Part 3
“‘J’entends des paroles amies Que je ne comprends pas. Je me sens loin, bien loin, de la patrie.... D’où vient que ces voix me semblent familières?’ ‘Mon père, nous sommes en Angleterre.’”
CAMMAERTS.
It is frequently said in letters from the front, by the officer praising his men, or _vice versa_: “A dozen things are being done every day that deserve the Victoria Cross.” But if you speak to one of these heroes of their own deeds, you will invariably get the same answer: “I just did my little bit.”
How immense a satisfaction it must be to feel you’ve done your little bit! And how out of it are the stay-at-homes! Yet we also have our part to play--infinitesimal in comparison, but still, we hope, of use--the minute fragment that may be wanted in the fitting together of the great jigsaw puzzle.
Our first little bit at the Villino when we woke to activity after the stunning of the blow, was obviously to house refugees. We wrote to a friend prominent among the receiving committee, and offered, as a beginning, to undertake twelve peasants out of the thousands of unfortunates flying from the face of the Hun. From that charming but harassed lady we received a grateful acceptance, announcing the arrival of our families that afternoon--hour to be fixed by telegram. We feverishly prepared for their reception. We were ready to shelter five; kind neighbours proposed to take in the other seven. We had a fleet of motor-cars in readiness, and Mrs. MacComfort, our cook, concocted large jars of coffee and other articles of food likely to be relished of the Belgian palate. No telegram arrived; but to make up for it, our telephone rang ceaselessly with anxious inquiries from the assisting neighbours--inquiries which very naturally became rather irate as the hours went by, while we took upon ourselves the apologies of the guilty.
Next day we ventured to address an inquiry to the harassed lady. That was Saturday. On Monday we received a distraught telegram: “Will wire hour of train.” It reminded us of the overdriven shop-assistant in the middle of a seething Christmas crowd: “Will attend to you in a minute, madam.” We felt the desire to oblige; but it left us just where we were before.
On Wednesday an unknown Reverend Mother telegraphed from an unknown convent: “Are you prepared to receive two Belgian families five o’clock to-day?”
This message was supplemented by another from an equally unknown Canon of Westminster Cathedral: “Sending twelve Belgians to-day. Please meet four-twenty train.”
We had scarcely time to clutch our hair, for it was already past three when a third despatch reached us, unsigned, from Hammersmith: “Two Belgian ladies seven children arriving this afternoon five-five train. Please attend station.”
The question was, were we to expect twelve or thirty-six?
We rang up the devoted neighbours. We increased our preparations for refreshment. We spread out all the excellent cast-off garments collected for the poor destitutes; and we “attended” at the first train.
Before proceeding any further with the narration of our thrilling experiences, we may mention that eighteen Belgians appeared in all, whom we succeeded in housing after singular developments; the most unexpected people showing a truly Christian charity, while others, ostentatiously devoted to good works, bolted their doors and hearts upon the most frivolous excuse.
A neighbour of ours, in precarious health, with a large family, a son lost in Germany, a son-in-law at the front, and an infant grandchild in the nursery, would, we think, have given every room and bed in her house to the exiles.
“Only, please, do let me have a poor woman with a baby,” she said. “I’d love to have something to play with our little Delia.”
Another, a widow lady, with a large house and staff of servants to match, and unlimited means, was horrified at the idea of admitting peasants anywhere within her precincts; and as to a small child--“I might be having the visit of a grand-nephew, and he might catch something,” she declared down the telephone, in the tone of one who considers her reason beyond dispute.
* * * * *
About five-thirty the Villino opened its portals to its first refugees. The two ladies with the seven children were fed, and half the party conveyed farther on, we undertaking a mother and three children, under three, and a sprightly little _bonne_. The Villino is a small house, and we had prepared for peasant women. A bachelor’s room and a gay, double-bedded attic--it has a paper sprawling with roses and big windows looking across the valley--were what we had permanently destined for the sufferers. Matters were not facilitated by discovering that our guests belonged to what is called in their own land the high-burgherdom; and that they, on their side, had been told to expect in us the keepers of a “family pension.”
