The Burning Spear: Being the Experiences of Mr. John Lavender in the Time of War

XIV
ENDEAVOURS TO INTERN A GERMAN

Aglow with satisfaction at what he had been able to do for the wounded soldiers, Mr. Lavender sat down in his study to drink the tea which he found there. “There is nothing in life,” he thought, “which gives one such satisfaction as friendliness and being able to do something for others. Moon-cat!”

The moon-cat, who, since Mr. Lavender had given her milk, abode in his castle, awaiting her confinement, purred loudly, regarding him with burning eyes, as was her fashion when she wanted milk, Mr. Lavender put down the saucer and continued his meditations. “Everything is vain; the world is full of ghosts and shadows; but in friendliness and the purring of a little cat there is solidity.”

“A lady has called, sir.”

Looking up, Mr. Lavender became aware of Mrs. Petty.

“How very agreeable!

“I don’t know, sir,” returned his housekeeper in her decisive voice; “but she wants to see you. Name of Pullbody.”

“Pullbody,” repeated Mr. Lavender dreamily; “I don’t seem – Ask her in, Mrs. Petty, ask her in.”

“It’s on your head, sir,” said Mrs. Petty, and went out.

Mr. Lavender was immediately conscious of a presence in dark green silk, with a long upper lip, a loose lower lip, and a fixed and faintly raddled air, moving stealthily towards him.

“Sit down, madam, I beg. Will you have some tea?”

The lady sat down. “Thank you, I have had tea. It was on the recommendation of your next-door neighbour, Miss Isabel Scarlet – ”

“Indeed,” replied Mr. Lavender, whose heart began to beat; “command me, for I am entirely at her service.”

“I have come to see you,” began the lady with a peculiar sinuous smile, “as a public man and a patriot.”

Mr. Lavender bowed, and the lady went on: “I am in very great trouble. The fact is, my sister’s husband’s sister is married to a German.”

“Is it possible, madam?” murmured Mr. Lavender, crossing his knees, and joining the tips of his fingers.

“Yes,” resumed the lady, “and what’s more, he is still at large.”

Mr. Lavender, into whose mind there had instantly rushed a flood of public utterances, stood gazing at her haggard face in silent sympathy.

“You may imagine my distress, sir, and the condition of my conscience,” pursued the lady, “when I tell you that my sister’s husband’s sister is a very old friend of mine – and, indeed, so was this German. The two are a very attached young couple, and, being childless, are quite wrapped up in each other. I have come to you, feeling it my duty to secure his internment.”

Mr. Lavender, moved by the human element in her words, was about to say, “But why, madam?” when the lady continued:

“I have not myself precisely heard him speak well of his country. But the sister of a friend of mine who was having tea in their house distinctly heard him say that there were two sides to every question, and that he could not believe all that was said in the English papers.

“Dear me!” said Mr. Lavender, troubled; “that is serious.”

“Yes,” went on the lady; “and on another occasion my sister’s husband himself heard him remark that a man could not help loving his country and hoping that it would win.”

“But that is natural,” began Mr. Lavender.

“What!” said the lady, nearly rising, “when that country is Germany?”

The word revived Mr. Lavender’s sense of proportion.

“True,” he said, “true. I was forgetting for the moment. It is extraordinary how irresponsible one’s thoughts are sometimes. Have you reason to suppose that he is dangerous?”

“I should have thought that what I have said might have convinced you,” replied the lady reproachfully; “but I don’t wish you to act without satisfying yourself. It is not as if you knew him, of course. I have easily been able to get up an agitation among his friends, but I should not expect an outsider – so I thought if I gave you his address you could form your own opinion.”

“Yes,” murmured Mr. Lavender, “yes. It is in the last degree undesirable that any man of German origin should remain free to work possible harm to our country. There is no question in this of hatred or of mere rabid patriotism,” he went on, in a voice growing more and more far-away; “it is largely the A. B. C. of common prudence.”

“I ought to say,” interrupted his visitor, “that we all thought him, of course, an honourable man until this war, or we should not have been his friends. He is a dentist,” she added, “and, I suppose, may be said to be doing useful work, which makes it difficult. I suggest that you go to him to have a tooth out.”

Mr. Lavender quivered, and insensibly felt his teeth.

