helen grote was seated between robin and jim lethbridge in the first row of stalls at a revue at the monarchy. she had given up the attempt to find coherence in the plot of it, and, indeed, robin had told her that she was on the wrong tack altogether, because revues did not have plots.
“get in the proper mood, mother,” he said. “don’t expect anything at all, and enjoy what you get. oh, what a ripping scene! and there’s diana coombe in khaki. hi! jim! don’t you wish there were some tommies like that in the regiment?”
jim gave a great shout of laughter by way of reply, for arthur angus, owner of the yacht with a crew of treble-voiced seamen, fell flat down as he stepped ashore, and without getting up began to sing.
“oh, ripping!” said jim. “robin, there’s the dance coming now.”
lady grote was rather disappointed.
“oh, have you been to it before?” she asked. “why didn’t you tell me, and i would have got tickets for something else.”
jim laughed.
“i’ve been eight times,” he said; “this makes the ninth. i’ve bet robin five pounds that i shall go twenty{256} times before they pop me over to france. wouldn’t it be putrid luck if i went nineteen times and then went out and got shot?”
for a moment both jim and robin grew stiff and wooden-faced, for a very mountainous female dressed in union jacks sang something quite unspeakable about the heroes and the “boys” in khaki. robin said “good god!” under his breath once or twice, and the house, which contained a large number of soldiers, received her compliments in chilling silence, so that she was not encouraged to proceed with some encore verses.
“but do tell me why you like it so enormously?” said helen, to distract jim from this embarrassing lady.
“oh, it’s the tunes a good deal, and then arthur angus is so awfully funny, and it’s all so muddled up and silly. it’s gay, you know, and when you’ve been superintending a lot of fellows digging trenches for practice all day in the rain, you want something that will take your mind off that devastating job.... now there’s the dance.”
if lady grote had by some incalculable chance found herself alone at this preposterous revue nothing would have kept her in her seat for five minutes. but the infection of the two boys’ enjoyment took hold of her, and she found herself laughing because they laughed, and enjoying because they enjoyed. she even at robin’s instigation tried to think the great diana coombe was an alluring and beautiful creature. robin was clearly known to her, for she threw him discreet little smiles and glances (which quite accounted for his insistence that they should have seats in the front row). presently she appeared to retire from the{257} army and came on again as a french marquise, which she resembled about as much as she resembled a soldier, with arthur angus as her marquis, receiving guests at the door of an outrageous drawing-room, and saying: “how do you portez-vous?”
but really the stage occupied her less than the two boys between whom she sat, both in khaki, both enjoying themselves enormously, both soon to face the peril in flanders, and both completely normal. for them no chasm had opened, or, at any rate, it had been negotiated by that divine elasticity of youth which had made them spring from the peak of the old life, alighting unruffled and unamazed on the new. until the beckoning finger signalled to them, they went on in their leisure hours with the old amusements and diversions, while for their employment they superintended the digging of trenches instead of attending lectures.
till yesterday they had been high-spirited, unthinking, undisciplined boys, absorbed in games, tolerant of a small amount of work, and perhaps absorbed in each other more than in anything else; to-morrow, if need be, either or both of them would go out into that grim storm that raged from end to end of europe with the same tranquillity as they would presently go out to find the motor that was to take all three of them to supper at the ritz. it was true that she had noted an immense change in robin, or thought she had done so; now she wondered whether she had not been completely wrong about that: whether it was not precisely the same robin as she had always known, merely facing with precisely the same spirit as he had faced all his previous experiences this new adventure.
it was a man’s part he had to play now, but he played it with boyishness and with all his might, refusing point-blank to consider any scheme that might shield{258} him from the full deadliness of the blast. but now, at this absurd revue, he was exactly what he had always been. and though she had met jim but a couple of times before, she divined that in him, too, there had been no radical change. they both just “took on” the new tremendous adventure with the same light-hearted seriousness as they had brought to their cricket....
she tried to imagine what either of them would have been like if, instead of volunteering for active service, they had preferred, as it was in their power to do, remaining up at cambridge. but it was a perfectly useless attempt, for it was clear that neither of them would have borne the slightest resemblance to them as they actually now were; they would have been utterly different boys altogether. robin would never have been robin at all if he had done that, or if, indeed, as she saw more fully now, he had accepted instead of declining the staff appointment she had obtained for him. all his life he would have been an altogether different fellow, he would have been some slouching, timid, furtive-eyed boy ... she could not imagine robin like that. if he had shirked now, he would have been a shirker for all the nineteen years of his rampageous existence.
