It is pleasant to sit in a quiet English garden on a mild September
afternoon, sipping tea and talking about the war and weather, while
venturesome sparrows hop on the velvety lawn and a light breeze dances
over the flower-beds stealing the breath of the mignonette to carry back
at nightfall to the sea.
Thus mused the gentle sisters, Miss Jane and Julia Cony, as they gazed
round with serene and satisfied blue eyes on the lawn, the sparrows, the
silver tea-set, the buttered toast, and their best friend, Miss Lorena
Marshall, who had dropped in to have tea with them and whose gentle
brown eyes now smiled back into theirs with the self-same serenity and
satisfaction. All three had youthful faces under their soft white hair;
all three had tender hearts in their somewhat rigid breasts; all three
had walked slender and tall through an unblemished life of undeviating
conventionality. They were sublimely guileless, divinely charitable and
inflexibly austere.
"It is pleasant indeed," repeated Julia in her rather querulous treble
voice. Julia had been delicate in her teens and still retained some of
the capricious ways of the petted child. She was the youngest,
too--scarcely forty-five--and was considered very modern by her sister
and her friend. "Of course the Continent is all very well in its way,"
she went on. "Switzerland in summer, and Monte Carlo in winter----"
"Oh, Julia," interrupted Miss Jane quickly, "why do you talk about Monte
Carlo? We only stayed there forty-five minutes."
"Well, I'm sure I wish we could have stayed there longer," laughed the
naughty Julia. "The sea was a dream, and the women's clothes were
revelations. But, as I was saying, England is, after all----"
We all know what England is, after all. Still, it is always good to say
it and to hear it said. Thus, in the enumeration of England's advantages
and privileges a restful hour passed, until the neat maid, Barratt, came
to announce the arrival of other visitors. Mrs. Mulholland and her
daughter Kitty had driven round from Widford and came rustling across
the lawn in beflowered hats and lace veils. Fresh tea was made for them
and they brought a new note into the conversation.
"Are you not thinking of taking a refugee?" asked Mrs. Mulholland. "The
Davidsons have got one."
"The Davidsons have got one?" exclaimed Miss Marshall.
"The Davidsons have got one?" echoed Miss Jane and Miss Julia Corry.
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Mulholland somewhat acidly. "And I am sure if
they can have one in their small house, you can; and we can."
"Refugees are all the rage just now," remarked Kitty. "Everybody who is
anybody has them."
"Yes, but the Davidsons ..." said Miss Marshall. "Surely they cannot
afford it."
"They have dismissed their maid," explained Mrs. Mulholland, "and this
poor Belgian woman has to do all their housework."
"Yes; and Molly Davidson says that she is really a countess," added
Kitty, "and that she makes the beds very badly."
"Poor soul!" said Miss Jane.
"I certainly think," continued Mrs. Mulholland, "that the Davidsons of
all people should not be putting on side with a foreign countess to make
their beds for them, while others who have good houses and decent
incomes simply look on. In fact," she added, "I have already written to
the Committee in Kingsway offering hospitality to a family of two or
three."
"That is very generous of you," said Miss Jane; and Miss Julia shyly
patted the complacent white-gloved hands reposing in Mrs. Mulholland's
lap.
"We had not thought of it ourselves, so far," said Miss Jane. "But if
it is our duty to help these unfortunates, we shall certainly do so."
"Of course you will. You are such angels," exclaimed the impulsive
Kitty, throwing a muscular arm around Miss Jane's prim shoulders and
kissing her cheek. And Miss Jane liked it.
"How does one set about it?" asked Miss Marshall; "I might find room for
one, too. In fact I should rather like it. The evenings are so lonely
and I used to love to speak French."
Mrs. Mulholland, to whom she had turned, did not answer at once. Then
she replied drily: "You can write to the Refugee Committee or the
Belgian Consulate. The Davidsons got theirs from the Woman's Suffrage
League."
Then there was a brief pause.
"But I hear that the committee is frightfully particular," she went on.
"They don't send them just to any one who asks. One must give all sorts
of references. In fact," she added, with a chilly little laugh, "it is
almost as if one were asking for a situation oneself. They want to know
all about you."