“Thank you,” he said, “I will see if I can find one. It is certainly a matter which cannot be left to chance. We public men, madam, often have to do very hard and even inhumane things for no apparent reason. Our consciences alone support us. An impression, I am told, sometimes gets abroad that we yield to clamour. Those alone who know us realize how unfounded that aspersion is.”

“This is his address,” said the lady, rising, and handing him an envelope. “I shall not feel at rest until he is safely interned. You will not mention my name, of course. It is tragic to be obliged to work against one’s friends in the dark. Your young neighbour spoke in enthusiastic terms of your zeal, and I am sure that in choosing you for my public man she was not pulling – er – was not making a mistake.”

Mr. Lavender bowed.

“I hope not, madam, he said humbly I try to do my duty.”

The lady smiled her sinuous smile and moved towards the door, leaving on the air a faint odour of vinegar and sandalwood.

When she was gone Mr. Lavender sat down on the edge of his chair before the tea-tray and extracted his teeth while Blink, taking them for a bone, gazed at them lustrously, and the moon-cat between his feet purred from repletion. “There is reason in all things,” he thought, running his finger over what was left in his mouth, “but not in patriotism, for that would prevent us from consummating the destruction of our common enemies. It behoves us public men ever to set an extreme example. Which one can I spare, I wonder?” And he fixed upon a large rambling tooth on the left wing of his lower jaw. “It will hurt horribly, I’m afraid; and if I have an anaesthetic there will be someone else present; and not improbably I shall feel ill afterwards, and be unable to form a clear judgment. I must steel myself. Blink!”

For Blink was making tremulous advances to the teeth. “How pleasant to be a dog!” thought Mr. Lavender, “and know nothing of Germans and teeth. I shall be very unhappy till this is out; but Aurora recommended me, and I must not complain, but rather consider myself the most fortunate of public men.” And, ruffling his hair till it stood up all over his head, while his loose eyebrow worked up and down, he gazed at the moon-cat.

“Moon-cat,” he said suddenly, “we are but creatures of chance, unable to tell from one day to another what Fate has in store for us. My tooth is beginning to ache already. That is, perhaps, as it should be, for I shall not forget which one it is.” So musing he resumed his teeth; and, going to his bookcase, sought fortitude and inspiration in the records of a Parliamentary debate on enemy aliens.

It was not without considerable trepidation, however, on the following afternoon that he made his way up Welkin Street, and rang at the number on the envelope in his hand.

“Yes sir, doctor is at home,” said the maid.

Mr. Lavender’s heart was about to fail him when, conjuring up the vision of Aurora, he said in a faint voice: “I wish to see him professionally.” And, while the maid departed up the stairs, he waited in the narrow hall, alternately taking his hat off and putting it on again, so great was his spiritual confusion.

“Doctor will see you at once, sir.”

Putting his hat on hastily, Mr. Lavender followed her upstairs, feeling at his tooth to make quite sure that he remembered which it was. His courage mounted as he came nearer to his fate, and he marched into the room behind the maid holding his hat on firmly with one hand and his tooth in firmly with the other. There, beside a red velvet dentist’s chair, he saw a youngish man dressed in a white coat, with round eyes and a domestic face, who said in good English:

“What can I do for you, my dear sir? I fear you are in bain.”

“In great pain,” replied Mr. Lavender faintly, “in great pain.” And, indeed, he was; for the nervous crisis from which he was suffering had settled in the tooth, on which he still pressed a finger through his cheek.

“Sit down, sir, sit down,” said the young man, “and perhaps it would be better if you should remove your hat. We shall not hurd you – no, no, we shall not hurd you.”

At those words, which seemed to cast doubt on his courage, Mr. Lavender recovered all his presence of mind. He took off his hat, advanced resolutely to the chair, sat down in it, and, looking up, said:

“Do to me what you will; I shall not flinch, nor depart in any way from the behaviour of those whose duty it is to set an example to others.”

So saying, he removed his teeth, and placing them in a bowl on the little swinging table which he perceived on his left hand, he closed his eyes, put his finger in his mouth, and articulated:

“‘Ith one.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said the young German, “but do you wish a dooth oud?”

