Mrs. Warren went much farther. She was not very voluble nowadays. The German occupation of her villa had given her a mental and physical shock from which she never recovered. She often sat quite silent and rather huddled at meal times and looked the old woman now. In such a conversation as this she roused herself and her voice took an aggressive tone. "My daughter write to her friends to ask them to obstruct the government at such a time as this? Never! I'd disown her if she did, I'd repudiate her! She may have had her own turn-up with 'em. I was quite with her there. But that, so to speak, was only a domestic quarrel. We're British all through, and don't you forget it—sir—(she added deprecatingly): British all through and we're goin' to beat Germany yet, you'll see. The British navy never has been licked nor won't be, this time."

Colonel von Giesselin did not insist. He seemed depressed himself at times, and far from elated at the victories announced in his own newspapers. He would in the dreary autumn evenings show them the photographs of his wife—a sweet-looking woman—and his two solid-looking, handsome children, and talk with rapture of his home life. Why, indeed, was there this War! His heart like his Emperor's bled for these unhappy Belgians. But it was all due to the Macchiavellian policy of "Sir Grey and Asquiss." If Germany had not felt herself surrounded and barred from all future expansion of trade and influence she would not have felt forced to attack France and invade Belgium. Why, see! All the time they were talking, barbarous Russia, egged on by England, was ravaging East Prussia!

Then, in other moods, he would lament the war and the policy of Prussia. How he had loved England in the days when he was military attache there. He had once wanted to marry an Englishwoman, a Miss Fraser, a so handsome daughter of a Court Physician.

"Why, that must have been Honoria, my former partner," said Vivie, finding an intense joy in this link of memory. And she told much of her history to the sentimental Colonel, who was conceiving for her a sincere friendship and camaraderie. They opened up other veins of memory, talked of Lady Feenix, of the musical parties at the Parrys, of Emily Daymond's playing, of this, that and the other hostess, of such-and-such an actress or singer.

The Colonel of course was often absent all day on military duties. He advised Vivie strongly on such occasions not to go far from Mrs. Warren's little domain. "I am obliged to remind you, dear young lady, that you and your mother are my prisoners in a sense. Many bad things are going on—things we cannot help in war—outside this quiet place..."

In November, however, there was a change of scene, which in many ways came to Vivie and her mother with a sense of great relief. Colonel von Giesselin told them one morning he had been appointed Secretary to the German Governor of Brussels, and must reside in the town not far from the Rue de la Loi. He proposed that the ladies should move into Brussels likewise; in fact he delicately insisted on it. Their pleasant relations could thus continue—perhaps—who knows?—to the end of this War, "to that peace which will make us friends once more?" It would in any case be most unsafe if, without his protection, they continued to reside at this secluded farm, on the edge of the great woods. In fact it could not be thought of, and another officer was coming here in his place with a considerable suite. Eventually compensation would be paid to Mrs. Warren for any damage done to her property.

The two women readily agreed. In the curtailment of their movements and the absence of normal means of communication their life at Villa Beau-sejour was belying its name. Their supply of money was coming to an end; attempts must be made to regularize that position by drawing on Mrs. Warren's German investments and the capital she still had in Belgian stock—if that were negotiable at all.

Where should they go? Mrs. Warren still had some lien on the Hotel Edouard-Sept (the name, out of deference to the Germans, had been changed to Hotel Imperial). With the influence of the Government Secretary behind her she might turn out some of its occupants and regain the use of the old "appartement." This would accommodate Vivie too. And there was no reason why their friend should not place his own lodging and office at the same hotel, which was situated conveniently on the Rue Royale not far from the Governor's residence in the Rue de la Loi.

So this plan was carried out. And in December, 1914, Mrs. Warren had some brief flicker of happiness once more, and even Vivie felt the nightmare had lifted a little. It was life again. Residence at the Villa Beau-sejour had almost seemed an entombment of the living. Here, in the heart of Brussels, at any rate, you got some news every day, even if much of it was false. The food supply was more certain, there were 700,000 people all about you. True, the streets were very badly lit at night and fuel was scarce and dear. But you were in contact with people.

In January, Vivie tried to get into touch with the American Legation, not only to send news of their condition to England but to ascertain whether permission might not be obtained for them to leave Belgium for Holland. But this last plea was said by the American representative to be unsustainable. For various reasons, the German Government would not permit it, and he was afraid neither Vivie nor her mother would get enough backing from the British authorities to strengthen the American demand. She must stop on in Brussels till the War came to an end.

"But how are we to live?" asked Vivie, with a catch in her throat. "Our supply of Belgian money is coming to an end. My mother has considerable funds invested in England. These she can't touch. She has other sums in German securities, but soon after the War they stopped sending her the interest on the plea that she was an 'enemy.' As to the money we have in Belgium, the bank in Brussels can tell me nothing. What are we to do?" The rather cold-mannered American diplomatist—it was one of the Secretaries of Legation and he knew all about Mrs. Warren's past, and regarded Vivie as an outlaw—said he would try to communicate with her friends in England and see if through the American Relief organization, funds could be transmitted for their maintenance. She gave him the addresses of Rossiter, Praed, and her mother's London bankers.

Vivie now tried to settle down to a life of usefulness. To increase their resources she gave lessons in English to Belgians and even to German officers. She offered herself to various groups of Belgian ladies who had taken up such charities as the Germans permitted. She also asked to be taken on as a Red Cross helper. But in all these directions she had many snubs to meet and little encouragement. Scandal had been busy with her name—the unhappy reputation of her mother, the peculiar circumstances under which she had left England, the two or three months shut up at Tervueren with Colonel von Giesselin, and the very protection he now accorded her and her mother at the Hotel Imperial. She felt herself looked upon almost as a pariah, except among the poor of Brussels in the Quartier des Marolles. Here she was only regarded as a kind Englishwoman, unwearied in her efforts to alleviate suffering, mental and bodily.

And meantime, silence, a wall of silence as regarded England—England which she was beginning to look upon as the paradise from which she had been chased. Not a word had come through from Rossiter, from Honoria, Bertie Adams, or any of her Suffrage friends. I can supply briefly what she did not know.

Rossiter at the very outbreak of War had offered his services as one deeply versed in anatomy and in physiology to the Army Medical Service, and especially to a great person at the War Office; but had been told quite cavalierly that they had no need of him. As he persisted, he had been asked—in the hope that it might get rid of him—to go over to the United States in company with a writer of comic stories, a retired actor and a music-hall singer, and lecture on the causes of the War in the hope of bringing America in. This he had declined to do, and being rich and happening to know personally General Armstrong (Honoria's husband) he had been allowed to accompany him to the vicinity of the front and there put his theories of grafting flesh and bone to the test; with the ultimate results that his work became of enormous beneficial importance and he was given rank in the R.A.M.C. Honoria, racked with anxiety about her dear "Army," and very sad as to Vivie's disappearance, slaved at War work as much as her children's demands on her permitted; or even put her children on one side to help the sick and wounded. Vivie's Suffrage friends forgot she had ever existed and turned their attention to propaganda, to recruiting for the Voluntary Army which our ministers still hoped might suffice to win the War, to the making of munitions, or aeroplane parts, to land work and to any other work which might help their country in its need.

And Bertie Adams?

When he realized that his beloved and revered Miss Warren was shut off from escape in Belgium, could not be heard of, could not be got at and rescued, he went nearly off his nut.... He reviewed during a succession of sleepless nights what course he might best pursue. His age was about thirty-two. He might of course enlist in the army. But though very patriotic, his allegiance lay first at the feet of Vivie Warren. If he entered the army, he might be sent anywhere but to the Belgian frontier; and even if he got near Belgium he could not dart off to rescue Vivie without becoming a deserter. So he came speedily to the conclusion that the most promising career he could adopt, having regard to his position in life and lack of resources, was to volunteer for foreign service under the Y.M.C.A., and express the strongest possible wish to be employed as near Belgium as was practicable. So that by the end of September, 1914, Bertie was serving out cocoa and biscuits, writing paper and cigarettes, hot coffee and sausages and cups of bovril to exhausted or resting soldiers in the huts of the Y.M.C.A., near Ypres. Alternating with these services, he was, like other Y.M.C.A. men in the same district and at the same time, acting as stretcher bearer to bring in the wounded, as amateur chaplain with the dying, as amateur surgeon with the wounded, as secretary to some distraught officer in high command whose clerks had all been killed; and in any other capacity if called upon. But always with the stedfast hope and purpose that he might somehow reach and rescue Vivie Warren.



