But no; I see! You have been Suffragette. Aha! _I_

understand you are _the_ Miss Warren, the Miss Warren who make the

English Government afraid, nicht wahr? You set fire to Houses of

Parliament..."

_Vivie_ (interrupting): "No, no! Only to some racing stables..."

_Oberst_: "I understand. But you are rebel?"

_Vivie_: "I hate the present British Government--the most

hypocritical, the most..."

_Oberst_: "But we are in agreement, you and I! This is splendid. But

now we must be praktisch. We are at war, though we hope here for a

peaceful occupation of Belgium. You will see how the Flämisch--Ah,

you say the Fleming?--the Flemish part of Belgium will receive us

with such pleasure. It is only with the Wälsch, the Wallon part we

disagree.... But there is so much for me to do--we must talk of all

these things some other time. Let us begin our business. I must

first introduce myself. I am Oberst Gottlieb von Giesselin of the

Saxon Army. (He rose, clicked heels, bowed, and sat down.) I see you

have three heavy bags you look at often. What is it?"

_Vivie_ (taking courage): "It is my mother's jewellery and some

plate. She fears--"

_Von G._: "I understand! We have a dr-r-eadful reputation, we poor

Germans! The French stuff you up with lies. But we are better than

you think. You shall take them in two--three days to Brussels when

things are quiet, and put them in some bank. Here I fear I must

stay. I must intrude myself on your hospitality. But better for you

perhaps if I stay here at present. I will put a few of my men in

your--your--buildings. Most of them shall go with their officers to

Tervueren for billet." (Turning to Mrs. Warren.) "Madam, you must

cheer up. I foresee your daughter and I will be great friends. Let

us now look through the rooms and see what disposition we can make.

I think I will have to take this room for my writing, for my work. I

see you have telephone here. _Gut_!"

Leaving Mrs. Warren still seated, but a little less stertorous in

breathing, a little reassured, Vivie and Oberst von Giesselin then

went over the Villa, apportioning the rooms. The Colonel and his

orderly would be lodged in two of the bedrooms. Vivie and her mother

would share Mrs. Warren's large bedroom and retain the salon for

their exclusive occupation. They would use the dining-room in common

with their guest.

Vivie looking out of the windows occasionally, as they passed from

room to room, saw the remainder of the soldiery strolling off to be

lodged at their nearest neighbour's, the farmer who had driven them

in to Brussels that morning. There were perhaps thirty, accompanying

a young lieutenant. How would he find room for them, poor man? They

were more fortunate in being asked only to lodge six or seven in

addition to the Colonel's orderly and soldier-clerk. Before sunset,

the Villa Beau-séjour was clear of soldiers, except the few that had

gone to the barn and the outhouses. The morning room had been fitted

up with a typewriter at which the military clerk sat tapping. The

Colonel's personal luggage had been placed in his bedroom. A soldier

was even sweeping up all traces of the invasion of armed men and

making everything tidy. It all seemed like a horrid dream that was

going to end up happily after all. Presently Vivie would wake up

completely and there would even be no Oberst, no orderly; only the

peaceful life of the farm that was going on yesterday. Here a sound

of angry voices interrupted her musings. The cows returning by

themselves from the pasture were being intercepted by soldiers who

were trying to secure them. Vivie in her indignation ran out and

ordered the soldiers off, in English. To her surprise they obeyed

silently, but as they sauntered away to their quarters she was

saddened at seeing them carrying the bodies of most of the turkeys

and fowls and even the corpse of the poor tailless peacock. They had

waited for sundown to rob the hen-roosts.

Very much disillusioned she ran to the morning room and burst in on

the Colonel's dictation to his clerk. "Excuse me, but if you don't

keep your soldiers in better order you will have very little to eat

whilst you are here. They are killing and carrying off all our

poultry."

The Colonel flushed a little at the peremptory way in which she

spoke, but without replying went out and shouted a lot of orders in

German. His orderly summoned soldiers from the barn and together

they drove the cows into the cow-sheds. All the Flemish servants

having disappeared in a panic, the Germans had to milk the cows that

evening; and Vivie, assisted by the orderly, cooked the evening

meal in the kitchen. He was, like his Colonel, a Saxon, a

pleasant-featured, domesticated man, who explained civilly in the

Thuringian dialect--though to Vivie there could be no discrimination

between varieties of High German--that the Sachsen folk were "Eines

gütes leute" and that all would go smoothly in time.

Nevertheless the next morning when she could take stock she found

nearly all the poultry except the pigeons had disappeared; and most

of the apples, ripe and unripe, had vanished from the orchard trees.

The female servants of the farm, however, came back; and finding no

violence was offered took up their work again. Two days afterwards,

von Giesselin sent Vivie into Brussels in his motor, with his

orderly to escort her, so that she might deposit her valuables at a

bank. She found Brussels, suburbs and city alike, swarming with

grey-uniformed soldiers, most of whom looked tired and despondent.

Those who were on the march, thinking Vivie must be the wife of some

German officer of high rank, struck up a dismal chant from dry

throats with a refrain of "Gloria, Viktoria, Hoch! Deutschland,

Hoch!" At the bank the Belgian officials received her with

deference. Apart from being the daughter of the well-to-do Mrs.

Warren, she was English, and seemed to impose respect even on the

Germans. They took over her valuables, made out a receipt, and

cashed a fairly large cheque in ready money. Vivie then ventured to

ask the bank clerk who had seen to her business if he had any news.

Looking cautiously round, he said the rumours going through the town

were that the Queen of Holland, enraged that her Prince Consort

should have facilitated the crossing of Limburg by German armies,

had shot him dead with a revolver; that the Crown Prince of Germany,

despairing of a successful end of the War, had committed suicide at

his father's feet; that the American Consul General in Brussels--to

whom, by the bye, Vivie ought to report herself and her mother, in

order to come under his protection--had notified General Sixt von

Arnim, commanding the army in Brussels, that, _unless he vacated the

Belgian capital immediately_, England would bombard Hamburg and the

United States would declare war on the Kaiser. Alluring stories like

these flitted through despairing Brussels during the first two

months of German occupation, though Vivie, in her solitude at

Tervueren, seldom heard them.

After her business at the bank she walked about the town. No one

took any notice of her or annoyed her in any way. The restaurants

seemed crowded with Belgians as well as Germans, and the Belgians

did not seem to have lost their appetites. The Palace Hotel had

become a German officers' club. On all the public buildings the

German Imperial flag hung alongside the Belgian. Only a few of the

trams were running. Yet you could still buy, without much difficulty

at the kiosques, Belgian and even French and British newspapers.

From these she gathered that the German forces were in imminent

peril between the Belgian Antwerp army on the north and the British

army advancing from the south; and that in the plains of Alsace the

French had given the first public exhibition of the new "Turpin"

explosive. The results had been _foudroyant_ ... and simple.

Complete regiments of German soldiers had been destroyed in _one

minute_. It seemed curious, she thought, that with such an arm as

this the French command did not at once come irresistibly to the

rescue of Brussels....

However, it was four o'clock, and there was her friend the enemy's

automobile drawn up outside the bank, awaiting her. She got in, and

the soldier chauffeur whirled her away to the Villa Beau-séjour,

beyond Tervueren.

On her return she found her mother prostrate with bad news. Their

nearest neighbour, Farmer Oudekens who had driven them into Brussels

the preceding day had been executed in his own orchard only an hour

ago. It seemed that the lieutenant in charge of the soldiers

billeted there had disappeared in the night, leaving his uniform and

watch and chain behind him. The farmer's story was that in the night

the lieutenant had appeared in his room with a revolver and had

threatened to shoot him unless he produced a suit of civilian

clothes. Thus coerced he had given him his eldest son's Sunday

clothes left behind when the said son went off to join the Belgian

army. The lieutenant, grateful for the assistance, had given him as

a present his watch and chain.

On the other hand the German non-commissioned officers insisted

their lieutenant had been made away with in the night. The farmer's

allegation that he had deserted (as in fact he had) only enhanced

his crime. The finding of the court after a very summary trial was

"guilty," and despite the frantic appeals of the wife, reinforced

later on by Mrs. Warren, the farmer had been taken out and shot.

The evening meal consequently was one of strained relations. Colonel

von Giesselin came to supper punctually and was very spruce in

appearance. But he was gravely polite and uncommunicative. And after

dessert the two ladies asked permission to retire. They lay long

awake afterwards, debating in whispers what terror might be in store

for them. Mrs. Warren cried a good deal and lamented futilely her

indolent languor of a few days previously. _Why_ had she not, while

there was yet time, cleared out of Brussels, gone to Holland, and

thence regained England with Vivie, and from England the south of

France? Vivie, more stoical, pointed out it was no use crying over

lost opportunities. Here they were, and they must sharpen their wits

to get away at the first opportunity. Perhaps the American Consul

might help them?

The next morning, however, their guest, who had insensibly turned

host, told Vivie the tram service to Brussels, like the train

service, was suspended indefinitely, and that he feared they must

resign themselves to staying where they were. Under his protection

they had nothing to fear. He was sorry the soldiers had helped

themselves so freely to the livestock; but everything had now

settled down. Henceforth they would be sure of something to eat, as

he himself had got to be fed. And all he asked of them was their

agreeable society.

Two months went by of this strange life. Two months, in which Vivie

only saw German newspapers--which she read with the aid of von

Giesselin. Their contents filled her with despair. They made very

little of the Marne rebuff, much of the capture of Antwerp and

Ostende, and the occupation of all Belgium (as they put it). Vivie

noted that the German Emperor's heart had bled for the punishment

inflicted on Louvain. (She wondered how that strange personality,

her father, had fared in the destruction of monastic buildings.) But

she had then no true idea of what had taken place, and the

far-reaching harm this crime had done to the German reputation. She

noted that the German Press expressed disappointment that the cause

of Germany, the crusade against Albion, had received no support from

the Irish Nationalists, or from the "revolting" women, the

Suffragettes, who had been so cruelly maltreated by the

administration of Asquith and Sir Grey.

