That night the rain changed its character, threw off the pretence of
being only a mist, and poured in loud cracking drops on to the roof of
the caravan. It made such a noise that it actually woke me, and lighting
a match I discovered that it was three o’clock and that why I had had an
unpleasant dream--I thought I was having a bath--was that the wet was
coming through the boarding and descending in slow and regular
splashings on my head.
This was melancholy. At three o’clock a man has little initiative, and I
was unable to think of putting my pillow at the bottom of the bed where
there was no wet, though in the morning, when I found Edelgard had done
so, it instantly occurred to me. But after all if I had thought of it
one of my ends was bound in any case to get wet, and though my head
would have been dry my feet (if doctors are to be believed far more
sensitive organs) would have got the splashings. Besides, I was not
altogether helpless in the face of this new calamity: after shouting to
Edelgard to tell her I was awake and, although presumably indoors, yet
somehow in the rain--for indeed it surprised me--and receiving no
answer, either because she did not hear, owing to the terrific noise on
the roof, or because she would not hear, or because she was asleep, I
rose and fetched my sponge bag (a new and roomy one), emptied it of its
contents, and placed my head inside it in their stead.
I submit this was resourcefulness. A sponge bag is but a little thing,
and to remember it is also but a little thing, but it is little things
such as these that have won the decisive battles of the world and are
the finger-posts to the qualities in a man that would win more decisive
battles if only he were given a chance. Many a great general, many a
great victory, have been lost to our Empire owing to its inability to
see the promise contained in some of its majors and its consequent
dilatoriness in properly promoting them.
How the rain rattled. Even through the muffling sponge bag I could hear
it. The thought of Jellaby in his watery tent on such a night,
gradually, as the hours went on, ceasing to lie and beginning to float,
would have amused me if it had not been that poor Lord Sigismund,
_nolens volens_, must needs float too.
From this thought I somehow got back to my previous ones, and the longer
I lay wakeful the more pronouncedly stern did they become. I am as
loyal and loving a son of the Fatherland as it will ever in all human
probability beget, but what son after a proper period of probation does
not like the ring on the finger, the finer raiment, the paternal
embrace, and the invitation to dinner? In other words (and quitting
parable), what son after having served his time among such husks as
majors does not like promotion to the fatted calves of colonels? For
some time past I have been expecting it every day, and if it is not soon
granted it is possible that my patience may be so changed to anger that
I shall refuse to remain at my post and shall send in my resignation;
though I must say I should like a hit at the English first.
Once embarked on these reflections I could not again close my eyes, and
lay awake for the remaining hours of the night with as great a din going
on as ever I heard in my life. I have described this--the effect of
heavy rain when you are in a caravan--in that portion of the narrative
dealing with the night on Grip’s Common, so need only repeat that it
resembles nothing so much as a sharp pelting with unusually hard stones.
Edelgard, if she did indeed sleep, must be of an almost terrifying
toughness, for the roof on which this pelting was going on was but a few
inches from her head.
As the cold dawn crept in between the folds of our window-curtains and
the noise had in no way abated, I began very seriously to wonder how I
could possibly get up and go out and eat breakfast under such
conditions. There was my mackintosh, and I also had galoshes, but I
could not appear before Frau von Eckthum in the sponge bag, and yet that
was the only sensible covering for my head. But what after all could
galoshes avail in such a flood? The stubble field, I felt, could be
nothing by then but a lake; no fire could live in it; no stove but would
be swamped. Were it not better, if such was to be the weather, to return
to London, take rooms in some water-tight boarding-house, and frequent
the dryness of museums? Of course it would be better. Better? Must not
anything in the world be better than that which is the worst?
But, alas, I had been made to pay beforehand for the Elsa, and had taken
the entire responsibility for her and her horse’s safe return and even
if I could bring myself to throw away such a sum as I had disbursed one
cannot leave a caravan lying about as though it were what our neighbours
across the Vosges call a mere bagatelle. It is not a bagatelle. On the
contrary, it is a huge and complicated mechanism that must go with you
like the shell on the poor snail’s back wherever you go. There is no
escape from it, once you have started, day or night. Where was Panthers
by now, Panthers with its kind and helpful little lady? Heaven alone
knew, after all our zigzagging. Find it by myself I certainly could not,
for not only had we zigzagged in obedience to the caprices of Mrs.
Menzies-Legh, but I had walked most of the time as a man in a dream,
heeding nothing particularly except my growing desire to sit down.