CHAPTER XVII

THE GERMANS IN BRUSSELS: 1915-1916

In the early spring of 1915, Vivie, anxious not to see her mother in utter penury, and despairing of any effective assistance from the Americans (very much prejudiced against her for the reasons already mentioned), took her mother's German and Belgian securities of a face value amounting to about L18,000 and sold them at her Belgian bank for a hundred thousand francs (L4,000) in Belgian or German bank notes. She consulted no one, except her mother. Who was there to consult? She did not like to confide too much to Colonel von Giesselin, a little too prone in any case to "protect" them. But as she argued with Mrs. Warren, what else were they to do in their cruel situation? If the Allies were eventually victorious, Mrs. Warren could return to England. There at least she had in safe investments L40,000, ample for the remainder of their lives. If Germany lost the War, the German securities nominally worth two hundred thousand marks might become simply waste paper; even now they were only computed by the bank at a purchase value of about one fifth what they had stood at before the War. If Germany were victorious or agreed to a compromise peace, her mother's shares in Belgian companies might be unsaleable. Better to secure now a lump sum of four thousand pounds in bank notes that would be legal currency, at any rate as long as the German occupation lasted. And as one never knew what might happen, it was safer still to have all this money (equivalent to a hundred thousand francs), in their own keeping. They could live even in war time, on such a sum as this for four, perhaps five years, as they would be very economical and Vivie would try to earn all she could by teaching. It was useless to hope they would be able to return to Villa Beau-sejour so long as the German occupation lasted, or during that time receive a penny in compensation for the sequestration of the property.

The notes for the hundred thousand francs therefore were carefully concealed in Mrs. Warren's bedroom at the Hotel Imperial and Vivie for a few months afterwards felt slightly easier in her mind as to the immediate future; for, as a further resource, there were also the jewels and plate at the bank.

They dared hope for nothing from Villa Beau-sejour. Von Giesselin, after more entreaty than Vivie cared to make, had allowed them with a special pass and his orderly as escort to go in a military motor to the Villa in the month of April in order that they might bring away the rest of their clothes and personal effects of an easily transportable nature. But the visit was a heart-breaking disappointment. Their reception was surly; the place was little else than a barrack of disorderly soldiers and insolent officers. Any search for clothes or books was a mockery. Nothing was to be found in the chests of drawers that belonged to them; only stale food and unnameable horrors or military equipment articles. The garden was trampled out of recognition. There had been a beautiful vine in the greenhouse. It was still there, but the first foliage of spring hung withered and russet coloured. The soldiers, grinning when Vivie noticed this, pointed to the base of the far spreading branches. It had been sawn through, and much of the glass of the greenhouse deliberately smashed.

On their way back, Mrs. Warren, who was constantly in tears, descried waiting by the side of the road the widow of their farmer-neighbour, Madame Oudekens. She asked the orderly that they might stop and greet her. She approached. Mrs. Warren got out of the car so that she might more privately talk to her in Flemish. Since her husband's execution, the woman said, she had had to become the mistress of the sergeant-major who resided with her as the only means, seemingly, of saving her one remaining young son from exile in Germany and her daughters from unbearably brutal treatment; though she added, "As to their virtue, that has long since vanished; all I ask is that they be not half-killed whenever the soldiers get drunk. Oh Madame! If you could only say a word to that Colonel with whom you are living?"

Mrs. Warren dared not translate this last sentence to Vivie, for fear her daughter forced her at all costs to leave the Hotel Imperial. Where, if she did, were they to go?

The winter of 1914 had witnessed an appalling degree of frightfulness in eastern Belgium, the Wallon or French-speaking part of the country more especially. The Germans seemed to bear a special grudge against this region, regarding it as doggedly opposed to absorption into a Greater Germany; whereas they hoped the Flemish half of the country would receive them as fellow Teutons and even as deliverers from their former French oppressors. Thousands of old men and youths, of women and children in the provinces south of the Meuse had been shot in cold blood; village after village had been burnt. Scenes of nearly equal horror had taken place between Brussels and Antwerp, especially around Malines. Von Bissing's arrival as Governor General was soon signalized by those dreaded Red Placards on the walls of Brussels, announcing the verdicts of courts-martial, the condemnation to death of men and women who had contravened some military regulation.

Yet in spite of this, life went on in Brussels once more—by von Bissing's stern command—as though the country were not under the heel of the invader. The theatres opened their doors; the cinemas had continuous performances; there was Grand Opera; there were exhibitions of toys, or pictures, and charitable bazaars. Ten days after the fall of Antwerp char-a-bancs packed with Belgians drove out of Brussels to visit the scenes of the battles and those shattered forts, so fatuously deemed impregnable, so feeble in their resistance to German artillery.

Vivie, even had she wished to do so, could not have joined the sight-seers. As the subjects of an enemy power she and her mother had had early in January to register themselves at the Kommandantur and were there warned that without a special passport they might not pass beyond the limits of Brussels and its suburbs. Except in the matter of the farewell visit to the farm at Tervueren, Vivie was reluctant to ask for any such favour from von Giesselin, though she was curious to see the condition of Louvain and to ascertain whether her father still inhabited the monastic house of his order—she had an idea that he was away in Germany in connection with his schemes for raising the Irish against the British Government. Von Giesselin however was becoming sentimentally inclined towards her and she saw no more of him than was necessary to maintain polite relations. Frau von Giesselin, for various reasons of health or children, could not join him at Brussels as so many German wives had done with other of the high functionaries (to the great embitterment of Brussels society); and there were times when von Giesselin's protestations of his loneliness alarmed her.

The King of Saxony had paid a visit to Brussels in the late autumn of 1914 and had invited this Colonel of his Army to a fastuous banquet given at the Palace Hotel. The King—whom the still defiant Brussels Press, especially that unkillable La Libre Belgique, reminded ironically of his domestic infelicity, by enquiring whether he had brought Signor Toselli to conduct his orchestra—was gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and kingdom. He even interceded at times for unfortunate British or French subjects, stranded in Brussels, and sometimes asked Vivie about fellow-countrymen who sought this intervention.

This caused her complicated annoyances. Seeing there was some hope in interesting her in their cases, these English governesses, tutors, clerks, tailors' assistants and cutters, music-hall singers, grooms appealed to Vivie to support their petitions. They paid her or her mother a kind of base court, on the tacit assumption that she—Vivie—had placed Colonel von Giesselin under special obligations. If in rare instances, out of sheer pity, she took up a case and von Giesselin granted the petition or had it done in a higher quarter, his action was clearly a personal favour to her; and the very petitioners went away, with the ingratitude common in such cases, and spread the news of Vivie's privileged position at the Hotel Imperial. It was not surprising therefore that in the small circles of influential British or American people in Brussels she was viewed with suspicion or contempt. She supported this odious position at the Hotel Imperial as long as possible, in the hope that Colonel von Giesselin when he had realized the impossibility of using herself or her mother in any kind of intrigue against the British Government would do what the American Consul General professed himself unable or unwilling to do: obtain for them passports to proceed to Holland.

Von Giesselin, from December, 1914, took up among other duties that of Press Censor and officer in charge of Publicity. After the occupation of Brussels and the fall of Antwerp, the "patriotic" Belgian Press had withdrawn itself to France and England or had stopped publication. Its newspapers had been invited to continue their functions as organs of news-distribution and public opinion, but of course under the German Censorate and martial law. As one editor said to a polite German official: "If I were to continue the publication of my paper under such conditions, my staff and I would all be shot in a week."

But the large towns of Belgium could not be left without a Press. Public Opinion must be guided, and might very well be guided in a direction favourable to German policy. The German Government had already introduced the German hour into Belgian time, the German coinage, the German police system, and German music; but it had no intention, seemingly, of forcing the German speech on the old dominions of the House of Burgundy. On the contrary, in their tenure of Belgium or of North-east France, the Germans seemed desirous of showing how well they wrote the French language, how ready they were under a German regime to give it a new literature. Whether or not they enlisted a few recreants, or made use of Alsatians or Lorrainers to help them, it is never-the-less remarkable how free as a rule their written and printed French was from mistakes or German idioms; though their spoken French always remained Alsatian. It suffered from that extraordinary misplacement and exchange in the upper and lower consonants which has distinguished the German people—that nation of great philologists—since the death of the Roman Empire. German officers still said "Barton, die fous brie," instead of "Pardon, je vous prie" (if they were polite), but they were quite able to contribute articles de fond to a pretended national Belgian press. Besides there was a sufficiency of Belgian "Sans-Patries" ready to come to their assistance: Belgian nationals of German-Jewish or Dutch-Jewish descent, who in the present generation had become Catholic Christians as it ranged them with the best people. They were worthy and wealthy Belgian citizens, but presumably would not have deeply regretted a change in the political destinies of Belgium, provided international finance was not adversely affected. There were also a few Belgian Socialists—a few, but enough—who took posts under the German provisional government, on the plea that until you could be purely socialistic it did not matter under what flag you drew your salary.