This point was discussed by the Colonel, but Vivie found herself

speaking as a patriot. How _could_ the Germans expect British women

to turn against their own country in its hour of danger?

"Then you would not," said von Giesselin, "consent to write some

letters to your friends, if I said I could have them sent safely to

their destination?--only letters," he added hastily, seeing her

nostrils quiver and a look come into her eyes--"to ask your Suffrage

friends to bring pressure to bear on their Government to bring this

d-r-r-eadful War to a just peace. That is all we ask." But Vivie

said "with all her own private grudge against the present ministry

she felt _au fond_ she was _British_; she must range herself in time

of war with her own people."

Mrs. Warren went much farther. She was not very voluble nowadays.

The German occupation of her villa had given her a mental and

physical shock from which she never recovered. She often sat quite

silent and rather huddled at meal times and looked the old woman

now. In such a conversation as this she roused herself and her voice

took an aggressive tone. "My daughter write to her friends to ask

them to obstruct the government at such a time as this? _Never!_ I'd

disown her if she did, I'd repudiate her! She may have had her own

turn-up with 'em. I was quite with her there. But that, so to

speak, was only a domestic quarrel. We're British all through, and

don't you forget it--sir--(she added deprecatingly): British _all

through_ and we're goin' to beat Germany yet, _you'll_ see. The

British navy never _has_ been licked nor won't be, this time."

Colonel von Giesselin did not insist. He seemed depressed himself at

times, and far from elated at the victories announced in his own

newspapers. He would in the dreary autumn evenings show them the

photographs of his wife--a sweet-looking woman--and his two

solid-looking, handsome children, and talk with rapture of his home

life. Why, indeed, was there this War! His heart like his Emperor's

bled for these unhappy Belgians. But it was all due to the

Macchiavellian policy of "Sir Grey and Asquiss." If Germany had not

felt herself surrounded and barred from all future expansion of

trade and influence she would not have felt forced to attack France

and invade Belgium. Why, see! All the time they were talking,

barbarous Russia, egged on by England, was ravaging East Prussia!

Then, in other moods, he would lament the war and the policy of

Prussia. How he had loved England in the days when he was military

attaché there. He had once wanted to marry an Englishwoman, a Miss

Fraser, a so handsome daughter of a Court Physician.

"Why, that must have been Honoria, my former partner," said Vivie,

finding an intense joy in this link of memory. And she told much of

her history to the sentimental Colonel, who was conceiving for her a

sincere friendship and camaraderie. They opened up other veins of

memory, talked of Lady Feenix, of the musical parties at the Parrys,

of Emily Daymond's playing, of this, that and the other hostess, of

such-and-such an actress or singer.

The Colonel of course was often absent all day on military duties.

He advised Vivie strongly on such occasions not to go far from Mrs.

Warren's little domain. "I am obliged to remind you, dear young

lady, that you and your mother are my prisoners in a sense. Many bad

things are going on--things we cannot help in war--outside this

quiet place..."

In November, however, there was a change of scene, which in many

ways came to Vivie and her mother with a sense of great relief.

Colonel von Giesselin told them one morning he had been appointed

Secretary to the German Governor of Brussels, and must reside in the

town not far from the Rue de la Loi. He proposed that the ladies

should move into Brussels likewise; in fact he delicately insisted

on it. Their pleasant relations could thus continue--perhaps--who

knows?--to the end of this War, "to that peace which will make us

friends once more?" It would in any case be most unsafe if, without

his protection, they continued to reside at this secluded farm, on

the edge of the great woods. In fact it could not be thought of, and

another officer was coming here in his place with a considerable

suite. Eventually compensation would be paid to Mrs. Warren for any

damage done to her property.

The two women readily agreed. In the curtailment of their movements

and the absence of normal means of communication their life at Villa

Beau-séjour was belying its name. Their supply of money was coming

to an end; attempts must be made to regularize that position by

drawing on Mrs. Warren's German investments and the capital she

still had in Belgian stock--if that were negotiable at all.

Where should they go? Mrs. Warren still had some lien on the Hotel

Édouard-Sept (the name, out of deference to the Germans, had been

changed to Hotel Impérial). With the influence of the Government

Secretary behind her she might turn out some of its occupants and

regain the use of the old "appartement." This would accommodate

Vivie too. And there was no reason why their friend should not place

his own lodging and office at the same hotel, which was situated

conveniently on the Rue Royale not far from the Governor's residence

in the Rue de la Loi.

So this plan was carried out. And in December, 1914, Mrs. Warren had

some brief flicker of happiness once more, and even Vivie felt the

nightmare had lifted a little. It was life again. Residence at the

Villa Beau-séjour had almost seemed an entombment of the living.

Here, in the heart of Brussels, at any rate, you got some news every

day, even if much of it was false. The food supply was more certain,

there were 700,000 people all about you. True, the streets were very

badly lit at night and fuel was scarce and dear. But you were in

contact with people.

In January, Vivie tried to get into touch with the American

Legation, not only to send news of their condition to England but to

ascertain whether permission might not be obtained for them to leave

Belgium for Holland. But this last plea was said by the American

representative to be unsustainable. For various reasons, the German

Government would not permit it, and he was afraid neither Vivie nor

her mother would get enough backing from the British authorities to

strengthen the American demand. She must stop on in Brussels till

the War came to an end.

"But how are we to live?" asked Vivie, with a catch in her throat.

"Our supply of Belgian money is coming to an end. My mother has

considerable funds invested in England. These she can't touch. She

has other sums in German securities, but soon after the War they

stopped sending her the interest on the plea that she was an

'enemy.' As to the money we have in Belgium, the bank in Brussels

can tell me nothing. What are we to do?" The rather cold-mannered

American diplomatist--it was one of the Secretaries of Legation and

he knew all about Mrs. Warren's past, and regarded Vivie as an

outlaw--said he would try to communicate with her friends in England

and see if through the American Relief organization, funds could be

transmitted for their maintenance. She gave him the addresses of

Rossiter, Praed, and her mother's London bankers.

Vivie now tried to settle down to a life of usefulness. To increase

their resources she gave lessons in English to Belgians and even to

German officers. She offered herself to various groups of Belgian

ladies who had taken up such charities as the Germans permitted. She

also asked to be taken on as a Red Cross helper. But in all these

directions she had many snubs to meet and little encouragement.

Scandal had been busy with her name--the unhappy reputation of her

mother, the peculiar circumstances under which she had left England,

the two or three months shut up at Tervueren with Colonel von

Giesselin, and the very protection he now accorded her and her

mother at the Hotel Impérial. She felt herself looked upon almost as

a pariah, except among the poor of Brussels in the Quartier des

Marolles. Here she was only regarded as a kind Englishwoman,

unwearied in her efforts to alleviate suffering, mental and bodily.

And meantime, silence, a wall of silence as regarded

England--England which she was beginning to look upon as the

paradise from which she had been chased. Not a word had come through

from Rossiter, from Honoria, Bertie Adams, or any of her Suffrage

friends. I can supply briefly what she did not know.

Rossiter at the very outbreak of War had offered his services as one

deeply versed in anatomy and in physiology to the Army Medical

Service, and especially to a great person at the War Office; but had

been told quite cavalierly that they had no need of him. As he

persisted, he had been asked--in the hope that it might get rid of

him--to go over to the United States in company with a writer of

comic stories, a retired actor and a music-hall singer, and lecture

on the causes of the War in the hope of bringing America in. This he

had declined to do, and being rich and happening to know personally

General Armstrong (Honoria's husband) he had been allowed to

accompany him to the vicinity of the front and there put his

theories of grafting flesh and bone to the test; with the ultimate

results that his work became of enormous beneficial importance and

he was given rank in the R.A.M.C. Honoria, racked with anxiety about

her dear "Army," and very sad as to Vivie's disappearance, slaved at

War work as much as her children's demands on her permitted; or even

put her children on one side to help the sick and wounded. Vivie's

Suffrage friends forgot she had ever existed and turned their

attention to propaganda, to recruiting for the Voluntary Army which

our ministers still hoped might suffice to win the War, to the

making of munitions, or aeroplane parts, to land work and to any

other work which might help their country in its need.

And Bertie Adams?

When he realized that his beloved and revered Miss Warren was shut

off from escape in Belgium, could not be heard of, could not be got

at and rescued, he went nearly off his nut.... He reviewed during a

succession of sleepless nights what course he might best pursue. His

age was about thirty-two. He might of course enlist in the army. But

though very patriotic, his allegiance lay first at the feet of Vivie

Warren. If he entered the army, he might be sent anywhere but to the

Belgian frontier; and even if he got near Belgium he could not dart

off to rescue Vivie without becoming a deserter. So he came speedily

to the conclusion that the most promising career he could adopt,

having regard to his position in life and lack of resources, was to

volunteer for foreign service under the Y.M.C.A., and express the

strongest possible wish to be employed as near Belgium as was

practicable. So that by the end of September, 1914, Bertie was

serving out cocoa and biscuits, writing paper and cigarettes, hot

coffee and sausages and cups of bovril to exhausted or resting

soldiers in the huts of the Y.M.C.A., near Ypres. Alternating with

these services, he was, like other Y.M.C.A. men in the same district

and at the same time, acting as stretcher bearer to bring in the

wounded, as amateur chaplain with the dying, as amateur surgeon with

the wounded, as secretary to some distraught officer in high command

whose clerks had all been killed; and in any other capacity if

called upon. But always with the stedfast hope and purpose that he

might somehow reach and rescue Vivie Warren.

CHAPTER XVII

THE GERMANS IN BRUSSELS: 1915-1916

In the early spring of 1915, Vivie, anxious not to see her mother in

utter penury, and despairing of any effective assistance from the

Americans (very much prejudiced against her for the reasons already

mentioned), took her mother's German and Belgian securities of a

face value amounting to about £18,000 and sold them at her Belgian

bank for a hundred thousand francs (£4,000) in Belgian or German

bank notes. She consulted no one, except her mother. Who was there

to consult? She did not like to confide too much to Colonel von

Giesselin, a little too prone in any case to "protect" them. But as

she argued with Mrs. Warren, what else were they to do in their

cruel situation? If the Allies were eventually victorious, Mrs.

