He was really fond of her through the winter of 1916. And so jovial

and lover-like, so boyish in his fun, so like the typical Tommy home

from the trenches. When he was overjoyed at the success of some

uncovered and peeped-at experiment, he would sing, "When _I_ get me

civvies on again, an' it's Home Sweet Home once more"; and ask for

the ideal cottage "with rowses round the door--And a nice warm

bottle in me nice warm bed, An' a nice soft pillow for me nice soft

'ead..." Mrs. Rossiter began to think there was a good side to the

War, after all. It made some men more conscious of their home

comforts and less exigent for intellectuality in their home

companions.

They went out very little into Society. Rossiter held that war-time

parties were scandalous. He poohpoohed the idea that immodest

dancing with frisky matrons or abandoned spinsters was necessary

to restore the shell-shocked nerves of temporary captains,

locally-ranked majors, or the recently-joined subaltern. He was far

too busy for twaddly tea-fights and carping at hard-worked generals

who were doing their best and a good best too. He and Linda did dine

occasionally with Honoria, but the latter felt she could not let

herself go about Vivie in the presence of Mrs. Rossiter and seemed

a little cold in manner.

Ordinarily, after working hard all day while the daylight lasted

they much preferred an evening of complete solitude. Rossiter's new

robustness of taste included love of a gramophone. Money being no

consideration with them, they acquired a tip-top one with

superlative records; not so much the baaing, bellowing and shrieking

of fashionable singers, but orchestral performances, heart-melting

duets between violin and piano (_what_ human voice ever came up to a

good violin or violoncello?), racy comic songs, inspiriting two

steps, xylophone symphonies, and dreamy, sensuous waltzes. This

gramophone Linda learnt to work; and while Michael read voraciously

the works of Hunter, Hugh Owen Thomas, Stromeyer, Duchenne, Goodsir,

Wolff, and Redfern on bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, cartilage,

periosteum and osteogenesis--or, more often, Keith's compact and

lucid analysis of their experiments and conclusions--Linda let loose

in the scented air of a log fire these varied melodies which attuned

the mind to extraordinary perceptibility.

The little Adamses were allowed to steal in and listen, on condition

they never uttered a word to break the spell of Colonel Rossiter's

thoughts.

I think also Rossiter felt his wife had been unjustly snubbed by the

great ladies and the off-hand, harum-scarum young war-workers; so he

flatly declined to have any of them messing around his studio or

initiated into his research work. It was intimated that the Rossiter

Thursday afternoons of long ago would not be resumed until after the

peace. Linda therefore derived much consolation and satisfaction for

past injuries to her pride when Lady Vera--or Victoria--Freebooter

called one day just before Christmas and said "Oh--er--mother's let

our house till February and thinks we'd better--I mean the Marrybone

Guild of war-workers--meet at _your_ house instead"; and she,

Linda, had the opportunity of replying: "Oh, I'm sorry, _but_ It's

QUITE impossible. The Professor--I mean, Colonel Rossiter--and I are

so _very_ busy ... we are seeing _no_ one just now. Indeed we've

enlisted all the servants to help the Colonel in his work, so I

can't even offer you a cup of tea.... I must _rush_ back at once....

You'll excuse me?"

"That Rossiter woman is quite off her head with grandeur," said Lady

Vera to Lady Helen. "I expect Uncle Algy has let out that her

husband is in the New Year's honours."

And so he was. But Uncle Algy, though he might have babbled to his

nieces, had not written a word to the Rossiters. So they just

enjoyed Christmas--too much, they thought, more than any Christmas

before--in the simple satisfaction of being Colonel and Mrs.

Rossiter, all in all to each other, but rendered additionally happy

by making those about them happy. The little Adamses staggered under

their presents and had a Christmas Tree to which they were allowed

to ask their two grannies--Mrs. Laidly from Fig Tree Court and Mrs.

Adams from the Kilburn Laundry--and numerous little friends from

Marylebone, who had been washed and curled and crimped and adjured

not to disgrace their parents, _or_ father--in the trenches--would

be told "as sure as I stand here."

(The little Adamses were also warned that if they _ever_ again were

heard calling Mrs. Rossiter "Gran'ma," they'd--but the threat was

too awful to be uttered, especially as their mother at this time was

always on the verge of tears, either at getting no news of Bert or

at the unforgettable kindness of Bert's employer.)

Mrs. Rossiter, quite unaware that she was soon to be a Dame, gave

Christmas entertainments at St. Dunstan's, at the Marylebone

Workhouse, and to all the wounded soldiers in the parish. And on

December 31, 1916, Michael received a note from the Prime Minister

to say that His Majesty, in recognition of his exceptional services

in curative surgery at the front, had been pleased to bestow on him

a Knight Commandership of the Bath. "So that, Linda, you can call

yourself Lady Rossiter, and you will have to get some new cards

printed for both of us."

Linda didn't feel quite that ecstasy over her title that she had

expected in her day-dreams. She was getting a little frightened at

her happiness. Generations of Puritan forefathers and mothers had

left some influence of Calvinism on her mentality. She was brought

up to believe in a jealous God, whose Providence when you felt too

happy on earth just landed you in some unexpected disaster to fit

you for the Kingdom of Heaven--a Kingdom which all healthy human

beings shrink from entering with the terror of the unknown and a

certain homeliness of disposition which is humbly content with this

cosy planet and a corporeal existence.

However it was very nice to leave cards of calling on Lady

Towcester--even though she was out of town on account of

air-raids--and on others, inscribed: "Lady Rossiter, Colonel Sir

Michael Rossiter, Sir Michael and Lady Rossiter;" and to see printed

foolscap envelopes for Michael arrive from the War Office and lie on

the hall table, addressed: Colonel Sir Michael Rossiter K.C.B. etc.,

etc., etc., etc.

And later on, in January or February, for some very good reason, Sir

Michael and Lady Rossiter were received in audience by the King and

Queen at Buckingham Palace. The King had already watched Sir Michael

at work in his laboratory just behind the French front; so they two,

as Linda timidly glanced at them, had no lack of subjects for

conversation. But the Queen! Linda had thought she could _never_

have talked to a Queen without swooning, and indeed had arrived

primed with much sal volatile. Yet there, as in some realistic

dream, she was led on to talk about her war charities and Sir

Michael's experiments without trembling, and found herself able to

listen with intelligence to the Queen's practical suggestions about

war work and the application of relief funds in crowded districts.

"_We actually compared notes!_" said a flushed and triumphant Linda

to her Michael, as they drove away through the blue twilight of St.

James's Park.

And so far from being puffed up by this, people said they had always

thought Lady Rossiter was kind, but they really before had never

imagined there was so much in her. She was even allowed to preside

as Vice President, in the absence of Lady Towcester; and got through

it quite creditably--kind hearts being more than coronets--and made

a little speech to which cook and Nance Adams called out "Hear,

_Hear_!" and roused quite a hearty response.

Of course it was an awful wrench when Michael had to return to

France. But he would be back in the autumn, and meantime she must

remember she was a soldier's wife. So the summer was got through

with cheerfulness, especially as she was now treated with much more

regard in the different committees whereof she was Vice President.

On these committees she met Honoria Armstrong, and the longing to

renew the old friendship and talk about Michael's superlative

qualities to one who had long known them, took her over to

Kensington Square, impulsively. Honoria perceived the need

instinctively. The coldness engendered by Linda's silly

Anti-suffragism disappeared. They both talked by the hour together

of their respective husbands and their outstanding virtues and

charming weaknesses. The Armstrong children took to calling her Aunt

Linda--Michael and Petworth, after all, were brothers-in-arms and

friends from youth. Lady Rossiter was delighted, and lavished

presents on them, till Honoria reminded her it was war-time and

extravagance in all things was reprehensible, even in British-made

toys.

They discussed the Vote, soon to be theirs, and how it should be

exercised. From that--by some instinct--Honoria passed on to a talk

about Vivien Warren ... a selective talk. She said nothing about

David Williams, but enlarged on Vivie's absolute "straightness,"

especially towards other women; her business capacities, her

restoration of her mother to the ranks of the respectable; till at

last it seemed as though the burning down of racing stables was a

meritorious act ... "ridding England of an evil that good might

come." And there was poor Vivie, locked up in Brussels, if indeed

she were still living.

Linda felt shocked at her own treachery to the Woman's Cause in

having betrayed that poor, well-meaning Miss Warren to the police.

Never could she confess this to Lady Armstrong (Sir Petworth had

just been knighted for a great success in battle), tell her about

the fragment of letter she had forwarded anonymously to Scotland

Yard. Perhaps she might some day tell Michael, when he returned. In

any case she would say at the next opportunity that as soon as Miss

Warren reappeared in England, he might ask her to the house as often

as he liked--even to stay with them if she were in want of a home.

She said as much to Michael when he came back in September, 1917, to

make some further investigations into bone grafting. He seemed

genuinely pleased at her broad-mindedness, and said it would indeed

be delightful when the War was over--and it _surely_ must be over

soon--now Mr. Lloyd George and Clemenceau and President Wilson had

taken it in hand--it would indeed be delightful to form a circle of

close friends who had all been interested in the Woman's Movement.

As to Vivie ... if she were not dead ... he should advise her to go

in for Parliament.

He had had no news of her since ever so long; what was worse, he

had now very great misgivings about Bertie Adams. During the autumn

of 1916 he had disappeared in the direction of La Bassée. There were

stories of his having joined some American Relief Expedition at

Lille--a most dangerous thing to do; insensate, if it were not a mad

attempt to get through to Brussels in disguise to rescue Miss

Warren. No one in the Y.M.C.A. believed for a moment that he had

done anything dishonourable. Most likely he had been killed--as so

many Y.M.C.A. people were just then, assisting to bring in the

wounded or going up to the trenches with supplies. Mrs. Adams had

better be prepared, cautiously, for a bereavement. Rossiter himself

was very sad about it. He had missed Bertie's services much these

last three years. He had never known a better worker--turn his hand

to anything--Such a good indexer, for example.

Linda wondered whether _she_ could do any indexing? Three years ago

Michael would have replied: "_You?_ Nonsense, my dear. You'd only

make a muddle of it. Much better stick to your housekeeping" (which

as a matter of fact was done in those days by cook, butler and

parlour-maid). But now he said, thoughtfully:

"Well--I don't know--perhaps you might. There's no reason you

shouldn't try."

And Linda began trying.