Von Giesselin was most benevolently intentioned, in reality a kind-hearted man, a sentimentalist. Not quite prepared to go to the stake himself in place of any other victim of Prussian cruelty, but ready to make some effort to soften hardships and reduce sentences. (There were others like him—Saxon, Thuringian, Hanoverian, Wuerttembergisch—or the German occupation of Belgium might have ended in a vast Sicilian Vespers, a boiling-over of a maddened people reckless at last of whether they died or not, so long as they slew their oppressors.) He hoped through the pieces played at the theatres and through his censored, subsidized press to bring the Belgians round to a reasonable frame of mind, to a toleration of existence under the German Empire. But his efforts brought down on him the unsparing ridicule of the Parisian-minded Bruxellois. They were prompt to detect his attempts to modify the text of French operettas so that these, while delighting the lovers of light music, need not at the same time excite a military spirit or convey the least allusion of an impertinent or contemptuous kind towards the Central Powers. Thus the couplets

"Dans le service de l'Autriche Le militaire n'est pas riche"

were changed to

"Dans le service de la Suisse Le militaire n'est pas riche."

These passionate lines of a political exile:

"A l'etranger un pacte impie Vendait mon sang, liait ma foi, Mais a present, o ma patrie Je pourrai done mourir pour toi!"

were rendered harmless as

"A l'etranger, en reverie Chaque jour je pleurais sur toi Mais a present, o ma patrie Je penserai sans cesse a toi!"

The pleasure he took in recasting this doggerel—calling in Vivie to help him as presumably a good scholar in French—got on her nerves, and she was hard put to it to keep her temper.

Sometimes he proposed that she should take a hand, even become a salaried subordinate; compose articles for his subsidized paper, "L'Ami de l'Ordre" (nicknamed "L'Ami de L'Ordure" by the Belgians), "La Belgique," "Le Bruxellois," "Vers la Paix." He would allow her a very free hand, so long as she did not attack the Germans or their allies or put in any false news about military or naval successes of the foes of Central Europe. She might, for instance, dilate on the cruel manner in which the Woman Suffragists had been persecuted in England; give a description of forcible feeding or of police ferocity on Black Friday.

Vivie declined any such propositions. "I have told you already, and often," she said, "I am deeply grateful for all you have done for my mother and me. We might have been in a far more uncomfortable position but for your kindness. But I cannot in any way associate myself with the German policy here. I cannot pretend for a moment to condone what you do in this country. If I were a Belgian woman I should probably have been shot long ago for assassinating some Prussian official—I can hardly see von Bissing pass in his automobile, as it is, without wishing I had a bomb. But there it is. It is no business of mine. As I can't get away, as you won't let us go out of the country—Switzerland, Holland—and as I don't want to go mad by brooding, find something for me to do that will occupy my thoughts: and yet not implicate me with the Germans. Can't I go and help every day in your hospitals? If you'll continue your kindness to mother—and believe me"—she broke off—"I do appreciate what you have done for us. I shall never forget I have met one true German gentleman—if you'll continue to be as kind as before, you will simply give instructions that mother is in no way disturbed or annoyed. There are Germans staying here who are odious beyond belief. If they meet my mother outside her room they ask her insulting questions—whether she can give them the addresses of—of—light women ... you know the sort of thing. I have always been outspoken with you. All I ask is that mother shall be allowed to stay in her own room while I am out, and have her meals served there. But the hotel people are beginning to make a fuss about the trouble, the lack of waiters. A word from you—And then if my mind was at ease about her I could go out and do some good with the poor people. They are getting very restive in the Marolles quarter—the shocking bad bread, the lack of fuel—Most of all I should like to help in the hospitals. My own countrywomen will not have me in theirs. They suspect me of being a spy in German pay. Besides, your von Bissing has ordered now that all Belgian, British, and French wounded shall be taken to the German Red Cross. Well: if you want to be kind, give me an introduction there. Surely it would be bare humanity on your part to let an Englishwoman be with some of those poor lads who are sorely wounded, dying perhaps"—she broke down—"The other day I followed two of the motor ambulances along the Boulevard d'Anspach. Blood dripped from them as they passed, and I could hear some English boy trying to sing 'Tipperary—'"

"My tear Miss Warren—I will try to do all that you want—You will not do anything I want, but never mind. I will show you that Germans can be generous. I will speak about your mother. I am sorry that there are bad-mannered Germans in the hotel. There are some—what-you-call 'bounders'—among us, as there are with you. It is to be regretted. As to our Red Cross hospitals, I know of a person who can make things easy for you. I will write a letter to my cousin—like me she is a Saxon and comes from Leipzig—Minna von Stachelberg. She is but a few months widow, widow of a Saxon officer, Graf von Stachelberg who was killed at Namur. Oh! it was very sad; they were but six months married. Afterwards she came here to work in our Red Cross—I think now she is in charge of a ward..."

So Vivie found a few months' reprieve from acute sorrow and bitter humiliation. Graefin von Stachelberg was as kind in her way as her cousin the Colonel, but much less sentimental. In fact she was of that type of New German woman, taken all too little into account by our Press at the time of the War. There were many like her of the upper middle class, the professorial class, the lesser nobility to be found not only in Leipzig but in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort, Halle, Bonn, Muenchen, Hannover, Bremen, Jena, Stuttgart, Cologne—nice to look at, extremely modern in education and good manners, tasteful in dress, speaking English marvellously well, highly accomplished in music or with some other art, advocates of the enfranchisement of women. The War came just too soon. Had Heaven struck down that epilept Emperor and a few of his ministers, had time been given for the New German Woman to assert herself in politics, there would have been no invasion of Belgium, no maltreatment of Servia. Germany would have ranged herself with the Western powers and Western culture.

Minna von Stachelberg read her cousin's note and received the worn and anxious-looking Vivie like a sister ... like a comrade, she said, in the War for the Vote ... "which we will resume, my dear, as soon as this dreadful Man's war is over, only we won't fight with the same weapons."

But though kind, she was not gushing and she soon told Vivie that in nursing she was a novice and had much to learn. She introduced her to the German and Belgian surgeons, and then put her to a series of entirely menial tasks from which she was to work her way up by degrees. But if any English soldier were there and wanted sympathy, she should be called in to his ward ... From that interview Vivie returned almost happy.

In the hot summer months she would sometimes be allowed to accompany Red Cross surgeons and nurses to the station, when convoys of wounded were expected, if there was likelihood that British soldiers would be amongst them. These would cheer up at the sound of her pleasant voice speaking their tongue. Yet she would witness on such occasions incongruous incidents of German brutality. Once there came out of the train an English and a French soldier, great friends evidently. They were only slightly wounded and the English soldier stretched his limbs cautiously to relieve himself of cramp. At that moment a German soldier on leave came up and spat in his face. The Frenchman felled the German with a resounding box on the ear. Alarums! Excursions! A German officer rushed up to enquire while the Frenchman was struggling with two colossal German military policemen and the Englishman was striving to free him. Vivie explained to the officer what had occurred. He bowed and saluted: seized the soldier-spitter by the collar and kicked him so frightfully that Vivie had to implore him to cease.

Moreover the Red Placards of von Bissing were of increasing frequency. As a rule Vivie only heard what other people said of them, and that wasn't very much, for German spies were everywhere, inviting you to follow them to the dreaded Kommandantur in the Rue de la Loi—a scene of as much in the way of horror and mental anguish as the Conciergerie of Paris in the days of the Red Terror. But some cheek-blanching rumour she had heard on a certain Monday in October caused her to look next day on her way home at a fresh Red Placard which had been posted up in a public place. The daylight had almost faded, but there was a gas lamp which made the notice legible. It ran:

CONDAMNATIONS

Par jugement du 9 Octobre, 1915, le tribunal de campagne a prononce les condamnations suivantes pour trahison commise pendant l'etat de guerre (pour avoir fait passer des recrues a l'ennemi):

1 deg. Philippe BAUCQ, architecte a Bruxelles;

2 deg. Louise THULIEZ, professeur a Lille;

3 deg. Edith CAVELL, directrice d'un institut medical a Bruxelles;

4 deg. Louis SEVERIN, pharmacien a Bruxelles;

5 deg. Comtesse JEANNE DE BELLEVILLE, a Montignies.

A LA PEINE DE MORT

* * * * *

Vivie then went on to read with eyes that could hardly take in the words a list of other names of men and women condemned to long terms of hard labour for the same offence—assisting young Belgians to leave the Belgium that was under German occupation. And further, the information that of the five condemned to death, Philip Bauck and Edith Cavell had already been executed.

* * * * *

The monsters! Oh that von Bissing. How gladly she would die if she might first have the pleasure of killing him! That pompous old man of seventy-one with the blotched face, who had issued orders that wherever he passed in his magnificent motor he was to be saluted with Eastern servility, who boasted of his "tender heart," so that he issued placards about this time punishing severely all who split the tongues of finches to make them sing better. Edith Cavell—she did not pause to consider the fate of patriotic Belgian women—but Edith Cavell, directress of a nursing home in Brussels, known far and wide for her goodness of heart. She had held aloof from Vivie, but was that to be wondered at when there was so much to make her suspect—living, seemingly, under the protection of a German official? But the very German nurses and doctors at the Red Cross hospital had spoken of her having given free treatment in her Home to Germans who needed immediate operations, and for whom there was no room in the military hospitals—And for such a trivial offence as that—and to kill her before there could be any appeal for reconsideration or clemency. Oh what a nation! She would tend their sick and wounded no more.

