Wanted, an English Girl

by Moore, Dorothea

  The high altar was dark, with only one little gleam shot out from the jewelled cross; Carina’s prie-Dieu, where she had knelt so long, poor child, before most people were astir this morning, was in darkness too. But the light caught the opening in the old wall and the head of those worn narrow steps that led down to the secret passages.

  The way down the steps looked decidedly dark beyond the radius of the light, but Gill was not a nervous girl, and she was particularly interested in the passages, let alone possessing a very real horror of Rupert-George being seen by Prince Waldemar. She felt as though it would matter less that she had let Prince Waldemar find out that she was corresponding with the English soldier if she wasted no time over her preparations for concealing his presence when he did come.

  The darkness was the chief drawback, but as Gill looked vaguely round for inspiration on that subject—to go upstairs and search for a bedroom candle was sure to mean falling into one or other of “those German cats,” as she described them to herself—her eyes fell upon a small object lying on the chair before which Fräulein von Dimme generally knelt.

  Gill pounced upon it with a little exclamation of joy. Fräulein von Dimme very much disliked feeling her way down the unlighted steps to the chapel in the dark of these winter mornings, and what Gillian found upon the chair was a small, cheap, electric torch.

  She did not hesitate for a moment longer then, but crept through the square opening in the wall and cautiously down the steps, one finger pressing the knob, that shed a comforting if limited light upon her way, and the other hand holding up her pretty evening frock from touching the cobwebbed stones.

  The steps came to an end in a narrow passage, which smelt damp, and it, after winding a little, gave into one which was considerably lower, and seemed, as far as Gill could tell, to be cut out of the solid rock.

  This was exciting. “I’ll just go to the end, to see where it leads, and then back,” Gill told herself, shivering a little between the dampness of the atmosphere and the strong excitement.

  She had gone some distance along that low rock passage when she suddenly became frighteningly aware that a sound which she was hearing was not the sound which she had heard all along, the echo of her own footsteps, but another sound—the sound of footsteps coming from the darkness before her.

  Gillian did not believe it, for a minute. Who could be here in the secret passages? What she heard must be the echo of her own footsteps—but even while she said that firmly to herself she knew it was not true.

  She slid back the knob of her electric torch and stood in the darkness, her heart thumping furiously.

  The darkness was of short duration. The footsteps came towards her rapidly—a sudden blinding light was thrown upon her face, dazzling her so that she only had an indistinct vision of a tall figure in grey German uniform.

  Then an extraordinarily familiar voice said, “Hullo, Miss Gillian!”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Re-enter Rupert-George

  Gillian could only stare stupidly for a whole minute without saying anything. It was one thing to think that Rupert-George would come in answer to her appeal and quite another to run across him so unexpectedly in the secret passages.

  She had certainly never dreamed of meeting him there; still less did she expect that he would address her as coolly as though they had only parted yesterday.

  “So you didn’t forget your promise? One up to you, Miss Gill!”

  “Of course I didn’t!” Gillian was inclined to be indignant for a second, just because Captain Cartaret was so refreshingly ordinary. Then everything came out with a rush.

  “Oh, I am so thankful you’ve come, you can’t think. Everything has been just awful, and Prince Waldemar is here in the palace, meaning to—to marry the Grand-Duchess.”

  “Don’t worry. Prussians mean quite a lot of things that don’t come off. It’s a national characteristic,” Cartaret assured her.

  “And Mademoiselle de Monti has been sent away—Prince Waldemar said she plotted or something silly—and Mademoiselle Pipignon is ill, and Prince Waldemar is always there somehow—I can’t describe it properly, but we push and push, but he’s always coming nearer, and first he was disgustingly polite, and now he’s disgustingly the other thing. He is a beast, you know.”

  “I know that. Tell me about—about the Grand-Duchess.”

