Hans was now ten years old, and Alethea found him a most enchanting companion. She saw him every day, spending all her spare time with him. He loved to hear her read aloud, and he would sit beside her for hours, drawing pictures to illustrate the stories she read. He drew in a spirit of sheer delight. He had never learnt to take himself seriously, and he was immensely amused when his drawings looked quite unlike what he was trying to do. He always knew when a thing was wrong, though he did not know how to put it right. But Alethea saw great promise in his pictures, which always seemed to give her a more living impression of the scene he tried to draw than she had reached herself by reading the story. He also delighted in poetry, and his mother was astonished by the ease with which he sometimes could recite a whole poem which he had only heard once or twice.
Mrs. Wynne, the owner of the house in which Alethea was nursing, took a great fancy to Hans, and she allowed him to be at the hospital as much as he liked. He made friends with many of the patients, chattering with them as they lay in the garden, and often sitting down beside one or the other to make a portrait. These were great jokes, and, in spite of the laughter with which they were received by their sitters, Alethea thought that her son was very clever in getting a likeness. Hans laughed as much as anyone at his attempts, but Alethea was sure that he would some day really be an artist.
Portia often came to Cairn Gorm for a weekend, and so she, for the first time, came to know her brother. She despised him from the first. She was extremely vain of her own appearance, and especially of the fact that she was very tall for her age. She frequently boasted that she was one of the tallest girls in the school although she was only twelve.
When she saw Hans, she looked at him with the utmost scorn.
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
Hans said that he was nearly eleven.
‘Nearly eleven? Why, you are a disgrace to the family. I’ve seen a child of three who was as tall as you.’
Hans declared that he was not a disgrace, but he quite thought that his sister was being amusing. Nothing was ever farther from her intention, and she was annoyed with Hans for thinking it possible that she could fall so low as to try to make a joke. She told him that he was a baby, and she bullied him as much as she could.
It was not easy to bully Hans, for he never suspected that anyone could wish to be unkind. He treated Portia’s teasing as a new kind of game, and he played it with zest. When she snatched one of his drawings, tore it up, and threw it into the fire, he entered into the spirit of the joke, and tore up several more, clapping his hands with delight over the flames which flared from the paper. When she hid his horse and cart, he sat on her doll, and it was only because he didn’t weigh much more than the doll itself, that no disaster occurred. She loved putting things out of his reach, and this of course she could easily do. It gave her the chance of mocking at him for being so small. But this was to Hans the best game of all, for he had made an art of reaching things which by nature were out of his reach. He could always find something to climb upon, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than carrying off something which had been put by Portia on the highest shelf in the room. He interpreted all his sister’s bullying as her way of putting him on his mettle, and giving him the chance to show her what he could do.
Portia was exasperated by his denseness. These pranks of hers were always played after Alethea had gone back to the hospital, and when Miss. Nash was busy with her chickens, or with some other of her many avocations. They would both have known that Portia was acting from spite, as Hans never knew. But there was one person who was quite awake to the little girl’s intentions, and this was Greta, the Bavarian nurse. She hated Portia accordingly, and made no secret of her feelings.
The war was still in its early stages. ‘ Enemy aliens’ were not yet the objects of suspicion which they came to be later on. Greta had only been instructed to register her name with the police, and to report periodically at the Police Station; and in this far-away little village, where everyone knew each other as if they were one family, such reporting was merely a formality. Greta and the policeman were the best of friends, and no one in the village could possibly look upon her as an enemy. She cried a good deal when she first heard that her countrymen were going to war with the English; but the idea of war in itself was utterly incomprehensible to anyone who lived in, the atmosphere of Cairn Gorm.
Portia, however, was a good deal more sophisticated than these village people. She heard a great deal at school about German spies, and as the antagonism slowly grew more acute between her and the German girl, she began to think that anyone whom she disliked so much must certainly be a spy. The idea attracted her, as she turned it over in her rather heavy but very logical mind, and she saw in it the opportunity for a very exciting and patriotic action on her part. She longed to tell the girls at school that she had caught a German spy. She was certain that her name would be in the newspapers, and she might even get a letter from the King to thank her for what she had done. She was so much carried away by the prospect of this notoriety, that she quite forgot that her only reason for suspecting Greta was the fact that the Bavarian had smacked her for teasing Hans.
Portia’s campaign began badly. She went solemnly to her mother, and warned her of the great risk they all ran by having a German spy in the house. To her annoyance, Alethea simply laughed at the idea.
‘Greta adores us all,’ she said. ‘I think she has almost forgotten that she isn’t as English as we are. But even if she wanted to be a spy, it would be no use. She can’t find out any more secrets than we can.’
‘I think you ought to be patriotic enough to hate an enemy of your country,’ Portia said pompously.
‘My dear child, it is only the Germans who sing Hymns of Hate. We English people don’t feel at all like that.’
‘I do,’ Portia answered, in righteous tones. ‘And I wonder that you don’t hate the people who are trying to kill daddy.’
‘Greta isn’t trying to kill daddy.’
‘She would if she could. And I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she tried to blow up the hospital with a bomb. She could easily do that.’