She hurried on up the ascent of the Boulevard of the Botanic Garden on her way to the Rue Royale. She burst into von Giesselin's office. He was not there. A clerk looking at her rather closely said that the Herr Oberst was packing, was going away. Vivie scarcely took in the meaning of his German phrases. She waited there, her eyes ablaze, feeling she must tell her former friend and protector what she thought of his people before she renounced any further relations with him.

Presently he entered, his usually rather florid face pale with intense sorrow or worry, his manner preoccupied. She burst out: "Have you seen the Red Placard they have just put up?"

"What about?" he said wearily.

"The assassination by your Government of Edith Cavell, a crime for which England—yes, and America—will never forgive you.... From this moment I—"

"But have you not heard what has happened to me? I am dismissed from my post as Secretary, I am ordered to rejoin my regiment in Lorraine—It is very sad about your Miss Cavell. I knew nothing of it till this morning when I received my own dismissal—And oh my dear Miss, I fear we shall never meet again."

"Why are they sending you away?" asked Vivie drily, compelled to interest herself in his affairs since they so closely affected her own and her mother's.

"Because of this," said von Giesselin, nearly in tears, pulling from a small portfolio a press cutting. "Do you remember a fortnight ago I told you some one, some Belgian had written a beautiful poem and sent it to me for one of our newspapers? I showed it to you at the time and you said—you said 'it was well enough, but it did not seem to have much point.'" Vivie did remember having glanced very perfunctorily at some effusion in typewriting which had seemed unobjectionable piffle. She hadn't cared two straws whether he accepted it or not, only did not want to be too markedly indifferent. Now she took it up and still read it through uncomprehendingly, her thoughts absent with the fate of Miss Cavell. "Well! what is all the fuss about? I still see nothing in it. It is just simply the ordinary sentimental flip-flap that a French versifier can turn out by the yard."

"It is far worse than that! It is a horrible—what the French call 'acrostiche,' a deadly insult to our people. And I never saw it, the Editor never saw it, and you, even, never guessed its real meaning![1] The original, as you say, was in typewriting, and at the bottom was the name and address of a very well-known homme de lettres: and the words: 'Offert a la redaction de l'Ami de L'Ordre.' He say now, never never did he send it. It was a forgery. When we came to understand what it meant all the blame fall on me. I am sent back to the Army—I shall be killed before Verdun, so good-bye dear Miss—We have been good friends. Oh this War: this d-r-r-eadful War—It has spoilt everything. Now we can never be friends with England again."

[Footnote 1: I have obtained a copy and give it here as it had an almost historical importance in the events of the German occupation. But the reader must interpret its meaning for himself.

LA GUERRE

Ma soeur, vous souvient-il qu'aux jours de notre enfance, En lisant les hauts fails de l'histoire de France, Remplis d'admiration pour nos freres Gaulois, Des generaux fameux nous vantions les exploits?

En nos ames d'enfants, les seuls noms des victoires Prenaient un sens mystique evocateur de gloires; On ne revait qu'assauts et combats; a nos yeux Un general vainqueur etait l'egal des dieux.

Rien ne semblait ternir l'eclat de ces conquetes. Les batailles prenaient des allures de fetes Et nous ne songions pas qu'aux hurrahs triomphants Se melaient les sanglots des meres, des enfants.

Ah! nous la connaissons, helas, l'horrible guerre: Le fleau qui punit les crimes de la terre, Le mot qui fait trembler les meres a genoux Et qui seme le deuil et la mort parmi nous!

Mais ou sqnt les lauriers que reserve l'Histoire A celui qui demain forcera la Victoire? Nul ne les cueillira: les lauriers sont fletris Seul un cypres s'eleve aux torubes de nos fils.]



He gave way to much emotion. Vivie, though still dazed with the reverberating horror of Edith Cavell's execution, tried to regain her mind balance and thank him for the kindness he had shown them. But it was now necessary to see her mother who might also be undergoing a shock. As she walked up to their bedroom she reflected that the departure of von Giesselin would have to be followed by their own exile to some other lodging. They would share in his disgrace.

The next morning in fact the Belgian manager of the hotel with many regrets gave them a month's warning. The hotel would be required for some undefined need of the German Government and he had been told no one could be lodged there who was not furnished with a permit from the Kommandantur.

For three weeks Vivie sought in vain for rooms. Every suitable place was either full or else for reasons not given they were refused. She was reduced to eating humble pie, to writing once more to Graefin von Stachelberg and imparting the dilemma in which they were placed. Did this kind lady know where a lodging could be obtained? She herself could put up with any discomfort, but her mother was ill. If she could help them, Vivie would humbly beg her pardon for her angry letter of three weeks ago and resume her hospital work. Minna von Stachelberg made haste to reply that there were some things better not discussed in writing: if Vivie could come and see her at six one evening, when she had a slight remission from work—

Vivie went. Out of hearing, Graefin von Stachelberg—who, however, to facilitate intercourse, begged Vivie to call her "Minna,"—"We may all be dead, my dear, before long of blood-poisoning, bombs from your aeroplanes, a rising against us in the Marolles quarter—" said very plainly what she thought of Edith Cavell's execution. "It makes me think of Talleyrand—was it not?—who said 'It is a blunder; worse than a crime' ... these terrible old generals, they know nothing of the world outside Germany." As to her cousin, Gottlieb von Giesselin—"Really dear, if in this time of horrors one dare laugh at anything, I feel—oh it is too funny, but also, too 'schokking,' as we suppose all English women say. Yet of course I am sad about him, because he is a good, kind man, and I know his wife will be very very unhappy when she hears—And it means he will die, for certain. He must risk his life to—to—regain his position, and he will be shot before Verdun in one of those dreadful assaults." Then she told Vivie where she might find rooms, where at any rate she could use her name as a reference. Also: "Stay away at present and look after your mother. When she is quite comfortably settled, come back and work with me—here—it is at any rate the only way in which you can see and help your countrymen."

One day in November when their notice at the hotel was nearly expired, Vivie proposed an expedition to her mother. They would walk slowly—because Mrs. Warren now got easily out of breath—up to the Jardin Bontanique; Vivie would leave her there in the Palm House. It was warm; it was little frequented; there were seats and the Belgians in charge knew Mrs. Warren of old time. Vivie would then go on along the inner Boulevards by tram and look at some rooms recommended by Minna von Stachelberg in the Quartier St. Gilles.

Mrs. Warren did as she was told. Vivie left her seated in one of the long series of glass houses overlooking Brussels from a terrace, wherein are assembled many glories of the tropics: palms, dracaenas, yuccas, aloes, tree-ferns, cycads, screw-pines, and bananas: promising to be back in an hour's time.

Somehow as she sat there it seemed to Mrs. Warren it was going for her to be the last hour of fully conscious life—fully conscious and yet a curious mingling in it of the past and present. She had sat here in the middle of the 'seventies with Vivie's father, the young Irish seminarist, her lover for six months. He had a vague interest in botany, and during his convalescence after his typhoid fever, when she was still his nurse, not yet his mistress, she used to bring him here to rest and to enjoy the aspect of these ferns and palms. What a strange variety of men she had known. Some she had loved, more or less; some she had exploited frankly. Some—like George Crofts and Baxendale Strangeways—she had feared, though in her manner she had tried to conceal her dread of their violence. Well! she had taken a lot of money off the rich, but she had never plundered the poor. Her greatest conquest—and that when she was a woman of forty—was the monarch of this very country which now lay crushed under the Kaiser's heel. For a few months he had taken a whimsical liking to her handsome face, well-preserved figure, and amusing cockney talk. But he had employed her rather as the mistress of his menus plaisirs, as his recruiting agent. He had rewarded her handsomely. Now it was all in the dust: her beautiful Villa Beau-sejour a befouled barrack for German soldiers. She herself a homeless woman, repudiated by the respectable British and Americans more or less interned in this unhappy city.

Not much more than a year ago she had been one of the most respected persons in Brussels, with a large income derived from safe investments. Now all she had for certain was something over three thousand pounds in bank notes that might turn out next month to be worthless paper. And was she certain even of them? Had Vivie before they left the hotel remembered to put some, at least, of this precious sum on her person? Suppose, whilst they were out, looking for a fresh dwelling place, the hotel servants or the police raided her bedroom and found the little hoard of notes? This imagined danger made her want to cry. They were so friendless now, she in particular felt so completely deserted. Had she deserved this punishment by Fate? Was there after all a God who minded much about the sex foolishnesses and punished you for irregularities—for having lovers in your youth, for selling your virtue and inducing other women to sell theirs? Was she going to die soon and was there a hereafter?' She burst out crying in an abandonment of grief.

