/ A \ / Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/daphneinfatherlaOOtophrich DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND POPULAR NOVELS AT is. NET. THE FAITH OF HIS FATHERS. By A. E. Jacomb. (250 guineas Prize Novel). THE WOMAN TEMPTED ME. By E. Charles Vivian. THE ATTIC GUEST. By R. E. Knowles. AGNES OF EDINBURGH. By Margaret Armour. A MARRIAGE UNDER THE TERROR. By Patrica Wentworth. (250 guineas Prize Novel|. London: ANDREW MELROSE. DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND POPULAR EDITION. LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE 3 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN Reprinted Third impt^ssion Popular Edition .3 Tf5 . ■ v : ... Fto* printet *- <*•«••#*« ** •««« - V • ' . May, 1 9 1 2 , Afore*. 191 3 * St i CONTENTS PASS CHAPTER I The Journey to Berlin .... 9 CHAPTER II The Supper Party 31 CHAPTER III The Defilir Cour 57 CHAPTER IV The Gala-Vorstellung .... 83 CHAPTER V A Water Picnic 103 CHAPTER VI Schloss Rehstein 123 CHAPTER VII Max von Stein . or * * via c~ • • x 5i CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER VIII The Illustrious Guest . 187 CHAPTER IX A Regrettable Incident .... 215 CHAPTER X Schloss Freidorf 243 CHAPTER XI Das Gestut 271 CHAPTER XII Jagd-Schloss Tannenbaum . . . 287 The Journey to Berlin CHAPTER I THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN TVTY DEAR BETTY,— 1V-L The journey from Flushing to Berlin crosses one of the dullest bits of continent I know. I am glad I spent the day on the boat and the night in the train. Those miles upon miles of flat, sandy country were so dreadfully tedious. What funny people one meets on steamers ! All the women tied up in motor veils and wearing cloth caps, and the horrid men who seem to delight in puffing their filthy cigar smoke in one's face, when one is feeling- well, you know how it is with me on board a steamer even on the calmest day, always qualmish and headachy with the smells of warm oil and machinery, the new varnish in the saloons and that indefinable odour, which I am sure comes from the thousands j 10 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND of microbes or bacilluses, or whatever they are, of seasickness, which must lurk in every cranny. I wonder the steamboat people don't disinfect or something. It was terribly lonely not having a soul to speak to. Nearly everybody else on board had a husband or a brother or a friend of some kind. Several of the men, especially one German creature, tried to get into conversation with me, but I was feeling cross and chilly, and so responded with " icy and forbidding politeness " as Aunt Julia told me to do. A fearfully fat German woman — the boat was thick with Germans — who was bundled up in a tweed cap a woolly shawl and an ulster out of which she was bursting at every button, took possession of my deck chair, which I had tipped one of the steward's boys to put in the corner of the upper deck where there was no wind, so when she got ■ out of it to walk about of course I sat down in it again, and she glared at me furiously when she came back, but I went on reading and pretended not to see her. She had a son of twenty whose hair appeared to be THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN 11 shaved off it was cut so closely, and his cheek was slashed across in three long seams which pulled his face all on one side. So hideous he looked and dirty and fat and vulgar. I do think it's horrid of German students to slice each others' faces like that, and if the wounds were out of sight it would seem much braver. This young man reminded me of what Fraulein von Schweiler told us about her cousin, who had his nose cut off in a duel and before any one could interfere somebody's dog had pounced on it and swallowed it like a pill, and he's had to wear a silver or a papier-machi one ever since. Although the weather was lovely still there was a nasty choppy sea, and before we had been on board an hour, people were beginning to get that fierce determined look which shows they are struggling with hidden feelings. One young man near me turned the most awful leaden green — if he only felt half as bad as he looked his sufferings must have been frightful — and as for me, I just sat in my deck chair and simply wrestled with my emotions, but 12 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND fortunately the wind or the tide or some- thing changed and the boat got into a more level swing of speed and everybody's spirits began to rise. Of course I dare not attempt to eat anything, so by the time Flushing pier came in sight I was feeling quite faint with hunger after eight hours on the water and only a very sketchy breakfast before starting. It was delightful to feel firm solid earth under one's feet once more. There were quantities of funny Dutch porters in blouses and baggy trousers waiting on the quay with a nice horse wearing a high arch over his collar hung with little bells which tinkled as he moved, dragging along a kind of wooden sledge for moving the passengers' luggage from the boat to the train. A little steward's boy carried my bag for me to the customs and the man only chalked it and did not look inside. Foreign stations strike one as rather dull smoky and de- pressing. The engine so black and ugly, not like a nice cheerfully-snorting, red- painted English one with nicely polished brass-work. Then this foreign coal fills the THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN 13 platforms with clouds of filthy black smoke, which chokes everybody besides covering them with smuts. And one misses the advertisements we have everywhere in England. Those pictures of the dear little nigger with Somebody's blacklead, and Lloyd-George and Balfour and Winston Churchill sitting at a banquet with Q.Z. Sauce in front of them, and the elegant walking costumes at 13s. g%d. and the young man and woman smilingly riding Jones' Bicycles up the side of a mountain are certainly a great relief to the monotony of travel but they have nothing like them abroad. Here they don't seem to want to appeal to one's pictorial sense, or to associ- ate the goods they advertise with an agree- able idea, but they simply write the names of things and put placards of them along the line in a dull unoriginal style. It was nearly seven o'clock when the train for Berlin started. I had secured a nice corner seat in an empty carriage when a very fat family of Russian Jews, father mother and daughter, all carrying enormous round wooden hat-boxes and other luggage U DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND which more than filled the whole of the rack, came in and installed themselves. To make matters worse the German student with the slashed cheek and his mother arrived too, and there we were — six people — five fat ones — in one compartment. The German lady at once began to be disagree- able and grumble and complained that she couldn't possibly ride with her back to the engine all the way to Berlin, so I said I regretted that I couldn't either as she seemed to expect me to change places with her. The two Russian ladies " regretted " also and the German lady seemed about to relapse into tears, and the son tried to soothe her down when the three Jews, who really behaved very nicely, said they would find other seats if possible, and they went off together talking in a very queer spluttery language, while the two Germans sat in their places and devoured evil- smelling sandwiches. Presently the Jews returned and took away some of the hat- boxes as they had found room for the two ladies in a Datnen-coupe. I went to the dining-car as soon as possible for I was THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN 15 growing simply ravenous. There were all kinds of queer German or Dutch dishes which tasted delicious but unusual. When I got back to my carriage, there were those two awful people, mother and son, stretched out one on each seat, the slashy-faced student with his clumsy boots resting on my rug and papers. They had darkened the compartment and pretended to be fast asleep, but I soon pulled up the lamp shade for it was only a quarter to nine, and went to my place in the corner where the enormous soles of that young man's boots were intruding. He made no attempt to remove them till his mother said plaintively in an indulgent tone " Hermann mein Lieber, the lady wants her place," and he slowly and re- luctantly removed his horrid extremities. German boots are simply monstrosities. These two people were really most dis- agreeable, and seemed quite oblivious of the rights of their fellow-passengers. They re- minded me of that young Englishman and his wife we met in Italy who so calmly expected everybody else to leave their 16 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND carriage empty when the train was crowded to suffocation. I suppose many travellers think that the more snappish and repellent they are the less they will be intruded upon, but I think after all they lose more than they gain. People invariably show their best side when stroked the right way and are often very amusing. You remem- ber the spiritualistic lady who travelled with us from Venice to Lucerne, and had bought a house somewhere contrary to the advice of the spirits who she thought might be Moses or Solomon (as if they knew anything about modern houses) and re- pented it ever since, although the flat she afterwards took under their guidance was awfully draughty and uncomfortable too. Well, I didn't feel inclined to spend the night with these people, especially as the mother was beginning to unfasten intimate things and make herself comfortable, and the son was preparing to unlace his boots preparatory to taking them off. I fled and fortunately found the Schaffner — the conductor, or guard or whatever he is the equivalent of, and as there were plenty of THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN 17 empty first-class carriages I persuaded him after a good deal of talking to let me go into one of them. He was a long time making up his mind and seemed full of conscientious scruples like all German officials, but after I put a two-mark piece into his hand his ideas underwent a subtle change. Of course I had to wait for the psychical moment to administer the tip — one must be careful not to make it too obvious — but when he once gave way he was very amiable and fatherly and trans- ported all my things from the other carriage for me, and hovered round like a guardian angel, evidently quite prepared to tuck me up in my rug and settle me for the night. He was very big and burly with too much figure in the wrong place which made it awkward in the corridor, and he had that military stamp which seems to make people of his class in Germany just a little hector- ing and rigid, so different to our English railway officials who are so lean and brawny and respectfully independent, but he seemed determined to let me have the full worth of my two-mark piece and fussed about B 18 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND pulling out cushions and drawing out the seat to make it wider and offering several times to shut the window and pull down the blinds, but I finally got rid of him and prepared to make the best of the night. Just as I had found a comfortable angle for my head and was going off into a doze we stopped at Goch, where they turn out all the luggage to be examined. How hateful it was to see those sour-visaged officials plunging their great coarse hands into my nice laces. Marie had packed all my pretty " undies " in soft tissue paper and my lovely oyster silk looked a perfect dream of beauty when I lifted off the top layer of cream wrapping. The horrid man insisted on seeing everything and ex- amined the silk linings and ribbons, and the way my dresses fastened at the back the embroidered buttons and everything, and he was going to make me pay heaps and heaps because he said they were all new, when another superior looking officer in green came up and spoke to him in an undertone and then asked me if I had worn the dresses before and of course I had (they had all THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN 19 been tried on at least) so he said it was all right then and he helped me to fold up my things. I felt so hot and uncom- fortable and could feel I was blushing which made me angry, and that dreadful officer was quite enterprising and of course I was so confused I did not know how I was putting away my things and should have crumpled them up anyhow, but he put the tissue paper back in the sleeves, and folded everything up so neatly and made them fit in better than before, and arranged my frilly lace petticoats as though they were infants ; I supposed he was so accustomed to examining peopled clothes that he was quite oblivious by now of the proprieties, but as I looked up I saw some of the other officials sniggering and glancing in our direction, and I suddenly felt that I hated the Germans, and that the sooner we had that silly old war people are talking about the better I should be pleased. Of course it is foolish to let personal feelings influence one's politics like that. As I moved through the drizzly smoky darkness back to the train I caught sight 20 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND of some one who looked exactly like Captain Mardyke ; he is so straight and square there isn't a back in Germany like his. Still it didn't seem possible that it could be him as he went to Switzerland or Brussels or somewhere, besides I am not interested in him really any more since I heard he was going to marry that rich American girl. I hate people who marry for money. We went jolting and shaking onwards and a new Schaffner joined the train and I had to tip him to prevent him turning me out of my first-class carriage. We rattled and banged along with every kind of oscillation known to science and at last I heard what I thought was a familiar step outside and I pulled aside the curtain next the corridor and it was Captain Mardyke. He looked so dull and lonely and I felt rather miserable myself but though he seemed to be peeping through all the win- dows, especially those of the ladies' com- partments, I dropped the curtain and never made a sign. He passed very slowly and his face seemed rather worried I thought as I peered through a tiny chink. It was THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN 21 really nice to have some one I knew on the train even though I had made up my mind not to speak to him if possible. I do hate changeable people. Well we got to Berlin at last about half- past seven in the morning. It seemed a great ugly square town, well built, but not pretty or picturesque. Aunt Mary had sent her footman to meet me as it was too early to come herself. Friedrichstrasse station is very big, so I managed to evade Captain Mardyke, who I believe saw me for he was rushing madly down the steps but was stopped by a ticket collector who evidently thought he wanted to dodge pay- ing or something of that kind, and we were just driving away as he came out, so I waved my hand to him from the window and he did look dreadfully cross and seemed to be using all kinds of bad language to himself so I expect he'd had a row with the porter and perhaps couldn't talk German. The cabman was very funny. He wore a tall shiny top hat made of waterproof or something of the kind, and a long blue 22 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND coat and his collar was the worst I have ever seen in my life ; he would have appeared comparatively respectable if he had taken it off. Aunt Mary — of course she is my father's aunt and really my great-aunt — lives in a flat on the third floor in quite a nice street. There is a greengrocer's on the ground floor, and the higher one gets the more threadbare is the stair carpet. Though Aunty is a Countess with sixteen quarterings of nobility, yet she lives in a very quiet way with only two women servants and Franz. She met me at the door of the flat in a dread- fully badly-made woollen blouse and carpet slippers, and her hair somehow didn't seem to be quite finished as if she had forgotten to put something on, but perhaps it's be- cause I'm so used to the plentiful locks of England (many of them I am afraid not "home grown"). She was very kind, and embraced me in an affectionate-relative kind of style pressing me to her heart, only a big button got in the way and it was rather painful. She said I had grown terribly since she had seen me in England THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN 23 (I should hope so as it is six years since), and asked all sorts of questions about my journey without paying much attention ta the answers. The housemaid looks such a queer and unfinished kind of maid, with no nice smart cap and apron and she wears an awful tartan blouse and a green skirt not a neat print dress like ours do in the morn- ing. The bedrooms are dreadful. I was rather tired and headachy after the long tedious journey, and I did long to sink into a nice fresh chintz easy chair, but when Aunty took me into a dreadful bedroom with a drab wall-paper and a yellow-painted floor with just a rug in the middle and a funny little short bed like a box, covered with an ugly red quilt, and green rep chairs, and on the wall a picture of Aunty's hus- band who died in the Franco-Prussian war, with mutton chop whiskers and tightly strapped trousers, I felt, I don't know why, as if I wanted to burst into tears. I sup- pose the furniture really was rather de- pressing like our early Victorian only much worse. It is only the rich Jews of Berlin who have really tastefully built houses and 24 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND nice modern furniture so it is considered rather a distinction to be shabby and old" fashioned as most of the nobility have to be. You have simply no idea of the " best- parlour " look of the ordinary German drawing-room, covered with red cross- stitch tablecovers and green plush sofas and red rep curtains ; I suppose Napoleon and his generals took away or destroyed all the really nice artistic things and then when the Germans threw off the French yoke and revolted against French taste it drove them to the other extreme. I longed for a nice cup of tea to cure my headache but nobody brought me any and there was no bath, nor even any hot water, so I rang for some and they seemed awfully surprised and I heard a lot of talking in the kitchen and presently Augusta the house- maid brought some hot water in a milk- jug and banged it down on the washstand. At breakfast the tablecloth was not white but a sort of cream check with a blue cross-stitch border and a fringe, and we had queer little blue-fringed napkins. The tea was dreadfully weak, exactly like hay in THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN 25 flavour and colour, and we had boiled eggs and smoked ham (horrid stuff, quite raw). There were all kinds of queer woolly mats and cushions of every colour spread about, which reminded me so much of dear Mrs. PerknVs " drawing-room " at the home farm and all the fearful bilious greens and yellows she was so proud of. There was some excuse for her, but I can't understand how Aunt Mary, who goes to court and has the blood of princes in her veins (you know her great-great-grandmother and mine by one degree more, was the morganatic wife of one of the Hohenzollerns) and who has visited nice people in England and had opportunities of seeing pretty tasteful furni- ture and beautiful pictures, can buy such ugly common-looking tablecloths. I won- der why some people have an unerring eye for ugliness while others see at once what is lovely, either in colour or form or the way one's hair is arranged, or the angle to put on a hat. They say Aunt Mary had lots of love affairs in her youth. Poor dear ! She doesn't look much like it now. Of course 26 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND the love affairs were quite nice and proper ones, full of sentiment and poetry and flowers. The first ended I believe by the beloved one being killed in a duel when — Aunt Mary told me herself so I know it is true — he had drunk a little too much at an officers' dinner and used rather rude language to a fellow lieutenant, but Aunty consoled herself by reflecting that he was very poor and would probably have been years and years before he could have married her ; there were several others, but at last a rather elderly colonel proposed and of course he was rich and prosperous so Aunt Mary said " Yes," and they were married and he went to the war of '70-71 soon after and died of heart disease. " He would probably have died just the same at home," sighed Aunt Mary. I think she was disappointed somehow that he had not the glory of a military death. The picture in my room it seems was taken in his younger days before he had grown stout. "I never knew him then/' she told me, when I admired his slender form and tried to say something nice about THE JOURNEY TO BERLIN 27 his whiskers, " and he used to put some- thing on his hair and moustache you know — many officers do, they have to look as young as they can." Poor Aunt Mary \ I wonder if I shall like being here when I have settled down. It will be a great change from England and I do miss Marie for the unpacking; Augusta came to help but did nothing but stand in an attitude of admiration with her hands clasped on her chest and her eyes cast ceilingwards. Good-bye, I am so tired, Your affectionate Cousin, Daphne. P.S. As I shall not have much time for writing letters I am going to send you pages of my diary from time to time so as to keep you posted up in my doings. You must let me have them back when I want them again. The Supper Party CHAPTER II THE SUPPER PARTY T AST night somebody sent us tickets f~? for the opera. It was to be Wag- ner's " Tannhauser," and of course I was awfully excited over it, and got out my pale pink with the silver embroidery, but Aunt Mary told me to put it away again and said my blue silk blouse and cloth skirt would do very nicely. She herself appeared in a very ugly checked silk blouse, which she must have bought ready-made, for it didn't fit a bit anywhere and was tight where it should have been loose and loose where it ought to have been tight. She had rather soiled white gloves and a blue serge skirt and her head tied up in a black lace veil. I felt dreadfully vexed at us both look- ing such frights, especially as we had quite st 32 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND the best places in the Parkett as they call it here. I need not have worried how- ever, for we were as well dressed as any one else. They must be very musical in Berlin for no one seems to care a scrap what they put on, and the women's hair is just twisted up tightly in a hard knob at the back, for all the world like that charwoman of Aunt Julia's who stole the kitchen towels. They don't seem to study their appearance one bit or to make the slightest attempt to preserve their figures. Most of them, even the young ones, are the funniest shapes imaginable, quite uncontrolled, but then their faces are so clever and intellectual, and if any one even whispers while the music is going on the whole audience seems to thrill with angry expostulation. There were heaps of officers in uniform ; Aunty says they get their tickets very cheaply being in the Army, and they come because it is " the thing." The orchestra was superb, and the music made thrills up and down my spine. The singers were fine though rather fat, but I have heard that all singers of Wagner have THE SUPPER PARTY 33 to be or they can't stand the strain. Sometimes I wished they didn't sing quite such long solos. There was a long interval in the middle when the whole audience went upstairs and walked round and round in the foyer. Everybody seemed to be promenading round, and a great many nice fresh-looking young lieutenants were continually click- ing their heels together and making wooden salutes when they saw the ladies who they knew. They need not salute other officers at the opera it seems as it would be too troublesome. I am not surprised that Germans lose their figures so quickly for they are always eating and drinking, and even here round the foyer were arranged little tables where people sat devouring enormous sandwiches (the size one gives ploughboys at harvest- homes in England), and swallowing huge glasses of beer. I saw such a pretty young girl about seventeen toss off a pot-ful of porter without winking ; what will her figure be at twenty ? Isn't it strange that a people so musical 84 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND and sentimental and intellectual as the Germans should eat with so little refine- ment ? In the foyer one saw all the dresses in the full glare of the electric light. There were one or two quite tasteful and pretty, but whenever I admired them Aunty always whispered " Oh, of course, Jewesses ! " in a tone of deep scorn ; " naturally they wish to show off their wealth," but I felt thankful to them for they were quite a relief to the eye from the awful blouses and skirts and Reform- Kleider. Have you ever seen or heard of a Reform- Kleid ? I got such a shock when the first one burst upon my shuddering sight. I thought the girl who was wearing it must in some unaccountable aberration of mind have come out by mis- take in her dressing gown, and wondered why the young man with her in spectacles and his hair brushed straight up from his head, didn't draw her attention to it, but I presently saw that there were a good many similar garments promenading round, and that no one seemed to notice them much. Imagine a lady obviously guiltless of THE SUPPER PARTY 85 corsets or any other check upon a too redundant figure wearing a collarless gar- ment consisting of a simple green yoke to which is attached a sack-like continuation of the severest cut in red blue or grey. The more violent and ugly the contrast, the greater appears to be the triumph achieved. There are no soft falls of drapery or flutter- ing ribbons, no pleats or artistic folds, all is straight and severe, and every bad point in the figure is revealed with brutal audacity. If they had anything approaching a classi- cal Greek figure, the Reform- Kleid might be less offensive, but who has a Greek figure nowadays ? This wonderful garment is the outcome of a protest against the corset. I am sure, however that if they played more games and ate and drank less fatten- ing food the corset question would settle itself as it has done in England. Aunt Julia says that in her young days there was a great outcry against tight-lacing but that since bicycling hockey and tennis came in for girls, no one hears a word about it. Anyway I would rather die a thousand 36 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND deaths from a corset than be saved alive by a hideous Reform- Kleid, although after all the women who wear it must be rather plucky. They have the look of heroic suffering that one sees in the faces of our suffragettes (only the suffragettes are prettier and better dressed), and it is evident how conscious they are of working in the noble cause of humanity. I don't believe we should find English women who would do it. They would at least invent a becoming Reform- Kleid, and their figures would lend themselves better to the fashion. It is just the study of these little national differences which makes foreign life so in- teresting. I have only been in Berlin a week but have noticed that German chil- dren always butter their bread in the palm of the hand instead of on a plate like English " kiddies," and the tones of their voices go up instead of down when they call to each other ; then one never sees an English child clasp its hands on its chest and throw up its eyes heavenwards to express ecstasies of joy or sorrow as they do here. There are many other little THE SUPPER PARTY 37 subtle differences which strike one as rather quaint and characteristic. Well, Aunt Mary and I followed the crowd round and round the foyer for a little time and then she discovered a friend of hers, Grafin Schlippental, with her son Graf Schlippental of the Uhlans or Lancers as we should call them. While the old ladies chatted together, Captain Schlippental, who looked very stiff tall and straight in his uniform and was rather good-looking in an uninteresting way, talked to me. He had one of those Kaiser-moustaches turning up fiercely at the ends, and when I asked Aunty afterwards how it was possible to make a moustache grow upwards in an opposite direction to what it would do by nature, she laughed and said it was neces- sary to wear at night a kind of canvas arrangement fastening at the back of the head, with a bit cut out of the middle for the nose. I afterwards saw these odious inventions hanging up in the windows of the fancy-work shops, with patterns and mottoes traced on them to be worked by engaged girls for their fiances. Pfui ! as 38 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND the Germans say when they are disgusted at anything. Captain Schlippental spoke English quite well, in a rather Ollendorfian style. He had nice dark eyes and an agree- able smile, and of course he asked me what I thought of Berlin, and I admired it very much, because Germans are easily offended if one doesn't praise everything connected with them. The latter part of the time I am afraid I answered rather distractedly, for away in the corner near the door I suddenly caught sight of Captain Mardyke wearing a very lonely and bored expression. Among all those fat perspiring people he looked so handsome and manly, so absolutely well made athletic and well groomed, in his nice white shirt front and well fitting clothes, although somehow one felt he would have looked just the same in a badly- fitting suit which is very rare, for most men and women are completely at the mercy of their tailors and dressmakers, and Aunt Julia — and I am sure she is right — says that beauty alone would never attract the modern man. It seemed unkind THE SUPPER PARTY 39 not to speak to him as there was evidently not a soul whom he knew, so I told Captain Schlippental I wanted to talk to some one in the corner, would he come with me ? He appeared rather astonished and nonplussed and clicked his heels and saluted and glanced at his mother, so I said, " Oh, never mind, I'll go alone," but just then the bell began to ring to recall people to their places and every one streamed to the staircase, so I lost sight of Captain Mar- dyke till I was close to one of those little wardrobe places where he seemed to be asking for his hat and coat. " Surely you're not going away yet ? " I said going up behind him, and he gave such a jump and turned round and his nice blue eyes sparkled, and he shook hands with the greatest empressement and said " Yes, he had intended to leave as Tann- hauser bored him " (Tannhauser ! as if it could bore any one !), " but perhaps the second part would be more interesting," and he gave his things back to the wardrobe woman who looked much annoyed and demanded another twenty-five pfennigs. 40 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND He asked where we were sitting, so I introduced him to Aunty, and as there happened to be an empty seat next to us he remained for the rest of the opera which was very touching, if only poor Elsa had not been so fat. The Pilgrims' Chorus was very fine, and Captain Mardyke said he believed he was beginning to appreciate Wagner better, but that he thought his operas much too long and noisy and he was afraid he had not yet acquired the true Wagnerian taste but that if I would try to point out to him the parts he ought spe- cially to admire he would concentrate his mind on them and do his best, and that he really did like the Pilgrims' Chorus and was sure he was improving. We had an awful struggle coming out, especially getting our things from the ward- robe where everybody seemed fighting and pushing and pulling at once, and Captain Mardyke as he dragged out our cloaks, put his foot on a top hat which had rolled on the floor, and the man to whom it be- longed (a funny little fat creature in spectacles with dirty finger-nails) glared THE SUPPER PARTY 41 at him and muttered all kinds of naughty spluttering German words as he tried to straighten out his squashed head-gear. Aunt Mary said he was a great musical critic and everybody who gave concerts was aw- fully afraid of him as he was very severe, and even when he praised gave nasty feminine sort of scratches at the finish which spoiled everything, so I wasn't as sorry for him as I otherwise might have been. We never should have got a droschke without Captain Mardyke's help, and then I believe he took somebody else's as the man seemed to be protesting and expostu- lating all the time, but anyway we got off all right, and Aunt Mary said how nice it was to have young men attentive to their elders. She is evidently pleased with Cap- tain Mardyke as she asked him to call. As we jolted off in our ramshackle car- riage (I should have liked a taxi, but Aunt Mary said it was not " anstandig " I don't know why) we saw him striding along to his hotel in the rain, and I felt sure he could have knocked down any of that puffy ill- 42 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND trained crowd without the slightest trouble, which somehow seemed to make me feel happy though it ought not to have done. When we reached home it was half-past twelve and the big outer door had to be unlocked with an enormous key produced by Aunt Mary from an underground pocket which had got twisted round so couldn't be found all at once. It was very tiresome to have to stand in the rain while she groped about, but at ten o'clock all the street doors are locked by order of the police, and if anybody rings up the " Portier " to open it, they have to pay fifty pfennigs. It seemed a long way to climb up those interminable stairs, past the doors of other people's flats till we reached our own, where there was a lot more fumbling with a latch-key which would not open. Of course the servants were gone to bed, but at last Augusta appeared in a very curious sort of deshabille and let us in. She had a pair of green carpet slippers on her bare feet and on her shoulders Franz's livery coat, at which Aunty looked rather askew, but it seems she'd taken it from the pegs in the THE SUPPER PARTY 43 kitchen passage where he always hangs it at night. I was glad to get to bed, but began to think I may enjoy my stay in Germany after all, though as a matter of fact I had only expected to be able to improve my mind. On Tuesday, the day after the opera, there was a kind of small but very select supper-party here. Only the very fashion- able people in Germany dine late. Every- where a long heavy meal is eaten in the middle of the day. It begins with very stodgy soup and wanders on through a long menu which nearly always contains roast chicken and salad and compot, nice stewed fruit of some kind. It seemed funny at first to be eating very delicious stewed apricots with my " chucky " instead of bread-sauce or sausage but now I am grow- ing to like it. Another thing that strikes one as unusual is that the joints appear at table in slices, everything is carved in the kitchen beforehand, not at the sideboard as with us. I was surprised the first time Franz lowered over my left shoulder a huge steaming dish of boiled beef laid together 44 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND so neatly — one could not tell it had been cut till one began prodding — surrounded by heaps of carrots cabbage and other veget- ables. One has to be very careful of one's clothes as the gravy splashes everywhere. It must be very nervous work too for the footman and I have heard of dreadful accidents happening, once through the man having a cold and sneezing at an in- opportune moment, and another time be- cause a guest turned suddenly without being aware of the waiter and threw the whole dish into the lap of the lady on his left. Captain Mardyke says he feels rather like an Ancient Briton at table ; I think he really means an Anglo-Saxon but he is rather vague I notice about historical facts. Of course Aunt Mary and I dressed in good time, and I insisted on wearing my pink with the silver embroidery, though Aunty said it was much too good for her quiet little supper. I had arranged the table quite prettily with blue cornflowers instead of the four horrid little artificial rosebushes which had been there before, and Franz and Augusta stood clasping THE SUPPER PARTY 45 their hands saying it was " wirhlich wun- derschon," and when Augusta helped me into the pink silk I really thought she never would get me fastened up she had to take away her hands so often for the purpose of expressing her inward ecstasy. Aunt Mary looked rather frumpish in a high purple silk, and the late Colonel's portrait suspended from a ribbon round her neck. We had been sitting for five minutes on the green rep seats in the drawing-room, and I had plumped up the cushions and placed the chairs a little corner-wise and tried to make things less stiff-looking when we heard the first cab drive up to the door. It took an appreciable time, as we live so high up before our guests arrived. I had seen a pair of blue legs with a red stripe getting out of the droschke, so I knew it must be an officer. It seems a pity that German officers have to wear their uniforms all the time as they never can play tennis unless specially invited to come in a tennis suit but it certainly brightens up a dinner-table. Presently we heard Franz speaking outside, and the rattle of a sword 46 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND on the painted floor of the landing, and Aunt Mary assumed the proper hostess' look as though she were awfully glad and sur- prised, and the door was flung