THE DOLL’S-HOUSE FLAGS (1917)
To begin with the youngest.
“Me an’ the war’s the same age,” said Jasper, for Jasper was born on August 4th, 1914.
Perhaps that was why he manifested such a decided and independent disposition almost from his earliest months.
It may have been that everybody was so busy he was more thrown upon his own resources than are babies in more leisurely times. But whatever the reason, he ran about when he was one, talked fluently—if in somewhat impressionistic fashion—when he was eighteen months old, and by the time he was two he had attained very definite characteristics.
Barbara came next, four long years older than Jasper. She had a round, rosy face and kind brown eyes that readily filled with tears, and her little heart overflowed with love and pity for the wounded.
Alison was quite old when war broke out. She could remember times when sweets “were nothing so very much—everybody eat them,” when “gentlemen often had two eggs for breakfast and lots of other things as well,” when “Mummy could buy anything she liked in shops, and nearly everybody had motors.”
Alison was six when Jasper was born.
Tall and pale was Alison, with straight black hair that reached her waist. She took the war very seriously indeed, and was implacable in her conviction that nothing else mattered. She was even rather shocked that mummy could take comfort in the thought that it would probably be over before Jasper was old enough to join up.
Then there was George.
He was an American and the same age as Alison and lived quite near, though after the unfriendly fashion of London, they might never have known him but that it happened his mummy and theirs worked at the same hospital.
He was an “only,” and when they first knew him went as a day boy to a preparatory school quite a long way off; but as time went on and transport of every kind became more crowded and difficult, he came to do lessons with Alison and Barbara.
Nothing made Barbara so happy as to be allowed to visit the “dear poor ones” in the hospital where mummy worked; but when she first saw the blind soldiers from St. Dunstan’s and they were explained to her, it seemed as though she really could not bear the knowledge. The children lived on the south side of Regent’s Park, and Nannie always took them there for their walks.
“Will they never be able to see?” she would ask piteously.
“I fear not in this life,” was Nannie’s invariable answer.
“Not anything? Ever?”
“Nothing at all. But they are very brave, Miss Barbara; they don’t cry.”
For days after when Barbara met them in Regent’s Park, her mouth would go down at the corners, and though she did not actually cry she was, as nurse said, “queer and quiet” for a long time afterward. Their inexorable doom weighed on her little soul, and even her serene faith in a kind God and protecting angels and the “tender Shepherd” of her prayers was somewhat shaken that such a cruel thing could be. Ah! if they could only have met Him! He would have “touched their eyes” and all would have been well. Perhaps some day—— In the meantime the fairies—and she believed in them as firmly as in the heavenly hierarchy itself—came to her aid, and by some process of reasoning she decided that the blinded soldiers were under an enchantment. That a wicked ogre, a German ogre, had taken away their sight (even as trolls and cruel step-mothers and evilly disposed fairies blinded her favorite heroes in the “Tales from the Norse”), but that some day a kind fairy or wise, friendly beast would put them in the way of getting their eyes back again. Surely among all the animals in the Zoo there would be one who knew exactly under what tree in the Park the healing dew might be found.
She never spoke of the St. Dunstan’s men as blind, but as the “poor enchanted ones,” to distinguish them from the “dear poor ones” of the hospital, and she would never speak of “Blindman’s Buff,” but always of “Enchanted Buff.”
Jasper had learned to salute and was immensely proud of himself. Every man in khaki or hospital blue that came in his way, from brass-hats to the most newly joined recruits, received his respectful and ecstatic salutation. Two-foot-six in a white Persian lamb coat and white gaiters would stand rigidly to attention and bring up a diminutive hand clad in a white glove smartly to his forehead. If the man he desired to honor happened to be in hospital blue, he then kissed his hand to express affection as well as respect. When the warrior in question perceived Jasper he invariably returned the courtesy with empressement. Generals were most punctilious in this matter, and when Jasper saw one coming he would trot forward, plant himself firmly in the line of vision of the eyes under the brass hat, and, rosy and triumphant, wait till Nannie came up, announcing proudly: “I t’luted ’im and he t’luted me.”
Everyone smiled upon Jasper. He was so small and round and earnest, and his absurd hair curled around the edge of his cap in the most entrancing fashion. He knew he was popular and enjoyed it amazingly.
Therefore was he surprised and chilled when one day, having as usual trotted ahead of Nannie, he stopped opposite two blue soldiers resting on a seat in the park and they took not the slightest notice of him.
They seemed to be looking right at him as he stood at salute, but they neither “t’luted,” nor did they smile or speak.
Jasper kissed his hand.
Still no response.
He kissed his hand, and blew the kiss right at them.
Puzzled, he looked from one to the other. They weren’t asleep. Their eyes were wide open, and their faces kind and patient, but they didn’t seem a bit glad to see him.