An elderly gardener who had been snipping and sweeping in the next house came up and vaguely recognized her as a well-known Bruxelloise, a good-natured lady, a foreigner who, strange to say, spoke Flemish. "Ach," he said, looking out where he thought lay the source of her tears, at the dim view of beautiful Brussels through the steamy glass, "Onze arme, oude Bruessel." Mrs. Warren wept unrestrainedly. "Madame is ill?" he enquired. Mrs. Warren nodded—she felt indeed very ill and giddy. He left her and returned shortly with a small glass of Schnapps. "If Madame is faint—?" She sipped the cordial and presently felt better. Then they talked of old times. Madame had kept the Hotel Leopold II in the Rue Royale? Ah, now he placed her. A superb establishment, always well-spoken of. Her self-respect returned a little. "Yes," she said, "never a complaint! I looked after those girls like a mother, indeed I did. Many a one married well from there." The gardener corroborated her statement, and added that her clientele had been of the most chic. He had a private florist's business of his own and he had been privileged often to send bouquets to the pensionnaires of Madame. But Madame was not alone surely in these sad times. Had he not seen her come here with a handsome English lady who was said to have been—to have been—fortunately—au mieux with one of the German officials?

"That was my daughter," Mrs. Warren informed him with pride.... "She is a lady who has taken a high degree at an English University. She has been an important person in the English feminist movement. When this dreadful war is over, I and my daughter will—"

At this juncture Vivie entered. "Mother, I hope you haven't missed me, haven't been unwell?" she said, looking rather questioningly at the little glass of Schnapps, only half of which had been drunk.

"Well yes, dear, I have. Terrible low spirits and all swimmy-like. Thought I was going to faint. But this man here has been so kind "—her tears flowed afresh—"We've bin talking of old times; he used to know me before—"

Vivie: "Quite so. But I think, dear, we had better be going back. I want to talk to you about the new rooms I've seen. Are you equal to walking? If not perhaps this kind man would try to get us a cab...?"

But Mrs. Warren said it was no distance, only round the corner, and she could well walk. When they got back she would go and lie down. Vivie, reading her mother's thoughts, pressed a five-franc note into the gardener's not reluctant palm, and they regained the Rue Royale.

But just as they were passing through the revolving door of the Hotel Imperial, a German who had been installed as manager came up with two soldiers and said explosively: "Heraus! Foutez-nous le camp! Aout you go! Don't show your face here again!"

"But," said Vivie, "our notice doesn't expire till the end of this week...!"

"Das macht nichts. The rooms are wanted and I won't have you on the premises. Off you go, or these soldiers shall take you both round to the Kommandantur."

"But our luggage? Surely you will let me go up to our room and pack it—and take it away? We..."

"Your luggage has been packed and is in the corridor. If you send round for it, it shall be delivered to your messenger. But you are not to stop on the premises another minute. You understand?" he almost shrieked.

"But—"

For answer, the soldiers took them by the shoulders and whirled them through the revolving door on to the pavement, where a crowd began to collect, as it does in peace or war if you cough twice or sneeze three times in Brussels. "Englische Hure! Englische Kuepplerin," shouted the soldiers as they retreated and locked the revolving door. Mrs. Warren turned purple and swayed. Vivie caught her round the waist with her strong arm.... Thus was Mrs. Warren ejected from the once homely inn which she had converted by her energy, management and capital into the second most magnificent hostelry of Brussels; thus was Vivie expelled from the place of her birth....

Hearing the shouting and seeing the crowd a Belgian gendarme came up. To him Vivie said, "Si vous etes Chretien et pas Allemand—" "Prenez garde, Madame," he said warningly—"Vous m'aiderez a porter ma mere a quelqu' endroit ou elle peut se remettre..."

He assisted her to carry the inert old woman across the street and a short distance along the opposite pavement. Here, there was a pleasant, modest-looking tea-shop with the name of Walcker over the front, and embedded in the plate glass were the words "Tea Rooms." These of course dated from long before the war, when the best Chinese tea was only four francs the demi-kilo and the fashion for afternoon tea had become established in Brussels. Vivie and her mother had often entered Walcker's shop in happier days for a cup of tea and delicious forms of home-made pastry. Besides the cakes, which in pre-war times were of an excellence rarely equalled, they had been drawn to the pleasant-looking serving woman. She was so English in appearance, though she only spoke French and Flemish. Behind the shop was a cosy little room where the more intimate clients were served with tea; a room with a look-out into a little square of garden. Thither Mrs. Warren was carried or supported. She regained consciousness slightly as she was placed on a chair, opened her eyes, and said "Thank you, my dears." Then her head fell over to one side and she was dead—seemingly....

The agent de police went away to fetch a doctor and to disperse the crowd of ketjes[1] and loafers which had transferred itself from the hotel to the tea-shop. The shop woman, who was one of those angels of kindness that turn up unexpectedly in the paths of unhappy people, called in a stout serving wench from the kitchen, and the three of them carried Mrs. Warren out of the inner tea-room into the back premises and a spare bedroom. Here she was laid on the bed, partially undressed and all available and likely restoratives applied.

[Footnote 1: Street urchins of Brussels. How they harassed the Germans and maddened them by mimicking their military manoeuvres!]

The doctor when he came pronounced her dead, thought it was probably an effusion of blood on the brain but couldn't be certain till he had made an autopsy.

"What am I to do?" said Vivie thinking aloud....

"Why, stay here till all the formalities are over and you can find rooms elsewhere," said Mme. Trouessart, the owner-servant of the tea-shop. "I have another spare room. For the moment my locataires are gone. I know you both very well by sight, you were clients of ours in the happy days before the War. Madame votre mere was, I think, the gerante of the Hotel Edouard-Sept when I first came to manage here. Since then, you have often drunk my tea. Je me nomme 'Trouessart' c'est le nom de mon mari qui est ... qui est—Vous pouvez diviner ou il est, ou est a present tout Belge loyal qui peut servir. Le nom Walcker? C'etait le nom de nom pere, et de plus est, c'etait un nom Anglais transforme un peu en Flamand. Mon arriere-grand-pere etait soldat Anglais. Il se battait a Waterloo. For me, I spik no English—or ver' leetle."

She went on to explain, whilst the doctors occupied themselves with their gruesome task, and Vivie was being persuaded to take some nourishment, that her great grandfather had been a soldier servant who had married a Belgian woman and settled down on the site of this very shop a hundred years ago. He and his wife had even then made a specialty of tea for English tourists. She, his great grand-daughter, had after her marriage to Monsieur Trouessart carried on the business under the old name—Walker, made to look Flemish as Walcker.

Vivie when left alone suddenly thought of the money question. She remembered then that before going out to look for rooms she had transferred half the notes from their hiding-place to an inner pocket. They were still there. But what about her luggage and her mother's, and the remainder of the money? In her distress she wrote to Graefin von Stachelberg. Minna came over from her hospital at half past six in the evening. By that time the doctor had given the necessary certificate of the cause of death, and an undertaker had come on the scene to make his preparations.

Minna went over to the Hotel Imperial with Vivie. Appearing in her Red Cross uniform, she was admitted, announced herself as the Graefin von Stachelberg, and demanded to know what justification the manager could offer for his extraordinary brutality towards these English ladies, the result of which had been the death of the elder lady. The manager replied that inasmuch as the All Highest himself was to arrive that very evening to take up his abode at the Hotel Imperial, the hotel premises had been requisitioned, etc., etc. He still refused absolutely to allow Vivie to proceed to her room and look for her money. She might perhaps be allowed to do so when the Emperor was gone. As to her luggage he would have it sent over to the tea-shop. (The money, it might be noted, she never recovered. There were many things also missing from her mother's trunks and no satisfaction was ever obtained.)

So there was Vivie, one dismal, rainy November evening in 1915; homeless, her mother lying dead in a room of this tea-shop, and in her own pocket only a matter of thirty thousand francs to provide for her till the War was over. A thousand pounds in fluctuating value was all that was left of a nominal twenty thousand of the year before.

But the financial aspect of the case for the time being did not concern her. The death of her mother had been a stunning shock, and when she crossed over to the hotel—what irony, by the bye, to think she had been born there thirty-nine years ago, in the old inn that had preceded the twice rebuilt hotel!—when she crossed the street with Minna, it had been with blazing, tearless eyes and the desire to take the hotel manager and his minions by the coat collar, fling them into the street, and assert her right to go up to her room. But now her violence was spent and she was a broken, weeping woman as she sat all night by the bedside of her dead mother, holding the cold hand, imprinting kisses on the dead face which was now that of a saintly person with nothing of the reprobate in its lineaments.

* * * * *

The burial for various reasons had to take place in the Cemetery of St. Josse-ten-Noode, near the shuddery National Shooting Range where Edith Cavell and numerous Belgian patriots had recently been executed. Minna von Stachelberg left her hospital, with some one else in charge, and insisted on accompanying Vivie to the interment. This might have been purely "laic"; not on account of any harsh dislike to the religious ceremony on Vivie's part; only due to the fact that she knew no priest or pastor. But there appeared at the grave-side to make a very suitable and touching discourse and to utter one or two heartfelt prayers, a Belgian Baptist minister, a relation of Mme. Trouessart.