open and Grafin Schlippental and her son walked in. Count Schlippental clicked his heels to- gether and bowed in the proper wooden military style which seems to pervade the social atmosphere here. His moustache was stiffer and more retrousse than ever and I wondered if he had slept in that horrid canvas muzzle thing and what he looked like in it. His mother talked incessantly. She was wearing a high green silk dress with Etruscan ornaments round her neck and bridled like a charger when she moved across the room. Her head, like Aunt Mary's, seemed appallingly deficient in hair, giving the same impression of some import- ant part of the coiffure having been left behind by mistake. They had just sat down in the drawing- room and I was talking to the Count whose trousers were strapped so tightly I feared something would give way under the strain, when Franz, very warm and flurried, and THE SUPPER PARTY 47 acutely conscious of his new white gloves, announced in succession " Seiner Ex- cellenz, Kammerherr von Wilt zing," " Frau Grdfin Rosswitz und Tochter, Grdfin Vic- toria Rosswitz" and " Fraulein von Stift" a rather shortsighted, round-shouldered old maid. Presently two other shy young \ officers appeared, but Captain Mardyke, who had been invited was unable to come, as he had to go to a dinner at the Embassy. Aunt Mary sat at the head of the table and seemed rather worried and anxious about Franz, who rushed about in an ex- cited manner like inexperienced waiters do. The conversation was a good deal about the Court, as every one seemed to have relations there and no one appeared to be interested much in sport. I asked the Count if he were fond of horses and he said, " Yes, he rode every morning for an hour in the Tier-Garten." Everybody ate a good deal especially the two young officers, who seemed to be quite nice boys though I wished they had not been cropped quite so close. They played tennis they said but didn't take much interest in anything except their 48 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND military duties. It was all so different to a usual pretty English dinner-table — no nice soft candle shades but only an oil lamp in the middle with a ground glass globe. Everybody admired my cornflowers and complimented Aunty on the " wunder- schdne Arrangement. " Once, when Franz rushed past to give the old Kammerherr some wine, his sleeve button caught in Grafm Schlippentars knob of back hair and pulled it to one side, and another time he dropped the potato- spoon on His Excellency's sleeve who said " Donnerwetter " and looked rather cross as he wiped it off. Fraulein von Stift, the old maid, told a pathetic story of a very pious schoolfellow of hers who married (at the age of forty-five) a rich elderly widower. They went for their honeymoon to Jerusalem and Palestine, where the bride- groom expired " on the back of a camel/ • I suppose while making an excursion into the desert ; anyway it seemed a queer and unusual place for any one to close his earthly career. After supper we returned again to the THE SUPPER PARTY 49 drawing-room, the gentlemen of course accompanying the ladies and not remain- ing to chat together as they do with us. The old Kammerherr requested permission to smoke which Aunt Mary graciously granted, and Graf Schlippental and the others also lit cigarettes, and old Fraulein von Stift smoked one as well, looking so naughty like a revolted maiden aunt. There were no nice cosy corners to sit in, but the folding doors into the dining-room and little sitting-room were opened so that we had plenty of space. I missed the fire- place dreadfully, for a chocolate stove can never represent a family hearth and it was awfully dull for a time. We sat looking at the photograph albums of Rome, and those who had been there (I hadn't) said how " reizend " it was and recommended me to go. At last in desperation I asked if anybody could sing and nobody could or would so I sat down and played anything that I could remember. Certainly music is a great stimulant to conversation, for as "I finished Brahm's sonata in D where there is a sudden pause just before the end His 50 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Excellency was heard shouting to Countess Schlippental, " Meine Hebe Grdfin — pork is poison to me, my Magen" (which is polite German for " little Mary ") " cannot stand it." While Franz was handing round weak tea and cakes, with glasses of beer for those who preferred it, I played a " Merry Widow " waltz, and His Excellency said, " Now, why don't you young people dance ? " Aunt Mary smiled and said, " Why not, there's room in the dining-room," but she evi- dently did not imagine we should take her at her word, but I jumped up and made Count Schlippental and the two others (one was Herr Lieutenant von Schmidt, and the other von Muller) help me to move aside the table, and Fraulein von Stift said she could play, so Vicky Rosswitz danced with Schmidt and I with Count Schlippental and Herr von Wiltzing took out Aunty, and young von Muller had Grafin Rosswitz. We were just getting nicely into our swing and I found that the Count danced beauti- fully when he suddenly stopped and with a bow deposited me against the wall and THE SUPPER PARTY SI walked off. I was rather surprised but saw that the others had done exactly the same thing and Herr von Wiltzing came and bowed in front of me while Herr von Schmidt did the same in front of Aunty, and the Count went to Vicky and we all went on dancing a few minutes longer with our new partners till presently everybody changed again. The Count explained to me when I ex- pressed my surprise, that this was the invari- able German custom and was astonished when I told him that in England one ex- pected to keep to one partner during a dance. " It will have its advantages," he said ; ' in dancing with whom one likes it is good, but in dancing with whom one likes not, it is bad, also many ladies will not be able to dance at all, if there are not sufficient gentlemen for partners. I think the German way the best." Everybody got nicely roused up with the music and the old Kammerherr grew quite gallant to the ladies, and told some of his best anecdotes dating back to the time of 52 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND the old Emperor William and the Empress Augusta. He appears to have disapproved very much of the English Crown Princess and her advanced ideas, and thinks she would have done much better not to inter- fere in politics. He said however that her son, the present Emperor, inherits all his best qualities from his mother, especially his attention to detail, and his determina- tion to be informed about everything that is going on. Strange that these traits should have been a drawback to her, and an advantage to him, but the old gentleman says that Providence obviously endowed her with them that she might hand them on to her son ; it doesn't seem to occur to the dear old fellow that Providence might have meant her to use them herself as well. Some of the tales he told made Grafin Schlippental laugh to such an extent that her hair, which Franz had rather disarranged, came un- twisted, and stuck at a funny angle. I saw her son looking at it very gravely once or twice, and then he said he must go and do " Mamachen's " hair for her, and he THE SUPPER PARTY 53 went and fixed it up quite nicely while the old Kammerherr made sentimental references to his youth and the lovely ring- lets people wore then. He spoke with regret of the curls that are now no longer the fashion, and I suppose he would like to see them and crinolines revived once more before he dies. Aunty showed me after- wards an album, where among many hideous people dressed in this fearful style, there was a very handsome girl with clas- sical features, really lovely in spite of the unbecoming dress. She told me Herr voi? Wiltzing when a young man was madly in love with this lady, and they were to have been married, but a week before the wed- ding day, she was taken ill and died quite suddenly of appendicitis or one of those diseases they didn't understand how to treat then like they do now, when one can be dancing at a party one night and operated upon on the kitchen table the next. How funny that so many of these plain old creatures with red noses and bald heads should have experienced quite touch- ing romances. It seemed queer, when I 54 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND reflected how the Kammerherr had shovelled down his throat such quantities of Hammel- braten and Kartoffeln-brei to think how he had nearly died of grief in his youth, and had remained single for " her " sake all the rest of his life. To him the fashions stopped being becoming from the days that curls and crinolines departed into the limbo of worn-out things, and he has ever since her death compared every woman, much to her detriment, to his lost darling. At eleven o'clock, after we had finished up with a "landers," and Aunt Mary had trotted smilingly round in the ladies' chain with her purple silk train tripping everybody up, our guests departed, every one declaring that they had had a most delightful evening. I am to go next week to a dance with Vicky Rosswitz and we shall be at the opera again in a few days as there is to be something very special, a first performance or something of the kind and all the Royalties are to be there. The Defilir-Cour CHAPTER III THE DEFILIR-COUR T AST night was held the final Drawing- ■f- - ? room of the season in Berlin, and I saw it all in the most delightfully unconven- tional manner from a funny little musician's gallery nearly in the roof of the big SaaL Vicky Rosswitz says it was awfully lucky for me, as nobody from outside is ever al- lowed to look on at these functions, though heaps of people would give their ears for the chance. It came about in this way. Aunt Mary has of course heaps of acquaintances among the Court entourage, as she is much looked up to, her father having been something special, I forget what, to the old Empress Augusta. She is very aristocratic in her ideas, and no one would think of taking a liberty with her, yet somehow she alwa3/s 58 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND manages to be on rather nice friendly terms with other people's servants, remembers how many children they've got, and doesn't forget to ask after their rheumatics, or whatever their pet ailment happens to be. She uses an affable but superior and con- descending tone, which they all seem to like, and the result is she gets to hear lots of little items of gossip which she dearly loves, especially Court gossip. So while she was visiting in a friendly way one of the ladies in the Schoss, a maid came in to ask some questions about her mistress' dress, and as Aunt takes a deep interest in everybody's affairs and flattered both mistress and maid about the beautiful new way Marthe did her ''gracious Countess" hair (much she knows about such matters), they were both very pleased and purry. Then Marthe went on to ask what she must do about the places in the gallery, as the maids of the Court ladies have the privilege of being sometimes allowed to see the Cour, as it is supposed to educate their taste in dress, and show them how trains ought to hang. It was Marthe's turn for the gallery, but THE DEFILIR COUR 59 there was a difficulty about the second one. Two had colds, and as no one likely to be guilty of a sneeze is ever admitted above for fear of attracting attention to their pre- sence, they were both barred. Another wanted to go and see her sick mother as soon as the Cour, which lasts from 9.30 to 12, had begun, and the only one left made various excuses more or less feeble, and was strongly suspected of a desire to meet her Schatz or " young man," who was a court Lakai, as they call footmen here, though if she hadn't seen a Cour already, she was a fool not to throw over the young man, but German girls are dreadfully faithful beings and pride themselves on being treu, and I suppose she would have a delightful feeling of self-sacrifice about it for weeks after. Well, Aunt Mary said laughingly, "What a pity Daphne can't disguise herself as a maid and take the place that's going begging," never of course meaning it seriously, and the Palast-Dame whom she had come to see, happening to be in a very good temper, said with- out thinking — 60 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND " Liebe Maria " (that's Aunt), " warum nicht ? " " Why not indeed ? " It seemed really a shame not to seize the opportunity, and after a lot of talking, and sending Marthe out of the room and calling her back again, it was finally arranged that I should be at the Schloss next evening at nine o'clock, and go to the gallery under Marthe's escort. The next day, after hardly being able to sleep all night for excitement, I drove alone in a taxi — I've persuaded Aunt Mary they are not dangerous, and that one fre- quently emerges alive from them — to the Schloss, where in a corridor among a crowd of very stout, comfortable-looking footmen, Marthe in a wonderful made- over high silk dress once belonging to her mistress and a pair of long white kid gloves, was waiting for me. I wore my old cream ball-dress, as they had agreed that if any one did get a glimpse of me from below, it would be more reassuring if I were decollete, as a person of Anarchistic principles would naturally be supposed THE DEFILIR COUR 61 to ignore all social customs, and not dress prettily on principle. The police are in continual anxiety lest some mad or evil disposed person should gain entrance into the Schloss on these occasions and create a disturbance, so they are very careful who they admit. The footmen were all most dazzlingly brilliant, just like those in the book of Cinderella that I loved so much when a child. Their waistcoats, which came very low down in front, were one mass of gold and silver embroidery, and they had red plush breeches, and flesh coloured stock- ings with buckled shoes. They do not have powdered hair however like the English footmen, and they are not at all smart looking, but have a solid burly appearance, as if Court life suited them very well. They all regarded me with great interest, not a bit like the respectful aloofness of an English servant, and some of them seemed much amused that Marthe, who I suppose they knew quite well, should have me in charge. I heard them whispering together about the " htibsche, 62 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Heine Engldnderin," and I felt for a moment rather annoyed at being among that crowd of " menials," as Aunt Julia calls all Court domestic servants. But soon a young footman came forward and preceded us along some rather dreary-looking corridors full of marble busts and oil-paintings of battle scenes. One I remember was of a complacent smiling gentleman on horse- back, in a long curly flowing wig, his steed prancing along in a very artificial, high- stepping style, while in the sky above him floated an angel in beautiful red and blue drapery holding a wreath of laurel over his head. In the distance puffs of cannon smoke and the flames of burning towns rose up to heaven, and heaps of dead and wounded men lay ^scattered about, but the smiling gentleman led on by Fame or Victory, or whatever the angel's name might be, rode gaily forward with his back turned to these unpleasantnesses. All along the corridor, as the footman explained to me, were State apartments for distinguished guests, and he showed me where the late King Edward and Queen Alexandra THE DEFILIR COUR 63 were lodged when they visited the Em- peror. The Schloss is built round a great court- yard, and we had to cross one angle of this. It was very cold outside, and I was glad I had my chinchilla mantle. The cobble stones with which this yard is paved are most dreadfully painful to walk upon, just like petrified eggs ; I could hardly get along in my thin high-heeled shoes. We passed a door where two sentries were standing, and came upon a rather mean sort of staircase, not a bit like one would expect to find in a royal palace, just painted white, with an ordinary red matting. At one landing it seemed to join on to another staircase, and we got among heaps of officers who were all going to the cloakroom to hang up their long grey cloaks. There was such a clattering of sabres, and jingling of spurs, and swishing of helmet plumes, and as we passed the door of the room, we saw hundreds of cloaks hanging side by side, together with the round flat undress caps every officer wears in a cab, 64 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND for the long spike of his helmet would stick through the roof, so he carries it in his hand, and wears the other till he gets to the Schloss. The courtyard was full of every kind of carriage, nearly all taxis, and the most dreadful ramshackle droschkes, for hardly any officer keeps a brougham, and those who do object to have their horses waiting in the cold, so that every cab in Berlin, and every horse that can crawl is brought out the night of a Cour, and there are some very antediluvian vehicles to be seen. I caught sight of Captain Mardyke just giving his coat to a footman. It was the first time I had ever seen him in uniform, and he really looked splendid — not stiff and straight and strained to death, like a German officer, who usually sticks out behind and before and is pincushiony in many places — but lithe and straight and sinewy. It is a pity he is thinking of that American girl. As I moved on he caught a glimpse of me, and looked absolutely flabbergasted, but I passed on very quickly. I suppose he wondered what I THE DEFILIR COUR 65 could be doing on the back stairs of the Schloss. We followed the footman's pink calves higher and higher through all kinds of funny little kitchens and housemaids' places till we reached a place where a lot of fire- men were sitting in their brass helmets, with hose-pipes, hatchets and buckets, all ready to put out any fire that might break out. They looked astonished at seeing us, and stared rather stupidly till the footman bade them get up, speaking in a very haughty, bullying style. But they had much manlier and more interesting faces than the footman, and it was rather comforting to know they were there. After passing the firemen's room, we were left at a place where was stationed the military band of the Gardes du Corps which was going to play during the Cour. They were all great big fellows with enormous brass instruments and 'cellos taking up all the spare room, so that it was very difficult to get through them. The roof too, was so low it nearly touched our heads as we scrambled over their great 66 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND booted legs, and the whole place was a very tight fit and hot beyond expression. Rows on rows of beer bottles filled up every available corner, and as we squeezed our way through to the little gallery where we were to stay, I knocked over several, which rolled along and made rather a loud noise, and Marthe nearly fell over a pair of kettle drums, but we got to our places at last without further accident. The bandmen seemed to be very interested in Marthe, and made all sorts of queer gut- tural observations which I couldn't under- stand, but should have liked to, but Marthe looked down her nose in a very proper way. If I had been in her place, I'm sure I should have wanted to talk to those handsome men, for some of them were just pictures. That is the advantage for people like Marthe, they can speak without being introduced, and no one thinks there's any harm in it, but for people of our class, it's quite impos- sible, yet often it would be rather nice if one might. Our gallery was ornamented in Rococo style, with little Cupids and festoons of THE DEFILIR COUR 67 flowers and ribbon, and I found that I could see splendidly under a little fat boy's arm without being seen myself. There was a crowd of people below, Court officials, foreign attaches and naval and military officers moving about in brilliant uniforms. The sound of their voices all blended into one vast murmur with some sharp, strident notes dominating the whole, sounded curi- ously animal and reminded me rather of the crooning kind of gabble made by a flock of geese when contentedly grazing. Presently I discovered the old Kammer- herr who came to dinner at Aunt Mary's. His portly form was covered with gold lace, and in virtue of his office he wore a gold key stitched on to his coat at the back on the left side. His bald head shone like the full moon with the electric lights reflected from it, but indeed even quite young officers seem to suffer in this way ; I wonder they don't try Simkins' Hair Restorer, but perhaps they do and it isn't any use. There were Chinese and Persian and Hungarian attaches in gorgeous national 68 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND dress, and the Chinaman in his silk robes looked specially brilliant. Suddenly the Gold-Sticks tapped heavily on the floor with their staves, and the buzz of talking stopped at once and a profound silence succeeded all the noise. I stretched out my neck further and further till one of the carved flowers caught in my hair and gave me a gentle tug backwards. The breath- less silence lasted a minute or two, and then as nothing seemed happening people began to talk again, at first in whispers, then louder, till the gabble was getting as bad as ever, when the Gold-Sticks rapped again in a very short, peremptory manner, as if saying, " Gentlemen, you forget where you are ! " and the silence fell deadly cold on the crowd who now stood quite motionless, while a gentle movement and rustling could be heard advancing through the long vista of salons, the folding doors of which all stood wide open. Our gallery was at right angles to the door where Their Majesties entered, and in such a position as to prevent any view of them before they were actually in the room. First of THE DEFILIR COUR 69 all came various Court officials, not making any attempt at walking backwards as they do at the English Court. Then appeared the Emperor and Empress arm in arm, looking very Imperial and splendid, and followed by many other royalties. The Emperor was in the uniform of the Garde du Corps, and after first handing the Empress, whose train was carried by four pages in scarlet, to her throne on his left hand, he took his place on her right, both of them standing opposite their red velvet chairs to receive the pre- sentations which began immediately. The Empress, looking superb, with her dig- nified yet kindly quiet and pleased expres- sion, wore the wonderful emeralds belonging to the Prussian Crown jewels. The four pages, after disposing her train in becoming folds on the dais, took up their posts behind the throne where they must have enjoyed themselves very much. These pages, Aunt Mary had told me, are boys of sixteen or seventeen, belonging to the nobility, so they all have to be " vons" if they have no higher title and they must attend all great 70 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Court functions for two years only, when others are chosen in their places. There is great competition for these vacancies. They have to be of a certain height and their photographs are always sent to Court to be submitted, and some years they are so dreadfully plain that the pretty page's costume only seems to make their ugliness more pronounced. I never thought before that pages could be so plain, as in poetry one always reads of the queens and prin- cesses whose trains they carry falling in love with them, and it causes all sorts of complications, so it is perhaps as well that the Prussian pages are not distinguished for beauty. The band blared out behind us, and the " Defile " began. First the gentlemen of the various Embassies, Turks, Greeks, Russians, Roumanians, English, all were announced in turn by somebody, and made a slow or a quick obeisance as their custom happened to be. Somehow it was hardly as dignified as one had expected; there didn't seem to be time to make the stately bow necessary, and one could see that THE DEFILIR COUR 71 the Court officials didn't approve of gentle- men who lingered over their business, so it was all rather quick, decisive and mechanical. In a large semicircle round the throne were more red pages arranged to Y keep the course." Everybody came in on the left, made their bows and walked out at a door on the right of the throne just oppo- site our gallery. Captain Mardyke went through his presentation in a stiff English manner, his bows not so low as the others, but looking rather proud and handsome. The ladies came last of all ; it was quite exciting to see the first train go sliding past below. No one wears feathers and veils here, except the ladies-in-waiting of the Em- press. Some of the English women walked so dreadfully. What a pity it is that my countrywomen are sometimes so un- gainly ! The constant stream of trains began almost to make me giddy and the noise of the band was stunning, but I wouldn't have missed anything for the world. 72 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND The floor is so highly polished that it is rather difficult for the ladies to walk upon it in their new shoes, especially with a heavy train dragging behind, and one or two of them came on so slowly that the officials grew worried, and made frantic signs to them to hurry up. At last one rather stout middle-aged lady made a very beauti- ful sweeping curtsey, and just as she was on the upward grade again, something slipped or caught and down she sat, flat, in the presence of Royalty. Three gorgeous Gold- Sticks rushed promptly forward, as though fully prepared for such accidents, and pulled her on to her perpendicular once more, supporting her without any pause or hesita- tion kindly but firmly to the door, where she disappeared among the crowd as another lady was already bending before the throne. Once, three yards of elaborately trimmed green satin train went floating past us with one of the black-plumed cocked hats which the Kammerherm carry under their left arms riding like a passenger in the middle of it. A smile rippled for an in- stant the decorum of the crowd, but just THE DEFILIR COUR 78 as the unconscious lady sidled up to His Majesty some one snatched away the hat. To see that constantly repeated bow of the Emperor and Empress, which must continue for three hours, made my own neck ache. No wonder the officials try to shorten the proceedings as much as possible. Mart he, it appeared, had an acquaintance in the band who seemed to have an extra- ordinary number of rests in his part, for he used to come and sit beside her for at least sixty bars at a time. She told me afterwards that he was a performer on one of those queer instruments that are only used in Wagner — she couldn't remember the name of it, but it sounds like a cow coughing. At length the last train streamed past, the band stopped playing and Their Majesties retired. Marthe and I had again to scramble as best we could through the musicians, who were busy packing up their instruments. Empty beer bottles were rolling about everywhere, and the atmo- sphere was — well — better imagined than described. We hurried through one cor- 74 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND ridor after another, and Marthe took a wrong turning, and we got hopelessly lost once getting into a corridor where at the end we saw four handsome young officers coming towards us, laughing and talking and looking very much at home. I knew they must be somebody rather particular, as they all were wearing the yellow sash of the order of the Black Eagle, and Marthe whispered that they were the sons of the Emperor. We stood back in the embrasure of a window hoping we should not be noticed, but just as they were passing, one of them caught sight of us and gave his brother a nudge and they all turned and grinned at Marthe, whom they seemed to recognize. She made a deep curtsey and I made a very good imitation of those I had seen performed by the ladies of the Cour. Then the tallest of the princes, an ex- tremely slender young man with a nice fresh boyish face and fair hair, and a shy but attractive manner — it was the Crown Prince whom I easily recognized from the postcards one sees of him everywhere — THE DEFILIR COUR 75 stopped and asked Marthe if she were lost, glancing at me the while in a kindly interested way as though he would like to know who I was, and I was pleased that though my dress was rather old it had always been one of my favourites because the colour suited me so well. Marthe stammered out, " Ja ! Imperial Highness, I have taken the English niece of Countess Brendorff (Aunt Mary) to show her the Cour from the little gallery, and in coming back we must have mis- taken the staircase. " Then all four of them crowded round, and each one gave different directions how to find the way, and they laughed and contra- dicted each other, and, finally walked back part way to show us where we must turn, all talking English to me and German to Marthe, and the Crown Prince asked how I liked the Cour and I was surprised to find how easy it is to talk to royalties. They all appeared to enjoy the little ad- venture, and when we reached the turning stood in a row saluting, all looking so gay and handsome as I curtsied my thanks. 76 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND A moment after a breathless footman overtook us. He had been sent by His Imperial Highness to show the way and he took us through the upper floors of the palace, along passages where many people lived with their families Marthe said. They were little flats, she explained, for the various upper servants, some of them Kastellans who had certain portions of the huge Schloss under their charge. There were coal bunkers outside the doors on which were hanging milk tins and breadbags for the morning's supply. At last we arrived in the corridor outside the apartments of Marthe's mistress, but no taxi and no Franz was to be seen wait- ing outside for me as I had confidently expected. I kept my nose glued to the window which looks on to the courtyard, but though a constant stream of vehicles was moving past, they all contained officers and ladies ; there was none for me. Evi- dently it was waiting at the wrong door. It was very tiresome for Marthe had to leave me, and I felt so forlorn and lonely with only the big porter for company, THE DEFILIR COUR 77 I wondered what would happen, and if I should have to wait till the last carriage had gone home, when moving slowly along through the crush came a taxi in which sat Captain Mar dyke. He was nearly gone past when he turned and saw my face at the window, and I suppose I must have looked rather despairing, for he stopped his car and jumped out, and I opened the door and he seemed to under- stand everything at a glance without explanations, and helped me into his taxi and put my cloak round me and gave the driver my address, so that all my troubles were at an end, and I felt so relieved that I couldn't help being very nice to him as we turned and twisted among the carriages. " What have you been doing here all alone fair lady ? " he asked. " First I see you fluttering up the backstairs with a gorgeous footman, and then looking like an enchanted princess from the window as if waiting for a deliverer." I explained that the deliverer I was looking for was Franz, whom Aunt Mary 78 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND had promised to send to the Hohenzollern staircase with a cab. "He is probably cooling his heels at the wrong door, or hasn't been able to get a cab, or has lost his way or something foolish/' he said, and he asked me all about my private view among the beer bottles and musicians, and I told him all my adventures, at which he was much amused. " Lookers on see most of the game," he said smiling, but I told him I thought most of the people preferred to be playing in the game if they could, and that it was a pity I couldn't be pre- sented here because I had not yet been presented in England owing to Uncle Dick's death, but he assured me that I had had the best of it, and said it was an awful bore down below, and that he would have much preferred the musicians' gallery and the proximity of the band to all the gorgeousness and gold lace he had to put up with. He helped me to unlock the door with that awfully ponderous key which I had carried in a little white satin bag and been THE DEFILIR COUR 79 in constant fear of losing all night, and he said what hard lines it had been that he couldn't come to Aunt's party and that whenever we wanted an escort to the Opera he would be very pleased to come with us, as he believed it was only a want of op- portunity that had hitherto prevented him becoming a disciple of Wagner, only he hated to go by himself ; so I told him we were going next week, but not toWagner, and he said that didn't matter, if it was a first performance it would probably be just as interesting and he ought to hear it, and he would call to-morrow and ar- range with Aunt about the tickets as we should have to get them very early, as it was a Gala-Vorstellung and there was a great demand for places. He is really very nice. I wish he were not entangled with that American girl. -** The Gala-Vorstellung CHAPTER IV THE " GALA-VORSTELLUNG " AND PICNIC A UNT MARY and I had just come in -*** from a morning's " shopping/' which means wandering through Wertheim's — the German equivalent of Harrod's I suppose — without buying anything but a packet of needles, though I have continually to resist Aunt's efforts to make me purchase a hideous blouse at four marks fifty, which I would not like to see even Augusta wear, when a carriage with the royal liveries turned into our street. " I'm sure that's Princess Charlotte, Princess Bernhard you know " — I didn't know in the least — " and she is coming here ; oh, what a pity we didn't stay out a little longer, I am so tired," and here she rushed into her bedroom to tidy her hair and put on a foolish sort of lace bow arrangement, 84 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND which looked quite out of place on the coffee-coloured flannel blouse. The bell of the flat rang, and Franz, who had been cleaning knives in his shirt sleeves, flung him- self breathlessly into his livery coat, and came and said that the footman of Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte was there, asking if the gracious Countess were at home. Of course she said " Yes," and the footman retired down the four flights of stairs, past the doors of the Geheimrat, the Justizrat, and the Zahnartz and the other people who live on our staircase, to fetch up Princess Charlotte who was waiting below in her carriage. Meantime Aunty produced some fancywork, horrible red cross-stitch which she sometimes does in the evenings, and I thought she intended to sink into her armchair by the window and present a picture of calm and elegant in- dustry as Franz flung open the door to usher in her illustrious visitor, but she just scattered it about in artistic disorder to give I suppose the impression of being inter- rupted at work of no particular conse- quence, and then went out to the little hall THE GALA-VORSTELLUNG 85 to meet the Princess, telling me to hover about somewhere in the background. Princess Charlotte is a sort of second cousin of the Emperor — I never can under- stand royal relationships, they are always rather complicated — and is a great favourite everywhere because she is rather a gossip and likes to run about and see people. Her husband, Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Bran- denburg, is a big burly man, with a neck that hangs over his collar all round, and has a red face and bloodshot eyes, while his wife is tall and slender and graceful in every movement. Her friends call them " Beauty and the Beast." She came sweeping into Aunt's flat and gave her two little dabs of kisses on each cheek, and then Aunt Mary struggled to kiss her hand, but she dragged it away, and I thought if I had been in Aunt's place I shouldn't have persevered, as it looked rather silly. The Princess floated into the drawing-room, and stood looking round, most certainly thinking I am sure, " How hideous this room is." She was very beautifully and fashionably dressed and 80 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND had a lovely pale face with dark intelligent eyes, and a quick alert observant look. She shook hands with me while Aunt ex- plained who I was, and said my name over reflectively, " Daphne Graham, why you are just the age to come and play with my Lotta," as though I were a little girl instead of being nineteen years of age. I smiled, and Aunt said she was sure I should be delighted and honoured and that kind of thing, and the Princess looked at me and said, " You are not quite so sure about that, are you Daphne ? " and I answered, " Not till I know the Princess Lotta madame," which made her go into shrieks of laughter, I don't know why. " Oh, I must tell Lotta that," she said, "lam sure you will be just the right person for her." Aunt said afterwards that I had been very " tactless " to say what I did. They talked for a while about people I did not know, and the Princess said how disap- pointed Lotta had been not to be able to go to the Cour as she had a bad cold in her head, and then she admired Aunt's fancy- work, and just as she was going away again THE GALA-VORSTELLUNG 87 Captain Mardyke arrived. Franz showed him into the inner drawing-room, but in a German flat there are no secrets and the Princess pricked up her ears and asked whose voice it was, and told Aunt to let him come in and be introduced or" presented M I suppose I ought to say. Aunt said afterwards that nearly all royal princesses in Germany, especially if they had travelled much or been