We do not know whether the unknown Church dignitary, the mysterious Lady Abbess, or the nameless wirer from Hammersmith were responsible for the mistake. We do not think it can have been our high-minded but harassed friend of the Aldwych, as some six weeks later we received a secretarial document from that centre of activity, asking whether it was true that we had offered to receive Belgians, and if so: what number and what class would we prefer to attend to? By that time, we may mention, we had been instrumental in establishing about sixty of every variety in the environs.
However, we had reason not to regret the misunderstanding which brought Madame Koelen under our roof.
It was “Miss Marie,” the Villino’s Signorina, who went down to meet her, accompanied by those kindly neighbours. Madame Koelen descended from the railway-carriage in tears.
“Poor young thing,” we said, “it is only natural she must be heart-broken--flying from her home with her poor little children!”
The first bombardment of Antwerp had been the signal for a great exodus from that doomed city.
“We were living in cellars, _n’est-ce pas?_ and it was not good for the children, _vous savez_, so my husband said: ‘You must go, _vite, vite_; the last boats are departing.’ We had not half an hour to pack up.”
It was a piteous enough spectacle. She had a little girl not three, another not two, and a three-months-old baby which she was nursing. We thought of the poor distracted husband and father; and the forlorn struggle on the crowded boat; and the dreadful landing on unknown soil, herded together as they were, poor creatures! like a huddled flock of sheep; and our hearts bled.
Towards evening, however, when calm settled down again on the astonished Villino, and Madame Koelen, having left her children asleep, was able to enjoy Mrs. MacComfort’s choice little dinner, she became confidential to the young daughter of the house. She began by telling us that we must not imagine that because a name had a German sound that her husband’s family had the remotest connection with the land of the Bosch. On the contrary, he was of Italian extraction; descended, in fact, from no less a race than the Colonnas! Having thus established her credentials, she embarked on long rambling tales of the flight, copiously interlaced with the name of an Italian gentleman; “a friend of my husband”; a certain Monsieur Mérino.
“When my husband was putting us on the _remorqueur_ at Flushing, we saw him standing on the quay, _vous savez_, and then he said, _n’est-ce pas_: ‘Ah, Mérino, are you going to England? Then look after my wife!’”
And Monsieur Mérino had been so good, and Monsieur Mérino had amused the children, and Monsieur Mérino was so anxious to know how they were established, and Monsieur Mérino would probably come down to see for himself, and Monsieur Mérino was so droll!
We are very innocent people, and we accepted Monsieur Mérino in all good faith. We announced ourselves as happy to receive him; we were touched by his solicitude. Madame Koelen had surprisingly cheered, but there was yet a cloud upon her brow.
“Still,” she said, “I do not think it was right of my cousin to have accepted to dine alone with Monsieur Mérino, and to have passed the night in London in the same hotel with only her little brother to chaperon her--a child of eight, _n’est-ce pas?_--and she only eighteen, _vous savez_, and expected in Brighton.”
We quite concurred. Monsieur Mérino’s halo grew slightly paler in our eyes. Monsieur Mérino ought not to have asked her, we said, with great propriety.
Madame Koelen exploded.
“Ah, if you had seen the way she went on with him on the boat! She was all the time trying to have a flirt with him. Poor Monsieur Mérino! and God knows what _blague_ she has told him, for he was never at the station to see us off, and he had promised to be there, _n’est-ce pas?_ Oh, I was so angry! _Cette Jeanne_, she prevented him! I cried all the way down in the train.”
Certainly she had been crying when we first beheld her; and we who had thought!----
Madame Koelen was a handsome, sturdy creature, who would have made the most splendid model for anyone wishing to depict a _belle laitière_. Short, deep-chested, and broad-hipped, her strong, round neck supported a defiant head with masses of blue-black hair; she had a kind of frank coarse beauty--something the air of a young heifer, only that heifers have soft eyes, and her eyes, bright brown, were hard and opaque; something the air of a curious child, with a wide smile that displayed faultless teeth, and was full of the joy of life; the kind of joy the milkmaid would appreciate! We could quite understand that Monsieur Mérino should find her attractive.