Waterloo left many curious things behind it. Not only a tea-shop or two; but a Nonconformist nucleus, that intermarried, as Sergeant Walker or Walcker had done, with Belgian women and left descendants who in the third generation—and by inherent vigour, thrift, matrimony and conversion—had built up quite a numerous congregation, which even grew large enough and rich enough to maintain a mission of its own in Congoland. Kind Mme. Trouessart (nee Walcker), distressed and unusually moved at the sad circumstances of Mrs. Warren's death, had called in her uncle the Baptist pastor (who also in some unexplained way seemed to hold a brief for the Salvation Army). He prayed silently by the death-bed which, under the circumstances, was more tactful than open intercession. He helped greatly over all the formalities of the funeral, and he took upon himself the arrangement of the ceremony, so that everything was done decorously, and certainly to the satisfaction of the Belgians, who attended. Such people would be large-minded in religion—you might be Protestant, if you were not Catholic, or you might be Jewish; but a funeral without some outward sign of faith and hope would have puzzled and distressed them.

To Vivie's great surprise, there was a considerable attendance at the ceremony. She had expected no more than the company of Minna—an unprofessing but real Christian, if ever there were one, and the equally Christian if equally hedonist Mme. Trouessart. But there came in addition quite a number of shopkeepers from the Rue Royale, the Rues de Schaerbeek, du Marais, de Lione, and de l'Association, with whom Mrs. Warren had dealt in years gone by. "C'etait une dame tres convenable," said one purveyor, and the others agreed. "Elle me paya ecus sonnants," said another, "et toujours sans marchander." There was even present a more distinguished acquaintance of the past: a long-retired Commissaire de Police of the Quartier in which Mrs. Warren's hotel was situated.

He appeared in the tightly-buttoned frock-coat of civil life, with a minute disc of some civic decoration in his button hole, and an incredibly tall chimney-pot hat. He came to render his respectueux hommages to the maitresse-femme who had conducted her business within the four corners of the law, "sans avoir maille a partir avec la police des moeurs."

Mrs. Warren at least died with the reputation of one who promptly paid her bills; and the whole assistance, as it walked slowly back to Brussels, recalled many a deed of kindness and jovial charity on the part of the dead Englishwoman.

* * * * *

Vivie, on sizing up her affairs, got Monsieur Walcker, the Baptist pasteur, to convey a letter to the American Consulate General. Walcker was used to such missions as these, of which the German Government was more or less cognizant. The Germans, among their many contradictory features, had a great respect for religion, a great tolerance as to its forms. They not only appreciated the difference between Jews and Christians, Catholics and Lutherans, but between the Church of England and the various Free Churches of Britain and America. The many people whom they sentenced to death must all have their appropriate religious consolation before facing the firing party. Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists were all provided for; there was a Church of England chaplain for the avowed Anglicans; but what was to be done for the Free Churches and Nonconformist sects of the Anglo-Saxons? They were not represented by any captive pastor; so in default this much respected Monsieur Walcker, the Belgian Baptist, was called in to minister to the Nonconformist mind in its last agony. He therefore held a quasi-official position and was often entrusted with missions which would have been dealt with punitorily on the part of any one else. Consequently he was able to deliver Vivie's communication to the American Consul-General with some probability of its being sent on. It contained no further appeal to American intervention than this: that the Consul-General would try to convey to England the news of her mother's death to such-and-such solicitors, and to Lewis Maitland Praed A.R.A. in Hans Place.

She went to the Brussels bank a fortnight after her mother's death whilst still availing herself of the hospitality of Madame Trouessart: to withdraw the jewellery and plate which she had deposited there on her mother's account. But there she found herself confronted with the red tape of the Latin which is more formidable, even, than that of the land of Dora at the present day. These deposited articles were held on the order of Mrs. Warren; they could not be given up till her will was proved and letters of administration had been granted. So that small resource in funds was withheld, at any rate till some time after peace had been declared. However she had a thousand pounds (in notes) between her and penury, and the friendship of Minna von Stachelberg. She would resume her evening lessons in English—Madame Trouessart had found her several pupils—and she would lodge—as they kindly invited her to do—with the Baptist pastor and his wife in the Rue Haute. And she would help Minna at the hospital, and hope to be rewarded with the opportunity of bringing comfort and consolation to the wounded British prisoners.

Thus, with no unbearable misery, she passed the year 1916. There were short commons in the way of food, and the cold was sometimes cruel. But Madame Walcker was a wonderful cook and could make soup from a sausage skewer, and heaped edredons on Vivie's bed. Vivie sighed a little over the Blue Placards which announced endless German victories by land and sea; and she gasped over the dreadful Red Placards with their lists of victims sentenced to death by the military courts. She ground her teeth over the announcement of Gabrielle Petit's condemnation, and behind the shut door of Minna's small sitting-room—and she only shut the door not to compromise Minna—she raved over the judicial murder of this Belgian heroine, who was shot, as was Edith Cavell, for nothing more than assisting young Belgians to escape from German-occupied Belgium.

She witnessed the air-raids of the Allies, when only comforting papers were dropped on Brussels city, but bombs on the German aerodromes outside; and she also saw the Germans turn their guns from the aeroplanes—which soared high out of their reach or skimmed below range—on to thickly-inhabited streets of the poorer quarters, to teach them to cheer the air-craft of the Allies!

She beheld—or she was told of—many acts of rapine, considered cruelty and unreasoning ferocity on the part of German officials or soldiers; yet saw or heard of acts and episodes of unlooked-for kindness, forbearance and sympathy from the same hated people. Von Giesselin, after all, was a not uncommon type; and as to Minna von Stachelberg, she was a saint of the New Religion, the Service of Man.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE BOMB IN PORTLAND PLACE

Mrs. Rossiter said to herself in 1915 that she had scarcely known a happy day, or even hour, since the War began. In the first place Michael had again shown violence of temper with ministers of state over the release from prison of "that" Miss Warren—"a convict doing a sentence of hard labour." And then, when he had got her released, and gone himself with their beautiful new motor—whatever could the chauffeur have thought?—to meet her at the prison gates, there he was, afterwards, worrying himself over the War: not content as she was, as most of her friends were, as the newspapers were, to leave it all to Lord Kitchener and Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, and even Mr. Lloyd George—though the latter had made some rather foolish and exaggerated speeches about Alcohol. Michael, if he went on like this, would never get his knighthood!

Then when Michael had at last, thanks to General Armstrong, found his right place and was accomplishing marvels—the papers said—as a "mender of the maimed"—here was she left alone in Portland Place with hardly any one to speak to, and all her acquaintances—she now realized they were scarcely her friends—too much occupied with war work to spend an afternoon in discussing nothing very important over a sumptuous tea, still served by a butler and footman.

Presently, too, the butler left to join the Professor in France and the footman enlisted, and the tea had to be served by a distraite parlour-maid, with her eye on a munitions factory—so that she might be "in it"—and her heart in the keeping of the footman, who, since he had gone into khaki, was irresistible.

Mrs. Rossiter of course said, in 1914, that she would take up war work. She subscribed most handsomely to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families' Association, to the Red Cross, to the Prince of Wales's Fund (one of the unsolved war-time mysteries ... what's become of it?), to the Cigarette Fund, the 1914 Christmas Plum Pudding Fund, the Blue Cross, the Purple Cross, the Green Cross funds; to the outstandingly good work at St. Dunstan's and at Petersham—(I am glad she gave a Hundred pounds each to them); and to the French, Belgian, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Portuguese and Japanese Flag Days and to Our Own Day; besides enriching a number of semi-fraudulent war charities which had alluring titles.

But if, from paying handsomely to all these praise-worthy endeavours to mitigate the horrors of war, she proceeded to render personal service, she became the despair of the paid organizers and business-like workers. She couldn't add and she couldn't subtract or divide with any certainty of a correct result; she couldn't spell the more difficult words or remember the right letters to put after distinguished persons' names when she addressed envelopes in her large, childish handwriting; she couldn't be trusted to make enquiries or to detect fraudulent appeals. She lost receipts and never grasped the importance of vouchers; she forgot to fill up counterfoils, or if reminded filled them up "from memory" so that they didn't tally; she signed her name, if there was any choice of blank spaces, in quite the wrong place.

So, invariably, tactful secretaries or assistant secretaries were told off to explain to her—ever so nicely—that "she was no business woman" (this, to the daughter of wholesale manufacturers, sounded rather flattering), and that though she was invaluable as a "name," as a patroness, or one of eighteen Vice Presidents, she was of no use whatever as a worker.

She had no country house to place at the disposal of the Government as a convalescent home. Michael after a few experiments forbade her offering any hospitality at No. 1 Park Crescent to invalid officers. Such as were entrusted to her in the spring of 1915 soon found that she was—as they phrased it—"a pompous little, middle-class fool," wielding no authority. They larked in the laboratory with Red Cross nurses, broke specimens, and did very unkind and noisy things ... besides smoking in both the large and the small dining-rooms. So, after the summer of 1915, she lived very much alone, except that she had the Adams children from Marylebone to spend the day with her occasionally.