in Eng- land, are very keen to meet nice people unconventionally and away from all Court atmosphere, and they never lose an oppor- tunity of being able to talk to an agreeable young man when free from the Argus-eye of a lady-in-waiting. I am sure the con- stant watching must often make them want to be naughty, and do things to shock people, especially if the lady-in-waiting is elderly and conscientious. Captain Mardyke is so handsome and distinguished-looking in a purely English style, nice and lean in the right places and with quiet, easy, but perfect manners, which are very different to the fussy ela- borate civilities of many Germans, so it 88 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND was not surprising that Princess Charlotte took to him at once and stayed on an uncon- scionable time, till Franz appeared, having meantime assumed his white gloves, to say that Her Royal Highness's footman feared they would not be in time for luncheon. " Oh, goodness, I quite forgot," she screamed, " Bernhard and I are having Friihstuck at the Schloss and I must dress. How dreadful ! I shall never be in time. Good-bye everybody,' ' and she floated away with a general wave of the hand, leaving behind a delightful perfume of Parma violets which lingered all day on the stairs. Captain Mardyke escorted her down as she had no lady or gentleman with her, which is quite wrong for a royalty, and for all the hurry she was in, she seemed to find time to say a good deal and to be very agreeable, for we could hear her laughing and talking all the way downstairs, and it seemed quite a long time before they reached the street. Then Captain Mardyke came up again and brought out the opera tickets which he had secured, and arranged about meeting us, and I am sure he was dying for Aunt to THE GALA-VORSTELLUNG 89 ask him to luncheon, but she didn't, so at last he had to go away. I had rather a squabble with Aunty that evening over our dresses, as it was dis- tinctly printed on the tickets that no one would be admitted except in evening dress, so I put on the pretty pale blue frock which Adele charged me such a fearful price for, but I was vexed to find Aunt in a high- necked, black dress with quite a morning look about it, and her big cameo brooch stuck by way of ornament in the middle of her chest. Her poor old wisp of hair looked tighter and thinner than ever, and the large black velvet bow she wore hardly mended matters, for there was nothing for it to cling on to. If people haven't any nice hair of their own it is surely no crime to buy some ; one sees plenty of it in the shop windows, and Aunty has really handsome features if she would only take a little pains with herself. She doesn't look a bit as though she could speak four or five languages, and had been at Court in the time of the old Empress Augusta, and known Bismarck and Moltke and all those 90 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND great men of bygone days quite inti mately. " Ach ! child/ • she said when she saw me, " you English people think you must wear low-necked dresses for every occasion. Here it is not considered good taste to show one's shoulders in a public place like a theatre.' ' " But, Aunty," I said, feeling that I had perhaps been rather silly to fly in the face of national customs, " it says upon the tickets that no lady will be admitted unless in an ausgeschnittenes Kleid. It is streng verboten." " Nonsense, they always put that when- ever there is a Gala performance, and no one takes any notice of it. Only the Jewesses wear extravagant toilettes at the theatre, it is much more anstdndig to dress quietly." " But the Emperor and Empress are to be there," I said, feeling sorry to think I was doing anything not quite respectable, but it was too late to change. The cab was already at the door with Franz waiting to keep our dresses off the wheel. Aunt seemed very put out ; she grumbled at my white kid gloves and at the silver ribbon THE GALA-VORSTELLUNG 91 in my hair, and certainly when I found my- self in that horrid-smelling ramshackle old droschke with a perfect scarecrow of a driver on the box I felt somehow that Aunt's dress was more suitable to our equipage than my own. There were quan- tities of cabs driving down the Linden, which looked very alluring with all the jewellers' shops lighted up. When we reached the Opera-Platz, a very nice taxi-cab drove up to the entrance of the opera just in front of us, and out of it got Lord Whitlake and two very pretty ladies whom I did not know. He had just the same trim, well-groomed look as Cap- tain Mardyke, and made all those roly- poly German officers look rather common- place. He is a wonderfully handsome man, but his wife, Vicky Rosswitz told me, is in love with an ugly stupid Englishman called Billy Lansdowne who can only talk u dogs and horses." (Women are fools !) I was thankful to get out of our smelly cab, and we went in among a crowd of officers in uniform and ladies with their heads wrapped up in shawls, most of them 92 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND looking very dowdy. It was raining just a little, and Aunty was cross again because of my blue satin slippers which she said would be ruined. Poor old Aunty ! She little knew to what an unpleasant experience she was doomed. Dear old Archdeacon Bayle was so fond of saying what a blessing it was that the future was hidden from our knowledge, and in this case it certainly was. We passed the big beadle, who " exists beautifully," outside the swing doors, but appears to have no other special function in life, as he regards the public with a haughty mien and snubs any one who asks him a question. We had expected to meet Cap- tain Mardyke at the Opera, but he had said he might probably be detained on business at the Embassy, so we were not to wait. When we got further inside to the corridor where everybody, men and women, leave their cloaks and hats, we became aware of something extraordinary happening. People were talking in those very screamy high-up tones which the Germans use when they get excited, and all the liveried officials of the place were wearing a grim, deter- THE GALA-VORSTELLUNG 93 mined, " only-over-my-dead-body " sort of look which was very alarming. The talking and shrieking seemed to grow to a perfect pandemonium as we entered. Near us a very fat lady wearing a tight crimson velvet blouse with high collar and long sleeves and a black serge skirt, was weeping large tears which rolled over her enormous cheeks like rain, while her husband, abso- lutely foaming with rage, stood beside her shouting at intervals, " Unerhdrt ! — unver- schdmt ! — schandbar ! " — and other German expletives which relieve the feelings. He stamped and gesticulated and grew purple in the face in the way foreigners do when they are angry, and on all sides similar scenes were taking place. In one corner three ladies had every appearance of being temporarily bereft of their senses, for one of them with a large pair of scissors was deliberately snipping with them at her companion's silk blouse, cut- ting great gashes in it round the shoulders ; the collar was already snipped away and only the ragged edges remained. Close to my elbow a man in spectacles, with the 94 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND serious air of one engaged in a very difficult problem, was making with a penknife careful stabs at the lace of his wife's blouse which he tore away as I looked, leaving to view bare shoulders and various portions of a thick woollen undergarment, which with a deep sigh, and occasional slashes, he began to turn in, and pin down carefully all round. Everybody who wasn't weeping or exclaiming was absorbed in similar occu- pations, and I wondered if the Berlin popu- lation had been suddenly seized with a new and subtle form of influenza or some disease which expressed itself in destroying clothes, when the wardrobe woman interposed with an explanation. " Ach I" she said, shaking her head as she hung up Aunty's mangy old cloak, "it is a pity that people have not taken notice of the Emperor's order about evening dress, but a strict command has been given to enforce it. Gnddiges Frdulein is fortunate in being already decolltiert ; but this lady," pointing to Aunt, " cannot be admitted so. Her dress must be open at the neck, but the lace can easily be cut, here are some scissors." THE GALA-VORSTELLUNG 95 " Isn't it absolutely monstrous/ ■ gasped the wife of a professor who knew my aunt, " monstrous ! what are we to do ? " She was wearing a plaid silk blouse, three rows of coral beads, a short tweed skirt and a pair of soiled white kid gloves. Aunt told me next day that she was one of the cleverest women in Berlin, and had done a great deal for the advancement of women. I wished however that she had learned to do her hair, of which she had a great quantity, but she seemed very nice, and the humour of the situation had evidently struck her, though not yet apparent to the rest of the crowd. There was nothing for it but to accept the wardrobe-woman's scissors and hack and snip away at Aunty's dress till she emerged as the professor's wife, Frau Braun said, " like Venus from the ocean " with nice plump white shoulders which are really her great beauty. I draped her black silk scarf round the opening, so that it looked quite artistic and pretty when it was finished, but some of the other ladies had a dreadfully lopsided unfinished appearance 96 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND with untidy ragged edges creeping out, as there were not enough pins to go round, although the wardrobe keepers, anticipating trouble, had laid in an enormous supply which they sold at immense profits. It really was rather plucky of the Emperor to risk offending all the rich bourgeois who are his greatest admirers. He had had the whole Opera placarded with notices that no one would be admitted unless correctly attired, the gentlemen in Frack and the ladies ausgeschnitten, but though nearly all the men had come in evening clothes, many of the ladies, with the sweet pervers- ity of their sex, had defied the Imperial order to their own confusion and undoing. The Royalties arrived very punctually. The whole audience turned round and stared at the royal box through their opera glasses in the most unblushing fashion, while the Empress bowed gracefully, and smiled at the people, as though quite charmed at their rudeness — I suppose that is one of the things royalties have to learn to do — and certainly the German Empress has learned it to perfection. She has a kind, handsome, THE GALA-VORSTELLUNG 97 rosy face, surrounded by lovely fluffy white hair, is very tall and distinguished looking and dresses beautifully. Her shoulders are superb, so beautifully white and round, and she wore lovely jewels, a magnificent diamond tiara of four-leaved shamrocks, and great gleaming stars of the same stones in her bodice. They shimmered in wonder- ful blue lights and seemed to light up the box. On her left sat her daughter, a slim pale pretty girl, with a piquante little face and merry blue eyes. On the right hand of the Emperor was the Crown Princess, a very attractive personality with whom everybody is in love, as they were in the old days with Queen Alexandra. The Crown Princess is tall and dark and thin, and she looks as if she found life pleasant and enjoyed everything. She has masses of black hair in which she wore no jewels but only a twisted ribbon; her eyes are lovely and her complexion of that beautiful pink and milk-white which one so seldom sees. She has high cheek bones and a very wide mouth which, when she laughs she opens to its fullest extent. The Emperor 98 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND seemed to be having all sorts of jokes with her, for they laughed and talked together incessantly. In the row behind I saw the Crown Prince, and the other three princes I had met in the corridor. One of them evidently recog- nized me, for I saw him whispering to his brother, and they both looked to where I was sitting, but just then Captain Mardyke came to his place next us and I had to speak to him. He had evidently heard of the dress troubles for he looked at me and laughed. " You didn't need a pair of scissors/ ' he whispered. " What about Aunty f " for he knows her penchant for wearing ugly shabby old clothes, but when he looked at her — she was busy talking to a friend in the row in front — he said, " lucky for her she knew what was in the wind," and I felt very pleased that my impromptu dressmaking had deceived him. " Yes, doesn't she look nice ?"I said. " I arranged her dress." Then the lights were turned down and the Opera began. There was some pretty, rather trivial music, but the next morning nearly all the papers THE GALA-VORSTELLUNG 9J criticized it unmercifully, though some indeed did not notice it at all, merely men- tioning the fact that it had been performed in the presence of the Emperor, and then describing the costumes of the Royalties, but absolutely ignoring the piece, and I think as a matter of fact it was pretty bad. It had been produced at the wish of His Majesty, who persists in thinking himself a judge of music and art, or so people say, and it gives the critics a certain malignant pleasure to make mincemeat of all the works patronized by him. Of course most of them are rather " piffle/ ' but it must be trying to the composer, after having secured the royal countenance which he hopes will lead him to fame, to feel that after all there are also critics to please, and if he has any doubts of his own work — poor man ! Captain Mardyke told me during the last interval that as the weather was so un- usually warm and lovely for the time of the year he had arranged a sort of water-picnic for to-morrow to which he hoped Aunt Mary and I would come. We were to go to the forest and spend a day in the woods 100 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND and on the lakes. Of course I didn't let Aunty have any time to think, but told her I was sure we should enjoy it awfully, shouldn't we ? And we did. It turned out perfectly delightful. The Water-Picnic * ■ •' CHAPTER V THE WATER-PICNIC HP HE river Havel widens out at Potsdam t into lovely wide lakes which, during the summer are covered with steamers and boats, although it was too early as yet for the steamers to run regularly. Captain Mar- dyke had borrowed a motor-boat from a very nice young German friend of his, who has been at Oxford, and some other people joined us with theirs. Aunt Mary and I left the flat about ten o'clock, as we were all to meet at eleven in Potsdam, which is half an hour by rail from Berlin. Aunty had fastened her head up in a motor veil, so thought herself quite cor- rectly dressed for a water-picnic, but as she wore a funny kind of Sunday -best cape trimmed with astrachan, and her rather short skirt showed a pair of elastic- ity 104 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND sided boots — they still wear them in Ger- many it seems — the old dear looked rather a queer figure, but nobody seemed to notice anything wrong and it was really too nice and sunny to let oneself be troubled by any fellow-creature's eccentricities, even those of one's own relations. Captain Mardyke and some of the others travelled up with us from Berlin and the rest of the party were waiting on the land- ing stage. There were two sisters, Vicky and Greta von Karwitz, and a very nice man whom I knew slightly, the owner of the motor-boat, Max von Stein. He is the best- looking German I know, not a bit stiff and wooden like the majority of them; his manners are easy and pleasant and he is attractive and quite enterprising some- times. He was on this occasion. Then he is dark and handsome in a peculiar, mysterious Oriental style, with strange lights and gleams in his eyes and a profile that one is always watching for, which is funny, as people usually look best from the front. One of the Karwitzes told me that his great-grandmother was a Jewess and A WATER PICNIC 105 whispered it as though it were a terrible disgrace, but I am sure it is that which makes him so much more interesting and subtly intelligent than the average young German, and there's no doubt about it having made him better to look at. He has those beautiful liquid deep, Jewish eyes, and just the merest soupgon of Jew in his nose — not much — just a tiny upward sweep of the nostril which reminds me, I don't know why, of a deer or a gazelle. This Jewish great-grandmother of his, who died in the year of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, was a very lovely woman, and the great Emperor when he came to Dresden was much attracted by her charms and wit, but the only man she cared for was her own husband, and she wouldn't listen to the blunt love-making of the conqueror who highly approved of her conduct and gave her husband a very good position. Un- fortunately she died very young, leaving three little children, the youngest of whom never married till he was nearly sixty, when he became the father of five sons, the eldest of whom is Herr von Stein's father. All her 106 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND descendants, in spite of having the best blood of Prussian Junkerism in their veins, show the unmistakable Jewish strain, and are not only noted for their good looks and intelligence but for their unusual musical and artistic abilities, as well as a talent by no means to be despised, of gaining wealth and keeping it, but their commercial in- stincts are not at all obtrusive, and young Max von Stein is rather a spendthrift in some ways, and his friends accuse him of extravagance which of course they say he learnt at Oxford. We all got packed into the boat and started off. The sun shone beautifully, and all the shores of the lake, which, when we left the town behind us were lined chiefly with pine-trees, were threaded in and out with the wonderful crude bright green of early spring — the green which is hideous except in a landscape. There were two men, soldiers from Herr von Stein's regi- ment, to manage the boat and carry the luncheon baskets. We tore along at a great rate making a big wave behind us, sweeping past great beds of feathery rushes A WATER PICNIC 107 and those immense masses of solemn dark trees which grow close to the water's edge ; charming little houses peeped out from among them looking so snug and idyllic. After a while we began to overhaul an- other boat which it seemed contained more people belonging to our Partie, and a great waving and screaming began, like there has to be in German picnics, everybody except Captain Mardyke demonstrating in various ways. Aunt Mary looked quite mad, waving her pocket handkerchief and yelling at the top of her voice, something about " H err Itches, wunderschdnes Wetter/' though why she couldn't have waited to say it till we were a little nearer and the other boat could have some chance of hear- ing it I don't know; the dear old thing seemed as excited as she could be. When we came alongside we slackened speed, and they threw ropes from one boat to the other, and after making fast, we started off again towing the other boat after us, till at last we reached the spot where we were to land. It was difficult to see how we were to do it unless we swam ashore as 108 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND the landing place was broken down and had not yet been repaired, but after some talking the two men in charge of the boat began to take off their shoes and stockings and Herr von Stein did the same. " We shall have to carry the ladies ashore, Mardyke," he said, and before I knew where I was he had slipped into the water, which was very shallow, and seized me in his arms and carried me high and dry right up into the pine-trees where he kissed my hand after setting me down, which is I suppose, a German custom. Then he made me sit down beside him on a tree-trunk and watch the others being landed. All the girls were squealing and saying they were much too heavy to be carried, and indeed Greta von Karwitz was one of those solid plump stodgy German maidens whom I should have been very sorry to carry over slippery mud if I were a man, however strong. At last Captain Mardyke seized Vicky, and a soldier took possession of Aunt Mary who, with her motor veil hanging askew and half blinding her, clung desper- ately to him so that he could hardly see A WATER PICNIC 109 where he was going. Everybody was safely landed at last, and then various people were introduced to me and we went to find a nice place for luncheon, finally settling on one close to the shore. The ladies immediately began unpacking and laying the cloth, but Herr von Stein said he was sure that I — an English Mddchen — knew nothing about such practical things as luncheons, and I had better stroll about with him till it was ready and he would show me " all the points of interest," so he took me about and talked a good deal, and I told him what I thought of Germany — really what I thought — not polite fibs — because I knew that as he'd been to Oxford he would understand, and not be offended, and he wasn't, but seemed very interested, and we were getting on splendidly when everybody began shrieking to us to come to luncheon. In the days of our grandmothers, some- body always made a salad at a picnic, though why it wouldn't have been simpler to mix it quietly at home, instead of bring- ing out oil and pepper and salt, and as 110 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND likely as not forgetting one of the principal ingredients I can't think. This time we brought it ready made, which is much the best plan I am sure. We had soup kept hot in Thermos flasks and the plates heated in the boiler of the boat, then chicken and salad and stewed apricots and boiled beef and potatoes and a lot of dear little fruit tarts to finish up with. Herr von Stein waited on me very politely but didn't bother very much about the others, and seemed to be quite deaf when I pointed out that Greta von Karwitz was waiting for more chicken. The way these two girls ate must be seen to be believed, shovelling the food down in huge quantities and devouring as though they were quite famished. Lord Byron would have fainted at the spectacle. Then they snatched at things, and stretched in front of othei people and screamed and laughed at the tops of their voices. They did enjoy them- selves. There was an engaged couple, a young officer (all the men were officers) and a rather plain girl, Fraulein Hildegarde von Weist, who sat all the time close together A WATER PICNIC 111 with their hands clasped. He always called her " meine Braut " and seemed to swell with importance every time he spoke of or to her. They were both rather dull and uninteresting and I don't like people who are affectionate in public. Here in Ger- many every one seems to make love with so little originality ; they are photographed together in just the same style as every one else. This season the fashionable pose for an engaged couple is with their heads lean- ing lovingly against each other ; last year it was gazing into each other's eyes, and the year before the girl's hand rested on the man's arm. Fancy letting a photographer arrange these affectionate attitudes. Faugh ! I have grown quite tired of the show cases in the Leipziger-strasse, where rows upon rows of brides and bridegrooms smile seraphically and idiotically at each other for the delectation of the passers by. Well this couple was just the usual German type, and combined excessive senti- ment with the most enormous appetites. Hildegarde heaped up Christoph's plate as a token of affection and he did the same 112 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND to hers, and when we had all finished they retired a few steps away and sat down hand in hand talking sentiment mixed with praises of the scenery, and of a new restaur- ant Christoph had discovered where the cooking was himmlisch and ungeheur billig. We had lots of champagne — they call it Sekt here — and it is very sweet and nice, and we drank healths and clinked glasses, and a dear old Colonel made a speech in- cluding Aunt Mary and me and the engaged couple and everybody. After luncheon was cleared away they began to sing part- songs in proper German fashion, but Herr von Stein told me the music would sound much prettier if we went a little higher among the trees to the Roman ruins, so we climbed up in the hot sunshine to the top of a big cliff where the singing came up to us very softly and pleasantly, and there was such a delightful aromatic odour among the pines that I was glad I had clambered up there, although the ruins turned out not to be very much, in fact Herr von Stein said that Roman remains were rarely visible to the naked eye till they had been excav- A WATER PICNIC 113 ated, which these had not yet been, but they were there sure enough. The Coloners bass could be heard booming down below, with Aunt Mary's thin soprano floating ethereally above it. " Aren't they enjoying themselves, the old dears ! " I said, and Herr von Stein, who had been looking at me in a very intent strange manner suddenly stretched himself in the grass alongside and took my hand in his. These Germans are really sometimes — still I didn't mind him, he is so awfully nice. " Miss Daphne," he said — he talked with the tiniest lisp and the tone of his voice was fascinating " do you know that you are very char-r-ming — of course you do — no, wait a minute," as I tried to draw away my hand. " I like you very much you know and I want us to be friends ; sometimes I am terribly lonely, you haf no idea how lonely, and you haf a kind heart I am sure, and you are just a darling little child to whom one could tell one's troubles." Here I protested, but he went on and only kissed my fingers when I tried to take them 114 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND away, making all kinds of little thrills run up and down my spine. " Life is very short and very difficult," he said ; " why should we lose an oppor- tunity of happiness when it comes in our way ? Be kind to me Daphne, and let me feel that you are my friend. Do not be ruled by convention. It stifles all natural feelings — at any rate do not be conventional with me. Your face is so lovely, like a flower with a curled white edge, and your eyes are full of purple shadows like pools of water. No, don't take away your hand. You must get accustomed to my eccentrici- ties, and I have an overwhelming desire to hold your dear little paw, it makes me feel good and as if I could bear people's stupid- ities a little longer/ ' I don't know how long he lay talking in this strain, always gently stroking my fingers, looking at me from under his hat which was tilted over his eyes, and with crowds of woodspiders and other queer little creatures running over him. He looked so very handsome, and his eyes glowed and gleamed under his hat brim, A WATER PICNIC 115 and I was beginning to feel that I would do anything in the world he wanted when fortunately the singing stopped, and we could hear Aunt Mary's voice ascending slowly and breathlessly from below. She, too, was evidently coming to look at the view, and presently appeared in sight, her hat dreadfully on one side looking very rakish, and the Colonel carrying her cloak which he spread on the tree-trunk for her to sit upon. The afternoon soon slipped away, and at five o'clock we all got on board again and went purring off to a little restaurant two miles higher up the river where we stopped for coffee and cake. These open-air res- taurants are delightful. It is the one thing I envy the Germans. There were hundreds of little tables with clean checked cloths, arranged right down to the water's edge where the river lapped and crooned among the reeds. We had great fun over the coffee as all the wrong people got together. The r< Braut " somehow lost her Christoph, and Herr von Stein, who is a distant cousin of hers, insisted that she should take the 116 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND one empty chair at his table and leave the disconsolate lover to find another place. Hildegarde thought it dreadful and was half laughing and half in tears, but she contented herself with throwing kisses to her bridegroom, and they both managed, in spite of the temporary separation, to put out of sight enormous quantities of apple tart and whipped cream. I afterwards remarked to Max von Stein as we strolled by the water side, how variously love affected people (these two seemed to have their appetites perpetually stimulated by it) and he laughed rather bitterly I thought. " Yes, their love is very commonplace and prosaic,' ' he said, " it satisfies their desires and suits their temperaments ; they will marry and be happy in a dull uninter- esting way, both growing stouter year by year. She will be an excellent housekeeper, and he will retire in a year or two and con- centrate his mind on his daily newspaper and his dinner. They will go every year and make a " cure " in the mountains or at the sea, and then he will die of heart attack from over eating and she will wear a long A WATER PICNIC 117 crepe veil and weep quantities of tears into the fat wrinkles of her cheeks. Every Sunday she will place a Kranz on his grave and talk of " my blessed Christoph M and then go home and solace herself with roast goose. So it will be till death sweeps her away too. That is the life of thousands — of most people in fact. Wouldn't you prefer to be a South-Sea Islander ? ■■ He tore off a bit of apple-blossom from a tree which drooped over the water. " Have you ever thought how many human lives are just like these flowers ? Of the hundreds and thousands of spring blossoms born every year, how small a proportion ever fulfil their destined exist- ence and come to fruition. Human lives are much the same — very few attain even approximate perfection — the vers rongeur is always lying in wait to seize on their green and tender youth and eat into the hearts of their happiness. C'est triste rCest ce pas ? but come, child — you look alarmed — don't take any notice of me. I am a little hipped to-night and yearn for sympathy. Sit beside me in the boat going home and I 118 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND shall be quite happy." He laughed gaily and his humour changed at once and long before it was time to get back to the boats he was in the highest spirits and no one would have guessed how serious he had been only half an hour since. As we floated down the river the sun set in great streaks of gold and crimson, splashed into a pale yellow sky, against which the dark green firs with their sienna stems touched with bright patches of colour, stood out in vivid contrast. The water grew dark and mysterious, and presently the stars were there above the sombre heavy forest masses, while towards the east all was pale and tired looking and wan with a faint hectic flush creeping up the face of the sky from the feverish gold and crimson. It was too beautiful to talk much and I turned my back on the chatter of the boat and looked at the water and sky, while Herr von Stein occasionally whispered rather nice remarks into my ear — remarks that seemed to fit into the loveliness of the evening. But I was sorry that Captain Mardyke didn't seem to enjoy himself more A WATER PICNIC 119 as it was principally his picnic ; perhaps he was regretting the absence of the American girl, but I had no idea he could be so easily put out about little things, as the whole of the evening he seemed to be choking down all kinds of naughty words, and he wasn't at all in his usual good temper. Anyway Aunt Mary enjoyed herself. She had known the old Colonel in her youth, and they had both been delighted to meet again and talk over old times. There had been I believe a sort of tenderness between them, though each had married somebody else, and the Coloners figure was now like an Easter egg and poor Aunt Mary's beauty faded long long ago, but it didn't prevent them being just as senti- mental in their way as Hildegarde and Christoph. We got back to Berlin all travelling to- gether in the same compartment, Captain Mardyke in gloomy spirits, the Karwitzes one continual giggle, and Herr von Stein quite hilarious. He made love to Aunt Mary all the way and she is quite charmed with him, and arrived at the flat in a most 120 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND angelic mood. There she found a letter from Princess Charlotte waiting for her, which she has been reading with a serious face ever since, often looking at me with a puzzled expression, so I suppose it has something to do with my invitation to go and " play with Lotta." Schloss Rehstein CHAPTER VI SCHLOSS REHSTEIN T T ERE I am at lovely Schloss Rehstein A 4 with Princess Charlotte, who has asked me to stay with them some weeks so as to be a companion to her eldest daughter Lotta who is just eighteen. Of course Aunt Mary and a lot of old fogies of her set are always wondering whom the poor child will marry. It is rather hard that her choice is so restricted, because, though there are a good many quite nice German royal- ties of one kind and another whom she might have, yet the chances are she will fall in love with one of the " others/ - who are many of them better looking and more fas- cinating. Aunty told Grafm Schlippental that I was asked to Rehstein to distract Princess Lotta's thoughts and keep her from undesirable ideas, whatever they ma} 123 124 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND be, until there is an opportunity for her to meet the particular prince they have fixed upon for her. He was stupid enough to go travelling in Egypt all the last Berlin season as he can't bear dancing and State ceremonies and so on, and it was very annoying, because Lotta wanted to go to all the Court balls and was not allowed for fear of any difficulties as she is very im- pressionable, so her parents are extremely careful. In some of the lesser German courts there have been terrible scandals lately. The Grafin talks about it to Aunt Mary in loud whispers — something awful about a footman and a princess. How can a nicely brought up girl stoop to familiarity with a menial ? I can't understand it, but old Fraulein von Stif t says it is owing to the abominable way in which some of them are educated, left entirely to lowborn tutors or sentimental and ignorant governesses just at the most impressionable age. Of course I had to have some new clothes before coming here, and there were constant struggles with Aunt Mary, who proposed that I should buy the most hideous, what SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 125 she called " practical " things, chiefly blouses at four marks fifty. Uncle John had sent me a liberal cheque from England so there was no need for economy, and though it hurt me awfully to have to oppose dear old Aunty, I felt it to be my duty, for somehow clothes reflect one's character and I did not want mine revealed by a dreadful yellowish-green costume dotted over with cheap motiveless buttons and pulling askew at the seams just like Augusta's on Sunday. Some people buy ugly things " to wear at home," yet pretty ones are just as cheap and I like to look nice even when quite by myself and there are such pretty clothes to be had nowadays, so I firmly resisted all attempts to make me buy what I didn't like. I wish Aunty had the same point of view about these things as dear old nice Miss Winter, who is not young or handsome but always so beautifully but not expensively dressed, and her hair wonderfully arranged with a little added of course. " Why not take advantage of the advertisements in the Queen ? " she says. " The envious years have robbed me, so I 126 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND must fight Time with his own weapons." It is perhaps a pity that she wears such a young and curly golden toupet, but her hats and frocks are all so nicely built up to it, and her face is so kind and good that one forgets the wrinkles and paint, and only feels that she is making a brave effort to look nice for the sake of other people as well as her own gratification. She calls her transformations " aids to the afflicted," and says it is as praiseworthy to buy one as it would be to buy a cork leg if one had the misfortune to lose a limb. Augusta came with me as my maid to Rehstein. She can be spared now, as Aunt Mary is having her usual round of summer visits. Most of the packing I had to do myself, as my new handmaid spent the time clasping her hands in admiration at my new clothes so made but slow progress. Once I caught Franz standing in the door of my bedroom gazing with awe at my frills and furbelows on the bed, which Augusta had doubtless described to him as something marvellously beautiful and rare. SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 127 When we arrived at Rehstein, which lies in Westphalia among the loveliest moun- tains and forests, an automobile was waiting for us at the funny little station, where the station master and porters made military salutes, as, escorted by the footman in the ducal livery, we passed out into the station yard. Augusta had never driven before in an automobile, and she wore an expression of acute distress, clutching wildly at her hat all the way and arriving at the Schloss door in a state of extreme surprise and relief. It is a delightful old place, all furnished in Louis Seize and Empire styles, and the rooms are exquisitely lovely — so light and airy with polished parquet floors and double doors leading from one salon to the other — so different to the usual stuffy, heavy German fashion. Lovely striped silks or satins cover the walls and furniture. My little room is all yellow satin, which sounds gaudy but it isn't a bit as it is just the right shade of yellow, so rich and satisfying to the