Mrs. Warren's Daughter Part 24

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

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

Rien ne semblait ternir l'eclat de ces conquetes.

Les batailles prenaient des allures de fetes Et nous ne songions pas qu'aux hurrahs triomphants Se melaient les sanglots des meres, des enfants.

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

Mais ou sqnt les lauriers que reserve l'Histoire A celui qui demain forcera la Victoire?

Nul ne les cueillira: les lauriers sont fletris Seul un cypres s'eleve aux torubes de nos fils.]

He gave way to much emotion. Vivie, though still dazed with the reverberating horror of Edith Cavell's execution, tried to regain her mind balance and thank him for the kindness he had shown them.

But it was now necessary to see her mother who might also be undergoing a shock. As she walked up to their bedroom she reflected that the departure of von Giesselin would have to be followed by their own exile to some other lodging. They would share in his disgrace.

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

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

Vivie went. Out of hearing, Grafin von Stachelberg--who, however, to facilitate intercourse, begged Vivie to call her "Minna,"--"We may all be dead, my dear, before long of blood-poisoning, bombs from your aeroplanes, a rising against us in the Marolles quarter--" said very plainly what she thought of Edith Cavell's execution. "It makes me think of Talleyrand--was it not?--who said 'It is a blunder; worse than a crime' ... these terrible old generals, they know nothing of the world outside Germany." As to her cousin, Gottlieb von Giesselin--"Really dear, if in this time of horrors one _dare_ laugh at anything, I feel--oh it is too funny, but also, too 'schokking,' as we suppose all English women say. Yet of course I am sad about him, because he is a good, kind man, and I know his wife will be very very unhappy when she hears--And it means he will die, for certain. He must risk his life to--to--regain his position, and he will be shot before Verdun in one of those dreadful a.s.saults."

Then she told Vivie where she might find rooms, where at any rate she could use her name as a reference. Also: "Stay away at present and look after your mother. When she is quite comfortably settled, come back and work with me--here--it is at any rate the only way in which you can see and help your countrymen."

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

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

Somehow as she sat there it seemed to Mrs. Warren it was going for her to be the last hour of fully conscious life--fully conscious and yet a curious mingling in it of the past and present. She had sat here in the middle of the 'seventies with Vivie's father, the young Irish seminarist, her lover for six months. He had a vague interest in botany, and during his convalescence after his typhoid fever, when she was still his nurse, not yet his mistress, she used to bring him here to rest and to enjoy the aspect of these ferns and palms. What a strange variety of men she had known. Some she had loved, more or less; some she had exploited frankly. Some--like George Crofts and Baxendale Strangeways--she had feared, though in her manner she had tried to conceal her dread of their violence.

Well! she had taken a lot of money off the rich, but she had never plundered the poor. Her greatest conquest--and that when she was a woman of forty--was the monarch of this very country which now lay crushed under the Kaiser's heel. For a few months he had taken a whimsical liking to her handsome face, well-preserved figure, and amusing c.o.c.kney talk. But he had employed her rather as the mistress of his menus plaisirs, as his recruiting agent. He had rewarded her handsomely. Now it was all in the dust: her beautiful Villa Beau-sejour a befouled barrack for German soldiers. She herself a homeless woman, repudiated by the respectable British and Americans more or less interned in this unhappy city.

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

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

"_That_ was my daughter," Mrs. Warren informed him with pride....

"She is a lady who has taken a high degree at an English University.

She has been an important person in the English feminist movement.

When this dreadful war is over, I and my daughter will--"

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

"Well yes, dear, I have. _Terrible_ low spirits and all swimmy-like.

Thought I was going to faint. But this man here has been so kind "--her tears flowed afresh--"We've bin talking of old times; he used to know me before--"

_Vivie_: "Quite so. But I think, dear, we had better be going back.

I want to talk to you about the new rooms I've seen. Are you equal to walking? If not perhaps this kind man would try to get us a cab...?"

But Mrs. Warren said it was no distance, only round the corner, and she could well walk. When they got back she would go and lie down.

Vivie, reading her mother's thoughts, pressed a five-franc note into the gardener's not reluctant palm, and they regained the Rue Royale.