But she also worked regularly in the laboratory now, calling it at

his suggestion the lab, and stumbling no more over the word. She

wore a neat overall with tight sleeves and her hair plainly dressed

under a little white, pleated cap. She never now caught anything

with her sleeve and switched it off the table; she never let

anything drop, and was a most judicious duster and wiper-up.

Rossiter in this autumn of 1917 was extremely interested in certain

crucial experiments he was making with spiculum in sponge-cells;

with scleroblasts, "mason-cells," osteoblasts, and "consciousness"

in bone-cells. Most of the glass jars in which these experiments

were going on (those of the sponges in sea-water) required daylight

for their progress. There was no place for their storage more

suitable than that portion of his studio-laboratory which was above

ground; and the situation of his house in regard to air attacks,

bombs, shrapnel seemed to him far more favourable than the upper

rooms at the College of Surgeons. That great building was often

endangered because of its proximity to the Strand and Fleet Street;

and the Strand and Fleet Street, being regarded by the Germans as

arteries of Empire, were frequently attacked by German air-craft.

But in Rossiter's studio there was an under-ground annex as

continuation of the house cellars; and the household was instructed

that if, in Rossiter's absence, official warnings of an air-raid

were given, certain jars were to be lifted carefully off the shelves

and brought either into the library or taken down below in case,

through shrapnel or through the vibration of neighbouring

explosions, the glass of the studio roof was broken.

One day in October, 1917, the German air fleet made a determined

attack on London. It was intended this time to belie the stories of

the heart of the Western district being exempted from punishment

because Lady So-and-so lived there and had lent her house in East

Anglia to the Empress and her children in 1912, or because Sir

Somebody-else was really an arch spy of the Germans and had to go on

residing in London. So the aeroplanes this time began distributing

their explosives very carefully over the residential area between

Regent's Park and Pall Mall, the Tottenham Court Road and

Selfridge's.

Lady Rossiter in her overall was disturbed at her indexing by the

clamour of an approaching daylight raid; by the maroons, the

clanging of bells, the hooters, the gunfire; and finally by the not

very distant sounds of exploding bombs. She called and rang for the

servants, and then rushed from the library into the studio to

commence removing the more important of the jars to a place of

greater safety. She had seized two of them, one under each arm, and

was making for the library door, when there came the most awful

crash she had ever heard, and resounding bangs which seemed to echo

indefinitely in her ears....

Rossiter was working in the Prosectorium at the Zoo when the

daylight air-raid began. It seemed to be coming across the middle of

London; so, hastily doffing his overall, he left the Gardens and

walked rapidly towards Portland Place. He had hardly got past the

fountain presented by Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy in wasted

benevolence, than he heard the deafening report of the bomb which

had wrecked his studio, reduced it to a tangle of iron girders and

stanchions, strewn its floor with brick rubble and thick dust, and

left his wife a human wreck, lying unconscious with a broken spine,

surrounded by splinters of glass, broken jars, porcelain trays, and

nasty-looking fragments of sponge and vertebrate anatomy. With an

almost paralyzing premonition of disaster he ran as quickly as

possible towards Park Crescent. The Marylebone Road was strewn with

glass, and a policeman--every one else had taken shelter--was

ringing and knocking at his front door to ascertain the damage and

possible loss of life. Michael let both of them in with his

latch-key. In the hall the butler was lying prone, stunned by a

small statue which had been flung at him by the capricious violence

of the explosion. All the mirrors were shivered and most of the

pictures were down. At the entrance to the library cook was

standing, all of a tremble. The two little Adamses rushed up to him:

"Oh Sir Michael! Mummie is dead and Gran'ma is awfully hurted."

But Mummie--Mrs. Adams--was not dead; neither was the expensive

parlour-maid. Both had fainted or been stunned by the explosion on

their way to help their mistress. Both lay inanimate on the library

floor. The library glass door was shivered to dangerous jagged

splinters, but the iron framework--"Curse it"--remained a tangled,

maddening obstacle to his further progress. He could see through the

splinters of thick glass something that looked like Linda, lying on

her back--and--something that looked like blood. The policeman who

followed him was strong and adroit. Together they detached the glass

splinters and wrenched open the framework, with space enough, at any

rate, to pass through without the rending of clothes into the

studio.

Linda Rossiter was regaining consciousness for just a few more

minutes of sentient life. She was aware there had been a dreadful

accident to some one; perhaps to herself. But she fully believed she

had first of all saved the precious jars. No doubt they had put her

to bed, and as there was something warm (her blood, poor thing)

round her body, they must have packed her with hot water bottles.

Some idea of Michael's no doubt. How _kind_ he was!

She would soon get right, with him to look after her. She opened

her eyes to meet his, as he bent over her, and said with the ghost

of an arch smile: "I--have been--of some use--to you, haven't--I?

... (then the voice faltered and trailed away) ... I ...

saved--your--specimens--"

CHAPTER XIX

BERTIE ADAMS

One day, early in April, 1917, Vivie was standing in a corridor of

the Hôpital de St. Pierre talking to Minna von Stachelberg. She had

just come from the railway station, where in common with the few

British and Americans who remained in Brussels she had been to take

a respectful and grateful farewell of the American Minister and his

wife, who were leaving Belgium for Holland, prior to the American

declaration of war. American diplomacy had done little for her or

her mother, but it had been the shield, the salvation, the only hope

of Belgium. Moreover, the break-off of diplomatic relations

initiated the certain hope of a happier future. American

intervention in the war _must_ lead to Peace and Freedom. Germany

_must_ now be beaten and Belgium set free.

So she had contributed her mite to the fund which purchased spring

flowers--hothouse-grown, for this April was a villainous

prolongation of winter--with which to strew the approach to the

station and fill the reserve compartment of the train.

As Vivie was nearing the end of her description--and Minna was

hoping it _was_ the end, as she wanted to get back to her

patients--two German policemen marched up to Vivie, clicked their

heels, saluted, and said in German, "Mademoiselle Varennes, nicht

wahr? Be good enough to accompany us to the Kommandantur."

At this dread summons, Vivie turned pale, and Minna dismayed began

to ask questions. The Polizei answered that they had none to

give.... Might she accompany her friend? She might not. Then

followed a ride in a military motor, with the two silent policemen.

They arrived outside the Kommandantur.... More clanking, clicking,

and gruff conversation in German. She got out, in response to a

tight pressure on her arm, a grip in fact, and accompanied her grim

guide through halls and corridors, and at last entered a severely

furnished office, a kind of magistrate's court, and was confronted

with--Bertie Adams! A whiskered, bearded, moustached, shabbily

dressed (in a quasi-military uniform) Bertie Adams: lean, and

hollow-eyed, but with the love-light in his eyes. He turned on her

such a look of dog-like fealty, of happy recognition that although,

by instinct and for his safety, she was about to deny all knowledge

of him, she could not force her eyes or tongue to tell the lie.

"Oh miss, oh my dear Miss Warren! _How_ I have hungered and thirsted

for a sight of you all these months and years! To see you once more

is worth all and more I've gone through to get here. They may shoot

me now, if they've got the heart--Not that I've done anything to

deserve it--I've simply had one object in view: To come here and

help you."

He looked around as if instinctively to claim the sympathy of the

policemen. To say he met with none would be to make them out more

inhuman than they were. But as all this speech was in English they

understood but little of what he had said. They guessed he loved the

woman to whom he spake, but he may have been pleading with her not

to give him away, to palliate his acts of espionage.

Vivie replied:

"_Dear_ Bertie! You can't be gladder to see me than I am you. I

greet you with all my heart. But you must be aware that in coming

here like this you--" her words stuck in her throat--she knew not

what to say lest she might incriminate him farther--

A police officer broke in on her embarrassment and said in German:

"Es ist genug--You recognize him, Madame? He was arrested this

morning at the Hotel Impérial, enquiring for you. Meantime, you also

are under arrest. Please follow that officer."

"May I communicate with my friends?" said Vivie, with a dry tongue

in a dry mouth.

"Who are your friends?"

"Gräfin von Stachelberg, at the Hôpital de St. Pierre; le Pasteur

Walcker, Rue Haute, 33--"

"I will let them know that you are arrested on a charge of high

treason--in league with an English spy," he hissed.

Then Vivie was pushed out of the room and Bertie was seized by two

policemen--

They did not meet again for three days. It was a Saturday, and a

police agent came into the improvised cell where Vivie was

confined--who had never taken off her clothes since her arrest and

had passed three days of such mental distress as she had never

known, unable to sleep on the bug-infested pallet, unable to eat a

morsel of the filthy food--and invited her to follow him. "By the

grace of the military governor of the prison of Saint-Gilles"--he

said this in French as she understood German imperfectly--"you are

permitted to proceed there to take farewell of your English friend,

the prisoner A-dams, who has been condemned to death."

Bertie had been tried by court-martial in the Senate, on the Friday.

He followed all the proceedings in a dazed condition. Everything was

carried on in German, but the parts that most concerned him were

grotesquely translated by a ferocious-looking interpreter, who

likewise turned Bertie's stupid, involved, self-condemnatory answers

into German--no doubt very incorrectly. Bertie however protested,

over and over again, that Miss Warren knew _nothing_ of his

projects, and that his only object in posing as an American and

travelling with false passports was to rescue Miss Warren from

Brussels and enable her to pass into Holland, "or get out of the

country _some_ 'ow." As to the Emperor, and taking his life--"why

lor' bless you, _I_ don't want to take _any one's_ life. I 'ate war,

more than ever after all I've seen of it. Upon my honour, gentlemen,

all I want is Miss Warren." Here one member of the court made a

facetious remark in German to a colleague who sniggered, while, with

his insolent light blue eyes, he surveyed Bertie's honest, earnest

face, thin and hollowed with privations and fatigue....

He was perfunctorily defended by a languid Belgian barrister, tired

of the invidious rôle of mechanical pleading for the lives of

prisoners, especially where, as in this case, they were foredoomed,

and eloquence was waste of breath, and even got you disliked by the

impatient ogres, thirsty for the blood of an English man or

woman.... "Du reste," he said to a colleague, "agissait-il d'un

Belge, mon cher, tu sais que l'on se sentirait forcé à risquer le

déplaisir de ces ogres: tandis que, pour un pauvre bougre

d'Anglais...? Et qu'ont-ils fait pour nous, les Anglais? Nous avons

tâché de leur boucher le trou à Liège--et--il--nous--ont--abandonné.

Enfin--allons boire un coup--"

Verdict: as translated by the ferocious interpreter:--

"Ze Court faind you Geeltee. You are condemned to Dess, and you will

be shot on Monday."