Warren could return to England. There at least she had in safe

investments £40,000, ample for the remainder of their lives. If

Germany lost the War, the German securities nominally worth two

hundred thousand marks might become simply waste paper; even now

they were only computed by the bank at a purchase value of about one

fifth what they had stood at before the War. If Germany were

victorious or agreed to a compromise peace, her mother's shares in

Belgian companies might be unsaleable. Better to secure now a lump

sum of four thousand pounds in bank notes that would be legal

currency, at any rate as long as the German occupation lasted. And

as one never knew what might happen, it was safer still to have all

this money (equivalent to a hundred thousand francs), in their own

keeping. They could live even in war time, on such a sum as this

for four, perhaps five years, as they would be very economical and

Vivie would try to earn all she could by teaching. It was useless to

hope they would be able to return to Villa Beau-séjour so long as

the German occupation lasted, or during that time receive a penny in

compensation for the sequestration of the property.

The notes for the hundred thousand francs therefore were carefully

concealed in Mrs. Warren's bedroom at the Hotel Impérial and Vivie

for a few months afterwards felt slightly easier in her mind as to

the immediate future; for, as a further resource, there were also

the jewels and plate at the bank.

They dared hope for nothing from Villa Beau-séjour. Von Giesselin,

after more entreaty than Vivie cared to make, had allowed them with

a special pass and his orderly as escort to go in a military motor

to the Villa in the month of April in order that they might bring

away the rest of their clothes and personal effects of an easily

transportable nature. But the visit was a heart-breaking

disappointment. Their reception was surly; the place was little else

than a barrack of disorderly soldiers and insolent officers. Any

search for clothes or books was a mockery. Nothing was to be found

in the chests of drawers that belonged to them; only stale food and

unnameable horrors or military equipment articles. The garden was

trampled out of recognition. There had been a beautiful vine in the

greenhouse. It was still there, but the first foliage of spring hung

withered and russet coloured. The soldiers, grinning when Vivie

noticed this, pointed to the base of the far spreading branches. It

had been sawn through, and much of the glass of the greenhouse

deliberately smashed.

On their way back, Mrs. Warren, who was constantly in tears,

descried waiting by the side of the road the widow of their

farmer-neighbour, Madame Oudekens. She asked the orderly that they

might stop and greet her. She approached. Mrs. Warren got out of the

car so that she might more privately talk to her in Flemish. Since

her husband's execution, the woman said, she had had to become the

mistress of the sergeant-major who resided with her as the only

means, seemingly, of saving her one remaining young son from exile

in Germany and her daughters from unbearably brutal treatment;

though she added, "As to their virtue, _that_ has long since

vanished; all I ask is that they be not half-killed whenever the

soldiers get drunk. Oh Madame! If you could only say a word to that

Colonel with whom you are living?"

Mrs. Warren dared not translate this last sentence to Vivie, for

fear her daughter forced her at all costs to leave the Hotel

Impérial. Where, if she did, were they to go?

The winter of 1914 had witnessed an appalling degree of

frightfulness in eastern Belgium, the Wallon or French-speaking part

of the country more especially. The Germans seemed to bear a special

grudge against this region, regarding it as doggedly opposed to

absorption into a Greater Germany; whereas they hoped the Flemish

half of the country would receive them as fellow Teutons and even as

deliverers from their former French oppressors. Thousands of old men

and youths, of women and children in the provinces south of the

Meuse had been shot in cold blood; village after village had been

burnt. Scenes of nearly equal horror had taken place between

Brussels and Antwerp, especially around Malines. Von Bissing's

arrival as Governor General was soon signalized by those dreaded Red

Placards on the walls of Brussels, announcing the verdicts of

courts-martial, the condemnation to death of men and women who had

contravened some military regulation.

Yet in spite of this, life went on in Brussels once more--by von

Bissing's stern command--as though the country were not under the

heel of the invader. The theatres opened their doors; the cinemas

had continuous performances; there was Grand Opera; there were

exhibitions of toys, or pictures, and charitable bazaars. Ten days

after the fall of Antwerp _char-à-bancs_ packed with Belgians drove

out of Brussels to visit the scenes of the battles and those

shattered forts, so fatuously deemed impregnable, so feeble in their

resistance to German artillery.

Vivie, even had she wished to do so, could not have joined the

sight-seers. As the subjects of an enemy power she and her mother

had had early in January to register themselves at the Kommandantur

and were there warned that without a special passport they might not

pass beyond the limits of Brussels and its suburbs. Except in the

matter of the farewell visit to the farm at Tervueren, Vivie was

reluctant to ask for any such favour from von Giesselin, though she

was curious to see the condition of Louvain and to ascertain whether

her father still inhabited the monastic house of his order--she had

an idea that he was away in Germany in connection with his schemes

for raising the Irish against the British Government. Von Giesselin

however was becoming sentimentally inclined towards her and she saw

no more of him than was necessary to maintain polite relations. Frau

von Giesselin, for various reasons of health or children, could not

join him at Brussels as so many German wives had done with other of

the high functionaries (to the great embitterment of Brussels

society); and there were times when von Giesselin's protestations of

his loneliness alarmed her.

The King of Saxony had paid a visit to Brussels in the late autumn

of 1914 and had invited this Colonel of his Army to a fastuous

banquet given at the Palace Hotel. The King--whom the still defiant

Brussels Press, especially that unkillable _La Libre Belgique_,

reminded ironically of his domestic infelicity, by enquiring

whether he had brought Signor Toselli to conduct his orchestra--was

gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important

duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of

von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an

influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in

softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and

exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and

kingdom. He even interceded at times for unfortunate British or

French subjects, stranded in Brussels, and sometimes asked Vivie

about fellow-countrymen who sought this intervention.

This caused her complicated annoyances. Seeing there was some hope

in interesting her in their cases, these English governesses,

tutors, clerks, tailors' assistants and cutters, music-hall singers,

grooms appealed to Vivie to support their petitions. They paid her

or her mother a kind of base court, on the tacit assumption that

she--Vivie--had placed Colonel von Giesselin under special

obligations. If in rare instances, out of sheer pity, she took up a

case and von Giesselin granted the petition or had it done in a

higher quarter, his action was clearly a personal favour to her; and

the very petitioners went away, with the ingratitude common in such

cases, and spread the news of Vivie's privileged position at the

Hotel Impérial. It was not surprising therefore that in the small

circles of influential British or American people in Brussels she

was viewed with suspicion or contempt. She supported this odious

position at the Hotel Impérial as long as possible, in the hope that

Colonel von Giesselin when he had realized the impossibility of

using herself or her mother in any kind of intrigue against the

British Government would do what the American Consul General

professed himself unable or unwilling to do: obtain for them

passports to proceed to Holland.

Von Giesselin, from December, 1914, took up among other duties that

of Press Censor and officer in charge of Publicity. After the

occupation of Brussels and the fall of Antwerp, the "patriotic"

Belgian Press had withdrawn itself to France and England or had

stopped publication. Its newspapers had been invited to continue

their functions as organs of news-distribution and public opinion,

but of course under the German Censorate and martial law. As one

editor said to a polite German official: "If I were to continue the

publication of my paper under such conditions, my staff and I would

all be shot in a week."

But the large towns of Belgium could not be left without a Press.

Public Opinion must be guided, and might very well be guided in a

direction favourable to German policy. The German Government had

already introduced the German hour into Belgian time, the German

coinage, the German police system, and German music; but it had no

intention, seemingly, of forcing the German speech on the old

dominions of the House of Burgundy. On the contrary, in their tenure

of Belgium or of North-east France, the Germans seemed desirous of

showing how well they wrote the French language, how ready they were

under a German regime to give it a new literature. Whether or not

they enlisted a few recreants, or made use of Alsatians or

Lorrainers to help them, it is never-the-less remarkable how free as

a rule their written and printed French was from mistakes or German

idioms; though their spoken French always remained Alsatian. It

suffered from that extraordinary misplacement and exchange in the

upper and lower consonants which has distinguished the German

people--that nation of great philologists--since the death of the

Roman Empire. German officers still said "Barton, die fous brie,"

instead of "Pardon, je vous prie" (if they were polite), but they

were quite able to contribute _articles de fond_ to a pretended

national Belgian press. Besides there was a sufficiency of Belgian

"Sans-Patries" ready to come to their assistance: Belgian nationals

of German-Jewish or Dutch-Jewish descent, who in the present

generation had become Catholic Christians as it ranged them with the

best people. They were worthy and wealthy Belgian citizens, but

presumably would not have deeply regretted a change in the political

destinies of Belgium, provided international finance was not

adversely affected. There were also a few Belgian Socialists--a few,

but enough--who took posts under the German provisional government,

on the plea that until you could be purely socialistic it did not

matter under what flag you drew your salary.

Von Giesselin was most benevolently intentioned, in reality a

kind-hearted man, a sentimentalist. Not quite prepared to go to the

stake himself in place of any other victim of Prussian cruelty, but

ready to make some effort to soften hardships and reduce sentences.

(There were others like him--Saxon, Thuringian, Hanoverian,

Württembergisch--or the German occupation of Belgium might have

ended in a vast Sicilian Vespers, a boiling-over of a maddened

people reckless at last of whether they died or not, so long as they

slew their oppressors.) He hoped through the pieces played at the

theatres and through his censored, subsidized press to bring the

Belgians round to a reasonable frame of mind, to a toleration of

existence under the German Empire. But his efforts brought down on

him the unsparing ridicule of the Parisian-minded Bruxellois. They

were prompt to detect his attempts to modify the text of French

operettas so that these, while delighting the lovers of light music,

need not at the same time excite a military spirit or convey the

least allusion of an impertinent or contemptuous kind towards the

Central Powers. Thus the couplets

"Dans le service de l'Autriche

Le militaire n'est pas riche"

were changed to

"Dans le service de la Suisse

Le militaire n'est pas riche."