  “She has been just splendid,” Gill said warmly. “She has had to be frightfully careful, you know, not to offend the Germans or anything because of Insterburg, and she has to seem friendly to them because they want the Great Powers to believe it’s a friendly occupation all right, and they give way to her about some things as long as she doesn’t complain of them to the Powers, I believe. It was awful, but stickable, till Prince Waldemar came—and then—I had to write to you. … She isn’t safe.” Gill’s voice dropped to a whisper.

  “Go on, please,” Rupert-George ordered, but still very quietly. “You had better tell me everything.”

  “He is drunk, you know—often—and there’s no one really to stand between—though Monsieur Dellotte and everybody do their best. And he has told her that she will have to marry him. She says she won’t, of course; but if only she were safely married to someone else! She is frightened now—really frightened—she told me never to go away from her. …”

  Rupert-George took off the German helmet that he wore. Its absence made him look more himself, but Gill saw, in the light of his very powerful electric torch, that his face was many degrees sterner than when he went away. The sight of it came in odd contrast to his voice, which was very kind and gentle, as though he were anxious to make it easy for her to tell her story.

  “Does she know that you wrote to me?”

  “Yes, I told her just now. The Prince had been so horrible—about the prisoner they’ve got, and he seemed so horribly sure that he could make her do everything he chose—and … So I told her, when he had gone off to see the poor man. …”

  “How did she take it?” Rupert-George asked quickly.

  “She was so glad that she cried: she hardly ever cries, you know; she’s the pluckiest person out, but she couldn’t help it then—she was so frightfully thankful.”

  Rupert-George gave vent to a queer little sound between his teeth, that couldn’t be called saying anything. Then, in a minute, he went on, in an ordinary voice.

  “And now it’s satisfactorily settled that it wasn’t deucedly impertinent in me to have come at all, I should like to hear what good luck brought you marching gaily down into the secret passages just at the right moment for me?”

  Gill laughed. Somehow it had become possible to laugh again. Rupert-George and his cheerful English manner had already done so much towards dispelling the horrid sense of nightmare which had hung about her for the last five days.

  “Oh, that was because I knew you would come if you could, though I didn’t think it could be so quickly, and, you see, Prince Waldemar doesn’t like you at all. …”

  She stopped, wondering how much she ought to explain about the interview with the Prince, and the uncomfortable amount of knowledge that he seemed to have picked up from it.

  “Prince Waldemar doesn’t like me? Queer—but I shall try to bear it,” Cartaret said.

  “But you will be careful, won’t you? Because they are fearfully anxious about spies here, and they have already got hold of a poor man whom they think is an Englishman, and mean to flog him to find out, and …” A sudden startling notion flashed on Gill. “He … he isn’t you, is he?” she demanded breathlessly.

  “They haven’t been thrashing me, if that’s what is worrying you,” Rupert-George assured her. “But I am certainly the chap about whose nationality they seemed a little doubtful. I have such a first-rate German accent too: they must be suffering rather badly from the jim-jams over the spy question, I imagine.”

  Gill gazed at him in dismay. “You were a prisoner, then?”

  “These little accidents will happen.”

  “But
how did you …?”

  “Get off? Oh, that was due to luck and Prince Waldemar. Really I ought to be quite grateful to him. He sent word that execution could be delayed till he had dined and could superintend personally—and Dick Cheshire had furnished me with an excellent map of the grotto, showing where it joined on to the old guardroom. Part of it was used for a private-grudge sort of a jail, in the good old days, you know. They shoved me into the inner guardroom while they fed, and then I was as right as rain. Merely a case of moving some rubbish and oiling a rather stiff bolt.”

  “But won’t they come after you?” Gill asked, trying to keep nervousness out of her voice.

  “Not here. They’ll think I got through the little postern and escaped into the town. The Prussian keeps all his brains in the spy department, and never leaves them lying about loose outside. Besides, we’ll hope that the Grand-Duchess and Dick Cheshire, with yourself, are the only people who know the way into these passages. I expect to find them very useful.”

  “Oh, what about poor Dick?” Gill burst out. “Have you seen him? Is his wound better?”

