Produced by Al Haines.
AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S HOME
MRS. A. BURNETT SMITH
[Annie S. Swan]
_The removing of those things that are shaken, ... that
those things which cannot be shaken may remain._
Hebrews xii, 27
[Illustration: Mrs. A. Burnett Smith]
*AN
ENGLISHWOMAN'S
HOME*
*BY
MRS. A. BURNETT SMITH
[*_*Annie S. Swan*_*]*
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
_Copyright, 1918,
By George H. Doran Company_
_Printed in the United States of America_
TO
THEODATE POPE RIDDLE
AND THE DEAR AMERICAN WAR WOMEN WHO OPENED TO ME
THEIR HEARTS AND HOMES, THIS RECORD OF TRUE
HAPPENINGS IN THE ENGLISH WAR ZONE
IS AFFECTIONATELY AND
GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED
*A PUBLISHER'S PREFACE*
It was in "_Aldersyde_" many years ago that I first met Mrs. Burnett
Smith, writing then as during the intervening years under the pen name
of Annie S. Swan, beloved of all readers of wholesome books.
Many times since I have met her--acquaintance ripened into
friendship--visit succeeded visit, until now upon the occasion of her
official visit to the United States it has been the good fortune of
myself and my family to entertain her as an honoured guest.
In the course of our quiet talks Mrs. Burnett Smith has told me the
story of her life in England, just outside of London, since war began.
Her experiences were so varied, yet so typical of what the Englishwoman
has been called upon to endure, that I begged of her to make record of
them for her friends in America. She demurred until I reminded her that
she was in our debt many letters--hence the intimate form of this
narrative. Indeed it was only by urging the personal obligation that
she has been persuaded to tell her story, which it is my proud privilege
to publish in this form.
[Illustration: Signature of George H. Doran]
NEW YORK, May 10, 1918.
*AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S HOME*
*I*
My Dear: To-day I opened the cedar wood box--I can see the little
wrinkle of your level brows over these cryptic words, can almost hear
you ask why something so simple should be chronicled as a war time
event.
I expect you remember just where the box stood on the little very old
table at the left side of my study window. It was often between us,
when we had those wonderful talks in the summer of 1913. Once I
remember I removed it gently out of your reach, as you thumped its
precious lid rather hard to emphasise your indignation over the
accumulated injustices of life.
It is far removed now from the delicate setting you so much approved,
the red rose of the window hangings no longer accentuates its quaint
outline.
It now stands bald and bare on the workman-like writing table in the
smoking room of our Kingdom by the Sea. You never achieved acquaintance
with this dear place in your extensive yet inadequate travel year, owing
to George's feverish desire to transport you to the particular bit of
Germany he had so long idealised. I am thinking now of his chastened
demeanour when he brought you back. Something had gone out of his early
dream; that elusive essence which once gone can never be recaptured.
Youth is ours only once--we may go on pretending; but there comes no
second spring.
Your letters--and certain of George's--considered by his critic worthy
of the privilege, have always been "taken care of" (I love that
comforting American phrase) in the cedar wood box. It so happens that
it is the one intimate thing I have brought here with me. It was picked
up in the garden with part of its contents scattered, after making a
hasty exit through the window--Heavens! I hear you say--what can she be
talking about--and why is she so far from her base in war time? Here is
the bald and awful fact--
There is no more North House. Have you taken it in, Cornelia? You
loved its simple dignity, its old-world repose. You had no fault to
find because it did not spread itself to any great extent, and lacked
all the wonderful conveniences to which you are accustomed in your own
home. You allowed it the defects of its quality, nay, I even believe
that you loved them. Did you not put your hand over my mouth when I
audibly wished that my mauve thistle spare bedroom had been a more
spacious chamber, where you could sit or stand at an angle immune from
draughts, or from bumping against some aggressive article of furniture.
I often apologised for the one bathroom, small at that, and for the
inadequate supply of hot water. Then you would point to the moss-grown
terrace at the back, the cedar tree on the lawn, sloping to the winding
river, and the delicate vistas beyond. "Oh yes," I said, "it is the
only garden in the world, but the house could be improved on." Did I
really say that? I know I did, not once, but a thousand times, and now I
am the prey of a most unendurable kind of remorse, that which we feel
when something we loved is removed permanently from our sight and we
know we belittled it.
Now perhaps you will understand, Cornelia,--the home we all loved
together--though often belittling it in the grumpy Scotch way--is dead.
It will never be ours any more. Its roof can never shelter those we
love, nor its walls echo the happy laughter which doeth good like a
medicine. I see the bewilderment gathering in your quizzical eyes, and
you wonder what it is all about, and whether I have taken leave of the
small modicum of sense Himself and you allotted to me the last time we
discussed the question together.
The truth is, I am afraid to begin. I do not know how to tell it. The
world is full of words--but there do not seem to be any to fit this
case. But I must try. I have been sitting ever so long, looking out to
the sea, which is no longer a pathway to the sun, but a menacing grey
highway across which awful shapes may at any moment race to destroy our
peace, and fill us with terror and dismay. To the left, as I turn my
eyes, through the window I see the gleaming nozzle of one of the big
guns, with the gunners ready beside it. They are there night and day.