In the prison of Saint-Gilles--as I believe elsewhere in

Belgium--though there might be a military governor in control who

was a German, the general direction remained in the hands of the

Belgian staff which was there when the German occupation began.

These Belgian directors and their subordinates were as kind and

humane to the prisoners under their charge as the Germans were the

reverse. Everything was done at Saint-Gilles to alleviate the mental

agony of the condemned-to-death. The German courts tried to prolong

and enhance the agony as much as possible, by sentencing the

prisoners three days, six days, a week before the time of execution

(though for fear of a reprieve this sentence was not immediately

published) and letting them know that they had just so many days or

hours to live: consequently most of them wasted away in prison with

mind-agony, inability to sleep or eat; and even opiates or

soporifics administered surreptitiously by the Belgian prison

doctors were but slight alleviations.

Bertie when first placed in his cell at Saint-Gilles asked for pen,

ink, and paper. They were supplied to him. He was allowed to keep on

the electric light all night, and he distracted his mind--with some

dreadful intervals of horror at his fate--by trying to set forth on

paper for Vivie to read an explanation and an account of his

adventures. He intended to wind up with an appeal for his wife and

children.

Vivie never quite knew how Bertie had managed to cross the War zone

from France into Belgium, and reach Brussels without being arrested.

When they met in prison they had so little time to discuss such

details, in face of the one awful fact that he was there, and was in

all probability going to die in two days. But from this incomplete,

tear-stained scribble that he left behind and from the answers he

gave to her few questions, she gathered that the story of his quest

was something like this:--

He had planned an attempt to reach her in Brussels or wherever she

might be, from the autumn of 1914 onwards. The most practicable way

of doing so seemed to be to pass as an American engaged in Belgian

relief work, in the distribution of food. Direct attempts to be

enrolled for such work proved fruitless, only caused suspicion; so

he lay low. In course of time he made the acquaintance of one of

those American agents of Mr. Hoover--a tousle-haired, hatless,

happy-go-lucky, lawless individual, who made mock of laws, rules,

precedents, and regulations. He concealed under a dry, taciturn,

unemotional manner an intense hatred of the Germans. But he was

either himself of enormous wealth or he had access to unlimited

national funds. He spent money like water to carry out his relief

work and was lavishly generous to German soldiers or civilians if

thereby he might save time and set aside impediments. He took a

strong liking to Bertie, though he showed it little outwardly. The

latter probably in his naïveté and directness unveiled his full

purpose to this gum-chewing, grey-eyed American. When the news of

Mrs. Warren's death had reached Bertie through a circuitous

course--Praed-Honoria-Rossiter--he had modified his scheme and at

the same time had become still more ardent about carrying it into

execution. In fact he felt that Mrs. Warren's death was opportune,

as with her still living and impossible to include in a flight,

Vivie would probably have refused to come away.

Therefore in the summer of 1916, he asked his American friend to

obtain two American passports, one for himself and one for "his

wife, Mrs. Violet Adams." Mr. Praed had sent him a credit for Five

hundred pounds in case he could get it conveyed to Vivie. Bertie

turned the credit into American bank notes. This money would help

him to reach Brussels and once there, if Vivie would consent to pass

as his wife, he might convey her out of Belgium into Holland, as two

Americans working under the Relief Committee.

It had been excessively difficult and dangerous crossing the War

zone and getting into occupied Belgium. There was some hint in his

talk of an Alsatian spy who helped him at this stage, one of those

"sanspatries" who spied impartially for both sides and sold any one

they could sell (Fortunately after the Armistice most of these

Judases were caught and shot). The spy had probably at first

blackmailed him when he was in Belgium--which is why of the Five

hundred pounds in dollar notes there only remained about a third in

his possession when he reached Brussels--and then denounced him to

the authorities, for a reward.

But his main misfortune lay in the long delay before he reached

Brussels. During that time, the entire American diplomatic and

consular staff was leaving Belgium; and the Emperor was arriving

more or less secretly in Brussels (it was said in the hope that a

personal talk with Brand Whitlock might stave off the American

declaration of war).

Bertie on his arrival dared not to go to the American legation for

fear of being found out and disavowed. So he had asked his way in

very "English" French, and wearing the semi-military uniform of an

American Relief officer--to the Hotel "Edward-Sett," where he

supposed Vivie would be or could be heard of. When he reached the

Hotel Impérial and asked for "Miss Warren," he had been at once

arrested. Indeed probably his steps had been followed all the way

from the railway station to the door of the hotel by a plain-clothes

German policeman. The Germans were convinced just then that many

Englishmen and some American cranks were out to assassinate the

Kaiser. They took Bertie's appearance at the door of the Hotel

Impérial as a proof of his intention. They considered him to have

been caught red-handed, especially as he had a revolver concealed on

his person and was obviously travelling with false passports.

"Ah, Bertie," said Vivie, when they first met in his cell at

Saint-Gilles prison. "If _only_ I had not led you into this! I am

mad with myself..."

"Are you, miss? But 'oo could 'a foreseen this war would come along!

We thought all we 'ad to fight was the Police and the 'Ome Office to

get the Vote. And _then_, you'd 'a bin able to come out into the

open and practise as a barrister--and me, again, as your clerk. It

was our damned Government that made you go abroad and get locked up

'ere. And once I realized you couldn't get away, thinks I to meself,

_I'll_ find a way..."

It was here that Vivie began questioning him as to how he had

reached Brussels from the War zone; and as, towards the end of his

story--some of which he said she would find he had written down in

case they wouldn't let him see her--the reference to the Emperor

came in, she sprang up and tried the door of the cell. It was

fastened without, but a face covered the small, square opening

through which prisoners were watched; and a rough voice asked her

what she wanted. It was the German police agent or spy, who, perched

on a stool outside, next this small window, was there to listen to

all they said. As they naturally spoke in English and the rough

creature only knew "God-dam," and a few unrepeatable words, he was

not much the wiser for his vigil.

"I want--I _must_ see the Director," said Vivie.

Presently the Director came.

"Oh, sir," said Vivie, "give me paper and an envelope, I _implore_

you. There is pen and ink here and I will write a letter to the

Emperor, a petition. I will tell him briefly the true story of this

poor young man; and _then_, if you will only forward it he may grant

a reprieve."

The Director said he would do his best. After all, you never knew;

and the Kaiser, though he said he hated them always, had a greater

regard for the English than for any other nation. As he glanced

from Vivie and her face of agonized appeal to the steadfast gaze

which Bertie fixed on her, as on some fairy godmother, his own eyes

filled with tears--as indeed they did many, many times over the

tragic scenes of the German Terror.

Another request. Could Vivie see or communicate with Gräfin von

Stachelberg?--with Pasteur Walcker?

Here the police agent intervened--"Nothing of the kind! You're not

going to hold a salon here. Far too many concessions already. Much

more fuss and trouble, and I shall take you back to the Kommandantur

and report. Write your letter to the All Highest, who may deign to

receive it. As to Pastor Walcker, he shall come to-morrow, Sunday,

to prepare the Englishman for his death, on Monday--"

Vivie wrote her letter--probably in very incoherent language. It was

handed to the German police agent. He smiled sardonically as he took

it in his horny hand with its dirty broken nails. The Governor

General disliked these appeals to the All Highest. Indeed, in most

cases executions that were intended to take place were only

announced at the same time as the condemnation, to obviate the worry

of these appeals. Besides, he knew the Emperor had left that morning

for Charleville, after having bestowed several decorations on the

police officials who told him they had just frustrated an English

plot for his assassination.

Vivie and Bertie were at length alone, for the police agent was

bored, couldn't understand their talk, and gave himself an afternoon

off. In this prison of Saint-Gilles, the cells were in many ways

superior to those of English prisons. They were well lit through a

long window, not so high up but that by standing on a chair you

could look out on the prison garden. Through this window the rays of

the sun could penetrate into and light up the cell. There was no

unpleasant smell--one of the horrors of Holloway. The floor was a

polished parquet. The bed was comfortable. There was a table, even a

book-shelf. The toilet arrangements were in no way repulsive or

obvious.

Vivie insisted on Bertie lying down on the bed; she would sit on the

chair by his side. He must be so exhausted....

"And what about _you_, miss? I'll lay you ain't slept these last

three nights. _What_ a mess I've made of the 'ole thing!"

"Bertie! _Why_ did you do this? _Why_ did you risk your life to come

here; _oh why, oh why_?" wailed Vivie.

"Because I loved you, because I've always loved you, better'n any

one else on earth--since I was a boy of fourteen and you spoke so

kind to me and encouraged me to get on and improve myself; and giv'

me books, and encouraged me about me cricket. I suppose I'm going to

die, so I ain't got any shame about tellin' you all this. Though if

I thought I was goin' to live, I'd cut my tongue out sooner'n offend

you--Oh,"--he gave a kind of groan--"When the news come about Mrs.

Warren bein' dead an' you p'raps without money and at the mercy of

these Germans ... well!--all I wonder at is I didn't steal an

airyplane, and come in that. I tell you I had to exercise great

self-control to stay week after week fiddling with the food

distribution and pretendin' to be an American....

"Well! There it is! We must all die sooner or later. It's a wonder I

ain't dead already. I've bin in some tight places since I come out

for the Y.M.C.A....

"And talkin' about the Y.M.C.A., miss, I do _beg_ of you, if you get

out of this--an' I'm sure you will--they'll never kill _you_," said

Bertie adoringly, looking up at the grave, beautiful face that bent

over him--"I do _beg_ of you to make matters right with the

Y.M.C.A. I ain't taken away one penny of their money--I served 'em

faithfully up to the last day before I saw my chance of hooking it

across the lines--They must think me dead--and so must poor Nance,

my wife. For I haven't dared to write to any one since I've bin in

Belgium. But I did send her a line 'fore I started, sayin', 'Don't

be surprised if you get no letter from me for some time. I'll turn

up all right, you bet your boots--'

"That may 'ave kept 'er 'opin'. An' soon you'll be able to let 'er

know. Who can say? _I_ dunno! But Peace, you'd think, must come

soon--Seems like our poor old world is comin' to an end, don't it?

_What_ times we've 'ad--if you don't mind me puttin' it like that! I

remember when I had to be awful careful always to say 'Sir' to you,

and 'Mr. David' or 'Mr. Williams'"--and a roguish look, a gleam of

merriment came into Bertie's eyes, and he laughed a laugh that was

half sob. "If you was to write your life, no one 'ud believe it,

miss. It licks any novel I ever read--and I've read a tidy few,

looking after the Y.M.C.A. libraries....