These passionate lines of a political exile:

"A l'étranger un pacte impie

Vendait mon sang, liait ma foi,

Mais à present, o ma patrie

Je pourrai done mourir pour toi!"

were rendered harmless as

"A l'étranger, en réverie

Chaque jour je pleurais sur toi

Mais à present, o ma patrie

Je penserai sans cesse à toi!"

The pleasure he took in recasting this doggerel--calling in Vivie to

help him as presumably a good scholar in French--got on her nerves,

and she was hard put to it to keep her temper.

Sometimes he proposed that she should take a hand, even become a

salaried subordinate; compose articles for his subsidized paper,

"_L'Ami de l'Ordre_" (nicknamed "L'Ami de L'Ordure" by the

Belgians), "_La Belgique_," "_Le Bruxellois_," "_Vers la Paix_."

He would allow her a very free hand, so long as she did not attack

the Germans or their allies or put in any false news about military

or naval successes of the foes of Central Europe. She might, for

instance, dilate on the cruel manner in which the Woman Suffragists

had been persecuted in England; give a description of forcible

feeding or of police ferocity on Black Friday.

Vivie declined any such propositions. "I have told you already, and

often," she said, "I am deeply grateful for all you have done for

my mother and me. We might have been in a far more uncomfortable

position but for your kindness. But I cannot in any way associate

myself with the German policy here. I cannot pretend for a moment to

condone what you do in this country. If I were a Belgian woman I

should probably have been shot long ago for assassinating some

Prussian official--I can hardly see von Bissing pass in his

automobile, as it is, without wishing I had a bomb. But there it is.

It is no business of mine. As I can't get away, as you won't let us

go out of the country--Switzerland, Holland--and as I don't want to

go mad by brooding, find something for me to do that will occupy my

thoughts: and yet not implicate me with the Germans. Can't I go and

help every day in your hospitals? If you'll continue your kindness

to mother--and believe me"--she broke off--"I _do_ appreciate what

you have done for us. I shall _never_ forget I have met _one true

German gentleman_--if you'll continue to be as kind as before, you

will simply give instructions that mother is in no way disturbed or

annoyed. There are Germans staying here who are odious beyond

belief. If they meet my mother outside her room they ask her

insulting questions--whether she can give them the addresses

of--of--light women ... you know the sort of thing. I have always

been outspoken with you. All I ask is that mother shall be allowed

to stay in her own room while I am out, and have her meals served

there. But the hotel people are beginning to make a fuss about the

trouble, the lack of waiters. A word from you--And then if my mind

was at ease about her I could go out and do some good with the poor

people. They are getting very restive in the Marolles quarter--the

shocking bad bread, the lack of fuel--Most of all I should like to

help in the hospitals. My own countrywomen will not have me in

theirs. They suspect me of being a spy in German pay. Besides, your

von Bissing has ordered now that all Belgian, British, and French

wounded shall be taken to the German Red Cross. Well: if you want

to be kind, give me an introduction there. Surely it would be bare

humanity on your part to let an Englishwoman be with some of those

poor lads who are sorely wounded, dying perhaps"--she broke

down--"The other day I followed two of the motor ambulances along

the Boulevard d'Anspach. Blood dripped from them as they passed, and

I could hear some English boy trying to sing 'Tipperary--'"

"My _tear_ Miss Warren--I will try to do all that you want--You will

not do _anything I_ want, but never mind. I will show you that

Germans can be generous. I will speak about your mother. I am sorry

that there are bad-mannered Germans in the hotel. There are

some--what-you-call 'bounders'--among us, as there are with you. It

is to be regretted. As to our Red Cross hospitals, I know of a

person who can make things easy for you. I will write a letter to my

cousin--like me she is a Saxon and comes from Leipzig--Minna von

Stachelberg. She is but a few months widow, widow of a Saxon

officer, Graf von Stachelberg who was killed at Namur. Oh! it was

very sad; they were but six months married. Afterwards she came here

to work in our Red Cross--I think now she is in charge of a ward..."

So Vivie found a few months' reprieve from acute sorrow and bitter

humiliation. Gräfin von Stachelberg was as kind in her way as her

cousin the Colonel, but much less sentimental. In fact she was of

that type of New German woman, taken all too little into account by

our Press at the time of the War. There were many like her of the

upper middle class, the professorial class, the lesser nobility to

be found not only in Leipzig but in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort,

Halle, Bonn, München, Hannover, Bremen, Jena, Stuttgart,

Cologne--nice to look at, extremely modern in education and good

manners, tasteful in dress, speaking English marvellously well,

highly accomplished in music or with some other art, advocates of

the enfranchisement of women. The War came just too soon. Had Heaven

struck down that epilept Emperor and a few of his ministers, had

time been given for the New German Woman to assert herself in

politics, there would have been no invasion of Belgium, no

maltreatment of Servia. Germany would have ranged herself with the

Western powers and Western culture.

Minna von Stachelberg read her cousin's note and received the worn

and anxious-looking Vivie like a sister ... like a comrade, she

said, in the War for the Vote ... "which we will resume, my dear, as

soon as this dreadful Man's war is over, only we won't fight with

the same weapons."

But though kind, she was not gushing and she soon told Vivie that in

nursing she was a novice and had much to learn. She introduced her

to the German and Belgian surgeons, and then put her to a series of

entirely menial tasks from which she was to work her way up by

degrees. But if any English soldier were there and wanted sympathy,

she should be called in to his ward ... From that interview Vivie

returned almost happy.

In the hot summer months she would sometimes be allowed to accompany

Red Cross surgeons and nurses to the station, when convoys of

wounded were expected, if there was likelihood that British soldiers

would be amongst them. These would cheer up at the sound of her

pleasant voice speaking their tongue. Yet she would witness on such

occasions incongruous incidents of German brutality. Once there came

out of the train an English and a French soldier, great friends

evidently. They were only slightly wounded and the English soldier

stretched his limbs cautiously to relieve himself of cramp. At that

moment a German soldier on leave came up and spat in his face. The

Frenchman felled the German with a resounding box on the ear.

Alarums! Excursions! A German officer rushed up to enquire while the

Frenchman was struggling with two colossal German military policemen

and the Englishman was striving to free him. Vivie explained to the

officer what had occurred. He bowed and saluted: seized the

soldier-spitter by the collar and kicked him so frightfully that

Vivie had to implore him to cease.

Moreover the Red Placards of von Bissing were of increasing

frequency. As a rule Vivie only heard what other people said of

them, and that wasn't very much, for German spies were everywhere,

inviting you to follow them to the dreaded Kommandantur in the Rue

de la Loi--a scene of as much in the way of horror and mental

anguish as the Conciergerie of Paris in the days of the Red Terror.

But some cheek-blanching rumour she had heard on a certain Monday in

October caused her to look next day on her way home at a fresh Red

Placard which had been posted up in a public place. The daylight had

almost faded, but there was a gas lamp which made the notice

legible. It ran:

CONDAMNATIONS

Par jugement du 9 Octobre, 1915, le tribunal de campagne a

prononcé les condamnations suivantes pour trahison commise

pendant l'état de guerre (pour avoir fait passer des recrues

à l'ennemi):

1° Philippe BAUCQ, architecte à Bruxelles;

2° Louise THULIEZ, professeur à Lille;

3° Edith CAVELL, directrice d'un institut médical à

Bruxelles;

4° Louis SEVERIN, pharmacien à Bruxelles;

5° Comtesse JEANNE DE BELLEVILLE, à Montignies.

À LA PEINE DE MORT

* * * * *

Vivie then went on to read with eyes that could hardly take in the

words a list of other names of men and women condemned to long terms

of hard labour for the same offence--assisting young Belgians to

leave the Belgium that was under German occupation. And further,

the information that of the five condemned to death, _Philip Bauck_

and _Edith Cavell_ had already been _executed_.

* * * * *

The monsters! Oh that von Bissing. How gladly she would die if she

might first have the pleasure of killing him! That pompous old man

of seventy-one with the blotched face, who had issued orders that

wherever he passed in his magnificent motor he was to be saluted

with Eastern servility, who boasted of his "tender heart," so that

he issued placards about this time punishing severely all who split

the tongues of finches to make them sing better. Edith Cavell--she

did not pause to consider the fate of patriotic Belgian women--but

Edith Cavell, directress of a nursing home in Brussels, known far

and wide for her goodness of heart. She had held aloof from Vivie,

but was that to be wondered at when there was so much to make her

suspect--living, seemingly, under the protection of a German

official? But the very German nurses and doctors at the Red Cross

hospital had spoken of her having given free treatment in her Home

to Germans who needed immediate operations, and for whom there was

no room in the military hospitals--And for such a trivial offence as

_that_--and to kill her before there could be any appeal for

reconsideration or clemency. Oh _what_ a nation! She would tend

their sick and wounded no more.

She hurried on up the ascent of the Boulevard of the Botanic Garden

on her way to the Rue Royale. She burst into von Giesselin's office.

He was not there. A clerk looking at her rather closely said that

the Herr Oberst was packing, was going away. Vivie scarcely took in

the meaning of his German phrases. She waited there, her eyes

ablaze, feeling she must tell her former friend and protector what

she thought of his people before she renounced any further

relations with him.

Presently he entered, his usually rather florid face pale with

intense sorrow or worry, his manner preoccupied. She burst out:

"_Have_ you seen the Red Placard they have just put up?"

"What about?" he said wearily.

"The assassination by your Government of Edith Cavell, a crime for

which England--yes, and America--will _never_ forgive you.... From

this moment I--"

"But have you not heard what has happened to _me_? I am _dismissed_

from my post as Secretary, I am ordered to rejoin my regiment in

Lorraine--It is very sad about your Miss Cavell. I knew nothing of

it till this morning when I received my own dismissal--And _oh_ my

dear Miss, I fear we shall never meet again."

"Why are they sending you away?" asked Vivie drily, compelled to

interest herself in his affairs since they so closely affected her

own and her mother's.

