I turned from the arabesques just beginning to grow on the cushion, to a lovely little finished detail, about four inches square, one of several in a box which was to hold them till they could be joined to make a scarf. It had taken seven days of thirteen hours each to make this four by four piece, which meant that the maximum a skilled worker could earn in executing it was about two francs a day.
The Liedekerke convent school does not accept children under twelve for more than two complete afternoons a week and for more than one hour each of the other days, these hours being lengthened gradually until the girl of sixteen gives her entire time to her lace. The sisters hope that once they find coal and thread and can put their class-room in order, they may again have 100 pupils, and that the village may continue to count at least 200 good dentellières.
[X]
[HERZELE]
A Château of Refuge
There are certain châteaux in Belgium that will be remembered throughout this century as harbors of refuge; they dared not flare beacons from their roofs, but during four dark years, people of the nearby communes knew that day and night lights burned there for them. The château of the Comte du Parc was such a one, a property lying on the edge of the village of Herzele, south of Alost, which, tho the house itself is unpretentious, embraces a lovely park and wood, and from which, incidentally, the Germans cut 1,000 trees. It is no longer only the estate of the du Parcs, it is the loved shelter of every villager accustomed to hurry toward it in sad or perilous hours. The morale of the entire region was sustained by the knowledge that the people of the château had not left, as they easily might have, for their safer Brussels home, in the zone of civil administration, where if not free, they would at least have been less imprisoned, but had chosen to remain in the military zone, utterly cut off from their relatives and the rest of Belgium.
They might have considered several reasons sufficiently important to call them away (the Bourgmestre of Herzele had found at least one, his ill-health); among other things their château was as yet practically uninhabitable. It had been begun only a short time before the war broke out, and with the sounding of the first alarm the workmen had rushed out to report to their officers, leaving electric cords dangling, unmounted fixtures standing against the walls, and neither hot water nor heating systems installed. Madame told me later of her desperate and amusing efforts to fasten locks on the most important doors. As she and her husband were debating how they might arrange one large room in the left wing as their single general living-room they could already see the villagers coming anxiously along the tree-lined avenue and across the park to inquire if they were still there. “After the first troubled questions,” Monsieur said, “even if we had not already decided we must stay, it would have been quite impossible to go away.”
The soldiers of the village were leaving with scarcely time for good-bys; Madame understood the fears of the women who came to the château for comfort; her only son, too, a brave, handsome boy, was off to join the colors—her brave, handsome boy, who now lies buried not far from the Yser.
In October the victorious Germans pushed southward, and from the 14th to the 18th, shrapnel fell like rain on the park, but the château escaped unharmed. Then three officers of the occupying army rode up on horseback, revolvers in hand, demanding that the Comte present himself immediately. Madame followed her husband, not knowing what to expect. To their first threat, Monsieur replied calmly, “I do not like those objects,” and after a moment’s hesitation the officers lowered their weapons. Then they demanded guaranties that they would be absolutely safe from attack by any person, either of the château or the village. “I can, of course, speak for my château,” Monsieur answered, “but I can not be responsible for the villagers if they are pushed too far.” These villagers themselves told me later that they were convinced it was only the presence of the Comte (the bullies were frequently servile before titles and powerless before fearlessness) that saved Herzele from destruction. “We always expected the worst,” they said; “in the early days, when the Boches lighted a great fire in the wood, we rushed to the château, believing it was burning.”
From the beginning, Madame and her two daughters looked for some constructive aid they might give their women, something more than the general relief furnished by the Comité National.