I wondered grimly as six o’clock drew near, the hour at which the rest
of the company usually burst into activity, whether there would be many
exclamations of healthy and jolly that day. There is a point, I should
say, at which a thing or a condition becomes so excessively healthy and
jolly that it ceases to be either. I drew the curtain of my bunk
together--for a great upheaval over my head warned me that my wife was
going to descend and dress--and feigned slumber. Sleep seemed to me such
a safe thing. You cannot make a man rise and do what you consider his
duty if he will not wake up. The only free man, I reflected with my eyes
tightly shut, is the man who is asleep. Pushing my reflection a little
further I saw with a slight start that real freedom and independence are
only, then, to be found in the unconscious--a race (or sect; call it
what you will) of persons untouched by and above the law. And one step
further and I saw with another slight start that perfect freedom,
perfect liberty, perfect deliverance from trammels, are only to be
found in a person who is not merely unconscious but also dead.
These, of course, as I need not tell my hearers, are metaphysics. I do
not often embark on their upsetting billows for I am, principally, a
practical man. But on this occasion they were not as fruitless as usual,
for the thought of a person dead suggested at once the thought of a
person engaged in going through the sickness preliminary to being dead,
and a sick man is also to a certain extent free--nobody, that is, can
make him get up and go out into the rain and hold his umbrella over
Jellaby’s back while he concocts his terrible porridge. I decided that I
would slightly exaggerate the feelings of discomfort which I undoubtedly
felt, and take a day off in the haven of my bed. Let them see to it that
the horse was led; a man in bed cannot lead a horse. Nor would it even
be an exaggeration, for one who has been wakeful half the night cannot
be said to be in normal health. Besides, if you come to that, who is in
normal health? I should say no one. Certainly hardly any one. And if you
appeal to youth as an instance, what could be younger and yet more
convulsed with apparent torment than the newly born infant? Hardly any
one, I maintain, is well without stopping during a single whole day. One
forgets, by means of the anodynes of work or society or other
excitement; but cut off a person’s means of doing anything or seeing any
one and he will soon find out that at least his head is aching.
When, therefore, Edelgard had reached the stage of tidying the caravan,
arranging my clothes, and emptying the water out of the window
preparatory to my dressing, I put the curtains aside and beckoned to her
and made her understand by dint of much shouting (for the rain still
pelted on the roof) that I was feeling very weak and could not get up.
She looked at me anxiously, and pushing up the sponge bag--at which she
stared rather stupidly--laid her hand on my forehead. I thought her hand
seemed hot, and hoped we were not both going to be ill at the same time.
Then she felt my pulse. Then she looked down at me with a worried
expression and said--I could not hear it, but knew the protesting shape
her mouth assumed: “But Otto----”
I just shook my head and closed my eyes. You cannot make a man open his
eyes. Shut them, and you shut out the whole worrying, hurrying world,
and enter into a calm cave of peace from which, so long as you keep them
shut no one can possibly pull you. I felt she stood there awhile longer
looking down at me before putting on her cloak and preparing to face
the elements; then the door was unbolted, a gust of wet air came in,
the caravan gave a lurch, and Edelgard had jumped into the stubble.
Only for a short time was I able to reflect on her growing agility, and
how four days back she could no more jump into stubble or anything else
than can other German ladies of good family, and how the costume she had
bought in Berlin and which had not fitted her not only without a wrinkle
but also with difficulty, seemed gradually to be turning into a misfit,
to be widening, to be loosening, and those parts of it which had before
been smooth were changing every day into a greater bagginess--I was
unable, I say, to think about these things because, worn out, I at last
fell asleep.
How long I slept I do not know, but I was very roughly awakened by
violent tossings and heavings, and looking hastily through my curtains
saw a wet hedge moving past the window.
So we were on the march.
I lay back on my pillow and wondered who was leading my horse. They
might at least have brought me some breakfast. Also the motion was
extremely disagreeable, and likely to give me a headache. But presently,
after a dizzy swoop round, a pause and much talking showed me we had
come to a gate, and I understood that we had been getting over the
stubble and were now about to rejoin the road. Once on that the motion
was not unbearable--not nearly so unbearable, I said to myself, as
tramping in the rain; but I could not help thinking it very strange that
none of them had thought to give me breakfast, and in my wife the
omission was more than strange, it was positively illegal. If love did
not bring her to my bedside with hot coffee and perhaps a couple of
(lightly boiled) eggs, why did not duty? A fasting man does not mind
which brings her, so long as one of them does.
My impulse was to ring the bell angrily, but it died away on my
recollecting that there was no bell. The rain, I could see, had now
lightened and thinned into a drizzle, and I could hear cheerful talk
going on between some persons evidently walking just outside. One voice
seemed to be Jellaby’s, but how could it be he who was cheerful after
the night he must have had? And the other was a woman’s--no doubt, I
thought bitterly, Edelgard’s, who, warmed herself and invigorated by a
proper morning meal, cared nothing that her husband should be lying
there within a stone’s throw like a cold, neglected tomb.
