The colonel, whose name is Graf Hohenfeld, was being very pleasant to
Frau Bornsted, watching her admiringly as she brought him things to
eat. He was very pleasant to me too, and got up and put his heels
together and said, "Old England for ever" when I appeared, and asked
the Graf whether Frau Bornsted and I didn't remind him of a nosegay of
flowers. Obviously we didn't. The Graf doesn't look as if anybody
ever reminded him of anything. He greeted me briefly, and then sat
staring abstractedly at the tablecloth, as he did in Berlin. The
Colonel did all the talking. Both he and the Graf had on those pretty
green shooting things they wear in Germany, with the becoming soft hats
and little feathers. He was very jovial indeed, seemed fond and proud
of his lieutenant, Herr von Inster, slapped the Oberforster every now
and then on the back, which made him nearly faint with joy each time,
and wished it weren't breakfast and only coffee, because he would have
liked to drink our healths,--"The healths of these two delightful young
roses," he said, bowing to Frau Bornsted and me, "the Rose of
England--long live England, which produces such flowers--and the Rose
of Germany, our own wild forest rose."
I laughed, and Frau Bornsted looked sedately indulgent,--I suppose
because he is a great man, this staff officer, who helps work out all
the wonderful plans that are some day to make Germany able to conquer
the world; but, as she explained to me the other day when I said
something about her eyelashes being so long and pretty, prettiness is
out of place in her position, and she prefers it not mentioned. "What
has the wife of an Oberforster to do with prettiness?" she asked.
"It is good for a _junges Madchen_, who has still to find a husband,
but once she has him why be pretty? To be pretty when you are a
married woman is only an undesirability. It exposes one easily to
comment, and might cause, if one had not a solid character, an
ever-afterwards-to-be-regretted expenditure on clothes."
The men were going to shoot with the Oberforster after breakfast and be
all day in the forest, and the Colonel was going back to Berlin by the
night train. He said he was leaving his lieutenant at Koseritz for a
few days, but that he himself had to get back into harness at
once,--"While the young one plays around," he said, slapping Herr von
Inster on the back this time instead of the Oberforster, "among the
varied and delightful flora of our old German forests. Here this
nosegay," he said, sweeping his arm in our direction, "and there at
Koseritz--" sweeping his arm in the other direction, "a nosegay no less
charming but more hot-house,--the _schone_ Helena and her young lady
friends."
I asked Herr von Inster after breakfast, when we were alone for a
moment in the garden, what his Colonel was like after dinner, if even
breakfast made him so jovial.
"He is very clever," he said. "He is one of our cleverest officers on
the Staff, and this is how he hides it."
"Oh," I said; for I thought it a funny explanation. Why hide it?
Perhaps that is what's the matter with the Graf,--he's hiding how
clever _he_ is.
But that Colonel certainly does seem clever. He asked where we live in
England; a poser, rather, considering we don't at present live at all;
but I told him where we did live, when Dad was alive.
"Ah," he said, "that is in Sussex. Very pretty just there. Which
house was your home?"
I stared a little, for it seemed waste of time to describe it, but I
said it was an old house on an open green.
"Yes," he said, nodding, "on the common. A very nice, roomy old house,
with good outbuildings. But why do you not straighten out those
corners on the road to Petworth? They are death traps."
"You've been there, then?" I said, astonished at the extreme smallness
of the world.
"Never," he said, laughing. "But I study. We study, don't we, Inster
my boy, at the old General Staff. And tell your Sussex County Council,
beautiful English lady, to straighten out those corners, for they are
very awkward indeed, and might easily cause serious accidents some day
when the roads have to be used for real traffic."
"It is very good of you," I said politely, "to take such an interest in
us."
"I not only take the greatest interest in you, charming young lady, and
in your country, but I have an orderly mind and would be really pleased
to see those corners straightened out. Use your influence, which I am
sure must be great, with that shortsighted body of gentlemen, your
County Council."
"I shall not fail," I said, more politely than ever, "to inform them of
your wishes."
"Ah, but she is delightful,--delightful, your little _Englanderin_," he
said gaily to Frau Bornsted, who listened to his _badinage_ with grave
and respectful indulgence; and he said a lot more things about England
and its products and exports, meaning compliments to me--what can he be
like after dinner?--and went off, jovial to the last, clicking his
heels and kissing first Frau Bornsted's hand and then mine, in spite,
as he explained, of its being against the rules to kiss the hand of a
_junges Madchen_, but his way was never to take any notice of rules, he
said, if they got between him and a charming young lady. And so he
went off, waving his green hat to us and calling out _Auf Wiedersehen_
till the forest engulfed him.