"My! But you was wonderful as a pleader in the courts! I used

sometimes to reg'lar cry when I heard you takin' up the case of some

poor girl as 'ad bin deserted by 'er feller, and killed 'er baby.

'Tricks of the trade,' says some other barrister's clerk, sneerin'

because you wasn't 'is boss. An' then I'd punch 'is 'ead.... An' I

don't reckon myself a soft-'earted feller as a rule.... Reklect that

Shillito Case--?"

"_Don't_, Bertie! _Don't_ say such things in praise of me. I'm not

_worth_ such love. I'm just an arrogant, vain, quarrelsome woman....

Look how many people I've deceived, what little good I've really

done in the world--"

"Rub--bish! You done good wherever you went ... to my pore

mother--wonder, by the bye, what _she_ thinks and 'ow _she's_

gettin' on? Sons are awful ungrateful and forgettin'. What with

you--and Nance--and the little 'uns, I ain't scarcely give a thought

to poor mother. But you'll let her know, won't you, miss?...

"Think 'ow good you was to your old father down in Wales, 'im as you

called your father--an' 'oo's to say 'e wasn't? You never know....

Miss Warren! what a pity it is you never married. There's lots was

sweet on you, I'll bet. Yet I remember I used to 'ate the idea of

your doin' so, and was glad you dressed up as a man, an' took 'em

all in.... I may tell you all, miss, now I'm goin' to die, day after

to-morrow. My poor Nance! She see there was some one that always

occupied my mind, and she used to get jealous-like, at times. But

never did I let on it was you. Why I wouldn't even 'av said it to

myself--I respected you more than--than--"

And Bertie, at a loss for a parallel, ceased speaking for a time,

and gulped down the sobs that were mastering him.

Then, after this pause--"I haven't a word to say against Nance. No

one could 'a bin a better wife. I know, miss, if you get away from

here you'll look after her and my kids? I ain't bin much of a father

to 'em lately. P'raps this is a punishment for neglecting my home

duties--As they used to say to you when you was Suffragin'." He gave

a bitter laugh--"Two such _nice_ kids.... I ain't seen 'em since

last February twelve-month ... more'n a year ago ... I got a bit of

leave then.... There's little Vivie--the one we called after you....

She's growin' up so pretty ... and Bert! 'E'll be a bigger and a

better man than me, some day. 'E's started in life with better

chances. I 'ope 'e'll be a cricketer. There's no game comes up to

cricket, in my opinion..."

At this juncture, the Belgian Directeur of the jail opened the door

and asked Vivie to follow him, telling Bertie she would return in

the afternoon. At the same time, a warder escorting two good conduct

prisoners who did the food distribution proceeded to place quite an

appetizing meal in Bertie's cell. "Dear miss," said the Directeur in

French, "You are so wise, I know, you will do what I wish...?"

(Vivie bowed.)

"I shall not send you back to the Kommandantur. I will take that on

myself. But I must regard you while here as my prisoner"--he smiled

sadly--"Come with me. I will give you a nice cell where you shall

eat and sleep, and--yes--and my wife shall come and see you..."

In the evening of that day, Vivie was led back to Bertie's cell.

There she found kind Pasteur Walcker. In some way he had heard of

Bertie's condemnation--perhaps seen it posted up on a Red

Placard--and in his quiet assumption that whatever he did was right,

had not waited for an official summons but had presented himself at

the prison of Saint-Gilles and asked to see the Directeur. He

constituted himself Bertie's spiritual director from that time

onwards.... He spoke very little English but he was there more to

sympathize than to preach--

"Ce n'est pas, chère Mamselle que je suis venu le troubler sur les

questions de réligion. J'ai voulu le rassurer--et vous aussi--que

j'ai déjà mis en train tous les precédés possibles, et que je

connais, pour obtenir sa grace.... But," he went on, "I have spoken

to the prison doctor and begged him meantime to give the poor young

man an injection or a dose of something to make him sleep a little

while..."

Then he withdrew.

The daylight turned pink and faded to grey whilst Vivie sat by the

bed holding the left hand of the sleeping man. Exhausted with

emotion, she dropped off to sleep herself, slid off the chair on to

the parquet, laid her head on the angle of his pillow and slept

likewise....

The electric light suddenly shone out from a globe in the angle of

the wall which served two cells. She awoke; Bertie awoke. He was

still happy in some opiate dream and his eyes in his haggard face

looked at her with a sleepy, happy affection. Loth to awaken him to

reality she kissed him on the cheek and withdrew from the cell--for

the Directeur, out of delicacy, had withdrawn and left the door

ajar. She rejoined him in the corridor and he led her to her own

quarters for the night; where, worn out with sorrow and fatigue, she

undressed and slept dreamlessly.

But the hour of the awakening on that wintry Sunday morning! It was

snowing intermittently and the sky, seen from the high window, was

lead-coloured. Owing to the scarcity of fuel, the cell was unwarmed.

She dressed hurriedly, feeling still untidy and dishevelled when she

had finished. Her breakfast, and with it a little packet of white

powder from the prison doctor, to be taken with the breakfast. She

swallowed it. If it were poison sent by the German Government, what

matter? But it was in reality some drug which took the edge off

sorrow.

Bertie had evidently been given a similar dose. They spent the

morning and the afternoon of that Sunday together, almost happily.

With intervals of dreamy silence, they talked of old times. Neither

would have been surprised had the cell walls dissolved as in a

transformation scene and they had been able to step out into the

Fountain Court of the Temple or into the cheerful traffic of

Chancery Lane.

When however she returned to his cell after her evening meal, his

mood had changed; the effect of the drug had passed. He had moods of

despair and wild crying. No response had come, no answer to Vivie's

appeal, no result from Monsieur Walcker's activities. Bertie

reproached himself for cowardice ... then the doctor came in. "An

injection in the arm? So! He will sleep now till morning. Espérons

toujours! Et vous, ma pauvre Mademoiselle. Vous êtes excédée.

Permettez que je vous fasse la meme piqure?"

But she thanked him and said she wanted all her wits about her,

though she promised "se maîtriser"--to keep calm.

What a night! Her ears had a sense of hearing that was

preternaturally acute. The most distant step in the corridors was

audible. Was it a reprieve? One such sound multiplied itself into

the footsteps of two men walking, coming ever nearer--nearer--nearer

till they stopped outside her cell door. With a clank it was opened.

She sprang up. Fortunately she had not undressed. "You've brought a

reprieve?" she gasped. But the Directeur and Monsieur Walcker only

stood with downcast faces. "It will soon be morning," the Directeur

said. "There is no hope of a reprieve. He is to be executed at seven

at the Tir National. All we have secured for you is permission to

accompany him to the end. But if you think _that_ too painful, too

great a strain, I would suggest that you--"

"Nothing could overstrain me," said Vivie, "or rather I don't care

if anything kills me. I will go with him and stay with him, till the

very last moment, stay with him till he is buried if you permit!"

She made some hasty toilette, more because she wanted to look a fit

companion for him, and not a wretched derelict. They summoned her,

proffering a cup of acorn coffee, which she waved aside. The bitter

cold air of the snowy April morning braced her. She entered the

shuttered, armoured prison taxi in which Bertie and a soldier were

placed already. Bertie had his arms tied, but not too painfully. He

was shivering with the cold, but as he said, "_Not_ afraid, miss.

It'll come out allright, some'ow. That Mr. Walcker, 'e done me a lot

of good. At any rate I'll show how an Englishman can die. 'Sides 'e

says reprieves sometimes comes at the last moment. They takes a

pleasure in tantalizin' you. And the doctor put somethin' in me cup

of coffee, sort of keeps me spirits up."

But for Vivie, that drive was an unforgettable agony. They went

through suburbs where the roads had been unrepaired or torn up by

shrapnel. The snow lay in places so thickly that it nearly stopped

the motor. Still, it came to an end at last. The door on one side

was wrenched open; she was pulled out rather unceremoniously; then,

the pinioned Bertie, who was handed over to a guard; and the soldier

escort after him, who took his place promptly by his side. Vivie had

just time to note the ugly red-brick exterior of the main

building of the Tir National. It reminded her vaguely of some

hastily-constructed Exhibition at Earl's Court or Olympia. Then she

was pushed inside a swinging door, into a freezing corridor; where

the Prison Directeur and Monsieur Walcker were standing--irresolute,

weeping....

"Where is Bertie?" she asked.

"He is being prepared for the shooting party," they answered. "It

will soon be over ... dear dear lady ... try to be calm--"

"I will be as calm as you like," she said, "I will behave with the

utmost correctitude or whatever you call it, if you--if they--the

soldiers--the officer--will let me see him--as you promised--up to

the last, the very last. But by God--if there _is_ a God--if you or

they prevent me, I'll--"

Inexplicably, sheer mind-force prevailed, without the need for

formulating the threat the poor grief-maddened woman might have

uttered--she moved unresisted to a swing door which opened on to a

kind of verandah. Here was drawn up the firing party, and in front

of them, fifteen feet away on snow-sodden, trampled grass, stood

Bertie. He caught sight of Vivie passing in, behind the firing

party, and standing beyond them at the verandah rail. He

straightened himself; ducked his head aside from the handkerchief

with which they were going to bandage his eyes, and shouted "Take

away your blasted handkerchief! _I_ ain't afraid o' the guns. If

you'll let me look at HER, I'll stand as quiet as quiet."

The officer in command of the firing party shrugged his shoulders.

The soldier escort desisted from his attempts to blindfold the

Englishman and stood aside, out of range. Bertie fixed his glowing

eyes on the woman he had loved from his youth up, the rifles rang

out with a reverberating bellow, and he fell out of her sight,

screened by the soldiers, a crumpled body over which they threw a

sheet.

What happened then to Vivie? I suppose you expect the time-worn

trick of the weary novelist, anxious to put his pen down and go to

his tea: "Then she seemed swallowed up in a cloud of blackness and

knew no more"--till it was convenient to the narrator to begin a

fresh chapter. But with me it must be the relentless truth and

nothing but the truth, in all its aspects. Vivie was deafened,

nearly stunned by the frightful noise of the volley in a confined

space. Next, she was being unceremoniously pushed out of the

verandah, into the corridor, and so out into the snow-covered space

in front of the brick building; whilst the officer was examining the

dead body of the fallen man, ready to give the _coup-de-grâce_, if

he were not dead. But he was. Vivie was next conscious that she had

the most dreadful, blinding headache she had ever known, and with it

felt an irresistible nausea. The prison Directeur was taking her

hand and saying: "Mademoiselle: it is my duty to inform you that you

are no longer under arrest. You are free to return to your lodging."