eye. Jerome Bonaparte lived here for some years when he was King of Westphalia, and 128 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND the Great Napoleon, his brother, has stayed in the Schloss, which makes it absolutely delightful to me as he is my greatest his- torical hero. All the rooms remain almost exactly the same as they were a hundred years ago. I was so glad to find that Prin- cess Charlotte, in spite of being a Prussian royalty, admires the Emperor as much as I do. She says that in another fifty years' time, when the old political bitternesses have died away, his personality will be- come better understood and appreciated in Germany, and it will then be perceived how much of the liberty enjoyed to-day is directly traceable to his influence. " Our old German princes were terrible tyrants/' she says, " they bought and sold their peasantry like cattle ; why, Bernhardt great- grandfather sold whole regiments of his people to the King of England to be shipped off to America and fight in the war \ it was well for the country that Napoleon swept away all that cruelty and gave them laws to protect themselves and their children; but what do the lower classes know of this ? They are taught in every school that he was SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 129 a monster of iniquity and an enemy of the Fatherland.' ' There are many pictures of most lovely ladies in the galleries ; all have names which have no connexion at all with Prince Bernhardt family, and when I asked the Princess who they were she laughed and said, " Oh, acquaintances of King Jerome. ,, Certainly he chose very pretty people for his acquaintances, and it was rather nice of him to have all their portraits painted. Some are wreathed in flowers and all are smiling radiantly and have rosy cheeks and wonderful black hair and arched eyebrows. But one pities his poor American wife, Miss Patterson, whom he was very fond of once, and it was cruel of Napoleon to make him divorce her because she was not of royal blood — very snobbish too, when one thinks of Napoleon's own blood. Perhaps Je- rome might have turned out a much better king if she had been Queen of Westphalia with him. I happened to have an Ameri- can magazine with her picture in it, looking so sweet in a simple high-waisted dress 130 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND with a rose in her hair, so I put it in a little frame and hung it on the panelling of my salon opposite the white marble bust of King Jerome. Princess Charlotte was so amused when she saw it and told her hus- band, Prince Bernhard, who laughed a great horse-laugh, and said " he feared subsequent attachments had somewhat obliterated Jerome's affection for his first wife." But I do not mind — she was his first love, and he adored her at one time. Every night when I pass through my little yellow salon on my way to bed, I look at her great melancholy eyes gazing through the darkness across to the marble statue, and I like to think that perhaps in the night- time their spirits may wander through these rooms and meet and communicate — who knows ? — she, some of the love and anguish, and he the remorse and sorrow he must have often experienced. Sometimes I wake up and fancy I hear a gentle rustle in the salon and see her moving about in her long high-waisted gown and little slippers, while he, the tallest and handsomest of all Napoleon's brothers, steps in his buckled SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 131 shoes and silk stockings, hand in hand be- side her over the polished floor, bending his curly head and whispering excuses. I am sure she has forgiven him, he was so good- looking and gallant. Every morning her face in the picture seems to have grown more peaceful. It is very strange to live here among royalties. One meets such quaint people. First of all there is Fraulein von Seydlitz, the lady-in-waiting of Princess Charlotte, who laughs sarcastically at what she calls my " Bonaparte Schwdrmerei M and is sur- prised that I take interest in such an " immoral monster " as Jerome, or his brother. She hates Napoleon with a con- centrated virulence that is surprising. I do not like Fraulein von Seydlitz. Her name is Armgard, and she is not very young or good-looking, though her profile is quite nice, but she is so sallow, with dark rings under her eyes and a disagreeable, cold expression. Her dark eyes have a strange pre-occupied look, and she has an unpleasant manner of fixing them on peo- ple as though she did not believe what 132 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND they were saying, and was trying to pene- trate their inmost thoughts. Then she is pious in a bigoted kind of way, always making an effort to influence the children for good, and lead their thoughts to higher planes. She has great power over them, and can be very fascinating sometimes, but one can never like her because she has no kindness nor generosity in her character. She has a clumsy figure with great wide hips, and looks in her fine Court dresses so dreadfully frumpish — just like a dressed-up cook. Her hair is dragged tightly off her forehead over a pad, and she curls the short hairs in front and burns them. They look quite scorched and discoloured, but she doesn't mind, and pretends to be quite indifferent to dress, though she is always conscious of it, and constantly patting and arranging herself. She buys very expensive and ugly silks and colours that don't suit her a bit. She talks about the " stupid Court life " and the " waste of time " and the " frivolity of existence," but I don't see that she does anything very useful when she is free. Sometimes she illuminates SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 138 texts on boards — she can paint quite nicely — which she gives to girls who are going to be confirmed. She is nearly always quarrel- ling with Herr Petermann the Court doctor, a very amusing, rather grumpy old crea- ture, really very kind-hearted, who in s always inveighing against the world a large. Yesterday he made everybody iaugh at luncheon, apropos of one of the footmen whom he considered had been wrongly treated for some trifling ailment by the young doctor who comes up from the town for the servants (Herr Petermann being only for the royalties themselves). " Nowadays/' he growled, " doctors are so occupied in studying obscure diseases which only attack one person in a thousand that they have no time to learn how to relieve an ordinary stomach-ache. " (It's funny that in the most refined and elegant circles in Germany, one may speak out quite loudly about one's Magen or Magen-schmerz.) He continued on this subject to me after- wards, finding that — like Desdemona — to hear him I would seriously incline. 134 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND " There is hardly one young doctor who can bandage properly," he said, " and most of them fix a splint so badly it's sure to slip if the patient is restless ; they expect a boy with a broken finger, otherwise quite well, to sit perfectly still for a fortnight while the bone unites, and in music " (with a sudden acrobatic change of thought) " young men and women study for years in Leipzig, and play Wagner and Brahms, and what not, yet they haven't yet evolved an intelligent system for teaching children how to estimate the relative value of a crotchet and a quaver." I said it was very true — that when I was young all notes appeared the same to me unless I knew what the time ought to be beforehand, and that I was always being punished for playing out of time. " Ja> Ja" he cried eagerly, " punished for not doing what you couldn't do! Unjust ! Monstrous ! " He and Fraulein von Seydlitz have daily the most unseemly squabbles over the children, whom she wishes to see brought up under an iron discipline, taught to look SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 135 with contempt on nice things to eat and wear, and to give up the world generally speaking before they know what it is like. For some time she allowed them only the plainest, most unappetizing fare at their meals, with the result that they grew out of sorts and unhappy, till old Petermann stepped in and put an end to it. Now every day he orders their dinner and supper, often dropping in to see they are really getting what he wishes them to have, as the indefatigable Fraulein von Seydlitz occa- sionally persuades them into renouncing Lamm Koteletts and green peas in favour of some person in the village, which they do very unwillingly and with none of the gracious readiness which should hallow self-abnegation. She has one of those masterful, narrowly tyrannical minds which make one realize how in past ages good people were often so loathsomely cruel to their fellowmen. There is a certain amount of ceremony at Rehstein. Everybody puts on a very elegant frock for the Friihstuck at one o'clock and we assemble about five minutes 136 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND to one in a little salon belonging to the suite of rooms of Princess Charlotte. The equerry, Herr von Rothberg, a meek, well- behaved young man, is always there to in- troduce guests to each other, and to talk to them, while Fraulein von Seydlitz is sup- posed to assist him with the ladies, but she is very gauche and ungracious and takes no trouble, unless it happens to be a cele- brity of some kind, so the poor ladies, if they have never been invited before, get dreadfully nervous and appealing, but she never tries to help or reassure them, and tell them how or when they must curtsey, but answers in a distracted way as if her thoughts were elsewhere. A very nice lady came yesterday with her daughter, a Frau von Stein, whose husband is cousin to the Herr von Stein I know. She says he is perhaps coming to stay with them next week at their house a few miles away from here. The daughter was rather a gawk, very shy and well-be- haved, self conscious and with a general air of being tightly held in at every point, from her hair, which was strained unmerci- SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 137 fully off her forehead, to her new shoes which obviously pinched. She seemed all in a flutter if any one spoke to her, and appeared to think that as I was English she must talk to me in the simplest, most infantile German, though everybody else says how well I speak it ; and as I had a constant suc- cession of German governesses, it would be a pity if I couldn't. Lotta and the other children, who usually lunch alone, came in with Miss Wilkins and Herr Weiss the tutor, and the conversation remained desultory and uninteresting until a footman relieved the heavy silence which kept falling like a thunder cloud, by throwing open both leaves of the folding doors (ordinary mor- tals must content themselves with one side only) and announcing His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard, who entered in his smart green Jager uniform, which he always wears in the country. He went round ponder- ously and shook hands with the visitors and all the ladies, including Miss Wilkins, then sighed heavily and looked out of the window, making a few brilliant remarks on the weather, and finally lapsed into undis- 1*8 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND guised boredom, till the door flew open again and Princess Charlotte hurried in. Then everything was galvanized into life ; she smiled and talked and melted the chilly atmosphere, and we trooped in to dinner, basking in the rays of her good humour, the ladies entering first, and the gentlemen, headed by the Prince, tramping in after- wards into the lovely dining-room with its three big windows looking out over the hills. I thought again of King Jerome and his Court sitting down every day here during the summer months, at the very same table on the very same chairs. " And with the very same toothpicks/ ' says Lotta, pointing to the glass jars of those little implements, without which no German table would be complete. After dinner we always feed the fat carp with bread, and as carp live to be very old, I feel sure that some of the oldest and most plethoric monsters among them have been fed by Napoleon. They are all very tame and will take food from any- body's hand. It is amusing to see how the minute we emerge from the door after luncheon, the lake immediately becomes SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 139 alive with heads all converging in one direction and the water boils and bubbles with the struggles of the greedy creatures. A few days after I came to Rehstein, I drove with Lotta to visit a former lady-in- waiting of Princess Charlotte, who lives in a little place about six miles away. We had an early dinner with the children and Miss Wilkins, who told me she would not have the tutor in at meals, he eats so badly, so he usually takes his dinner alone in his bedroom, where he can drink his beloved Miinchener Bier and read the Kreuz Zeit- ung while he eats. Lotta drove herself in her pony carriage with a groom sitting behind. What a different effect horses have upon different nationalities ! An English groom for ex- ample is never fat-faced and sleepy looking, and generally has a slim active figure. This one seemed like a disguised butler, rather elderly, with overhanging cheeks and a sour expression, and his waist from the back — oh — it was difficult to say where it was, I wouldn't have had him in my carriage, but it seems that royalties have 140 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND to put up with these sort of drawbacks, and can't send people away from their places except for definite misconduct, until they have reached a certain age, when they are pensioned for life, so this man will go on increasing for another ten years, before he can be got rid of. Isn't it dreadful ? Meanwhile Lotta's poor ponies have to keep on dragging him about. One great drawback to being a royalty in Germany is the way people here insist on being blatantly loyal, especially the tourists, whose energy in that respect during this hot weather is simply phenomenal. No sooner does a carriage or an automobile emerge from the park, than from every side fat papa and mamma tourists shrieking to their family and friends to come and look at the Princesschen may be seen hurrying up from all directions. They wave ener- getic handkerchiefs under the noses of the horses, scream to each other remarks in the loudest tones such as " Ach! here comes the darling little Princess. Look, Lieschen, look ! isn't she sweet, ach I the dear little ponies! Ach! wie herrlich / Hurrah, SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 141 Hurrah ! Come children quick, and look at the Princess. Where is your handkerchief ? Guten Tag Princesschen ! Guten Tag I " They burst through the bushes, these respectable elderly fathers and mothers, and tear across the grass to cut us off once more at the corner, and it is trying for Lotta to have to be al- ways bowing to them when she wants to show me something interesting. All the restaurants have dreadful pictures on the walls of Princess Charlotte and of Lotta on horseback, and they sell heaps of picture postcards of them to the customers who sit all day under the trees drinking beer. Certainly there are many advantages in being plain Miss Nobody. On this occa- sion, there were lots of people outside the gates who cheered and waved handker- chiefs to Lotta, who had to bow right and left like a Chinese mandarin. One or two children came up and presented flowers, which was rather tiresome, as Lotta had to pull up so as not to run over them, and the ponies were rather frisky, but when we got out on the country roads it was still worse, for every few yards we met village children 142 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND who tore some kind of herbage from the hedge and rushed up and offered it, shouting, " Guten Tag Prinzesschen." Lotta was very goodnatured and took them all, but she says that is one reason why her parents prefer the automobile, because they are not forced to stop and take the flowers the people offer. Now they throw them into the auto, and Lotta once got an awful scratch on her nose from a rose stalk that some one flung, and another time she had a bad eye for a week from a bunch of dahlias. At last we got away from the villages and went through lovely lanes under avenues of trees, limes and oaks. There were potato fields on each side with peasant women working in them weeding the potatoes, and often big storks walking gravely behind the pea- sants gobbling up the snails and worms, and one had just found a frog which was kicking violently as it disappeared from view. When we reached the little, funny town of Kreiswald, which seemed to be just a few houses set down in the middle of the fields, there appeared to be literally no one there, not one single person was visible in the one SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 146 cobbled street down which we rattled. The inhabitants might have all been dead. We stopped at the end of the street, and the groom took the reins, and we got out and went through a tiny garden to a door at which we rang. Frau von Soden herself appeared and was charmed and surprised and delighted, at least she said so, though I thought a little housewifely anxiety was visible in her eye. She took us through a rather bare, yellow-painted hall upstairs to her drawing-room, furnished with ugly plush chairs and sofas, and dreadful oil paintings of her very plain aunts and uncles, in chignons and improvers, and mutton chop whiskers. The walls were painted chocolate brown, and the floor also. Funny little ornaments were dotted up and down, and it was, candidly-speak- ing, a room in which I could not have spent one single happy moment. There were all those terrible family mementoes — albums, photographs on opals, in plush frames, books bound in red velvet and gold, marble- topped tables, alabaster vases and so on which are sometimes so terribly depressing. 144 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND The lady was very kind and very flattered she said, at having not only her beloved Princess, but also an English lady to visit her, in Kreiswald, and she talked very fast a good while and then proposed we should walk through the town. I looked through the window as we got up, and the whole of that end of the street was full of people gath- ered round our pony carriage, and gazing at the fat groom and his royal livery. The poor man looked very embarrassed and stared into the horizon over the heads of the people with a more soured expression than usual. It was obvious that we couldn't go out at the front door without having the whole of the inhabitants at our heels, and more of them were hastening up at every moment, old women hobbling their fastest, children running breathlessly and falling down, people of every rank and class were all converging towards the one little house to look at Lotta, just because she chanced to be a royalty, and also because very little happens in Kreiswald. Luckily, there was a way out at the back into another street; and so with every precaution, like SCHLOSS REHSTEIN 145 murderers and conspirators as Lotta said, we stole down the stairs, and through the funny little kitchen, into the back garden where the maids' " lingerie " was hanging, and out by a little door into the back lane. Lotta was delighted with the mysterious- ness of it all and much more when we found we were walking through an empty town. There were some quaint old houses and a nice old Schloss which we visited and had all to ourselves as the family were at the seaside. We returned by a lovely avenue of trees and came back this time by the front street. One of those officious green gendarmes who had appeared mysteriously from nowhere, saw us coming and recog- nizing Princess Lotta immediately began to make a path in the crowd, who were still under the impression that she was in the house, but they separated like obedient lambs without knowing why, and we passed through and in at the front door, and some one outside suddenly began a belated cheer and then the whole crowd shouted " Hurrah ! " and Lotta went to the window and bowed and smiled to them, which 146 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND gave Frau von Soden an opportunity to arrange the tea-table. She had sent her maid for all kinds of little sweet jammy cakes, and we ate heaps of them accompanied by the very weakest of tea, which few Germans know how to make. The crowd kept cheering outside, and Lotta laughed to think how nicely she had escaped them, and I wondered however we should get through to the carriage again. However, the green gen- darme shoved them back, hectoring them in the usual rough style of German policemen, and Lotta managed to steer her ponies through the screaming waving crowd without accident, while showers of flowers fell upon us, many of them with fat juicy stalks which made horrid green stains on my white serge jacket. We were glad to get away into the country once more and shake off the last of those boys who ran hurrahing behind us, but when we were about half way home one of the ponies fell dead lame. He had got a piece of stone fixed in his hoof and when the fat groom tried to take it out he couldn't move SCHLOSS REH STEIN 147 it it was so tight. We were all standing round the pony wondering what to do when a rider on horseback appeared gallop- ing over the hill. To my astonishment I saw it was Herr von Stein, who of course pulled up when he saw us and immediately dismounted. He sprang from his horse so nimbly and neatly and I knew at once that he would put things right. He saluted Lotta, and then gave his horse to our groom to hold and looked at the pony's hoof, taking it on his knee and spoiling his beautiful white gloves as he tried to pull the stone out, but it refused to budge though he tried various ways, so at last he said he must fetch a hammer from a farm he had just passed a little way back. He made his horse go at a furious pace along the grass, and then we saw him slacken speed a little and fly a hedge and continue galloping across coun- try till he reached the farm. Lotta was charmed when she found I knew him, and kept asking me lots of questions about him up to the moment he came galloping back with the hammer. With a great deal of trouble he got out the stone and Lotta U8 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND insisted on taking it home with her as a V souvenir " she said, I saw it lying on her dressing table when I went to her room to say " Good-night/' Max von Stein CHAPTER VII MAX VON STEIN r ~pHERE are lovely saddle-horses here, ■*■ although nobody cares much to ride this hot weather, but a day or two after our visit to Kreiswald, I got up and rode at seven alone with a groom as Lotta was too lazy to join me. There is only one good riding path, as the roads are too rocky and hard for a gallop. This one, however, is made through the forest and along fields. It was raining just a little when I started, but I did not mind that, as it scarcely penetrated the thick leaves of the green tunnel of verdure through which we were galloping. The road was soft and sandy, and the horses were in that nice frisky early- morning mood which makes riding on horseback undiluted ecstasy. Mine kept giving gay little jumps in the middle of his 152 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND canter to express his lightheartedness. After a time I became aware of a horseman behind us who I concluded was one of the officers of the garrison, as everybody who rides in Germany is sure to be an officer. But as I pulled aside, still gallop- ing, to let him pass, a voice cried, " Good morning, Miss Daphne, a man must ride hard to overtake you," and there smiling vastly, his horse dripping with sweat, was Herr von Stein. Of course I pulled into a walk and shook hands, and was really glad to see him, for it is a little dull sometimes at Rehstein. We found a great many things to talk about and he told me he had a fortnight's leave from his regiment, as he had been ill after I left, and he was going to stay with his cousin whose wife and daughter I had seen a few days since. As the rain had now stopped and the sun was shining, he said he would show me the prettiest view in the country. I told him he seemed to be a specialist in views. We climbed up some rather steep, rough ground, till we got to a place where he stopped and jumped off his horse. " You must get off too now and MAX VON STEIN 153 walk the rest of the way " he said in his mas- terful manner, and I let him lift me down as meek as a lamb. Of course no one wears apron skirts in Germany, and he didn't seem to understand its complications, and wanted to hurry me off before it was properly arranged, but then he became quite interested and said it was " sehr praktisch." I hope he wasn't shocked. Fraulein von Seydlitz thought it quite awful and inde- cent, but I told her that in England we had got tired of being hung up from our saddles and preferred to be indecent. Anyway Herr von Stein seemed to approve of it and said again " wirklich hollisch praktisch," and he pulled me up so nicely to the top of the hill where he quite forgot to let go my hand, and began talking very fast and pointing out the view with his whip. It really was wonderful but I won't try to describe it. There were dozens of roads down below looking like tiny threads, and we grew so absorbed that I forgot about my hand, for 1 didn't like to draw his attention to it, and as there were some very steep, slippery places at the top, he may have thought it 3 54 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND safer to keep hold. It was so fresh and cool there, among the wet flowers, with the morning breeze blowing in our faces. A big flat rock was near us on which he invited me to sit down, begging for one flap of my long riding coat to sit upon as he was still he said " rather queer," and then he pulled the glove off the hand he held, and kissed it in that funny German way of his. " You know, we are friends are we not ? " he said as he did it, looking at me out of his wonderful melting eyes. " You are such a dear child," he went on, " and I am not going to talk any nonsense to you, but it is so restful to sit and look into your eyes, those purple lakes, so clear and deep and honest and true." " Why not ? " I laughed rather nervously. " Are not all women's eyes honest, even when they are not purple lakes ? " " This is a most delightful and unexpected pleasure," he said, ignoring my question, " but most pleasures in life are the unex- pected ones ; those we prepare elaborately beforehand miss fire somehow ; I like these that spring on one round the corner." MAX VON STEIN 155 " It seems to me you had to gallop rather hard after this one all the same," I re- marked. " Yes, when it came in sight I did, but I caught a glimpse of it as it turned a bend of the forest, that is when I started to gallop. I did not set out this morning with any hope. Tragedies too," he said musingly, " they are always, always lurking round the corner. This morning I had luck. Now let us enjoy the sunshine and the view and the passing moment for another five minutes, which sounds Irish, doesn't it ? then I will restore you to your horse." So in five minutes more or less he helped me down again and put me back into the saddle, and we rode together to the fork of the road where he raised his hat and saying " good-bye ,; galloped away across a cornfield. Lotta was fearfully excited at hearing that I had met Herr von Stein and very vexed that she had not ridden with me, and next day she came too, but, as might have been expected, no Herr von Stein appeared, although Lotta kept turning 156 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND and waiting at every corner hoping he might be behind us. Her silliness vexed me extremely, and when she continued to talk — in English of course for the groom's benefit — of his wonderful eyes and wonder- ful riding and charming manners, I grew quite snappy and asked her for goodness' sake to talk of something else. When we reached home Fraulein von Seydlitz put the most searching questions as to how we had spent every minute of our time. She is in despair at not being able to ride with Lotta, and has made several attempts to learn, but it makes her ill for several days after so she has given it up for the present. *' Did you meet anybody ? " she asked as I passed through the upstairs corridor to my room. " Oh yes," I answered, " several people." 11 Ha ! ha ! " and her eyes grew snaky and eager, " who was it now, pray tell me ? I shall like to know," she said in her horrible German English. " Oh, first of all we met several very fat tourists taking their early morning walk ; they shouted ' Hurrah ! ' and waved MAX VON STEIN 157 handkerchiefs and frightened Lotta's horse/ ' She dismissed the tourists with an im- patient wave of the hand. " Then in the forest we met three woodmen in a cart and a little girl gathering sticks — such a dear little thing, Lotta gave her ten pfennigs/ ' She was not interested in the little girl. " But no one on horseback, no one riding ? " I reflected deeply, while her eyes grew keener, never moving from my face. Evi- dently she had run our secret to ground. Her smile grew bland. " Oh yes," I said, " we did meet some one." " Who was it now ? " in a wheedling tone. "OldFrauOlle." FrauOlle was a farmer's wife who often rode an old white pony into Rehstein carrying a basket of butter or eggs. " You met no officers ? " taking the bull by the horns. "No." " Not Herr von Stein ? " " No. Herr von Stein is an officer." She looked baffled and angry and I was furious at this cross examination, and still more 158 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND at her evident disbelief in my words. At breakfast, which Lotta and I had with Miss Wilkins and the other children, Fraulein von Seydlitz came in when we had half finished and after various amiable re- marks said to Lotta, " Now, how wass your ride this morning ? You do not often rise so early/ ' " Oh rather stupid," said Lotta non- chalantly eating that horrid raw ham she likes so much, and Fraulein von Seydlitz fixed a basilisk gaze upon her, finally drift- ing out of the room only half satisfied that we had not conspired together to deceive her. Later in the day she became an uncon- trolled fury on hearing that Frau von Stein and her daughter with Max von Stein were invited to luncheon. Lotta came dancing and beaming into the room to announce the news. " All through me," she informed Fraulein von Seydlitz, who was, figuratively speak- ing, foaming with rage. " I told mamma he was here with the Steins and we are going to have a picnic together afterwards, and drink tea some- MAX VON STEIN 159 where in the forest. Lots of other people are coming and we shall have out all the automobiles/ ' And she tripped gaily from one foot to the other and then danced away through the long vista of rooms the doors of which all stood open. She looked so pretty with her twinkling- feet, but Fraulein von Seydlitz looked after her with concentrated fury and hissed the word " von Ssstein " between her teeth like a stage villain. " Where is Princess Charlotte ? " she said. " I shall go and speak to her about it and tell her how wrong it is." " But why ? What harm is there in a picnic?" I said; "besides everybody is invited, you cannot stop people from coming. The only thing now is to pray for a thunder- storm." She glared at me and stalked out of the room and presently one could hear through the open windows of Princess Charlotte's little Schreib-zimmer the voices of the two ladies rising ever in acuter and more strident tones. What could the foot- men who are always lounging outside have thought of it ? Presently Fraulein von Seydlitz reappeared looking baffled and 160 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND angry and she shook her head and cast her eyes heavenward when she saw me, wringing her hands in the good old- fashioned German style. " Oh," she groaned, " these parents ! What a curse they are to their children ! Such weakness ! Such feebleness I " " But," I urged soothingly, '' a picnic can't do Lotta much harm." " Oh ; but you do not know. All these people flatter her because she is a Princess." " How snobbish ! " I thought. " Then there are all these young officers, foolish, silly young men, always saying diotic things to her, ach, es ist schrecklich ! " " But there is only Herr von Stein ; he couldn't be left out if they ask his cousin and family, and he is quite nice, and not likely to flatter Lotta. All the others are married people — quite dull." But Fraulein von Seydlitz refused to see any extenuating circumstances, and did her best to be as prickly and disagreeable to everybody as lay in her power, and she has considerable talents in that line. Quite an amusing lot of people came to luncheon. MAX VON STEIN 161 One of them, a Frau von Braun, had been before her marriage a lady-in-waiting to the present Empress of Germany and accompanied their Majesties on their tour in the Holy Land. She told us some of her experiences in Constantinople at the Palace of the old Sultan. He made the most lavish and gorgeous preparations for the imperial couple and their suite, providing fourteen Greek housemaids in green silk dresses and dogskin gloves to wait upon the Empress, and to other people according to their rank, but one and all from the highest to the lowest found that Keating' s insect powder was one of the chief necessaries of life in Turkey, and special messengers were continually on the road bringing fresh supplies. The green silk-clad housemaids were quite incapable of cleaning anything, their chief function appearing to be the assumption of statuesque and smiling attitudes and the abstraction of such small unconsidered trifles as would be least likely to be missed. If any hitch occurred in the domestic department, such for example as a de- 162 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND ficiency of cupboard-room or the absence of washing apparatus, the Minister of Agricul- ture was summoned to put it right, and when the meals were removed there was a general scramble among the twenty or thirty Greek footmen outside, who fell upon the remains of the repast and squatted comfortably down to eat at their ease in the corridor through which their Majesties were momentarily expected to pass. Ex- cept for the insect powder it must have been fun. Herr von Stein sat next to Fraulein von Seydlitz at luncheon, and as he is one of those tactful persons who know how to handle people and rub them the right way, they got on very well together. I could see her smiling and bridling and looking pleased all the time, and I heard him flattering her most grossly over the tasteful dress she was wearing. (It was hideous, a jaundiced yellow with green stripes.) We started to the picnic in four automobiles, and the talking and disputing as to who should go with everybody made us quite late in starting and even then just at the MAX VON STEIN 163 last moment when the first two cars had moved off, Herr von Stein suddenly came and sprang into our car taking the vacant place beside Doctor Petermann as he said he wanted to ask him his opinion about a new concentrated food for soldiers on the march. He was in the gayest spirits and talked the doctor into such a good temper that he grew quite lively dropping all his gruffness and quite forgetting to be as disagreeable as he usually is when forced to accompany the Prince and Princess on what he grimly calls a " so-called party of pleasure." He has to be there so as to bandage anybody if they break their arms and legs, but his services are usually re- quired to cure mosquito bites with a little ammonia which he carries in a flask in his pocket. He looks so sarcastic as he does it, as if he were sneering at himself for having to occupy himself with these trivialities when he is really one of the finest physicians in Germany. He is always grumbling at Court life, but can't make up his mind to sever the connexion with it. Of course in the winter time he practices in 164 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Berlin, and goes daily to the hospital where he performs wonderful operations and cures. Our car was open but there was hardly any dust as it had rained a little in the morning. We kept climbing higher and higher up the hills, past the open unfenced cornfields, through lovely groves of trees into the beautiful forest where we bumped along, over and through awful sandy roads till we got to a lovely place right away from everywhere, and here all the cars stopped and we all got out and walked. Princess Charlotte insists on walking as much as possible because of keeping her figure, but some of the ladies who had hopelessly lost theirs were not so keen about it, and I heard them grumbling fearfully, especially Frau von Stein who, although just forty has absolutely resigned any further interest in her appearance. It is a pity, because her husband is rather a handsome man, and seems to like pretty women, and she has quite good features, and if only she didn't stick out in all the wrong places would be quite handsome. Oh, I do hope that whatever griefs and MAX VON STEIN 165 trials I may have in life I may never be tempted to let myself go to the extent that these German women do, drinking beer and eating all kinds of greasy rich things, and taking no exercise except for a few weeks in summer while they are doing a "cure." It is terrible. I am thankful that the younger generation is going in more for tennis and less for eating. I am told that Princess Bernhardt sister has treated herself so drastically, fearing to get fat, that she has made herself an absolute wreck. So they always hold her up as a warning to any one who complains of having too much adipose tissue, and say how much they prefer their perspiring shapelessness to her emaciated elegance. I walked at first with the tutor, Herr Weiss, and Herr von Stein. Lotta was rather attracted to a young married officer of the Rehstein gar- rison, who was so flattered by her evident appreciation that he said the most ex- travagant things to her, and she did nothing but shriek with laughter the whole way, and I saw a stupendous thundercloud slowly gathering on Fraulein von Seydlitz's brow. 166 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Herr Weiss is certainly a tactless young man. He began talking about the Boer War, and said it was erstaunlich that such a great nation as the English had taken such a long time to conquer a tiny nation like the Boers, and I thought it so rude of him that I said, " Yes it was very astonishing, but it is still more astonishing to think how a small nation like the Hereros, who were not helped by modern artillery and German and American and French officers like the Boers were, had been also able for more than four years to keep a great military nation like the Germans in check, and he said, " Yes, because the English helped the Hereros, ,, and then Herr von Stein, who has been at the War Office, so he speaks with authority said, what " silly Quatsch" it all was about the English help- ing the Hereros and told him that the Ger- man Government was very thankful to the English for their help, and he also reminded him that Morenga, that tiresome native, who had been so troublesome to the Ger- mans, was actually pursued and taken by an English officer and his men ; so then Herr MAX VON STEIN . 