So even our summer home is in the grip of the war monster from which
there is no escape. It is the 16th of October and the skies are very
grey, the air heavy with a strange chill, the sea mists are creeping
up--and the moan of the breakers against the rocks seems to presage some
coming doom.
It was very lovely in Hertfordshire in October--its early weeks gave us
a taste of the most beautiful Indian summer I have ever seen. Our
chestnut trees were never more glorious, nor more vividly clad. Flame
was the keynote of the colour scheme, and it lingered--wonderfully blent
with all the undertones of departing summer, till the picture our garden
presented was so entrancing, I could not attend to my ordinary tasks,
grudging every moment spent away from it. We were clearing the
herbaceous borders--and planning a new scheme for enhancing the beauty
of the lily pond. I had long serious discussions with the gardener, an
understanding creature, about economy in bulbs. The true garden-lover
would do without clothes, rather than raiment for her garden; but we had
to patriotically compromise, and, with a little ingenuity and extra
planning, saw a very promising vista for the spring. You have noticed,
indeed, it was, I think, more than once the subject of our talk, that
the last summer of a person's life is often the most beautiful. It was
so with our boy.
Do you remember how I told you that when our little fishing expedition
at Amulree came to an end in 1910, and the children were so loth to
leave the old inn and the everlasting hills, I said to him, "Never mind,
son, next summer when Dad and I go to America to visit Uncle George and
Aunt Cornelia, you and Effie will come here all by yourselves, or with
Aunt Jack, and have it all over again."
He turned his big quiet grey eyes on mine and said very simply, "These
things don't happen, Mummy." He was very young when he learned that
lesson. It all came true, not in my sense, but in his.
Before the next summer came, his dear beautiful body was laid on the
cliff side at the Kingdom by the Sea and his soul had stolen "away" to
his appointed place in his Father's House.
That was the most beautiful summer in our lives--not in his only, but in
our whole family life, of a richness and nearness and dearness, to
describe which, there are no words.
Well, and this the last summer of our garden's life, in so far as it
concerned us, was the most beautiful we have ever known, in a circle of
many summers, all beautiful.
Never had there been such wealth of bloom. The roses! They simply flung
themselves in regal magnificence at our feet. The more you cut and gave
away the more persistently they insisted upon coming on; not in single
spies, but in battalions.
The old walled vegetable garden which you so loved, being invariably
found, when missing, between its box hedges, surpassed itself. We could
not use the stuff. Our Belgian household over the way, of whose doing
and being I as chairman of the Belgian Guest committee have written you
so much, had access to the garden to help themselves. It is a royal
memory we have; but only a memory. Sometimes it seems as if soon, all
life would be only a memory.
Hope seems--for the moment--to have folded her tent like the Arabs, and
silently stolen away.
*II*
On the 12th Effie came home from France in her first leave from active
service. You can imagine the excitement in the household, the somewhat
tremulous expectancy of Himself and myself.
The one ewe lamb, as you know right well, is a kind of desperate
possession. Once or twice I have recalled your warning counsel not to
let her leave us; but, my dear, you would have to be here to understand
the strange new blood that is firing the veins of both youth and
maturity and age, the red blood of patriotism. She was very young to go
out to that strange awful sublime place they call the war zone. But she
came back to us radiant, quite unchanged; but yes, there is a change.
She has the eyes of one who, born in a great time, is striving to live
greatly. She was, before the war, one of the lotus flowers to whom the
call came opportunely, and now she is blooming for others all
unconscious of herself. You who have known and shared my anxieties
about her future, will rejoice with me, I know. She is not a good
letter writer, she has the very Scotch habit of leaving out all you want
to know.
A dear English friend of mine, whose name I must not tell you, speaking
of her husband, one day in a moment of exasperation said, "You have to
take too much for granted with a Scotch husband." I smiled
comprehendingly, having lived so long with Himself.
Effie is a little like that. You never know what is shut up inside of
her. The Boy was so different, so easy to know--and so lovely when you
did know him. Well I suppose it would not be good for us to be given
without effort or seeking the key to every treasure house. Heavens, how
I wander! I must come back and tell about the thing to which Effie came
home.
We had had a quiet lovely day together. I had managed to worm a little
out of her about her beloved camp at Etaples, not half enough--but just
enough to know what this wonderful new life of service for others is
doing for the child.
Himself was rather busy, and had to go out after dinner to see some
patients who required a late visit. The house surgeon from the hospital
had just dropped in asking for him and we kept him, expecting that
Himself would be back quickly.
At half past nine, tea came up. Do you remember how you, and especially
George, jeered at our evening teacups, and how gradually you were drawn
into the snare until you acquired the passion, and used to watch the
library clock, sure the kitchen one did not correspond?