they drove off when the revue was over and they had been fortunate enough to secure a few very special smiles from miss coombe, in the brougham that really only held two, but was triumphantly demonstrated by robin to hold three, by process of his sitting on jim’s knees and protruding other parts of himself out of the window. he seemed to occupy most of the rest of the brougham as well, and, as in a sort of cave made by robin, the two others conversed, or were silent.{259}
how well helen remembered a drive back alone through the illuminated and crowded streets two months ago, on a night when she expected not to be alone! to-night the streets were much darker; it was impossible to see with any distinctness the walkers and the loiterers. they were still there, some peering, others peered at, but in this era of darkened lamps they were but shadows against the blacker shades of the houses. some department had lately taken the question of the lighting of streets in hand; they had adopted a system of camouflage, as if to make london look as unlike london as possible, so that air-craft of the hostile kind should not recognize it and drop bombs on it. certainly they had succeeded in completely changing its aspect, for now instead of the brilliance of arclights and incandescent gas, that used to make piccadilly far brighter by night than it had ordinarily been on the average london day, it had become a sort of dim-lit polychromatic pantomime. some lights were quenched altogether; others had coats of blue, red or green paint applied to their panes. little fairy lamps bedecked the parks, in long double lines and clusters, simulating, so it must be supposed, streets and squares of the city, in the hope that zeppelins and other intruders would mistake some empty or depopulated area for a busy thoroughfare, and drop their bombs on it to the great discomfort of plane-trees and sparrows.
idle talk of this kind passed between jim and helen grote; she bid him admire the twinkle of lights, waveringly reflected on the damp pavements, for a little rain had fallen earlier in the evening, and still made a mirror of clouded surface. and all the time she was seeing herself drive westwards alone from her rendez-vous at covent garden, claiming, or at least{260} acknowledging, kinship with the loitering and neglected. yet, vivid though the memory was, it resembled rather the vividness of some arresting book that she had read, or of some enthralling play that she had seen acted. with her boy and his friend filling up the motor, these memories lacked the bite of personal experience. she remembered it, remembered with the intensest keenness, but remembered it as something apart from herself. was it she, the body and bones of her, that had sat with a letter in her hands, which she had read once and did not need to read again? she could recall every word of that even now, she could have quoted from it, and yet it was all like something learned by heart, memorable only owing to some unforgettable style in its writing.
all went through her mind with the rapidity of some picture momentarily thrown on to it by a magic lantern. she made no effort to recollect; the recollection was flashed on her from outside. robin, fearing for the security of the carriage door, had just suggested his falling out into the roadway, and “the body of a well-nourished young man” being debated upon at the inquest next day, when, even as she laughed, the image of those happenings that had occurred to someone else made their instantaneous photograph.
then jim, merely by way of polite conversation, said to her:
“i suppose you’re awfully busy, aren’t you, with some sort of war-work?”
upon which robin stamped heavily and designedly on her foot, clearly under the impression that it was jim’s.
and that was all, for the present. the moment afterwards they stopped at the door of the ritz, where a low-bowing porter inserted her in a circular{261} cage that revolved. but the fact that robin meant to stamp on jim’s foot by way of some kind of warning or silencer had the vividness of personal experience, which her recollections lacked.
the dining-room was already crowded with post-theatre suppers, but the head-waiter, clearly perjuring himself, gave her a table where chairs were already turned down in token of future occupation. there were a dozen people she knew, and her entrance with those two very smart young guardsmen somehow pleased her enormously. robin and jim also threw greetings about; they were popular and well-looked-on in this new seething life which she had done her best to avoid. at this hour, in the house of refuge to which she had resorted only a week or two ago, aline and hermann would be playing a last rubber of bridge, if they had guests, or would be refraining from rising to say good-night to mr. and mrs. tempest, in case they were engaged on a game of picquet, which they played, so aline told her, when they were alone and, presumably therefore, when there were guests who did not matter.
