Dwarf's Blood

by Edith Olivier

  She went out and pretended to search, while Hans came too, longing to help.

  ‘Did you really throw it away out here?’ he asked, enjoying the search, as he always enjoyed everything.

  ‘I expect I did. But it is rather silly of Greta to make such a fuss. I don’t believe a bit that she uses the old thing every night.’

  ‘O yes she does. I have often woken up in the middle of the night, and seen her come back with it in her hand.’

  ‘In the middle of the night ? Does Greta go out in the middle of the night?’

  ‘O yes, nearly always. She loves walking in the dark,’ said Hans, for whom the middle of the night meant any time when he woke up after he had been sent to bed.

  ‘I wonder what she goes out for.’

  ‘Heaps of things. To take care of mummy, and to see witches and goblins.’

  ‘Witches and goblins! What nonsense!’ said Portia. This sensible child was well aware that witches and goblins do not exist. But so ridiculous an excuse for walking in the dark only made Greta’s conduct the more suspicious.

  She redoubled her pretended efforts to find the lantern, hoping to come upon something hidden in the bushes which might be additional evidence against Greta. She had by now forgotten that the whole case against the Bavarian had been invented by herself, and she entirely believed in it.

  So on that Sunday night, Miss Gough and Miss Stolwell found that they had a very complete case to put before the police. It was established that the German woman was in the habit of walking alone on the cliffs at night, carrying a very suspicious-looking lantern. There had long been rumours of signalling from the coast, and now there could be little doubt that the culprit was discovered.

  The information was sent to the authorities, and Portia waited with intense excitement. She expected that the case would be heard in the Tower of London, where she would be called upon to give evidence, and she would probably afterwards be personally thanked by the King for her discovery of this vile plot.

  But no word came from the police. They received the information, and then a pall of silence fell over the whole affair. Portia found her lessons unbearably boring. By every post, she was expecting a summons to London, and in the meantime, French verbs were a dismal anti-climax. Her teachers had never before found her troublesome. She had always been a pattern pupil, for though she had no originality of mind, her modest ambition had always been to know just a little more than the other girls, of the things that the other girls knew. So she worked steadily and she enjoyed organized games.

  Now, even Miss Stolwell had one day to punish her for her inattention.

  Chapter Twenty

  BUT THE blow had fallen. One day, Alethea received an urgent message at the hospital, asking her to go to Cairn Gorm without delay. The messenger was a village girl who could say nothing as to what had happened, and Alethea hastened across the cliff in torment. She was sure that Hans had had some terrible accident. He must have been killed, and neither Miss Nash nor Greta could leave him, nor could they face her to break the news. During that agonized quarter of an hour, Alethea realized that everything in her life—every interest, every occupation, every affection had fallen away from her. They simply didn’t exist, and never had existed. Only Hans had ever mattered. She had thought that her life was so full—that the war counted, in fact that it was the one thing which counted to her at the time: that the hospital counted, with those scores of suffering men who needed her so much: that Nicholas counted, for was he not the love of her life? But now she knew that, twisted into every nerve and vein and muscle of her body, in the background of every thought which came into her mind, the chief part of her every hope and fear, the remote source of every smile which came into her eyes, and the secret spring of her bitterest tears—was this tiny lovely child of hers, so small in his frame, so limitless in the beauty of his nature.

  And now, she was convinced that he was dead. The world was unutterably empty.

  But when she reached Cairn Gorm, it was Hans himself who met her at the door, and leapt into her arms, sobbing wildly. The joy was so overwhelming that for the moment she forgot that she had never seen him cry since she first took him with her to Friedenbach. His nature was so clear and sunny, his gaiety so spontaneous, that from his babyhood he had gurgled with joy like a little stream running over smoothly rounded pebbles. And this had been Alethea’s pride. She had even set before herself the rare ambition of surrounding and protecting this child of hers so securely with her love, that all through his life he should never know the meaning of tears. It would be a miracle if the boy, born seemingly under a curse, and the source at his birth of so much unhappiness, could yet be given a life which danced like a star throughout a dark night.