"Because of this," said von Giesselin, nearly in tears, pulling from

a small portfolio a press cutting. "Do you remember a fortnight ago

I told you some one, some Belgian had written a beautiful poem and

sent it to me for one of our newspapers? I showed it to you at the

time and you said--you said 'it was well enough, but it did not seem

to have much point.'" Vivie did remember having glanced very

perfunctorily at some effusion in typewriting which had seemed

unobjectionable piffle. She hadn't cared two straws whether he

accepted it or not, only did not want to be too markedly

indifferent. Now she took it up and still read it through

uncomprehendingly, her thoughts absent with the fate of Miss Cavell.

"Well! what is all the fuss about? I still see nothing in it. It is

just simply the ordinary sentimental flip-flap that a French

versifier can turn out by the yard."

"It is _far_ worse than that! It is a horrible--what the French

call 'acrostiche,' a deadly insult to our people. And I never saw

it, the Editor never saw it, and you, even, never guessed its real

meaning![1] The original, as you say, was in typewriting, and at the

bottom was the name and address of a very well-known homme de

lettres: and the words: 'Offert à la rédaction de l'Ami de L'Ordre.'

He say now, _never never_ did he send it. It was a forgery. When we

came to understand what it meant all the blame fall on me. I am sent

back to the Army--I shall be killed before Verdun, so good-bye dear

Miss--We have been good friends. Oh this War: this d-r-r-eadful

War--It has spoilt everything. Now we can never be friends with

England again."

[Footnote 1: I have obtained a copy and give it here as it had an

almost historical importance in the events of the German occupation.

But the reader must interpret its meaning for himself.

LA GUERRE

Ma soeur, vous souvient-il qu'aux jours de notre enfance,

En lisant les hauts fails de l'histoire de France,

Remplis d'admiration pour nos frères Gaulois,

Des généraux fameux nous vantions les exploits?

En nos âmes d'enfants, les seuls noms des victoires

Prenaient un sens mystique evocateur de gloires;

On ne rêvait qu'assauts et combats; a nos yeux

Un général vainqueur etait l'égal des dieux.

Rien ne semblait ternir l'éclat de ces conquétes.

Les batailles prenaient des allures de fêtes

Et nous ne songions pas qu'aux hurrahs triomphants

Se mêlaient les sanglots des mères, des enfants.

Ah! nous la connaissons, hélas, l'horrible guerre:

Le fléau qui punit les crimes de la terre,

Le mot qui fait trembler les mères à genoux

Et qui seme le deuil et la mort parmi nous!

Mais ou sqnt les lauriers que réserve l'Histoire

A celui qui demain forcera la Victoire?

Nul ne les cueillira: les lauriers sont flétris

Seul un cypres s'élève aux torubes de nos fils.]

He gave way to much emotion. Vivie, though still dazed with the

reverberating horror of Edith Cavell's execution, tried to regain

her mind balance and thank him for the kindness he had shown them.

But it was now necessary to see her mother who might also be

undergoing a shock. As she walked up to their bedroom she reflected

that the departure of von Giesselin would have to be followed by

their own exile to some other lodging. They would share in his

disgrace.

The next morning in fact the Belgian manager of the hotel with many

regrets gave them a month's warning. The hotel would be required for

some undefined need of the German Government and he had been told no

one could be lodged there who was not furnished with a permit from

the Kommandantur.

For three weeks Vivie sought in vain for rooms. Every suitable place

was either full or else for reasons not given they were refused. She

was reduced to eating humble pie, to writing once more to Gräfin von

Stachelberg and imparting the dilemma in which they were placed. Did

this kind lady know where a lodging could be obtained? She herself

could put up with any discomfort, but her mother was ill. If she

could help them, Vivie would humbly beg her pardon for her angry

letter of three weeks ago and resume her hospital work. Minna von

Stachelberg made haste to reply that there were some things better

not discussed in writing: if Vivie could come and see her at six one

evening, when she had a slight remission from work--

Vivie went. Out of hearing, Gräfin von Stachelberg--who, however, to

facilitate intercourse, begged Vivie to call her "Minna,"--"We may

all be dead, my dear, before long of blood-poisoning, bombs from

your aeroplanes, a rising against us in the Marolles quarter--" said

very plainly what she thought of Edith Cavell's execution. "It makes

me think of Talleyrand--was it not?--who said 'It is a blunder;

worse than a crime' ... these terrible old generals, they know

nothing of the world outside Germany." As to her cousin, Gottlieb

von Giesselin--"Really dear, if in this time of horrors one _dare_

laugh at anything, I feel--oh it is too funny, but also, too

'schokking,' as we suppose all English women say. Yet of course I am

sad about him, because he is a good, kind man, and I know his wife

will be very very unhappy when she hears--And it means he will die,

for certain. He must risk his life to--to--regain his position, and

he will be shot before Verdun in one of those dreadful assaults."

Then she told Vivie where she might find rooms, where at any rate

she could use her name as a reference. Also: "Stay away at present

and look after your mother. When she is quite comfortably settled,

come back and work with me--here--it is at any rate the only way in

which you can see and help your countrymen."

One day in November when their notice at the hotel was nearly

expired, Vivie proposed an expedition to her mother. They would walk

slowly--because Mrs. Warren now got easily out of breath--up to the

Jardin Bontanique; Vivie would leave her there in the Palm House. It

was warm; it was little frequented; there were seats and the

Belgians in charge knew Mrs. Warren of old time. Vivie would then go

on along the inner Boulevards by tram and look at some rooms

recommended by Minna von Stachelberg in the Quartier St. Gilles.

Mrs. Warren did as she was told. Vivie left her seated in one of the

long series of glass houses overlooking Brussels from a terrace,

wherein are assembled many glories of the tropics: palms, dracaenas,

yuccas, aloes, tree-ferns, cycads, screw-pines, and bananas:

promising to be back in an hour's time.

Somehow as she sat there it seemed to Mrs. Warren it was going for

her to be the last hour of fully conscious life--fully conscious and

yet a curious mingling in it of the past and present. She had sat

here in the middle of the 'seventies with Vivie's father, the young

Irish seminarist, her lover for six months. He had a vague interest

in botany, and during his convalescence after his typhoid fever,

when she was still his nurse, not yet his mistress, she used to

bring him here to rest and to enjoy the aspect of these ferns and

palms. What a strange variety of men she had known. Some she had

loved, more or less; some she had exploited frankly. Some--like

George Crofts and Baxendale Strangeways--she had feared, though in

her manner she had tried to conceal her dread of their violence.

Well! she had taken a lot of money off the rich, but she had never

plundered the poor. Her greatest conquest--and that when she was a

woman of forty--was the monarch of this very country which now lay

crushed under the Kaiser's heel. For a few months he had taken a

whimsical liking to her handsome face, well-preserved figure, and

amusing cockney talk. But he had employed her rather as the mistress

of his menus plaisirs, as his recruiting agent. He had rewarded her

handsomely. Now it was all in the dust: her beautiful Villa

Beau-séjour a befouled barrack for German soldiers. She herself a

homeless woman, repudiated by the respectable British and Americans

more or less interned in this unhappy city.

Not much more than a year ago she had been one of the most respected

persons in Brussels, with a large income derived from safe

investments. Now all she had for certain was something over three

thousand pounds in bank notes that might turn out next month to be

worthless paper. And was she certain even of them? Had Vivie before

they left the hotel remembered to put some, at least, of this

precious sum on her person? Suppose, whilst they were out, looking

for a fresh dwelling place, the hotel servants or the police raided

her bedroom and found the little hoard of notes? This imagined

danger made her want to cry. They were so friendless now, she in

particular felt so completely deserted. Had she deserved this

punishment by Fate? Was there after all a God who minded much about

the sex foolishnesses and punished you for irregularities--for

having lovers in your youth, for selling your virtue and inducing

other women to sell theirs? Was she going to die soon and was there

a hereafter?' She burst out crying in an abandonment of grief.

An elderly gardener who had been snipping and sweeping in the next

house came up and vaguely recognized her as a well-known

Bruxelloise, a good-natured lady, a foreigner who, strange to say,

spoke Flemish. "Ach," he said, looking out where he thought lay the

source of her tears, at the dim view of beautiful Brussels through

the steamy glass, "Onze arme, oude Brüssel." Mrs. Warren wept

unrestrainedly. "Madame is ill?" he enquired. Mrs. Warren

nodded--she felt indeed very ill and giddy. He left her and returned

shortly with a small glass of Schnapps. "If Madame is faint--?" She

sipped the cordial and presently felt better. Then they talked of

old times. Madame had kept the Hotel Leopold II in the Rue

Royale? Ah, _now_ he placed her. A _superb_ establishment, always

well-spoken of. Her self-respect returned a little. "Yes," she said,

"never a complaint! I looked after those girls like a mother, indeed

I did. Many a one married well from there." The gardener

corroborated her statement, and added that her _clientèle_ had been

of the most chic. He had a private florist's business of his own and

he had been privileged often to send bouquets to the pensionnaires

of Madame. But Madame was not alone surely in these sad times. Had

he not seen her come here with a handsome English lady who was said

to have been--to have been--fortunately--_au mieux_ with one of the

German officials?

"_That_ was my daughter," Mrs. Warren informed him with pride....

"She is a lady who has taken a high degree at an English University.

She has been an important person in the English feminist movement.

When this dreadful war is over, I and my daughter will--"

At this juncture Vivie entered. "_Mother_, I hope you haven't

missed me, haven't been unwell?" she said, looking rather

questioningly at the little glass of Schnapps, only half of which

had been drunk.

"Well yes, dear, I have. _Terrible_ low spirits and all swimmy-like.

Thought I was going to faint. But this man here has been so kind

"--her tears flowed afresh--"We've bin talking of old times; he used

to know me before--"

_Vivie_: "Quite so. But I think, dear, we had better be going back.

I want to talk to you about the new rooms I've seen. Are you equal

to walking? If not perhaps this kind man would try to get us a

cab...?"

But Mrs. Warren said it was no distance, only round the corner, and

she could well walk. When they got back she would go and lie down.