They just took no notice—no notice at all. And Nannie came up with the pram.
“I t’luted ’em,” he said in rather trembling tones, quite unlike his usual strong treble, “but they don’t seem to like me.”
“Eh, what?” said one of the men suddenly. “What’s that?”
Nannie said something hurriedly in a low voice. “He’s only two and a bit,” she added. Then, “It’s too cold for you to be sitting there. Have you lost your bearings?”
“That’s about it,” said the man who had first spoken. “Perhaps you’ll put us on our way. It’s time we were getting back.”
“We’ll go with you. Give him your hand, dear, and bring him along.”
“I did t’lute ’em,” Jasper said again, feeling that an important ceremony had somehow been scamped.
Both the men stood up, and the one who had spoken to Nannie jogged his friend with his elbow, saying: “And so do we salute you, young man,” and they both did.
The man put down his hand and touched the top of Jasper’s Persian lamb cap, and laughed:
“What a big man!” he said.
And hand in hand they followed Nannie to St. Dunstan’s.
“Now you know what it’s like for the poor enchanted ones,” Barbara said, taking her hands from Jasper’s eyes.
Jasper looked very solemn. “Poor ’chanted ones,” he echoed; “I’ll t’lute ’em and kiss my hand and kirtsey ne’st time I meet ’em.”
“You talk to them, my dear,” said sensible Nannie; “they’ll like that better than all your salutin’s.”
This Jasper was most ready to do at great length in his little high voice that the poor enchanted ones came to recognize a long way off. But all the same he never failed to “t’lute and kiss his hand and kirtsey.” No signs of respect and affection could be too much, Barbara said.
“It’s the worst thing of all, so we must love them most.”
Fairies and angels were inextricably mixed up in Barbara’s mind, and when her mother came to kiss her good-night on Christmas Eve, she murmured sleepily: “I simply can’t ’astinguish between God and Father Christmas, so I mus’ just let it alone.”
Even the toys were much affected by the war. Jasper’s Teddy Bear wore an expression not unlike the pathetic puzzled look of his brethren in the Mappin Circle, now that nobody threw them buns, sat they on their tails never so pleadingly. Alison had made him the brassard of a special constable, and he always wore it when he went out with Jasper in the pram. The lady dolls had all become V.A.D.’s or bus conductors or window-cleaners, and one quite recent acquisition was a land girl.
As for the doll’s house, it wore a martial yet festive air, for the flags of all the allies were stuck in a tight band of string with which Alison had bound it thrice just under the roof.
It was not a new doll’s house. In fact as doll’s houses go it was almost venerable. It had belonged to grannie’s mother, and was built in the early part of Queen Victoria’s reign. Unlike modern doll’s houses, it did not open in front. In front it was square and solid, with two large windows on either side of the door, which had glass panels, and actually opened and shut, and there were three oblong windows on the next floor. The roof was made of real little slates, with chimneys at either end of it. The ground floor was a shop, with two black counters that could be taken out and dusted, and the walls were fitted with innumerable shelves and cupboards. It was a silversmith’s shop, and on the brass plates under the windows were, on one, “David Strachan, Silversmith and Jeweler,” on the other, “By Appointment to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.” By which it could be seen that it was a Scottish jeweler’s shop, for nobody called “Strachan” could be of any other nationality. Moreover, there were tiny toddy-ladles of various sizes among the stock-in-trade.
Daddy used to tell the children an entrancing serial story about the inhabitants of this wonderful house, whereof most of the plenishings remained in their original form, though Mr. and Mrs. Strachan, the two shop assistants, and the baby, had been renewed from time to time, but always as nearly as possible resembling their predecessors. Thus it came about that Mr. Strachan had side-whiskers—daddy painted them himself—a stock and peg-top trousers, and Mrs. Strachan a crinoline and an amazingly slender waist; while Jenny, the maid, who slept in a box-bed in the kitchen, had a mob-cap and always wore her sleeves rolled up. The bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Strachan was much bemuslined, and the parlor had green rep chairs and a round table.
“It’s all of our doll’s house,” Barbara used to say. “It doesn’t belong to anyone partickler. Grannie said so.”
“George’s, too,” Jasper always added. He couldn’t bear George to be left out of anything.
And perhaps because George was an American he was a little less on his dignity than an English boy of the same age. He didn’t despise girls, he treated them in a comradely fashion that Alison and Barbara greatly appreciated. And Jasper adored him, for George realized that a person might be not quite three, with nether garments so abbreviated as to be almost indistinguishable from petticoats, with woolly gaiters and shoes so small they refused to make a martial tramp, however much one tried—and yet the said person might possess the most boyish soul in the world.
Therefore was George made free of the doll’s house, and assisted Alison with the serial story which she had taken over since that day, early in the war, when daddy went with his Territorial battalion to France.
