The Outrage

When we say we are a humdrum nation, when we say we are a dull and slow and stodgy nation, do we not in our heart of hearts think that it would be a good thing if other nations took an example from our very faults?

Even so when Miss Corry said, "We are narrow-minded old maids"—she felt with a little twinge of remorse that the statement was not altogether sincere. Did she really, in her heart of hearts, think it narrow-minded to abhor vulgarity, to shun coarseness, to shrink from all that might be considered indecorous or unseemly? Then surely to be narrow-minded was better than to be broad-minded, and she for one would certainly refuse to change her views. Was narrow-mindedness mindedness nowadays not almost a synonym for pure-mindedness?

And—"old maids"! Did she really consider herself and her younger sister old maids? Had they—just because they had chosen to remain unmarried—any of the crotchety notions, the fantastic, ineradicable habits that old maids usually get into? Did they go about with a parrot on their shoulder like Miss Davis? Or dose themselves all day with patent medicines, like the Honourable Harriet Fyle? Did they fret and fuss over their food, or live in constant terror of draughts and burglars? Certainly not. And—come now—did they really feel a day older than when they were twenty-two and twenty-five respectively? Or did they look any older?—except for their hair which, had they chosen, they could easily have touched up with henné or Inecto? Were they not able to do anything, to go anywhere? Were their hearts not as young, and fresh, and ready for love if it happened to come their way, as Kitty Mulholland's or Dolly Davidson's? Did not their elder brothers—the parson and the Judge—always speak of them still as "the girls"?

No. Miss Jane and Miss Julia Corry were not quite sincere when they called themselves "narrow-minded old maids," and accordingly they had qualms and conscience-pricks when they did so.

A week later the two sisters returned Mrs. Mulholland's call. They fluttered into the large drawing room full of the subdued murmur of many voices, and were greeted absent-mindedly by the busy hostess and effusively by Kitty. The Davidsons were there, quite unsuitably attired (remarked Miss Jane to Miss Julia; nobody wore satin at tea), and they were explaining volubly to a group of ladies how it happened that their Belgian countess-refugee had suddenly left them.

"First of all, she was not a countess at all," explained Dolly Davidson.

"And she was not even a Belgian," Mrs. Davidson added, in aggrieved tones. "I cannot understand the W.S.L. sending her to us. Why she confessed before she went away that she was a variety artist from Linz and could only speak German and Czech. We always thought the language she spoke was Flemish. It has been a most unpleasant affair."

Every one was tacitly delighted. Mrs. Davidson had been giving herself such airs of importance with her countess, and now it turned out that she had been playing Lady Bountiful to an alien enemy from a Bohemian Café Chantant. One would have to be super-human not to rejoice. "How did you get rid of her?" asked one of the ladies, discreetly repressing her smiles.

"A villainous-looking man came to fetch her, late in the evening," said poor Mrs. Davidson, blushing. "They made a frightful noise in the hall, quarrelling or something."

"Then they both went upstairs," piped up Dolly Davidson; and pointing to her brother, a lumpish youth who at that moment had his mouth full of cake. "We sent Reggy upstairs to tell them to go away at once. But Reggy only looked through the keyhole and wouldn't come down again until mother fetched him."

"It isn't true," mumbled Reggy.

"Finally we had to send for the police," said Mrs. Davidson, with tears of mortification in her eyes.

Mrs. Mulholland confessed that she felt rather nervous about her own refugees who were expected at any moment. "I wish I could countermand them," she said; but her sympathizing friends all agreed that having asked for them she must keep them when they came.

They arrived the following day—an uninteresting woman, with two torpid boys and a thin girl of fifteen.

The boys ate a great deal, and the girl was uncannily intelligent. Since landing in England they had had it drummed into them that they were heroes; they had been acclaimed with their compatriots as the saviours of Europe; they had had speeches made to them apprising them of the fact that the gratitude of all the world could never repay the debt that civilization owed them. They therefore accepted as their due the attentions and kindness shown them. They ate jam at all their meals and asked for butter with their dinner; they drank red wine and put a great deal of sugar in it; they complained that the coffee was not good. They borrowed Mrs. Mulholland's seal-skin coat and Kitty's silk scarves when they felt chilly, and they sat in the drawing-room writing letters or looking at illustrated papers all day long. They spoke French in undertones among themselves and accepted everything that was provided for them without any undue display of gratitude. Had they not saved Europe? Would Mrs. Mulholland still have a seal-skin coat to her back but for Belgium? Had it not been for King Albert, would not the Uhlans and the Death's Head hussars be sprawling on the Mulholland sofa, eating the Mulholland jam, criticizing the Mulholland coffee? Comment donc!