Vivie, reading her mother's thoughts, pressed a five-franc note into

the gardener's not reluctant palm, and they regained the Rue Royale.

But just as they were passing through the revolving door of the

Hotel Impérial, a German who had been installed as manager came up

with two soldiers and said explosively: "Heraus! Foutez-nous le

camp! Aout you go! Don't show your face here again!"

"But," said Vivie, "our notice doesn't expire till the end of this

week...!"

"Das macht nichts. The rooms are wanted and I won't have you on the

premises. Off you go, or these soldiers shall take you both round to

the Kommandantur."

"But our luggage? _Surely_ you will let me go up to our room and

pack it--and take it away? We..."

"Your luggage has been packed and is in the corridor. If you send

round for it, it shall be delivered to your messenger. But you are

not to stop on the premises another minute. You understand?" he

almost shrieked.

"But--"

For answer, the soldiers took them by the shoulders and whirled

them through the revolving door on to the pavement, where a crowd

began to collect, as it does in peace or war if you cough twice or

sneeze three times in Brussels. "Englische Hure! Englische

Küpplerin," shouted the soldiers as they retreated and locked the

revolving door. Mrs. Warren turned purple and swayed. Vivie caught

her round the waist with her strong arm.... Thus was Mrs. Warren

ejected from the once homely inn which she had converted by her

energy, management and capital into the second most magnificent

hostelry of Brussels; thus was Vivie expelled from the place of her

birth....

Hearing the shouting and seeing the crowd a Belgian gendarme came

up. To him Vivie said, "Si vous êtes Chrétien et pas Allemand--"

"Prenez garde, Madame," he said warningly--"Vous m'aiderez à porter

ma mère à quelqu' endroit ou elle peut se remettre..."

He assisted her to carry the inert old woman across the street and a

short distance along the opposite pavement. Here, there was a

pleasant, modest-looking tea-shop with the name of Walcker over the

front, and embedded in the plate glass were the words "Tea Rooms."

These of course dated from long before the war, when the best

Chinese tea was only four francs the demi-kilo and the fashion for

afternoon tea had become established in Brussels. Vivie and her

mother had often entered Walcker's shop in happier days for a cup of

tea and delicious forms of home-made pastry. Besides the cakes,

which in pre-war times were of an excellence rarely equalled, they

had been drawn to the pleasant-looking serving woman. She was so

English in appearance, though she only spoke French and Flemish.

Behind the shop was a cosy little room where the more intimate

clients were served with tea; a room with a look-out into a little

square of garden. Thither Mrs. Warren was carried or supported. She

regained consciousness slightly as she was placed on a chair,

opened her eyes, and said "Thank you, my dears." Then her head fell

over to one side and she was dead--seemingly....

The _agent de police_ went away to fetch a doctor and to disperse

the crowd of _ketjes_[1] and loafers which had transferred itself

from the hotel to the tea-shop. The shop woman, who was one of those

angels of kindness that turn up unexpectedly in the paths of unhappy

people, called in a stout serving wench from the kitchen, and the

three of them carried Mrs. Warren out of the inner tea-room into the

back premises and a spare bedroom. Here she was laid on the bed,

partially undressed and all available and likely restoratives

applied.

[Footnote 1: Street urchins of Brussels. How they harassed the

Germans and maddened them by mimicking their military manoeuvres!]

The doctor when he came pronounced her dead, thought it was probably

an effusion of blood on the brain but couldn't be certain till he

had made an autopsy.

"What _am_ I to do?" said Vivie thinking aloud....

"Why, stay here till all the formalities are over and you can find

rooms elsewhere," said Mme. Trouessart, the owner-servant of the

tea-shop. "I have another spare room. For the moment my locataires

are gone. I know you both very well by sight, you were clients of

ours in the happy days before the War. Madame votre mère was, I

think, the gérante of the Hotel Édouard-Sept when I first came to

manage here. Since then, you have often drunk my tea. Je me nomme

'Trouessart' c'est le nom de mon mari qui est ... qui est--Vous

pouvez diviner où il est, où est à present tout Belge loyal qui peut

servir. Le nom Walcker? C'était le nom de nom père, et de plus est,

c'était un nom Anglais transformé un peu en Flamand. Mon

arrière-grand-père etait soldat Anglais. Il se battait à Waterloo.

For me, I spik no English--or ver' leetle."

She went on to explain, whilst the doctors occupied themselves with

their gruesome task, and Vivie was being persuaded to take some

nourishment, that her great grandfather had been a soldier servant

who had married a Belgian woman and settled down on the site of this

very shop a hundred years ago. He and his wife had even then

made a specialty of tea for English tourists. She, his great

grand-daughter, had after her marriage to Monsieur Trouessart

carried on the business under the old name--Walker, made to look

Flemish as Walcker.

Vivie when left alone suddenly thought of the money question. She

remembered then that before going out to look for rooms she had

transferred half the notes from their hiding-place to an inner

pocket. They were still there. But what about her luggage and her

mother's, and the remainder of the money? In her distress she wrote

to Gräfin von Stachelberg. Minna came over from her hospital at half

past six in the evening. By that time the doctor had given the

necessary certificate of the cause of death, and an undertaker had

come on the scene to make his preparations.

Minna went over to the Hotel Impérial with Vivie. Appearing in her

Red Cross uniform, she was admitted, announced herself as the Gräfin

von Stachelberg, and demanded to know what justification the manager

could offer for his extraordinary brutality towards these English

ladies, the result of which had been the death of the elder lady.

The manager replied that inasmuch as the All Highest himself was to

arrive that very evening to take up his abode at the Hotel Impérial,

the hotel premises had been requisitioned, etc., etc. He still

refused absolutely to allow Vivie to proceed to her room and look

for her money. She might perhaps be allowed to do so when the

Emperor was gone. As to her luggage he would have it sent over to

the tea-shop. (The money, it might be noted, she never recovered.

There were many things also missing from her mother's trunks and no

satisfaction was ever obtained.)

So there was Vivie, one dismal, rainy November evening in 1915;

homeless, her mother lying dead in a room of this tea-shop, and in

her own pocket only a matter of thirty thousand francs to provide

for her till the War was over. A thousand pounds in fluctuating

value was all that was left of a nominal twenty thousand of the year

before.

But the financial aspect of the case for the time being did not

concern her. The death of her mother had been a stunning shock, and

when she crossed over to the hotel--what irony, by the bye, to think

she had been born there thirty-nine years ago, in the old inn that

had preceded the twice rebuilt hotel!--when she crossed the street

with Minna, it had been with blazing, tearless eyes and the desire

to take the hotel manager and his minions by the coat collar, fling

_them_ into the street, and assert her right to go up to her room.

But now her violence was spent and she was a broken, weeping woman

as she sat all night by the bedside of her dead mother, holding the

cold hand, imprinting kisses on the dead face which was now that of

a saintly person with nothing of the reprobate in its lineaments.

* * * * *

The burial for various reasons had to take place in the Cemetery of

St. Josse-ten-Noode, near the shuddery National Shooting Range where

Edith Cavell and numerous Belgian patriots had recently been

executed. Minna von Stachelberg left her hospital, with some one

else in charge, and insisted on accompanying Vivie to the interment.

This might have been purely "laïc"; not on account of any harsh

dislike to the religious ceremony on Vivie's part; only due to the

fact that she knew no priest or pastor. But there appeared at the

grave-side to make a very suitable and touching discourse and to

utter one or two heartfelt prayers, a Belgian Baptist minister, a

relation of Mme. Trouessart.

Waterloo left many curious things behind it. Not only a tea-shop or

two; but a Nonconformist nucleus, that intermarried, as Sergeant

Walker or Walcker had done, with Belgian women and left descendants

who in the third generation--and by inherent vigour, thrift,

matrimony and conversion--had built up quite a numerous

congregation, which even grew large enough and rich enough to

maintain a mission of its own in Congoland. Kind Mme. Trouessart

(née Walcker), distressed and unusually moved at the sad

circumstances of Mrs. Warren's death, had called in her uncle the

Baptist pastor (who also in some unexplained way seemed to hold a

brief for the Salvation Army). He prayed silently by the death-bed

which, under the circumstances, was more tactful than open

intercession. He helped greatly over all the formalities of the

funeral, and he took upon himself the arrangement of the ceremony,

so that everything was done decorously, and certainly to the

satisfaction of the Belgians, who attended. Such people would be

large-minded in religion--you might be Protestant, if you were not

Catholic, or you might be Jewish; but a funeral without some outward

sign of faith and hope would have puzzled and distressed them.

To Vivie's great surprise, there was a considerable attendance at

the ceremony. She had expected no more than the company of Minna--an

unprofessing but real Christian, if ever there were one, and the

equally Christian if equally hedonist Mme. Trouessart. But there

came in addition quite a number of shopkeepers from the Rue Royale,

the Rues de Schaerbeek, du Marais, de Lione, and de l'Association,

with whom Mrs. Warren had dealt in years gone by. "C'etait une dame

_très_ convenable," said one purveyor, and the others agreed. "Elle

me paya écus sonnants," said another, "et toujours sans

marchander." There was even present a more distinguished

acquaintance of the past: a long-retired Commissaire de Police of

the Quartier in which Mrs. Warren's hotel was situated.

He appeared in the tightly-buttoned frock-coat of civil life, with a

minute disc of some civic decoration in his button hole, and an

incredibly tall chimney-pot hat. He came to render his _respectueux

hommages_ to the maîtresse-femme who had conducted her business

within the four corners of the law, "sans avoir maille à partir avec

la police des moeurs."

Mrs. Warren at least died with the reputation of one who promptly

paid her bills; and the whole _assistance_, as it walked slowly back

to Brussels, recalled many a deed of kindness and jovial charity on

the part of the dead Englishwoman.

* * * * *

Vivie, on sizing up her affairs, got Monsieur Walcker, the Baptist

pasteur, to convey a letter to the American Consulate General.