Before the next day had elapsed we began to understand her view of the situation also. Like so many other Belgian women whom we have known, she had been married practically from the convent, only to pass from one discipline to another. The husband in high-burgherdom, as well as in the more exalted class, likes to pick out his wife on the very threshold of the world, so that he can have the moulding of her unformed nature; so that no possible chance can be afforded her of drawing her own conclusions on any subject. The horizon of the Belgian _nouvelle-mariée_ is rigidly bound by her home, and the sole luminary in her sky is her husband. She must bask on his smiles, or not at all. And if the weather be cloudy, she must resign herself and believe that rain is good for the garden of her soul. Presently the lesser luminaries appear in the nursery, and then her cup of happiness is indeed full; the fuller the happier!
“_Il ne me lâche pas d’une semelle!_” said an exasperated little lady to us one day, referring to the devoted companionship of a typical husband.
No wonder, when Monsieur Mérino flashed across the widening horizon of Madame Koelen with comet-like brilliancy, that the poor little woman should be thrilled and dazzled.
When, on the morning after her arrival, the papers announced an intermittent bombardment of Antwerp, she screamed: “Ah, _par exemple_, it is I who am glad not to be there!” without the smallest show of anxiety on the score of the abandoned Koelen. We realized that, to quote again our frank and charming friend: “_Ce n’était pas l’amour de son mari qui l’étouffait!_” And when she next proceeded to hang on to the telephone, and with many cackles and gurgles to hold an animated conversation with the dashing Mérino, we began to hope that that gentleman might not make his appearance at the Villino.
He did, however, next day; and, under pretence of visiting houses, carried away the emancipated Madame Koelen for a prolonged motor drive, leaving the three-months-old baby to scream itself into fits in the attic room upstairs; she was tied into her crib while the little _bonne_ promenaded the other two in the garden.
The Villino is a tender-hearted place, and the members of the _famiglia_ vied with each other in endeavouring to assuage the agonies of the youngest Miss Koelen, but nobody could provide the consolation she required.
Madame Koelen and her _cavaliere servente_ returned for a late tea, no whit abashed; indeed, extremely pleased with themselves. He had a great deal to say in an assured and airy manner, and she hung on his words with her broad smile and many arch looks from those brilliant opaque red-brown orbs.
Monsieur Mérino was tall, quite good-looking; with a smooth olive face, fair hair, and eyes startlingly blue, in contrast to the darkness of his skin. He gave us a great deal of curious information. Summoned from Antwerp, where he had a vague business, he was on his way to join the Italian colours, but, calling on the Italian Ambassador in London, the latter had given him leave to defer his departure for another ten days. He was, therefore, able to devote his entire attention to the interests of Madame Koelen, which he felt would be most reassuring to her husband.
We rather wondered why the Italian Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s should occupy himself with the movements of a casual Italian merchant _en route_ from Antwerp; or by what curious intermingling of international diplomatic arrangements he should be able to give military leave to a reservist; but we were too polite to ask questions.
Monsieur Mérino departed with many bows and scrapes and hand-shakes; and Madame Koelen evidently found that existence by comet light was worth having.
In the course of the evening she was very communicative on the subject of this gentleman, and several anecdotes of his drollery on board ship were imparted to us. She had found out that he was married--that was a funny thing, _n’est-ce pas?_ She had always heard of him about Antwerp as a bachelor.
“We thought he was a friend of your husband’s,” we faltered.
“Oh, a friend--a coffee-house acquaintance, _tout au plus_!...
“It was very droll. It came about this way. He was playing with little Maddy, and I said to him: ‘Oh! the good Papa that you will make when you marry.’ Judge of my astonishment when he looks at me and says: ‘I am married already! Yes,’ he said, ‘I am married, and my wife lives at Sorrento; I see her once in six weeks when I make my voyage of business. _J’ai des idées sur le mariage,’ il dit, comme ça._”
These ideas she next began to develop.
“‘I do not think one ought to be bound,’ he says. ‘Do you not agree with me, Madame, a man ought to be free?’ Oh, he was comic!”