I had a restless feeling that night. It was very dark, with a close
sultry air, and I went upstairs throwing open windows that had been
shut. I was standing at the open window of Himself's dressing room when
I heard the unmistakable whirr of the Zeppelin engine.
I have tried to describe it to you before. It is a sinister grinding
noise, unlike anything on earth. I flew down to tell them that the
Zeppelins were out. Effie, eager with the quick longing of youth for
every adventure, said, "No such luck," and we immediately went out on
the terrace to crane our necks in an endeavour to discover the
marauder's silver silhouette against the clear dark sky. Then quite
suddenly there was the most terrific bang, and somewhere in the near
distance strange lights like shooting stars seemed to descend upon our
little inoffensive town--we stood dumb, holding our breath, while the
bangs continued getting louder and louder. Presently, we were joined by
the terrified servants, who, at their supper in the basement kitchen,
unaware that the Zeppelins were in the neighbourhood, came rushing out.
The young ones were inclined to scream. I remember laying my hand on
somebody's arm, and saying, "Hush, be still!" To me it was a stupendous
moment, during which the whole fabric of existence seemed to be
tottering--and we on the edge of some unimaginable abyss. I remember
Effie's face lit by the weird glare from the incendiary bombs now
falling in rapid succession from the upper air.
There was no fear upon it, only a kind of uplifted spirituelle look. I
seem to remember that she said, "Do you think it will be this one,
Mummy?" but she stoutly denies having uttered any such words.
Presently, however, "this one" descended and found its mark. The din
was indescribable; conceive of forty-two bombs dropping in a limited
area in the space of four minutes, the glare of their bursting, the air
full of sulphurous fumes and an awful indescribable sense of evil,
imminent, devilish, against which we were absolutely helpless and
unarmed. As we stood there in absolute silence, holding on one to
another, we had no sort of knowledge or information that our very own
house was being destroyed. To you this may seem incredible, when you
reflect that the terrace, though wide, is joined to the house.
It was all so quick and so terrible, that we felt it must be the end of
the world, the total destruction of everything we had considered stable
in our earthly life. Presently, the voice of the man beside us spoke:
"I think it's over now, and we're safe." The air-ship, sailing low, so
that we saw it distinctly between the cone of the cedar tree and the
sky, disappeared rapidly and the noise of explosions ceased--only to be
replaced by the cries of excited people, and the moans of the hurt and
dying in the street. The darkness was profound, the power station
having been destroyed early in the attack.
We pulled ourselves together, and proceeded towards the house with a
view of entering. Part of the walls remained standing, but there was no
house. There in the middle of the beautiful hall you so much admired
the whole fabric seemed to have collapsed. Doors, windows, furniture,
pictures, piled in an inextricable heap. We saw right out into the
street in the further side, where already there were twinkling lights
and moving figures as the work of mercy and assistance began. But where
was Himself?
Quickly people began to climb in upon our ruins, seeking presumably for
us or for our remains. Presently, among them, very white in the face,
and very glassy about the eyes, appeared Himself, wheeling his bicycle.
They had told him down the street that his home and every one in it had
been destroyed. He counted us,--we clung together for just a moment,
then he said, "I must go." "Where?" I asked, still holding on. "To my
job," he answered as he unstrapped his emergency bag from his machine
and strode away. We did not see him any more till the early morning, he
and his colleagues being busy at the hospital. Then the whole
population seemed to be crowding us where we stood. We had no lights
but a few stray candles. Police and military presently appeared to take
possession, and the general public were excluded. The accredited powers
climbed across the debris to reach the garden, when a strange sight
presented itself. Five incendiary bombs which had been dropped after
the explosive ones and were intended to complete the work of
destruction, had only sunk in the soft earth, and were burning there
like bale fires. The authorities were hunting for unexploded bombs,
always a terrific menace until handled by experts and shorn of their
hellish power. They said, and say still, that one is at the bottom of
the river where it can't do any harm. We tried to go up what remained
of the staircase. The secondary staircase which connected the old wing
with the more modern part, was blown into space; not a step of it
remained. The beds, which had been in the rooms of the old wing, were
outside somewhere, their twisted metal work and torn mattresses being
afterwards found near the railings of the front garden.
You remember the mysterious little passage with the double doors that
led from my bedroom into the old wing; well, it was entirely gone; cut
off as clean as if a knife had done it. We were very adventurous,
climbing about trying to see by candlelight the full extent of the
damage, and with nobody to tell us that we took our lives in our hands
every minute where walls were tottering, and ceilings, so to speak,
hanging by a thread. My eight-foot old mahogany wardrobe which you
admired so much had climbed upon my bed, and half the ceiling was on the
top of that. Conceive what would have happened had the attack come
without warning, when we were asleep in our beds!
It has happened in other places. The protecting mercy of God was over
and round about us--our time had not yet come. I had then no feeling of
anguish over my ruined home, none of us had. To Effie, it was a great
adventure--the War in concrete visible tangible form! We simply did not
realise what it all meant; I suppose we shall realise it right enough
later on.