Minna von Stachelberg had come from somewhere and was taking her

right arm, to lead her Brussels-ward; and Pasteur Walcker was

ranging himself alongside to be her escort. Unable to reply to any

of them, she strode forward by herself to where under the snow lay

an ill-kept grass plot, and there was violently sick. The

anæsthetics and soporifics of the last two days were having their

usual aftermath. After that came on a shuddering faintness and a

rigor of shivers, under which her teeth clacked. Some doctor came

forward with a little brandy. She put the glass to her lips, then

pushed it aside, took Pasteur Walcker's proffered arm, and walked

towards the tram terminus.

Then they were in the tram, going towards the heart of Brussels. How

commonplace! Fat frowsy market women got in--or got out--with their

baskets; clerks entered with portfolios--don't they call them

"serviettes"?--under their arms; German policemen, Belgian

gendarmes, German soldiers, a priest with his breviary came and went

as though this Monday morning were like any other. Vivie walked

quite firmly and staidly from the tram halt to the Walckers' house

in the Rue Haute. There she was met by Madame Walcker, who at a sign

from her husband took her upstairs, silently undressed her and put

her to bed with a hot water bottle and a cup of some hot drink which

tasted a little of coffee.

After that Vivie passed three days of great sickness and nausea, a

furred tongue, and positively no appetite. Finally she arose a week

after the execution and looked at herself in the mirror. She was

terribly haggard, she looked at least fifty-five--"They must have

taken me for his mother or his aunt; never for his sweetheart," she

commented bitterly to herself. And her brown-gold hair was now

distinctly a cinder grey.

The next day she went back to work at the hospital.

To Minna, she said: "I can _never, never, never_ forget your

kindness and sympathy. 'Sister' seems an insufficient name to call

you by. Whatever happens, unless you cast me off, we shall be

friends.... I dare say I even owe my life to you, if it is worth

anything. But it is. I want to live--now--I want to live to be

revenged. I want to live to help Bertie's"--her voice still shook

over the name--"Bertie's wife and children. I expect but for you I

should have been tried already in the Senate for complicity with ...

Bertie ... and found guilty and shot..."

_Minna_: "I won't go so far as to say you are right. But I certainly

_was_ alarmed about you, when you were arrested. Of course I knew

nothing--_nothing_--about that poor young man till just before his

execution when Pastor Walcker came to me. Even then I could do

nothing, and I understood so badly what had happened. But about you:

I said to myself, if I do not do _something_, you can perhaps be

sentenced to imprisonment ... and I _did_ bestir myself, you can

bet!" (Minna liked to show she knew a slangy phrase or two.) "So I

telegraphed to the Emperor, I besieged von Bissing at the Ministère

des Sciences et des Arts; wrote to him, telegraphed to him,

telephoned to him, sat in his anterooms, neglected my hospital work

entirely from Friday to Monday--

"I expect as a matter of fact they found nothing in that poor

young's man's papers to implicate you. They just wanted--the

brutes--to give you a good fright ... and I dare say ... such is the

military mind--even wished you to see him shot.

"By the bye, I suppose you have heard that von Bissing is very ill?

Dying, perhaps--"

_Vivie_: "I _hope_ so. I am _so_ glad. I hope it's a painful

illness and that he'll die and find there really _is_ a Hell, and an

uncommonly hot one!"

It must not be supposed from the frequent quotations from Countess

von Stachelberg's condemnations of German cruelties that she was an

unpatriotic woman, repudiating, apostatizing from her own country.

On the contrary: she held--mistakenly or not--that Germany had been

the victim of secret diplomacy, had been encircled by a ring fence

of enemies, refused the economic guarantees she required, and the

colonial expansion she desired. Minna disliked the Slavs, did not

believe in them, save as musicians, singers, painters, dancers,

and actors. She believed Germany had a great civilizing,

culture-spreading mission in South-east Europe; and that the germs

of this war lay in the policy of Chamberlain, the protectionism of

the United States, the revengeful spirit and colonial selfishness of

France.

But she shuddered over the German cruelties in Belgium and France.

The horrors of War were a revelation to her and she was henceforth a

Pacifist before all things. "_Your_ old statesmen and _our_ old or

middle-aged generals, my dear, are alike to blame. But you and I

know where the _real_ mischief lies. We are mis-ruled by an

All-Man Government. _I_, certainly, don't want the other extreme,

an All-Woman Government. What we want, and must have, is a

Man-and-Woman--a Married--Government. _Then_ we shall settle our

differences without going to war."

Vivie agreed with her, cordially.

She--Vivie--I really ought to begin calling her "Vivien": she is

forty-one by now--in resuming her duties at the Hôpital de St.

Pierre found no repugnance in tending wounded German soldiers--the

officers she did shrink from--She realized that the soldiers were

but the slaves of the officer class, of Kaiserdom. Her reward for

this degree of Christianity was to have a batch of wounded English

boys or men to look after. She saw again Bertie Adams in many of

them, especially in the sergeants and corporals. They, in turn,

thought her a very handsome, stately lady, but rather maudlin at

times. "So easy to set 'er off a-cryin' as though 'er 'eart would

break, poor thing.... And I says 'why ma'am, the pain's _nuthin_',

nuthin' to what it use ter be.' 'Spec' she lost some son in the war.

Wonder 'ow she came to be 'ere? Ain't the Germans afraid of 'er!"...

They were. The mental agony she had been through had etherialized

her face, added to its look of age and gravity, but imparted

likewise a sort of "awfulness." She exhaled an aura of righteous

authority. She had been through the furnace, and foolishness and

petulance had been burnt out of her ... though, thank goodness, she

retained some sense of humour. She had probably never been so

handsome from the painter's point of view, though one could not

imagine a young man falling in love with her now.

Her personality was first definitely noted by the Bruxellois the day

that von Bissing's funeral cortège passed through the streets of

Brussels on its way to Germany. Vivien Warren was sufficiently

restored to health then to stand on the steps of some monument and

cry "Vive la Belgique! À bas les tyrans!" The policemen and the

spies looked another way and affected deafness. They had orders not

to arrest her unless she actually resorted to firearms or other

lethal weapons.

It was said that her appeal for Bertie Adams did reach the Emperor,

two days too late; that he pished and pshawed over von Bissing's

cruel precipitancy. "Englishmen," he muttered to his entourage,

"don't assassinate. The Irish do. But _how_ I'm going to make peace

with England, _I_ don't know...!"

(His Hell on Earth must have been that few people admired the

English character more than he did, and yet, unprovoked, he had

blundered into war with England.)

However, though it was too late to save "this lunatic Adams," he

gave orders that Vivie was to be let alone. He even, through Gräfin

von Stachelberg, transmitted to her his regrets that she and her

mother had been treated so cavalierly at the Hotel Impérial. It was

not through any orders of his.

So: Vivie became quite a power in Brussels during that last anxious

year and a half of waiting, between May, 1917, and November, 1918.

German soldiers, still limping from their wounds, saluted her in the

street, remembering her kindness in hospital, and the letters she

unweariedly wrote at their dictation to their wives and

families--for she had become quite a scholar in German. The scanty

remains of the British Colony and the great ladies among the

patriotic Belgians now realized how false were the stories that had

circulated about her in the first year of the War; and extended to

her their friendship. And the Spanish Minister who had taken the

place of the American as protector of British subjects, invited her

to all the fêtes he gave for Belgian charities and Red Cross funds.

Through his Legation she endeavoured to send information to the

Y.M.C.A. and to Bertie's widow that Albert Adams of the Y.M.C.A.

"had died in Brussels from the consequences of the War."

I dare say in the autumn of 1917, if Vivien Warren had applied

through the Spanish Minister for a passport to leave Belgium for

some neutral country, it would have been accorded to her: the German

authorities would have been thankful to see her no more. She

reminded them of one of the cruellest acts of their administration.

But she preferred to stay for the historical revenge of seeing the

Germans driven out of Belgium, and Belgian independence restored.

And she could not go lest Bertie's grave should be forgotten. In

common with Edith Cavell, Gabrielle Petit, Philippe Bauck, and the

other forty or fifty victims of von Bissing's "Terror," he had been

buried in the grassy slopes of the amphitheatre of the Rifle range,

near where he had been executed. Every Sunday, wet or fine, Vivien

went there with fresh flowers. She had marked the actual grave with

a small wooden cross bearing his name, till the time should come

when she could have his remains transferred to English soil.

One day, as she was leaving the hospital in the autumn of 1917, a

shabby man pushed into her hand a soiled, way-worn copy of the

_Times_, a fortnight old. "Three francs," he whispered. She paid

him. It was no uncommon thing for her or one of her English or

Belgian acquaintances to buy the _Times_ or some other English daily

at a price ranging from one franc to ten, and then pass it round the

friendly circle of subscribers who apportioned the cost. On this

occasion she opened her _Times_ in the tram, going home, and glanced

at its columns. In any one but "Mees Varennes" in these days of

1917, 1918, this would have been a punishable offence; but in her

case no spy or policeman noted the infringement of regulations about

the enemy press. On one of the pages she read the account of a bad

air-raid on Portland Place, and a reference--with a short obituary

notice elsewhere--to the death of one of the victims of the German

bombs. This was "Linda, Lady Rossiter, the dearly loved wife of Sir

Michael Rossiter, whose discoveries in the way of bone grafting and

other forms of curative surgery had been among the outstanding

achievements in etc., etc."

"Dear me!" said Vivien to herself, as the tram coursed on beyond her

usual stopping place and the conductor obstinately looked the other

way, "I'm glad she lived to be _Lady_ Rossiter. It must have given

her such pleasure. Poor thing! And to think the knowledge that he's

a widower hardly stirs my pulses one extra beat. And how I _loved_

that man, seven years, six years, five years ago! Hullo! Where am I?

Miles from the Rue Haute! Conducteur! Arrêtez, s'il vous plaît."

CHAPTER XX

AFTER THE ARMISTICE

The Bruxellois felt very disheartened in the closing months of 1917.

The Russian revolution had brought about the collapse of Russia as

an enemy of Germany; and the Germans were enabled to transport most

of their troops on the Russian frontier to the west and to the

Italian frontier. Italy had lost half Venetia and enormous

quantities of guns in the breach of her defences at Caporetto. It

seemed indeed at any moment, when the ice and snow of that dreadful

winter of 1917-18 melted, as though Italy would share the fate of

Rumania. Though the British army had had a grand success with their

Tanks, they had, ere 1917 ended, lost nearly all the ground gained

round Cambrai. Besides, the submarine menace was imperilling the

British food supplies and connections with America. As to the United

States: was their intervention going to be more than money loans and

supplies of material? Would they really supply the fighting men, the

one thing at this crisis necessary to defeat Germany?