“But,” we said, “we do not think that is at all nice.” The Villino is very moral. Its shocked atmosphere instantly made itself felt on Madame Koelen. Her bright eye became evasive.
“Of course I made him _la leçon_ at once. Ah! I very well made him understand I do not approve of these _façons_. My husband teases me; I am so serious, so rigid!”
Before we separated that evening she told us in a disengaged voice that she would spend the next day in London. Monsieur Mérino could not rest, it transpired, knowing her in such dangerous surroundings; so far from a station, in a place so likely, from its isolated inland position, to be the objective of the first German raid. He was, therefore, going to occupy himself about another home for her; and at the same time he would take the opportunity of conducting her to the Consul, for “it seems,” she said, “that I shall have to pay a _grosse amende_ if I do not go immediately in person to register myself in London.”
“But the baby,” we faltered.
“Oh, the baby!”--she flicked the objection from her--“the baby will get on very well with Justine. Justine knows how to manage her.”
Justine was the minute _bonne_ who had tied the infant into the cot.
Then there was Monsieur Mérino. The more we thought of it, the less we felt that Monsieur Mérino was to be trusted. Luridly our imagination worked; we saw ourselves left with three small Koelens in perpetuity; we pictured that baby screaming itself into convulsions. We thought it quite probable that we might never hear of its Mama again. And poor Papa Koelen, the brave Anversois Garde Civique, dodging bombs in ignorance of the horrible happening!
The Master of the Villino was prevailed upon to speak; in fact, to put his foot down. Next morning he spoke, and crushed the incipient elopement with a firm metaphorical tread.
“Madame, this plan seems to be rash in the extreme. I cannot permit it to take place from under my roof. I feel, justly or unjustly, a mediocre confidence in Monsieur Mérino. You will, if you please, wire to him that you are prevented from meeting him.”
Madame Koelen became very white, and though her opaque eyes flashed fury, she gave in instantly; being a young Belgian wife, she was accustomed to yield to masculine authority.
Again she hung on the telephone. We were too discreet to listen, but radiance returned to her countenance.
After lunch she explained the cause. Next morning she and her whole family would depart. Monsieur Mérino would himself convey them to Brighton.
The mistress of the Villino is occasionally troubled with an inconvenient attack of conscience--sometimes she wonders if it is only the spirit of combativeness. In this instance, however, she felt it her duty to warn Madame Koelen.
It was a brief but thrilling conversation. Madame Koelen, her eldest little daughter on her knee, occasionally burying her handsome countenance in the child’s soft hair, was as cool and determined, as silky and evasive as a lusty young snake. She had a parry for every statement; that she ate up her own words and manifestly lied from beginning to end did not affect her equanimity in the least. It was the Signora who was nonplussed. There is nothing before which the average honest mind remains more helpless than the deliberate liar.
Monsieur Mérino was her husband’s oldest friend. He was intimate with her whole family. She herself had known him for years. She was under his charge by her husband’s wishes. She had probably been aware of his marriage, but it had merely slipped her memory--not having his wife with him in Antwerp made one forget it. He was perfectly right to invite her young cousin to dine with him, since she had her brother to chaperon her. Certainly the brother was grown up and able to chaperon her! How extraordinary of us to imagine anything different!
“You are young, and you do not know life, my dear,” said the Signora at last, succeeding in keeping her temper, though with difficulty.
Madame Koelen bit into Maddy’s curls. It was quite evident she meant to know life. She had got her chance at last, and would not let it escape.
“I do not think,” said the unhappy hostess, firing her final shot, “that your husband would approve.”
The wife wheeled with a sudden savage movement, not unlike that of a snake about to strike.
“_Ah, voilà qui m’est bien égal!_ That is my own affair!”
There was nothing more to be said. We wondered whether the Garde Civique had ever had such a glimpse of the real Geneviève Koelen as had just been revealed to us. Even to us it was startling.
An extraordinary hot afternoon it turned out. The sun was too blazing for us to venture beyond the shadow of the house. We sat on the terrace, and Madame Koelen wandered restlessly up and down, biting at a rose. The master of the Villino suddenly appeared among us, all smiles.