Midnight came--one o'clock in the morning--two o'clock--Himself turned
up at last and insisted that I should find a billet somewhere and lie
down. He and Effie determined to keep a vigil in the ruins. A fine
rain had begun to fall, but there were dry places in the house, a corner
of the drawing room queerly almost untouched. The vagaries of the
concussion were beyond belief. The gable end of the dining room left
standing was stripped inside of every scrap of plaster, leaving the
lathes naked and bare. An old Chippendale mirror still stuck heroically
to its nail, above the mantel, or rather the place where the mantel had
been, not shattered or scratched. But all the lovely old ladder-back
chairs are gone and the sideboard. I shan't really know till I go back
whether we have anything left.
Effie took me up to my billet in a neighbour's house, and as we groped
our way by the railings in the inky darkness I suddenly clutched
something soft. The flashlight revealed part of our dining room
curtains--heavy silk damask ones, that had evidently been blown clean
out up the street, and twisted round the railings by invisible hands.
I did not sleep any, you may be sure. I was the slave of physical fear
after the excitement had died down. Shaking in every limb, even to my
lips, I lay till about six o'clock, then got up again and dressed to go
and seek my treasures.
The sun was shining cheerfully as I wended my way through the gaping
crowds which had come from God knows where, getting a sympathetic word
and grip here and there from familiar friends.
And presently I came to the North House gate, Oh Cornelia!
It all looked so piteous in the clear sunlight, the shell of the dear
home; the inextricable mass of plaster and bricks and broken wood work
and all the belongings of a house. The crowds, there seemed to be
millions of them, everywhere fell back to let me go in. Himself met me,
smiling bravely, but a little grim about the eyes.
"We are going to breakfast at the Odell's," he said, "and after that you
and Effie go off to Scotland; it is all arranged."
It was no use protesting--you know how Himself can look, and what it
means when he says a thing has got to be done.
We hung about a little, and I had a sort of resentment because the
public were all over the place where my house had been. They were not
our own townsfolk, but incomers, who had arrived in motors, in horse
traps, on bicycles from miles away. The North road was simply black
with them. We went off presently in a cab to our kind neighbour's
house, where we had a good breakfast and much sympathy, which seemed to
put fresh heart into us. When we got back, it was to get ready for our
journey to Scotland.
Somebody found my clothes; people I had never seen before seemed to be
packing them up in trunks, not ours, which appeared mysteriously from
the outside. Kind hands brought us lunch, already prepared, and so we
got ready to go away. But before the end I had a hard task. Poor
Tubby, the lovely old mother chow, had gone mad, or at least become
dangerous through sheer terror. You know how sensitive she was. She
had to be shot and nobody could get her out of the kennel but me. I
went and dragged her forth and put the collar around her neck and took
her to the place of execution, where the man with the gun was waiting.
How did I do it? God knows, Cornelia. But it was absolutely necessary
for the safety of human creatures, and I know she has forgiven me in the
happy hunting ground where she has gone. She knew I loved her; but when
I heard the report of the gun the iron seemed to enter into my soul.
Wang has gone too, and Satan, the impish and delicious Persian cat that
became an inmate of this animal-loving house after you left, was found
stark by the edge of the immense crater made in the front garden by the
bursting shell. It wiped out his favorite laurel bush, under which we
suppose he had been sleeping when the terror came.
He was not injured in any way--he died of the same concussion which
split the old cedar tree and broke it right in two. Soon after eleven
we trundled away to the station en route for London and Scotland,
leaving Himself to make shift alone. It was his ordination, and we
seemed too dazed to stand up against it. We have been here three days,
and already Effie and I are both very restless. I expect in a few more
days in spite of Himself we shall be speeding back, for there is much to
do there. First and foremost we have to find another roof to cover us.
I will write as soon as I get back, and can co-ordinate my thoughts.
You and George will mourn with us, and I have no doubt George's
sentiments on the subject of America entering without further parley
will be vivified and strengthened. As I write I see the desolate
ruins--the broken and desecrated household gods, the crowds of gaping
strangers who regarded it as a spectacle without appearing to sense its
tragedy. Other houses in the town were destroyed, but I have presently
no knowledge or cognisance of them.
All sorrow and loss must be intensive at the first. This certainly is.
It is a poor devilish kind of sport, to rain death upon non-combatants
and sail away immune from punishment or reprisal. It makes women dumb
and men desperate. I know what is in the mind of Himself. Loathing of
the age limit, longing to defy the years and be out with the fighting
forces in the field. I shall never keep him after this, Cornelia. He
will slip through another door.
Is there a light? Yes, I remember kind faces I never saw before looking
eloquently into mine, the clasp of strange but friendly hands, the offer
of a score of homes. The gleam of brotherhood and sisterhood lightens
the dark places of the earth, and defies organised and perfected cruelty
to do its worst.
*III*
It is three weeks since I wrote my last letter--two weeks and three days
since I came back--no, not home, only back. We have no home any
more--as we used to have it, though we have found a roof to cover us.
