II
I went to bed at six with the syncopated rhythm of the song jerking and jigging along every nerve of body and head.
When I awoke at noon on the Saturday, the papers were brought me with my tea, and I struggled sleepily to read reason into the day's record of diplomatic wrangling. Eminently moderate proposals were met by statements of irreducible minima, and in the ensuing deadlock our ambassadors surged forward like a Greek Chorus with ineffectual pleas for patience and the avoidance of irretrievable steps. Any cynic among the combatants must have laughed himself feeble at our resourceful accommodations and fertile readjustments. There was no power we were not prepared to placate, no ruffled plumage we did not hold ourselves competent to smooth. And so far as I could then see, it was an affair of ruffled plumage, no more and no less.
A tired restlessness settled on our shrunken numbers at luncheon, and in the afternoon I asked Bertrand by wire to take pity on a man five miles from a station and to send me news as it was made public. We were sitting at tea under the elm trees at the back of the house when a footman appeared with a salver in his hand. O'Rane leapt to his feet—and subsided with a mutter of disappointment when the telegram was brought to me.
"Read it aloud!" they all cried, as I tore open the envelope.
"'Germany reported to have declared war on Russia,'" I said and saw Violet cover her face with her hands.
Mayhew put down his cup and lit a cigarette.
"I was wrong yesterday," he admitted. "I thought Russia'd climb down. Jim, I must ask you to excuse me. I shall have to get back to Budapest."
O'Rane walked to my chair and took the telegram from my hands.
"Germany—reported—to—have—declared—war—on—Russia," he repeated. "Germany the aggressor, in other words. That means France will come in."
Amy jumped to her feet and then sat down again.
"I—I don't understand it!" she exclaimed. "It's all so inconceivably wicked. Just because a wretched little country like Servia...."
She broke off and sat interlacing her fingers and frowning perplexedly.
"Don't be too hard on Servia, Lady Amy," Mayhew said and told her his version of the Serajevo murders.
"And don't be too hard on even Austria," added O'Rane softly when the story was done. "I'm none so sure it was Austria that baited the trap. When you see how keen Germany is to keep the quarrel fanned——"
"And bring France in at one door and Russia at the other?" Loring interrupted sceptically. "The one combination Bismarck schemed to avoid?"
"Bismarck's dead," O'Rane flung back. "And Russia won't be mobilized for weeks. If once they break through, the Germans can march to Paris and back again while she's getting ready. It's a gamble, but she had to gamble sooner or later. No country on earth could stand her rate of preparations. If they can break through.... Where's a map, Jim? I want to see the length of line from Belgium to Switzerland. Of course, if the French can hold them for a month——"
"France hasn't declared war yet," I called out as they hurried away. Neither checked his pace at my words. Heaven knows! I paid little enough attention to them myself. At best it was an exercise in whistling to keep up courage.
When they had gone, Mayhew slipped quietly away, and in half an hour a car was at the door, and we went round to the front of the house to bid him good-bye. Lady Loring, who had spent the afternoon in her room, came down for a moment, and I saw that her eyes were red and her placid, pretty face haggard with distress.
"Why must it be, George?" she whispered, pointing over the valley to the blue haze of the Gloucestershire hills. "It's all so peaceful here.... And there must be thousands of places like this all over Europe—with men coming home through the fields in the cool of evening.... Why must they start blowing each other to pieces when none of them knows what it's all about? Who can be wicked enough to take the responsibility?"
"We appear to have done our best to stop it," I said. "It seems as though there's something of the mad dog in every man."
Lady Loring smiled wistfully.
"Not in my husband, George. Were you too young to remember him? It's not quite fifteen years since he was killed, and I often wonder what good his death did. What would have happened if there'd been no South African War?"
"A great many fine lives would have been spared," I said. "And what good will it do to slaughter the manhood of Russia, France, Germany ...? It's the size of the modern army that appals me, Lady Loring."
"Thank God we aren't called on to swell the slaughter," she replied.
By Sunday morning our further reduced party was in the profoundest depression. While Violet and the Lorings were at Mass, I motored to Chepstow with O'Rane and Val Arden in search of papers. We returned with moist, ill-printed sensational weeklies that the others had never before seen and with heads pressed close together we studied the sinister type, repeating the headlines under our breath and gradually chanting them in a falling dirge. Bertrand's tentative announcement was confirmed, and on the assumption that France would come to the assistance of her ally, German troops were massing in stupendous numbers on the Rhine frontier.