to-morrow sir hermann would go out shooting again or playing golf in his betasselled stockings, and aline, in her sables, would distribute rabbits to bereaved station masters. they would go up to bed in the lift that exuded german chorales, and no doubt by now aline would have got a new nurse for her children, who would refrain from calling them huns, while the children would have learned to refrain from singing the “watch by the rhine.” it was to that house she had gone to escape from evenings like this.... she could not help wondering what would have been the gurtners’ attitude towards the bloody and glorious affair at ypres.{262}
but ypres and aline were about equally remote from the spirit of the present moment. robin, who scarcely knew claret from port, was, out of the depths of his wisdom, consulting the head-waiter as to the particular brand of champagne which would be suitable, and in the middle of his consultation he caught sight of someone entering, and trod, this time correctly, on jim’s foot, to bid him observe the epiphany of miss diana coombe, who swept into the room, and proceeded to occupy a table immediately adjoining theirs. there were two young men with her, both in civilian clothes, and a remarkable old lady whom she addressed as mommer. when asked what she wanted to order, mommer said in a strong american accent: “just give us of your best, and be quick about it.” round her neck, thin as that of a plucked bird, she wore a string of stones that rather resembled rubies, from which depended a huge copper badge. helen recognized that, for gracie always wore one when she waded about among patched trousers.
the two boys had to go back to barracks, when supper was over, and as they all stood together for a moment on the pavement outside, making plans for another theatre evening as soon as possible, a private, as he passed, saluted, and most unmistakably grinned also.
“lord, there’s jelf,” said robin. “hi, jelf!”
he turned and wheeled and saluted again.
“mother, this is mr. jelf,” said robin. “he’s doing the job thoroughly, as i told you, not like jim and me. how are you, old boy? been lecturing about your love for the huns lately? do you remember that sunday afternoon?”
jelf laughed.
“yes, when the hun woman told us of the invincibility{263} of the german army. wonder if she’s right. lady gurtner, wasn’t it?”
lady grote interrupted.
“do come and see me, mr. jelf,” she said. “come and dine to-morrow, won’t you? robin, i must go; my motor is stopping the entire traffic. good-night, darling, and thank you and mr. lethbridge for a lovely evening. i’ve enjoyed it immensely. let’s have another very soon.”
“rather. but aren’t you going down to grote all october?”
“i’ve made no definite plan,” said she.
“make a definite plan then to stop in town. you would be bored stiff down there.”
she slid off into the darkness, feeling more alive than she had felt for the many weeks past, during which she had tried to banish all thought of the war, and remove from her surroundings anything that might remind her of it. she had tried to get isolation in the country; she had sought out others who, like herself, wished to forget, yet into the shut room, through closed windows and well-fitting doors, the war, like the drift of some london fog, had always made its way, poisoning the ill-ventilated atmosphere that already had no briskness in it. but to-night, for the first time, she had left her stuffy room, and gone out and let fresh air, with whatever else it might be laden, flow round her. she had expected to come home with an added pang of miserable presage, with a heart that ached, and eyes that even more strenuously refused to look into the future. it was only in response to robin’s urging that she had gone out at all, expecting at the best to see forced gaiety and sombre lapses from it on the part of him and his friend. having settled to take them{264} to the theatre and sup with them, she had determined to do her best to “keep it up,” to pretend that everything was laughable and amusing. instead, it was she who had been “kept up”; she had expected a trial of her fortitude, and had been given the most tremendous tonic in place of that....
she had found herself encompassed by the new spirit that possessed robin and his friend and thousands like him. it had not changed him; it had merely brought out the light and the fire that was in him, even as under the wheel of the cutter and polisher the glory of the diamond is developed. the new spirit was doing that for the whole nation, and for her now it was lambent through the darkness, and hung like a rainbow across the menace of the thunder-cloud.
the moment of illumination grew bright to blinding-point, then faded again, and she was like one on whom some great light has flashed but for a second, leaving her in darkness again with the phantom of the light still swimming on her retina. for an instant she had seen it, as across waste waters is seen the revolving beam of a lighthouse. but it had passed, and, between her and it, was the tempest bellowing across the windswept surges. all the youth and triumphant young manhood of england was being snatched away and shovelled into the burning moloch across that sea.