  These hopes were killed in that moment on the threshold of Cairn Gorm, but Alethea was unaware that they were dead. She only knew that Hans was alive. Whatever was the cause of this mysterious trouble, she could hold him in her arms and try to comfort him. Their relations seemed even more beautiful than ever, for never before had he needed her like this.

  She could not understand what he was saying, in the unfamiliar, shrill, broken voice in which he was pouring forth a confused stream of unintelligible words.

  ‘What is it, my precious, my darling?’ she said. ‘Don’t cry. Mummy will make it right.’

  She was confident that nothing was too hard for her to do, now that he was alive.

  And then she heard someone else sobbing inside the house. Through the open door came the sound of hysterical weeping, and she recognized Greta’s voice.

  ‘Nein, nein’ she was saying. ‘I’ mag net fort. I lass’ mi’ net wegschaffen. Was hab’ i’ denn’tan?’

  Then followed more sobs.

  Miss Nash appeared at the door, and she too was in tears.

  ‘I am thankful that you have come,’ she said. ‘The police are here. It is about that lost lantern. It seems that it was they who carried it off. Now they suspect Greta of making signals with it, and they want to take her to prison.’

  Alethea felt Hans’ little body quiver against her as he clung round her neck.

  ‘No, no, not prison,’ he said. ‘Greta must stay with me.’

  ‘Of course she will,’ said Alethea. ‘Don’t cry my darling. Mummy is here. I will not let them take Greta away.’

  But the situation seemed beyond her control.

  She gave Hans to Miss Nash.

  ‘Miss Nash will give you some water to drink,’ she said, ‘and then you won’t cry any more. I am going to help Greta.’

  She felt convinced that her help could be of little avail, but she followed the direction of Greta’s screams, and she went to the kitchen.

  She found to her dismay that she had not to deal with the village policeman, a friendly old fellow, who knew Greta too well to suspect her of treachery. Instead, she saw two strange men, one of whom held in his hand the incriminating lantern. Greta sat weeping upon a chair.

  ‘What is the matter?’ asked Alethea, bringing into the room an air of impartial benevolence.

  Greta relapsed into her native tongue, which made her more than ever suspecte. The Bavarian patois which she spoke was not a form of German with which the police linguist was acquainted, and to him it sounded like the jargon of an underworld of criminals and spies.

  Alethea turned to the men, and asked them to tell her the charge they had to make against Greta. They were extremely courteous, but their instructions were quite definite. Nothing that could be said could make any difference. It was true that they had received a report which connected Greta with some suspected signalling from the cliff, and her possession of the lantern lent some colour to the suspicion. But the internment of aliens living in the country was matter which the Government kept entirely in its own hands, and dealt with at its discretion. Without making any definite charge, it was now considered in the public interest that Greta should join her compatriots in an internment camp for the period of the war. The police declared that this
was no hardship. The conditions in the camp were good, and the girl would be among people of her own nationality.

  ‘But what about my little boy?’ Alethea pleaded. ‘ He has been an invalid all his life, and he entirely depends on the care of this nurse, who has been with him since he was a baby. I am willing to make myself personally responsible for her. I will carry out any conditions which may be imposed, if only you will allow her to remain. The child’s health is at stake.’

  ‘I’m very sorry my lady. I myself would gladly do as you wish, but I have no choice in the matter. The only thing for you to do is to write to headquarters. You may be able to prevail on them to make an exception. But we can only carry out our orders.’

  ‘Won’t you give us a day or two to make other arrangements?’

  ‘I wish I could oblige your ladyship, but we have no discretion in the matter. We can only do as we are told.’

  There was nothing to do but to assure Greta that everything should be done to make her internment a merely temporary one.

  ‘I am afraid you must make up your mind to go to-day, but you know we shall leave no stone unturned to get you back with us as soon as possible.’

  Greta begged to be allowed to see Hans once more.

  ‘Better not,’ said the policeman. ‘The girl will only make a scene.’