Belgium had been divided administratively into two distinct

portions, north and south of the Meuse. North of the Meuse she was

to be a Dutch-speaking country either part of Germany eventually, or

given to Holland to compensate her for her very benevolent

neutrality towards Germany during the War. A handful of Flemish

adventurers appeared at Brussels to form the Council of Flanders,

and sickened the Bruxellois by their lavish praise of the German

administration and servile concurrence with all German measures.

The events of the spring of 1918 accentuated the despair in the

Belgian capital. When the Germans broke through the defences of the

new lines which ran through Picardy and Champagne, reached the

vicinity of Amiens, retook Soissons, and recrossed the Marne, it

seemed as though Belgian independence had been lost; the utmost she

could hope for would be the self-government of a German province.

But Vivie was not among the pessimists. She discerned a smouldering

discontent among the German soldiers, even when Germany seemed near

to a sweeping victory over France and Britain.

The brutality of the soldiers, their deliberate, nasty dirtiness

during the first two years of the War seemed due rather to their

officers' orders than to an anti-human disposition of their own.

Many of the soldiers in Belgium, in Brussels, turned round--so to

speak--and conceived a horror of what they had done, of what they

had been told to do. Men who on the instigation of their

officers--and these last, especially the Prussians, seemed fiends

incarnate--had offered violence to young Belgian women, ended by

offering to marry them, even showed themselves kind husbands, only

too willing to become domesticated, groaning at having to leave

their temporary homes and return to the terrible fighting on the

Yser or in France.

There were, for example, the soldiers stationed at the Villa

Beau-séjour and at the Oudekens' farm. Vivie had a growing desire to

find out what had happened to her mother's property. One day, late

in February, 1918, when there was a premature breath and feeling of

Spring in the air, she called on her friend--as he had become--the

Directeur of the Prison of Saint-Gilles, and asked him--since she

herself could not deign to ask any favour or concession of the

German authorities--to obtain for her a permit to proceed to

Tervueren, the railway service between Brussels and that place

having been reopened. She walked over--with what reminiscences the

roads and paths were filled--to the Villa, and showing her pass was

received, not uncivilly, by the sergeant-major in charge.

Fortunately the officers had all gone, voting it very dull, with

Brussels so near and yet so far. After their departure the

sergeant-major and his reduced guard of men had begun to make the

place more homelike. The usual German thrift had shown itself. They

had reassembled the remains of Mrs. Warren's herd of cows. These had

calves and were giving milk. There were once more the beginnings of

a poultry yard. The rooms had been cleaned at any rate of their

unspeakable filth, though the dilapidations and the ruined furniture

made tears of vexation stand in Vivie's eyes. However she kept her

temper and told the sergeant that it was _her_ property now; that

she intended to reclaim it at the end of the War, and that if he saw

to it that the place was handed back to her with no further damage,

she would take care that he was duly rewarded; and as an instalment

she gave him a good tip. He replied with a laugh and a shrug "That

may well come about." ("Das könnte wohl geschehen.")

He had already heard of the Engländerin whom the Kommandantur was

afraid to touch, and opened his heart to her; even offering to

prepare her a little meal in her own _salle à manger_. With what

strange sensations she sat down to it. The sergeant as he brought in

the _oeufs au plat_ said the soldiers were already sick of the

War. Most wanted to go back to Germany, but a few were so much in

love with Belgium that they hoped they might be allowed to settle

down there; especially those who spoke Platt-deutsch, to whom

Flemish came so easy.

From Villa Beau-séjour, Vivien Warren passed on to the Oudekens'

farm, wondering what she would see--Some fresh horror? But on the

contrary, Mme. Oudekens looked years younger; indeed when Vivien

first stood outside the house door, she had heard really hearty

laughter coming from the orchard where the farmer's widow was

pinning up clothes to dry. Yet it was here that the woman's husband

had been shot and buried, as the result of a field-court's sentence.

But when she answered Vivien's questions, after plying her with

innumerable enquiries, she admitted with a blush that Heinrich, the

German sergeant, with whom she had first cohabited by constraint,

had recently married her at the Mairie, though the Curé had refused

to perform the religious service. Heinrich was now invariably kind

and worked hard on the farm. He hoped by diligently supplying the

officers' messes in Brussels with poultry and vegetables that he and

his assistants--two corporals--might be overlooked and not sent back

into the fighting ranks. As to her daughters, after a few months of

promiscuity--a terrible time that Mme. Oudekens wanted to

forget--they had been assigned to the two corporals as their

exclusive property. They were both of them about to become mothers,

and if no one interfered, as soon as this accursed War was over

their men would marry them. "But," said Vivie, "suppose your husband

and these corporals are married already, in Germany?" "Qu'est-ce-que

ça fait?" said Mme. Oudekens. "C'est si loin." By making these

little concessions she had already saved her youngest son from

deportation to Germany.

The enormous demands for food in Brussels, which in 1918 had a

floating population of over a million and where the Germans were

turning large dogs into pemmican, had tripled the value of all

productive farms so near the capital as those round Tervueren,

especially now the railway service was reopened. Many of the

peasants were making huge fortunes in complicity with some German

soldier-partner.

In Brussels itself, soldiers often sided with the people against the

odious "polizei," the intolerable German spies and police agents.

Conflicts would sometimes occur in the trams and the streets when

the German police endeavoured to arrest citizens for reading the

_Times_ or _La Libre Belgique_, or for saying disrespectful things

about the Emperor.

The tremendous rush of the German offensive onward to the Marne,

Somme, and Ypres salient in March-June, 1918, was received by the

shifting garrison of Brussels with little enthusiasm. Would it not

tend to prolong the War? The German advance into France was

spectacular, but it was paid for by an appalling death-roll. The

hospitals at Brussels were filled to overflowing with wounded and

dying men. The Austrians who were brought from the Italian front to

replenish the depleted battalions, quarrelled openly with the

Prussians, and in some cases had to be surrounded in a barrack

square and shot down.

The first real check to the German Army in its second march on

Paris--that which followed its crossing of the Marne near

Dormans--was prophetically greeted by the Bruxellois as the turning

of the tide. The Emperor had gone thither from the Hotel Impérial in

order to witness and follow the culminating march on Paris. But Foch

now struck with his reserves, and the head of the tortoise was

nipped off. The driving back of the Germans over the Marne coincided

with the Belgian National Fête of July 21. Not since 1914 had this

fête been openly observed. But on this day in 1918, the German

police made no protest when a huge crowd celebrated the fête day in

every church and every street. Vivien herself, smiling and laughing

as she had not done since Bertie's death, attended the service in

Sainte-Gudule and joined in singing _La Brabançonne_ in place of

_Te Deum, laudamus_. In the streets and houses of Brussels every

piano, every gramophone was enrolled to play the _Marseillaise_,

_Vers l'Avenir_, and _La Brabançonne_, the Belgian national anthem

(uninspiring words and dreary tune). From this date onwards--July

21--the German _débacle_ proceeded, with scarcely one day's

intermission, with never a German regain of lost ground.

When the Americans had retaken St. Mihiel on September 14, then did

Belgians boldly predict that their King would be back in Brussels by

Christmas. But their prophecies were outstripped by events. Already,

in the beginning of October, the accredited German Press in Belgium

was adjuring the Belgians not to be impatient, but to let them

evacuate Belgium quietly. At the end of October, Minna von

Stachelberg told Vivien that she and the other units of the German

Red Cross had received instructions to leave and hand over their

charges to the Belgian doctors and nurses. The two women took an

affectionate farewell of each other, vowing they would meet

again--somewhere--when the War was over. British wounded now began

to cease coming into Brussels, so Vivie was free to attend to her

own affairs.

Enormous quantities of German plunder were streaming out of Belgium

by train, by motor, in military lorries, in carts and waggons.

Nearly all this belonged to the officers, and the already-rebellious

soldiers broke out in protestations. "Why should they who had done

all the fighting have none of the loot?" So they won over the

Belgian engine-drivers--delighted to see this quarrel between the

hyenas--and held up the trains in the suburban stations north of

Brussels. There were pitched battles which ended always in the

soldiers' victory.

The soldiers then would hold auctions and markets of the plunder

captured in the trains and lorries. They were in a hurry to get a

little money to take back with them to Germany. Vivie, who had laid

her plans now as to what to do after the German evacuation of

Brussels, attended these auctions. She was nearly always civilly

treated, because so many German soldiers had known her as a friend

in hospital and told other soldiers. At one such sale she bought a

serviceable motor-car for 750 francs; at another drums of petrol.

She had provided herself with funds by going to her mother's bank

and reopening the question of the deposited jewels and plate. Now

that the victory of the Allies seemed certain, the bank manager was

more inclined to make things easy for her. He had the jewels and

plate valued--roughly--at £3,000; and although he would not

surrender them till the will could be proved and she could show

letters of administration, he consented on behalf of the bank to

make her a loan of 30,000 francs.

On November 10th, a German soldier who followed Vivien about with

humble fidelity since she had cured him of a bad whitlow--and also

because, as he said, it was a joy to speak English once more--for he

had been a waiter at the Savoy Hotel--came to her in the Boulevard

d'Anspach and said "The Red flag, lady, he fly from Kommandantur.

With us I think it is Kaput." This was what Vivien had been waiting

for. Asking the man to follow her, she first stopped outside a shop

of military equipment, and after a brief inspection of its goods

entered and purchased a short, not too flexible riding-whip, with a

heavy handle. Then as the trams were densely crowded, she walked at

a rapid pace--glancing round ever and again to see that her German

soldier was following--up the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique and

along the Rue Royale until she came to the Hotel Impérial. Here she

halted for a minute to have the soldier close behind her; then gave

the revolving door a turn and found herself and him in the marble

hall once built for Mrs. Warren's florid taste. "Call the Manager,"

she said--trying not to pant--to two Belgian servants who came up,

a porter and a lift man. The Manager--he who had ejected her and her

mother in 1915--was fortunately a little while in appearing. He was

really packing up with energy so as to depart with all the plunder

he could transport before the way of escape was closed. This little

delay enabled Vivien to get her breath and resume an impressive

calm.

"Well: what you want?" the Manager said insolently, recollecting

her.

"This first," she said, seizing him suddenly by his coat collar.

"I want--to--give--you--the--soundest--thrashing you have ever

had..."

