The Outrage Part 14

"Of course you may," said her father, and Eva ran out quickly, just as her mother looked up to say, "What is it?"

"I have sent Eva to talk to those unhappy creatures," said Mr. Whitaker.

"We must try and cheer them a little. It is nothing less than a duty.

Poor souls!" he repeated, "I have never seen anything so dismal."

"I think we fulfil our duty in providing them with shelter and food,"

said Mrs. Whitaker.

"You think nothing of the kind, Theresa," said Mr. Whitaker.

"I do," a.s.serted his wife. "And as for Eva, she is already inclined to be exaggeratedly sentimental in regard to these people. She is constantly running after them with flowers and cups of tea."

"Nice child," said her father, with a little tightening in his throat.

"She is not a child, Anselm. She is nineteen. And I do not wish her to have anything to do with those women."

"Theresa?" said her husband, in a high questioning voice. "Theresa. Come here."

Mrs. Whitaker did not move. "Come here," he repeated in the threatening and terrible tone that he sometimes used to the children and to his old retriever Raven--a tone which frightened neither child nor beast. "Come here."

Mrs. Whitaker approached. "Sit down," he said, indicating a footstool in front of him; and Mrs. Whitaker obeyed. "Now, wife," he said, "are you growing hard and sour in your old age? Are you?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Whitaker. "I am."

"Ah," said Mr. Whitaker, "that's right. I knew you weren't." And he laughed, and patted her cheek.

This was not the answer Mrs. Whitaker was prepared for and she had nothing ready to say. So the wily Mr. Whitaker went on, "I have noticed lately in you certain a.s.sumed asperities, a certain simulated acrimony.... Now, Theresa, tell me; what does this make-believe bad temper mean?"

Mrs. Whitaker felt that she could weep with rage. What is the good of having a bad temper when it is not believed in? Of what use is it to be sore and sour, to feel bitter and hard, in the face of smiling incredulity?

"With other people, my dear," continued Mr. Whitaker, "you may pretend that you are disagreeable and irascible, but not with me. I know better."

This simple strategy had proved perfectly successful for twenty years and it answered today, as it always did.

"I _am_ disagreeable, I _am_ irascible, I _am_ bitter, and hard, and cross," said Mrs. Whitaker, whereupon Mr. Whitaker closed his eyes, smiled and shook his head.

"Don't keep on shaking your head like a Chinese toy," she added.

"Anselm, you really are the stupidest man I have ever seen." And then she laughed. "It is dreadful," she added, putting aside the hand he had laid on her shoulder, "not to be believed when one is cross, not to be feared when one is angry. It makes one feel so helpless."

"You may be helpless," he said; "womanly women mostly are. But you are never cross and you are never angry. So don't pretend to be."

Now Mrs. Whitaker was tall and large and square; she was strong-minded and strong-featured; she was what you would call a "capable woman"--and none but her own inmost soul knew the melting joy that overcame her at being told that she was helpless. She raised her hand to the hand that lay on her shoulder again, and patted it. She bent her head sideways and laid her cheek upon it.

"Now, what's the trouble?" said her husband.

"The trouble ... I can hardly express it," she spoke hesitantly, "either to myself or to you. Anselm!" she turned her eyes to him suddenly, the eyes full of blueness and temper and courage he had fallen in love with in Dublin long ago. "I hate those three miserable women," she said. "I hate them."

"What!" cried her husband, drawing his hand away from hers.

"I fear them, and I hate them!" she repeated.

"What have they done?"

"They have done nothing," said his wife, with drooping head and downcast eyes. "But I cannot help it. I hate and fear them ... for the children's sake."

"What do you mean?" Mr. Whitaker was sitting very straight. The thin soft hair still crowning his brow was ruffled.

"The mystery that surrounds them frightens me," said Mrs. Whitaker. "I don't know where they come from, what they have seen, what they have lived through. I should like to be kind to them, I should like to encourage the children to cheer them and speak to them. But there is something ... something in their eyes that repels me, something that makes me want to draw Eva away from them. I cannot express it. I don't know what it is."

There was a brief silence. Then her husband spoke. "A woman's instinct in these things is right, I suppose. But to me it sounds uncharitable and cruel."

Mrs. Whitaker rose to her feet, her face flus.h.i.+ng painfully. "Are we called upon to sacrifice our daughter's purity of mind, her ignorance of evil, to these strangers? Is it our duty to encourage an intercourse which will tear the veil of innocence from her eyes?"

"I am afraid so," said Mr. Whitaker gravely. "How can our daughter have pity on human suffering while she does not know its meaning? True charity, Theresa, cannot be blind; compa.s.sion must know the ills it tries to heal. My dear, we are face to face with one of the problems--one of the minor problems perhaps, but still a very real problem--which this ghastly war has raised. Think for a moment, Theresa; how can our girls, who are called upon to nurse the wounded in body, and comfort the stricken in soul, live in the midst of puerile ignorance any longer? Painful though it may be, the veil you speak of, the white veil that hides from a maiden's eyes the sins and sorrows of life, must be rent asunder."

"It is cruel! it is cruel!" cried the mother.

"Yes. War is cruel. And life is cruel. But do not let us--you and I--add to the cruelty of the world. If our daughter must learn to know evil in order to be merciful, then let innocence die in her young heart, in order that pity which is n.o.bler, may be born." There was a long silence.

Then Mrs. Whitaker raised her husband's hand to her lips and kissed it.

CHAPTER VIII

Eva had gone upstairs to the schoolroom, now transformed into a sitting-room for the refugees, and had knocked softly at the door.

No one answered and she stood for a moment irresolute. Then the sound of a sobbing voice fell on her ear, "Mireille! Mireille!" ... The despair of it wrung her heart. With sudden resolve she turned the handle and went in.

Under the green-shaded electric light a picture almost biblical in its poetic tragedy presented itself to her eyes. The youngest of the refugees, the child, with her long hair loosened--and it fell like golden water on either side of her white face--stood motionless as a statue under the lamp-s.h.i.+ne, gazing straight before her, straight, indeed, into the eyes of Eva as she halted spell-bound on the threshold.

Kneeling at the child's feet, with her back to the door, was the eldest one of the three, her long black garments spreading round her, her arms stretched upwards in a despairing embrace of that motionless childish figure; her head was thrown forward on her arm and it was her sobbing voice that Eva had heard. Standing beside her holding a little golden crucifix in her clasped and upraised hands, stood the other girl--the girl who had smiled--and she was praying: "_Sainte Vierge, aidez-nous!

Mere de Dieu, faites le miracle!_" Unmoved, unseeing, unhearing the little girl they were praying for stood like a statue, her wide, unseeing eyes fixed before her as in a trance.

With sorrow and pity throbbing in her heart Eva slipped back into the pa.s.sage again, closing the door softly behind her. After a moment's uncertainty she knocked at the door once more, this time more loudly. A voice answered timidly, "_Entrez_."

They were all three standing now, but the tears still fell down the cheeks of the eldest one, who had quickly risen from her knees.

"May I come in?" asked Eva timidly. "I thought I should like to come and talk with you a little."

The second one, who understood English, came forward at once with a wan and grateful smile. "Thank you. Please come," she said. And Eva entered and closed the door.

There was a pause; then Eva put out her hand shyly and stiffly to the eldest one; "Don't cry," she said.

Surely no other words so effectively open the flood-gates of tears! Even though they were spoken in a tongue foreign to her, the stricken woman understood them and her tears flowed anew.

"_Loulou, Loulou, ne pleure pas!_" cried the younger girl, and turning to Eva she explained: "She cries because of her child"--she pointed to the little spectre--"who will not speak to her."