‘My dear, don’t frighten yourself with such dreadful thoughts. We are all quite safe here.’
‘I am not frightened at all,’ said Portia, offended. ‘It’s nothing of that sort. But I do think we ought all to try to help our country.’
‘We are all trying to do that, and daddy most of all. But that doesn’t mean that we must hate Greta. I feel very sorry for her. It must be very sad for her to know that her countrymen have brought this dreadful war upon the world, when she lives among us all, and sees that we were only wanting to be friends.’
‘I don’t a bit want to be friends,’ said Portia stoutly. ‘Not with Greta at any rate. And I never will be.’
‘Darling, you mustn’t let yourself feel like that. Think how good Greta is to Hans.’
‘Perhaps you think so,’ Portia said ominously, ‘but I expect she is putting chopped glass into his food. I know the Germans often do that.’ She hoped to touch Alethea upon a tender spot. ‘ I’ve heard a lot about it from the girls at school.’
‘Don’t listen to those little idiots when they talk such arrant nonsense,’ said Alethea. ‘We are safe from chopped glass in Cornwall, I can promise you.’
She told Portia’s head mistress about this conversation, and she asked her to try to prevent the other girls from putting such ideas into Portia’s head.
‘The war is horrible enough in reality,’ she said, ‘without children’s minds being poisoned by such fantastic imaginations as chopped glass in their food, or German spies in their houses. My poor little girl is torturing herself with the idea that her little brother’s Bavarian nurse is trying to kill him.’
Miss Gough was annoyed. She denied that Portia had heard these things at school. But she remarked that it was a pity, in time of war, to keep in one’s house a servant from an enemy country. It was quite possible that such
a woman might be used by her own country in some way, and in any case, one should avoid even the suspicion of such a thing. She suggested that Portia had heard the village people talking about Greta when she was at Cairn Gorm for the week-end.
Alethea went away feeling ruffled. She thought that Miss Gough had been impertinent, but she heard no more from Portia about Greta. She was, however, to hear more of the subject later on.
Chapter Nineteen
WHEN Alethea was on night duty, she always spent her days at Cairn Gorm, and had supper with Miss Nash before going back to the hospital. Then Greta, who adored her, escorted her back to duty, and they went by a short cut over the cliff. On dark nights, Greta carried a curious old iron lantern which was one of her cherished possessions. She had brought it with her from home, and it had never before been of any use. The light it gave was practically negligible, as Greta had never had a wick which fitted it, but she burnt in it pieces of rag, which she twisted into some sort of shape, and then soaked in oil. They very soon burnt out, but they always lasted long enough for Alethea to pick her way among the rocks; and Greta had the eyes of a cat, and was as surefooted as a goat, so that she was quite able to come home in the dark.
This lantern it was, which caused the trouble. Portia found it one day in the nursery cupboard; and, busy-body as she was, she took it out to look at it, and to discover, as she speedily did, that it was not so clean as it ought to have been.
‘What is this?’ she asked Greta. ‘It is disgracefully dirty. You must clean it.’
‘Put it back,’ said Greta sharply. ‘It is not yours. Leave it alone.’
‘A dirty thing like this should be kept in the outhouse,’ Portia went on, bent upon making herself unpleasant. ‘I shall put it there myself.’
‘It is mine. Do not touch it. Give it to me at once,’ said Greta, now roused to rage.
‘I don’t believe it’s yours at all. Of course it belongs to Miss Nash.’
‘It is my own. It is a German light. Miss Nash knows nothing about it. Give it to me.’
‘A German light!’ cried Portia, dropping the lantern with a clatter to the ground. ‘How horrible! I won’t touch it. No wonder Miss Nash knows nothing about it. It oughtn’t to be here.’
‘It has as much right to be here as I have,’ muttered Greta, picking up her treasure, and holding it behind her back.
‘And that’s no right at all,’ said Portia. ‘You ought to be in Germany with the Huns,’ and she ran into the garden.
‘I shall take her horrible old lantern away and hide it from her,’ she was thinking. ‘That will put her into a rage.’ And as soon as she heard Greta washing Hans’ tunic in the back kitchen, she crept into the nursery, and carried off the lantern. She hid it in a big basket, in which she had brought her clean shoes and some books.
In that basket it went back to the school, where its odd shape attracted the girls’ attention.
‘What is this?’ they asked, crowding round Portia.
‘It is a German lantern,’ she answered, rather proudly.
‘A German lantern? Where did you get it? Was it captured from a spy who has been signalling?’
Now this very obvious idea had not occurred to Portia. It was curious that it should not have struck her, for suspected signalling by spies was one of the topics of the day. She felt annoyed with herself for having allowed this brilliant guess to originate from one of the other girls.
‘Hush!’ she said in tones of great mystery. ‘Don’t speak about it. I mean to catch the spy, but if it is talked about, she will get away.’
The other girls were immensely impressed.
‘Do you know who it is?’ they asked.
Portia nodded.
‘How did you get hold of the lantern?’
‘By a trick,’ said Portia, and this sounded as if she had been very clever. Really there had been no trick, beyond the simple opening of the door of the nursery cupboard.
‘What shall you do with it?’
