The Refugee

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 71, 17 December 1917, Page 11

The Refugee

(By E. Temple Thurston in the "Outlook.")

HT • was the evening of last Christmas Day, 1914, whon the whole of Europe was shaken ' with the sounds of war, and the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace, sounded strange on the lips of those men of the Church who scarcely knew what messago to preach from their pulpits. But the habits and customs of Christmas, these remained, even in the trenches in Flanders; for wherever there are children and 1 the child in .1 man is still alive these customs will maintain,; You may kill a. man on Boxing Day and in honest warfare, but you ■will spend a jolly Christmas with him first. This is hard to explain from any pulpit. People went . about. their shopping much the same as ever, though deep below the sound of all festivities there was tho murmur of battle somewhere in Trance, there was the muffled-thun-der of the guns, the far cry of nations in anger and revolt. All this you could hear beneath the cries of delight of the children in the toy shops: yet, nevertheless, Christmas, was much the same as usual. On Christinas Eve the trains weje full of passengers laden with their parcels, all of them those suspicious-looking packages containing just'the-very-things, some creature was looking for. It was the same' in the country as in London. Oij .Christmas Day itself, as the light faded to the sullen gray of tho winter's- evening, lights began appearing in the cottage windows, brighter and more numerous than at any other time of tho year. In the village of R ,on the east coast, when the murky light of evening had swiftly deepened at five o'clock into,tho darknoss of night, you mig'it have.seen the flickering firelight in the cottage windows change to the brighter light of the lamps before blinds were pulled down, shutting out the sight of the gloomy sky. The lowering of the blinds swiftly followed this change of light, and "then there came upon the place all that appearance of security' and seclusion, suggesting warmth and laughter: though, indeed, in some houses that winter there was little laughter to be heard. At the Manor House of E all

these changes might have been observed, only that beside • the lamplight, trhich flooded out the light of the fire always lit in the oak-panelled hall on Christmas Day, there appeared, befere the blinds were drawn, the nunißerless twinkling lights of tmy candles. A Christmas tree! ' That was it. An old, old-fashioned Christmas tree, dressed heavily with pink and green and white candles and weighted down with aIT those ims-picious-looking parcels, of which you say nothing, pretending almost not to see them, yet never letting them quite esoape your watchful eye. The pinkand white candles, the coloured glass balls, the little glass peacocks with \ their spun-glass tails that perch on the branches—you may exclaim with de- ■ light 'about these; but of the brownpper parcel, until it is placed in your hands, you must say nothing. Charles, the old butler, was completing the final arrangements, putting the last,touches to this great tree or twinkling lights that stood on the old refectory table in the hall of R Manor. Greyson, the- parlourmaid, was helping him. Indeed _it is Greyson who remembers the things Charles was saying to her before that occurred of which I am about to tell. "I wanted myself," 6aid he, as he lit one of the last candles on the tree —"I wanted myself to have none of these festivities this Christmas. 'It's a mockery'—that's the way I put it to the mistress—'it's a mockery, with the master lying out there somewhere in France, p'r'aps not even buried, to tie those candles and gimcrack things and presents on the Christmas tree, just as we've done for the last seven years, ever since Master Harry was born.'" Greyson'lit a candle on her- side of the tree, and asked what the mistress had said to that. ' "She lookedat me very gently," replied Charles, "and she said, 'Are you considering ..vour feelings or his, Charles?' That's what she said, Well, I didn't', quite know what she meant by that, so I-says, 'I'm considering his, maam.' .'Well, then,' she says, 'if you look deep into your own mind, Charles, because you've known Major Garroway ever since bo was a boy, was he the sort of man who would prefer his death to be honoured with gloom and depression at such.a time as this?' Then I knew what the* meant, and I had to admit that he wasn't. 'Very well, then, 1 says she. 'We'll have the Christmas tree and everything just tho same as usual, and we won't say anything more about-it.'" "She's kept her word," said Greyson. "She's said nothing about it to me. Things might have been just the same as ever they was." Charles shook his head backwards and forwards as ho tied a big blue flass ball on to one of the lower ranches.