Walcker was used to such missions as these, of which the German

Government was more or less cognizant. The Germans, among their many

contradictory features, had a great respect for religion, a great

tolerance as to its forms. They not only appreciated the difference

between Jews and Christians, Catholics and Lutherans, but between

the Church of England and the various Free Churches of Britain and

America. The many people whom they sentenced to death must all have

their appropriate religious consolation before facing the firing

party. Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists were all provided for;

there was a Church of England chaplain for the avowed Anglicans; but

what was to be done for the Free Churches and Nonconformist sects of

the Anglo-Saxons? They were not represented by any captive pastor;

so in default this much respected Monsieur Walcker, the Belgian

Baptist, was called in to minister to the Nonconformist mind in its

last agony. He therefore held a quasi-official position and was

often entrusted with missions which would have been dealt with

punitorily on the part of any one else. Consequently he was able to

deliver Vivie's communication to the American Consul-General with

some probability of its being sent on. It contained no further

appeal to American intervention than this: that the Consul-General

would try to convey to England the news of her mother's death to

such-and-such solicitors, and to Lewis Maitland Praed A.R.A. in Hans

Place.

She went to the Brussels bank a fortnight after her mother's death

whilst still availing herself of the hospitality of Madame

Trouessart: to withdraw the jewellery and plate which she had

deposited there on her mother's account. But there she found herself

confronted with the red tape of the Latin which is more formidable,

even, than that of the land of Dora at the present day. These

deposited articles were held on the order of Mrs. Warren; they could

not be given up till her will was proved and letters of

administration had been granted. So _that_ small resource in funds

was withheld, at any rate till some time after peace had been

declared. However she had a thousand pounds (in notes) between her

and penury, and the friendship of Minna von Stachelberg. She would

resume her evening lessons in English--Madame Trouessart had found

her several pupils--and she would lodge--as they kindly invited her

to do--with the Baptist pastor and his wife in the Rue Haute. And

she would help Minna at the hospital, and hope to be rewarded with

the opportunity of bringing comfort and consolation to the wounded

British prisoners.

Thus, with no unbearable misery, she passed the year 1916. There

were short commons in the way of food, and the cold was sometimes

cruel. But Madame Walcker was a wonderful cook and could make soup

from a sausage skewer, and heaped _édredons_ on Vivie's bed. Vivie

sighed a little over the Blue Placards which announced endless

German victories by land and sea; and she gasped over the dreadful

Red Placards with their lists of victims sentenced to death by the

military courts. She ground her teeth over the announcement of

Gabrielle Petit's condemnation, and behind the shut door of Minna's

small sitting-room--and she only shut the door not to compromise

Minna--she raved over the judicial murder of this Belgian heroine,

who was shot, as was Edith Cavell, for nothing more than assisting

young Belgians to escape from German-occupied Belgium.

She witnessed the air-raids of the Allies, when only comforting

papers were dropped on Brussels city, but bombs on the German

aerodromes outside; and she also saw the Germans turn their guns

from the aeroplanes--which soared high out of their reach or skimmed

below range--on to thickly-inhabited streets of the poorer quarters,

to teach them to cheer the air-craft of the Allies!

She beheld--or she was told of--many acts of rapine, considered

cruelty and unreasoning ferocity on the part of German officials or

soldiers; yet saw or heard of acts and episodes of unlooked-for

kindness, forbearance and sympathy from the same hated people. Von

Giesselin, after all, was a not uncommon type; and as to Minna von

Stachelberg, she was a saint of the New Religion, the Service of

Man.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BOMB IN PORTLAND PLACE

Mrs. Rossiter said to herself in 1915 that she had scarcely known a

happy day, or even hour, since the War began. In the first place

Michael had again shown violence of temper with ministers of state

over the release from prison of "that" Miss Warren--"a convict doing

a sentence of hard labour." And then, when he had got her released,

and gone himself with their beautiful new motor--whatever _could_

the chauffeur have thought?--to meet her at the prison gates,

_there_ he was, afterwards, worrying himself over the War: not

content as she was, as most of her friends were, as the newspapers

were, to leave it all to Lord Kitchener and Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward

Grey, and even Mr. Lloyd George--though the latter had made some

rather foolish and exaggerated speeches about Alcohol. Michael, if

he went on like this, would _never_ get his knighthood!

Then when Michael had at last, thanks to General Armstrong, found

his right place and was accomplishing marvels--the papers said--as a

"mender of the maimed"--here was she left alone in Portland Place

with hardly any one to speak to, and all her acquaintances--she now

realized they were scarcely her friends--too much occupied with war

work to spend an afternoon in discussing nothing very important over

a sumptuous tea, still served by a butler and footman.

Presently, too, the butler left to join the Professor in France and

the footman enlisted, and the tea had to be served by a _distraite_

parlour-maid, with her eye on a munitions factory--so that she

might be "in it"--and her heart in the keeping of the footman, who,

since he had gone into khaki, was irresistible.

Mrs. Rossiter of course said, in 1914, that she would take up war

work. She subscribed most handsomely to the Soldiers' and Sailors'

Families' Association, to the Red Cross, to the Prince of Wales's

Fund (one of the unsolved war-time mysteries ... what's become of

it?), to the Cigarette Fund, the 1914 Christmas Plum Pudding Fund,

the Blue Cross, the Purple Cross, the Green Cross funds; to the

outstandingly good work at St. Dunstan's and at Petersham--(I am

glad she gave a Hundred pounds each to _them_); and to the

French, Belgian, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Portuguese and Japanese

Flag Days and to Our Own Day; besides enriching a number of

semi-fraudulent war charities which had alluring titles.

But if, from paying handsomely to all these praise-worthy endeavours

to mitigate the horrors of war, she proceeded to render personal

service, she became the despair of the paid organizers and

business-like workers. She couldn't add and she couldn't subtract or

divide with any certainty of a correct result; she couldn't spell

the more difficult words or remember the right letters to put after

distinguished persons' names when she addressed envelopes in her

large, childish handwriting; she couldn't be trusted to make

enquiries or to detect fraudulent appeals. She lost receipts and

never grasped the importance of vouchers; she forgot to fill up

counterfoils, or if reminded filled them up "from memory" so that

they didn't tally; she signed her name, if there was any choice of

blank spaces, in quite the wrong place.

So, invariably, tactful secretaries or assistant secretaries were

told off to explain to her--ever so nicely--that "she was no

business woman" (this, to the daughter of wholesale manufacturers,

sounded rather flattering), and that though she was invaluable as a

"name," as a patroness, or one of eighteen Vice Presidents, she was

of no use whatever as a worker.

She had no country house to place at the disposal of the Government

as a convalescent home. Michael after a few experiments forbade her

offering any hospitality at No. 1 Park Crescent to invalid officers.

Such as were entrusted to her in the spring of 1915 soon found that

she was--as they phrased it--"a pompous little, middle-class fool,"

wielding no authority. They larked in the laboratory with Red Cross

nurses, broke specimens, and did very unkind and noisy things ...

besides smoking in both the large _and_ the small dining-rooms. So,

after the summer of 1915, she lived very much alone, except that she

had the Adams children from Marylebone to spend the day with her

occasionally.

Poor Mrs. Adams, though a valiant worker, was very downcast and

unhappy. She confided to Mrs. Rossiter that although she dearly

loved her Bert--"and a better husband I defy you to find"--he never

seemed all hers. "Always so wrapped up in that Miss Warren or 'er

cousin the barrister." And no sooner had war broken out than off he

was to France, as a kind of missionary, she believed--the Young

Men's Christian Something or other; "though before the War he didn't

seem particular stuck on religion, and it was all she could do to

get him sometimes to church on a Sunday morning. Oh yes: she got 'er

money all right; and she couldn't say too much of Mr. and Mrs.

Rossiter's kindness. There was Bert, not doin' a stroke of work for

the Professor, and yet his pay going on all the same. Indeed she was

putting money by, because Bert was kep' out there, and all found."

However his two pretty children were some consolation to Mrs.

Rossiter, whom they considered as a very grand lady and one that was

lavishly kind.

Mrs. Rossiter tried sometimes in 1915 having working parties in her

house or in the studio; and if she could attract workers gave them

such elaborate lunches and plethoric teas that very little work was

done, especially as she herself loved a long, aimless gossip about

the Royal Family or whether Lord Kitchener had ever _really_ been in

love. Or she tried, since she was a poor worker herself--her only

jersey and muffler were really finished by her maid--reading aloud

to the knitters or stitchers, preferably from the works of Miss

Charlotte Yonge or some similar novelist of a later date. But that

was found to be too disturbing to their sense of the ludicrous. For

she read very stiltedly, with a strange exotic accent for the love

passages or the death scenes. As Lady Victoria Freebooter said, she

would have been _priceless_ at a music-hall matinée which was

raising funds for war charities, if only she could have been induced

to read passages from Miss Yonge in _that_ voice for a quarter of an

hour. Even the Queen would have had to laugh.

But as that could not be brought off, it was decided that working

parties at her house led to too much giddiness from suppressed

giggles or torpor from too much food. So she relapsed once more into

loneliness. Unfortunately air-raids were now becoming events of

occasional fright and anxiety in London, and this deterred Cousin

Sophie from Darlington, Cousin Matty from Leeds, Joseph's wife from

Northallerton or old, married schoolfellows from other northern or

midland towns coming to partake of her fastuous hospitality. Also,

they all seemed to be busy, either over their absent husbands'

business, or their sons', or because they were plunged in war work

themselves. "And really, in these times, I couldn't stand Linda for

more than five minutes," one of them said.

As to the air-raids, she was not greatly alarmed at them. Of course

it was very uncomfortable having London so dark at night, but then

she only went out in the afternoon, and never in the evening. And

the Germans seemed to be content and discriminating enough not to

bomb what she called "the resi_den_tial" parts of London. The

nearest to Portland Place of their attentions was Hampstead or

Bloomsbury. "We are protected, my dear, by the open spaces of

Regent's Park. They wouldn't like to waste their bombs on poor me!"