"Some of them actually on French soil!" Loring exclaimed and read on. "Pouring into Luxembourg.... Isn't Luxembourg a neutral, Raney?"
"A la guerre comme à la guerre," murmured O'Rane. "So's Belgium, if you come to that; but they're asking leave to march through and, if leave's refused, they'll dam' well take it." He dropped the paper and walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets. "The war'll be over in a fortnight if they advance simultaneously from north and east; it'll be another Sedan. We can't allow that."
"For God's sake don't drag us in!" Loring exclaimed.
O'Rane faced him with amazement in his black eyes.
"But we can't see the whole of northern France in German hands, plus, say, a five hundred million indemnity for the trouble. How long d'you suppose it would be before our turn came? You can build the hell of a lot of ships with five hundred millions."
Loring was silent. We were all silent as the new possibilities floated gigantically within our vision. Eight-and-forty hours before we had discussed a pair of political assassinations in an outlying province of the Austrian Empire; we were now to consider the prospect of Europe's greatest military power establishing naval bases from Cherbourg to Dunkirk. So a man, straying too near an unfenced engine, might watch in fascination as wheel bit into wheel and the cogs engaged inexorably for his destruction.
"And Mayhew told us Russia wasn't ready," murmured O'Rane.
"Oh, well," I said, "I've spent six years telling people that democracy wouldn't fight democracy."
"If once we have to start eating our words——" Loring began, and ended with a shrug of the shoulders.
I never recall a longer morning. We sat in the garden after breakfast, reviving the memories of the dance and making plans for Violet and Jim; without warning our feverish voices would stammer and stop, as with the gag of unskilled players while the stage waits. After a moment's restless silence we would break into pairs in answer to a common tacit summons, and Amy and I rounding the corner of the terrace would meet Jim and Violet, long-faced and distraught.
"You know this is simply appalling!" one of us would say. We had all said it by luncheon-time.
The afternoon brought variety and a deputation of three from the Neutrality League—the shortest lived and not least pathetic body with which I have been associated. It was introduced by Dillworth, the red-bearded, uncompromising Socialist at whom I had gazed more in pity than anger during my first session—Rayston, the Quaker chemical manufacturer, spoke second, and the third of the party was Braddell, who rose from journalistic obscurity by demonstrating the economic impossibility of war. They had coopted a considerable committee of recalcitrant Radicals, pacificist divines, two professors from provincial universities and the usual unclassified residue that is flattered to be asked for its signature to a memorial. Their journey from London by a stopping train was to be explained by my association with "Peace" and by the perfidy of my uncle, who saw them from his dining-room window and locked himself in his room with an internal chill. The chill, he gave them to understand from the lips of Filson, the butler, would outlast them, but they were always at liberty to interview me if they cared to visit Loring Castle, Chepstow.
A difficult meeting was not made the easier by the fact that I entertained a certain admiration for Dillworth. He was transparently honest, and we had on more than one occasion worked amicably in the interests of "Peace." I had no idea what line Bertrand proposed to take with our paper but, presuming that he left me a free hand, I spoke my thoughts as they were beginning to crystallize—and proved guilty of that inconsistency which is the unforgivable sin in the eyes of such doctrinaries as made up my deputation.
Their speeches invited my collaboration in a manifesto declaring our detachment from the European quarrel. We were to silence the increasingly aggressive tone of our diplomatic correspondence, to warn the Government of France that it must look for no assistance in a wholly unnecessary war, to detach Russia and eventually leave Servia to pay the penalty of her crimes.
"Her crimes?" I echoed, for my mind was full of Mayhew's grim story of the murders.
"Surely," answered Dillworth. "I'm a Socialist, Mr. Oakleigh, and I'm a Republican, but I flatter myself I've got some little imagination. If you'd seen years of sedition in Afghanistan, if you were told that Afghans had murdered the Prince of Wales as he toured the North-West Frontier Provinces—it's no good shaking your head, sir—you'd call for securities no whit less sweeping than those that Austria is demanding. I've attacked Russia more than once for tyranny, but I never thought I should attack her for supporting political assassination."
I tried to waive causes and concentrate his mind on results.