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

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

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

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

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

"But--"

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

Hearing the shouting and seeing the crowd a Belgian gendarme came up. To him Vivie said, "Si vous etes Chretien et pas Allemand--"

"Prenez garde, Madame," he said warningly--"Vous m'aiderez a porter ma mere a quelqu' endroit ou elle peut se remettre..."

He a.s.sisted her to carry the inert old woman across the street and a short distance along the opposite pavement. Here, there was a pleasant, modest-looking tea-shop with the name of Walcker over the front, and embedded in the plate gla.s.s were the words "Tea Rooms."

These of course dated from long before the war, when the best Chinese tea was only four francs the demi-kilo and the fas.h.i.+on for afternoon tea had become established in Brussels. Vivie and her mother had often entered Walcker's shop in happier days for a cup of tea and delicious forms of home-made pastry. Besides the cakes, which in pre-war times were of an excellence rarely equalled, they had been drawn to the pleasant-looking serving woman. She was so English in appearance, though she only spoke French and Flemish.

Behind the shop was a cosy little room where the more intimate clients were served with tea; a room with a look-out into a little square of garden. Thither Mrs. Warren was carried or supported. She regained consciousness slightly as she was placed on a chair, opened her eyes, and said "Thank you, my dears." Then her head fell over to one side and she was dead--seemingly....

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

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

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

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

"Why, stay here till all the formalities are over and you can find rooms elsewhere," said Mme. Trouessart, the owner-servant of the tea-shop. "I have another spare room. For the moment my locataires are gone. I know you both very well by sight, you were clients of ours in the happy days before the War. Madame votre mere was, I think, the gerante of the Hotel edouard-Sept when I first came to manage here. Since then, you have often drunk my tea. Je me nomme 'Trouessart' c'est le nom de mon mari qui est ... qui est--Vous pouvez diviner ou il est, ou est a present tout Belge loyal qui peut servir. Le nom Walcker? C'etait le nom de nom pere, et de plus est, c'etait un nom Anglais transforme un peu en Flamand. Mon arriere-grand-pere etait soldat Anglais. Il se battait a Waterloo.

For me, I spik no English--or ver' leetle."

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

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

Minna went over to the Hotel Imperial with Vivie. Appearing in her Red Cross uniform, she was admitted, announced herself as the Grafin von Stachelberg, and demanded to know what justification the manager could offer for his extraordinary brutality towards these English ladies, the result of which had been the death of the elder lady.

The manager replied that inasmuch as the All Highest himself was to arrive that very evening to take up his abode at the Hotel Imperial, the hotel premises had been requisitioned, etc., etc. He still refused absolutely to allow Vivie to proceed to her room and look for her money. She might perhaps be allowed to do so when the Emperor was gone. As to her luggage he would have it sent over to the tea-shop. (The money, it might be noted, she never recovered.

There were many things also missing from her mother's trunks and no satisfaction was ever obtained.)

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

But the financial aspect of the case for the time being did not concern her. The death of her mother had been a stunning shock, and when she crossed over to the hotel--what irony, by the bye, to think she had been born there thirty-nine years ago, in the old inn that had preceded the twice rebuilt hotel!--when she crossed the street with Minna, it had been with blazing, tearless eyes and the desire to take the hotel manager and his minions by the coat collar, fling _them_ into the street, and a.s.sert her right to go up to her room.

But now her violence was spent and she was a broken, weeping woman as she sat all night by the bedside of her dead mother, holding the cold hand, imprinting kisses on the dead face which was now that of a saintly person with nothing of the reprobate in its lineaments.

The burial for various reasons had to take place in the Cemetery of St. Josse-ten-Noode, near the shuddery National Shooting Range where Edith Cavell and numerous Belgian patriots had recently been executed. Minna von Stachelberg left her hospital, with some one else in charge, and insisted on accompanying Vivie to the interment.

This might have been purely "lac"; not on account of any harsh dislike to the religious ceremony on Vivie's part; only due to the fact that she knew no priest or pastor. But there appeared at the grave-side to make a very suitable and touching discourse and to utter one or two heartfelt prayers, a Belgian Baptist minister, a relation of Mme. Trouessart.