as she stepped on to the pavement in front of her house, she found that her foot hurt her, and remembered that as they drove to the ritz robin had very heartily stamped on it. his design had clearly been to stamp on jim’s foot, in order to stop him saying something, and in the sharp pain that came to her{265} now she wished that the darling had stamped on jim’s foot and not on hers. she remembered also that this brutal caution was in the nature of locking the stable door after the steed had been stolen, for jim had certainly already said that which robin had wanted to stop him saying. his question had completely reached her; he had supposed that she was “awfully busy” doing some sort of war-work.
that was the topic that robin had wanted to suppress. he knew that she was doing no sort of war-work, and either for himself he disliked that being alluded to, or he supposed that she would not like it. it was probable that both reasons were in his mind. as regards herself, she really did not care whether people knew she was very completely abstaining from war-work or not. she had tried to take a hand in it at gracie’s ridiculous establishment, but she was not made for that sort of thing. she preferred to buy her scarves ready made, and no doubt the recipients would prefer that also. she was quite willing to spend freely for the sake of those who needed these and similar comforts; but to sit among pessimistic females and knit was alien to her.... and then some suppressed part of her mind insisted on asking her a rather inconvenient question: “supposing robin wanted a scarf, would you not prefer to suffer some sacrifice of your time or inclination in order to give it him, rather than give him something that cost you nothing?”
the question really needed no answer. it was so obvious that you must delight in giving something of yourself to those whom you loved. there was no joy in giving to the beloved a thing you could get in any shop. if you had to get it at a shop, love insisted that you should send some little message with it, in order{266} to give it the touch of the sender. and that was precisely what gracie and her weary choir of elderly pessimists were doing. they were sending to strangers, to unknown men and boys, whom they had never seen, gifts that had the touch of the giver. it was precisely that which she was not doing.
she began to wonder whether she would not prefer, as regards herself alone, that this should not be alluded to....
there was another possible reason for robin’s belated and misdirected signal to jim. it was possible that he did not want it alluded to. was it an unpleasant topic for him, as well as her? was he, perhaps, a little ashamed of her? once, on the subject of his staff-appointment, they had talked about love implying respect. she could have instanced a sort of love which could despise and yet continue to exist, but that was the sort of love that wanted to take, and not to give. but was that love? cynical philosophers held that the main ingredient in love was the sense of possession. she had never really believed that, and now, thinking just of robin, she knew that not only was that incredible, but the truth lay somewhere in the region of its very opposite. the main ingredient in love did not consist in possessing, but in giving....
there were half a dozen letters waiting for her on the hall table, and with them unopened in her hand, she went upstairs. she had told her maid that she need not sit up for her, and as she unclasped her pearl collar, the image of mommer with her great badge depending from her collar of impossible rubies, suddenly came into her mind. mommer was engaged on some sort of charitable war-work, then. would miss diana coombe be ashamed of her, if she was not?{267}
suddenly, and again without warning, the wave of utter loneliness swept over her, and her pearls fell rattling to the ground. once before when it had risen and smothered her, she had thought to prevent a re-visitation of it by surrounding herself with diversion and interests, and above all, by shutting herself off from the thought of the war and the suffering that it brought, and the menace that it threatened her with. but the experiment had not been very successful. not for an hour, perhaps, until this evening when she was sitting at that absurd revue, between those two gay boys, had the thought of it been entirely lifted off her. had that happened because, being with them, their acceptation of it had infected her?
she heard her husband’s step along the passage outside. it paused opposite her door, and presently there came a discreet tap, sufficient to be audible to her, so she read his purpose, if she was awake, but not loud enough to disturb her if she was asleep. she hesitated a moment, and then answered. it was but seldom that he came to her room: she imagined he must have something to tell her.
“i’m not disturbing you?” he asked.
“no. i came in only a few minutes ago. robin and his friend and i had supper after the theatre.”
“a pleasant evening?” he asked.
“very. was there anything particular you wanted to speak to me about?”
“yes. there have been some rather unpleasant rumours about for a day or two, and in case you haven’t heard them, i made up my mind that i had better tell you.”
she bent down to pick up her pearls, and as she rose again, she noticed with a strange sense of detachment,{268} that they chinked and chattered together in her hand, and knew that it was trembling. into her mind there started the image of kuhlmann and herself standing together, and of robin looking from the one to the other.
“concerning me?” she said quietly.
he laughed.