"The same, do you call it?" said he, and then he shook his head again. "Why, they always used to tie these things on to the Christmas tree themI asked her if she was to do it this time, and she just closed her eyes for one moment, just as if she was looking* into herself for the courage women nave to have at a time like this. And when she opened them again I could see she had found it. 'No,' says she, quietly. 'Let you and Greyson do it.this Christmas,' sne says, 'while I keep the childron in tho dining-room.' Oh, she's got a great heart, has Mrs. Garroway; as great a heart for a woman as he had ior a man. When you think of the way she took it when first she heard he was missing—the waj she held her head vp and went about the house, laughing and playing with the children, never telling them a word and answering all | their questions when they asked her about their daddy! There's no wonder to my mind, she broke up as she did when they took the N last hope away from her and sent her that telegram from the War Office saying he was dead. And yet, what else could they suppose? 'He'd been missing more than a month and there was no report of the Germans having got him as a prisoner. I wasn't surprised to see her go to pieces after all that strain had been put on her. Then wo nearly lost her, didn't we? My God! I try to see the nobility of war, but I'm hanged if I can manage it! It brings out great self-sacrifice—l've no doubt 1 of that; but there are other virtues in this world, and all of them have to go." So Charles might have continued, as Greyson very truly observed, for ho was a talkative 'Id man; so he might have continued till every candle was burned out and every bauble dropping from the tree, but at that moment they heard the sound' if footsteps on tho paved pathway outside the hall door, and the next moment the door itself, which wis locked, was tried. {Someone had turned the jhandjfl, m {hough tWrik'fag, Afft -nftpg.e? &\# in ß> iio nnulrl enter the .house si will.

A CHRISTMAS WAR STORY

Greyson admits that it "n:> a strange sound in their cars; for 'o could it be away from his home </. jiich a day and at such a time as that ?_Yet, even allowing for such a possibility, who could imagine he had the right to open the door and enter the house without either knocking or ringing? She Bays herself that the heart stood still in her, although there was nothing really to be afraid of. The Manor House was a lonely place certainly, and stood some distance away from the village; but, if Charles was an old man, there was the gardoner in his cottage, not more than a couple of hundred yards away, and there was the chauffeur, who lived in the house itself. Besides which it was not long after five o'clock in the afternoon. Nevertheless the gloomy darkness outside and the unexpected sound of those footsteps, followed "1-y the turning of the handle of the hall door, made her grow suddenly cold with apprehension, notwithstanding the heat of the fire in the hall and of those numberless candles they had just lighted on the Christmas tree. "Who's that?" she asked in a whisper. Charles shook his Lead, and, as the handle was tried again, he walked without hesitation to the door and turned the key and pulled back the bolts. Greyson remembers thinking it was no small heart old Charles had beating in his breast, to go so quietly as he did.

It was not with caution that ho opened it, either, as many a more timid man might have done, peering through the narrow aperture, but lie flung it wide, and there, out in the drizzling rain, half hidden in the shadow of the trees and the gloomy sky behind him, stood a tall man, in t-trange clothes, a black beard, moustache, and whiskers hiding the features of his face. There he stood, and. as Greyson said, there stood Charles, »i;<! for a moment that seemed to her interminable they said nothing. It was Charles at last who broke the silence. "What do you want?" he asked. The man Teplied in French, as unintelligible to Greyson as it 'was to tho butler. "Can't you speak English at all?" asked Charles. "No—no," said the stranger. "Understand—yes. Speak? No—no—vairy leetle." It was as Charles looked round at Greyson in that helpless way of an Englishman when, he is dealing with a foreigner whose languago ho does not understand —it was then, that, in the most perfect English, the man suddenly said: "Silly ass, Charles!" In an instant the butler had wheeled round again on his heel and, with a little cry that she did her best to suppress, Greyson dropped the box of coloured candles she was carrying m her hand.