"Will you acquiesce in the German occupation of Paris and Cherbourg?" I asked.
Rayston plunged his hand into the capacious pocket of his overcoat, produced a sheaf of cuttings and read me extracts from my own articles on Germany as a land of peace and potential friendliness.
"Is that true or is it not?" he demanded.
"I believed it true when I wrote it," I said.
"Has the whole nation changed in a week?" he demanded, flinging out his arms.
"I've changed my opinion of the nation."
"In seven days—after holding it as many years? It doesn't take much to shake your faith."
"It takes a good deal," I answered. "Unfortunately a good deal was forthcoming. In respect of your manifesto, I don't want war; I hate the idea of it; we must do all in our power to keep out of it. But I don't know the limits of our power or the obligations of the Entente. If our hands were free, I'm disposed to let France fight her own battles; if we're bound by treaty, there's no more to be said. Of course, if the Germans try to get through Switzerland or Belgium, that introduces a new factor, and we look only at the question of policy. I submit that it is not good policy to have another Sedan, and I think manifestos and counter-manifestos may well be postponed till the Government has given a lead."
Dillworth picked up his hat and buttoned his coat deliberately.
"We counted on you, Mr. Oakleigh," he said.
"I am sorry to disappoint you," I said.
That night we tried to keep away from the state of Europe, but all paths in conversation led back to the same point. The international position of Luxembourg carried us to the library: histories called for atlases, the armies at Sedan sent us to the "Statesman's Year Book," and we ended with strategic railways, the population of Russia and our Expeditionary Force.
"I wonder what these devils in Ireland are going to do?" Loring demanded suddenly.
"And in India?" O'Rane added.
On Monday the German declaration of war on Russia was confirmed in the papers, and we read that the unconditional neutrality of Belgium was under discussion and that the Foreign Secretary would speak in the House on the Bank Holiday afternoon. The momentary stimulus of news died away like the ebbing strength of a cocaine injection. We revived on learning that the German Embassy in London was endeavouring to localize the conflict, but in the quick reaction I went to Loring and told him I could no longer bear to be away from London.
"Stick it out till to-morrow," he implored me. "We'll all go up together."
"Then for God's sake let's do something!" I cried impatiently. "Have a car out.... Go somewhere.... You know, our nerves are going to pieces."
We drove out through Tintern to Monmouth and returned by way of Raglan, Usk and Newport. It was a run of sixty or seventy miles through varying scenery, yet every town and village presented the same appearance of suspended animation. The holiday-makers stood about in irresolute knots or walked up and down the desolate streets; carriages half filled with women in white dresses halted at the corners of the roads, while the men grouped themselves round the driver and argued fretfully where to go and whether it was worth going anywhere at all. I thought suddenly of the first time I saw Pompeii: I had always wondered how the inhabitants looked when the first hot rain of ashes began to fall.
As we entered Chepstow on our way home, Loring halted the car and went in search of news. Exploiting the freemasonry of the Press, I scribbled my Bouverie Street address on a card and won admittance to the offices of the "Chepstow Argus." The Foreign Secretary was delivering his pronouncement, and the speech was being circulated in sections over the wires. We walked through a warehouse filled with clamorous, quarrelling newsboys, up a rickety staircase and into the composing-room, where we read the introductory passages in manuscript over the compositors' shoulders. Then we returned to the Editor's room and were handed sheet after sheet as it was taken off the private wire. There was one with a blue-pencilled line in the margin, and I read the passage aloud:
"'For many years we have had a long-standing friendship with France ... how far that friendship entails ... an obligation, let every man look into his own heart, and his own feelings, and construe the extent of the obligation for himself.'"
"Have we or have we not pledged ourselves to help France if she's attacked?" Loring demanded in perplexity.
"We have," I said.
"Then why doesn't he say so?"
"It's left as a point of honour," I suggested. "That rules out discussion how the Government made virtual promises and never took the country into its confidence. We needn't keep the others waiting any longer. Our position's defined, and Germany goes forward at her own risk."
We hurried out of the office and carried our news to the car at the street corner.
"And what now?" asked Arden.
"Now nothing but the end of the world will keep us out of war," Loring returned.
As we drove away, a woman's voice—I could not distinguish whose it was—murmured:
"My God! Oh, my God!..."