  But Alethea had not got the heart to refuse. She implored Greta to make Hans think that she was only going to spend a short time with some German friends, and would be back with him in a very short time.

  ‘Please don’t make him more unhappy and frightened than he is already,’ she said.

  But Greta had lost all her self-control. She ran to the nursery, where Miss Nash had succeeded in distracting Hans sufficiently for him to have begun to play quietly with some of his toys.

  Greta flew into the room like a whirlwind.

  ‘They take me from you, my lovely one,’ she sobbed. ‘They will put me in their prison. They tell me I speak to the ships with my poor old light. It is false, and they know it. The wicked Portia. She has done this. And now we shall never meet again. I must die in the prison, and who will care for my darling when I am gone. No, no, I will not leave him. They must tear me from him, for I will not go of my own will.’

  Alethea was aghast, and she saw that she had been bitterly mistaken in not listening to the policeman’s advice: but she had not felt it possible to be so cruel to Greta. Now Hans clung to his nurse as fervently as she clung to him. His howls mingled with her sobs, and indeed in a few moments, they became shrieks. He was wild with despair and terror.

  Alethea was obliged to tear him forcibly away from Greta, and when he found himself in her arms, and saw his nurse being dragged off, he turned on his mother like a fierce little wild animal, and he fought with all his might, battling with his fists and nails, till blood ran down her face.

  She could hardly believe that this struggling, demented, frantic child could be her gay and radiant Hans. For the second time that day she felt that she had lost him, not now indeed by death, but by some new and hideous mischance. Hans was lost, and in his place she held in her arms a changeling, full of hatred and enmity against herself. He would not let her kiss him. He covered his ears and refused to listen to her soothing. He lay stiff in her arms, so that she could not caress him, or hold him to her. And all the time, he screamed passionately for Greta.

  It went to Alethea’s heart to discover that Miss Nash could soothe him when she could not. As long as his mother held him in her arms, he kicked and struggled, shouting that she had promised that she would not let them take Greta away. He evidently felt that she had failed him. But when he was handed to Miss Nash, his violence subsided and he lay quietly, moaning and sobbing in a most heart-breaking way. He appeared to be quite worn out by his misery. Alethea felt that she had for ever lost his love.

  But she had no intention of giving him up without a struggle. Though she saw that she must at the moment leave him to Miss Nash, she wrote to the hospital to say that she could not return that night. Her child was ill, and his nurse had left him. In her own mind she resolved that she would never leave Hans again. She must, in some way, find out how to win him back to herself.

  And all that afternoon and evening, she was obliged to deny herself the sad bliss of tending him. She sat out of sight, and watched him lie in the arms of Miss Nash. He was limp and subdued, and now and then he whimpered a little. He looked even smaller than usual as he lay there, and Alethea realized afresh his unlikeness to other children.

  He had always been so full of life, so gay, and so merry, that often for weeks at a time she had forgotten that in the eyes of a stranger he must never be anything but a rather pathetic little dwarf. Now she herself had become this stranger, and she saw him with new sad eyes. He seemed a poor little puppet, lying on Miss Nash’s lap, limp and hardly human, his tiny limbs hanging loosely, and his little frame shaken from time to time by a little gasping sob. With clenched hands, she fought against the bitter jealousy which arose within her when she saw the child in the arms of Miss Nash rather than in her own. She compelled herself to be thankful that the other woman could help him now that she herself was helpless.

  ‘Thank God, she can quiet him! Thank God, she can quiet him!’ Her lips moved with the phrase, while her unhappy heart rebelled.

  Evening came. They did not try to give him the bath which had always meant such games with Greta, but as he became gradually more sleepy, Miss Nash slipped off his clothes and put him into his nightshirt. And when he was in bed, Alethea watched beside him all night.

  Hans was ill for several weeks, and at first his mother could do nothing for him. The sight of her seemed to rekindle all the emotions of that terrible day, and always started again those cries and sobs which sent his temperature up so alarmingly. This hurt Alethea even more than the illness itself. Nothing is harder to bear than to find that one’s presence is harmful to the person whom one loves best in the world, and to be shut out of his sickroom; but Alethea accepted the situation, and played what part was left for her. Fortunately, Hans was for the greater part of his time in a semidozing condition, and then Alethea guarded him, while Miss Nash rested. As far as possible, Alethea kept out of sight, and though the child was never left alone, he was only aware of Miss Nash as his nurse.

  Meanwhile, Portia heard nothing of Greta. Alethea wrote to tell Miss Gough of Hans’ illness, as it meant that Portia must spend her holidays at school till he was well; but no hint as to the cause of the illness reached the school. It was therefore more than a month before Portia went again to Cairn Gorm, and by this time Hans was convalescent, and he appeared to have forgotten the terrors which had haunted him during the weeks of his illness.

  Although Portia was constitutionally insensitive, she was shocked by the appearance of her mother. Alethea seemed to her to have completely changed. She had grown much thinner, and the oval curves of her face had fallen in upon the bones. Her chin had become a separate, prominent feature, standing out like a wedge. The deep serene eyes had surely grown actually darker in colour, and there were black rings round them. She might have been twenty years older, for her face was lined like that of a woman of fifty. Alethea had always had a radiant smile, but now it was a shadowed thing, gentle, but altogether emptied of its gaiety.

  They went to the beach together, to find shells. All the girls at school had collections, but thanks to Miss Nash and Hans, Portia’s was the best of all. The weather had been rough, so some rare specimens had been washed in. At first Alethea did not speak of Hans, thinking it unfair to fill the holiday with talk of illness.

  Portia was awed by her mother’s aspect, and Alethea read an unexpected sympathy in her quietness. It seemed that Portia was fonder than she had thought of her little brother; so, when they got home, she suggested that they should carry their shells in to show them to Hans.

  ‘Don’t say anything about Greta,’ she said, before they went into the room.

  ‘Why not?’

&nb
sp; ‘I expect you haven’t heard; but the cause of his being ill was that Greta had to go away. The Government decided that, being a German, she must not stay here, but must go into a camp with other foreigners. Hans was dreadfully frightened and unhappy, and it started this illness.’

  ‘Did they think that Greta was a spy?’

  Alethea felt a momentary irritation. She remembered how tiresome Portia had been before about Greta.

  ‘Of course not,’ she answered. ‘It is simply the law of the land, and we must obey it. But it caused this terrible illness of poor darling little Hans, and it has made us all very unhappy. Poor Greta, she loved us so much, and now she is alone among strangers, although many of them are her own countrymen. Such things happen in a war.’

  Alethea’s voice was shaking, and Portia felt guilty for a moment. Had she really done this? Then she told herself that, of course, it could be nothing to do with her, for had not mummy said that Greta was not imprisoned as a spy. It was the ordinary law of the land, and nothing to do with that lantern.

  Having convinced herself of this, she felt free from all responsibility for her mother’s changed face, and for the illness of Hans. But when she got back to school, she could not resist taking to herself the credit for Greta’s internment. She whispered to Miss Stolwell that the Government had sent Greta to prison as a spy.

  ‘So we have done a splendid thing for our country,’ she said boastfully. And she really didn’t know whether she honestly believed, or wanted to believe, that Greta’s internment was, as her mother had said, nothing but the ordinary law of the land.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  GRETA’S release was refused; but as the fever passed and Hans became convalescent, he seemed to grow accustomed to being without her. His love for his mother came back, and he transferred to her all the dependence with which he had formerly clung to his nurse. He couldn’t bear anyone else to do things for him. He wanted Alethea, with all the new nervousness which his illness had left behind; and when he at last began to show some flashes of his old gaiety, it was to her that he looked for the merry response which had been given him by the light-hearted Bavarian girl. Alethea’s brilliant smile came back to her at this call from him. Physically, they both were changed. The marks of suffering were on each of them; but joy was springing again from the depths of both their natures.