However her maid didn't altogether like the off chance of the

Germans or our air-craft guns making a mistake and trespassing on

the residential parts of London, so she persuaded her mistress to

spend part of the winter of 1915-16 at Bournemouth. Here she was not

happy and far lonelier even than in London. She did not like to send

all that way for the Adams children, she had a parlour suite all to

herself at the hotel, and was timid about making acquaintances

outside, since everybody now-a-days wanted you to subscribe to

something, and it was so disagreeable having to say "no." She was

not a great walker so she could not enjoy the Talbot woods; the sea

made her feel sad, remembering that Michael was the other side and

the submarines increasingly active: in short, air-raids or no

air-raids, she returned home in March, and her maid, who had been

with her ten years, gave her warning.

But then she had an inspiration! She engaged Mrs. Albert Adams to

take her place, and although the parlour-maid at this took offence

and cut the painter of domestic service, went off to the munitions

till Sergeant Frederick Summers should get leave to come home and

marry her; and they were obliged to engage another parlour-maid in

her place at double the wages: Mrs. Rossiter had done a very wise

thing. "Bert" had been home for three weeks in the preceding

February, and the recently bereaved Mrs. Adams had united her tears

with Mrs. Rossiter's on the misery of the War which separated

attached husbands and wives. It now alleviated the sorrows of both

that they should be together as mistress and maid. The cook--a most

important factor--had always liked Bertie and adored his "sweet,

pretty little children." "If you'll let 'em sleep in the spare room

on the fourth floor, next their mother, and play in the day-time in

the servants' 'all, they'll be no manner of difficulty _nor_ bother

to me and the maids. We shall love to 'ave 'em, the darlin's. And

they'll serve to cheer you up a bit ma'am till the Professor comes

back."

Mrs. Adams was a very capable person who hated dust and grime. The

big house wanted some such intervention, as since the butler's

departure it had become rather slovenly, save in the portions

occupied by Mrs. Rossiter. Charwomen were got in, and spring

cleanings on a gigantic scale took place, so that when Rossiter did

return he thought it had never looked so nice, or his Linda been so

cheery and companionable.

But before this happy confirmation of her wisdom in engaging Nance

Adams as maid and factotum, Mrs. Rossiter had several waves of doubt

and distress to breast. There was the Suffrage question. Once

converted by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Miss Violet Markham, Sir Almroth

Wright--whose _prénom_ she could not pronounce--the late Lord

Cromer, and the impressive Lord Curzon, to the perils of the Woman's

Vote, Mrs. Rossiter was hard to move from her uncompromising

opposition to the enfranchisement of her sex. Some adroit champion

of the Wrong had employed the argument that _once_ Women got the

vote, _the Divorce Laws would be greatly enlarged_. This would be

part of the scheme of the wild women to get themselves all married;

that and _the legalisation of Polygamy_ which would follow the Vote

_as surely as the night the day_. Linda had an undefined terror that

her Michael might take advantage of such licentiousness to depose

her, like the Empress Josephine was put aside in favour of a

child-producing rival; or if polygamy came into force, that Miss

Warren might lawfully share the Professor's affections.

She was therefore greatly perturbed in the course of 1916 at the

sudden throwing up of the sponge by the Anti-suffragists. However,

there it was. The long struggle drew to a victorious close. Example

as well as precept pointed to what women could do and were worth;

sound arguments followed the inconveniences of militancy, and the

men were convinced. Or rather, the men in the mass and the fighting,

working men had for some time been convinced, but the great

statesmen who had so obstinately opposed the measures were now

weakening at the knees before the results of their own mismanagement

in the conduct of the War.

A further perplexity and anxiety for Mrs. Rossiter arose over the

German spy mania. She had been to one of Lady Towcester's afternoon

parties "to keep up our spirits." Lady Towcester collected for at

least six different charities and funds, and Mrs. Rossiter was a

generous subscriber to all six. Touching the wood of the central

tea-table, she had remarked to Lady Victoria and Lady Helen

Freebooter how fortunate they (who lived within the prescribed area

defined by Lady Jeune) had been in so far escaping air-raids.

"But don't you know why?" said Lady Victoria.

Mrs. Rossiter didn't.

"Because in Manchester Square, in Cavendish--Grosvenor--Hanover

Squares, in Portland Place--a few doors off your own house--in

Harley Street and Wigmore Street: there are special friends of the

Kaiser living. They _may_ call themselves by English names, they may

even be ex-cabinet-ministers; but they are working for the Kaiser,

all the same. And _he_ wouldn't be such a fool as to have them

bombed, would he?"

"Especially as it is well known that there _is a wireless

installation_ on a house in Portland Place which communicates with

a similar installation in the Harz Mountains," added Lady Helen.

This was a half-reassuring, half-terrifying statement. It was

comfortable to know that you lived under the Kaiser's wing--Mrs.

Rossiter hoped the aim of the aeronauts was accurate, and their

knowledge of London topography good. At the same time it was

alarming to feel that you might be involved in that final blow up of

the villains which must bring such scoundreldom to a close. But if

Lady Vera and Lady Helen knew all this for a fact, why not tell the

Police? "What would be the good? They'd deny everything and we

should only be sued for libel."

However to form some conception of how English home life was

undermined with plots, she was advised to go and see Mr. Dennis

Eadie in _The Man That Stayed at Home_. She did, taking Mrs. Adams

with her to the Dress Circle for a matinée. Both were very much

impressed, and on their return expected the fireplaces to open all

of a piece and reveal German spies with masked faces and pistols,

standing in the chimney.

At last these and other nightmares were dispelled by the arrival of

Rossiter on leave of absence in the autumn of 1916. He had the rank

of Colonel in the R.A.M.C., and wore the khaki uniform--Mrs.

Rossiter proudly thought--of a General. He had shaved off his beard

and trimmed his moustache and looked particularly soldierly. The

butler who came with him though not precisely a soldier but a sort

of N.C.O. in a medical corps, also looked quite martial, and had so

much to say for himself that Mrs. Rossiter felt he could never

become a butler again. But he did all the same, and a most efficient

one though a little breezy in manner.

Linda now entered on an aftermath of matrimonial happiness. Rossiter

was to take quite a long leave so that he could pursue the most

important researches in curative surgery--bone grafting and the

like; not only in his own laboratory but at the College of Surgeons

and the Zoological Gardens Prosectorium. With only occasional

week-ends at home he had been away from London since September,

1914; had known great hardships, the life of the trenches and the

bomb-proof shelter, stewed tea and bad tinned milk, rum and water,

bully beef, plum and apple jam, good bread, it is true, but shocking

margarine for butter. He had slept for weeks together on an old sofa

more or less dressed, kept warm by his great-coat and two Army

blankets of woven porcupine quills (seemingly) the ends of which

tickled his nose and scratched his face. He had been very cold and

sweatingly hot, furiously hungry with no meal to satisfy his healthy

appetite, madly thirsty and no long drink attainable; unable to

sleep for three nights at a time owing to the noise of the

bombardment; surfeited with horrible smells; sickened with butchery;

shocked at his own failures to retrieve life, yet encouraged by an

isolated victory, here and there, over death and disablement. So the

never-before-appreciated comfort of his Park Crescent home filled

him with intense gratitude to Linda.

Had he known, he owed some of his acknowledgment to Mrs. Adams; who

had worked both hard and tactfully in her undefined position of

lady's-maid-housekeeper-companion. But naturally he didn't know,

though he praised his wife warmly for her charity of soul in taking

pity on the poor little woman and her two children. He could only

give the slightest news about Bertie, but said he was a sort of

jack-of-all-trades for the Y.M.C.A. As to Vivie--"that Miss

Warren"--he answered his wife's questions neither with the glowering

taciturnity nor suspicious loquacity of former times. "Miss Warren?

Vivie? I fancy she's still at Brussels, but there is no chance of

finding out. There is a story that her mother is dead. P'raps now

they'll let her come away. She must be jolly well sick of Brussels

by now. When I last heard of Adams he was still hoping to get into

touch with her. I hope he won't take any risks. She's a clever woman

and I dare say can take care of herself. I hope we shall all meet

again when the War is over."

He seemed very pleased to hear of the new Conciliation Bill, the

general agreement all round on the Suffrage question and the

enlargement of the electorate. He had always told Linda it was bound

to come. "And after it has come, dearie, you mark my words: things

will go on pretty much as before." But his real, intense, absorbing

interest lay in the new experiments he was about to make in bone

grafting and cartilage replacing, and the functions of the pituitary

body and the interstitial glands. To carry these out adequately the

Zoological Society had accumulated troops of monkeys and baboons. At

a certain depôt in Camden Town dogs were kept for his purposes. And

the vaults and upper floors of the Royal College of Surgeons were at

Rossiter's disposal, with Professor Keith to co-operate. Never had

his house in Portland Place--to be accurate the Park Crescent end

thereof--seemed so conveniently situated, or its studio-laboratory

so well designed. "Air-raids? Pooh! Just about one chance in a

million we should be struck. Besides: can't think of that, when so

much is at stake. That's a fine phrase, 'Menders of the Maimed.'

Just what we want to be! No more artificial limbs if we can help you

to grow your own new legs and arms--perhaps. At any rate, mend up

those that are a hopeless mash. Grand work! Only bright thing in the

War. Now dear, are you ready with that lymph?"

And she was. Never had Linda been so happy. She overcame her disgust

at the sight of blood, at monkeys, dogs, and humans under

anæsthetics, at yellow fat, gleaming sinew, and blood-stained bone.

She was careful as a washer-up. The services of Mrs. Adams were

enlisted, and she was more deft even than her mistress; and the

butler, who was by this time a regular hospital dresser, greatly

admired her pretty arms when they were bared to the elbow, and her

flushed cheeks when she took a humble part in some tantalizing

adjustment.

"I'm some use to you after all," Linda would say when they retired

from the studio for a rest and she made the tea. "Some _use_? I

should think so!" said Rossiter (whether truly or not). And he

reproached himself that twenty years ago he had not trained and

developed her to help him in his work, to be a real companion in his

studies.