Poor Mrs. Adams, though a valiant worker, was very downcast and unhappy. She confided to Mrs. Rossiter that although she dearly loved her Bert—"and a better husband I defy you to find"—he never seemed all hers. "Always so wrapped up in that Miss Warren or 'er cousin the barrister." And no sooner had war broken out than off he was to France, as a kind of missionary, she believed—the Young Men's Christian Something or other; "though before the War he didn't seem particular stuck on religion, and it was all she could do to get him sometimes to church on a Sunday morning. Oh yes: she got 'er money all right; and she couldn't say too much of Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter's kindness. There was Bert, not doin' a stroke of work for the Professor, and yet his pay going on all the same. Indeed she was putting money by, because Bert was kep' out there, and all found."

However his two pretty children were some consolation to Mrs. Rossiter, whom they considered as a very grand lady and one that was lavishly kind.

Mrs. Rossiter tried sometimes in 1915 having working parties in her house or in the studio; and if she could attract workers gave them such elaborate lunches and plethoric teas that very little work was done, especially as she herself loved a long, aimless gossip about the Royal Family or whether Lord Kitchener had ever really been in love. Or she tried, since she was a poor worker herself—her only jersey and muffler were really finished by her maid—reading aloud to the knitters or stitchers, preferably from the works of Miss Charlotte Yonge or some similar novelist of a later date. But that was found to be too disturbing to their sense of the ludicrous. For she read very stiltedly, with a strange exotic accent for the love passages or the death scenes. As Lady Victoria Freebooter said, she would have been priceless at a music-hall matinee which was raising funds for war charities, if only she could have been induced to read passages from Miss Yonge in that voice for a quarter of an hour. Even the Queen would have had to laugh.

But as that could not be brought off, it was decided that working parties at her house led to too much giddiness from suppressed giggles or torpor from too much food. So she relapsed once more into loneliness. Unfortunately air-raids were now becoming events of occasional fright and anxiety in London, and this deterred Cousin Sophie from Darlington, Cousin Matty from Leeds, Joseph's wife from Northallerton or old, married schoolfellows from other northern or midland towns coming to partake of her fastuous hospitality. Also, they all seemed to be busy, either over their absent husbands' business, or their sons', or because they were plunged in war work themselves. "And really, in these times, I couldn't stand Linda for more than five minutes," one of them said.

As to the air-raids, she was not greatly alarmed at them. Of course it was very uncomfortable having London so dark at night, but then she only went out in the afternoon, and never in the evening. And the Germans seemed to be content and discriminating enough not to bomb what she called "the residential" parts of London. The nearest to Portland Place of their attentions was Hampstead or Bloomsbury. "We are protected, my dear, by the open spaces of Regent's Park. They wouldn't like to waste their bombs on poor me!"

However her maid didn't altogether like the off chance of the Germans or our air-craft guns making a mistake and trespassing on the residential parts of London, so she persuaded her mistress to spend part of the winter of 1915-16 at Bournemouth. Here she was not happy and far lonelier even than in London. She did not like to send all that way for the Adams children, she had a parlour suite all to herself at the hotel, and was timid about making acquaintances outside, since everybody now-a-days wanted you to subscribe to something, and it was so disagreeable having to say "no." She was not a great walker so she could not enjoy the Talbot woods; the sea made her feel sad, remembering that Michael was the other side and the submarines increasingly active: in short, air-raids or no air-raids, she returned home in March, and her maid, who had been with her ten years, gave her warning.

But then she had an inspiration! She engaged Mrs. Albert Adams to take her place, and although the parlour-maid at this took offence and cut the painter of domestic service, went off to the munitions till Sergeant Frederick Summers should get leave to come home and marry her; and they were obliged to engage another parlour-maid in her place at double the wages: Mrs. Rossiter had done a very wise thing. "Bert" had been home for three weeks in the preceding February, and the recently bereaved Mrs. Adams had united her tears with Mrs. Rossiter's on the misery of the War which separated attached husbands and wives. It now alleviated the sorrows of both that they should be together as mistress and maid. The cook—a most important factor—had always liked Bertie and adored his "sweet, pretty little children." "If you'll let 'em sleep in the spare room on the fourth floor, next their mother, and play in the day-time in the servants' 'all, they'll be no manner of difficulty nor bother to me and the maids. We shall love to 'ave 'em, the darlin's. And they'll serve to cheer you up a bit ma'am till the Professor comes back."

Mrs. Adams was a very capable person who hated dust and grime. The big house wanted some such intervention, as since the butler's departure it had become rather slovenly, save in the portions occupied by Mrs. Rossiter. Charwomen were got in, and spring cleanings on a gigantic scale took place, so that when Rossiter did return he thought it had never looked so nice, or his Linda been so cheery and companionable.

But before this happy confirmation of her wisdom in engaging Nance Adams as maid and factotum, Mrs. Rossiter had several waves of doubt and distress to breast. There was the Suffrage question. Once converted by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Miss Violet Markham, Sir Almroth Wright—whose prenom she could not pronounce—the late Lord Cromer, and the impressive Lord Curzon, to the perils of the Woman's Vote, Mrs. Rossiter was hard to move from her uncompromising opposition to the enfranchisement of her sex. Some adroit champion of the Wrong had employed the argument that once Women got the vote, the Divorce Laws would be greatly enlarged. This would be part of the scheme of the wild women to get themselves all married; that and the legalisation of Polygamy which would follow the Vote as surely as the night the day. Linda had an undefined terror that her Michael might take advantage of such licentiousness to depose her, like the Empress Josephine was put aside in favour of a child-producing rival; or if polygamy came into force, that Miss Warren might lawfully share the Professor's affections.

She was therefore greatly perturbed in the course of 1916 at the sudden throwing up of the sponge by the Anti-suffragists. However, there it was. The long struggle drew to a victorious close. Example as well as precept pointed to what women could do and were worth; sound arguments followed the inconveniences of militancy, and the men were convinced. Or rather, the men in the mass and the fighting, working men had for some time been convinced, but the great statesmen who had so obstinately opposed the measures were now weakening at the knees before the results of their own mismanagement in the conduct of the War.

A further perplexity and anxiety for Mrs. Rossiter arose over the German spy mania. She had been to one of Lady Towcester's afternoon parties "to keep up our spirits." Lady Towcester collected for at least six different charities and funds, and Mrs. Rossiter was a generous subscriber to all six. Touching the wood of the central tea-table, she had remarked to Lady Victoria and Lady Helen Freebooter how fortunate they (who lived within the prescribed area defined by Lady Jeune) had been in so far escaping air-raids.

"But don't you know why?" said Lady Victoria.

Mrs. Rossiter didn't.

"Because in Manchester Square, in Cavendish—Grosvenor—Hanover Squares, in Portland Place—a few doors off your own house—in Harley Street and Wigmore Street: there are special friends of the Kaiser living. They may call themselves by English names, they may even be ex-cabinet-ministers; but they are working for the Kaiser, all the same. And he wouldn't be such a fool as to have them bombed, would he?"

"Especially as it is well known that there is a wireless installation on a house in Portland Place which communicates with a similar installation in the Harz Mountains," added Lady Helen.

This was a half-reassuring, half-terrifying statement. It was comfortable to know that you lived under the Kaiser's wing—Mrs. Rossiter hoped the aim of the aeronauts was accurate, and their knowledge of London topography good. At the same time it was alarming to feel that you might be involved in that final blow up of the villains which must bring such scoundreldom to a close. But if Lady Vera and Lady Helen knew all this for a fact, why not tell the Police? "What would be the good? They'd deny everything and we should only be sued for libel."

However to form some conception of how English home life was undermined with plots, she was advised to go and see Mr. Dennis Eadie in The Man That Stayed at Home. She did, taking Mrs. Adams with her to the Dress Circle for a matinee. Both were very much impressed, and on their return expected the fireplaces to open all of a piece and reveal German spies with masked faces and pistols, standing in the chimney.

At last these and other nightmares were dispelled by the arrival of Rossiter on leave of absence in the autumn of 1916. He had the rank of Colonel in the R.A.M.C., and wore the khaki uniform—Mrs. Rossiter proudly thought—of a General. He had shaved off his beard and trimmed his moustache and looked particularly soldierly. The butler who came with him though not precisely a soldier but a sort of N.C.O. in a medical corps, also looked quite martial, and had so much to say for himself that Mrs. Rossiter felt he could never become a butler again. But he did all the same, and a most efficient one though a little breezy in manner.