And before he could offer any effective resistance she had lashed

him well with the riding _cravache_ about the shoulders, hands, back

and face. He wrenched himself free and crouched ready for a counter

attack. But the Belgian servants intervened and tripped him up; and

the German soldier--the ex-waiter from the Savoy--said that Madame

was by nature so kind that there must be some good reason for this

chastisement.

"There is," she replied, now she had got her breath and was inwardly

feeling ashamed at her resort to such violent methods.

"Three years ago, this creature turned my mother and myself out of

this hotel with such violence that my mother died of it a few

minutes afterwards. He stole our money and much of our property. I

have inherited from my mother, to whom this hotel once belonged, a

right over certain rooms which she used to occupy. I resume that

right from to-day. I shall go to them now. As to this wretch, throw

him out on to the pavement. He can afterwards send for his luggage,

and what really is his he shall have."

Her orders were executed.

She then sent a message to Mme. Walcker and to the kind tea-shop

woman, Mme. Trouessart, close by, explaining what she had done and

why. "I shall take control of this hotel in the name of the Belgian

Company that owns it, a Company in which, through my mother, I

possess shares. I shall stay here till responsible persons take it

over and I shall resume possession of the _appartement_ that

belonged to my mother." Meantime, would Madame Trouessart engage a

few stout wenches to eke out the scanty hotel staff, most of which

being German had already commenced its flight back to the fatherland

with all the plunder it could carry off. The soldier-ex-hotel-waiter

was provisionally engaged to remain, as long as the Belgian

Government allowed him, and three stalwart British soldiers, until

the day before prisoners-of-war, were enlisted in her service and

armed with revolvers to repel any ordinary act of brigandage.

By the end of November she had the Hotel Édouard-Sept--with the

old name restored--running smoothly and ready for the new

guests--British, French officers and civilians who would follow

the King of the Belgians on his return to his capital. The

re-established Belgian authorities soon put her into possession of

the Villa Beau-séjour. The German sergeant-major here had kept faith

with her, and in return for handing over everything intact,

including the herd of cows, received a _douceur_ which amply

rewarded him for this belated honesty before he, too, set his face

towards Germany with the rest of the evacuating army. The motor-car

she had bought enabled her to fetch supplies of food from farm to

hotel and to perform many little services to Belgians who were

returning to their old homes. Madame Trouessart, not as yet having

any stock of tea with which to reopen her tea-shop to the first

incoming of curious tourists, agreed to live with Miss Warren at the

hotel and act as her deputy, if affairs took her away from Brussels.

It was at the Hotel Édouard-Sept, the place where she had been

born, that Rossiter met her when he arrived in Brussels after the

Armistice. She felt a little tremulous when his card was sent up to

her, and kept him waiting quite five minutes while she saw that her

hair was tidy and estimated before the glass the extent to which it

had gone grey. She had let it grow of late years--the days of David

Williams and Mr. Michaelis seemed very remote--and spent some time

and consideration in arranging it. Her costume was workmanlike and

that of an hotel manageress in the morning; yet distinctly set off

her figure and suited her character of an able-bodied, intellectual

woman.

* * * * *

"Vivie!"

"Michael!"

"My _dear_! You're handsomer than ever!"

"Michael! Your khaki uniform becomes you; and I'm _so_ glad you've

got rid of that beard. _Now_ we can see your well-shaped chin. But

still: we mustn't stand here, paying one another compliments, though

this meeting is _too_ wonderful: I never thought I should see you

again. Let's come to realities. I suppose the real heart-felt

question at the back of your mind is: _can_ I let you have a room? I

can, but not a bath-room suite; they're all taken..."

_Michael_: "Nonsense! I'm going to be put up at the Palace Hotel.

Jenkins--you remember the butler of old time?--Jenkins, and my

batman, a refined brigand, a polished robber, have already been

there and commandeered something....

"No. I came here, firstly to find out if you were living; secondly

to ask you to marry me" ... (a pause) ... "and thirdly to find out

what happened to Bertie Adams. A message came through the Spanish

Legation here, a year and a half ago, to the effect that he had died

at Brussels from the consequences of the War. However, unless you

can tell me at once this is all a mistake, we can go into his

affairs later. My first question is--Oh! Bother all this cackle....

_Will_ you marry me?"

_Vivie_: "Dear, brave Bertie, whom I shall everlastingly mourn, was

shot here in Brussels by the abominable Germans, as a spy, on April

8th, 1917. He was of course no more a spy than you are or I am. The

poor devoted fool--I rage still, because I shall never be worth such

folly, such selfless devotion--got into Belgium with false

passports--American: in the hope of rescuing me. He came and

enquired here--my last address in his remembrance--and came by sheer

bad luck just as the Kaiser was about to arrive. They jumped to the

conclusion that--"

_Rossiter_: "_Awfully, cruelly_ sad. But you can give me the details

of it later on. You must have a long, long story of your own to tell

which ought to be of poignant interest. But ... will you marry me? I

suppose you know dear Linda died--was killed by a bomb in a German

air-raid last year--October, 1917. I really felt _heart-broken_

about it, but I know now I am only doing what she would have wished.

She came at last to talk about you _quite_ differently, _quite_

understanding--"

_Vivie_: "That's what all widowers say. They always declare the dead

wife begged them to marry again, and even designated her successor.

Poor Linda! Yes, I read an account of it in a copy of the _Times_;

but I couldn't of course communicate with you to say how _truly,

truly_ sorry I was. I am glad to know she spoke nicely of me. Did

she really? Or have you only made it up?"

_Michael_: "_Of course_ I haven't. She really did. Do you know, she

and I quite altered after the War began? She lost all her old

silliness and inefficiency--or at any rate only retained enough of

the old childishness to make her endearing. And I really grew to

love her. I quite forgot you. Yes: I admit it....

"But somehow, after she was dead the old feeling for you came back

... and without any disloyalty to Linda. I felt in a way--I know it

is an absurd thing for a man of science to say, for we have still no

proof--I felt somehow as though she lived still. That's why I don't

want to get rid of the Park Crescent house. Her presence seems to

linger there. But I also knew--instinctively--that she would like us

to come together.... She..."

_Waiter_ (knocking at door and slightly opening it): "Madame! Le

Général Tompkins veut vous voir. Il ajoute qu'il n'est pas habitué à

attendre. Il y a aussi M'sieur Émile Vandervelde, qui arrive

instamment et qui n'a pas d'installation..."

_Rossiter_: "Damn! Let me go and settle with 'em. Tompkins! I never

heard such cheek--"

_Vivien_: "Not at all. You forget I am Manageress." (To Waiter)

"Entrez done! Dîtes au Général que je serai à sa disposition dans

trois minutes; et montrez-lui ce que nous avons en fait de chambres.

Tous les appartements avec bain sont pris. Casez M'sieur Vandervelde

quelque part. Du reste, je descendrai."... (Waiter goes out) ...

"Michael! It is impossible to have a sentimental conversation here,

and at this hour--Eleven o'clock on a busy morning. If you want an

answer to your second question, now you've seen me, meet me outside

the Palm House of the Jardin Botanique, at 3 p.m. I'll get off

somehow for an hour just then. Don't forget! It's close by

here--along the Rue Royale. Be absolutely punctual, or else I shall

think that having _seen_ me, seen how changed I am, you have altered

your mind. I shall _quite_ understand; only I _may_ come back at

five minutes past three and accept General Tompkins. Acquaintances

ripen quickly in Brussels."

* * * * *

In the Palm House--or rather one of its many compartments; 3.5 p.m.,

on a beautiful afternoon in early December. The sun is sinking over

outspread Brussels in a pink and yellow haze radiating from the

good-humoured-looking, orange orb. There are no other visitors to

the Palm House, at any rate not to this compartment, except the

superintending gardener--the same that cheered the last hours of

Mrs. Warren. He recognizes Vivien and salutes her gravely. Seeing

that she is accompanied by a gentleman in khaki he discreetly

withdraws out of hearing and tidies up a tree fern. Vivien and

Michael seat themselves on two green iron chairs under the fronds

and in front of grey stems.

_Vivie_: "This is a favourite place of mine for assignations. I

can't think why it is so little appreciated by young Brussels. These

palm houses are much more beautiful than anything at Kew; they are

in the heart of Brussels, over which, as you see, you have a

wonderful view. It was much more frequented when the Germans were

here. With all their brutality they did not injure this unequalled

collection of Tropical plants. They made the Palm House an allowance

of coal and coke in winter while we poor human beings went without.

I used often to come in here on a winter's day to get warm and to

forget my sorrows....

"Look at that superb Raphia--_what_ fronds! And that Phoenix

spinosa--and that Aralia--"

_Rossiter_: "Bother the Aralia. I haven't come here for a Botany

lesson. Besides, it isn't an Aralia; it's a Gomphocarpus.... Vivie!

_Will_ you marry me?"

_Vivie_: "My dear Michael: I was forty-three last October."

_Michael_: "I was _fifty-three_ last November, the day the Armistice

was signed. But I feel more like thirty-three. Life in camp has

quite rejuvenated me..."

_Vivie_ (continuing): ... "And my hair is cinder grey--an

unfortunate transition colour. And if the gardener were not looking

I should say: 'Feel my elbows ... Dreadfully bony! And my face has

become..." She turns her face towards him. He sees tears trembling

on the lower lashes of her grey eyes, but something has come into

the features, some irradiation of love--is it the light of the

sunset?--which imparts a tender youthfulness to the curvature of

cheek, lips and chin. Her face, indeed, might be of any age: it held

the undying beauty of a goddess, in whom knowledge has sweetened to

tenderness and divinity has dissolved in a need for compassion; and

the youthful assurance of a happy woman whose wish at last is

won....

For a minute she looks at him without finishing her sentence. Then

she sits up straighter and says explicitly: "Yes, I will."

* * * * *

The gardener managed an occasional peep at them, sitting hand in

hand. He wished the idyll to last as long as the clear daylight, but

the hour for closing was four o'clock--"Il n'y avait pas à nier."

Either they were husband and wife, reunited, after years of

war-severance; or they were mature lovers, and probably of the most

respectable. In either case, the necessary hint that ecstasies must

transfer themselves at sunset from the glass houses of the Jardin

Botanique to the outer air was best conveyed on this occasion by a

discreet gift of flowers. Accordingly he went on to where exotic

lilies were blooming, picked a few blossoms, returned, came with

soft padding steps up to Vivie, offered them with a bow and "Mes

félicitations _sincères_, Madame." Vivie laughed and took the

lilies; Rossiter of course gave him a ten-franc note. And they

sauntered slowly back to the hotel.