"My God, sir!" exclaimed Charles,

Greyson had no memory of what she said or did, for there was her master, Major Garroway, who for these last four months thoy had nil believed dead. Only his voice as he spoke those words in English, was recognisable; but once he had said thorn, it was impossible to make any mistako. The disfiguring beard and whiskers ana moustache.hiding all those features of his face they knew so : well, the foreign-looking clothes which had all seemed so thoroughly in keeping- with his French tongue—one and all, they fell from him like a disguise, when once he bad spoken 'those- three words in the voice they had heard so often and never expected to hear again. "My God, sirr' repeated Charles, when words came, from his mind and were not without volition on his lips. "We thought you Were deadl" Garroway stepped into the hall and looked about him, but just over the threshold and no'more. As though he were a stranger intruding whore he was not wanted, Charles stood immovably in his way. "Yes, I suppose they reported me dead," said Garroway, "but I'm not. I got away. How—bow are they all? Eh? How are they?" "All right now, sir, now that madam s settling clown to itr-but—but—" "But what?" • "We nearly lost her, sir. She reard you was mis3ing at first and she Lcio up with hope wonderfully for a r.onth, and then " "They said I was killed?" "Yes, sir; ami she broke up tiien. For nigh on a month she was at death's door." "Were the children told I was kille<i ?" „ , a u "No sir, not yet. Madam thought she'd wait till—till after Christmas, and let them have their little party as happy as possible." Just' like a man'whose emotion is more than lie cares to show, Garroway was about to push his way past the butler and stride impulsively into the hall. No less impulsively Charles caught him by the arm. "For God's sako, sir," said ho, '.'don't come into the house! \o\\ don't understand; you-don t understand at all!" ~ "Don't understand what? Good God! Can't I come into my own house? Why, I've timed this thing to a minute. 1 ought to have been reporting myself at the War Office; hut I came hero. firstjust because I wanted to bo m time for the Christmas tree. Last night 1 erossod over with a lot of Belgian refugees. Ever since the retreat iro'-n Mons, where I was wounded, I ye been creeping about Belgium in disguise; hiding here, hiding there, like a rat in a sewer-growing this beard dressed l in these clothes, learning their tolK until I could dare to go out into the streets and talk to the Gorman soldiers, and they didn't know me from a Uol<riau civilian. And always Ive been waiting my chance, waiting my chance, till at last it came! I slipped over tho frontier into Holland, and now, when I get hack on Christmas Day, you won t let me into my own house. What's the mystery about it?" Charles still clung to his arm. "There is no mystery about it at all sir; but madam couldn't stand this second shock, sir-not like this she St You don't realise, sir what K been through. How could you? God knows >W« had dangers and troubles Enough of your own, and it's InnMo enough vol. wanting to come i" I ?lik£ tl son Christmas Day, sir; St it. iielmi in their casual way of letting PG SvSrdecS'sl.e never saw di, so deeply w«ponriin'. face as upon M»l»i &««™ * * a cill that is told it cannot go to a it Ims so long.looked forward to. " D ° Tl "Z Ch,rfi» Iked t^rt: r i,Siift^Und ho look one and his eyes utt s\hotitTof the gutter, who knows the* festivities of the rich man's house are not for him.

Grayson talks about the lump that came into hor throat when she saw that look of his, and I can well boliovo it. "That's what 1 mean, sir," said Charles. ''Whon a lady keeps silence about a thing like she docs, it moans it's gono pretty deep, sir. I know it must be very hard to understand now, just the very moment you've got back; but you've been out thero doiiif thiii"s, sir, risking your life, I know that; hut doing things all the time, every moment of every day, full of danger, full of excitement, 110 time to feel tho real moaning of anything— not even tho war you've boon fighting i n . At homo here wo oan do nothing but sit and wait, and it's a_ cruel time that for thinking, sir, especially for a woman. Thero"s twice the meaning in things that happen for thorn, sir; and, I toll you honest, sho couldn't bear another shock, not sudden like this, howevor happy it 'ud make her." Garroway looked up straightly into Charlos's face. "You think I'd better go away, then?" he said, and ho would not look at tho Christmas tree a second time. "Botter find a train up to London and report myself in tho ordinary way at tho War Offico?" "Oh, my God, sir, don't put it en to me I" began Charles. "You didn't seo her like we did that month. The doctor told mo himself " So he had begun, and there be stopped. Tho door of the dining-room had opened and then closed_ again. Mrs. Garroway had como out into the tall. "We're getting so. impatient, Charles," sho said. "Haven't you " Garroway drew back farther into tho shadows of the porch as she stopped. "Who's there?" she inquired, and sho looked at Greyson and she looked at Charles. With an effort, of which Groyson assures mo sho never thought him capable, the butler camo forward, leaving Garroway half concealed in the porch. "It's—it's a Belgian refugee, madam," he said, confidentially, coming back into the hall and speaking in an undertone, as though in consideration tor the feelings of the man. . Perhaps he hoped that his mistress would 3sk no further questions, but that was not her way. "A Belgian refugeo?" sho said. "But how did he get here? What doos ho want?"