“A telegram for you, Madame. I have just taken it down on the telephone. It is from your husband. He is coming here to-day.”
He was very glad; it was the burden of responsibility lifted. Not so, however, Madame Koelen.
“From my husband? How droll!”
She snapped the sheet of paper and walked away, conning it over.
We sat and watched her.
The garden was humming with heat. The close-packed heliotrope beds in the Dutch garden under the library window were sending up gushes of fragrance. In the rose-beds opposite, the roses--“General MacArthur,” “Grüss aus Teplitz,” “Ulrich Brunner,” “Barbarossa” (we hope these friendly aliens will soon be completely degermanized), crimson carmine, velvet scarlet, glorious purple--seemed to be rimmed with gold in the sun-blaze. It was a faultless sky that arched our world, and the moor, already turning from silver amethyst to the ardent copper of the burnt heather, rolled up towards it, like a sleeping giant wrapped in robes of state.
On such a day the inhabitants of the Villino would, in normal times, have found life very well worth living indeed; basking in the sun and just breathing in sweetness, warmth, colour--aspiring beauty, if this can be called living! But in war time the subconsciousness of calamity is ever present. Inchoate apprehension of bad news from the front is massed at the back of one’s soul’s horizon, so that one lives, as it were, under the perpetual menace of the storm.
The wonderful summer was being rent, laid waste, somewhere not so very far away; and the sun was shining, even as it was shining on these roses, on blood outpoured--the best blood of England! In the hot Antwerp streets, we pictured to ourselves some tired man going to and fro; the weight of the gun on his shoulder, the weight of his heavy heart in his breast; thinking of his wife and little children, hunted exiles in a strange country, while duty kept him, their natural protector, at his post in the fated city.
To have seen what we read on that young wife’s face would have been horrible at any time: it was peculiarly at variance with the peace of the golden afternoon, and the lovely harmony of the garden. But in view of her country’s desolation and her husband’s share in its splendid and hopeless defence, it was hideous. We do not even think she had the dignity of a _grande passion_ for the fascinating Mérino; it was mere vanity, the greed of a pleasure-loving nature free to indulge itself at last. She was only bent on amusing herself, and the unexpected arrival of her husband interfered with the little plan. Therefore she stood looking at his message with a countenance of ugly wrath.
“_Ah, ça, qu’il est ennuyeux!_... What has taken him to follow me like this?”
The thoughts were printed on her face.
“Is it not delightful?” said the guileless master of the Villino, who never can see evil anywhere.
“Ah, yes, indeed,” said she; “delightful!”
She could no more put loyalty into her tone than into her features.
“Heaven help Koelen!” thought the Signora, and was heartily sorry for the unknown, but how glad, how indescribably thankful, that the planned expedition had been prevented!
Dramatically soon after his telegram Monsieur Koelen arrived--an exhausted, pathetic creature. He had stood twelve hours in the steamer because it was so packed with exiled humanity that there was not room to sit down. He had exactly two hours in which to see his wife, having to catch the night boat again from Harwich. He had given his word of honour to return to Antwerp within forty-eight hours.
We did not, of course, witness the meeting, but it was a very, very _piano_ Madame Koelen who brought Koelen down to tea; and it was a cold, steely look which his tired eyes fixed upon her between their reddened eyelids. Whether he really came to put his valuables in the bank, whether he was driven by some secret knowledge or suspicion of his wife’s character, we shall never know. We naturally refrained from mentioning the name of Monsieur Mérino. The host deemed his responsibility sufficiently met by a single word of advice:
“Madame is very young; we hope you will place her with people you know.”
Monsieur Mérino was mentioned, however, by the husband himself. It transpired Madame owed him money. She wished to see him again to pay him.
“I will pay him,” said Monsieur Koelen icily; “I will call at his hotel on my way.”
Madame’s head drooped.
“_Bien, mon chéri_,” she murmured, in a faint voice.
In a turn of the hand, as they would have said themselves, her affairs were arranged. She was to go to Eastbourne, under the care of some elderly aunts, Monsieur Koelen presently announced.