Presently, instead of the hedge, the walls and gates of gardens passed
the window, and then came houses, singly at first, but soon joining on
to each other in an uninterrupted string, and raising myself on my elbow
and putting two and two together, I decided that this must be Wadhurst.
It was. To my surprise about the middle of the village the caravan
stopped, and raising myself once more on my elbow I was forced
immediately to sink back again, for I encountered a row of eager faces
pressed against the pane with eyes rudely staring at the contents of the
caravan, which, of course, included myself as soon as I came into view
from between the curtains of the berth.
This was very disagreeable. Again I instinctively and frantically sought
the bell that was not there. How long was I to be left thus in the
street of a village with my window-curtains unclosed and the entire
population looking in? I could not get out and close them myself, for I
am staunch to the night attire, abruptly terminating, that is still,
thank heaven, characteristic during the hours of darkness of every
honest German gentleman: in other words, I do not dress myself, as the
English do, in a coat and trousers in order to go to bed. But on this
occasion I wished that I did, for then I could have leaped out of my
berth and drawn the curtains in an instant myself, and the German attire
allows no margin for the leaping out of berths. As it was, all I could
do was to lie there holding the berth-curtains carefully together until
such time as it should please my dear wife to honour me with a visit.
This she did after, I should say, at least half an hour had passed, with
the completely composed face of one who has no reproaches to make
herself, and a cup of weak tea in one hand and a small slice of dry
toast on a plate in the other, though she knows I never touch tea and
that it is absurd to offer a large-framed, fine man one piece of toast
with no butter on it for his breakfast.
“What are we stopping for?” I at once asked on her appearing.
“For breakfast,” said she.
“What?”
“We are having it in the inn to-day because of the wet. It is so nice,
Otto. Table-napkins and everything. And flowers in the middle. And
nothing to wash up afterward. What a pity you can’t be there! Are you
better?”
“Better?” I repeated, with a note of justified wrath in my voice, for
the thought of the others all enjoying themselves, sitting at a good
meal on proper chairs in a room out of the reach of fresh air, naturally
upset me. Why had they not told me? Why, in the name of all that was
dutiful, had _she_ not told me?
“I thought you were asleep,” said she when I inquired what grounds she
had for the omission.
“So I was, but that----”
“And I know you don’t like being disturbed when you are,” said she,
lamely as I considered, for naturally it depends on what one is
disturbed for--of course I would have got up if I had known.
“I will not drink such stuff,” I said, pushing the cup away. “Why should
I live on tepid water and butterless toast?”
“But--didn’t you say you were ill?” she asked, pretending to be
surprised. “I thought when one is ill----”
“Kindly draw those curtains,” I said, for the crowd was straining every
nerve to see and hear, “and remove this stuff. You had better,” I added,
when the faces had been shut out, “return to your own breakfast. Do not
trouble about me. Leave me here to be ill or not. It does not matter.
You are my wife, and bound by law to love me, but I will make no demands
on you. Leave me here alone, and return to your breakfast.”
“But, Otto, I couldn’t stay in here with you before. The poor horse
would never----”
“I know, I know. Put the horse before your husband. Put anything and
anybody before your husband. Leave him here alone. Do not trouble. Go
back to your own, no doubt, excellent breakfast.”
“But Otto, why are you so cross?”
“Cross? When a man is ill and neglected, if he dare say a word he is
cross. Take this stuff away. Go back to your breakfast. I, at least, am
considerate, and do not desire your omelettes and other luxuries to
become cold.”
“It isn’t omelettes,” said Edelgard. “Why are you so unreasonable? Won’t
you really drink this?” And again she held out the cup of straw-coloured
tea.
Then I turned my face to the wall, determined that nothing she could say
or do should make me lose my temper. “Leave me,” was all I said, with a
backward wave of the hand.
She lingered a moment, as she had done in the morning, then went out.
Somebody outside took the cup from her and helped her down the ladder,
and a conviction that it was Jellaby caused such a wave of just anger to
pass over me that, being now invisible to the crowd, I leaped out of my
berth and began quickly and wrathfully to dress. Besides, as she opened
the door a most attractive odour of I do not know what, but undoubtedly
something to do with breakfast in the inn, had penetrated into my sick
chamber.
“’Ere ’e is,” said one of the many children in the crowd, when I emerged
dressed from the caravan and prepared to descend the steps; “’ere’s ’im
out of the bed.”
I frowned.
“Don’t ’e get up late?” said another.
I frowned again.
[Illustration: _“’Ere ’e is”_]
“Don’t ’e look different now?” said a third.
I deepened my frown.