Herr von Inster and the Graf went too, but quietly. The Graf went
exceedingly quietly. He hadn't said a word to anybody, as far as I
could see, and no rallyings on the part of the Colonel could make him.
He didn't even react to being told what I gather is the German
equivalent for a sly dog.
Herr von Inster said, when he could get a word in, that he is coming
over to-morrow to drive me about the forest. His attitude while his
Colonel rattled on was very interesting: his punctilious attention, his
apparent obligation to smile when there were sallies demanding that
form of appreciation, his carefulness not to miss any indication of a
wish.
"Why do you do it?" I asked, when the Colonel was engaged for a moment
with the Oberforster indoors. "Isn't your military service enough?
Are you drilled even to your smiles?"
"To everything," he said. "Including our enthusiasms. We're like the
_claque_ at a theatre."
Then he turned and looked at me with those kind, surprising eyes of
his,--they're so reassuring, somehow, after his stern profile--and
said, "To-morrow I shall be a human being again, and forget all
this,--forget everything except the beautiful things of life."
Now I must leave off, because I want to iron out my white linen skirt
and muslin blouse for to-morrow, as it's sure to be hot and I may as
well look as clean as I can, so good-bye darling little mother. Oh, I
forgot to say how glad I am you like being at Glion. I did mean to
answer a great many things in your last letter, my little loved one,
but I will tomorrow. It isn't that I don't read and reread your
darling letters, it's that one has such heaps to say oneself to you.
Each time I write to you I seem to empty the whole contents of the days
I've lived since I last wrote into your lap. But to-morrow I'll answer
all your questions,--to-morrow evening, after my day with Herr von
Inster, then I can tell you all about it.
Good-bye till then, sweet mother.
Your Chris.
_Koseritz, Saturday evening, July 18, 1914.
My darling little mother,
See where I've got to! Who'd have thought it? Life is really very
exciting, isn't it. The Grafin drove over to Schuppenfelde this
afternoon, and took me away with her here. She said Kloster was coming
for Sunday from Heringsdorf to them, and she knew he would want to see
me and would go off to the Oberforsterei after me and leave her by
herself if I were at the Bornsteds', and anyhow she wanted to see
something of me before I went back to Berlin, and I couldn't refuse to
give an old lady--she isn't a bit old--pleasure, and heaps of gracious
things like that. Herr von Inster had brought a note from her in the
morning, preparing my mind, and added his persuasions to hers. Not
that I wanted persuading,--I thought it a heavenly idea, and didn't
even mind Helena, because I felt that in a big house there'd be more
room for her to stare at me in. And Herr von Inster is going to stay
another week, taking his summer leave now instead of later, and he says
he will see me safe to Berlin when I go next Saturday.
So we had the happiest morning wandering about the forest, he driving
and letting the horses go as slowly as they liked while we talked, and
after our sandwiches he took me back to the Bornsteds, and I showed
Frau Bornsted the Grafin's letter.
If it hadn't been a Koseritz taking me away she would have been
dreadfully offended at my wanting to go when only half my fortnight was
over, but it was like a royal command to her, and she looked at me with
greatly increased interest as the object of these high attentions. She
had been inclined to warn me against Herr von Inster as a person
removed by birth from my sphere--I suppose that's because I play the
violin--and also against drives in forests generally if the parties
were both unmarried; and she had been extraordinarily dignified when I
laughed, and had told me it was all very well for me to laugh, being
only an ignorant _junges Madchen_, but she doubted whether my mother
would laugh; and she watched our departure for our picnic very stiffly
and unsmilingly from the porch. But after reading the Grafin's letter
I was treated more nearly as an equal, and she became all interest and
co-operation. She helped me pack, while Herr von Inster, who has a
great gift for quiet patience, waited downstairs; and she told me how
fortunate I was to be going to spend some days with Komtesse Helena,
from whom I could learn, she said, what the real perfect _junges
Madchen_ was like; and by the time the Grafin herself drove up in her
little carriage with the pretty white ponies, she was so much melted
and stirred by a house-guest of hers being singled out for such an
honour that she put her arm round my neck when I said good-bye, and
whispered that though it wasn't really fit for a _junges Madchen_ to
hear, she must tell me, as she probably wouldn't see me again, that she
hoped shortly after Christmas to enrich the world by yet one more
German.