“‘At ish my deshire,” said Mr. Lavender, keeping his finger on his tooth, and his eyes closed. “‘At one.”

“I cannot give you gas without my anaesthedist.”

“I dow,” said Mr. Lavender; “be wick.”

And, feeling the little cold spy-glass begin to touch his gums, he clenched his hands and thought: “This is the moment to prove that I, too, can die for a good cause. If I am not man enough to bear for my country so small a woe I can never again look Aurora in the face.”

The voice of the young dentist dragged him rudely from the depth of his resignation.

“Excuse me, but which dooth did you say?”

Mr. Lavender again inserted his finger, and opened his eyes.

The dentist shook his head. “Imbossible,” he said; “that dooth is perfectly sound. The other two are rotten. But they do not ache?”

Mr. Lavender shook his head and repeated:

“At one.”

“You are my first client this week, sir,” said the young German calmly, “but I cannot that dooth dake out.”

At those words Mr. Lavender experienced a sensation as if his soul were creeping back up his legs; he spoke as it reached his stomach.

“Noc?” he said.

“No,” replied the young German. It is nod the dooth which causes you the bain.

Mr. Lavender, suddenly conscious that he had no pain, took his finger out.

“Sir,” he said, “I perceive that you are an honourable man. There is something sublime in your abnegation if, indeed, you have had no other client this week.

“No fear,” said the young German. “Haf I, Cicely?”

Mr. Lavender became conscious for the first time of a young woman leaning up against the wall, with a pair of tweezers in her hand.

“Take it out, Otto,” she said in a low voice, “if he wants it.”

“No no,” said Mr. Lavender sharply, resuming his teeth; “I would not for the world burden your conscience.”

“My clients are all batriots,” said the young dentist, “and my bractice is Kaput. We are in a bad way, sir,” he added, with a smile, “but we try to do the correct ting.”

Mr. Lavender saw the young woman move the tweezers in a manner which caused his blood to run a little cold.

“We must live,” he heard her say.

“Young madam,” he said, “I honour the impulse which makes you desire to extend your husband’s practice. Indeed, I perceive you both to be so honourable that I cannot but make you a confession. My tooth is indeed sound, though, since I have been pretending that it isn’t, it has caused me much discomfort. I came here largely to form an opinion of your husband’s character, with a view to securing his internment.”

At that word the two young people shrank together till they were standing side by side, staring at Mr Lavender with eyes full of anxiety and wonder. Their hands, which still held the implements of dentistry, insensibly sought each other.

“Be under no apprehension,” cried Mr. Lavender, much moved; “I can see that you are greatly attached, and even though your husband is a German, he is still a man, and I could never bring myself to separate him from you.”

“Who are you?” said the young woman in a frightened voice, putting her arm round her husband’s waist.

“Just a public man,” answered Mr. Lavender.

“I came here from a sense of duty; nothing more, assure you.”

“Who put you up to it?”

“That,” said Mr. Lavender, bowing as best he could from the angle he was in, “I am not at liberty to disclose. But, believe me, you have nothing to fear from this visit; I shall never do anything to distress a woman. And please charge me as if the tooth had been extracted.”

The young German smiled, and shook his head.

“Sir,” he said, “I am grateful to you for coming, for it shows us what danger we are in. The hardest ting to bear has been the uncertainty of our bosition, and the feeling that our friends were working behind our backs. Now we know that this is so we shall vordify our souls to bear the worst. But, tell me,” he went on, “when you came here, surely you must have subbosed that to tear me away from my wife would be very bainful to her and to myself. You say now you never could do that, how was it, then, you came?”

“Ah, sir!” cried Mr. Lavender, running his hands through his hair and staring at the ceiling, “I feared this might seem inconsistent to your logical German mind. But there are many things we public men would never do if we could see them being done. Fortunately, as a rule we cannot. Believe me, when I leave you I shall do my best to save you from a fate which I perceive to be unnecessary.”

So saying, he rose from the chair, and, picking up his hat, backed towards the door.

“I will not offer you my hand,” he said, “for I am acutely conscious that my position is neither dignified nor decent. I owe you a tooth that I shall not readily forget. Good-bye!”