“Takes it easy ’e do, don’t ’e,” said a fourth, “in spite of pretendin’
to be a poor gipsy.”
I got down the steps and elbowed my way sternly through them to the door
of the inn. There I paused an instant on the threshold and faced them,
frowning at them as individually as I could.
“I have been ill,” I said briefly.
But in England they have neither reverence nor respect for an officer.
In my own country if any one dared to speak to me or of me in that
manner in the street I would immediately draw my sword and punish him,
for he would in my person have insulted the Emperor’s Majesty, whose
uniform I wore; and it would be useless for him to complain, for no
magistrate would listen to him. But in England if anybody wants to make
a target of you, a target you become for so long as his stock of wit
(heaven save the mark!) lasts. Of course the crowd in Wadhurst must have
known. However much my mackintosh disguised me it was evident that I was
an officer, for there is no mistaking the military bearing; but for
their own purposes they pretended they did not, and when therefore
turning to them with severe dignity I said: “I have been ill,” what do
you think they said? They said, “Yah.”
For a moment I supposed, with some surprise I confess, that they were
acquainted with the German tongue, but a glance at their faces showed me
that the expression must be English and rude. I turned abruptly and left
these boors: it is not part of my business to teach a foreign nation
manners.
My frowns, however, were smoothed when I entered the comfortable
breakfast-room and was greeted with a pleasant chorus of welcome and
inquiries.
Frau von Eckthum made room for me beside her, and herself ministered to
my wants. Mrs. Menzies-Legh laughed and praised me for my sensibleness
in getting up instead of giving way. The breakfast was abundant and
excellent. And I discovered that it was the ever kind and thoughtful
Lord Sigismund who had helped Edelgard out of the caravan, Jellaby being
harmlessly occupied writing picture postcards to (I suppose) his
constituents.
By the time I had had my third cup of coffee--so beneficial is the
effect of that blessed bean--I was able silently to forgive Edelgard and
be ready to overlook all her conduct since the camp by the Medway and
start fresh again; and when toward eleven o’clock we resumed the march,
a united and harmonious band (for the child Jumps was also that day
restored to health and her friends) we found the rain gone and the roads
being dried up with all the efficiency and celerity of an unclouded
August sun.
That was a pleasant march. The best we had had. It may have been the
weather, which was also the best we had had, or it may have been the
country, which was undeniably pretty in its homely unassuming
way--nothing, of course, to be compared with what we would have gazed at
from the topmost peak of the Rigi or from a boat on the bosom of an
Italian lake, but very nice in its way--or it may have been because Frau
von Eckthum walked with me, or because Lord Sigismund told me that next
day being Sunday we were going to rest in the camp we got to that night
till Monday, and dine on Sunday at the nearest inn, or, perhaps it was
all this mingled together that made me feel so pleasant.
Take away annoyances and worry, and I am as good-natured a man as you
will find. More, I can enjoy anything, and am ready with a jest about
almost anything. It is the knowledge that I am really so good-humoured
that principally upsets me when Edelgard or other circumstances force me
into a condition of vexation unnatural to me. I do not wish to be vexed.
I do not wish ever to be disagreeable. And it is, I think, down-right
wrong of people to force a human being who does not wish it to be so.
That is one of the reasons why I enjoyed the company of Frau von
Eckthum. She brought out what was best in me, what I may be pardoned for
calling the perfume of my better self, because though it contains the
suggestion that my better self is a flower-like object it also implies
that she was the warming and vivifying and scent-extracting sun.
There is a dew-pond at the top of one of the hills we walked up that day
(at least Mrs. Menzies-Legh said it was a dew-pond, and that the water
in it was not water at all but dew, though naturally I did not believe
her--what sensible man would?) and by its side in the shade of an oak
tree Frau von Eckthum and I sat while the three horses went down to
fetch up the third caravan, nominally taking care of those already up
but really resting in that pretty nook without bothering about them, for
of all things in the world a horseless caravan is surely most likely to
keep quiet. So we rested, and I amused her. I really do not know about
what in particular, but I know I succeeded, for her oh’s became quite
animated, and were placed with such dexterous intelligence that each one
contained volumes.
She was interested in everything, but especially so in what I said about
Jellaby and his doctrines, of which I made great fun. She listened with
the most earnest attention to my exposure of the fallacies with which he
is riddled, and became at last so evidently convinced that I almost
wished the young gentleman had been there too to hear me.
Altogether an agreeable, invigorating day; and when, about three
o’clock, we found a good camping ground in a wide field sheltered to the
north by a copse and rising ground, and dropping away in front of us to
a most creditable and extensive view, for the second time since I left
Panthers I was able to suspect that caravaning might not be entirely
without its commendable points.