And had they not themselves, in order to save Europe, given up their home and their business—a stuffy little restaurant (Au Boeuf à la Mode, Épicerie, Commestibles) down a dingy Brussels street?

The restaurant soon became a Grand Hotel in their fond reminiscences. Le souvenir, cet embellisseur, swept the sardine-tins, the candles, the lemons, and the flies from its windows, built up a colonnaded front, added three or four stories and filled them with rich and titled guests.

"What was the name of your hotel?" inquired Mrs. Mulholland. "We stopped in Brussels once on our way to Spa, and I remember that we stayed in a most excellent hotel—The Britannique, or The Metropole, or something."

"Tell them," said Mme. Pitou to her daughter Toinon who acted as interpreter,—"tell them the name of our hotel—in English."

"Restaurant to the Fashionable Beef," said Mademoiselle Pitou; and Madame Pitou sighed and shook her head despondently. "Hotel," she corrected, "not Restaurant. 'Hotel to the Fashionable Beef.' Toinon," she added, "do ask these people to give us potage aux poireaux this evening, for I cannot and will not eat that black broth of false turtle any more."

CHAPTER VII

The craze for refugees cooled slightly in the neighbourhood after that. The first rush of enthusiastic generosity abated, and when friends met at knitting-parties and compared refugees there was a certain ægritude on the part of those who had them, and a certain smiling superiority on the part of those who had not. They were spoken of as if they were a disease, like measles or mumps.

"I hear that Lady Osmond has them," said Mrs. Mellon.

"Has she really?"

"Yes. And poor Mrs. Whitaker, too."

"Mrs. Whitaker? You don't say so."

"Yes, indeed. Mrs. Whitaker has them. And she feels it badly."

"I will run over to see her," said the sympathetic Mrs. Mulholland. "I am so fond of the dear soul."

But that very afternoon Mrs. Whitaker herself called on Mrs. Mulholland, at Park House.

"How do you do, my poor dear Theresa?" began Mrs. Mulholland, taking Mrs. Whitaker's hand and pressing it. "I hear–"

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Whitaker rather fretfully, drawing her hand away. "Of course you have heard that I have them." There was a brief silence. "I must confess I did not expect quite such dreary ones."

"Dreary, are they?" exclaimed Mrs. Mulholland. "Is that all?"

"It's bad enough," sighed Mrs. Whitaker. "You have no idea what they are like. Three creatures that look as if they had stepped out of a nightmare."

But Mrs. Mulholland overflowed with her own grievances. "Do they borrow your clothes and use all your letter-paper and order your dinners?" asked Mrs. Mulholland, quivering with indignation. Her cook had just given notice on account of Madame Pitou going into the kitchen and making herself a timbale de riz aux champignons.

"No. They don't do that. But they sit about and never speak and look like ghosts," said Mrs. Whitaker. "When you have time you might drop in and see them."

"I think I'll run over with you now," said Mrs. Mulholland; "though I don't for a moment believe they can be as bad as mine."

She put on her garden-hat and her macintosh, told Kitty not to let the Pitous do any cooking in the drawing-room, and went out with Mrs. Whitaker. They took the short cut across the fields to Acacia Lodge.

"What language do they speak?" asked Mrs. Mulholland, as she proceeded with Mrs. Whitaker through the green garden-gate and down the drive.

"They never speak at all," replied Mrs. Whitaker; "and I must say I had looked forward to a little French conversation for Eva and Tom. That is really what I got them for."

They walked on under the chestnut-trees towards the house. Eva in trim tennis attire and George in khaki came to meet them, running across the lawn.

"I've beaten George by six four," cried Eva, waving her racket.

"That's because I let you," said her brother, shaking hands with Mrs. Mulholland and allowing his mother to pat his brown cheek.

"Handsome lad," murmured Mrs. Mulholland, and wished she had brought Kitty with her, even though the Pitous should profit by her absence to prepare their tête-de-veau en poulette on the drawing-room fire. "Where are … they?" she added, dropping her voice and looking round.