I got your cablegram yesterday--it was dear of you to send it, but my
spirit quailed at what it must have cost you to send such a lengthy
despatch. Of course we knew how George and you would feel about it, and
there was a curious softness in Himself's eyes when I showed it to him;
we even discussed whether we should launch out into a similar
extravagance. We decided, however, that no adequate presentment of what
we were doing could be offered in any cablegram, and that we must ask
you to wait for another letter. Himself even said, he would write it,
but you know how he lives, and what stacks of unanswered ones lie in his
pigeon-holes. I heard him say in an exasperated moment, that his private
and particular hell would be a place where there were unending streams
of letters of no importance, which he would be compelled to answer by
return of post. It was he who suggested the one word, "reconstructing,"
and we both hope you grasped its full significance. It is a big word,
and it means a lot. Before there can be reconstruction, there has to be
destruction, and the _Hun_ has done it very thoroughly for us.
I had better go back, I think, to where I left off. I told you, I
remember, that after three days both Effie and I grew restless, and on
the sixth we wired Himself that we were coming back and that he must
find a place for us. We knew that he was still sleeping on a shake-down
in the corner of the drawing room where the free winds of Heaven blew in
upon him--and the rain when it chanced that way.
You know how he loved everything in the house, how much of it was his
individual choice, only the grouping left to me. And he was hanging on
desperately to the remnant of his treasure house--though forbidden by
official orders to touch anything until the representative from the
Government Air Raid Insurance should come to inspect the premises, and
the damage.
When we arrived we found it arranged for us to stay at the Wrights'
house. You remember how you liked them, free, jolly, unconventional
people, who understand hospitality in the big sense, which makes you
feel at home in their house. I can never forget what they have done for
us at this time; and they were only two out of many. Effie remained
only long enough to collect her kit and go back to her beloved
Camiers--of course the house couldn't mean as much to her; and for the
time being she is detached from us and her usual surroundings. She went
off gaily and gladly, not aware I am sure of the heartache she left
behind. She will be the heroine of a great adventure when she gets back
to her comrades. But I am sure she will never tell how fearlessly she
carried herself through it.
To us--that is to me, principally, is left the work of reconstruction.
We have got the loan of a house from a kind neighbour who volunteered to
find his family other quarters. They all felt that Himself must have
quarters as near as possible to the old place, so that his patients
could easily find him, and his professional work be carried on.
You will remember the house, a wide red brick many-windowed structure,
standing sheer on the street just opposite St. Andrew's Church. You
will particularly remember it because you asked me what style of
architecture its porch was supposed to represent. I replied that I had
been told it was Chinese Chippendale.
You said, "Whatever is that, anyway?" And we both laughed. Behold us
then, installed in the house of the Chinese Chippendale porch. It's
just round the corner from the North House, less than two minutes' walk.
It is very strange and rather awful, I find, to live with other people's
things. They don't belong to you. There is no intimate touch, and you
don't in the least want to arrange them or show them to the best
advantage.
There are more chairs in this house than in any house I have ever seen
or heard tell of--the sort you don't want to sit on.
It is too full of everything for comfort, but the beds are beautiful,
and it is such a relief to have a shelter, that we never can be grateful
enough.
Cornelia, I wonder if you will understand that I was two whole days
here, nearly three, indeed, before I dared to go round the corner. I
simply couldn't; but at last, quite early one morning before many people
were about, and Himself was safely out of the way, I stole round. There
was a policeman at the gate, for there were heaps of things that could
easily be removed by predatory hands. Wooden barricades had been
erected everywhere, and what windows were left were boarded over. The
man touched his hat to me, but did not open his mouth. He was an
understanding creature, who saw how it was with me.
Before I went inside I took a bird's-eye view of what had happened
outside. There was a great gap in the wall of the kitchen garden which
flanked the street, a gap big enough to let a horse and cart through.
In this street just by the kerb you could see where the crater made by a
shell explosion had been filled up. I forget whether I mentioned in my
first letter how that particular shell had broken the water main,
causing a small deluge to add to the general horror of that night of
desolation. I went into the garden through the gap, and round about, to
the river's brim, thankful to find little damage, except much trampling
of the lawns. The gardeners, I think, had gone to their breakfast--at
least, I did not see either of them. All the time I kept my eyes
averted from the house; but when I came behind the cedar tree, half of
which was torn away, showing a hideous scar all over its beautiful body,
I could not help seeing. I gripped myself tight, and ran, just ran up
the sloping lawn across the terrace, and right in. I don't know how I
can describe it. I feel as if I must not even try. Nothing had been
touched. It was sealed, so to speak, by Government orders. A few
things had been covered up to prevent the rain damaging them. It was
just awful, indescribable, heartrending. The dining room was pitch
dark, but a candle standing on the seat of a broken chair with matches
beside it invited me to inspection. I can't describe what I saw, and
there seemed to be a faint odour of sulphur and brimstone redolent of
the bottomless pit. The drawing room had suffered least, though part of
the ceiling had fallen on the piano, marring its beautiful top. The
shake-down on which Himself had slept all the time we were away, stood
in what looked like the safest corner. He had set up a screen to keep
the night winds off his dear head. I just sat down there and after a
minute tears came. They were the first I had shed and they were
blessed. They relieved the tightness of my heart, the band across my
brain. Afterwards I was able to climb in and about, taking stock and
inventory of what had happened. I thought that with luck a few sticks
might be retrieved, and mended up, but knew that all my cupboards must
be bare of the glass and china which every housewife holds most dear.