167 Weiss relapsed into sulky silence, while Herr von Stein went on to say how the German missionaries and people who spoke without political prejudice had invariably defended the English against " the abomin- able newspaper lies which were a disgrace to our nation/ * He looked so handsome and angry, with a rich red colour in his usually pale cheeks, and his eyes flashed fire at Herr Weiss, who in a few minutes made an excuse to go and see what the little Prince Henry, Lotta's brother, rather a pickle, was doing. Then Herr von Stein apologized so charmingly for his countryman's ignorance and stupidity, calling him a " Schaf y> and an "Affe" and other zoological names, and he made me feel how the really brave men of one nation are always careful of the honour of other brave men of other nations, even of their opponents, and that it is only the cowardly and ignorant who seek to belittle and besmirch others of a different race, so that in a few minutes I had re- covered from my angry feeling against the whole German nation, which had been 163 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND aroused by that detestable Hen Weiss whose vile imagination pictures the English as something akin to himself I suppose. Then Herr von Stein told me many interesting things of the forest and the deer, and of the lonely life of many of the head- foresters, most of whom are gentlemen of birth and education. We grew so ab- sorbed in our talk that it was some time be- fore I noticed that the others were no longer in sight, but he said they were really close by, and that we were on the shortest road to the place for which we were bound. Through the opening in the trees we could from time to time see the surrounding country lying in a soft blue haze below us, and the pines gave off a wonderful warm, aromatic odour, while underneath them were great cushions of intense green moss, and a little way back, slender white flowers, whose name I do not know, grew tremblingly in a glow of warm translucence. Occasionally a few deer darted lightly across a glade, and disappeared again into the forest. I was glad to be away from the people whose chatter is so tiresome when one wants to admire scenery. MAX VON STEIN 169 " Now we will sit down," said Herr von Stein, " the others are a long way behind/' and he spread my cloak on a tree-trunk and we sat and enjoyed the loveliness oi everything. " That is one of your great charms, Miss Daphne " he said, dwelling lingeringly on my name as though he liked to say it. " You are so natural and simple. A German girl would get either very nervous and fidgety and wonder where was mamma, or she would expect me to say sentimental things to her and to squeeze her hand, and she also would giggle and wonder where were the others." " I have been wondering, too," I laughed, feeling very amused at his frankness. " Oh yes, but not obviously and tire- somely. You've never let it disturb our delightful talk ; it is so seldom one meets a girl of your age who can talk, they are all such niminy-piminy misses, as your Thackeray calls them. I think I told you, didn't I, that I am falling in love with you ? " he concluded. That amused me immensely. I laughed 170 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND and gathered a bit of fern and fanned my face. "Well, you did hint something of the kind," I said, " when we went that ride together, or rather — if I remember right — it was my friendship you wanted, wasn't it ? And that is not quite the same thing." " No," he said, gravely watching me, "not quite the same," and he seemed to wince as though something hurt him ; twice he opened his mouth and twice shut it again without saying anything, then he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, taking off his hat for the purpose. He is one of those people who manage to be comical without being ridiculous. " Why," he said mournfully, " didn't I meet you a little earlier ? How tantalizing life is. Thank heaven you are not a foolish, blushing, stupid Mddchen. You have fine perceptions and tact and a dear kind heart and a shrewd little brain. You are not a slave to con- vention and you can read character like a book. You will never be deceived by any one. That is a great gift. One of the greatest in the world. You will never be MAX VON STEIN 171 blind to the faults of your dearest, yet you will love them in spite of all. That is what attracts me very much. So many women are perfect fools over their children or their husbands or their servants or their pet parson. You with your clear bright eyes, you seem to weigh everybody in a kindly tolerant way, you see their weak- nesses and make allowances. There are some things you loathe. Slovenly habits of eating or dress disgust you more than any- thing — but I am boring you — and I know English people hate to be bored." " Please don't lump me in a class with English people/ ' " No, your individuality is too pro- nounced to do that, still you may be allowed to share the national horror of boredom." " Well, I am not bored ; please go on." " Thanks, dear lady for the kind per- mission." He paused a moment and began gathering the tiny bright pink Nelken which grew among the grass. As he lay stretched out at my feet he looked so youth- ful and handsome and manly, that I began to feel quite foolish about him. He touched 172 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND my hand, which lay on the log, and took my fingers in his and caressed them very gently. " Excuse me, Daphne/' he said, " I wish you to understand that it is as a purely aesthetic enjoyment that I wish to hold your hand and look at your face." I suddenly felt angry with Herr von Stein and pulled my hand away, at which he looked at me reproachfully, but voices could be heard just then close by, so I went forward towards the sound, leaving him to pick up his hat and gather together his scattered Nelken which he presented with a polite bow and a click of his heels to his cousin's wife, who appeared with the rest of the party coming towards us down quite a different path to the one we had found. " Where have you been ? " screamed Lotta, " we thought you were lost." Herr von Stein explained that they had taken altogether the wrong road and we the right one, and the stout ladies who hated walking agreed with him, and Prince and Princess Bernhard appeared and clam- oured for tea, so everybody had to busy MAX VON STEIN 178 themselves pretending to help to get it ready. One lady confided to me that she did not enjoy these picnics one bit, and between the necessity of keeping up a brilliant flow of conversation and attending to the wants of the Hohe Herrschaften, found them very doubtful pleasures, and made a point of always if possible having a good tea before leaving home. " Then at least," she said, " one has something in one's Magen. I cannot enjoy tea in a silver mug, even with a royal crown on it > and it always gets upset over one's best clothes, ach, ja! and the cakes are always stale, and then the fruit ! Yes, the fruit is good but I cannot eat grapes at tea time, it gives me Magen-schmerz. I suppose that is one of your English fashions — all at court is so English — the good old German times are over," and she sighed — a huge, fat, body-rending sigh. I hastened to assure her that to eat apples and pears and grapes at tea was not a usual English custom, but she shook her head saying, " Oh, we all know it. Your Empress Frederick brought in these peculiar 174 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND fashions — it is a pity — the good old German ways are gone," and she furtively dipped a piece of Zwieback into her tea and bit it off evidently determined to do her best to preserve the ancient German manners finding doubtless a subtle pleasure in transgressing the English code of etiquette. She was right about the tea however; it was horrible stuff, made before starting and conveyed to the spot in stone bottles in leather cases. We drank it from silver mugs the metal of which was too hot to hold or drink from, it was only when the tea was nearly cold that one dared put one's lips to it. I asked Lotta why they didn't bring a kettle and spirit lamp and do things properly, but she said her father Prince Bernhard had invented these bottles and designed the mugs, which all fitted into each other in a case, and every one thought how clever it was of him, so I said no more. After tea the children wanted to roast potatoes, so everybody ran about gathering bits of wood and fir-cones. Of course no one but royalties are allowed to make a MAX VON STEIN 175 fire in the forest. It is, quite rightly, one of the thousand things that are streng verboten in Germany. A green-clad for- ester had been hovering round us ever since we appeared, and now showed the best place to build the fire, against a bank. Enough fuel was soon gathered with the aid of various gorgeous footmen, whose presence had a restraining influence on every one's pleasure. Playing at the simple life with six or seven servants to help is very foolish, for one has all the inconveniences of such an existence and none of the freedom and independence. As I watched the children laying on the wood handed to them by a Court Lakai, I thought of our childish bonfires at home where we were so grubby and perfectly happy. Prince Bernhard came and showed me with great pride the cases he had invented to hold the silver mugs. " I find them very praktisch," he said, evidently nettled at my faint praise ; "I thought you English admired what was praktisch" " So we do," I retorted; " any striking 176 DAPKNE IN THE FATHERLAND improvement in existing implements always commands our admiration." " But yon do not admire these ? !1 he asked plaintively, holding up the nest of silver timbales. " I had them all made tapering towards the bottom so as to fit into each other and take up little room — that is al- ways the military problem, isn't it ? to pack many things in a small space." " But you have added materially to the weight," I objected. " No, because I have dispensed with the saucer," he said triumphantly. " Well, perhaps they are a little heavier than the cup and saucer ; the metal is very solid and strong, but then they are practically inde- structible, for a campaign they are splendid." " Splendid ! " I assented, " but for an ordinary picnic when war is not in the air they are too good." " Why what is wrong with them." " First they fall over easily and spill tea on the ladies' dresses." Just then Herr Weiss passed us, and I saw with pleasure that the very accident of which I was speak- ing had happened to his light Bein-Kleider, MAX VON STEIN 177 one leg of which, above the knee, bore a large brown stain. " Look," I said, 9 at Herr Weiss/' The Prince grinned. " Oh, that clumsy brute knocks every- thing over." Somehow the little contretemps that Herr Weiss had suffered pleased me so much (I must have a simply odious nature) that I began to praise the mugs, so that Prince Bernhard soon got into an angelic temper, evidently thinking he was making a great impression. It is very strange that Princess Charlotte, so spirituelle and lovely — so interested in art and literature and music — so romantic, yet sensible and liberal- minded too, should ever have wanted to marry Prince Bernhard who was, I suppose, in his youth fairly good-looking but is now a gross fat sensuous person with not many brains, fond of eating and drinking and other pleasures which people hint at but do not say much about. He has no respect for women, likes to hear and tell rather risqui stories, walks clumsily with a stoop and is getting rather bald, yet he has the 178 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND effrontery when we are alone to " ogle " me and to try to squeeze my hand, while he gives a great wheeze which is meant I sup- pose for a sigh. Pfuif Yet there are women, " high- well-born " ladies all of them, who are flattered by his loathsome attentions. What strange tastes they must have ! Our conversation was interrupted by shrieks from Louise, the youngest little girl, who rushed past us with her light sum- mer dress in a blaze, followed at intervals by three footmen. If it had not been so alarming it would have been intensely comic. One man had a branch in his hand with which he tried to beat out the flames as he ran after the Princess, so that he seemed to be administering severe castigation to the unfortunate child ; another carried a bucket of water which he spilled over his own fawn gaiters at every step, while the third roared out " Royal Highness, lie down, lie down." It all passed so quickly one had no time to realize the danger before it was over. Herr von Stein who was talking to the Princess Charlotte, seized my coat from MAX VON STEIN 179 the foot of the tree where it lay and wrapped it round Louise, crushing out the flames. Everybody began screaming for Doctor Petermann who had wandered off by him- self, and Prince Bernhard kept giving vent to all kinds of queer German swears, and then shouting " Petermann, Don- nerwetter / " at the top of his voice, but at length the doctor was seen hurrying through the trees like a big unwieldy elephant, for he has the usual German rotundity in front, though he is such a dear. He was, I noticed, clasping the ammonia bottle, but slipped it quickly into his pocket and soon discovered that Louise's hurts were not serious, consisting only of one slight burn on her leg, but Herr von Stein had several painful blisters on each hand which the doctor dressed as well as he could with the things he had in a case, which seemed to be full of splints and bandages. This accident broke up the party and we all started off without further delay to find the automobiles. Everybody talked about the occurence, yet no two people agreed as to the way it had happened and con- 180 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND tradicted each other vehemently. Herr von Rothberg and Fraulein von Seydlitz wrangled as to whether Louise had been placing a stick or a potato in the fire at the critical moment, and grew quite rude to each other at last, one of them declaring with a stamp of the foot that she had seen the potato in Louise's hand while the other declared as strenuously that he had himself handed her the stick to put on the fire just before the blaze broke out. I believe they continued the dispute all the way home in the car. Lotta wanted me to drive back with her and Miss Wilkins, but Herr von Stein muttered to me that the pain of his hands was getting unbearable, and that I must talk to him on the way home or he could not really stand it. He did not appear to be in such awful agony as he described, and it was very plucky of him to hide it so well, but I thought if I could help him to forget it I ought to do so, and I don't know how he managed it — I saw him talking earnestly to the young officer who was to return with Herr Petermann, but there was rather a MAX VON STEIN 181 muddle at the end and he handed me into an empty car and jumped in himself, and told the chauffeur to drive off leaving those two, Herr Petermann and the officer, to squeeze in wherever they could. I believe they had to drive five in one car, which as they are both fairly " well-nourished " as the Ger- mans put it, must have been trying for everybody. I must say that Heir von Stein seemed to forget the pain of his hand very soon, and he said all kinds of enterprising things, but a motor-car bumping over rutty roads is not the place for anything very senti- mental. We were continually being jolted against each other, and at last he put his arm right round me as he said it was better to be bumping together in one piece than as two separate entities — or something like that — and it certainly was more com- fortable, though when we got to the smooth road outside the forest, I had to remind him to take away his arm. He is often curiously absent-minded and insisted on taking my hand which he said was a habit of his and that German custom permitted it. 182 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND I am not quite sure about this, and any- way it can only be a local custom, which is different. Lotta had been behaving rather foolishly all the afternoon with the young married officer whose name I forget, and when I went to her room to say " good- night " as usual, she began raving about Herr von Stein. " Oh, if he had only saved me from burning, instead of that stupid little Louise ! V she said. " How noble of him, wasn't it ? " I laughed, and said I didn't think it anything very special. If the footman had done it no one would have been struck by the nobility of it. " Be- sides/' I said, " he didn't risk his own life." " But he burnt his poor darling hands," she said. " Well, he did, a little. I am glad my thick coat happened to be lying so near, but after all I shouldn't like to praise him too much for doing such an obvious kind of thing. He would feel such a fool if you did." " Oh, you English people," she said, " you are so calm and critical, and matter-of-fact, and have no admiration for nobility of soul," and she turned over in bed and MAX VON STEIN 18a buried her little nose in the pillows. Pre- sently she took it out again to ask if I thought Herr von Stein had been vexed because she had taken so little notice of him all day. I went into fits of laughter at the idea. This then was the reason of the interest she had pretended in that foolish young married officer, who was travelling home- wards highly elated and flattered at Princess Lotta's condescension. Her pouting face looked so droll as it lay on the pillows surrounded with the ravelled ends of rag with which her maid curls her hair every night, that I laughed more than ever. " I am glad he had to be with you so much," she said vindictively, " because I knew how bored he'd be ; he told me it bored him awfully to speak English. I shall be very nice to him next time we meet, but I wanted to snub him to-day a little." " I think, Lotta," I said as I left her bedside, " you will find Herr von Stein a difficult man to snub." Who would have thought the child would be so foolish ? The Illustrious Guest CHAPTER VIII THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST /^\N Wednesday a most exciting event ^^ happened. About half-past three, just as Lotta and I were crossing the garden to the tennis court, where we were going to play a game with Herr von Rothberg, a footman came running madly after us. He said word had just arrived that the Emperor and his suite were coming here to tea. His Majesty had been travelling in his automobile to a town about thirty miles from Rehstein and his car had broken down, so finding himself only three miles away, he was walking over here to call on Prince Bernhard, and his autos — there were two of them — would come here for him as soon as the repairs were finished. All this had been telephoned from one of those restaurants one finds 187 188 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND everywhere in Germany, in the most lonely, unlikely places, such as the middle of for- ests, and on the tops of mountains, and as the message had been delayed on the way, our self-invited guest might be expected any minute. It was rather alarming because Prince and Princess Bernhard had driven out somewhere directly after luncheon and were not yet back, and Fraulein von Seydlitz had gone to see the dentist and do some shopping, leaving me to chaperone Lotta, who was quite paralysed with con- sternation, and clung on to my arm asking wildly " Whatever shall I do ? Oh dear, what shall I do ? " I told her to order a good tea and plenty of hot cakes and nice things to eat, and to try to keep things going till her parents arrived, so she gave some distracted mes- sages to the footmen, and everybody began running about in a silly fussy way, and just as Lotta was wondering if we ought to change our tennis things we saw a little group of men coming towards us, and there they were. Herr von Rothberg, still clutch- ing his tennis racket and looking very nice THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 189 in his white tennis flannels, hurried forward and made a profound bow. He knew what to do, as he has always lived about courts, which was a mercy as Lotta was rather nervous and giggly, but she had sufficient presence of mind to go up and kiss the Emperor's hand, and as she is of course a near relation he embraced her on both cheeks. This foreign way of kissing, though it looks simple, is rather puzzling to a stranger, and when Princess Charlotte took to doing it with me I always forgot the second kiss on the opposite side and took my face away at the critical moment so that she complained her kisses were " wasted on the empty air," but Lotta of course was quite accustomed to it from infancy and everything passed off all right. Then she presented me and I received a paralysing handshake from the Imperial fingers. " The mailed fist," he said, with a funny laugh down his nose, and then he asked me a lot of questions. " What part of England I came from ? Where was I staying ? Could I speak German ? How long had I been in Rehstein ? " 190 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND He was very joky and fidgety, always shaking his right forefinger to emphasize his words, or, if he sometimes rested his hand on his hip, a seemingly favourite attitude, then he " joggled " as children say, on one leg like a restless schoolboy. I had, of course, often seen him in Berlin riding or driving about in uniform, but this was the first time I had met him in ordinary tourist costume. Somehow his moustaches do not " go " with what in Germany is called " Civil/ ' and perhaps his rather sallow complexion needs bright colours as a foil. Then the grey tweed suit and brown boots with a yellow necktie and a Panama hat worn a little on one side, in combination with the " swaggering " moustaches, re- minded me forcibly of the crowd round the Schloss gates every day, people without distinction of any kind. His suite, similarly dressed but without the moustaches, looked very well, though it is a fact that almost every German appears at a disadvantage out of uniform, another proof that Providence intended them for a military nation. TILE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 191 But the Emperor's face, which was rather sunburnt, was so alert and wide-awake lit up by his bright blue eyes which he con- stantly bulges out at people in a rather alarming way, that I felt somehow stimu- lated and inspired to say things which he seemed to find rather amusing, and in a few minutes we were quarrelling — actually quar- relling — about the suffragettes. Of course I am one myself, and poor Aunt Caroline's having been arrested by the police and narrowly escaped six weeks in gaol for chalking things on people's front door steps naturally makes me very keen, and when I thought how she wears herself out making speeches to horrid crowds and walking in processions and being nice to women she detests, I felt it my duty to stick up for her side all I could. The Emperor grew very impatient, as men do when they are having the worst of an argument, and brought out all the stale old platitudes about woman remaining in her proper sphere and looking after her home and children and — he didn't say so, but I knew the German attitude of mind — her husband's comforts. 192 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND I pointed out that this was what the average woman wished to do and that the half-hour of her time which once in five years or so would be devoted to record- ing her vote, need not materially decrease her housekeeping capabilities ; and then he took refuge in ridicule and grew quite angry " joggling i: harder than ever, till at last he stopped suddenly and said laughing: " No, it is much too hot to talk about the suffragettes. I hope you will not shortly be spending a few months in prison you foolish little enthusiast.' ' Lotta had been talking to a nice Colonel Somebody of the suite and I tried hard to catch her eye and to make signs that she should order some drinkables, pink lemon- ade and things like that of which they con- sume such quantities in the hot weather. His Majesty seemed to enjoy being entertained by two young " blooming maidens " as he called us, and said he was dying for tea and hoped " the suffragette " did not intend to starve him; so Herrvon Rothberg ordered it to be brought out to the tennis lawn at once and the gentlemen THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 193 handed round the cakes and the cook had risen to the occasion and made some lovely hot scones, and two of the younger men of the suite (there were five of them alto- gether) played a game of tennis with Herr von Rothberg who lent them tennis shoes, when suddenly, just as Lotta was shrieking with laughter because she had bumped her head against the Colonel's — I forget his name — as they both stooped together to pick up her handkerchief, and the Em- peror was absorbed in telling me of his adventures in Norway, round the high hedge which surrounds the tennis court came Fraulein von Seydlitz wearing the rather shabby old costume which she keeps for Rehstein shopping expeditions. She had evidently driven straight to the tennis ground in her carriage, so had heard nothing of the arrivals. Her hat was all on one side her face rather grimy and her gloves had seen better days. As she is very short- sighted but won't wear glasses she had not an idea who these men could be and per- haps thought that we had invited some of the officers of the garrison in her absence. 194 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Hen von Rothberg did not notice her and just then played a very hard ball which bounced out and hit Fraulein von Seydlitz a terrible whack on her — what the Germans call Magen. She doubled up for a moment and looked furiously at one of the little stable boys who was busy picking up the balls. Nobody appeared to have seen her but me, and I could not get away as the Emperor was in the midst of his story and I prayed that Herr von Rothberg or a footman would be able to interpose, but without waiting a moment she marched sternly up to Lotta, who was still giggling, and said in tones of sour severity — " Pray, Princess Lotta, may I ask for an explanation of the presence of these gentle- man ? I do not understand." Then she waited for the explanation and Lotta con- tinued giggling. The point of His Majesty's story had just been reached — it was really very funny — and of course it takes a certain time to laugh, so I was still unable to inter- fere, but I saw the Emperor's eyes fixed in surprise on Fraulein von Seydlitz who THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 195 glanced in his direction, but as she had never seen him except in uniform she did not immediately recognize him, his Panama hat being pulled rather low over his face to keep off the sun. " And you too, Daphne," she said in re- proving tones, " you seem to have arranged a party ; I am surprised that you have no more sense of " The Emperor's eyes began to bulge and he rolled them round and made a comical grimace, while I rushed up and whispered, " Oh, hush ! can't you see it is His Ma- jesty ? Do be quiet." I felt sorry for her she must have felt such a fool, but she made a confused deep curtsey smiling painfully, and the set being just finished Herr von Rothberg came up and presented her in due form, but for a long time she wore a rather dazed expression. " What a dragon ! " whispered the Em- peror to me. " I feel as though I had behaved very indiscreetly. I hope my character won't suffer. Am I hopelessly compromised do you think ? Shall I be forbidden this house ? " and he kept making 196 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND jokes about the " Dragon " and pretending to be dreadfully frightened when she looked in his direction, but Fraulein von Seydlitz had sense enough to laugh at herself too, so it wasn't as bad as it might have been, and very soon Prince Bernhard and the Princess came and then things were easier. The Emperor told him that we had treated him very well, especially the " Suffragist " as he called me and he warned Prince Bern- hard that I might some day break the Schloss windows or chain myself on to the railings or stab him with a hatpin as a protest against masculine monopoly of the best things of the earth. As I had never discussed these things with Prince Bernhard he was quite astonished and seemed to think it the hugest joke, and he roared with laughter till his face went purple and his eyes grew bloodshot and his great fat neck bulged over the red collar of his uniform and he looked as though he would choke. " Ha ! ha ! ha ! what, what, Miss Daphne, you will have a seat in Parliament ? — you will help to make laws for men ? — you will tell us how to govern ? — but no, THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 197 I think it is better you marry some one an' govern him," and he gave a nasty sort of leer and laughed again, such a horrid unctuous laugh, and I felt all at once how perfectly odious he was and I looked at Princess Charlotte, so lovely and pale and intelligent, with her subtle sense of humour and her delightful sympathy and appre- ciation of all that is noble and worthy and thought that she had probably loved this man many years ago and what a frightful disillusion it must have been for her to find him so coarsely animal and stupid. Any- way it is not with such people that one dis- cusses great questions, so I treated him with silent scorn and as they wanted me to play tennis I was spared any more of his conversation. It was not long before we heard the " tuff-tuff M of the Emperor's automobiles which had been successfully repaired and now came to fetch him away. He stayed however some time longer, but at last we all went to the two cars waiting behind the hedge. They were very nice German machines, the bodies painted canary colour 1$8 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND with a tiny little Prussian royal standard fixed at the left of the chauffeur's seat so that every one might know who was coming. Two very smart chauffeurs were on each car, one to drive and one to do the " toot- ling " ona very musical horn he carried which played quite a merry little tune. " It is a lovely evening/ ' said the Em- peror. " Have out your cars, drive part way back with us and let us have a cold picnic supper somewhere — anything will do." Poor Princess Charlotte looked a little worried. Even a cold picnic supper could not be conjured up on the spur of the moment. Herr von Rothberg disappeared in the direction of the kitchens but Prince Bernhard, with the usual masculine stu- pidity and want of intuition, declared it would be delightful and immediately gave orders to have two of the cars out. Germans (even royalties) never dine in the evenings except on state occasions, but have supper consisting of soup meat and desert, and for a picnic they are content with just a few slices of cold meat and salad and things like that, so it is not very THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 199 difficult to improvise something if enough provisions are already in the house, but as the head cook only lays in just enough for one's daily wants, five extra people make rather an inroad upon his resources. And in fact I heard next day from Augusta that the children's supper had been given up to us, with a lovely Chokoladen-brei, which they adore. They had all been out with Miss Wilkins and returned just in time to kiss the Emperor's hand before we started. It is a pretty custom for children to kiss the hands of their elders, but to see as one so frequently does here, a stout elderly gentleman stooping to imprint a chaste salute on the dumpy paw of a plain stout elderly lady excites in the spectator a desire to laugh. Only lovers and children with their sweet little flower mouths should be allowed to kiss a lady's hand. In Germany there appears to be no speed limit for autos and one travels at a pace ! Oh it is glorious ! with the constant possi- bility of a smash at the next corner. Lotta and I were in the third car with the dear old Colonel and one of the younger equerries, 200 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND a nice naval officer who spoke excellent English. The Emperor of course was in the first with the Prince and Princess. I was wearing one of those nice snug little motor-hoods that had just come into fashion in England, and everybody seemed to be so interested in it ; whenever I turned some one's gaze was sure to be fixed on me. Lotta had tied a big veil over her large hat which with the terrific speed at which we went soon began to look very untidy, while I could feel my hair blowing into tight little curls which the gallant old Colonel compared to vine-tendrils and other poetic things as we flew along. Fraulein von Seydlitz, who had all the evening been wearing that mirthless smile of hers, looked a perfect caricature in her motor veil which her maid had no idea how to arrange properly, so that ends kept blowing wildly about and hit other people in the eye. Doctor Petermann, who was driving with her, told me afterwards that between the flapping veil and the hat- pins she wore, he was in imminent danger of being blinded. She looks upon motor- THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 201 cars, air-ships and flying machines as a pernicious tendency of modern life which prevents the human soul from aspiration towards higher nobler planes of knowledge, I am sure she did not feel happy at being bumped against Doctor Petermann, whom she cordially detests. We reached at last a hillside with a lovely view (there are lovely views everywhere here), and the cars stopped, and supper, which we had carried in flat baskets some- where under our feet, was hauled out and we began to spread it on the grass. The Emperor however seized the tablecloth and draped himself with it rather like a sentimental Romeo, and his Panama hat and Schnurrbart (that's German for mous- taches) looked very funny above it all, especially as he was making faces all the time. Lotta and I couldn't help scream- ing with laughter (I heard the Colonel murmur something about rite argentin), but I noticed that everybody else only giggled in a very sober style, as it seems it is not correct to laugh very loud in front of royalty, one must learn to cork it up half 202 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND way. The spare chauffeurs, who also act as footmen, finished unpacking the baskets as soon as they could get the tablecloth, which was not till we had had royal imper- sonations of the ghost in Hamlet Julius Caesar and Venus (though I don't think she used much drapery), when it was spread rather crumpled, on the grass. Of course we had those silly silver mugs of Prince Bernhardt which were always falling over, and I must say a picnic has its drawbacks, but the beautiful hills were behind and the sky one splendour of scarlet and gold with solemn clouds marching slowly up it, and I should have enjoyed it all so much if I had not seen Fraulein von Seydlitz looking at the scenery with a sentimental patronizing air as though anxious to make us all under- stand that only upon the bosom of Nature could she recuperate herself after the wearying cares of the day. " Does it not make all this look small and mean and paltry ? " she said to me in a low tone, heaving a sigh and waving her fork at the cold slices of ham and chicken and tongue which I was just prodding on THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 203 to my plate, while with her right hand like an inspired prophetess she indicated the heavens. But I only replied that I pre- ferred tomato salad to chicory and she turned away from my unresponsiveness with disgust. A group of gigantic firs, scarred and worn from their constant struggle with the winter storms stood at the edge of the cliff at our left against a background of pale lemon sky, while the purple mountains beyond grew every moment darker, more majestic- ally silent and remote. They belonged to those exquisite things of which one hardly dares to speak lest some intangible