"I don't know," said Eva. "I have not seen them all the afternoon."

"I have," said George. "They are in the shrubbery."

"You might call them, dear boy," said his fond mother.

"Not I," said George.

"I will," said Eva, and ran down the flower-bordered path swinging her racket.

"Sweet girl," said Mrs. Mulholland, following Eva's slim silhouette with benevolent eyes, and then gazing even more benevolently at George Whitaker's stalwart figure. "She and my Kitty should really see something more of each other."

Mrs. Whitaker threw a penetrating glance at her friend's profile. "Schemer," she murmured to herself. "Certainly," she said aloud. "As soon as George goes to Aldershot I hope your dear daughter will often come here."

"Cat," reflected Mrs. Mulholland. And aloud she said, "How delightful for both the dear girls!"

George had sauntered with his long khaki limbs towards the shrubbery, but Eva reappeared alone.

"They won't come," she said.

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Mulholland.

"Why not?" asked Mrs. Whitaker.

"They don't want to," said Eva. "The tall one shook her head and said, 'Merci.'"

"I am not surprised," laughed George, "considering they have been exhibited to half the county within the last three days."

"I'll fetch them myself," said Mrs. Whitaker sternly. Then she turned to her son. "George, you who are half a Frenchman after your visit to Montreux, do tell me—how do I say in French, 'I desire you all three to come and be introduced to a very dear friend of mine?'"

There was a brief silence; then George translated. "Venny," he said.

"Is that all?"

"Yes," said George.

His mother was about to go when Mrs. Mulholland suggested: "Had we not both of us better take a turn round the garden, and casually saunter into the shrubbery?"

"Perhaps so," said Mrs. Whitaker.

And so they did. George followed them slowly, with Eva hanging on his arm. She was very fond and proud of her soldier brother.

They entered the shrubbery and saw seated upon a bench three figures dressed in black, who rose to their feet at their hostess's approach.

"Goodness gracious! how uncanny they look!" whispered Mrs. Mulholland, and added, with a smile of half-incredulous pleasure, "I believe they really are worse than mine."

The three black figures stood silent and motionless, and Mrs. Mulholland found herself gazing as if fascinated into the depths of three pairs of startled, almost hallucinated eyes, fixed gloomily upon her.

Mrs. Whitaker addressed them in English, speaking very loud with an idea of making them understand her better. They seemed not to hear, they certainly made no attempt to answer her amiable platitudes.

Mrs. Mulholland, moved to something like pity by their stricken appearance, put out her hand saying, "How do you do?" and two of them laid their limp fingers in hers—the third, whom she now noticed was a child although she wore a long black skirt, neither stirred nor removed her stony gaze from her face. There was an embarrassing pause. Then Mrs. Mulholland asked with a bright society smile—

"How do you like England?"

No answer.

"George, dear, ask them in French," said his mother.

George stepped forward blushing through his tan. "Um … er …" he cleared his throat. "S'il vous plaît Londres?" he inquired timidly.

He addressed the tallest, but she gazed at him vacantly, not understanding. The little girl stood next to her—the large tragic eyes in her small pale face still fixed on the unknown countenance of Mrs. Mulholland. She conveyed the impression that she had not heard any one speak.

George, blushing deeper, turned towards the third ghost standing before him, coughed again and repeated his question, "S'il vous plaît Londres?"

Then a strange thing happened. The third ghost smiled. It was a real smile, a gleaming smile, a smile with dimples. The ghost was suddenly transformed into a girl. "Merci. L'Angleterre nous plaît beaucoup." That was in order not to hurt the "half Frenchman's" feelings. Then she added in English, "London is very nice."

"Oh," snapped the astonished Mrs. Whitaker, "you speak English?" and her tone conveyed the impression that something belonging exclusively to her had been taken and used without her permission.

"A little," was the murmured reply. The smile had quickly died away; the dimples had vanished. Under Mrs. Whitaker's scrutiny the girl faded into a ghost again. The two ladies nodded and moved away. George and Eva, after a moment's hesitation and embarrassment, followed them.

"What strange, underhand behaviour!" commented Mrs. Whitaker; "never to have told me she understood English until today."

"I suppose they were trying to find out all your family concerns," said Mrs. Mulholland.

A word that sounded like "Bosh" proceeded from George, who had turned his back and was walking into the house.