You remember the cupboard in the dining room with its priceless store of
Waterford and old English glass? There is not so much as a salt cellar
left.
A cup here and there, with the handle off, or a gash in its side is all
that is left of my Crown Derby, my old Worcester, my Lowestoft. It is
all very awful. But these are only things. They don't at this moment
matter. What does matter is that the monster of war has laid its foul
desecrating hand on the sanctuary of my home.
In a flash of lightning, the suffering of France, of Belgium and all the
invaded countries stood revealed. I understand, and I know why our
sweet dignified old Belgian refugee guest, Madame Savarin, spat upon the
remnants of the bomb I showed her yesterday.
*IV*
Himself got George's second cable this morning. When I read it the
words of the old hymn flashed back, "Death like a narrow sea divides
that happy land from ours."
I wonder if you just quite know how safe and free and happy you are on
the other side of the Atlantic. I see you knit your brows, and hear
George's language, occasionally,--I regret to say, not quite fit to
grace any very genteel chronicle. I hope this is going to be a little
more than that anyway. I will take back the last adjective, and beg you
to thank God that you are safe and free for a little while longer.
Happy I know you and your kind will never be until you are standing
shoulder to shoulder with us in this awful but glorious fight. I don't
know how George's cable ever got through, really, on your side or ours.
Conceive what would have happened had he presented it at any telegraph
office in Germany. His head would have paid the forfeit. I am going to
set it down here just to see how it looks in real writing with the cold
official script.
There, what do you think of it? I only hope you are properly proud of
George.
All the Georges are nice. There is something comforting about them.
Shall I ever forget the other George, whom you too liked, who flew to us
when the Heavens darkened in 1910. He was here again at this time, the
moment he could be of any use. When we are in trouble, his own affairs,
however urgent, have to stand by. It is wonderful to have friends like
that. They are a shield and buckler in the day of trouble.
Well, I laughed out loud when I read George's cablegram and it did me so
much good that I wish he would think up a new one every day, each one
more violent than the other. It would never exceed or even fit the
crime. Perhaps you wonder how I can joke and play about with words in
the midst of what is happening. I have to, Cornelia. Don't you
understand? If I didn't I should never be able to carry on? And when I
sit down in obedience to George's express command by cable to tell you
every single solitary thing--though how he ever expects it to be allowed
out of the country I don't know, my spirit positively quails.
It is very awful, my dear--much more awful than it seemed at first. I
am now spending all my days in the ruins, mostly quite alone, trying to
retrieve what remains of our household gods. I am allowed to do this
since the day the Government Insurance Inspector came, and, having
inspected, pronounced and assessed the damage, unsealed the debris, and
went away--I don't doubt, quite satisfied with himself. I suppose there
is some kind of a system for the appointment of such officials, perhaps
the less they know about their job the better. This one had no sort of
conception of values. I tried to explain some of them, but soon gave
out, and let him carry on. Let me try to give you some idea of the
tragic comedy. He was elderly, quiet and polite, not in the least
sympathetic, because I am only one of many similarly placed, and
sentiment interferes with business. His job was to minimise our loss.
What was mine, I wonder? I'm not sure, but this I do know, that it
hurt, hurt desperately, to have to stand by, and hear this well-meaning
person make light of what had happened. Once or twice I longed to see
Wang come bounding out of the unknown with his lovely face distorted,
his bristles standing up and his growls like distant thunder in the air,
but alas, I have to go through this thing quite alone. Himself couldn't
do it--even if he weren't too busy. He would just have a stand-up fight
with the government representative, and that would be an end of
compensation, though no doubt Himself would enjoy the tussle immensely.
We didn't know quite where to begin. A table was erected in what is
left of the library, and he spread out his inventory sheets and we
started in. I had made an inventory too, and the contents of the dining
room came under discussion first. He had a copy of this which had been
previously submitted to him through our lawyer. His business was now to
assess the amount they would pay. He put down the entire contents of
the glass cupboard at ten pounds. Fifty dollars of your money. I
gently but firmly pointed out that there were single pieces in it that
had cost that. He shook his head, and explained that in that case each
piece should have been insured separately, as in the case of articles of
jewellery. That was the platform from which he never departed, and I
quickly realised that our cause was lost. Six dollars he allowed for
that priceless old Chamberlain Worcester tea service over which you
raved so often, warning me that it should not be used every day. But
you know we have never kept anything just for ornament; or lived in a
house as a mere show place. The other George, of whom I've just been
speaking, once told me I could make a home out of a cave, supposing I
had only a handful of twigs to start with. Well, that is how we have
lived. The Insurance gentleman was more reasonable about large solid
articles of furniture, with which he seemed to be quite familiar. I
don't suppose he observed at what an early stage I gave up the ghost and
simply allowed him to carry on, and put down what figures he liked. He
visibly brightened, however, as the ghastly inspection proceeded, and
became more and more friendly every minute, but not any more
understanding.