It was on New Year’s Day in 1917 that George brought Alison the American flag for the doll’s house. It was a beautiful little silk one, and he had selected it himself at Selfridge’s.
“I’d like Mr. Strachan should have it,” he said. “We want the allies to win. You bet we do.”
But Alison shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hate not to take it—I’ll have it myself if you like, but it can’t go on the house. Not yet it can’t. America’s not in, you see.”
“After all,” said George, “we’ve done a good bit, haven’t we? Look at my dad—he’s been driving an ambulance—he gave it himself—ever since the beginning of the war, and he’s been wounded.”
“I know,” Alison answered, “I know all that, but”—and her grave little face was set like a flint—“you’re not in it yet, you’re not fighting, and only countries that are fighting with us can have their flags on the doll’s house. Mr. Strachan’s most partickler about that. My daddy’s been wounded twice.”
“Wouldn’t he have it at the back?” Barbara suggested. She couldn’t bear people to be hurt, and George looked very much hurt.
“No, thank you,” he said haughtily. “If it can’t be put with the others, you needn’t have it at all. It’s a great flag.”
“I know,” said Alison, “and I’m awfully sorry. Mr. Strachan would love it the minute you’re really in ... but till you are——”
“We’re in right enough,” George said bitterly, “in up to the neck. Mother says so. It’s only the President hasn’t said ‘Go’ yet—you know what Governments are, ‘waiting and seeing,’ and all that rot. Look at your own! And everybody getting killed all the time.”
“I know,” Alison said. “But that’s what makes the difference. We are getting killed, all the time, even here in London.”
George put the little flag in his pocket. “I came to wish you a happy New Year, Alison,” he said with an effort to speak pleasantly. “I’ll have to get you something else. There’s some little silver things for the shop for you, Barbara, and a machine-gun for Jasper. Perhaps the partickler Mr. Strachan wouldn’t mind having that on his roof to fire at the Huns when they come over.”
“Won’t you let me keep the flag?” Alison asked. “Then if ever America....”
“If ever,” George interrupted scornfully. “That’s all you know about it. If you’ll wait you’ll jolly well see this time. And you won’t wait long!”
But he kept the flag in his pocket; and that night he put it in an envelope to keep it clean.
George was right. She didn’t have to wait so very much longer, for on April 6th, America declared war on Germany, and he appeared directly after breakfast waving a Stars and Stripes large enough to have covered the doll’s house like a tablecloth, so they hung it out of the nursery window instead, and Jasper “t’luted” it when he went out in his pram. And Alison got the little flag from George and put it between that of England and France on the doll’s house, and he further presented the Strachans with two little khaki gunners to man the gun on the roof, for there were rumors to the effect that London would get it particularly hot that summer. The Huns were so angry about America.
That very morning great-uncle Jasper came to see the children, and gave each of them, including George, a bright new half-crown.
Jasper was much pleased with his, and refused to be parted from it even after Nannie had dressed him to go out. He declared he would hold it exceedingly tight and not “jop” it. Nannie had taken him with her down to the kitchen to get the list of wanted groceries from cook, and before you could say “knife” he had raced into the scullery, mounted a chair, and thrust the new half-crown down into one of the divisions of the knife-machine, proclaiming triumphantly that it was “a bid money-box.” And there the half-crown remains to this day unless somebody has been demobilized who understands Kent’s knife-machines.
Nannie hated to take Jasper to shops instead of the Park, but she had to do it sometimes because things had to be got and there was no one else to fetch them; besides, the “pram was handy for parcels.” He thoroughly enjoyed these expeditions and certainly cheered up the shopping of other people.
That morning when they arrived at the grocer’s there was the usual tired, cross-looking throng of housewives bearing string bags, irascible old gentlemen with leather ones, and the inevitable slate with the restrictive announcement: “No Matches. No Jam. No Bacon. No Tea. No Cheese. No Lard.”
“Tut, tut,” muttered Nannie. “No cheese again!”
“No tzeeze adain,” Jasper instantly repeated, but in ringing tones that might have indicated glorious news, and everybody laughed.
“Bless his heart,” said Nannie when she got home, “he does his bit as well as anybody.”
Alison was always ready enough to take care of Jasper, and was thoroughly trustworthy as regards letting no harm befall him; but she looked upon such “minding” in the light of “war work,” and her methods were somewhat austere.
She was annoyed that he should constantly interrupt mummy when she read aloud the latest war news from The Times by frivolous calls for admiration of his clock-work rabbit, and that mummy never failed to respond. And Alison was positively shocked that he could go on playing absorbedly with the said rabbit even when mummy read to them a letter from daddy in France.
She forgot that, for Jasper, daddy was chiefly known as a picture in a frame that stood on a table by mummy’s bed, whereof he kissed the glass, making a smudge on it, every night when he had said his prayers; whereas the familiar rabbit was furry and comforting to carry, and went across the floor in a succession of exciting hops when it was wound up.