L'ENVOI

I am reproached by such Art Critics as deign to notice my pictures

with "finishing my foregrounds over much,"--filling them with

superabundant detail, making the primroses more important than the

snow-peaks. And by my publishers with forgetting the price of paper

and the cost of printing. My jury of matrons thinks I don't know

where to leave off and that I might very well close this book on the

answer that Mrs. Warren's daughter gave to Sir Michael Rossiter's

proposal of marriage in the Palm House at Brussels. "The reader,"

they say, "can very well fill in the rest of the story for himself

or herself. It is hardly likely that Vivie will cry off at the last

moment, or Michael reconsider the plunge into a second marriage. Why

therefore waste print and paper and our eyesight in describing the

marriage ceremony, the inevitable visit to Honoria, and what Vivie

did with the property she inherited from her mother?"

No doubt they are all right. Yet I am distrustful of my readers'

judgment and imagination. I feel both want guiding, and I doubt

their knowledge of the world and goodness of heart being equal to

mine, except in rare cases.

So I throw out these indications to influence the sequels they may

plan to this story.

I think that Michael and Vivie were married at the British Legation

in Brussels between Christmas and the New Year of 1918-1919; before

that Legation was erected into an Embassy; and that the marriage

officer was kind, genial Mr. Hawk when he returned to Brussels from

The Hague and proceeded to get the Legation into working order. I am

sure Mr. Hawk entered into the spirit of the thing and gave an

informal breakfast afterwards in the Rue de Spa to which Mons. and

Mme. Walcker, Mons. and Mme. Trouessart, and the Directeur of the

prison of Saint-Gilles and his wife were invited. I think the head

gardener of the Jardin Botanique who had charge of the Tropical

houses cribbed from the collections some of the most magnificent

blooms, and presented them to Vivie on the morning of her marriage;

and that afterwards she laid the bouquet on her mother's newly

finished tomb in the cemetery of St. Josse-ten-Noode, where, the

weather being singularly mild for the time of year, the flowers

lasted fresh and blooming for several days.

I am sure she and Michael then crossed the road and passed on to the

building of the Tir National; entered it and stood for a moment in

the verandah from which Vivie had seen Bertie Adams executed; and

passed on over the tussocky grass to the graves of Bertie Adams and

Edith Cavell, where they did silent homage to the dead. I believe a

few days afterwards they visited the Senate where the victims of von

Bissing's "Terror" had been tried, browbeaten, insulted, mocked. And

the functionary who showed them over this superb national palace is

certain to have included in his exposition the once splendid

carpets which the German officers prior to their evacuation of the

Senate--all but the legislative chamber of which was used as a

barracks for rough soldiery--had sprayed and barred, streaked and

splodged with printing ink. He would also have pointed out the

three-hundred-year-old tapestries they had ripped from the walls and

the historical portraits they had slashed, and would again have

emphasized the fact that in all these senseless devastations the

officers were far worse than the men.

Also I am certain that Michael and Vivie made a pilgrimage to the

prison of Saint-Gilles, and stood silently in the cell where Bertie

Adams and Vivie had spent those terrible days of suspense and

despair between April 6 and April 8, 1917; and that when they

entered that other compartment of the prison where Edith Cavell had

passed her last days before her execution, they listened with

sympathetic reverence to the recital by the Directeur of verses from

"l'Hymne d'Édith Cavell"--as it is now called--no other than the sad

old poem of human sorrow, _Abide with me_; and that they appreciated

to the full the warmth of Belgian feeling which has turned the cell

of Edith Cavell into a Chapelle Ardente in perpetuity.

I think they returned to England in January, 1919, so that Michael

might get back quickly to his work of mending the maimed, now

transferred to English hospitals; and so that Vivie--always a

practical woman--should prove her mother's will, secure her heritage

and have it in hand as a fund from which to promote all the

happiness she could. I doubt whether she will give much of it to

"causes" rather than cases and to politics in preference to persons.

I think she was awfully disgusted when she was back in the England

of to-day not to find Mrs. Fawcett Prime Ministress and First Lady

of the Treasury, Annie Kenney at the Board of Trade and Christabel

Pankhurst running the Ministry of Health. It was disheartening after

the long struggle for the Woman's Vote and the equality of the sexes

in opportunity to find the same old men-muddlers in charge of all

public affairs and departments of state, and the only woman on the

benches of the House of Commons a millionaire peeress never before

identified with the struggle for the Woman's Cause.

However I think her disenchantment did not diminish the rapture at

finding herself once more in the intimacy of Honoria Armstrong. Sir

Petworth, when he ran over on leave from the Army of Occupation,

thought her enormously improved, though he had the tact not to say

so. He frankly made the _amende honorable_ for his suspicions and

churlishness of the past, and himself--I think--insisted on his

frank and friendly children calling her "Aunt Vivie." I am equally

sure that Vivie was not long in London before she appeared at dear

old Praddy's studio, beautifully gowned and looking years younger

than forty-three; and I shouldn't wonder but that her presence once

more in his circle will give his frame a fillip so that he may cheat

Death over a few more annual outbreaks of influenza. I am convinced

that he has left all his money, after providing a handsome annuity

for the parlour-maid, to Vivie, knowing that in her hands, far

more--and far more quickly than in those that direct princely and

public charities--will his funds reach the students and the

poverty-stricken artists whom he wants to benefit.

I think that after spending the first five months of 1919 in London,

getting No. 1 Park Crescent tidy again and fully repaired (because

Michael wished to pursue more thoroughly than ever his biological

researches), Vivie and Michael went off to spend their real

honeymoon in the Occupied Territory of the Rhineland, in that

never-to-be forgotten June, memorable for its splendid sunshine and

the beauty of its flowers and foliage. I think they did this

expressly (under the guise of a visit to General Armstrong), so that

Vivie and Minna von Stachelberg--now Minna Schultz--might foregather

at Bonn. Minna had married again, an officer of no family but of

means and of fine physique whom she had nursed in Brussels. His left

arm had been shattered, but the skill of the Belgian surgeons and

her devoted nursing had saved it from being amputated. She had

wished however to have him examined by some great exponent of

curative surgery at Bonn University, and the conjunction of the

celebrated Sir Michael Rossiter--who in his discussions of anatomy

with the Bonn professors forgot there had ever been a war between

Britain and Germany--was most opportune.

I think however that Sir Michael said this was all humbug on Minna's

part, and that all she wanted--her husband, Major Schultz, looking

the picture of health--was to meet once more her well-beloved Vivie.

At any rate I am sure they met in the Rhineland in a propitious

month when you could be out of doors all day and all night; and that

Minna said some time or other how happy she was in her second

marriage, and that however heartily she disliked militarism and

condemned War, soldiers made the nicest husbands. I think before she

and Vivie parted to go their several ways, they determined to work

for the building up of an Anglo-German reconciliation, and for the

advocacy in both countries of a Man-and-Woman Government.

I think, nevertheless, that Vivie being a sound business woman and

possessing a strong sense of justice on the lines of an eye for an

eye, will claim at least Five Thousand pounds from the German

Government for the devastations and thefts at the Villa Beau-séjour;

and that having got it and having disposed of her mother's jewellery

and plate for £3,500, she will present the Villa Beau-séjour

property and an endowment of £8,000 to the Town of Brussels, as an

educational orphanage for the children of Belgian soldiers who have

died in the War, where they may receive a practical education in

agriculture and poultry farming.

I fancy she gave a Thousand pounds to Pasteur Walcker's Congo

Mission; and transferred to Mme. Trouessart all her shares in and

rights over the Hotel Édouard-Sept.

I also picture to myself the Rossiters having a motor tour of pure

pleasure and delight of the eyes in South Wales in September, 1919.

I imagine their going to Pontystrad and surprising the Vicar and

Vicaress and puzzling them by purposely-diffuse stories of Vivie's

cousin the late David Vavasour Williams, intended to convey the

idea, without telling unnecessary fibs, that David died abroad

during the War, but that Vivie in his memory and that of his dear

old father intends to continue a strong personal interest in the

Village Hall and its educational aims. I also picture Vivie going

alone to Mrs. Evanwy's rose-entwined cottage. The old lady is now

rather shaky and does not walk far from her little garden with its

box bower and garden seat. I can foreshadow Vivie dispelling some of

the mystery about David Williams and being embraced by the old

Nannie with warm affection and the hearty assurances that she had

guessed the secret from the very first but had been so drawn to the

false David Williams and so sure of his honest purposes that nothing

would have induced her to undeceive the old Vicar. I can even

imagine the old lady ere--years hence--paralysis strikes her

down--telling Vivie so much gossip about the Welsh Vavasours that

Vivie becomes positively certain her mother came from that stock and

that she really was first cousin to the boy she personated for the

laudable purpose of showing how well a woman could practise at the

Bar.

I like to think also that by the present year of grace--1920--the

Rossiters will have become convinced that No. 1 Park Crescent, even

with the Zoo and the Royal Botanic Gardens close by and the

ornamental garden of Regent's Park in between, does not satisfy all

their needs and ambitions: that they will have resolved even before

this year began--to supplement it by a home in the country for

week-ends, for summer visits, and finally for rest in their old age.

That for this purpose they will acquire some ideal Grange or Priory,

or ample farmstead near Petworth and the Armstrongs' home, over

against the South Downs, and near the river Rother; that it shall be

in no mere suburb of Petworth but in a stately little village with

its own character and history going back to Roman times and a church

with a Saxon body and a Norman chancel. And that in the ideal

churchyard of this enviable church with ancient yews and 18th

century tomb-stones, and old, old benches in the sunshine for the

grandfathers and loafers of the village to sit on and smoke of a

Sabbath morning, a place shall be found for the bones of Bertie

Adams; reverently brought over from the grassy amphitheatre of the

Tir National to repose in this churchyard of West Sussex which looks

out over one of the finest cricket pitches in the county. If, then,

there is any lien between the mouldering fragments of our bodies and

the inexplicable personality which has been generated in the living

brain, the former office boy of _Fraser and Warren_ will know that

he is always present in the memory of Vivien Rossiter, that she has

placed the few physical fragments still representing him in such a

setting as would have delighted his honest, simple nature in his

lifetime. He would also know that his children are now hers and her

husband's; that his Nance very rightly married the excellent butler,

Jenkins, with whom he had discussed many a cricket score; and that

Love, after all, is stronger than Death.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Mrs. Warren's Daughter, by Sir Harry Johnston