“no, of course not,” he said. “do you suppose that i should have heard rumours for a day or two concerning you, and not either taken the proper steps to stop them, or have told you?”
she gave one long sigh of relief, that for the life of her she could not repress.
“concerning whom, then?” she asked.
“concerning your friends the gurtners. there is a general idea about that their sympathies are violently pro-german. as you had been there lately, i thought you might be able to give me some information about them.”
“i can,” she said. “i heard them both consistently express sentiments the very opposite of those which you say are attributed to them.”
he paused a moment.
“and there was nothing that led you to think that those sentiments were not quite sincere?” he asked.
she also paused over that question. the two were very good friends when they met, always polite, always anxious not to strain the cord of friendship. but she thought she might permit herself a further question in answer to that.
“and is your question quite sincere?” she said. “is there not an irony behind it?”
he laughed.
“robin always tells me you are so clever,” he said, “and i always agree. there is an irony. what i{269} mean is are you sufficiently intimate with lady gurtner to know if she is sincere or not when she professes these pro-english sentiments?”
already in her mind were the countless little incidents which had puzzled her: there was the odd affair of the children getting into trouble because they sang the “watch by the rhine:” there was the incident only known to her to-night, of private jelf calling aline a hunnish woman: there was the incident of simpson saying that they were in a hun’s house: there was the incident of aline’s great high spirits on the day of the russian reverse, and in that regard mr. boyton’s very acid comments. more vivid than all these was her own psychological surprise at finding that aline was so tremendously english, and her own registration of aline as an acquaintance, and not a friend. on the other hand, she was sure that aline regarded her as a friend.
rapidly reviewed, this last consideration seemed to her to take precedence of all the others. she had to rank as a friend of aline’s.
“i have no reasonable reason for distrusting what aline tells me,” she said. “i have no real doubt in my mind as to her sincerity.”
he thought over this a moment.
“you qualify what you say by saying ‘reasonable,’ and by saying ‘real,’” he said.
she looked at him, playing with her pearls. her hand was quite steady now.
“then i will leave out those words,” she said, “if you think they qualify my meaning. i have no intention of doubting the gurtners’ sincerity.”
“ah: intention,” he said.
that was another qualifying phrase, and she recognized it as such the moment she had uttered it.{270}
“let us come to the point,” she said. “what is it you want me to do?”
“i want you to consider whether you had not better cease to have anything to do with the gurtners,” he said. “there are ugly rumours, which don’t concern only their sympathies. it is supposed that he has made a good deal of money by transactions in germany and here which would not be considered very creditable. i am told he had private information of some sort, a fortnight before the war broke out. he bought shares in krupp’s; he sold english consols. i needn’t bother you with details.”
as she walked up and down her bedroom, still chinking the pearls in her hand, she thought desperately about what had been said, just because it chimed in with certain private impressions of her own to which she refused the admittance into her mind. but they all weighed light against one other fact.
“as long as aline gurtner considers me a friend,” she said, “i must remain one.”
“i don’t think you are wise,” said he. “in fact, i go further, helen. i ask you not to see either her or him.”
she shook her head.
“i’m afraid i can’t do that,” she said. “i am sorry, grote, but i must do what i feel right about it.”
“you must not ask them here when i am at home, then,” said he.
“of course i shall not. you need not have suggested that.”
“no: i retract that, if you will let me,” he said. “but i warn you that there is a good deal of talk.”
“i think i can disregard that. i don’t suppose that people will accuse me of pro-german sympathies because i refuse to turn my back on aline.{271}”
he nodded.
“i don’t suggest that. i am sorry you do not see your way to doing what i want, but i believe, as a matter of fact, that if i were you, i should do as you are doing.”
she smiled.
“i am sure you would,” she said. “if people are going to be nasty to them, there is all the more reason why i shouldn’t be. i want to ask you one thing. was mr. boyton your informant about this?”
“he spoke of it this evening at the club. in fact, he said he had been staying with the gurtners when you were there, and his impressions did not agree with yours. he said that their pro-german sympathies were always cropping up.”
“ah! if you ask me not to see mr. boyton again, i will promise not to. in fact, i will promise not to whether you ask me or not. is that all, then?”
he glanced at the clock.
“if i am not keeping you up too late, there is something else i should like to speak about. it is this. were you intending to be down at grote this autumn?”