"Can't make on'; rightly, madam. He speaks very little English." Mrs. Garroway went to the lirll door, and I am sure it was no exaggeration on Groyson's part when she' said they stood there beside the Christmas tree, with their breath held, expecting every moment to hear the heartrending cry of her recognition. But it did not come. "Can't you speak English at all!" they heard her ask him.' "Un p'tit peu, seuhnent, madanio," they heard him reply, and he added quickly, "mais je comprend facilement." "But how do you happen to be in this part of the world?" He told her that when he had dis-'-embarked ho had not gone up to London with the rest of the refugees.. She looked back into the hall at the glowing fire, the cheery light of tho candles on the Christmas treo. They could see her mind comparing it with the gloomy darkness and the rain outside. Greyson felt a sickness of apprehension as she realised her mistress's half-formed intention to invite him within. For one moment only it was half formed, tho next the decision had come to her. The door of tho dining-room had tentatively oponed and a boy's voice had called out: •,„•,,. "Mummy! Aren't you roady? Wo can't wait any longer!" "We're just ready, darling,' she called back, and then quickly she turned to that waiting figure in tho porchway. They knew well enough what was passing in her mind. How could she turn him out again.into the night, this homeloss man, in face of such home comforts as these?

"My children are just going to have their 'Christmas tree," she said "Won't you come in?" The look that Charles sent kirn behind Mrs. Garroway's back, importuning him to refuse, never reached him. His eyes were' all for his wife. What man could have refused? Ho stepped into the hall. Charles came forward and took his hat. His hair was grown long and unkempt upon his forehead. "Not even in that light, and knowing who he was," said Greyson to mo, "should I have known it was the masMrs. Garroway was no less deceived, though there was one moment when she looked long at him, yet not es ore who recognises, but rather as one m whom a memory has been awakeaed. Nevertheless, it was a moment of suspense to them, passing away as she came closely to his side, saying:

"When my children come out and hear that you have come from Belgium they will ask you about my husband, They—they know nothing. They thing he is still fighting at the front. I—l have tried to keep their Christmas happy for them, buMmt-" here for the first time her voice faltered, but she gathered her courage and went bravely on—"it's not true. Ho—he was killed in the retreat from Mons. But they are very curious creaturos. They are not satisfied with my word. I—l have to invent the letters that I receive from him and the news he sends. They want proof for everything. They are bound to ask you questions. Perhaps—perhaps you could help me. I have told them he was wounded—wounded at Mons. There are so many who come back wounded that they practically forced me to tell them that." A pathetic smile crept into her face. "I don't think they would have thought he was lighting properly if he had not been wounded."

"Has madame told them," he spoke in broken English, "that 'monsieur came home?" "Oh, no! He was only slightly wounded, I said: just in the arm, and has got quite well again." "Eh bien, madamo," replied Garroway. "Le laissez a moi." She turned away and walked to tho dining-room door, opening it and saying: "Come along, creatures. It's all ready, and here's a grand surprise for you,!'' What a surprise it was, if she had known! They rushed out, the two girls and the boy, shouting with delight, like children trooping out of school, their cries dropping to silence on their lips directly they saw the strange man standing in the ball. I have Charles's [opinion upon this, that tho control which Major Garroway exercised then upon himself was almost more than that of men.. There he stood, just as if ho were a stranger, before thoso creatures dearest to hiin in all the'world. "This gentleman is a Belgian," said Mrs. Garroway. "He has just come over to England. Go and say how do you do and \\h\\ him a happy Christmas." One by one, solemnly, with outstretched hands, they came to him saying, "A happy Christmas, Mi. Belgian." The youngest girl camo last. His favourite, so Cliavlos said to me. And it was not an outstretched hand s':? gave to him, but a little face upturned, with lips already pouted for her i'.tss. No man in the world Could have resisted that. Ho picked her up in his arms and kissed her twenty times.

