"Dear me, what a pity!" sighed Mrs. Dalziel absently. She was thinking of our sight-seeing expedition for which we were already late. Milly remarked that somebody was always throwing an ultimatum at somebody else's head, and asked for jam. Tony said intelligently that it was just what he had expected, after the murder of the archduke and the duchess, and looked at his watch. As for me, it did shoot through my mind that Russia might have something to say if Servia were attacked; and I thought that if I were Milly I should have a qualm of anxiety about my captain-count. But I didn't wish to worry her with such a remote suggestion, and our war conversation ended there. None of us bothered seriously with the papers for the next day or two. Sight-seeing in Belgium seemed to us the last thing on earth which could possibly connect itself with an ultimatum, or even a declaration of war on Servia. We went from Bruges to Ghent, from Ghent to Antwerp, from Antwerp to Brussels, from Brussels to Namur, to Louvain, and Spa, and so at last arrived at Liége. The next item on our programme was a run into Luxemburg, which was to finish our trip; and in a few days more Tony was to leave us to catch his ship for home, as his holiday was over. He had been behaving so well that I minded being engaged less than I'd expected; and it was nice to be petted by Milly and Mrs. Dalziel and loaded with presents. It was the first time in my life that I had experienced anything of the sort, for I had always been the one who didn't matter, at home. Each place we visited seemed more beautiful than the last, and I was trying hard to say to myself, "This is happiness, or all you can expect to know. Make the most of it, and be a sensible Peggy!"
It was late on the night of Wednesday, July 29th, when we arrived at quaint old Liége; and though we knew that Austria had declared war, and that all the great powers were muttering thunderously, it didn't seem as if anything devastating would really happen. That was much too bad to be true, and everything seemed so peaceful and comfortable. Hotel keepers smiled and said that the war scare was sure to blow over as it had blown over time after time in the past. We met other people gayly touring like ourselves. They all appeared to be easy in their minds and free from care, so we followed their pleasant example; and the sun shone on us, and Belgium seemed the prettiest and most pacific of all countries, basking under a cloudless sky.
"Telegram for you, dear," Mrs. Dalziel said to Milly as she sorted the post handed to her by the man in the hotel bureau at Liége. Then she dealt out envelopes to Tony and me, and we were rather sleepily busied with them when Milly gave a gasp. "Oh, Mamma, he's got to fight!" she squealed.
"He—who?" questioned Mrs. Dalziel dazedly in the midst of deciphering a closely written and crossed page of thin foreign paper.
"Stefan!" Milly choked on the name. "Oh, it's awful! His father has consented to his marrying me all right, but of course he'll go and—and be killed now, and I shall never see him again! I'm the unluckiest girl that ever lived. And just when I thought everything was going to be so splendid."
I heard her wailing as I finished my letter, which was from Di: the first she had written me. It had gone to Brussels and been forwarded from there to Liége. "Sidney and I are rushing back to London as fast as the car will take us," she wrote. "This war news is terrible. Any minute we may hear that England's mixed up in the business. There's no more fun motoring about the country in this suspense; and if there's war, all the house parties we were asked to in Scotland are sure to be given up. We want to be where we can have news every minute, and will hurry up the decorators so we can get into our house, even if things are at sixes and sevens there. From what I hear, everybody will be congregating in London to be in the heart of things. It makes me sick to think of all my lovely clothes! If there's war, nobody will be wearing anything. All the nicest men will be away at the front. Isn't it sickening? Luckily, Sidney won't have to fight, as America's not involved. But I don't want to go over there and have people at home calling me a coward, to sneak away from under the Zeppelins and things the Germans will be sending over. I want to do what everybody else does, though Heaven alone knows yet what that will be. I expect Bally and Kitty will come back from Harrogate, where poor dear Bally is celebrating his honeymoon by taking a strict cure, and I hear Kitty is doing mud baths to reduce her flesh. They wire that there isn't one waiter out of sixty left in their hotel—all were Germans; so you see what that means. And Kitty's maid had hysterics this morning because war's to be declared on her country, and because the hotel chambermaids are all turned into waitresses, and she had to make Bally's and Kitty's beds. One realizes that war will be horrible for all classes. Your life won't be safe on the Continent, you know, and you'd better persuade Mrs. D. to bring you back immediately. Though you've been so horrid to Sidney, he'll overlook it in this crisis, for my sake, when even Ulsterites and Nationalists are forgiving each other. Father and Kitty will have to stay with us when they arrive, as the Norfolk Street house is given up; and you must of course come, too. You can be our guest till you and Tony are married, if you don't want your engagement to last too long."
I hardly knew whether I most wanted to laugh or cry over that letter. All I did know was that nothing would induce me to stay with Diana and Sidney Vandyke. I would even rather be married, if worst came to worst; but though Tony and I were playing at being engaged, the thought of actually marrying him was like jumping over a precipice. I wasn't ready for the precipice yet, and must avoid it if I could.
I folded up the letter and kept its news and its suggestions to myself. I sympathized with Milly; and hoped that, after all, even if Russia and Austria and Servia and Germany flew in each others' faces, it might be possible for England and France and Italy to keep the peace. Di was always inclined to exaggerate, and probably she was glad of any excuse by this time to put an end to a motoring tête-à-tête with Sidney.
I went to bed and tried to believe that I had had a bad dream, but next morning I was still dreaming it. The papers told us how the Stock Exchange in London had closed, which seemed like hearing that England had suddenly gone under the sea. Belgrade was being bombarded. The Germans as well as Russians were mobilizing furiously. King George had telegraphed to the Czar, but before his message had time to reach Petrograd, the Kaiser had declared war on Russia. Belgium had begun mobilizing too, and only just in time. Trains were wanted for the soldiers. Frightened tourists clamoured in vain to get away. Even those who had automobiles could hardly move along the roads, and many chauffeurs were called to their colours. Ours was French, and went off at a moment's notice, with just time for a polite "Adieu, peut-être pour toujours." Tony hated everything mechanical except rifles and revolvers, and had never learned to drive a car; Belgian chauffeurs had something better to do than help travellers out of trouble; so there we were!
It seemed only another phase of the dream from which we could not wake, when glittering hordes of German cavalry, the Kaiser's beloved uhlans, were said to be clanking over the frontier to violate the neutrality of Belgium, and we heard that Great Britain had declared war on Germany. I would have given anything to be back in England then, not because I was afraid of what might happen in Belgium, but because my blood was hot with pride of my country, and I wanted to be there to see the spirit of the people rise. There was little time to think, however, for Liége was seething with excitement. Fugitives began to pour into the town, with children and bundles in queer little carts drawn by dogs. Soldiers bade their families good-bye in the streets, and marched or rode off in clouds of dust. Wounded men were brought from the frontier, and an annex of our old-fashioned, dormer-windowed hotel was hastily turned into a hospital. Red Cross nurses appeared from somewhere, and several women among the penned-up tourists volunteered to help. Mrs. Dalziel could do nothing, because she had collapsed with fear, and was sure that she was in for nervous prostration. Milly had her mother to care for; but I was free, and thanks to my work in Ballyconal, I knew something about first aid. Ever since I met Eagle and he had given me the old cadet chevron, which I carried with me everywhere, I had grown more and more keen on learning to do what I could for others, and war talk in Texas had prompted me to buy books on nursing.