“i had been thinking of it. but only to-night i came to the conclusion that i should not. why do you ask?”
“because i feel that i ought to offer it to the red cross as a hospital. several people have given their houses already, and i know that they are hard up for suitable accommodation. they want houses with big rooms for wards. of course you could keep two or three rooms there for yourself in case you wanted to go down.”
“who would look after it?” she asked.
“oh, they would have their own staff of nurses and doctors,” he said. “i should have to be there as{272} general superintendent-commandant, i think they call it. it will mean giving up my work at the censor’s office, but that can’t be helped.”
“you would dislike that,” she said. “your work interests you.”
“yes, but one has to do what is wanted in these days,” said he.
“i should have thought you could have got some sort of experienced housekeeper. it is more a woman’s work.”
not until the words were actually spoken, did her mind make any suggestion to her. then, all at once, that which had been seething and stirring in it all evening took form. the conclusion came suddenly, but it was but the moment of the crystallization of the forces that had been acting there.
“i will undertake it,” she said, “if you think i can manage it.”
he stared at her in blank surprise.
“my dear helen, it is impossible for you,” he said. “it will mean being down there for weeks together, and giving your whole time to it. you would have no time to yourself at all. besides, i know how you shun anything connected with the war. there it would be forced on your attention all day long.”
“i realize that,” she said.
she came a step forward towards him, and the humility which had always been as characteristic of her as her self-centredness and her splendour flooded her and these.
“i don’t want to have any time to myself,” she said. “i haven’t been successful in my use of it since this horrible catastrophe happened. and all my shunning of the war hasn’t enabled me to escape from it. i want to try another plan. i’ve known lately what it{273} means to feel utterly lonely. and there’s another thing.”
she cast down her eyes a moment; then raised them again.
“i have an idea that robin is ashamed of my doing nothing for the war,” she said. “i only realized that to-night, and i did not like it. do let me see whether i cannot manage this. if i find i cannot, if i make a muddle of it, i will promise to give it up. but i have had a good many years’ experience in running a big house. i think i could soon learn.”
“if you realize what it means, of course you shall try,” said he. “and as for your being able to do it, i don’t feel the slightest doubt about it. but it will be hard work.”
“that is exactly why i want to do it,” said she.
“i will make the offer, then, to the red cross in the morning,” said he. “now i won’t keep you up longer.”
on his way to the door he paused.
“i wonder if robin will be more pleased than me?” he said.
she had analysed her reasons for undertaking this work very sincerely. she was willing to be busy all day in order to escape from herself. she could not, for she had tried it without success, escape from the thought of the war, and it was no use persevering in so barren an attempt. she wanted her time taken up by some exigent pursuit, for she had failed to devise for herself any way of spending it that was profitable and yielded dividends of pleasure. that, and the intolerable suspicion that robin was ashamed of her accounted in completeness for her motive.
the work was in no sense a work of love, and she did not for a moment pretend to herself that it was. once,{274} only a few months ago, she had longed to be able to purchase the precious unattainable time that others, with no interest in the absorbing joys of life, found to hang heavy on their hands. but for these last two months she would have been willing to part with all the time that was hers for a very small consideration; indeed, she would have paid anybody to cast it away like rubbish, and apart from the sentimental motive connected with robin, this work of running grote as a hospital was little more than a means of getting rid of her time, and of losing consciousness of herself. she did not want to get rid of herself from any sense that it was a nobler way of life to devote herself to other people; it was simply due to the fact that she no longer seemed capable of amusing herself. the mainspring of her enjoyment of life had run down; it was no longer tightly coiled, and the key with which she had been wont to wind it up no longer fitted the keyhole. she was but trying another key.
a telephone message arrived next morning from aline gurtner, saying that she and the family had come up to town for the winter, and hoping that helen could come and lunch with her that day. helen found her alone and in one of her rather excited and very voluble moods, full of projects and grievances and egoisms.