"I think they were just dazed," explained Eva. "They look almost as if they were walking in their sleep. I never even noticed until today that they were all so young. Why, the little one is a mere kiddy;" she twisted round on her heel. "I think I shall go back and talk to them," she added.

"No," said her mother. "You will stay here."

That evening when Mr. Whitaker came back from the City his daughter had much to tell him, and even the somewhat supercilious George took an interest and joined in the conversation.

"The ghosts have spoken, papa!" cried Eva, dancing round him in the hall. Then as soon as he was in the drawing-room she made him sit down in his armchair and kissed him on the top of his benevolent bald head. "And—do you know?—they are really not ghosts at all; are they, mother?"

Mrs. Whitaker did not look up from her knitting. But her husband spoke.

"They are the wife, the sister, and the daughter of a doctor," he said. "At the Belgian Consulate I was told they were quite decent people. My dear Theresa," he added, looking at his wife, "I think we ought to have asked them to take their meals with us."

"I did so," said Mrs. Whitaker, with some asperity. "I did so, although they do look like scarecrows. But they say they prefer having their meals by themselves."

"Then you must respect their wishes," said Mr. Whitaker, opening a commercial review.

"Just fancy, Pops," said Eva, perching herself on the arm of her father's chair, "the youngest one—the poor little creature with the uncanny eyes—is deaf and dumb."

"How sad!" said her father, caressing his daughter's soft hair.

"Did her mother tell you so?" asked Mrs. Whitaker, looking up from the grey scarf she was knitting.

"No, not her mother," explained Eva; "the other one told me. The one with the dimples, who speaks English. She is sweet!" cried the impulsive Eva, and her father patted her hair again and smiled.

"Her name is Sherry," remarked George.

"Oh, George, you silly," exclaimed Eva. "You mean Chérie."

"How do you know her name?" snapped Mrs. Whitaker, laying down her knitting in her lap and fixing stern inquisitorial eyes upon her son.

"She told me," said George, with a nonchalant air.

"She told you!" said his mother. "I never knew you had any conversation with those women."

"It wasn't conversation," said George. "I met her in the garden and I stopped her and said, 'What is your name?' and she answered, 'Sherry.' That's all."

"Queer name," said his father.

"My dear Anselm, that is really not the point—" began Mrs. Whitaker, but the dressing-gong sounded and they all promptly dispersed to their rooms, so Anselm never knew what the point really was.

After dinner Eva, as usual, went to the piano, opened it and lit the candles, while her father sat in the dining-room with the folding-doors thrown wide open, as he declared he could not enjoy his port or his pipe without Eva's music.

"What shall it be tonight, Paterkins?" Eva called out in her birdlike voice. "Rachmaninoff?"

"No. The thing you played yesterday," said her father, settling himself comfortably in his armchair, while the neat maid quietly cleared the table.

"Why, that was Rachmaninoff, my angel-dad," laughed Eva, and twisted the music-stool to suit her height.

George came close to her and bending down said something in an undertone.

"Good idea," said Eva. "Ask the mater."

"You ask her," said George, sauntering into the adjoining room, where he sat down beside his father and lit a cigarette.

Eva went to her mother, and coaxed her into consenting to what she asked. Then she ran out of the room and reappeared soon after, bringing with her the three figures in black. As they hesitated on the threshold, she slipped her arm through the arm of the reluctant "Sherry" and drew her forward. "Do come!—Venny!" she said, and the three entered the room.

They were quite like ghosts again, with pale faces and staring eyes and the rigid gait of sleep-walkers.

They sat down silently in a row near the wall, and Eva went to the piano and played. She played the Rachmaninoff "Prelude," and when she had finished they neither moved nor spoke. She wandered off into the gentle sadness of Godard's "Barcarole," and the three ghosts sat motionless. Schumann's "Carnaval" did not cheer them, nor did the "Moonlight Sonata" move them. When Eva at last closed the piano they rose, and the two eldest, having silently bowed their thanks, they left the room, conducting between them the little one, whose pallor seemed more spectral and whose silence seemed even deeper than theirs.

"Poor souls! poor souls!" growled Mr. Whitaker, clearing his throat and knitting his brows. "Theresa, my dear," to his wife, "see that they lack for nothing. And I hope the children are always very kind and considerate in their behaviour to them. George," he added, turning what he believed to be a beetling brow upon his handsome son, "I noticed that you stared at them. Do not do so again. Grief is sensitive and prefers to remain unnoticed."