There was another brief silence, and then Mrs. Mulholland and Kitty took
their leave.
To Miss Julia, who accompanied them to the gate, Mrs. Mulholland
remarked, "The idea! Miss Marshall wanting a refugee! With her past!"
"What past?" inquired Miss Julia, wide-eyed and wondering.
"Oh," snapped Mrs. Mulholland, tossing her head, and the white lace veil
floating round her sailor-hat waved playfully in the breeze, "when
people live abroad so long, there is always something behind it."
She stepped into her motor, followed by the pink-faced, smiling Kitty,
and they drove away to pay some other calls.
Miss Julia returned to the lawn with a puckered brow and a perturbed
heart. Neither she nor her sister had ever thought of Miss Lorena
Marshall's past; Miss Marshall did not convey the impression of having a
past--especially not a foreign past, which was associated in Jessie's
mind with ideas of the Moulin Rouge and Bal Tabarin. The neat black hat
sitting firmly on Miss Marshall's smooth pepper-and-salt hair could
never be a descendant of those naughty French _petits bonnets_ which are
flung over the mills in moments of youthful folly. Her sensible
square-toed boots firmly repelled the idea that the feet they encased
could ever have danced adown the flowery slopes of sin.
"I do not believe a word of it," said Miss Julia to herself, and later
on to her sister. Miss Jane was indignant at the suggestion. "This
village is a hotbed of cats," she said cryptically; and when the vicar
looked in after dinner to discuss arrangements for a Church concert
they confided in him and asked his opinion. Had he known Miss Lorena
Marshall before she came to Maylands? Did he think she had a past--a
Continental past?
The vicar thought the suggestions ridiculous and uncharitable.
"Of course," said Miss Jane, toying with her favourite angora cat's ear
as he lay purring comfortably in her lap, "we are narrow-minded old
maids." The vicar made a deprecating gesture. "Yes, yes, we are. And we
like to be sure that our friendships are not misplaced."
"We are narrow-minded old maids," echoed Miss Julia. The two Miss Corrys
always said that, partly in order to be contradicted and partly in that
curious spirit of humility which in the English heart so closely borders
on pride. For is not the acknowledgment of a certain kind of inferiority
a sign of unmistakable superiority?
When we say we are a humdrum nation, when we say we are a dull and slow
and stodgy nation, do we not in our heart of hearts think that it would
be a good thing if other nations took an example from our very faults?
Even so when Miss Corry said, "We are narrow-minded old maids"--she felt
with a little twinge of remorse that the statement was not altogether
sincere. Did she really, in her heart of hearts, think it narrow-minded
to abhor vulgarity, to shun coarseness, to shrink from all that might be
considered indecorous or unseemly? Then surely to be narrow-minded was
better than to be broad-minded, and she for one would certainly refuse
to change her views. Was narrow-mindedness mindedness nowadays not
almost a synonym for pure-mindedness?
And--"old maids"! Did she really consider herself and her younger sister
old maids? Had they--just because they had chosen to remain
unmarried--any of the crotchety notions, the fantastic, ineradicable
habits that old maids usually get into? Did they go about with a parrot
on their shoulder like Miss Davis? Or dose themselves all day with
patent medicines, like the Honourable Harriet Fyle? Did they fret and
fuss over their food, or live in constant terror of draughts and
burglars? Certainly not. And--come now--did they really feel a day older
than when they were twenty-two and twenty-five respectively? Or did they
look any older?--except for their hair which, had they chosen, they
could easily have touched up with henné or Inecto? Were they not able to
do anything, to go anywhere? Were their hearts not as young, and fresh,
and ready for love if it happened to come their way, as Kitty
Mulholland's or Dolly Davidson's? Did not their elder brothers--the
parson and the Judge--always speak of them still as "the girls"?
No. Miss Jane and Miss Julia Corry were not quite sincere when they
called themselves "narrow-minded old maids," and accordingly they had
qualms and conscience-pricks when they did so.