"Oh! You skecze!" sho cried, and with many apologies on his foreign tongue he put her down. "Now," said Mrs. Garroway, "this gentleman has got something ,to toll you—she forced the lump back in hor throat—"has got something to toll you about daddy. Are you going to hear

that first or shall we' Imvc the presents?*' In one voico, they all cried: "Daddy 1" Sho turned to him with a snide that would have rent the heart in any man. "Thin shall hfa your present, monsieur," said sho. Who could have expected him not to havo hcon moved? For a fow moments J lio could iioi speak, but, no suspicion woro aroused in her because, of that. After what she had told him no ono would havo been surprised to s<« his emotion. At last he Logan. "After the iirsl lew words," Charles told me, "1 saw the idea that was in his mind." Ho told them the whole story of his own escape: how ho was wounded at lions, his creeping through tlio German lilies, his hiding in Brussels until ho had learned the- language and disguised' himself as a Bolgian, so that ho could even speak with impunity to tho I German soldiers in the streets. And all this as a story of her husband, whom she believed to be dead. They listened with their little mouths open. It was tho most engrossing story they had over heard. "And when's daddy coining home?" they all asked, when he had finished. "As soon as ho got to Antwerp," said ho, "and what you say—slip—tlio frontier." , And all tho timo as he told his talo in his broken English his eyes woro wandeiing backwards and forwards to hio wife. She sat tTicro in a trembling silence, her own oyes nover turning from the firo whero all tlio memories of tha happy past woro dancing in the flames. "Cn—monsieur, if only it wcro trim!" sho whispered to, him as ho mado an end. "Why shouldn't it be truo? Those arc the things I hoped and hoped until—until they told mo the truth." Her lips were quivering and then she Weed a smilo into her oyes—a smile for them that had no meaning in her heart. "Come along," said she, as she stood up. "Now for the Christmas tree. Charles, have you got -the scissors there?" "Yes, madam." Garroway rose to his fcetttnd camo to the table where tho Christmas tree was standing. "It eos tho proper sing—l give my littlo present," said he, and turned to Charles. "Emporte?, moi un p'tit morceau do papier bran, s'il vous plait," ho said. Charles looked his bewilderment. "Ho wants a piece of brown' paper, Charles," explained Mrs. Garroway. "But, monsieur," she added, "you must not givo mo any present. It has been pleasuro enough to havo you here." "Oh, no! no I no!" he exclaimed, with well-assumed foreign excitement. "No! no! 1 give my present!" And when Charles camo with the brown paper he slipped something secretly out of his pocket, swiftly wrapped it up, and, tying it with string, ho Ining it on tho tree. "I have not the present for all," said he. "Voila! this is for madanie." "Open mummy! Upon it now!" they cried out. "No! no!" said ho. '>It.shall be the last of all." Such a scrambling there was for nil the presents then. Taking tho scissors from Charles, it was Garroway himself, as in the times' gone by, who cut thern from tho tree. Then came the last of all, that littlo present in its wrapping of brown paper. With trembling fingers, ho cut that from tho tree and brought it to his wife. "For you, madame," said he. As though with some sub-conscious presentiment, she paused before sho opened it. Then slowly she pulled tho wrapping off as they all crowded round. Another moment, and there it lay in her hand. Her own miniature! Tho littlo picture of herself in its gold frame that he had always worn around' nis neck. She looked up into his eyes, her souses swaying between joy and doubt. "It's true, then, monsieur?" she vhispered. He mado as though to speak a word in private in her ear. "Yes, my dear, it's true enough," he said in his own voice, and his arms were ready to catch her as sho sw.ung into her moment of oblivion.