The Redburys were at Saturday dinner. Their numbers indicated a party, but in reality no one but the intimate family was present. Mr and Mrs Redbury, their sons Hardy and David; Hardy’s wife Beatrice, and her brother Sampson Phillips; the two daughters of the house, Hedda and Nell; and Miss Swinley, the strictly English governess. Four members were missing from the company: Con, the eldest Redbury, since several months at the Front; Wilhelmina, the infant child of Hardy and Beatrice, who had annoyed her grandfather and been banished to the nursery; Hedda’s husband, Gustav Fürth, interned in England for being a German; and Max, the boy who came between Hardy and David, interned in Germany for being an Englishman.
The international situation round the table was one of extremest delicacy. Otto Rothenburg had settled in England for business purposes, and was naturalized directly after his marriage with Trudchen Wagner. But he made no secret of his dislike of the English, and his contempt of the semi-English; and had always petulantly insisted that his household should be conducted on sound and hearty Teuton principles, of which the main points were a diet of rich sufficiency for the elders, and no nonsense and no discrimination for the tribe of children. Though the quantity of these—six alive and two dead—indicated that he did not confine his German ideas wholly to the table. Each of the six played a chosen musical instrument—chosen by Herr Rothenburg himself, be it remarked. The two girls had frequently been burdened by plaid frocks; German was the language spoken as a matter of course at meals; filial obedience and the good-night kiss were insisted upon; and there was a frequent coming and going of relatives scattered over Germany and Austria, with large gay packets of gingerbread tied up in silver paper; or of polite unknowns bearing letters of introduction from the Rothenburg relatives abroad; and very eager to be invited to a meal.
When Hedvig, at eighteen, was wedded to a German, her father was delighted. Hedvig herself had never been consulted on the match. When Gerhardt, at twenty-four, had displayed unexpected initiative and engaged himself to Beatrice Phillips, Rothenburg fretted and objected and sulked, and locked himself in the bathroom, and came out again when it was least desirable that he should do so; and during a full six months rendered the lives of all about him wholly unbearable. He was finally only reconciled to the bride’s English birth and parentage by her large settlements. Max, two years younger than Gerhardt, was, however, immediately despatched out of danger to his Uncle Karl in Hanover, there to learn the business and eventually to marry his Uncle Karl’s daughter Klara. Konrad’s enthusiasm for territorial drill—well, with a stretch of the imagination, that could be ascribed to his German blood revealing itself in a wistful passion for the obligatory military service which could never be his; therefore, Konrad, who of all the brood was his mother’s darling, was grudgingly permitted to remain in London and read for the Bar. David, sent to a day-school, was destined later for Heidelberg University, as a corrective to any ultra-English notions which St Crispin’s may have put into his head.
And then had occurred this most inconvenient war.
Herr Otto Rothenburg did not wait to be subtle about his change of front. Immediately he scuttled for cover. He became in name, in sentiment and in habit what he already was by law—a fine old English gentleman. His household was revolutionized; he turned livid at the sound of a single German word spoken; he clung to such English acquaintances as were his, with a limpet-like fervour of affection which no coldness could disconcert. He forbade all communication with relatives abroad; and all mention of them. In short, Mr Otto Redbury was afraid. To their mother’s utter bewilderment, Hedvig, Lenchen, Konrad and Gerhardt were metamorphosed to Hedda, Nell, Con and Hardy. His fever reached its zenith when Gustav Fürth, an unnaturalized German of military age, was arrested and interned. And his daughter Hedda, penniless and unprotected, but in the highest spirits, returned to the parental roof, with the obvious and natural intention of remaining where she was for the duration of the war. Once supremely her father’s good girl, Hedda was not at all popular in this crisis. It was difficult airily to disavow all enemy connection, with concerned enquiries emanating from all quarters as to Fürth’s whereabouts and treatment. Supposing, too, that when she came to the house, Beatrice should be offended at Hedda’s presence there ... Beatrice, that never-to-be-sufficiently appreciated link with solid British stock!
Beyond a little astonished realization at finding herself encircled by alien enemies—her attitude conveyed that she had never noticed before that the Rothenburgs were German—Beatrice had a nature too well-bred and womanly—gentle-womanly, David was wont to call it—to have expressed as yet any sort of resentment. She was very nice and tactful to Hedda about “poor Gustav.” It was a miracle that Hardy could have been sensible and far-seeing enough as to have married so successfully. Mr Redbury propitiated her with a determination and unction that—again to quote David—“fair gives one the sicks.” But then Mr Redbury was desperately afraid.
“Bodadoes, Beatty, mein Schatz?” enquired Mrs Redbury, dumpy and apple-cheeked and very harrassed by her husband’s perpetual amendment of her accent, and by the awful trinity of Briton’s representatives present in the dining-room.
And Beatrice blushed faintly and glanced apologetically at her brother Samson, who looked as wooden as though a toast of the King had just been proposed. Miss Swinley coughed, a delicate and pensive cough; something had annoyed Miss Swinley that morning, and she was ripe for revenge.
“I met a vellow in de Zity dis morning,” said Mr Redbury, glaring at his wife, “who vould by no means pelieve dat I vos bartly a voreigner. ‘Vot—you?—go on! all dese years I dake you for a bure-plooded Priton!’ He roared with laughter ven I told him my selige father was porn in Amsterdam. He vouldn’t pelieve me. ‘Your vife,’ he said, ‘she speaks wiz a slight aggsent. But you are von of us, Redbury, old man.’ He vouldn’t pelieve me——” himself roaring with laughter, but still glaring at Trudchen.
“And when I told him how beautiful you were,” sang Hedda—David kicked her to shut up. He could not bear it when the old man made an ass of himself.