The Outrage

"What are they saying?" asked Louise in an undertone.

Chérie listened. So far as she could understand they were making arrangements as to where they should sleep.

"Eight men are to stay here," she translated in a whisper, "four in the attics and four downstairs. They themselves are going somewhere else—wait! They are talking of the Cheval Blanc—wait … wait … they are saying"—and her eyes dilated—"that they can't go there because the inn is burning...."

At this point Von Wedel gave a loud laugh and Fischer smiled. Only Glotz's chubby countenance remained solemn, like the face of an anxious baby.

"What are they saying now?" asked Louise.

Mireille whispered, "They are talking about the Pfarrer—that means the priest."

"About Monsieur le Curé? What are they saying about him?"

At this point Von Wedel laughed again. "Der alte Esel!… Seine eigene Schuld...."

"What is that? what is that?" asked Louise.

"The old donkey … his own fault," translated Mireille.

"And now what?" The captain was bending down and looking at his boots.

Chérie interpreted. "He says he will be glad to get the mud and blood off his feet...."

"Mud and blood?" echoed Louise in a horrified whisper. "Surely not."

Mireille nodded. "Koth und Blut—that is what he said."

A wave of sickness came over Louise; she felt the ground heave under her.

Now Von Wedel was helping the captain to take off his tunic, drawing the left sleeve down with great precaution.

"He says he is wounded," whispered Mireille.

"But he says it is nothing; that his arm is only grazed," supplemented Chérie.

The coat was off and Captain Fischer was carefully turning up his shirt-sleeve. Yes; the forearm was grazed and bleeding.

The captain examined it very carefully, and so did Von Wedel, bending over it and shaking his head with an air of great concern. The captain looked across at Louise and beckoned to her with his finger.

"Come here, Gnädige, please;" and as she approached him he said, "Your husband is a doctor, is he not? Then you will have some antiseptic in the house. Lysoform? Sublimate? Have you?" Louise nodded assent. "Bring me some," he said. "And a little boiled water if you have it."

Louise turned without a word and left the room.

"She is very stupid," said Von Wedel looking after her.

"She is very pretty," said the captain.

Louise passed the soldiers who stood in the hall talking together in low voices. She went down the stairs feeling dizzy and bewildered. Would these men stay in the house all night? Would they sleep and eat here? Would they order her about, and ogle Chérie, and bully little Mireille? How long would they stay, she wondered. A week? a month?… She entered her husband's surgery and turned on the light. The sight of his room, of his chair, of his book, open on the desk as he had left it, seemed to wring her heart in a vice of pain. "Claude! Claude!" she sobbed. "Come back! Come back and take care of us!"

But Claude was far away.

She found the little blue phial of pastilles of corrosive sublimate; she poured some distilled water into a small basin and found cotton and a packet of lint for a bandage. Then she went upstairs again, past the soldiers in grey, and entered the sitting-room. It was empty.

Where had they all gone to? Where had they taken Chérie and Mireille? She stumbled blindly up the short flight of stairs leading to the drawing-room. There she heard their voices, and went in.

Captain Fischer was reclining on the sofa, still in his shirt-sleeves, with his boots off. Von Wedel and Glotz were at the flower-adorned supper-table prepared for Chérie's birthday party, and were eating sandwiches in large mouthfuls. Their grey helmets were on the piano; their belts on a chair. Chérie stood cowering in a corner near the door.

"Where is Mireille?" cried Louise; and Chérie replied, "She is all right. He"—indicating the captain on the sofa—"has sent her to fetch him some slippers." Her lips quivered. "I wanted to go with her but they would not let me."

"I feel as if we were in a dream," murmured Louise.

"Ah," cried the man on the sofa, catching sight of Louise, "here is my good Samaritan." He crossed the room in his stockinged feet and took the basin out of her hands. He looked round a moment uncertain where to put it; then he drew up a satin chair and placed the basin of water on it.