“dearest helen, it’s delightful to see you,” she streamed out. “let’s go in to lunch at once, for i am so hungry, and i said half-past one, didn’t i?—and it’s a quarter to two. never mind, it doesn’t matter in the least. there’s no one else coming. everyone seems so busy, for i asked half a dozen people to meet you, and they all had something to do. the children have got colds, poor darlings, and so they are having their dinner upstairs, and hermann has gone down to richmond to{275} play golf. he has just given another ten thousand pounds to the red cross. i think that is so noble of him, when you consider that it will all be spent on men who have been wounded in trying to kill germans. perhaps a lot of them have killed germans: they may have killed relations and friends of hermann. i think he is wonderful.”
helen glanced hastily up. there was a butler and a couple of footmen in the room, and she saw one glance at the other and back again.
“and the children have got colds, do you say?” she asked, clutching wildly at some less impossible topic.
“yes, and would you believe it, when i sent out for a clinical thermometer to see if freddy was feverish, there wasn’t one to be had at the chemist’s. they were all sold out, and they couldn’t get a fresh supply, because they were made in germany. it seems to me that germany has supplied us with everything we use. dyes, hock—hermann could not get any more hock, and his doctor forbids him to drink anything else. i don’t know what we shall all do if the war goes on. but don’t let us talk about it. it has become like a nightmare to me. that was partly why i came up to town. there is more going on here, one can go to theatres and have people to dinner. oh, and a great plan. there are so many people in london that i am going to give a dance next week. a real big dance, a regular ball. i am going to send out invitations at once. people will be glad to have me back again, as there is so little entertaining going on on the big scale. i daresay i shall give more than one. you will help me, won’t you, helen? will you let me have your list? i want to ask all your friends, and give them all a good time.”
helen was spared the embarrassment of discussing{276} this insane plan for the moment, for the door opened and sir hermann came in. instantly aline began talking to him in german.
“but how is it you are back, dearest?” she said. “what has happened? why are you not playing golf?”
he frowned and shook his head at her.
“and why are you looking cross at me?” she said shrilly. “just because i talk german? i cannot always remember, hermann, and just when i am fortunate enough to forget about the war, and fall into old ways, you bring me back again by being cross with me. i think you are very unkind. there! it does not matter. sit down, if you have not had lunch, and tell me why you are not playing golf.”
“i found no one who wanted a game,” he said. “i only drove down on the chance.”
“but you often do that, and you always find someone else who wants a game. it is very odd that you should not be able to get a game. was there nobody down there?”
“ah, do not go on about it, dearest,” he said. “i could not get a game, and so i returned. what does it all matter? you are settled in town, lady grote?”
“yes, and helen is going to help me with my ball,” interrupted his wife. “i was telling her about that when you came in. but you ought to get some exercise, hermann. will you not drive down again after lunch, and see if you cannot find someone? or why do you not ring up somebody in town, and take him down? perhaps lord grote would have a game with you. what a pity you did not bring him to lunch, helen.”
“oh, there’s no golf for poor grote,” said she. “he is at the censor’s office every day till seven.”
“that is horrible work for a gentleman to do,{277}” said aline violently. “it is opening private letters, is it not, and interning the writers, or shooting them as spies? there was a spy shot yesterday, i am told. it made me feel quite sick to think of it, and it may have been your husband, helen, who opened a letter from him. i should feel like a murderer, if i had done that. i daresay his letters were quite innocent, really, but they read into them all sorts of things he hadn’t meant. don’t let us talk about it: it is too horrible, and in a country that calls itself christian. i think——”
her husband interrupted her.
“do not think at all, aline,” he said, “if you can only think such nonsense. do you wish spies to be allowed to write any information they choose to an enemy’s country? you are childish.”
“and you are very unkind,” said she. “helen, i know, agrees with me. is it not horrible to kill men in cold blood? i should never have a moment’s peace again, if i had opened a man’s private letter, and he got shot for what it contained. i am sure they don’t do such horrible things in germany. it is barbarous. but don’t let us talk about it: i have asked you before, hermann, not to talk about it. i want no more lunch now that we have introduced such terrible topics, and i was so hungry.”
helen felt that she was listening to the ravings of an unsound mind. it was clear that poor aline was in a whirlwind of nervous tumult, and it required no great ingenuity to conjecture its origin. she had determined to profess the most english of attitudes, but at heart all her instincts were german, and they spouted and spirted like water through holes in a closed weir which had been shut against the force of the stream. she had suspected this down at ashmore, though there aline was able to keep a firmer hand on herself. now,{278} it was evident, her self-control was in rags, and she pitifully tried still to drape it round herself. she made such an effort now, as they rose, leaving sir hermann to finish his lunch by himself.