XV

And backing through the doorway he made his way down the stairs and out into the street, still emotionalized by the picture of the two young people holding each other by the waist. He had not, however, gone far before reason resumed its sway, and he began to see that the red velvet chair in which he had been sitting was in reality a wireless apparatus reaching to Berlin, or at least concealed a charge of dynamite to blow up some King or Prime Minister; and that the looking-glasses, of which he had noticed two at least, were surely used for signalling to Gothas or Zeppelins. This plunged him into a confusion so poignant that, rather by accident than design, he found himself again at Hampstead instead of at Scotland Yard. “In the society of Aurora alone,” he thought, “can I free myself from the goadings of conscience, for it was she who sent me on that errand.” And, instead of going in, he took up a position on his lawn whence he could attract her attention by waving his arms. He had been doing this for some time, to the delight of Blink, who thought it a new game, before he saw her in her nurse’s dress coming out of a French-window with her yellow book in her hand. Redoubling his efforts till he had arrested her attention, he went up to the privet hedge, and said, in a deep and melancholy voice:

“Aurora, I have failed in my duty, and the errand on which you sent me is unfulfilled. Mrs. Pullbody’s sister’s husband’s sister’s husband is still, largely speaking, at large.”

“I knew he would be,” replied the young lady, with her joyous smile, “that’s why I put her on to you – the cat!”

At a loss to understand her meaning, Mr. Lavender, who had bent forward above the hedge in his eagerness to explain, lost his balance, and, endeavouring to save the hedge, fell over into some geranium pots.

“Dear Don Pickwixote,” cried the young lady, assisting him to rise, “have you hurt your nose?”

“It is not that,” said Mr. Lavender, removing some mould from his hair, and stifling the attentions of Blink; “but rather my honour, for I have allowed my duty to my country to be overridden by the common emotion of pity.”

“Hurrah!” cried the young lady. “It’ll do you ever so much good.”

“Aurora!” cried Mr. Lavender aghast, walking at her side. But the young lady only uttered her enchanting laugh.

“Come and lie down in the hammock!” she said you’re looking like a ghost. “I’ll cover you up with a rug, and smoke a cigarette to keep the midges off you. Tuck up your legs; that’s right!”

“No!” said Mr. Lavender from the recesses of the hammock, feeling his nose, “let the bidges bide me. I deserve they should devour me alive.”

“All right,” said the young lady. “But have a nap, anyway!” And sitting down in a low chair, she opened her book and lit a cigarette.

Mr. Lavender remained silent, watching her with the eyes of an acolyte, and wondering whether he was in his senses to have alighted on so rare a fortune. Nor was it long before he fell into a hypnotic doze.

How long Mr. Lavender had been asleep he could not of course tell before he dreamed that he was caught in a net, the meshes of which were formed of the cries of newspaper boys announcing atrocities by land and sea. He awoke looking into the eyes of Aurora, who, to still his struggles, had taken hold of his ankles.

“My goodness! You are thin!” were the first words he heard. “No wonder you’re lightheaded.”

Mr. Lavender, whose returning chivalry struggled with unconscious delight, murmured with difficulty:

“Let me go, let me go; it is too heavenly!

“Well, have you finished kicking?” asked the young lady.

“Yes,” returned Mr. Lavender in a fainting voice – “alas!”

The young lady let go of his ankles, and, aiding him to rise from the hammock, said: “I know what’s the matter with you now – you’re starving yourself. You ought to be kept on your back for three months at least, and fed on butter.”

Mr. Lavender, soothing the feelings of Blink, who, at his struggles, had begun to pant deeply, answered with watering lips:

“Everyone in these days must do twice as much as he ought, and I eat half, for only in this way can we compass the defeat of our common enemies.” The young lady’s answer, which sounded like “Bosh!” was lost in Mr. Lavender’s admiration of her magnificent proportions as she bent to pick up her yellow book.

“Aurora,” he said, “I know not what secret you share with the goddesses; suffer me to go in and give thanks for this hour spent in your company.”

And he was about to recross the privet hedge when she caught him by the coat-tag, saying:

“No, Don Pickwixote, you must dine with us. I want you to meet my father. Come along!” And, linking her arm in his, she led him towards her castle. Mr. Lavender, who had indeed no, option but to obey, such was the vigour of her arm, went with a sense of joy not unmingled with consternation lest the personage she spoke of should have viewed him in the recent extravagance of his dreaming moments.