"Gut," he said. "And what have we here?" He took the little bottle from her hand. "'Perchlor. of mercury, 1.0 gramme.' That is right." He shook one of the little pink tablets out on his palm and dropped it in the water. "Now, charming lady, will you be a sister of mercy to a poor wounded man?" He bared his arm and sat down on the sofa again, making room for her beside him; but she stood in front of him, and dipping some pieces of cotton in the water she bathed the injured arm.

The door opened and Mireille came in with a pair of her father's slippers in her hand. When she saw her mother stooping over the man's arm her small face flushed scarlet. She flung the slippers down and, running to the corner where Chérie was standing, she hid her face on Chérie's arm.

"Ei, ei, the vixen!" laughed Von Wedel, taking another sandwich. "Now we want something to drink. Not these syrups," he added, pushing the grenadine and orangeade aside. "Let us have some champagne. Eh, Glotz? What do you say to that?"

"And some brandy," said Fischer. "This scratch is deucedly painful."

There was a moment's silence. Then Chérie, taking a step towards the door, said, "I will fetch some brandy."

"I'll come too," said Mireille.

"No, no, no, no," cried Von Wedel, catching hold of them each by one arm. "You two want to run away. I know your tricks! No. The vixen stays here; and the angel"—bending to gaze into Chérie's face—"comes with me and shows me where the brandy is kept."

"She shan't! she shan't!" screamed Mireille, clinging to Chérie's arm.

"Donner und Blitz!" exclaimed Von Wedel, "what a little demon. You just catch hold of her, Glotz, and keep her quiet."

Glotz, who had been sitting at the table eating silently, rose and dried his mouth on one of the beflowered tissue-paper serviettes. "I know where the cellar is," said he, "I saw it on my round with the Herr Kapitän. If the Herr Kapitän permits, I will fetch the brandy myself." And he left the room quickly, paying no heed to Von Wedel's murmured remark that he was a confounded interfering head of a sheep.

Louise had burst into tears when Von Wedel had told Glotz to hold Mireille, and although the captain patted her hand and told her not to cry she went on weeping bitterly while she bandaged his arm.

Von Wedel looked at her a moment and then turned to Chérie. "What relation are you to that weeping Niobe? I forget."

"Sister-in-law," murmured Chérie inaudibly.

"What? Speak louder. I can't hear," said Von Wedel, seating himself on a corner of the table and lighting one of Dr. Brandès's cigars.

"Sister-in-law," repeated Chérie faintly.

"Sister-in-law? Good." He puffed at the cigar. "And I'll be your brother-in-law, shall I? Ah, here is the wine!" he exclaimed as the door was thrown open.

But it was not the wine. It was another officer, dressed like the others in a grey uniform bereft of all insignia; he was very red and covered with dust and mud. He saluted the captain and nodded to the lieutenant, loosened his belt and flung his grey helmet on the piano where the others lay.

"Ah, Feldmann," cried Captain Fischer. "What have you done?"

"My duty," said the new-comer in a curious hoarse voice.

"Der Pfarrer?" … questioned Von Wedel.

The man nodded and made a grimace. "And that idiot of a scout-boy too. It was he who fired at you," he said turning to Fischer.

"It was not," said the captain. "It was an old man, from a window. Near the church."

"Oh well, I didn't see any old man," said Captain Feldmann. "And these civilians must be taught their lesson.... What have we here?" he added, surveying the table. "I am famished." And he took two or three sandwiches, placed them one on the other and ate them. "Beastly hole, this," he remarked, with his mouth full. "We needn't have come here at all."

"Oh yes, we need," declared Fischer very sternly.

"Well, we won't discuss that," said Feldmann. "And anyhow we are going on in the morning. I should like something to drink."

Chérie had flushed to the roots of her hair. She had grasped the one thing only—they were going on in the morning! At any cost she must tell Louise that wonderful news. And she did so rapidly, in low tones, in Flemish.

Louise, who had finished bandaging the officer's wounded arm, burst into tears again; this time they were tears of joy.