  Cartaret screwed up his eyes. “He’s pretty bad, poor chap! They’re doubtful whether they can save his leg, but I must say he is uncommonly cheerful about the whole concern. Oh yes, I saw him all right. He is in the private hospital that my mother and stepfather have made of their house, and my young sister Babie and he are tremendous pals, because he says she reminds him of you. His mother is there with him, so she didn’t have to waste time in forwarding your letter to me.”

  “Of course—you were hurt too,” Gill hastened to say, compunctious for having forgotten that fact even for a moment. Only it was difficult to think of everything, when it was all so tremendously exciting. “Was it bad?”

  “Rather not!—just a little shrapnel got lodged in my wrist, the left by good luck, and they sent me home to have it hoicked out. Jolly good luck to be on sick leave just now, and, as I shan’t notify the War Office of my change of address, there won’t be any trouble over my proceedings. ‘What the eye doesn’t see,’ etc. Now let’s talk business.”

  Gill was brought back to the everyday difficulties with a rush.

  “Oh, I must tell Carina! Only I suppose one or other of those German cats will be in the way.”

  “Wait a minute!” Captain Cartaret spoke authoritatively. “We’ve got to settle something first, for I don’t suppose you find it any too easy to slip away unobserved, do you?”

  “I’m not awfully important,” Gill explained with candour. “I don’t think anybody bothers much about me, except Carina.”

  “Not the German cats?”

  “No—o. Prince Waldemar does, though. He pumped me about you, and, I suppose it was my fault somehow though I don’t exactly know how—but he seemed to know that I had written to you.”

  “Oh, he knows that, does he? Most likely all letters are censored.”

  “But mine went?”

  “Yes, yours went—thank heaven! But it’s conceivable that it went because friend Waldemar wished me to answer your invitation.”

  Gill did not see for a minute. When she did see she turned rather cold.

  “What … what are you going to do then?” she asked.

  Rupert-George’s answer was certainly a startling one.

  “Ask the Grand-Duchess to marry me.”

  There was a silence of several minutes, during which Gillian stared blankly up into Captain Cartaret’s handsome face, and he looked down into hers. Gill had a rather resentful idea that his eyes were twinkling.

  “I’m sorry you don’t approve.” He broke the silence at last.

  “It isn’t that,” Gill said awkwardly. “Of course I know she must marry someone, if she is to get quit of that Prince Waldemar. Only …”

  “Don’t try to spare my feelings, though it’s very nice of you,” Rupert-George said. “If you mean that I’m not worthy to button her shoes, do you suppose I don’t know that?”

  “It’s not that, at all,” Gill assured him with vigour. “I think you’re … besides, she … I mean it’s … and anyhow, she doesn’t like suitable people.”

  And at that Rupert-George suddenly collapsed into helpless laughter. “I’m awfully sorry,” he got out, as soon as he could speak. “Abominably rude of me, I know. And I’m really pleased to hear that there is any reason, even a negative one, that makes me a possible suitor in your eyes—I really am.”

  “Look here, I shall have to be going,” Gill said, rather offended. “Somebody might come into the chapel, though luckily Germans aren’t great at praying. But I left the entrance open, of course—fortunately it’s behind a pillar and doesn’t show much. Only it would be safer to go. And what shall I say to … to Carina?”

  Rupert-George became grave again.

  “The secret entry is in the chapel? Good! And when does the Grand-Duchess get rid of the ‘cats’ you allude to so feelingly?”

  “Depends when we go to bed,” Gill told him practically. “I sleep with Carina.”

  “You do. That’s all right, then.”

  “Am I to tell her about your being here?”

  “Yes; but, for heaven’s sake, nothing else. Only ask her from me if she will have the infinite condescension to let me speak to her in the chapel, at midnight. You’ll come with her, of course.”

  “That all I’m to say?”

  “Yes. Oh, you can tell her about Dick, of course, or anything you like; but don’t give me away. I’m trusting you.”