* * * * *
A week later the two sisters returned Mrs. Mulholland's call. They
fluttered into the large drawing room full of the subdued murmur of many
voices, and were greeted absent-mindedly by the busy hostess and
effusively by Kitty. The Davidsons were there, quite unsuitably attired
(remarked Miss Jane to Miss Julia; nobody wore satin at tea), and they
were explaining volubly to a group of ladies how it happened that their
Belgian countess-refugee had suddenly left them.
"First of all, she was not a countess at all," explained Dolly Davidson.
"And she was not even a Belgian," Mrs. Davidson added, in aggrieved
tones. "I cannot understand the W.S.L. sending her to us. Why she
confessed before she went away that she was a variety artist from Linz
and could only speak German and Czech. We always thought the language
she spoke was Flemish. It has been a most unpleasant affair."
Every one was tacitly delighted. Mrs. Davidson had been giving herself
such airs of importance with her countess, and now it turned out that
she had been playing Lady Bountiful to an alien enemy from a Bohemian
Café Chantant. One would have to be super-human not to rejoice. "How did
you get rid of her?" asked one of the ladies, discreetly repressing her
smiles.
"A villainous-looking man came to fetch her, late in the evening," said
poor Mrs. Davidson, blushing. "They made a frightful noise in the hall,
quarrelling or something."
"Then they both went upstairs," piped up Dolly Davidson; and pointing to
her brother, a lumpish youth who at that moment had his mouth full of
cake. "We sent Reggy upstairs to tell them to go away at once. But Reggy
only looked through the keyhole and wouldn't come down again until
mother fetched him."
"It isn't true," mumbled Reggy.
"Finally we had to send for the police," said Mrs. Davidson, with tears
of mortification in her eyes.
Mrs. Mulholland confessed that she felt rather nervous about her own
refugees who were expected at any moment. "I wish I could countermand
them," she said; but her sympathizing friends all agreed that having
asked for them she must keep them when they came.
They arrived the following day--an uninteresting woman, with two torpid
boys and a thin girl of fifteen.
The boys ate a great deal, and the girl was uncannily intelligent.
Since landing in England they had had it drummed into them that they
were heroes; they had been acclaimed with their compatriots as the
saviours of Europe; they had had speeches made to them apprising them of
the fact that the gratitude of all the world could never repay the debt
that civilization owed them. They therefore accepted as their due the
attentions and kindness shown them. They ate jam at all their meals and
asked for butter with their dinner; they drank red wine and put a great
deal of sugar in it; they complained that the coffee was not good. They
borrowed Mrs. Mulholland's seal-skin coat and Kitty's silk scarves when
they felt chilly, and they sat in the drawing-room writing letters or
looking at illustrated papers all day long. They spoke French in
undertones among themselves and accepted everything that was provided
for them without any undue display of gratitude. Had they not saved
Europe? Would Mrs. Mulholland still have a seal-skin coat to her back
but for Belgium? Had it not been for King Albert, would not the Uhlans
and the Death's Head hussars be sprawling on the Mulholland sofa, eating
the Mulholland jam, criticizing the Mulholland coffee? _Comment donc!_
And had they not themselves, in order to save Europe, given up their
home and their business--a stuffy little restaurant (_Au Boeuf à la
Mode, Épicerie, Commestibles_) down a dingy Brussels street?
The restaurant soon became a Grand Hotel in their fond reminiscences.
_Le souvenir, cet embellisseur_, swept the sardine-tins, the candles,
the lemons, and the flies from its windows, built up a colonnaded front,
added three or four stories and filled them with rich and titled guests.
"What was the name of your hotel?" inquired Mrs. Mulholland. "We stopped
in Brussels once on our way to Spa, and I remember that we stayed in a
most excellent hotel--The Britannique, or The Metropole, or something."
"Tell them," said Mme. Pitou to her daughter Toinon who acted as
interpreter,--"tell them the name of our hotel--in English."
"Restaurant to the Fashionable Beef," said Mademoiselle Pitou; and
Madame Pitou sighed and shook her head despondently. "Hotel," she
corrected, "not Restaurant. 'Hotel to the Fashionable Beef.' Toinon,"
she added, "do ask these people to give us _potage aux poireaux_ this
evening, for I cannot and will not eat that black broth of false turtle
any more."