“I don’t believe,” said the young lady, gazing down at him, “that you weigh an ounce more than seven stone. It’s appalling!

“Not,” returned Mr. Lavender, “by physical weight and force shall we win this war, for it is at bottom a question of morale. Right is, ever victorious in the end, and though we have infinitely greater material resources than our foes, we should still triumph were we reduced to the last ounce, because of the inherent nobility of our cause.”

“You’ll be reduced to the last ounce if we don’t feed, you up somehow,” said the young lady.

“Would you like to wash your hands?”

Mr. Lavender having signified his assent, she left him alone in a place covered with linoleum. When, at length, followed by Blink, he emerged from dreamy ablutions, Mr. Lavender, saw that she had changed her dress to a flowing blue garment of diaphanous character, which made her appear, like an emanation of the sky. He was about to say so when he noticed a gentleman in khaki scrutinizing him with lively eyes slightly injected with blood.

“Don Pickwixote,” said the young lady; “my father, Major Scarlet.”

Mr. Lavender’s hand was grasped by one which seemed to him made of iron.

“I am honoured, sir,” he said painfully, “to meet the father of my charming young neighbour.”

The Major answered in a voice as clipped as his grey bottle-brush moustache, “Delighted! Dinner’s ready. Come along!”

Mr. Lavender saw that he had a mouth which seemed to have a bitt in it; several hairs on a finely rounded head; and an air of efficient and truculent bonhomie tanned and wrinkled by the weather.

The table at which they became seated seemed to one accustomed to frugality to groan with flowers and china and glass; and Mr. Lavender had hardly supped his rich and steaming soup before his fancy took fire; nor did he notice that he was drinking from a green glass in which was a yellow fluid.

“I get Army rations,” said the Major, holding a morsel of fillet of beef towards Blink. “Nice dog, Mr. Lavender.”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Lavender, ever delighted that his favourite should receive attention, “she is an angel.”

“Too light,” said the Major, “and a bit too narrow in front; but a nice dog. What’s your view of the war?”

Before Mr. Lavender could reply he felt Aurora’s foot pressing his, and heard her say:

“Don Pickwixote’s views are after your own heart, Dad; he’s for the complete destruction of the Hun.”

“Indeed, yes,” cried Mr. Lavender with shining eyes. “Right and justice demand it. We seek to gain nothing!”

“But we’ll take all we can get,” said the Major.

“They’ll never get their Colonies back. We’ll stick to them fast enough.”

Mr. Lavender stared at him for a moment, then, remembering what he had so often read, he murmured:

“Aggrandizement is not our object; but we can never forget that so long as any territory remains in the hands of our treacherous foe the arteries of our far-flung Empire are menaced at the roots.”

“Right-o,” said the Major, “we’ve got the chance of our lives, and we’re going to take it.”

Mr. Lavender sat forward a little on his chair. “I shall never admit,” he said, “that we are going to take anything, for that would be contrary to the principles which we are pledged to support, and to our avowed intention of seeking only the benefit of the human race; but our inhuman foes have compelled us to deprive them of the power to injure others.”

“Yes,” said the Major, “we must just go on killing Germans and collaring every bit of their property we can.”

Mr. Lavender sat a little further forward on his chair, and the trouble in his eyes grew.

“After all’s said and done,” continued the Major; “it’s a simple war – us or them! And in the long run it’s bound to be us. We’ve got the cards.” Mr. Lavender started, and said in a weak and wavering voice:

“We shall never sheathe the sword until – ”

“The whole bag of tricks is in our hands. Might isn’t Right, but Right’s Might, Mr. Lavender; ha, ha!”

Mr. Lavender’s eyes lighted on his glass, and he emptied it in his confusion. When he looked up again he could not see the Major very well, but could distinctly hear the truculent bonhomie of his voice.

“Every German ought to be interned; all their property ought to be confiscated; all their submarines’ and Zeppelins’ crews ought to be hung; all German prisoners ought to be treated as they treat our men. We ought to give ‘em no quarter. We ought to bomb their towns out of existence. I draw the line at their women. Short of that there’s nothing too bad for them. I’d treat ‘em like rabbits. Vermin they were, and vermin they remain.”