George mumbled that he hadn't stared and marched out of the room. Eva put her arms round her father's neck and pressed on his cheek the loud, childish kisses that he loved.

"May I go and talk to them a little?" she asked, in a coaxing whisper.

"Of course you may," said her father, and Eva ran out quickly, just as her mother looked up to say, "What is it?"

"I have sent Eva to talk to those unhappy creatures," said Mr. Whitaker. "We must try and cheer them a little. It is nothing less than a duty. Poor souls!" he repeated, "I have never seen anything so dismal."

"I think we fulfil our duty in providing them with shelter and food," said Mrs. Whitaker.

"You think nothing of the kind, Theresa," said Mr. Whitaker.

"I do," asserted his wife. "And as for Eva, she is already inclined to be exaggeratedly sentimental in regard to these people. She is constantly running after them with flowers and cups of tea."

"Nice child," said her father, with a little tightening in his throat.

"She is not a child, Anselm. She is nineteen. And I do not wish her to have anything to do with those women."

"Theresa?" said her husband, in a high questioning voice. "Theresa. Come here."

Mrs. Whitaker did not move. "Come here," he repeated in the threatening and terrible tone that he sometimes used to the children and to his old retriever Raven—a tone which frightened neither child nor beast. "Come here."

Mrs. Whitaker approached. "Sit down," he said, indicating a footstool in front of him; and Mrs. Whitaker obeyed. "Now, wife," he said, "are you growing hard and sour in your old age? Are you?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Whitaker. "I am."

"Ah," said Mr. Whitaker, "that's right. I knew you weren't." And he laughed, and patted her cheek.

This was not the answer Mrs. Whitaker was prepared for and she had nothing ready to say. So the wily Mr. Whitaker went on, "I have noticed lately in you certain assumed asperities, a certain simulated acrimony.... Now, Theresa, tell me; what does this make-believe bad temper mean?"

Mrs. Whitaker felt that she could weep with rage. What is the good of having a bad temper when it is not believed in? Of what use is it to be sore and sour, to feel bitter and hard, in the face of smiling incredulity?

"With other people, my dear," continued Mr. Whitaker, "you may pretend that you are disagreeable and irascible, but not with me. I know better."

This simple strategy had proved perfectly successful for twenty years and it answered today, as it always did.

"I am disagreeable, I am irascible, I am bitter, and hard, and cross," said Mrs. Whitaker, whereupon Mr. Whitaker closed his eyes, smiled and shook his head.

"Don't keep on shaking your head like a Chinese toy," she added. "Anselm, you really are the stupidest man I have ever seen." And then she laughed. "It is dreadful," she added, putting aside the hand he had laid on her shoulder, "not to be believed when one is cross, not to be feared when one is angry. It makes one feel so helpless."

"You may be helpless," he said; "womanly women mostly are. But you are never cross and you are never angry. So don't pretend to be."

Now Mrs. Whitaker was tall and large and square; she was strong-minded and strong-featured; she was what you would call a "capable woman"—and none but her own inmost soul knew the melting joy that overcame her at being told that she was helpless. She raised her hand to the hand that lay on her shoulder again, and patted it. She bent her head sideways and laid her cheek upon it.

"Now, what's the trouble?" said her husband.

"The trouble … I can hardly express it," she spoke hesitantly, "either to myself or to you. Anselm!" she turned her eyes to him suddenly, the eyes full of blueness and temper and courage he had fallen in love with in Dublin long ago. "I hate those three miserable women," she said. "I hate them."

"What!" cried her husband, drawing his hand away from hers.

"I fear them, and I hate them!" she repeated.

"What have they done?"

"They have done nothing," said his wife, with drooping head and downcast eyes. "But I cannot help it. I hate and fear them … for the children's sake."

"What do you mean?" Mr. Whitaker was sitting very straight. The thin soft hair still crowning his brow was ruffled.

"The mystery that surrounds them frightens me," said Mrs. Whitaker. "I don't know where they come from, what they have seen, what they have lived through. I should like to be kind to them, I should like to encourage the children to cheer them and speak to them. But there is something … something in their eyes that repels me, something that makes me want to draw Eva away from them. I cannot express it. I don't know what it is."