essence of beauty surrounding them should be dis- sipated and evaporate. So I was sorry when Fraulein von Seydlitz laid down her knife and fork and producing a sketch- book and some crayons began to sketch the fir-trees in the shelter of Herr von Rothberg's back. After supper, which we finished in twenty minutes, His Majesty departed with his suite after giving me another terrible hand-grasp. "Ha! ha! — ha ! ha ! the suffragette ! — Mrs. Pank- 204 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND hurst ! — ha ! ha ! — ha ! ha ! She'll knock down a policeman ! — she'll horsewhip Mr. Churchill on the platform ! Ha ! ha ! — be careful Bernhard what you're doing. You've got a terrible firebrand in your house. Ha ! ha ! — Ha ! ha ! " and he rolled his eyes round so funnily and pretended to be dreadfully alarmed, calling out, " Good- bye, Miss Furioso," as he stepped into his car. We watched them fly round the hill side and then helped to pack up. What horrid things dirty plates are ! We care- fully buried all the bones and bits of paper, which is a habit cultivated in Germany. They do not believe in one lot of people spoiling the landscape for the next comers, so although they haven't yet made a law and verboten it they provide nice wire baskets for the rubbish and place in conspicuous spots appeals to the public both in prose and verse. I found the following touch- ing lines on a tree in the forest : — " Was in der Stube gilt als simpler Branch Das haltc jest im Walde auch Lass niemals auf den Boden fallen Papier, Orangen und Eier-schalen THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST Halte sauber nur das Wald-lokal Dann sie wilkommen du hier uberall." Lotta and I translated it thus :-^» " What you are used to do at home Don't fail to do where'er you roam, For paper, eggshells and orange-peel Should never be scatter 'd, I'm sure you'll feel. Oh ! keep there wcods in order fair Then you are welcome everywhere." We had to hurry off, for one of those storms which come up so suddenly in this region was evidently imminent. We bundled everything into the cars and started as soon as possible, but had not gone far before the thunder began to growl and presently the rain came down in torrents, and there were some alarming flashes of lightning. Princess Charlotte is very nervous and or- dered the cars to turn into the garden of a large house which we saw among the trees where we all got out under a kind of portico. A startled clumsy-looking footman in very shabby livery appeared from the back- ground, evidently rather indignant at our invasion. It was the Steins' house and presently Frau von Stein in a hot-looking 206 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND tartan blouse came out to us followed by her husband and daughter, and we were ushered into the drawing-room, a pleasant enough place if only it had not been fur- nished in that terribly heavy German fashion, all walnut and dark green plush. It was decorated with quantities of fine antlers, which would have suited the hall much better I thought, and there were armchairs and little tables also made of antlers — the chairs very uncomfortable to sit in as however one twisted and tried to adapt one's figure a point was sure to be sticking into some portion of one's anatomy. The Steins were all wearing rather shabby morning costumes which they evidently saved up for the country, and I had had a vision of Herr von Stein rushing up the stairs in a pair of green carpet-slippers which had now however disappeared. Weak thin-looking tea and substantial German sandwiches of raw ham and smoked salmon and eggs were presently brought in by the clumsy footman, who tramped up and down over the painted carpetless floor with a heavy martial tread. As we THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 207 sat sipping our tea and keeping up polite conversation other footsteps — light quick ones — could be heard coming across the hall. " There's cousin Max," said Greta von Stein, and Lotta immediately began to talk and laugh immoderately keeping her eyes always fixed on the door. Presently he came in looking very neat and well groomed, with his nice eyes smiling, and everybody immediately felt easier and gayer, for poor Frau von Stein does not shine as a hostess, she is so nervous and constrained. Presently, I don't know who proposed it, but to an accompaniment of thunder rumblings and green sheet light- ning and a rain which thrashed the earth with the fury of its downpour we found our- selves playing a silly game of hide and seek all over the house. It must have been Lotta who suggested it. We rushed about to find hiding places and Herr von Rothberg was to stay in the hall and count a hundred before starting to find us. Lotta and I were just exploring a cupboard full of Herr von Stein's trousers which 208 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND smelt unutterably stuffy and where I re- fused to conceal myself in spite of Lotta's entreaties, when Max von Stein appeared and dragged me away. " Quick, come along, he's counting ninety-seven, I'll show you a good place/ ' he said, and he took me up a little staircase into a funny old loft, rather dusty and spidery and full I am sure of mice which I detest. Here we sat in the dim light listening to the stifled giggles of Lotta proceeding from the trouser-cupboard beneath us and the stealthy footsteps of Herr von Rothberg, who evidently caught Fraulein von Seydlitz almost immediately. Max's face was paler than usual in the dim light and I fancied he looked rather worried and anxious. " I want to talk seriously to you, Daphne," he said, taking my hand as usual into his which was still bandaged. He looked at me very steadily and his eyes were wistful and grave. " I want to say something to you, Daphne, my dear little Daphne," he said, " I want to ask you if you really care for me at all, if you ever THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 209 could care for me very much, I wish- Then he stopped and winced as though something hurt him, then continued — " If you could ever care for me, it would make a great, a very great difference in my life, it would save me " — here he stopped again. " Can you, could you love me enough to bear something for my sake, to forgive something, to — to understand how " Well, I can't remember all he said ; it moved me very much and I felt really quite upset he seemed so distressed and agitated and very much in earnest. I do like him very much of course, very much indeed, still I am not sure that I like him quite enough — and to marry a German, even such a nice one — I have not much experience in these things, still I think I should prefer — surely one ought to feel swept off one's feet — capable of any folly, any sacrifice, but I do not feel like that — I weigh and con- sider and am not quite sure. How tire- some men are ! Not content with pleasant intercourse they want people to marry them, live with them always, see them grow old and stout (if they are German) 210 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND and ill-tempered and uninteresting. Mrs. de Trafford, who is so handsome and is always having stories told about her, once said to Aunt Julia — and I was standing near and listened — " People can have heaps of fun in life if they know how to stop in time, if they have sense enough not to take the last step however tempting. Men are all right so long as you let them hopefully dangle. The last step is never worth what it costs. In love affairs more than in anything else, it is the preliminaries that are entrancing to most women. All the subtlety and perfume of the tender passion evaporates as soon as one grasps it in the hand." Max von Stein was waiting in his calm masterful compelling manner for an answer to his proposal, and I do not know what I might have been led on to say if my hand had not suddenly fallen on the little silver pencil Captain Mardyke gave me three years ago, when I was just a silly flapper in the schoolroom, and which I always carry on my watchchain. His nice English manners and the magnificent way in which he plays THE ILLUSTRIOUS GUEST 211 polo came into my mind, and it seemed quite impossible that I could care for Max von Stein, even though he is so nice. If Captain Mardyke marries that rich American girl I hope he will be very happy, even if— anyway I told Max that I liked him very much but that anything serious was out of the question, and he looked very sad and very tender and I don't know what I should have done if Lotta had not rushed up the stairs and rattled the door (which I found had been locked) and told us to come down as the rain had stopped and we were to start at once for Rehstein. It was very pleasant and cool after the rain as we glided among the mountains, but I don't know why, I felt awfully sad and depressed and as if I wanted to cry all the time. Dread- fully stupid of me, but somehow life seems to be more difficult and not so entertaining as I thought it would be, and this foolishness with Herr von Stein has upset me more than I could have thought possible. Perhaps in the morning things will look brighter. A Regrettable Incident CHAPTER IX A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT T HAVE left Rehstein and am now stay- ■*■ ing with Aunt Mary in a big country house in West Prussia called Freidorf. I was sorry to leave Princess Charlotte, but the last week or two Lotta had been so changeable and ill-tempered that on the whole I was glad to come away. I did not take Augusta with me to Frei- dorf as Aunt wrote to say it was not neces- sary, so she only travelled with me as far as Berlin in a most awful low-necked tartan blouse and a sham diamond brooch which she told me had been given to her by her Schatz — not the present one but the last but one — a young man in one of those shops in the Leipzigerstrasse where they sell everything for one mark. So nice to know beforehand exactly what one is going to spend. But Augusta says that really no- thing in the shop is worth a mark ; it is the 215 216 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND idea that they can't possibly give more that attracts people. Her last Schatz was a postman in a very good position, and just as Augusta haa saved up enough to buy the furniture and linen, and chosen the pattern for the carpet (brides have to supply everything here in Germany, that's why so many of them go out as governesses and come to England and undersell the English ones) the " gemeiner Kerl," as she quite rightly called him, changed his mind, grew chilly to his old love and took on a new one, a young widow with a flourishing little greengrocer's busi- ness, whom he eventually married. To add to the painfulness of the situation, the shop is situated close to Aunt Mary's and Augusta has to pass it every day on her way to market. As, however, the present Schatz, a tram-conductor, seems to be quite satis- factory, Augusta looks upon her past love trials as useful experiences which have shown her the transitory evanescent nature of man's affection. " Die Manner, gnddiges Frdulein, sie sind alle gleich — men are all alike," she cheerfully remarked. " My A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 217 Otto only chose me because he thought I had a little put by, and he knows my uncle the baker is well off and may leave me some- thing, but he was a long time before he could decide between me and the Marwitz's Anna — Anna who wears feathers in her hat on Sundays and a green silk blouse with gold buttons. That is what no saving girl will do. One woollen blouse for Sun- days, one for week-days, that is how my mother brought me up." " And I'm sure you look very nice Augusta," I said, " much nicer than the Marwitz's Anna." I pressed five marks into her hand before we parted and she was overwhelmed with surprise and gratitude. She is quite un- sophisticated and never expects a tip which makes it doubly nice to give her one. It took me half a day and a whole night to get to- Freidorf . The train reached Berlin at half- past seven in the evening and a stout shapeless elderly lady got in there and installed herself in my compartment where she spread her things over both seats and pro- 21$ DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND ceeded to make herself as comfortable for the night as circumstances would permit, loosening all her garments and displaying intimate flannel things. She had even the temerity to remove a pair of black corsets which she carefully rolled up and placed on the rack and arranged various rugs and cushions about her person, and after many stretchings after things which had fallen on the floor, disposed herself along the seat for the night, affording me an uninterrupted view of large extremities clothed in red plush carpet slippers. I retired to the restaurant car for my supper and when I returned she was eating from a brown paper parcel belegte Butter Brodchen. These enormous sandwiches with the meat hanging out at the corners she clasped with both hands, taking huge bites out of the middle, masticating slowly and audibly like some ponderous ruminant and gazing contemplatively the while at me. The compartment besides being hot and stuffy was filled with the odour of garlic seasoning — very strong and disagreeable. I wanted to open a window but a glance at A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 219 that face — not a kind nor good-natured face — made me hesitate. Every moment the atmosphere grew more unbearable, so when we stopped at a little station I seized the opportunity to let in some fresh air. She shuddered and gathered her shawl more closely around her as I leaned out and drank huge breaths of the cool night breeze. " Please to shut it," she cried in a peremp- tory tone, pumping up a cough, obviously a forced and totally unnecessary cough, as the train moved on. She had a voice which roused animosity, harsh dry and tone- less. I hated this unknown woman and when I drew up the window neglected to give it that forward pull needed to make it stay up, so that as she dozed off to sleep again it slipped down a few inches and the balmy night air blew in a little smoke-laden it is true but a relief to the all-pervading sausage and garlic. For some minutes she did not notice it, but soon I saw a sudden convulsion of the bundle of rugs and in the gloom of the shaded lamp a malevolent eye emerged and glanced first at the window then at me. 220 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND "Dear me, it's slipped down again," I remarked, rising slowly to close the aperture. " Really, Fraulein," she said " what can you be thinking of ? Ycu must see what a dreadful cold I have. Rave you no feel- ing at all ? " " The carriage smells so horribly of garlic and sausage " I pleaded. " Can you not bear it a few minutes, and it is such a warm night" " No, I will not indeed." Her voice rose to an angry shriek and her face grew fiery red ; " not for one moment will I stand your silly English fresh-air notions ; if you don't like this carriage go into another. Why don't you go ? " " Because, madame," I said with great dignity, " I have paid for my seat here." She knew that this was the only ladies' compartment and that the others were full of men. " English people think of no one's com- fort but their own," she cried at the top of her voice, " no respect for elders, no kind- ness " — and she continued to rage while the oscillating train nearly flung her from A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 221 her seat. Her boots were jerked to the ground as well as the remains of her Butter- brodchen which she rescued dusted and returned to the paper for future consump- tion, all the time continuing to schimpfen, as the expressive German word has it, fulminating against the British nation, their manners, their ridiculous ideas, their inferiority to the Germans. I fled into the corridor, for one is at a decided disadvantage in an argument with a fat, ferocious half- dressed German woman reeking of garlic sausage. It was a long and weary night, even though it grew light soon after three o'clock. I watched the first chill trembling yellow streak of dawn on the horizon, saw the darkness fade into ghastly grey, while through the fields of hoary dew dim shapes of cattle and horses moved slowly ; then the light and colour strengthened by slow im- perceptible degrees till at six the whole flat landscape was flooded with glorious sun- shine and the discomforts of the night were forgotten. I was haggard and weary from lack of sleep, but the new day was so bright 222 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND and inspiring that I could smile indulgently at the irate lady of the night before. I peeped through the window where her heavy body, bumping helplessly about with the jolts of the train, bore a hideous resemb- lance to a corpse. What one saw of her leaden-hued face in the blank morning light with its oscillating cheeks and open mouth was not pleasant to look upon. At eight o'clock I had to change to a local single branch, one of those funny little railways called Bimrnel-bahn, where the engine sounds a bell as it travels slowly along through fields and across roads, as a warn- ing to people and animals to get out of the way. It is such a fussy puffing important- looking little machine, obviously self-inspired with the idea that it is doing most wonder- ful work and gives everybody the impression of moving at quite an express-train speed. It is only on noticing that horses and carts are able to keep up with it quite easily that one realizes that, in spite of its fussiness, it is not accomplishing as it would have us believe, anything very record-breaking. It was full of very interesting people, pea- A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 223 sants for the most part, wearing picturesque clothes and smoking curved pipes with little lids to keep in the tobacco. Some of the women who wore handkerchiefs over their heads — such a neat, picturesque, simple coiffure — carried on their backs enormous baskets which were fastened on their shoulders with beautifully em- broidered straps. Many of them were bare- footed, but all so exquisitely clean and wholesome looking with smooth well- brushed hair and garments absolutely neat. An occasional patch was to be seen, but no- where a hole or a ragged skirt edge. They chattered incessantly, a patois I could with difficulty understand. I was so amused with the constant change at every station, peasants getting in and peasants getting out, each one full of in- dividuality and interest that I almost for- got to get out myself at Freidorf , where the station-master greeted me like an old friend and took me in charge at once. He in- formed me that the Herr Leutnant was wait- ing outside with the carriage as he could not leave the horse. 224 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND I had seen a form disappearing through the station waiting-room which reminded me of my friend (or enemy) of the train, but immediately dismissing the possibility of it being the same person, I followed the station-master outside to the lime trees where stood a yellow-varnished Jagd- wagen harnessed to a meek-looking brown horse. Beside the horse was a sturdy, thick-set young man in a badly-cut tweed suit talking affably with — oh horrors ! — it was the "lady of the train," who, loaded with small parcels, was evidently on terms of the greatest intimacy with him, calling him " mein lieber Karl," while he addressed her as " Liebe Tante " — his aunt ! As one paralysed by a great despair I suffered myself to be introduced by the beaming station-master. " Here is the young lady " he said, bowing as gracefully as his embonpoint permitted. The young man put his heels together with a click, stiffened himself into wooden perpendicularity, saluted in correct mili- tary fashion — so silly when he wasn't even in uniform — and said " Allow me to A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 225 introduce myself — Lieutenant Karl von Stahl." I turned my back on the person of the train hoping she would have tact enough to disappear. " You are come from Schloss Freidorf, " I said smiling idiotically at Lieutenant Karl von Stahl. " Yes, please allow me to present my dear aunt, Fraulein Klara von Stahl, who is also come on a visit to us from Berlin by the same train as yourself. Perhaps you have aire ady made her acquaintance on the train.' My brain reeled, and in tones of acutest agony I gasped out an inquiry after Aunt Mary. " Oh, she is very well, very well — are you anxious about her ? She is very well." He waved towards the inside of the carriage with a polite gesture of invitation to get in. Before we could start a lot of small things belonging to " Tante Klara " were handed in, such as a folding footstool, a canvas bag with " Gliickliche Reise *' worked upon it in cross-stitch, from one corner of which exuded the toe of a crimson plush slipper, 226 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND another long bag also worked in cross- stitch containing umbrellas, while a third was stuffed with crochet woollen shawls. German people love cross-stitch. Aunt Mary's cook has a bread-bag worked in a wonderful Greek key pattern, and the shelves where the jars of rice and macaroni stand are bordered in American leather with an imitation cross-stitch border. The lieutenant seemed pleased when I told him I should like to sit on the box be- side him. He was one of those nice simple rather countrified German youths who ask heaps of questions about England and have the queerest idea of the things we •do there. Where they get their information I don't know, but it is mostly wrong and seems to be founded on something a great- uncle of theirs experienced fifty years ago. He was very flattered because — owing entirely to my knowledge of German — I was able to understand some English words and phrases which he occasionally intro- duced into the conversation. He said we must talk a good deal together — such an essentially German idea — they all want to A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 22f practice their English on me I notice. Tante Klara behind was rather tiresome as she kept interruping " Karl " with irrelevant questions just in the middle of our most amusing discussions. We were talking about the English Sunday and he insisted that we went to church all day and did nothing but read good books and allowed no smoking, when suddenly Tante Klara poked him with her umbrella and said in a sharp voice — " Now, Karl, are there plenty of cherries this year ? " and again when we were most deeply absorbed in English hunting that tiresome old woman insisted on knowing how his father's rheumatism had been all last winter. It was a flat well-wooded country through which we were driving, and in the distance lay a muddy stretch of water called the Haff, which is really the mouth of the river Vistula. It is divided from the sea by a long narrow strip of land and beyond the muddy Haff we could see a thin blue line which Karl said was the Baltic, or Ost See as they call it. On each side were cornfields and once we 228 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND passed a field of yellow lupines which smelt divinely and were really a glorious sight to behold. They make good fodder for cattle. On a hillside there was a patch of the purple kind, all growing wild among the grass and shading from white through every tone of mauve to deep purple. One or two deer were standing among them cropping the leaves and made such a lovely picture in the morning sunlight. Tante Klara asked if they had had much venison. Her ideas are severely practical. Deer are such graceful creatures I can't bear the idea of eating them, though I love the cranberry sauce they serve with them here. We passed a Ziegelei or tile- factory with a funny little light railway running down to the Haff where the tiles are loaded into barges and taken to Konigs- berg and Danzig and other towns on the coast. They have to be brought across the Haff and unloaded and carted across the strip of land — about ten minutes' walk — and re-shipped on bigger steamers on the other side, and the lieutenant said what a dreadful labour it was and what a lot of A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 229 money was spent in the carriage. The Haff is too shallow for bigger boats. Soon we came to a village where lots of little brown barefooted children and wo- men were working in the fields. They all made Knixes, just like the old-fashioned English curtsey one never sees now but which every well-bred German school-girl, rich or poor, still practises. A delightful little girl was in a field tak- ing care of a flock of geese and knitting a stocking, exactly like Hans Andersen's fairy tales, and a little further on we met a boy leading a bullock in a cart — such a lovely fawn-coloured bullock with beautiful liquid eyes, moving so deliberately as if time were no object. When suddenly something with great sweeping wings swam through the air before us like a new and wonderful kind of aeroplane and the lieutenant said, " See, there is a stork/' I felt as if I really were seeing Germany for the first time — the Germany of Grimm's fairy tales and of Richter and Moritz von Schwind. A rather ugly stucco house now came in view. " Here is the Schloss," exclaimed my com- 280 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND panion turning in at a stucco gateway and driving up a gravel path to the front door. The Schloss wasn't a bit like an English country house — more of a glorified villa built in full view of the road, as are nearly all German country houses. A rather stout lady came out smilingly with Aunt Mary and there were the usual embracements and exclamations and osculations, and I found somebody folding me to her bosom, and a row of hard buttons made it rather painful, and when I emerged it was Frau von Stahl. A lot of daughters in the back- ground made embarrassing remarks about Tante Klara travelling down in the same train with me, and joked us about the efforts we must have made to find out where each of us was going, and wanted to know how long it was before we discovered that we were bound for the same place. Delightful for us both ! I changed the subject very abruptly and inquired anxiously after some luggage which I pretended to have lost and so diverted their attention for awhile. The two daughters, Elsa and Gerda von Stahl, overwhelmed us both with attentions A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 231 and a nice old papa with an awful scar on his cheek which at first I thought he'd got in the Franco-Prussian war but heard afterwards it was the result of a duel in his student days kept calling out " Now children, to breakfast, the poor things must be starving, to breakfast — to breakfast." It was only half-past nine, though the day seemed to have been already very long and I was very hungry indeed. They gave us coffee in thick cups and bread of every kind, white brown and black and eggs and cold meat and Mus. They said they would all take their second breakfast with us. Of course they had eaten their first one at half-past seven. Germans certainly have healthy appetities. Those girls consumed such enormous thick slices of smoked ham and sausage — just like Tante Klara's in the train with the same horrid garlicy smell. Frau von Stahl gave the history of the pig who had provided the smoked ham, mentioned the Ritter-gut from whence his mother had been purchased and the months it had required to bring him to a fit state of plumpness and so on. 232 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND She seems to be what we in England would call a " notable housewife/ ' yet she speaks English and French quite fluently and is very well read — knows Dickens and Shakes- peare much better than most English women. They always have a " second breakfast " about half-past ten, and it consists of a huge dish of sandwiches mixed up together — the German kind, solid and satisfying, a thick slice of bread and butter, with a substantial piece of cold beef or ham tongue smoked salmon or chicken. Then there is fruit to follow. One of the daughters likes beer and they persuaded me to try some. Tante Klara tosses off hers without winking. She has a real Bier-glas, thick at the bottom, with a nickel lid and a curved glass handle. " Papachen," as they all call Herr voa Stahl, takes his from a wooden Jena Bier- Krug which he bought as a student. He has the usual German figure, " not lost, but gone before," and beams on everybody and calls me " Miss," which sounds so funny I want to laugh every time he does it. After breakfast they took me round the A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 283 " Park " as they called it, but it is really only a garden and orchard — not at all what we imagine by a park. There had been a funny little complain- ing sort of noise going on ever since I had arrived at the house, such a strange weird cry incessantly repeated which began to get on my nerves. They said it was the Unken, little black frogs which live in the ornamental pond they have in the middle of the garden. We went to see them, and some big green frogs sitting on the side jumped into the water with a great splash as soon as we appeared, and I thought they were the Unken, but Karl pointed out to me something floating on the water which looked like frog-spawn, and after a little practice one could see it was the green spot on each eye of the Unken who float with their bodies submerged and just these two spots above water. There was a butterfly-net lying beside the pond which I seized and dropped gently into the water a little distance away from the Unken and drew it along till it was underneath the creature and then raised it suddenly and 234 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND caught the horrid thing. It is such a fear- some, small, black, fiendish-looking animal and reminds one of the awful beasts one sees in pictures of the Temptation of St. Anthony. Underneath it is flesh colour and spotted. We put it into a bucket and went on fishing, and two little boys turned up from somewhere — Hans and Heinz — the youngest children, and joined in and we had great sport. Soon Papachen ar- rived in a beautifully embroidered smoking cap and tried his best but only caught a bit of weed. While we were busy enjoying ourselves very much and more than twenty Unken were crawling over each other in a great state of conglomeration at the bottom of th$ bucket, the " Inspector ? came. He appears to be a sort of agent or bailiff, a very scientifically educated young man who sees to all the farming matters and knows about rotation of crops and how much manure per acre is necessary and so on. He was very much interested in the Unken-c&tchmg and kept apologizing because he hadn't put lime or something in the water to kill them all and said he A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 235 would see that it was done at once and so save us any further trouble. I was quite aghast at the idea of spoiling all our lovely sport, for it was the greatest fun imagin- able and I begged the Herr Leutnant not to let him do anything so silly, and he assured me that the Inspector was a Schafs-Kopf, and I heard him telling him to leave the Unken alone, and the Inspector came to me afterwards and asked in an aggrieved tone if I liked to hear the Unken, and I said I thought the noise they made was quite too much for any one's nerves and I wondered Frau von Stahl could stand it. Then he told me again of his project to destroy them with lime, and I expostulated with him for wanting to put an end to our amusement and he seemed to be dreadfully puzzled about it and I saw him " perpending " in a corner of the garden, evidently approaching the problem with a scientific and unprejudiced mind. I suppose this young man had spent his life in study and had never experienced that lovely exciting feeling that makes one enjoy catching anything, even Unken if there's 236 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND nothing better. He looked so serious and so dull and as if everything he did were inspired by a sense of Duty, and his spec- tacles made him look rather like a curate or a professor. He had not that nice breezy, open-air look one would naturally expect to find in any one spending much of his time out of doors, but had a dull, lead-coloured complexion. We met him later on in the afternoon riding a poor-looking horse. He evidently rides from conscientious motives not from any pleasure he takes in it. When we met him we were on our way to a little bathing place on the Baltic. All of us except Aunt Mary and Tante Klara who preferred to stay at home, walked down to the Haff and got on board a little steamer which took us across in about half an hour. We landed at another quaint little village with such funny houses where the pigs and chickens and children all seemed to live comfortably together like they do in Ireland. Of course the children don't go to school in the afternoon after one o'clock, but as they begin at half -past seven they get quite enough of it. They are all A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 23? so sun-burnt and healthy looking. We passed the school-house the door of which was surrounded by a wreath of evergreens. I asked the reason of this adornment and Gerda told me there had been a new school- master two days ago. I suppose no event can take place anywhere in Germany with- out somebody's feelings having to express themselves in wreaths and coloured paper roses. Even the advent of such insignifi- cant persons as Tante Klara and myself had to be marked by festoons of green fir-twigs over the front door entwining a Wilkommen in green and yellow letters. Karl seemed rather worried about some- thing all the time we were crossing in the steamer, and I saw him whispering to his mother and sisters, and then they looked at me in a furtive way pretending when they caught my eye they were absorbed in some- thing else. At last Elsa came and sat down beside me and sent away the two younger children and in a very mysterious apolo- getic manner said that " of course if I minded it in the least they wouldn't think of doing it, but they believed it was the 238 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND custom also in England, but still it might be that I objected/ ' and so on for quite a long time till at last I managed to find out what they wanted which was to ask if I objected to their brother Karl swimming with us. " It is so much safer don't you think, to riave a strong swimmer near and gives so much confidence, and Karl always swims with us when we are by ourselves/ ' pleaded Elsa, turning quite pink with embarrass- ment, and when I looked away at Karl he too seemed positively blushing — so silly, wasn't it ? Without meaning it I burst into shrieks of laughter, and then they all began to laugh too evidently much relieved. It seems that they had had a terrible business with Tante Klara over it, as she had de- dared it would be furchtbar unanstdndig to expect me to swim with any male crea- ture who wasn't a relation, and that they ought not even to mention such a thing to me, but as Aunt Mary told them I had done it at Trouville and other places they thought they would venture. Gerda told me to look out for Bernstein, as A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT 239 they call amber. It is the only part of Europe where it is found, and I picked up several good-sized pieces just at the edge of the water. There were two little wooden sheds — fearfully hot — where we undressed. The girls had very plain calico costumes, and looked really rather dreadful with all their hair bundled under tight mackintosh caps and their ears sticking out. I had my nice black alpaca suit with stockings and shoes to match which I bought in France, and a red handkerchief tied round my hair which always curls so persistently when it gets damp. Karl and the boys wore fearful-looking striped things, and their feet were so ugly. Why are human beings' toes such unlovely objects ? A baby's foot is so sweet, but I never met a Trilby in real life. Karl was so anxious to teach me to swim that I didn't tell him for some time that I knew how before I was nine years old. He compared me to a Meermddchen and " Lorelei," and became suddenly so senti- mental that I made a great splash and swam 240 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND out to sea, while his mamma shrieked out from the shore that he was not to let me drown. He was rather clumsy, and I don't know what he was doing, but he managed to knock off my red handker- chief and all my hair floated out behind and got so wet I was quite cross. Frau von Stahl had for the last five minutes been im- ploring us all to come on shore again, and she held up a bathing sheet calling " Mees, Mees, kommout, komm out, enough, enough, komm out," but it was really so nice we all of us pretended not to hear. Karl said he had never enjoyed himself so much, and tried to show me an entirely new stroke, but kept making silly remarks about gleam- ing white arms instead of telling me what to do, so at last I grew tired and came out. We had quite an amusing tea and after- wards lay on the sands and behaved rather like children, and it was very delightful and I rather wished for Herr von Stein or Cap- tain Mardyke. Karl is a nice boy but rather simple and one knows exactly be- forehand what he is going to say. Schloss Freidorf CHAPTER X SCHLOSS FREIDORF T AST week it was very rainy for some **** days and we had to amuse ourselves at home as best we could. Gerda and Elsa have been doing the most frightful kind of painting on an immense wooden tablet for a cousin who is to be married shortly. It is just an ordinary deal board bevelled at the