After all, Jasper was but a very little boy.
As for Barbara, she followed where Jasper led. Barbara was no sort of use for minding. Yet she could devise most delightful games, and gave dolls’ tea-parties when all the vanished delicacies that used to grace such festivities before the war appeared again. So lavish was she with chocolate éclaires and cream buns and “white and pink sugar cakes” that Alison, the conscientious, was moved to expostulate, exclaiming: “What about the rationing, Barbara?”
“There’s no war in fairyland,” Barbara answered serenely, “and this is a fairy tea, so you can have as many lumps of sugar as ever you like.”
Jasper was a cause of anxiety at these functions, because he would put a whole plate in his mouth at once. The V.A.D. doll fell over backward, she was so shocked. Such voluptuous gastronomic joys as chocolate éclaires and cream buns woke no responsive thrill in Jasper’s breast, for he had never either seen nor tasted one or the other, so when called upon to pretend to eat something, he seized the nearest thing of handy size.
The children’s house had a basement, but George’s mother lived in a beautiful Willet house that had none, so that autumn he and his mother and their maids used to run over “to spend the raid” with Jasper’s household when the first maroons sounded.
After the Zeppelin raids the doll’s house had been brought down from the nursery to a room in the basement where there was a gas fire, and the children used to play with it and enact many thrilling dramas while the raids were going on. As George had prophesied, London got it particularly hot during the harvest moon of 1917, with five raids in eight nights.
They had all just got back from a holiday in the country and, with the exception of Barbara, who was gun-shy and hated the noise, they really felt the strain far less than the grown-ups.
Jasper usually slept most of the time in his mother’s arms, but after a particularly loud crash would rouse himself to murmur with sleepy complacency: “That was a good one. We got ’em that time.”
But Barbara, when the barrage was unusually deafening and prolonged, remarked rather piteously: “How it must ’asturb the poor angels!”
It was during the very last raid of all, in May of the following year, that something happened to the doll’s house. It was on a Sunday night, and the maroons didn’t start till eleven o’clock. George and his household hurried over as soon as he had got some clothes on, and Jasper woke up and was very talkative and cheerful. Arrayed in a blue dressing-gown and bed-shoes, he ran about the room, interfering with George and his sisters in their arrangement of the Strachan family, and shouting lustily in concert with the louder crashes.
He wasn’t often allowed to touch the interior of the doll’s house, for his methods were too Bolshevist, and he was inclined to instigate conduct wholly opposed to the characters of so douce and respectable a family.
That night Barbara insisted that Jeannie, the maid, and the baby should take refuge under one of the counters, while Mr. and Mrs. Strachan and the shop assistants crouched behind the other.
It happened that just then Jasper had developed a mania for collecting smooth, round stones, and Alison had suggested he should form an ammunition dump to supply the Strachans’ machine-gun. This dump he was allowed to build near the stumpy little low oak table on casters that had supported the doll’s house from the time it was first built. Mummy had carefully explained to him that he must on no account throw the stones at anything, because Jasper came of three generations of left-hand bowlers, and had already shown that he could throw a ball in the direction he wanted it to go. So far he had never thrown a stone either at things or people, for he was a kind little soul and no more disobedient than the generality of small boys of three. But he carried a stone in his hand all day long unless Nannie discovered it and took it from him. He liked the feel of it, its smoothness, its roundness, its vast potentialities.
That night he had been shooed away from the doll’s house half a dozen times, for Alison and George were absorbed in a thrilling play in which the Strachans captured a German spy who was guiding enemy air-craft by means of forbidden lights.
Just as the “Archies” were barking their loudest, and an unmistakable bomb dropped somewhere, Jasper, on the other side of the room, gave a whoop and let fly the stone he had in his left hand straight at the doll’s-house roof. It took one of the wooden chimneys broadside on and broke it clean off, narrowly missing the massed heads of his two sisters and George, which were luckily almost inside the house absorbed in the spy drama.
It also cracked some of the neat little slates on the roof.
There was a general consternation and excitement, and Jasper scurried across the room to secure another stone from the dump, when he would have undoubtedly had a shot at the other chimney had not Nannie caught him and held him tight.
Then it was that Alison astonished her family, for instead of demanding instant and condign punishment for her destructive little brother, she danced about the room and burst into poetry, shouting at the top of her voice:
The Strachans are in the War Zone, their house has been hit,
They’ve caught a bad spy and they’re all done their bit.
“She’s a most onaccountable child, Miss Alison,” said Nannie to cook next day; “she was actually sorry that the stone didn’t go right through the roof, an’ you’d have thought she’d have gone on ever so ... anyway, it kept them from caring much about the raid.”