During this speech the most astounding experience befell Mr. Lavender, so that his eyes nearly started from his head. It seemed to him, indeed, that he was seated at dinner with a Prussian, and the Major’s voice had no sooner ceased its genial rasping than with a bound forward on his chair, he ejaculated:

“Behold the man – the Prussian in his jack-boot!” And, utterly oblivious of the fact that he was addressing Aurora’s father, he went on with almost terrible incoherence: “Although you have conquered this country, sir, never shall you subdue in my breast the sentiments of liberty and generosity which make me an Englishman. I abhor you – invader of the world – trampler underfoot of the humanities – enemy of mankind – apostle of force! You have blown out the sparks of love and kindliness, and have for ever robbed the Universe. Prussian!”

The emphasis with which he spoke that word caused his chair, on the edge of which he was sitting, to tilt up under him so that he slid under the table, losing the vision of that figure in helmet and field-grey which he had been apostrophizing.

“Hold up!” said a voice, while Blink joined him nervously beneath the board.

“Never!” cried Mr. Lavender. “Imprison, maltreat me do what you will. You have subdued her body, but never will I admit that you have conquered the honour of Britain and trodden her gentle culture into the mud.”

And, convinced that he would now be dragged away to be confined in some dungeon on bread and water, he clasped the leg of the dining-table with all his might, while Blink, sagaciously aware that something peculiar was occurring to her master, licked the back of his neck. He had been sitting there perhaps half a minute, with his ears stretched to catch the half-whispered sounds above, when he saw a shining object appear under the table, the head, indeed, of the Prussian squatting there to look at him.

“Go up, thou bald-head,” he called out at once; “I will make no terms with the destroyer of justice and humanity.”

“All right, my dear sir,” replied the head.

“Will you let my daughter speak to you?”

“Prussian blasphemer,” responded Mr. Lavender, shifting his position so as to be further away, and clasping instead of the table leg some soft silken objects, which he was too excited to associate with Aurora, “you have no daughter, for no woman would own one whose hated presence poisons this country.”

“Well, well,” said the Major. “How shall we get him out?”

Hearing these words, and believing them addressed to a Prussian guard, Mr. Lavender clung closer to the objects, but finding them wriggle in his clasp let go, and, bolting forward like a rabbit on his hands and knees, came into contact with the Major’s head. The sound of the concussion, the Major’s oaths, Mr. Lavender’s moans, Blink’s barking, and the peals of laughter from Aurora made up a noise which might have been heard in Portugal. The situation was not eased until Mr. Lavender crawled out, and taking up a dinner-knife, rolled his napkin round his arm, and prepared to defend himself against the German Army.

“Well, I’m damned,” said the Major when he saw these preparations; “I am damned.”

Aurora, who had been leaning against the wall from laughter, here came forward, gasping:

“Go away, Dad, and leave him to me.”

“To you!” cried the Major. “He’s not safe!”

“Oh yes, he is; it’s only you that are exciting him. Come along!”

And taking her father by the arm she conducted him from the room. Closing the door behind him, and putting her back against it, she said, gently:

“Dear Don Pickwixote, all danger is past. The enemy has been repulsed, and we are alone in safety. Ha, ha, ha!”

Her voice recalled. Mr. Lavender from his strange hallucination. “What?” he said weakly.

“Why? Who? Where? When?”

“You have been dreaming again. Let me take you home, and tuck you into bed.” And taking from him the knife and napkin, she opened the French-window, and passed out on to the lawn.

Lavender, who now that his reason had come back, would have followed her to the death, passed out also, accompanied by Blink, and watched by the Major, who had put his head in again at the door. Unfortunately, the spirit moved Mr. Lavender to turn round at this moment, and seeing the head he cried out in a loud voice:

“He is there! He is there! Arch enemy of mankind! Let me go and die under his jackboot, for never over my living body shall he rule this land.” And the infatuated gentleman would certainly have rushed at his host had not Aurora stayed him by the slack of his nether garments. The Major withdrawing his head, Mr. Lavender’s excitement again passed from him, and he suffered himself to be led dazedly away and committed to the charge of Mrs. Petty and Joe, who did not leave him till he was in bed with a strong bromide to keep him company.