I got even with him over Effie's clothes. You know she wears only
uniform in France, with one simple silk or crêpe-de-chine frock for the
rare occasions when she goes out to dine, or to some informal hospital
dance. So all her clothes were down in the wardrobe room, and they had
been pulled out of the debris, and laid, a melancholy array, on the only
bed left standing, which happened to be her own. You can imagine what
last year's frocks look like, especially when they have been a good deal
worn, and finally come through an air raid. A torn and crumpled mass of
satin and lace and chiffon, stained with lime and water. The sight
seemed to affect the official mind profoundly; though my shattered
treasures had left him cold. He asked their values, touching them
rather pitifully; perhaps he visualised the radiant youth they had once
enfolded, and I may have been misjudging him all along.
He then asked bluntly what they had cost. I replied vaguely about ten
pounds each. He put down fifty pounds without a murmur, and hurried out
of the room as if he had had enough.
It took the whole long, long day, Cornelia, and when he went out for his
lunch I sat among the ruins, and ate the dry sandwich Florence had put
up for me. I fear I watered it with my tears. I never knew there could
be so many tears in the world. I had none to shed when the Boy went
away; but somehow this has unsealed the fount. It is a different kind
of grief; it tears you a thousand ways; sometimes you are shaken with an
impotent rage. Of course it means that it will be more evanescent.
The heart can only stand a certain number of vital, staggering blows.
After the assessing business was over I was free, so to speak, of what
remained of my own possessions, and I have been going round every day
immediately after breakfast and stopping until dusk drove me away. Lots
of people wanted to help. I didn't want them--I had to be alone with my
ghosts. Florence would come round now and again when her work was done,
or between whiles, and then we just stood together thinking unutterable
things. She is not quite a servant, as you know, but a dear faithful,
understanding friend who lives in the heart of us, and loves us every
one. But mostly I was alone, my job to gather up the fragments--the
little things, and try to gauge and co-ordinate the whole before the
removal men came to take everything away. I found quite a lot of things
and carried them one by one to one of the pantries where a shelf
remained intact. My greatest find, in a place with which they had no
connection whatever, was four cut crystal baskets belonging to the old
Sheffield plate epergne, we used as a centrepiece in the days when table
decoration was of the heavy ornate type.
How pleased I was to get them, you can't think! I held them tight quite
a long time, gave them a little polish with the corner of my apron, and
then took them to the pantry shelf aforesaid, where I regarded them with
a species of adoration as the nucleus of some future glass cupboard
collection, when war has ceased to be.
But I think it is ordained that for me there shall be no new glass
cupboard. When I got back next day, two of them had gone. I pinched
myself, wondering whether, like some of the college boys after a night
out, I had been seeing double.
Then my friend, the big policeman, told me he had turned out some
well-dressed people wandering through the ruins after I had left. It was
no common thief who took these little things. There were articles of
more value beside them. No, it was some horrible woman who coveted a
souvenir from the Zeppelined house, and took what she fancied most. I
rather wish she had taken the four, then I might have amused myself by
dreaming that they had been found.
It was a mean cold-blooded unsisterly kind of theft. It almost deserves
to have the adjective Hunnish attached as a label.
Every day this sad task of mine has been going on, for more than a week,
and now, tomorrow, this being Sunday, the workmen are coming in and the
removal men, and the few sticks, at least such as are worth removing,
will be taken away to a furniture hospital for repair.
Your housewifely soul, already rent, I am sure, by this recital of my
woes will be still further exercised by a brief description of what
happened to my store cupboard. It was very full this autumn, owing to
the garden abundance aforesaid, and our conspicuous industry and success
in bottling, preserving and pickling,--the shelves simply groaned with
good things, and now it is all one inextricable sticky mass of jam, and
fruit, and broken glass, and lathe and plaster. You could not imagine
anything more disgusting. It is part of the needless waste of war--a
little bit, however, that just comes right home.
Just one more straw, surely the last. Friend Government Assessor valued
the stock of my store cupboard at ten shillings, two dollars and a half.
And I just let him, because it was so funny, and there didn't seem to be
any use telling him any more about anything.
When I write again I expect it will be all over and the lid shut down on
the place that was once a home.
I sat a little while to-day on the mossy wall beside the lily pond, one
of your numerous garden thrones.
Do you remember the day they cleaned it out, and your excitement over
the queer little black fresh water cray fish the men took out with their
hands and laid on the grass while they swept and scoured the concrete
bottom of the pond? They crawled about so painfully, poor things, and
if they thought at all, I suppose they must have imagined it the end of
the world. Then how pleased you were, and they too, I expect, when they
were put back, and the lovely clean water from the upper river ran in on
them. It is very clear to-day, and there is a crooning sound in the
voice of the waterfall--it sounds almost like a dirge. Summer is quite
gone, and the yellowing leaves are drifting down everywhere. Some of
them have camouflaged the horrid burned places the incendiary bombs made
in the grass. A few late roses hang about rather wistfully, but there
doesn't seem to be any hope anywhere. We don't quite know what is going
to happen, whether this house is going to be rebuilt, and we come back
to it.