"What are these women?" inquired Feldmann, glancing around with his mouth full. "They look like ballet-dancers."

"That one," said Von Wedel, with a coarse laugh, pointing at Louise, "is the weeping Niobe; and that" indicating Mireille—"is the demon child. And this"—taking Chérie's wrist and drawing her towards him—"is my sister-in-law and an angel."

"And this is Veuve Clicquot '85," said Glotz entering with some bottles in his hand and stepping as if casually between Chérie and her tormentor.

The men turned all their attention to the wines, and sent Glotz to the cellar three or four times to fetch some more.

They wanted Martel; they wanted Kirsch; they wanted Pernod. Then they wanted more champagne. Then they wanted more sandwiches, which Louise went to make. Then they wanted coffee, which Feldmann insisted upon making himself on a spirit-lamp. They set fire to the tablecloth and to the tissue-paper serviettes, which they threw down and stamped out on the carpet.

Von Wedel sat down at the piano and sang "Traum durch die Dämmerung," and Feldmann wailed a chorus. Then Feldmann recited a poem. He was very tipsy and had to put one arm around Glotz's neck and lean heavily on Glotz's shoulder in order to be able to stand up and gesticulate.

"Liebe Mutter, der Mann mit dem Kocks ist da!""Schweig still, mein Junge, das weiss ich ja."Hab'ich kein Geld, hast du kein Geld,"Wer hat denn den Mann mit dem Kocks bestellt?"

Great laughter and applause from Captain Fischer and Von Wedel greeted this; only Glotz remained impassive; with Feldmann's arm around his neck, his chubby countenance unmoved, his expression vacant.

For some time they paid no heed to the three women clustered together in the furthest corner of the room, except to stretch out a detaining hand whenever they tried to move towards the door.

"No," declared Von Wedel, leering at them through his light, vague eyes. "No. You don't leave this room. Not all three together. Only one at a time; then we're sure she'll come back."

So they clung together with pale bewildered faces, whispering to each other every now and then the comforting words, "They will go away in the morning."

But the morning was not yet.

When Captain Fischer suggested that it was time to go to bed, the others called him an old screech-owl; whereupon Captain Fischer explained to them at great length that military discipline did not permit them to call him a screech-owl. And he called Louise to witness that he had been called a screech-owl.

But now Feldmann was singing "Gaudeamus igitur," so the captain joined in too.

"Come along," said Von Wedel, lurching towards Chérie with two glasses in his hand; "come, turtle-dove, Brüdershaft trinken!" He forced one of the glasses into her hand. "You must drink the pledge of brotherhood with us. Like this"—and he made her stand face to face with him, pushing his left arm through hers and raising his glass in his right hand.

Chérie shrank back, seeking refuge behind Louise. But he dragged her forward and caught her by the arm again.

"Obedience!" he roared, scowling at her. "Now sing; 'Lebe, liebe, trinke, schwärme'—and when I get to the words 'froh mit mir,' we clink our glasses together."

"Please not! please not!" implored Chérie.

"Froh mit mir"—repeated he, glaring at her through his heavy lids. And he sang:

Lebe, liebe, trinke schwärmeUnd erfreue dich mit mir.Härme dich wenn ich mich härmeUnd sei weiderfrohmitmir!

At the last three words he clinked his glass against Chérie's. "Drink!" he commanded in a terrible voice. "If you do not drink, it is an insult which must be punished."

With a sob Chérie raised the glass to her lips.

Louise was wringing her hands. "The brute! the brute!" she cried, while Mireille holding her mother's skirts stared wide-eyed at the scene.

Captain Fischer looked across at Louise. "My Samaritan," … he mumbled. "My sister of mercy...." He rose and approached her with a stupefied smile.

Mireille rushed at him like a little fury. "Go away," she screamed, "go away!"

The Herr Kapitän took her not unkindly by the shoulders. "Little girls should be in bed," he said thickly. "My little girls are in bed long ago."

Louise clasped her hands. "I beg you, sir, have pity on us; let us go away.... The house is yours, but let us go away."