  “I shouldn’t dream of mentioning the other thing,” Gill said, with dignity. “But—I think you ought to know that the Grand-Duchess never puts her own feelings before what she feels is her duty to Insterburg.”

  “It’s nice of you to try and let me down gently,” Rupert-George told her with gratitude. “We always were allies, weren’t we? But you know you pointed out that suitability was rather a drawback in her eyes, so perhaps its absence might be a corresponding advantage.”

  Gill could not think it was that, but there was no doubt at all in her mind as to the immense advantage of having Rupert-George as a bulwark, whatever he might be as a suitor for the Grand-Duchess. She wanted to put this nicely, so as not to hurt his feelings. While she was struggling with the framing of the sentence he spoke again.

  “You don’t agree? But I’m sure you’ll wish me luck all the same, won’t you?”

  “Oh, I will! I do!” Gill said warmly. “And I only wish you were suitable, for I’m sure the Grand-Duchess would get over that. … But I’ll tell her—twelve o’clock in the chapel, and I know she’ll come!”

  “Thank you,” said Rupert-George.

  CHAPTER XXV

  Midnight in the Chapel

  Several days and nights appeared to pass before midnight was even near. There never had been an evening of such inordinate length in all Gill’s life.

  Afterwards—a long while afterwards—when some of the horrors of that dreadful time were beginning to bear speaking of, Gill tried to answer questions about that evening, only to find out that everything was hopelessly blurred and vague. Just a few detached things that happened stood out in her memory, but they were not the things that make a consecutive story.

  She knew that, when she had got back into the chapel and closed the secret entry behind her, she sat in one of the low chairs for several minutes, wondering rather helplessly if everything had really happened, or whether she had only dreamed that she had been in story-bookish secret passages, talking to some one who proposed to undertake the championing of Carina for good and all.

  Gill was not given to tears—Elys had cried enough for them both in old days—but she found tears pricking into her eyes as she sat there, in the enormous relief of it all. She had not known till then, quite how desperately, helplessly, afraid she had been for the Grand-Duchess—or perhaps she had been afraid to let herself know how afraid she was.

  After a time she supposed she had remembered that her absence might be noticed, for she had a dim re
collection of sitting on a sofa in the shell drawing-room, beside Fräulein von Dimme, who was performing some exquisite embroidery, and hearing the level toneless voice remark that no English girl could use her needle.

  An irruption of very fine uniform, clothing equally fine temper, was something that stood out again: Prince Waldemar and Captain von Posen were in a fury at the escape of the suspected spy, and did not hesitate to show it. Gill believed that the Prince had an idea that Carina had something to do with the escape, but did not quite like to accuse her in so many words. He told her that “the English swine had got away, curse him! but they would run him down yet and flay him for the trouble he had given, if for nothing else.”

  “I am glad he has escaped,” Carina said, looking the Prince in the face with her clear brave eyes, and Gill saw a devil peer out of the Prince’s pale prominent ones. She was to know that expression better before so very many hours had passed.

  Just then she could not think much about expressions when search was being made everywhere for Rupert-George, who was all the time waiting in the secret passages for midnight to come. She had a fear that she was looking as though she knew something, and made desperate efforts to seem really, not just politely, interested in what Fräulein von Dimme was saying about the rival merits of white or coloured threads for the embroidering of white toilet-covers.

  The Prince did not stay long in the drawing-room; that was one comfort. He flung out very shortly to learn if there were any news yet of the prisoner, lighting one of the cigars, without which he was hardly ever seen, before he was well outside the Grand-Duchess’s drawing-room. Von Posen went with him, but the two German ladies were very much there still, so there was no chance of holding any communication with Carina. By and by an evening paper was brought in, and the Baroness von Adelströmer asked leave to read the news to her Grand-ducal Highness, and Carina giving quiet and dignified permission, the stupendous doings of the Prussian Guard were set forth in the Baroness’s high-nosed manner, together with the absolute annihilation of the British forces.