There are immense legal and technical difficulties in a situation for
which no precedent or legislation exists. We do not own, but only lease
the property, and at the moment don't know where our responsibility
begins or ends.
Himself is wrestling with the problem, and the little lines are
gathering about his eyes and mouth.
He does not say very much at all, and he won't go near the North House
any more. I know he can't bear it.
You and I have often talked of how dear they are, and how they never,
never grow up, but are just boys all their days.
They can do the fighting, but they can't do the enduring. That is our
bit.
I am trying to do mine, all I know how, but I am hard hit this time,
Cornelia. I am on my knees.
*V*
Such a lot has happened since I wrote last. I am beginning to regard
these letters as a real and faithful record of this strange phase of our
life. I know how faithfully you will keep them as I do yours. They may
come in handy one day to the person who may gather up the fragments of
my achievement--when Finis has been written across the last page.
You see, Cornelia, here we have to keep rather quiet and lift a gallant
head--_Noblesse oblige_ has to be the watchword. This for two reasons,
that so many people require bolstering, who if they detected any
weakening in this direction would feel that the front line had broken.
Then it is necessary for our inward life. You know how much I have been
through, and unless I had held my head high right along why then, it
would just have meant the end of all things. But oh, how we can be
misunderstood!
In the dark days of 1910 I met a woman in the street about three months
after the Boy had passed, and after we had exchanged greetings she
remarked with a charming smile, "How nice that you have got over it so
easily." My smile was a little sickly as I replied steadily, "Yes,
isn't it very nice?"
I did not see anything very clearly for quite a while after I had passed
on.
Just for a moment, I wondered whether it had been all wrong to bury that
irreparable loss so deep that nobody suspected its existence, as a loss.
I had been rather proud because I had been able to "carry on," but these
careless words suddenly awoke in me a passion of remorse lest I had been
disloyal to his precious memory. Then I just laughed weakly as I wiped
my nose and eyes. Am I not his mother, and do mothers ever forget or
prove disloyal? Another of "that sort of person" said to me on the
morning of the raid as I was hurrying to the bank to get some money, "So
sorry; you _have_ had bad luck, haven't you, since you came here?" Have
we, I wonder? And what is luck anyway? You and I both know there is no
such thing.
There have been developments since I wrote you, chiefly regarding our
tenancy of the North House. It happens that under the terms of our
English lease we are responsible for this damage, and will have to
rebuild for the proprietor at our own expense. Preposterous, you
exclaim! So do we, and Himself has got his mind firmly made up that he
will fight it out. Some of our advisers would like us to take it to the
law courts and make a test case of it, but our adviser-in-chief--that
dear friend and great law lord who made such fun of your Nipigon fishing
story at our big dinner party, is strongly against it. He says, "Pay up
whatever it costs. The case simply bristles with litigious points and I
see it going on indefinitely and finally coming up before me at the
House of Lords." Himself is in fighting trim, however, and the decision
will rest with him.
Meanwhile we have got to do something about our future, as we can't go
on living in this furnished house, which gives me the queer unhappy
feeling of not belonging anywhere in particular. The kind neighbour who
offered us the shelter had another proposition, that he should vacate
altogether and have us take over his lease. We are going to do it, but
will have to wait some time before the transaction is completed, because
we have no furniture except the broken stuff which is being mended up at
the furniture dealer's in the town.
I have to go down almost daily to consult and decide whether this or
that article is worth repairing. It usually resolves itself into an
argument with the expert. The more he says it can't be done, the more I
want it done. Of course, it is our dearest treasures that have received
the deadliest damage. Meanwhile, my dear, all these matters merely fade
into insignificance beside the one great tremendous yet glorious fact.
Himself is going to the war.
You know how hard and often he has hammered on the War Office doors, and
how his age was hurled at him, and he was bidden go and carry on the
good work he was doing in his own town. Well, he has got a commission
at last through the intervention of an old college friend who occupies
the exalted position of A.D.M.S. to a part of the Northern Army. That
means that he is the Director of Medical Service. Himself will be
attached to the Black Watch and report himself first to the Headquarters
in Perthshire.
Is he pleased about it? He does not say much, but he has been far more
restless since the raid. Am I pleased? Cornelia, honestly I don't
know. Every woman wants her man to be in this tremendous fight, but I
think I am a little afraid.
Our household is sadly reduced. Two have gone to munitions from indoor
service, and the gardeners have been called up. We don't need them
mercifully, as we have no garden now; only a backyard. Life is being
gradually shorn of some of its more dignified material attributes. No
doubt they are the things that don't matter, but some of them we loved,
and parting from them hurts.