“we will not talk about these dreadful things,” she said for the third time. “we will talk about my ball. when shall we have it? quite soon, i think, next week, perhaps. nobody seems to be entertaining at all: i should think any night would do. i will give a big dinner first, you and lord grote must both come. do you remember my last big dinner when the princess came and was so charming? what night shall i choose, helen?”
helen had been thinking what to say, should this very inconvenient topic come up again.
“do you know, i don’t think i should give a ball, aline, if i were you,” she said. “as you say, nobody is entertaining. people don’t feel like it: everything is too deadly and serious. many of us have lost relations: we have all lost friends.”
“but what is the difference between going to a ball and going to the theatre?” said aline. “you told me you went to the theatre last night.”
“there is a difference.”
aline grew excited and voluble again.
“i do not see it. you go to the theatre to amuse yourself. it is just the english hypocrisy that draws a line between such things.”
helen laid her hand on aline’s arm.
“you really must not talk like that,” she said. “you are doing yourself a great deal of harm when you say such things. you said other things at lunch which were very ill-advised. my dear, don’t be impatient with me. i am speaking as a friend. i know that your sympathies are being dragged this way and that, but{279} if you want to keep your friends here, you must not talk about english hypocrisy, and english cruelty. people won’t stand it, you can’t expect them to. and for goodness’ sake don’t attempt to give a ball.”
“but i mean to. i feel sure you are wrong in your view. everyone was glad enough to come to my house before, and i am sure they will be now. no one can have any doubt about my sympathies, or about hermann’s either. would he have given all those immense sums of money away to english charities, if he was not in sympathy with england? i think he has given too much: i think he ought, at any rate, to give to the german red cross too. it is horrible to think of english and germans killing and wounding each other, and only helping the english. i did not think you would be so unkind and unfair, helen. you used to be fond of germans. you were devoted to kuhlmann. now i suppose you would turn your back on him, or on me, because i am partly german. if that is your idea of friendship, i am sorry for you. it is not mine. i would do anything for my friends.”
helen had sufficient generosity to allow for this nerve-storm, to tell herself that it was not really aline who spoke, but some tortured semblance of her.
“well, do something for this friend of yours,” she said, “and don’t speak to me like that. i have no intention of turning my back on you, so long as you want my friendship. but you must be reasonable. i personally should not dream of giving a ball just now. people would be apt to say disagreeable things. and you must remember that they will say disagreeable things about you more readily than they would about me.”
“i do not see why. has your husband given as generously as mine to english charities? there is a{280} proof of his loyalty. and i am certainly going to do some war-work myself, now i am in town again.”
“it is not a question of money and war-work,” said helen. “it is a question of your betraying your sympathies at every other sentence you speak. people won’t stand it: they will not come to your house if you talk to others as you have talked to me. think: if i was to say to you about germany what you have allowed yourself to say to me about england, you would very rightly deplore my ill manners. now i hope you will take what i am saying in good part. i am speaking as a friend.”
aline got up.
“i do not feel that you are being a friend to me,” she said. “you are not in sympathy with me. you find fault with all i say or do. it is not my fault if the english are not clever enough to make thermometers and dyes, and are cruel enough to read private letters and shoot the writer. must i suddenly be convinced that the english are absolutely right and wise and perfect in all they do? i can’t do that: i see many faults in them. and it is not friendly of you not to sympathize with me.”
helen got up also.
“i think you want to quarrel with me,” she said. “i should be very sorry if you did that. but just now i had better go away. whenever you want to see me, i will always come. i am very sorry for you: i think you are in a cruel position and a difficult one. you must bring all your prudence and wisdom to bear on it.”
aline hesitated a moment. at all times she considered any criticism of her own conduct that attributed to it the smallest lack in perfection, an unfriendly act, and now her nerves were utterly on edge.
“i’m sure i do not want to quarrel,” she said. “it is you who are quarrelling with me. i am the most generous woman, as hermann often tells me, and the moment anyone is sorry i forgive her completely.”
the egoism of this was nearly incredible. helen found herself doubting her ears.
“come, aline,” she said, “don’t behave like that.”
“the moment you are sorry it will be all over,” said aline stupendously.