Linda now entered on an aftermath of matrimonial happiness. Rossiter was to take quite a long leave so that he could pursue the most important researches in curative surgery—bone grafting and the like; not only in his own laboratory but at the College of Surgeons and the Zoological Gardens Prosectorium. With only occasional week-ends at home he had been away from London since September, 1914; had known great hardships, the life of the trenches and the bomb-proof shelter, stewed tea and bad tinned milk, rum and water, bully beef, plum and apple jam, good bread, it is true, but shocking margarine for butter. He had slept for weeks together on an old sofa more or less dressed, kept warm by his great-coat and two Army blankets of woven porcupine quills (seemingly) the ends of which tickled his nose and scratched his face. He had been very cold and sweatingly hot, furiously hungry with no meal to satisfy his healthy appetite, madly thirsty and no long drink attainable; unable to sleep for three nights at a time owing to the noise of the bombardment; surfeited with horrible smells; sickened with butchery; shocked at his own failures to retrieve life, yet encouraged by an isolated victory, here and there, over death and disablement. So the never-before-appreciated comfort of his Park Crescent home filled him with intense gratitude to Linda.

Had he known, he owed some of his acknowledgment to Mrs. Adams; who had worked both hard and tactfully in her undefined position of lady's-maid-housekeeper-companion. But naturally he didn't know, though he praised his wife warmly for her charity of soul in taking pity on the poor little woman and her two children. He could only give the slightest news about Bertie, but said he was a sort of jack-of-all-trades for the Y.M.C.A. As to Vivie—"that Miss Warren"—he answered his wife's questions neither with the glowering taciturnity nor suspicious loquacity of former times. "Miss Warren? Vivie? I fancy she's still at Brussels, but there is no chance of finding out. There is a story that her mother is dead. P'raps now they'll let her come away. She must be jolly well sick of Brussels by now. When I last heard of Adams he was still hoping to get into touch with her. I hope he won't take any risks. She's a clever woman and I dare say can take care of herself. I hope we shall all meet again when the War is over."

He seemed very pleased to hear of the new Conciliation Bill, the general agreement all round on the Suffrage question and the enlargement of the electorate. He had always told Linda it was bound to come. "And after it has come, dearie, you mark my words: things will go on pretty much as before." But his real, intense, absorbing interest lay in the new experiments he was about to make in bone grafting and cartilage replacing, and the functions of the pituitary body and the interstitial glands. To carry these out adequately the Zoological Society had accumulated troops of monkeys and baboons. At a certain depot in Camden Town dogs were kept for his purposes. And the vaults and upper floors of the Royal College of Surgeons were at Rossiter's disposal, with Professor Keith to co-operate. Never had his house in Portland Place—to be accurate the Park Crescent end thereof—seemed so conveniently situated, or its studio-laboratory so well designed. "Air-raids? Pooh! Just about one chance in a million we should be struck. Besides: can't think of that, when so much is at stake. That's a fine phrase, 'Menders of the Maimed.' Just what we want to be! No more artificial limbs if we can help you to grow your own new legs and arms—perhaps. At any rate, mend up those that are a hopeless mash. Grand work! Only bright thing in the War. Now dear, are you ready with that lymph?"

And she was. Never had Linda been so happy. She overcame her disgust at the sight of blood, at monkeys, dogs, and humans under anaesthetics, at yellow fat, gleaming sinew, and blood-stained bone. She was careful as a washer-up. The services of Mrs. Adams were enlisted, and she was more deft even than her mistress; and the butler, who was by this time a regular hospital dresser, greatly admired her pretty arms when they were bared to the elbow, and her flushed cheeks when she took a humble part in some tantalizing adjustment.

"I'm some use to you after all," Linda would say when they retired from the studio for a rest and she made the tea. "Some use? I should think so!" said Rossiter (whether truly or not). And he reproached himself that twenty years ago he had not trained and developed her to help him in his work, to be a real companion in his studies.

He was really fond of her through the winter of 1916. And so jovial and lover-like, so boyish in his fun, so like the typical Tommy home from the trenches. When he was overjoyed at the success of some uncovered and peeped-at experiment, he would sing, "When I get me civvies on again, an' it's Home Sweet Home once more"; and ask for the ideal cottage "with rowses round the door—And a nice warm bottle in me nice warm bed, An' a nice soft pillow for me nice soft 'ead..." Mrs. Rossiter began to think there was a good side to the War, after all. It made some men more conscious of their home comforts and less exigent for intellectuality in their home companions.

They went out very little into Society. Rossiter held that war-time parties were scandalous. He poohpoohed the idea that immodest dancing with frisky matrons or abandoned spinsters was necessary to restore the shell-shocked nerves of temporary captains, locally-ranked majors, or the recently-joined subaltern. He was far too busy for twaddly tea-fights and carping at hard-worked generals who were doing their best and a good best too. He and Linda did dine occasionally with Honoria, but the latter felt she could not let herself go about Vivie in the presence of Mrs. Rossiter and seemed a little cold in manner.

Ordinarily, after working hard all day while the daylight lasted they much preferred an evening of complete solitude. Rossiter's new robustness of taste included love of a gramophone. Money being no consideration with them, they acquired a tip-top one with superlative records; not so much the baaing, bellowing and shrieking of fashionable singers, but orchestral performances, heart-melting duets between violin and piano (what human voice ever came up to a good violin or violoncello?), racy comic songs, inspiriting two steps, xylophone symphonies, and dreamy, sensuous waltzes. This gramophone Linda learnt to work; and while Michael read voraciously the works of Hunter, Hugh Owen Thomas, Stromeyer, Duchenne, Goodsir, Wolff, and Redfern on bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, periosteum and osteogenesis—or, more often, Keith's compact and lucid analysis of their experiments and conclusions—Linda let loose in the scented air of a log fire these varied melodies which attuned the mind to extraordinary perceptibility.

The little Adamses were allowed to steal in and listen, on condition they never uttered a word to break the spell of Colonel Rossiter's thoughts.

I think also Rossiter felt his wife had been unjustly snubbed by the great ladies and the off-hand, harum-scarum young war-workers; so he flatly declined to have any of them messing around his studio or initiated into his research work. It was intimated that the Rossiter Thursday afternoons of long ago would not be resumed until after the peace. Linda therefore derived much consolation and satisfaction for past injuries to her pride when Lady Vera—or Victoria—Freebooter called one day just before Christmas and said "Oh—er—mother's let our house till February and thinks we'd better—I mean the Marrybone Guild of war-workers—meet at your house instead"; and she, Linda, had the opportunity of replying: "Oh, I'm sorry, but It's QUITE impossible. The Professor—I mean, Colonel Rossiter—and I are so very busy ... we are seeing no one just now. Indeed we've enlisted all the servants to help the Colonel in his work, so I can't even offer you a cup of tea.... I must rush back at once.... You'll excuse me?"

"That Rossiter woman is quite off her head with grandeur," said Lady Vera to Lady Helen. "I expect Uncle Algy has let out that her husband is in the New Year's honours."

And so he was. But Uncle Algy, though he might have babbled to his nieces, had not written a word to the Rossiters. So they just enjoyed Christmas—too much, they thought, more than any Christmas before—in the simple satisfaction of being Colonel and Mrs. Rossiter, all in all to each other, but rendered additionally happy by making those about them happy. The little Adamses staggered under their presents and had a Christmas Tree to which they were allowed to ask their two grannies—Mrs. Laidly from Fig Tree Court and Mrs. Adams from the Kilburn Laundry—and numerous little friends from Marylebone, who had been washed and curled and crimped and adjured not to disgrace their parents, or father—in the trenches—would be told "as sure as I stand here."

(The little Adamses were also warned that if they ever again were heard calling Mrs. Rossiter "Gran'ma," they'd—but the threat was too awful to be uttered, especially as their mother at this time was always on the verge of tears, either at getting no news of Bert or at the unforgettable kindness of Bert's employer.)

Mrs. Rossiter, quite unaware that she was soon to be a Dame, gave Christmas entertainments at St. Dunstan's, at the Marylebone Workhouse, and to all the wounded soldiers in the parish. And on December 31, 1916, Michael received a note from the Prime Minister to say that His Majesty, in recognition of his exceptional services in curative surgery at the front, had been pleased to bestow on him a Knight Commandership of the Bath. "So that, Linda, you can call yourself Lady Rossiter, and you will have to get some new cards printed for both of us."

Linda didn't feel quite that ecstasy over her title that she had expected in her day-dreams. She was getting a little frightened at her happiness. Generations of Puritan forefathers and mothers had left some influence of Calvinism on her mentality. She was brought up to believe in a jealous God, whose Providence when you felt too happy on earth just landed you in some unexpected disaster to fit you for the Kingdom of Heaven—a Kingdom which all healthy human beings shrink from entering with the terror of the unknown and a certain homeliness of disposition which is humbly content with this cosy planet and a corporeal existence.

However it was very nice to leave cards of calling on Lady Towcester—even though she was out of town on account of air-raids—and on others, inscribed: "Lady Rossiter, Colonel Sir Michael Rossiter, Sir Michael and Lady Rossiter;" and to see printed foolscap envelopes for Michael arrive from the War Office and lie on the hall table, addressed: Colonel Sir Michael Rossiter K.C.B. etc., etc., etc., etc.