edges, and in the middle is a Spruch, " God bless the young couple/' surrounded by a wreath of daisies and some other kind of vegetation which no one exactly recognizes, but they are painting them blue so as to contrast nicely with the yellow daisies. " What will they do with this thing ? " I asked, after vainly puzzling myself over its various possible uses. " Why, they will hang it in the hall of course. Here are the hooks. Our other 244 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND cousins are doing a tablet too, but luckily they did not choose the same Spruch as we did. Theirs is ' Eignes Herd ist Goldes Wert ' — ' One's own hearth is worth gold/ like your ' Home, sweet home/ you know. Don't you have them in England ? Our last cousin who married had eighteen of them given to her on her wedding-day. Each of her schoolfellows sent one. She has hung them round the hall in a kind of frieze. They look lovely." " She might have had them made into a bookcase or a wardrobe for her clothes/ ' I said. " Oh you practical English people ! But don't you really have these kind of things in your houses ? The idea is so nice," said Gerda, dabbling about in the yellow ochre. I considered a moment and suddenly remembered the " God bless our Home " and " In Heaven there is Peace " on flowery cardboard which hung in Uncle John's old gardener's cottage at Painton, so I told them we never had texts on wooden boards only on cardboard. " Ah ! " put in Tante Klara triumph- SCHLOSS FREIDORF 245 antly, " that is because we Germans like something more solid and durable ; we have them too on flimsy cardboard for the very poor, but better class people prefer wood in our country. I will give you one to take back to England and the girls will paint it for you." Tante Klara had been very amiable, try- ing I suppose to obliterate in my mind the memory of the train incident. She now came and sat on a chair near, watching me draw Gerda's portrait, and said I was sehr geschickt. Then she asked if I would tell her about the suffragettes as she had just been reading about them in the Tagliche Rundschau. Of course all German news- papers hate women who want -to have any kind of power and are furious with the English suffragettes and always publishing all the silly things some of them do such as breaking windows and chaining themselves to railings and so on. i " Is it really true Mees, " she said solemnly, " that there are real ladies — well- born ladies who sympathize with this kind of thing, and actually walk in processions 246 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND through the streets of London — that we could never do here in Berlin — it seems to me most incredible. Do you know any of these people ? " I told her about Aunt Caroline having been arrested and nearly imprisoned, and about Aunt Caroline's friend, Lady Mabel Goldie, who was in jail for ten days and fed with a stomach-pump because she went on a hunger strike, and all the time Tante Klara's face grew longer and longer and her eyes rounder and rounder and she had a general air of moving about in worlds not realized, and evidently had black misgivings as to whether the girls ought to be allowed to stay and listen to such awful revelations. " I suppose your aunt, Lady Caroline, is not married," she said. " Oh, yes," I answered, " her husband, Mr. Hubert Baker, is a Member of Parliament." " And what does he think of his wife's conduct ? I suppose he is very grieved about it." " Oh dear no, not at all. He goes with her to Trafalgar Square and addresses the multitude on behalf of the suffragettes, in SCHLOSS FREIDORF 247 fact he quite approves of everything she does." " But how can she do such things ? To me it is truly deplorable. What is it these women want ? It seems so unladylike. Do they actually speak at political meet- ings ? " " Why, of course they do, nobody minds them doing that, in fact they are only too pleased to have them speak and help them in political work. Nobody thinks it strange. It is so nice and charming and truly woman's sphere to help her husband and to be beside him in every difficulty." " Yes — well — of course," murmured Tante Klara. " Of course, to help her hus- band, then, oh yes — then it is all right. It is not the custom here — but " " But there are a great many women in England who are unmarried, or pay taxes and take a great interest in politics and they want to vote themselves — these are the suffragettes. I shall be one when I'm twenty-one. I shall have to pay taxes and I shall want a vote." " You will be a suffragette ? " cried Gerda 248 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND and Elsa both at once ; " how dreadful — don't — you will never get a husband if you do!" " Even that will not stop me," I said, laughing and they all three gazed at me as though I were some extraordinary creature which they saw for the first time. " But what I cannot understand," said Tante Klara, " is that in some cases the husbands approve. That would be almost unthinkable in Germany. A few Socialists pretend they approve of women voting, but that is only because they disagree with every existing law and wish to alter it, but none of our class — no well-born people have such ideas, but in England it appears different." " In New Zealand and some parts of Australia," I went on, "women already have had votes for some years. It is really a very simple matter." " And the husbands approve of it ! " murmured Tante Klara to herself, " the husbands permit it ! " She seemed lost in a reverie in the middle of which Karl walked in and said it had stopped raining and SCHLOSS FREIDORF 249 would I like a ride as he'd borrowed a side- saddle and a horse. He had actually ridden four miles through the rain to fetch the " gee M in question. I suppose it wasn't quite correct, at least in Tante Klara's eyes, to go out alone with Karl, but as there were no more horses for anybody it couldn't be helped — besides the girls don't ride — and it would have been a pity to disappoint the Herr Leutnant after his efforts on my behalf, so in spite of Tante Klara's disapproving looks as soon as I could change we went off together. Every- thing was sparkling in the sunshine after the rain, and the women in the fields nodded and smiled in such a friendly way to the Englanderin. The ground here soon dries again, it is so light and sandy ; and under- neath the trees on the roads — for of course no road in Germany can exist without its twc long straight lines of ash or lime or oak — there is a splendid path for galloping. Papachen told me that it was Napoleon who made a law that every road must have trees planted beside it so that his soldiers might get shade and shelter. I think it a 250 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND splendid idea, especially when they plant cherry and plum trees like they do near Rehstein. Soon we turned into some fields and then entered the forest, the loveliest I have ever seen, full of rocks and sweet little brawling streams and beds of ferns hanging into the water. Great spikes of blue Canterbury bells and yellow foxgloves grew in the clefts of the rocks, and all was so wonderfully green and still and the alternate lights and shadows that stole in and out and played with each other were so perfectly fascinat- ing, that even if my horse had not been as good as he was I should have found it delightful. As for Karl he was of course not very interesting as a companion, but having been at so much trouble on my account I felt very grateful to him and tried to be interested in what he told me about himself and his regiment, although I should have preferred to ride quite silently through all that wonderful world of shim- mering green and gold shadows with the trembling broken light moving over the brown water and the wonderful forest SCHLOSS FREIDORF 251 scents of wet earth and crushed ferns and resinous piny odours. On emerging from the forest into the open cornfields we let out our horses and had a splendid canter sending up behind us great clods of earth. Karl rode very well and was not so stiff and wooden in the saddle as many Germans officers are. I found out afterwards that he had borrowed my horse from a comrade for whose wife he formerly had a quite innocent admira- tion, looking upon her as the guiding-star of his life and the inspirer of his best im- pulses and so on. Lately however, he has got rather tired of her and wants to put an end to it, but she naturally wants to keep on, and it rather bores him. There were more and more beds of love]y wild flowers and a pair of storks were walking solemnly in the meadows catching frogs. They are the most delightful creatures. I do wish we had them in England. We came to a farm where on the gable end of the barn was a nest with half-fledged young ones. Several of them were squatting on the edge of the cart wheel which the farmer had obligingly 252 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND supplied as a foundation for their home- such quaint copies of their parents. While we watched them, mamma stork came flying back with a snake in her mouth for the babies. It was so curious to see her long legs extended behind her as she flew along. One sweep of her great wings seemed to send her half a mile through the air, and she rose again with hardly any effort as soon as the snake had disappeared. They all made a funny infantile sort of Mapper with their beaks but have no voice at all Karl says. The farmer told us that the same pair of storks came every year — they knew them by a curious mark on the gentleman stork's leg — and he also said that in the autumn when they prepare to fly away, the other storks in the neighbour- hood assemble on his barn roof and in the meadow near and make a tremendous klappem with their long bills as if holding a sort of consultation before start- ing. The next morning they are all gone as they fly by night, but the farmer has never seen them depart though he has often watched, so silently and noiselessly do these great birds move. SCHLOSS FREIDORF 25S We arrived at Freidorf just in time for dinner, which is always at two o'clock. The dining-room is painted chocolate colour and the floor a rather ugly yellow, and there is a big dark-green porcelain stove in the corner. The chairs are walnut and they and the sofa upholstered in green rep, and the sofa is very uncomfortable to sit upon. There are two oil paintings of Herr and Frau von Stahl, exactly like them, but / shouldn't like to be handed down to pos- terity like that. We have quite nice things to eat, Nude suppe and eggs and spinach, and chicken and rice eaten with salad, and compot. which is stewed apricots or strawberries or plums, and one soon gets used to eating them with game and chicken. After dinner we drink coffee on the verandah and then go down to the Haff and cross over to have a bathe. Karl gets rather tiresome ; he is always hovering round, and the other day when it was wet, produced an English grammar and asked if I would give him a lesson. So tiresome of him ! He says he wishes to come to England next year and 254 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND has made up his mind to study English. He read the most impossible extracts to me about the Greeks and Romans, written in the most stilted language, and I told him if he really wanted to learn English he should read modern novels and newspapers and that learning laborious extracts from the classics would never teach him to ask what time the next train started or the nearest way to Charing Cross. I went and fetched a Strand Magazine and made him read something from that. He has a dreadful accent because he has only learned from a German teacher who spent a year abroad, and he kept stopping to ask me the meaning of so many words that it quite worried me and I put the Strand away and said, " That's no good, to-morrow on horse- back I'll teach you everything belonging to riding and we shall get on much better — books are no use until you can speak/' He now knows " stirrup," and " bridle," and 4i saddle," and says every morning " Issyor stirrup toolonk ? " or for a change " Iss yor stirrup toschorrt ? " and can count up to a hundred and knows the days of the week. SCHLOSS FREIDORF 255 The stupid thing is he tells everybody he can speak English now, and his father (who doesn't know any either) says what a great talent all Germans have for learning lan- guages. Now the girls and the mother can speak quite well, but they went to a private school where there was an English teacher while the boys are all at Government schools where they have Germans, who really know more about our own language than we do ourselves, but don't speak it very well. On Sunday there was a kind of school feast and of course we went. All the little girls wore wreaths of flowers on their heads and blue stuff dresses. You never see children in white muslin embroidered frocks here, that is only for rich Herrschaften* At first they sang a few songs, and then sat down to coffee and a sort of very dry plum-bread which was all they had, but they seemed quite satisfied. Infants of the tenderest age imbibed what looked like the strongest black coffee without turning a hair, and nobody thought of giving them milk and water like we should do in Eng- 256 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND land. All the mothers came and stood round smiling while the children ate. The tables were laid in the school yard as of course no one eats indoors at this time of year. Afterwards they played the silliest sort of games imaginable— one was called Toftf-Schlagen. They put a big flower-pot upside down and joined hands in a circle round it and one child was blindfolded and had a big stick and after dancing round the pot singing a mysterious rhyme they stopped and the blindfolded one hit at the pot. Of course the fun is to see all the blows fall on the wrong spot, but it isn't very difficult to find the pot and smash it, and seemed to me a very terrible waste of crockery. Big boys actually joined in this stupid game includ- ing the two young Stahls, till I proposed sack races as a more intellectual amusement. They had never heard of such games but hailed the idea with delight, and I showed them how to run three-legged races potato races and egg and spoon races, and the whole population was quite thrilled with joy. I became so absorbed in the arrangements, directing Karl how to place the potatoes SCHLQSS FREIDORF 257 and so on that it was quite a shock to find not only the whole of the people of Freidorf, including foresters and fishermen, massed round the school railings with eyes all con- centrated on me, but also all the people who drive in from the surrounding villages on Sundays to drink coffee and write post- cards at the Wirtshaus, which has a large Garten-Restaurant. They all deserted their coffee to come and see the new Eng- lish " sporting " as they called it, and when the proceedings culminated in an " obstacle- race " and the forester's boy hurt himself slightly in jumping a hurdle some of the old peasants said it was much too dangerous and ought to be stopped, but the children looked as if they enjoyed it much more than Topf-Schlagen, though they were very shy at first. We gave them postcards and pencils for prizes and they were delighted. One nice old forester said that last year they had races but there were no prizes except one he gave, which consisted of an old pill-box he had found with three pills in it. " A pill-box ? " I said. " Ja wohll gnddiges Frdulein." 258 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND " And were they satisfied with such a prize ? " il Oh, quite ! The first prize was two of the pills, the second prize one pill, and the third prize was the pill-box. They were delighted ! " Certainly German chil- dren in West Prussia are easily contented. The school smells dreadfully of corduroy and children. It is so funny to see the rows of brown bare toes under the desks. Not that they haven't got shoes and stockings, oh dear no, but it would be a foolish waste to wear them in summer-time. All the boys have their hair cropped to the bone and the girls tied with such insistence into the tightest pigtails that their eyebrows are dragged backwards. Vanity of any kind is sternly discouraged. There are no ribbons, no attempts at ornament, the severest utility, and yet somehow they look so much nicer wholesomer and better than the girls one sees in Berlin or London with elegantly frizzed hair sham jewellery and trained dresses. Still some- times it seems that dreadful things happen even among those nice fresh country girls, SCHLOSS FREIDORF 259 and Aunt Mary says they are too near to Nature and require to have their primitive instincts controlled by proper conventional ideas. At present their conventions are not in line with modern customs, and their views on marriage it seems especially re- quire modification. I don't quite under- stand what she means, only I know that yesterday one of the Stahls' maids had to be sent away in a dreadful hurry and Frau von Stahl and Tante Klara were whispering in a corner about it and wouldn't say what she'd done. On Friday it was a lovely sunny day and I was sitting in the garden reading while Gerda and Elsa were washing up the break- fast things — so silly not to let the servants do it but they think it teaches them to be good Haus-fraus, when the two younger boys, Hans and Heinz, suddenly appeared round the corner in almost a state of nature, for their only attire consisted of a pair of bath- ing drawers. " Luft-bader" said Gerda in an explana- tory tone. " Air-baths ? "■ I gasped. 260 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND " Yes, air and sun-baths ; they have them every day but you were generally out riding with Karl." The boys began gravely to recite their lessons to the Herr Pastor, who gives them three hours' tuition daily, and who appeared quite unmoved by the unconventionality of his pupils' appearance. Presently Karl and the girls came out and erected in a secluded corner where it was nice and sunny, a sort of tent without a top — just four canvas walls — and in this they placed a wicker chaise-longue. They said Tante Klara was also going to have a " sun-bath," and she presently appeared in her dressing-gown and red plush slippers, obviously uncorseted, and retired with a book behind the canvas walls, where she was supposed to lie basking in the sun's rays without any clothes on for several hours. While she undressed she kept screaming remarks to the girls, which was a pity, as of course it made us look in her direction, and the canvas walls being very thin some awfully queer shadows were thrown on them. It seems funny that such SCHLOSS FREIDORF 2C1 a prim old maid as she is should do such giddy things. In some places they have Anstalten for these sun and air cures, where you go even in the winter time and take walks in the forest every day without clothes. The ladies have of course one part to themselves and the gentlemen another. Gerda told me her father went once for six weeks to cure his rheumatism and he said the sight of those stout gentle- men in spectacles with one tier of fat above another promenading under the trees or playing Kugel-spiel was at first quite too much for him, especially when he reflected that he too must present a similar appear- ance, but after a short time he grew quite hardened and was even photographed for the bene fit of his family — a postcard photo- graph with " Viele Griisse aiis Bad Griine- wald" They showed it to me, but it was a mistake. Tante Klara kept calling out something which began " reine gottliche Natur," but when I thought of her conduct in the train and know that she never sleeps with her b droom window open I agreed with Karl that it was " silly humbug/' 262 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND which is one of the few English phrases he has learnt from me. He is always talking about coming to England and wants me to let him call and take him about London ! It is tiresome to be made love to by such a dull person who is so kind and good always doing troublesome things for me and thinking I ought to like him for doing them. We ride now every morning before break- fast, and he is really learning to speak a little English, stimulated I suppose by love, so it is consoling to think that even a painful experience is likely to be of permanent good to him. He never gets tired of saying — but I do of hearing — that my system of teaching on horseback is so good that it ought to be introduced into the army, and then he believes everybody could learn English in twenty-five lessons like the schools of language promise, but I never met any one who did it. Gerda has just given me a postcard of Queen Louise and another of Frederick the Great. In the remotest parts of Germany it is possible to buy these two celebrities, and I felt grieved the other day when Gerda SCHLOSS FREIDORF 263 complained that the English governess at her school insisted on believing that they were husband and wife simply from seeing them in such continual proximity. " Such a silly mistake," complained Gerda. " As if she had said Elizabeth and Charles the Second were married to each other, but you English people don't know any- thing of our history, yet it is really very interesting/ ' I tried to soothe her by pointing out that we had a man called Carlyle who had devoted much time and trouble to the subject of Frederick the Great, and had actually " discovered " the virtues of Frederick's father, who I consider was a per- fectly odious man, throwing plates at his wife and children and beating them with a big stick — a real domestic tyrant — even wanting to chop off his own son's head. Of course as Carlyle himself suffered from indigestion he excused all these ■■ tantrums " as the results of personal ill-health, but when one thinks what a narrow escape Frederick the Great had of being cut off at an early age by his beloved parent, one can't admire 264 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Frederick William as much as it is the fashion to do now. " Oh, but look what a fine man it made of Frederick/ ' said Karl, who, like all Germans, is now trained to believe that this severe discipline and cruelty had been the " mak- ing " of Frederick the Great. " He would never have been the man he was if it hadn't been for this early training, and he grew quite fond of his father afterwards.' ■ " Yes, he licked the hand outstretched to shed his blood like the lamb in the poem, but to me that crushing of a noble spirit is the saddest thing in all his life. Frederick was never a happy man. Afterwards he had all those cruel memories of his miserable childhood and youth ; thanks to his father he had a silly wife whom he hated — he who was so capable of appreciating feminine friendships and feminine wit and subtlety. I have in my mind's eye the sort of Freder- ick he might have been under different circumstances — a mellow, warm-hearted, genial, witty person, with a happy domestic life, quarrelling perhaps occasionally with his wife, but making it up again, winning SCHLOSS FREIDORF 265 battles, trying to make his people happy, with children round him — not the lonely cynical Frederick who hurt his friends without meaning it, and the softer, better side of whose character was never developed —all that was stamped out for ever by that heavy-footed papa of his who painted awful pictures himself yet wouldn't let his boy indulge his taste for music — he was a tyrannical, odious beast ! " Here they all blushed, and changed the subject to Queen Louise and her horrid treatment by Napoleon. " Well, I'm sorry he behaved badly to Queen Louise," I said, " but I admire Napo- leon so much that I can forgive him a few mistakes of that kind, besides he apologized afterwards. It really was her stupid hus- band's fault. Napoleon knew that Louise had brains and strength of character and those sort of women are always baffling and irritating to men. The poor tame husband could have been so easily managed." Here they seemed again to find something wrong, and Tante Klara said that Queen Louise had done all on her husband's 266 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND behalf, that was why it was such beautiful conduct ; if she had done what she did for the sake of Prussia it would have been wrong and unwomanly, but as it was for the sake of her husband it was very noble and self- sacrificing and showed every German girl what she was expected to do when married. I was sure Queen Louise would have felt the same if she'd been an old maid and had no husband — just like Queen Elizabeth, who was so plucky and snapped her fingers at the Spaniards. Visiting in a German country-house is so different to an English one; there is no "sporting" talk going on, nothing about hockey or tennis or horses, but often there are quite interesting discussions over ab- stract questions like Christian Science and Ghosts and Pyschology and things like that. Some of the poor nobility seem to be dread- fully proud and live a very strange life, sweeping their own rooms in the morning, and reading Schopenhauer in the afternoons, and though they will talk and be quite affable to people without a " von " to their names, they let them see that it is quite a SCHLOSS FREIDORF 267 condescension on their part, and the " von less " people are quite flattered and happy to be noticed. Of course it is rather strange, such a very sharp dividing line between people who are " not quite " and those who are, while in England plain Mr. Somebody may suddenly develop into a duke if two of his uncles die rather unex- pectedly. Indeed to me in England the great dividing line seems to be between those who dress for dinner every evening and those who don't, which after all is just as silly as the magic " von " without which one is not hof-fahig or capable of appearing at Court. I suppose it is here as in most countries, money that really regulates things. The richest people are the best educated, and the best mannered, the most travelled, the best read and broadest minded; well, theoretically they ought to be and sometimes they are. Rich people ought to be nice, they've no excuse for not being, especially if they've known poverty in their youth. Still I know — in England — some awfully nice poor people. Das Gesttit CHAPTER XI DAS GESTUT KARL, Gerda, Frau von Stahl, Aunt Mary and I have been to a great Gestiit or Government Horse-breeding Es- tablishment not many miles away from Freidorf. Tante Klara preferred to stay at home and take her sun-bath; she is also hesitating whether or not she shall become a Christian Scientist, and wanted a quiet time to herself to think it over. We had to go a good way by train first of all, and Karl was grieved because we ladies naturally, would go in a Nicht- Rancher, and he wanted to smoke but didn't like to leave us; besides that he wished for an English lesson in the train. Germans are awfully patient" and persistent over these kind of things, and don't care how much they bore people. Fortunately 271 272 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND some strangers got in, so I was spared teaching him the English names for every- thing in the carriage. When we got out at a tiny station we found that Herr von Bernow, the Re- gierungs-Ober-Land-stall-tneister (and a lot more) had sent us a most wonderful carriage invented by himself to take big parties of people about over the fields. It was a high dogcart first of all, and then suddenly changed its mind and became a very elongated Irish car capable of seating eight people on each side back to back, finishing off with another high seat crosswise at the end. This wonderful vehicle was drawn by four lovely Rappen, perfect darlings with their black coats shimmering in the sun. The footman asked us to wait for a few minutes for the train from Konigsberg, as some other people were coming by it and presently quite a party appeared, most of them officers in uniform with their wives. As there was no one to introduce them they did it themselves in the sensible German fashion, each man walking up in turn to Karl, saluting or bowing with his hat held DAS GESTUT 273 in front of his chest while he murmured, " Erlauben Sie dass ich mich vor-stelle. Herr Ober-leutnant von Schenke," or " Herr Regierungs-rat von Heinz" and so on. So very practical I think not only to mention the name but also the rank and profession of everybody. We drove miles and miles over a blank bare plain with a keen wind blowing which brought the tears to one's eyes and made everybody look lavender-coloured and pinched. Fortunately I had a very stout major on the windward side of me. He quite weighed the springs down on our side, but was a lovely protection and most affable and gallant. Evidently he was in great fear of his wife, a little sour bleached-looking woman with no waist, wearing rather depressing clothes, who sat some few seats away from us and in whose direction he always glanced nervously when- ever he paid me the tiniest compliment. At last we came to great droves of horses feeding together on the grassy plains, and in the road Herr von Bernow and his son were waiting for us. s 274 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND We all climbed down and after more greetings and introductions walked off the road into the fields, which had no hedges fences or trees, and went to look first of all at the chestnuts, lovely creatures who came crowding round us staring from under their tangled fore- locks, tossing their heads, sidling, biting, stamping, poking and pushing each other in a perfect maelstrom of horses. Herr von Bernow, who had a nice round cherubic face with infantile blue eyes and looked in his long black coat like a pro- fessor rather than a " horsey " man, was evidently a great favourite with the young wild things who came nuzzling round him, blowing into his neck and nosing affection- ately at his respectable hat. The droves were in charge of mounted men wearing the usual German flat cap, grey jackets, breeches, woollen stockings and loose hanging wooden shoes which seemed to cling on to their big toes in complete defiance of the laws of nature as they galloped hither and thither at top speed. Herr von Bernow said it was one of the tests of their horsemanship to keep DAS GESTUT 275 their shoes on their feet at the most critical and trying times. It was splendid to see the whole drove suddenly dash away at a terrific pace with a thunder of hoofs and a surge of tossing manes and tails, while the men galloped round them cracking their long-lashed short- handled whips in continuous volleys. I could have stayed all day to watch them, but there were many others to be seen, so we all piled on the big carriage again to visit the blacks and bays, what they call Rappen and Fuchsen here. The young horses have a sort of covered- in gymnasium, with posts to run round and little partitions to teach them to turn quickly, and a kind of Hampton Court maze and jumps everywhere, all con- stantly changed so that they may learn intelligence and initiative and other things belonging to proper education. They have to go up steps and into broken, rocky ground, and they have hardly any shelter in winter, and nearly all the time there is the keen bitter wind blowing from Russia — it is close to the frontier. " No pamper- 276 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND ing like in your English stables, where everything is done for show purposes, not for practical use," said Herr von Bernow smilingly to me. " We cannot afford to bring up our horses with every luxury, they have stern work before them; the best will be for the army, the others will go to Berlin and other towns, as carriage horses, and when they get old " he stopped. One dare not think of the old age of many horses though the Germans as a rule are very kind to animals, but one sees in Berlin so many crooked legs which tell of overwork, so many thin ribs and queer-shaped hocks that no one need feel sorry that the taxi-cab is driving the cab-horses off the street. I told Herr von Bernow that I considered the one redeeming trait in Caligula's character was his affection for his favourite charger, even though it went to rather extravagant lengths, as for instance in appointing it Consul. He quite agreed with me and said, " Why not indeed, when so many donkeys are now- adays at the head of affairs ? " He roared at this very obvious joke of his own and DAS GESTUT 277 was in high good humour over it for the rest of the time. Karl kept being rather tiresome and wanted to show me things away from the others, but I stuck to Herr von Bernow, so he finally went off in high dudgeon with a serious young man in spectacles who gazed at the horses as though they were denizens of another world. Among the bluest blooded of them was a son of Persimmon, who had an enclosed paddock to himself and tore about in proud and haughty grandeur, spurning the ground and looking at our crowd of odd- looking human creatures as though he wondered how we could bear ourselves and our own ugliness. One fine golden creature called " Pole- star " was let out of his box into a big ring where he danced a veritable can-can for a few minutes as if anxious to show us what a variety of attitudes it was possible for him to assume. The light ran shimmering backwards and forwards over his wonderful burnished satin coat as he bucked and kicked, uttering whinnying screams and 278 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND pirouetting, now on his hind legs now on his fore legs as the whim took him, in a pure ecstasy of motion . He stretched upwards in an apparent effort to fly, but before this posture had obtained completeness changed his mind and sank earthwards like a flash lashing out demoniacally with his hind legs, then ramping kaleidoscopically round the paddock reminding one of the Valkyries and the unicorn on the royal coat-of-arms. All the time Herr von Bernow stood inside crooning gently at him, and the stable men cracked their whips, stirring him up to fresh efforts. Into the midst of this lovely vision Karl interposed. " Are you not getting hungry ? " he said with a tender intonation of voice. Hungry ! With a sight like that before one. " You Germans," I answered rudely, " are always hungry at inopportune moments. When you invade England you will die of lack of raw ham and smoked sausage.' • But it seemed that the rest of the party was hungry if I was not, so at last we DAS GESTUT 279 turned in the direction of the house, The carriage had been sent back and some of the ladies who had come were rather funnily dressed for tramping over the fields. One, the wife of the Land-Rat — they spoke of her as the Land-Ratin — wore a frilly floppy dress with a long trailing skirt and had white kid gloves and a flower- bedecked hat. She was hung all over with rather cheap jewellery, and had pretty features in a rather common style. All the men seemed to admire her very much, while the women of the party looked at her rather askance and kept making whispered remarks. Some of them were very nice, but they struck one as dreadfully provincial and old-fashioned, and grew quite appre- hensive and fluttered if they found them- selves talking alone to a gentleman. Even a quite plain elderly old thing blushed and was fearfully embarrassed when she found herself alone with the stout major while the rest of us were quite fifty yards away. Karl began to assume an air of great protection, and offered to help me over some ditches which had been cut across the 280 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND field in various directions, but I put my hands in my pockets and hopped over them all alone, and Herr von Bernow came hopping after with his black coat-tails flying behind, and I challenged him to race with me over the other ditches and of course I won, and then we stopped to look at the others, who were coming slowly and carefully along. They might never have j umped anything in their lives . Even Aunt Mary managed better than the officers. I snapped them with my Kodak and Herr von Bernow said I was a " naughty little thing.' ' He often broke out unexpectedly into English. There was only one train back so we had to catch it, and of course there was a lot of eating to be done first, and it seems we had been three hours looking at the horses though it seemed only like twenty minutes. The hall of the house had a chocolate- painted carpetless floor like all German country houses, and the walls were hung round with queer paintings of dead and gone " gee-gees " — funny animals of quite a different shape to what one sees nowa- DAS GESTUT 281 days. Some of them were in yellow cur- ricles and had long tails almost sweeping the ground. In the drawing-room was one picture of a Russian troika with three harnessed abreast — the middle one must always trot while the outsiders gallop — and another of a sledge at full speed with red silk snow-cloths and arches of bells. Herr von Bernow could tell me the history of each horse : one had belonged to a Russian prince and helped him to elope through dreadful dangers from wolves and revolvers with a wealthy lady whose father wasn't " willin , . ,, The angry parent pur- sued them relentlessly, and they would cer- tainly have been caught if this wonderful horse hadn't done something miraculous, crossing a frozen river at full gallop while the papa stood cursing and lashing his own steed on the bank. Another had carried his wounded master out of a battle in Napoleon's Russian campaign, bringing him to a place of safety and kicking to death two wolves who thought to have an easy meal. Many French soldiers stopped in this place in the terrible 282 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Retreat from Moscow, and some of the village people still bear French names and are very French in type and