‘Give it to the policeman.’
The girls gasped at the audacity of this. The policeman! Not even Miss Gough.
Portia’s plan of action came to her with these questions. Till now, she had not realized what a weapon had fallen into her hands when she carried away Greta’s lantern. She had not meant to keep it, but only to hide it somewhere at Cairn Gorm, and so to give Greta the trouble of looking for it. Now it dawned upon her that she was on the brink of the discovery of a huge conspiracy.
‘Don’t ask any more about it,’ she said, looking mysterious. ‘These things have to be very secret.’
She did not know what to do next, and so she took the lantern to Miss Stolwell, the youngest of the teachers, and a favourite with the children because, being very little older than some of themselves, they saw that she liked playtime better than lessons. The school imagined that the elder mistresses would like nothing better than to be giving lessons all day.
Miss Stolwell was a most satisfactory confidante. She saw that the lantern was of no ordinary pattern, and at once decided that it must be used for some nefarious purpose. Portia explained that she had already suspected Greta of being a spy.
‘But mummy is completely taken in by her,’ she said. ‘She won’t help us at all.’
‘We must act for ourselves,’ said Miss Stolwell, feeling, as Portia did, immensely important. ‘I see the lantern has been used quite recently. Can you find out if anyone knows when she uses it?’
‘I can easily ask the next time I go there. In fact she will be sure to ask me for it herself. She will be in a fury because it’s lost.’
‘No. She won’t ask for it,’ said Miss Stolwell in impressive tones. ‘She won’t dare to. But she knows you found it, and she will guess that you are on her tracks. You have made an enemy of her. I think it is probably dangerous for you to go there at all.’
Portia looked very superior on hearing this. She was not frightened. No one could be so who knew Greta. But she could see that Miss Stolwell thought her very heroic, and she liked this.
‘I wonder what she will do to-night when she finds it has gone,’ she said.
‘Probably run away,’ said Miss Stolwell. ‘She will be terrified, knowing that her secret is discovered. We ought to act at once.’
‘I shan’t be going there again till next Saturday,’ said Portia, ‘unless …’
She saw ahead of her the possibility of an extra holiday.
‘We can’t possibly wait a whole week,’ said Miss Stolwell, with decision. ‘Who knows what may happen before then? Perhaps Miss Gough will let you go to-morrow. It is Sunday and the girls sometimes are allowed out.’
‘How can we persuade her?’
‘I will speak to her.’
She had a very convincing story to put before Miss Gough, and she found the ground already prepared. The Head Mistress had been nettled by Alethea’s words to her, and she was prepared to believe that Cairn Gorm was a nest of spies. Miss Stolwell had no difficulty in making her quite certain that Lady Roxerby’s German maid was signalling to submarines at sea, and that she had been circumvented by clever little Portia who had carried off her lantern. Miss Gough agreed that, before informing the police, it would be as well to find out if possible at what times the lantern was used. They must act swiftly, and in such a manner as to prevent the German girl from guessing that she was suspected. Miss Stolwell said she wanted to visit the hospital on the following afternoon, as she knew one of the patients, and she would take Portia with her, ostensibly for a treat.
‘She will find out all we want,’ she added. ‘She is very cute.’
So it was arranged, and the following afternoon Miss Stolwell and Portia set out on bicycles upon their great mission. It was Sunday afternoon. Peace lay upon the moors. The silence was deepened by an occasional church bell. The companions rode along in gay spirits.
Miss Stolwell left Portia at Cairn Gorm, while she herself rode on to the hospital. She was glad of the opportunity of going to see th
is young man, whom she had known slightly at home, and whose wounds now made it impossible for him to escape her attentions.
Portia’s ideal character was Sherlock Holmes, and she was ready with all sorts of cunning devices by which she meant to entrap Greta into inadvertently betraying that she had lost her lantern. It was therefore disappointing to be greeted by Hans and his nurse who both ran out to meet her, asking where she had hidden it.
‘You had it last,’ they said. ‘What did you do with it?’
‘I don’t know where it is,’ Portia answered, feeling that the tables were being turned upon her, and it was she who was accused of spying.
‘You took it from the cupboard. You have hidden it to tease me. Give it to me, or I will tell your mama,’ said Greta.
‘I don’t know anything about it. If I did have it, I probably threw it away. It’s no good. Nobody can possibly want it.’
‘You cannot have thrown it away and forget where. You have hidden it on purpose. Tell me where it is.’
‘I really don’t know,’ said Portia, affecting indifference. ‘ What does it matter? An old thing like that, which is never used?’
‘Greta uses it,’ Hans now interposed, ‘and she wants to use it again. Give it to her. She does not like teasing games.’
‘I’m awfully sorry if I’ve lost it,’ said Portia with what she felt was consummate cunning. ‘I expect it will turn up some time, and I don’t expect you really use it, do you?’
‘I use it every night,’ said Greta.
‘Every night? What for?’
‘When I go along the cliff with your mamma.’
‘Do you really take it onto the cliff every night?’
‘Of course I do.’
Portia thrilled at the admission.
‘Then of course I will try to find it,’ she said. ‘I believe I threw it among those bushes by the chapel.’
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