"Where do you want to go?" he asked dully.

"To our rooms," said Louise.

"You have no rooms; they are ours," he said, and bending forward he widened his eyes at her significantly.

Louise looked about her like a trapped animal. She saw Von Wedel and Feldmann who had Chérie between them and were forcing her to drink out of their glasses; she saw Glotz seated on the piano-stool looking on with fat, impassive face; she saw the man before her bending forward and leering suggestively, so close that she could feel his hot, acrid breath on her face. The enemy! The man with mud and blood on his feet … he was putting out his hand and touching her–

She fell on her knees and dragged Mireille down beside her! she lifted up her hands and raised her weeping face to him. "Your children … you have children at home … your little girls are in bed and asleep … they are safe … safe, locked in their house.... As God may guard them for you, oh protect us! spare us! Take care of us!… Be kind—be kind!" She dropped forward with her head on his feet—on Claude's slippers—and little Mireille with quick tears rolling down her face looked up at him and touched his sleeve with a trembling hand.

He looked down and frowned. His mouth worked. Yes. He had three yellow-headed little girls in Stuttgart. It was good that they were in Stuttgart and not in Belgium. But they were little German girls, while these were enemies. These were belligerents. Civilians if you will, but still belligerents....

He looked down at the woman's bowed head and fragile heaving shoulders, and he looked at the white, frightened child-face lifted to his. "Belligerents" … he growled, and cleared his throat and frowned. Then his chin quivered. "Get away," he said thickly. "Get away, both of you. Quick. Hide in the cellar—no—not in the cellar, in the stable—in the garden—anywhere. Don't go in the streets. The streets are full of drunken soldiers. Go."

Louise kissed his feet, kissed Claude's slippers, and wept, while Mireille smiled up at him with the smile of a seraph, and thanked and thanked him, not knowing what she thanked him for.

"But—what of Chérie?" gasped Louise, looking round at the frightened wild-rose figure in its white dress, trembling and weeping between the two ribald men.

"You shall take her with you," said Fischer, and he went resolutely across the room and took Chérie by the arm.

"What? What? You old reprobate," roared Feldmann, digging him in the ribs, with peals of coarse laughter. "You have two of them! What more do you want, you hedgehog, you? Leave this one alone."

"You leave her alone, too. I order her to go away." Fischer frowned and cleared his throat and tried to draw Chérie from Feldmann's and Von Wedel's grasp.

"What do you mean?" asked Von Wedel, going close up to Fischer and looking him up and down with provocative and menacing air.

"I mean that you leave her alone," puffed the captain. "Those are my orders, Lieutenant—and if they are not obeyed you shall answer for it."

"You old woman! you old head of a sheep," shouted Von Wedel; "answer for it, shall I? You are drunk; and I'm drunk; and I don't care a snap about your orders." And dragging Chérie's arm from Fischer's grasp he pushed him back and glowered at him.

"Your orders …" stuttered the intoxicated Feldmann, placing his hand on Fischer's shoulder to steady himself, "your orders … direct contradiction with other orders … higher orders …" He wagged his head at Fischer. "The German seal must be set upon the enemy's country.... Go away. Don't be a screeching owl."

"And don't be a head of a sheep," added Von Wedel. "Vae victis! If it isn't you, it'll be somebody else. It'll be old Glotz—look at him … sitting there, all agog, arrectis auribus! Or it will be our drunken men downstairs. Just listen to them!…"

The drunken men downstairs were roaring "Die Wacht am Rhein." Von Wedel's argument seemed to carry conviction.

"Vae victis!" sighed Fischer, swallowing another glass of brandy and looking across the room at the trembling Louise. "If it isn't I … then Glotz … or somebody else … drunken soldiers...."

He went unsteadily towards Louise, who stood clutching at the locked door. "Woe to the vanquished, my poor woman … seal of Germany … higher orders.... Why should I be a head of a sheep?…"

BOOK II

CHAPTER VI

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?