manner. While I looked at the paintings and en- gravings the others ate all sorts of thick sandwiches and drank hot weak tea, but I could not tear myself away from the pictures so took my sandwich in my hand and nibbled as I looked, and Herr von Bernow seemed delighted to tell me all he could. I never had such an interesting time and I heard Frau von Stahl saying between enormous bites— " Liebe Frau von Bernow, the horses are wunderbar schon, but food is more at- tractive still. I am quite exhausted with all the marvellous things we have seen — oh, thank you, yes, this blood sausage tastes delicious. Our little English visitor wished so much to see the horses; they have nothing like this in England — no Government studs — it is extraordinary ; only private people breed horses in Eng- land ; erstaunlich ! — I wonder why — sehr komisch nicht wahr?" Well, so it is when one comes to think of it. DAS GESTUT 283 Karl became still more tiresome on our way home, was very reproachful that I had not devoted more time to him and less to Herr von Bernow, and tried to talk the most horrible English, but I felt rather snappy and tired and I would only answer German. Aunt Mary and Frau von Stahl and Gerda kept continually falling asleep, and as the train was empty and we had the carriage to ourselves Karl seemed to think it an excellent opportunity for his lesson. I was so exasperated that I taught him everything wrong, so that he now believes " kitchen boiler " the right word for " hat rack," and that " silly idiot " is the best English equivalent for a porter. These and other' terms of insult he has carefully noted in his pocket-book; but when I tried to persuade him that "jam-tart" was the same as " darling " he became suspicious and sulky and broke off the lesson abruptly. When we reached home we found Tante Klara still undecided about becoming a Christian Scientist. " I feel sure," she said quite frankly, " that Dr. Pilgus would feel very insulted if I did not call him in when 284 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND I have my regular attacks of liver- trouble. M " But when you are a Christian Scientist you won't have any more attacks; you will know that it is only your imagination that has made you ill . * * Tante Klara appeared doubtful. " And you will send for a c healer/ who will cure you by prayer and charge you ten or twenty marks/ ' " Ten or twenty marks ? " screamed Tante Klara. " Dr. Pilgus comes for five marks — never more." She became very thoughtful and I think is reconsidering the question. Jagd-Schloss Tannenbaum CHAPTER Xli JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM October I, 1910. T^EAR BETTY,— *^ Such wonderful things have been happening lately, and next week I am coming to England again, when I shall have some startling news for everybody. I left Freidorf rather hurriedly, as Princess Charlotte wrote and begged Aunt Mary to let me accompany them to their J agd-Schloss, where Prince Bernhard spends three weeks every autumn shooting deer. She wanted me to go at once, and so I had to pack up in a great hurry and telegraph to Augusta to join the train next day at Berlin. Karl was getting so tiresome that I was really rather glad to get away. He seemed so certain that I should fall into his arms whenever he chose to say the word, and was always explaining to me, as if he thought it must 288 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND interest me deeply, his little plan of life — how he has one year more in the army, and then will go to England for six months, and then he will study Land-wirt-schaft — farming I suppose he meant — for a year, and then he will marry and take over the management of his father's estates. " And then ? " I asked, " how shall you spend your time ? " " Oh, here in West Prussia. I shall have a great deal to do." " Won't you find it duU ? " " Ach nein ! war urn ? I shall have shoot- ing and riding, and the officers will come over sometimes from Geltau." " Won't it be dull for your wife ? What will she do ? " " Oh my wife — well. I suppose she will have her children and the housekeeping, and of course she can have a horse to ride if she likes, and the officers' wives, and her friends to come and see her." u How many servants shall you keep ? " I pursued relentlessly. " Oh, two women, perhaps three if there are many children, and a man for the horse JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 289 and the garden, and of course if I get on I shall keep more, but it takes time to get rich, but then perhaps my wife will have money that will make it easier for her." I wonder if Aunt Mary has told him that I shall have £800 a year when I am twenty- one. I hope not. " I like a wife who will find her happiness in her home," pursued the Herr Leutnant —it was as he was driving me to the station that these confidences were poured into my ear. " I know your English life is very different to ours, but for solid gemiUlichheit and peacefulness our German customs have much to say in their favour. A man's existence is mapped out for him beforehand, and as I am the eldest and shall have my father's Gut, there will be no anxiety for the future such as many men have." " But don't you want to go to the North Pole, or shooting lions in Africa, or explor- ing in Thibet or anything like that before you settle down to your potato growing ? " I asked. He pumped up a sigh from somewhere. " My dear lady, it is the earnest desire 290 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND of my life to do something of the kind, but my father is not rich, he has other children " " But you might volunteer for South West Africa/ ' I interposed. He looked at me reproachfully. " Would you like me to go so far away ? " he asked tenderly. Fortunately the horse shied at this juncture and spared me the painful necessity of conveying to him that his departure for Africa or any other distant part of the globe would leave me " more than usual calm," and his subsequent attempts to bring round the conversation to the point where it had been broken off were gently but firmly frustrated by me. We reached the station in the midst of a farewell speech full of sentiment which culminated in the production from under the seat of some rather crushed untidy roses which had palpably suffered from the pressure of a human foot. I already had one bouquet from the girls and another from the maid who did my room, for no respectable German can allow a female traveller to depart without floral JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 291 tributes of affection ; so I added the roses to Gerda's already wilted larkspurs and Martha's snapdragons, and the last I saw as the Bimmel-zug went ding-donging out of the station was Karl standing very stiffly on the box of the Jagd-Wagen, with his heels together, his shoulders thrown back and his hat held out at right angles, just like a funny wooden toy. What a relief to be rid of him ! So good ! So dull ! So uninteresting ! Augusta was on the platform at Berlin in the same tartan blouse and the same sham diamond brooch. She had been stay- ing with her sister, who is married to a rail- way official and lives outside Berlin. I think Augusta was rather tired of sleeping in the same room with five children (four sleep with the parents). " I hope you had the window open all night, Augusta,". I said, for I lose no oppor- tunity of preaching fresh air. She looked confused and blushed. " Ah, gnddiges Frdulein, one of them had a cough poor child what could I do he had to be very careful." 292 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND We changed the subject. Lotta was at the station to drive me to the Schloss in her pony-cart. She told me I needn't unpack much as they are all starting to-morrow for the hunting-box, which she described as something delight- ful, set down in the middle of the forest, and warned me against using wrong hunt- ing terms, as everything has quite a different name to what one uses in every-day life ; and she said it made her father quite apoplectic if anybody talked for example of Blut when it should be Schweiss, which is just as bad, I suppose, as calling hounds " dogs " in England. We started next day in a special train. Princess Charlotte and Lotta were in lovely green hunting uniforms, with short skirts and tan boots and deerstalker hats, and leather belts and hunting knives all com- plete. Prince Bernhard and the gentle- men also wore uniforms made of the same kind of olive-green cloth, and most of them had black cocks' feathers in their hats, not fastened at the side or front but at the back, and looking absolutely wrong and JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 293 ridiculous till one's eye got accustomed to this novel position. Lots of Jagers and footmen (also in green livery) and ladies' maids accompanied us, and of course Fraulein von Seydlitz was there in a re- markable shooting costume in which she looked like a disguised peasant. Her sallow unhealthy complexion seems absolutely out of place under the brim of her deer-stalker, which somehow never sits at the right angle and is always tilted over her nose or pushed to the back of her head. We had a gay luncheon in the train, all sitting at one long narrow table where it was very difficult for the servants to wait as the carriage swung from side to side so that all the soup spilled on to the table- cloth. It took us hours and hours to arrive, and we were running all the time through a dreadfully flat country and often had to stop at little wayside stations to let the express go by. All the inhabitants — such poor looking women and children — came and stared at us through the palings. They lay on the top of each other in serried 294 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND masses and gazed stolidly, and a few of them shouted " Hurrah ! " and Princess Charlotte nodded and smiled at them in her usual kindly way. We had tea also in the train, and it had been dark for some time when we at last stopped at the last station, where all kinds of hunting carriages were waiting, for we had still a seven mile drive before us. As soon as we left the little village clustered round the station, where people stood and peered at us from their cottage doors, we found ourselves on a broad smooth road — one of Napoleon's roads some one told me — which stretched away through the forest for many miles. Gigantic pine trees uprose on either hand forming a wall of blackness on each side, blackness which our feeble carriage lamps could not pierce. It was weird and eerie in the extreme these miles upon miles of trees each looking exactly like the other and all so oppressively impenetrable and silent. Sometimes at very long intervals we passed through a tiny village and a few dim lights were to be seen, then the forest swallowed us up JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 295 again and we drove on mile upon mile ever further into the deepening blackness. I have been in many remote places, but never into one which seemed so far away from the centre of life and activity as this Prussian forest. When we at last arrived at Tannenbaum all the villagers and foresters holding torches were standing round the entrance gates, while the children cheered and waved their hats, and the barefooted peasant women smiled and agitated their best Sun- day handkerchiefs brought out specially for the occasion. They all looked very pleased to see us, and Prince Bernhard saluted everybody rather grumpily while Princess Charlotte smiled and nodded and called people by their names. " Guten Tag Frau Schmidt, Guten Tag Mariechen, Guten Tag. ,y So it went on till we pulled up at the doorway. It was such a delight- ful place, built in the Norwegian style of great big pine logs, all stripped of the bark and varnished and planed a little on each side to give them an oval form. My bedroom was on the ground floor, all the 296 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND logs showing ; there was no paper or wall hangings, just the bare wood. The carpet was of a green mossy pattern and the furniture of pine wood, and a big green-tiled stove stood in the corner. I had one tiny cupboard, but we did not need many clothes here as we wore our hunting suits all day and only changed in the evening for supper. I was too tired that night after the long journey to trouble much about getting to know the gentlemen of the party, many of whom were strange to me, but I was surprised next morning on going to breakfast, which we all have together in a big wooden dining-hall hung round with hunting trophies of every kind, to find Herr von Stein waiting in the anteroom among the other guests. He explained that he had arrived that morning by the night express from Berlin as he had not been able to join the special train. No one had told me that he was coming, but I must say I was glad to see him as most of the other visitors seemed rather elderly officers, good sportsmen but not very interesting. After breakfast, which we ate sitting on JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 297 very painful wooden chairs — I noticed how uneasy some of the elderly officers were and how they missed their well-cushioned seats — we walked all about the house and then went into the garden, which is only just a lawn with a few bushes. In the front was a gravel terrace where Lotta said they made the Strecke, that is, laid out the stags while the foresters blew the Hallali or death-song on their hunting horns. One or two nice foresters came to break- fast ; one was a quaint old gentleman with rather bent legs, called St. Jean. He had a cow's horn at his waist with which he afterwards produced the queerest noises, exactly like a deer calling to its mate. He uses this to attract the stags. Rather a low-down trick I think to betray them by means of their holiest and most sacred affections. Prince Bernhard went out shoot- ing in the afternoon, and the rest of us drove out in three hunting carriages to some " pulpits " in the forest from whence we could watch the stags browsing and calling. The pulpits are like little wooden huts built high up in the trees with wooden 298 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND staircases leading up to them. We had to get out of our carriages and walk a long way in the most perfect silence so as not to frighten the deer. I accidentally trod on a tiny twig and everybody turned and said " Hus-s-s-sh " as if they thought I'd done it on purpose. One of the heavy officers moved ponderously about on tip-toe, and every time he kicked a stone or crunched the gravel or made a slight noise he stopped and looked indignantly at some one else. We must have looked queer going up the stairs in perfect silence, each person glaring at any one who made the stairs creak (they groaned under the ponderous officer). In- side the pulpits were wooden seats and a screen of pine twigs through which we peered at the flat green meadow where the deer ought to have been feeding but were not — I suppose the ponderous officer, Herr von Casper, had alarmed them. At any rate there we sat, hardly daring to breathe, craning our necks in a vain effort to see, and wishing the stags would make their ap- pearance. At last I grew cramped with sitting so still and stole down the staircase JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 299 in spite of Fraulein von Seydlitz's indignant looks. Under the pulpit I found Herr von Stein with the forester. " Come here," he whispered, " and look through my glasses ; a stag is just coming out into the open." I looked, and a splendid creature bear- ing an enormous pair of antlers walked lightly out from the shelter of the pines and stood sniffing the air for a few seconds. How is it that these wild creatures possess such dignity and absence of self-conscious- ness ? He carried those wonderful masses of horn with such perfect balance, such abso- lute Suddenly there was a tremendous though half-stifled sneeze above, and the stag fled on light-bounding hoofs back to the shelter of the trees. I heard a confused murmur of reproach, and wondered who was the guilty party. It was a feminine sneeze, and so I suspected Fraulein von Seydlitz. We waited an hour, but no other stag ven- tured out, and we turned back homewards at last through the gathering twilight for the October days seem shorter here than in 300 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Berlin, and directly after five the lamps are lighted. When Prince Bernhard drove away in the afternoon in pursuit of his stag, we had all to stand ceremoniously round his carriage and call at the moment of his departure " Waidmann's Heil," the old hunting greet- ing without which no good German hunter can expect to have luck. On his return every one rushed to the window or door to see if he wore in his hunting cap the Spruch, or twig of green oak-leaves which proclaims the successful sportsman. Fortunately we could see it bobbing co- quettishly from the back of his hat. He had bagged two fine stags, one with sixteen points, and was in very good humour, talking affably to me — the Suffragette as he always calls me now — and giving me much interesting information on deer and their habits. After supper we all went to the Strecke outside the dining-room window where two magnificent stags were laid on the grass. They looked sad and pathetic as dead things always do, and it gave me no JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 301 pleasure to see them nor to hear the merry Hallali which went ringing through the night telling all the village of His Royal Highness' s success. I suppose I have not the real sporting instinct, for though I love riding after hounds I am always glad when the fox gets away. When I asked old Dr. Petermann what became of all the stags the Prince shot he answered gloomily — " They are all buried in the stomachs of the people of Berlin/ ' which means, I sup- pose, that they are sent to be sold at the Delicatessen shops of the capital. The drawing-room here is a quaint cosy little place hung half way up with gay Norwegian linen in bright reds and blues ; it has various little nooks and corners, all made of course of wood, and a shelf runs round the room holding Norwegian dragon bowls, most of them beautifully carved. The only bricks about the house are those in the fireplaces, which have all open hearths where only wood and fir cones are burnt. It is charming to listen to the gentle sighs 302 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND and crackle of a wood fire. I used to often creep into the drawing-room, which no one entered except in the evenings after supper, and curl myself up in a corner with a book for half an hour. One wet afternoon, two or three days after we came here, I was in a big wicker chair behind a screen reading Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, when the door opened softly and Herr von Stein came in, opened the queer little Norwegian piano which no one ever touches, and began to play. I had no idea that he was such an artistic player. He has that subtle powerful touch that gives even the most commonplace music an indefinable charm. First he played plain- tive bits of Brahms, Beethoven, Wagner, and at last one of those waltzes from the " Merry Widow " which a short time ago one heard at every street corner and flower show. I hated it with the concentrated hatred one acquires for a tune from which one can find no refuge in any quarter of the globe. Well, he took it and tossed it lightly and contemptuously into the air as if to show what a stupid obvious JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 803 meretricious sort of tune it was, and then after a pause he made it into a kind of wonderful triumphal march that seemed to stir the blood and make one feel capable of any kind of noble effort and self-sacrifice. The room with its wooden log walls and queer Norwegian hangings and painted wooden bowls seemed to fade away, and one heard troops marching through the night inspired with a great and holy purpose, a subdued trampling of men and horses all bent on going forward to some sublime deed where they would perish together after accomplishing what they set out to do. Thoughts of Roland, Bayard, Sir Philip Sydney seemed to march with the music through one's brain. For a moment my breath stopped and tears came into my eyes, and I felt queer and silly. Then it changed to something gay and hopeful, and little thrills and quivers ran up and down my spine, and I felt myself trembling with the pure joy of life which seemed to penetrate and envelop me as the music rose and fell. Flowing fountains of melody sparkled in the air and nymphs 304 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND and fairies danced joyously in the sun- light and shadow, all the worries and cares of life fell away into nothingness, and the beauties and marvels of Nature, the wonder of singing and flying birds, the swift elastic movement of deer across forest glades, the joyous gallop of horses spurning the ground, all blended in the magic music. I don't know how long I listened; but at last he stopped, turned quickly round, and saw me where I sat in my corner looking I am sure, perfectly idiotic. " Ah ! you are there then — that is right. I was pla}dng to you." " But did you know I was here ? " I said. " No, I thought I was alone. Still the music was meant for you," and he came and sat down beside me on the wooden bench covered with cushions which runs round the fireplace. " Dear little girl," he said, taking my hand, " what did you think of while I was playing ? " and I told him as well as I could. " It is so long since I could speak to you alone," he began ; " here one is always in a JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 305 crowd of people, never free to sit quiet to- gether and be happy, and it is so long since I saw you ; where have you been all this time ? Here one has only glimpses of you across a dozen elderly bald-headed gentle- men with protuberant stomachs ; they block out all the pleasantnesses of life. Do you come here often ? " I laughed at his remarks about the elderly gentlemen. It was true, there were a good many of the kind here, indeed one meets them in every German drawing-room. " Have you been thinking of me while you were away, or did you quite forget our pleasant ride together ? " As a matter of fact I had thought a good deal of him but I didn't wish to tell him so. " You smile," he went on, " your enig- matic smile, but I really want to know. Hark to the rain beating on the window panes ; Princess Lotta will certainly be here soon to look for you to play billiards, so do not waste time but answer my question; more hangs on the answer than you think." " Then I will give you none, if it is such a serious matter," I said, for though I liked 306 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND him so much yet I knew I did not like him quite enough ; besides he was so vague and strange, as if he were not quite sure of himself and his own feelings, so I was not sorry when the door opened and a footman came to ask me to go to Lotta. It was dreadfully dreary in rainy weather, with the dripping pine-trees so close to the house and the little valley on one side where the village lies all blurred and wrapped in mist. In an English country house we should have started theatricals or something of the kind, but here people sit and look out of the window waiting for the weather to change. At the end of the first week of our stay Princess Charlotte said laughingly to me at breakfast — " An acquaintance of yours arrives to- night." I asked who it could be and guessed various people, but she only smiled and shook her head. As we came back from our drive in the forest that afternoon and approached the cheerfully-lit doorway my heart stood still, JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 307 for there silhouetted against the red light stood the last person I had expected to see at Tannenbaum — Captain Mar dyke. There was no mistaking his straight lean figure, and suddenly I began to feel happy, less lonely less bored than I had been doing for the last few weeks; the Jagd- Schloss seemed suddenly to have become a desirable place to stay in, a place where happiness held out alluring hands. All this passed through my mind like a flash in the short interval between seeing him and getting out of the carriage. He had on a nice tweed shooting suit which hadn't the dreadful new look of all that the Germans wore, and Princess Charlotte and Lotta seemed so delighted, quite taking posses- sion of him so that I had no chance to say anything but just a hasty " How d'ye do " before rushing off to dress for dinner. Still I hoped to have plenty of opportunities after- wards, but somehow one day after another passed and we were never alone for a moment together. That is the worst of staying in such a house where the guests are all supposed to be sufficiently honoured at 308 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND being invited at all and are never left free to enjoy themselves in their own way, but are mere appendages to their royal host and hostess. I used to see Captain Mardyke lounging aimlessly about the courtyard, evidently bored to death for want of some- thing to do, till one day I suggested he should fish in the little stream which flows through the grounds. Since then he and some of the elderly officers spent their mornings by the water-side, and Lotta used to drag me there " to see how the fishing is getting on." Princess Charlotte was quite charming to him, and had per- suaded her husband to let him shoot two stags, which of course put him in an excellent humour, especially as by some mistake of the forester one of them had an exception- ally fine pair of antlers, a sechszehn-Ender which they had been saving up for Prince Bernhardt gun. Fortunately the Prince was very good-tempered over it. He liked to hear Captain Mardyke relate his shooting experiences in Central Africa, so they got on very well together for two men of such essentially different temperaments, but I JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 309 suppose a love of sport draws men together as nothing else can, and the Prince is a fine sportsman, there is no denying it. People say it is his one redeeming quality and keeps him from going utterly to the bad. Every day Princess Charlotte monopolized Captain Mardyke more and more. In our afternoon excursions she took him always in her carriage while I had to drive in the second one with Herr von Stein, who was alternately cold and absent-minded and tender and very fascinating, but I grew in- different to his tenderness ; there was some- thing artificial and unreal in his manner, a constant checking of himself as though he had gone farther and said more than he meant. Sometimes we made long excursions into the forest by automobile at night. It seemed strange to be whizzing through those dense masses of trees, with the great glaring lamps lighting up the enormous boles of the pines standing in serried phalanxes mile upon mile, and to think what a dreadful business it would be if we got a puncture. 310 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND Three nights ago wonderful things hap- pened, and I shall never again smell the resinous aromatic odour of pine and fir- trees without recalling the happiest, hap- piest day of my life. It seems it is the custom while the Prince and Princess are staying in Tannenbaum to have a great potato roasting out in the forest at night. The foresters collect wood and make an enormous bonfire, and the head forester provides plenty of freshly scrubbed potatoes, and tea and salt and butter and meat cut in slices are sent to the spot, and a sort of impromptu picnic, half tea and half supper is held, the chief feature of which is the potatoes which have been roasted at the bonfire. It might seem messy and un- comfortable to some people, but it will remain in my memory as the most delight- ful experience of my life. How strange that a few hours can so completely change one's views of existence and put such a different colour on the future. I did not know till now how unsettled and unhappy I had been all this time. It was drizzling a little when we started JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 3H for the picnic, driving in open carriages. Princess Charlotte as usual annexed Captain Mardyke, and Herr von Stein was in one of his tenderest moods. It had grown quite dark except for the tiny sickle of the new moon showing above the trees when we reached the place where they had built the bonfire. Princess Charlotte put a light to it which flared up at once, and we all stood watching the leaping flames and showers of sparks while the foresters stirred it up with long poles. It was very comfortable to be thoroughly warmed through after our long cold drive, and I was glad to dry my cloak which felt sodden and uncomfortable. Minute by minute the heat grew more intense and the circle widened imperceptibly as people retreated farther back. I was hidden in the shadow of a big pine-tree quite by myself when I saw Captain Mar- dyke wandering disconsolately round through the trees as though looking for something or somebody, and I wondered if he were thinking of the American heiress. Suddenly he came towards me, carefully stalking his way from one tree-trunk to 312 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND another as though wishing to avoid observ- ation. " I thought I should never never get one word with you," he said. " Come further back away from this heat, there is a fallen trunk in the wood, let us sit down there a minute." We stole away like conspirators, passing a crowd of footmen and other menials who are always at hand to help at playing the " Simple Life," and found the log which was short and stubby and made a very com- fortable seat. " I have never yet found an opportunity to tell you about my brother Cedric," he began ; " he is engaged at last." " Cedric ! engaged ! " I knew Cedric Mardyke a little and liked him very much. " Yes. At last he is to marry Miss Irene Kendrick Smithson ; they are madly in love with each other." " Who is Miss Irene Kendrick Smith- son ? " I asked. " Oh, haven't you heard ? The pretty little American with lots of dollars which have been a dreadful stumbling-block, JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 313 for of course ' Poppa l Kendrick Smithson wanted Irene to bag some sort of a title with them, and as a matter of fact I believe several coronets have been laid at her feet, but after much hesitation and heart-search- ing and family opposition Miss Irene has decided to ' follow the dictates of her heart/ as the threepenny novelettes ex- press it, and poor old Cedric, who didn't care a rap for the dollars and only wanted his Irene who is really a very fascinating little Yankee with a delightful accent, is naturally in the seventh heaven of delight. He wanted L. Kendrick Smithson to take back all his daughter's money and declared himself willing to retire from the social revel and indulge in ' love in a cottage/ or a suburban villa I suppose it would have been in his case ; but the old man refused to play the stern and unforgiving parent, so they will have plenty of dollars to play with and the wedding is to be at St. George's as soon as the necessary frocks can be got ready." I was glad it was so dark where I was sitting, for I felt such a whirl of joy and relief and happiness that I was quite 314 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND suffocated for a moment and must have looked a perfectly silly idiot. My hands trembled and I felt myself shaking all over. " I saw a good deal of Miss Smithson in London," he went on ; " in fact when they were rather under a cloud, with a marquis hanging in the background waiting for the slightest encouragement to come forward and propose, and ' Poppa ' forbade Irene to see Cedric I used to act as a kind of ■ go- between ' and meet her in the park before breakfast and tell her where she would be likely to get a glimpse of my brother. Of course a busy engineer like he is can't be at every social function try as he will, so I gave them both some useful ' tips/ and the upshot of it is 'a marriage has been arranged/ Lucky beggar, Cedric." He gave a deep sigh. " Do you know," I said nervously — I could hear my own voice speaking un- steadily with queer quavers in it — " I heard of you being often in the park with an American lady but was told that you were the attraction. It made me wonder why you came abroad just now." JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 315 " Good God, Daphne ! " he said, " you don't mean to say that you — you — thought that — you must know that — well — at any rate you might have been sure it wasn't true." For a moment silence fell between us, the fire blazed up and sank, and between the glowing embers men were pushing in the potatoes and covering them with sand. Lotta with her shrill continual laugh hovered about with Herr von Stein, while Princess Charlotte gazed into the darkness, her clear-cut profile illuminated with rosy light looking rather stern and sad. A ceaseless bass came from the group of officers round Prince Bernhard. We two seemed completely apart and alone there in our nook of rough pine-trees. I laid my cheek on the bark of a trunk near me and felt my heart beating with delight while Hugh told me all kinds of lovely lovely things. I am sure no other girl in the world can have felt so drowned and drenched in bliss as I did that night. I dreaded the moment when we must go to supper, feeling sure that every one could read what had happened in 316 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND my face. Nothing in the world could have touched me then. If I had heard that all my nearest and dearest (excepting Hugh, of course) had been shipwrecked or perished in a fire my grief would have been very slight. How selfish and absorbing and altogether delightful is Love. No wonder that it inspires men to do great deeds. What a different girl I was to the girl of an hour ago. Hugh is so tender and chivalrous and manly, so careful of my feelings, so protecting and masterful. When we had to go to supper he made a little ditour and came into the circle of light on the opposite side to me so that no one should remark that we had been together, and Lotta shrieked with laughter on seeing me emerge from the shadow by my- self. " Fancy ! poor old Daphne has been standing among the trees all alone ; poor Daphne ! What a shame ! " and she osten- tatiously walked to supper with Herr von Stein. We had it in a little hut open on one side which had been decorated with fir JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 317 twigs. The rough wooden table was bare of a cloth, and the potatoes, many of them burnt black, were placed in wooden bowls down it. We peeled them as we could, for they were very hot and no forks had been provided, only knives, and ate enormous quantities of butter with them. Princess Charlotte had managed to recapture Hugh, but we looked at each other and smiled across the table from time to time and were happy. " I am determined to drive home with you to-night ! " he said as we came out of the hut and prepared to mount into the hunting carts which had been waiting in the road. " I am sick of the Princess's chatter. Look, here is a two-seated one, just the thing," and regardless of the fact that it was devoted solely to the conveyance of the two heaviest officers of the party, and in spite of the coachman's protestations, he took possession of it and ordered the man to drive on home at once, telling him he was feeling very unwell and couldn't wait for the rest of the party. Such an unheard- of thing ! I wonder what those Germans 318 DAPHNE IN THE FATHERLAND thought of him ; but how delightful it was to be just by ourselves in the dark — the coachman didn't count as he couldn't understand a word of English — with just a few stars winking at us from above as though they understood all about it. To feel one's heart at rest after so many weeks of fretful foolish worry, to be engaged to Hugh, to know that he likes me best of any one in the world — but it is impossible to convey to a person who hasn't ex- perienced it what such moments of pure ecstasy can be. The time seemed very short before we were back at the Jagd-Schloss where we waited for the others, walking up and down in the darkness till they arrived. That night before going to bed I told Princess Charlotte of my engagement to Hugh. She looked a little pale and wistful I thought, but was very sweet and wished me every happiness, but she had such a strange look in her eyes. " Fate is very good to some women, and cruel to others," she said. " I think JAGD-SCHLOSS TANNENBAUM 319 you are one of Fortune's favourites, Daphne," and she kissed me very kindly. We have written to mamma in England and to Aunt Mary and a few other people, and I am coming back home in two days' and of course Hugh will come too. It was strange wasn't it, that he should have been on the same train when I came to Germany and will return also at the same time I do ? But what a difference between then and now. I hear from Princess Charlotte that Herr von Stein is mixed up with a married lady somehow, and that the husband is beginning to be suspicious. I do not understand these things, but I think it was horrid of him to make love to me when he was feeling like that to somebody else. Good-bye, dear Betty. Next week you will see Your happy cousin, Daphne. Printed by Butler & Tanner, From$ and London, 'C^ -a*- Ww 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or On the date to yhifti twiAiwI Ket BweoTJooks are subject to immediate recall. ~"i-i TuU^^ Uoi^^fenia YB 2533 I 961715 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY