"During the retreat from Mons, my lady, the Captain kept up all our spirits, laughing at us and chaffing us. We loved him."
So far, Lionel had not been touched, but, much to the anxiety of his mother, he never mentioned his own health. She knew how delicate his lungs were. Would they stand the cruel rigours of the trenches in mid-winter?
She was now established as the Commandant of the Red Cross Hospital, and wore a red uniform which became her vastly well. For three months, preceding Christmas, wounded Belgians were cared for and entertained by the devoted band of women who rallied round the lady of the manor. Jane Mucklow cooked for the wounded; Susan Yellam was installed as bottle-washer in chief. Sir Geoffrey would march through the Long Saloon and wonder where he was. All the beautiful furniture and porcelain had been put away. Nine cots on each side of the stately room stood side by side. In the centre was a large table covered with puzzles and paraphernalia for indoor games. At smaller tables the convalescents played interminably at cards, piquet and écarté. They amused each other very well, not so dependent upon their entertainers as the Tommies who succeeded them. One man sang beautifully; another wrote admirable verse. Before the war, the versifier had been on the staff of a Brussels newspaper. All these men were unanimous about one thing—an idée fixe. They hoped and prayed that they might never be asked to fight again. Some declared their intention of remaining for ever and ever in England. It was heart-breaking to listen to their accounts of ravished and pillaged Belgium.
Above them hung the famous French prints. Beautiful, laughing dames and exquisite cavaliers looked down upon bandaged heads and shattered limbs. The contrast never failed to strike Sir Geoffrey. His prints stood for life as he had known it, gay, easy, refined, cultivated, essentially aristocratic. Was the Old Order, which he loved, passing inexorably out of sight? Would life, after the war, cease to be leisurely and easy for the upper classes? Would the payment of a stupendous National Debt fall upon them? And, if so, how would it be met? Would a triumphant democracy divide up the big estates? Could they be run properly upon diminished rent-rolls?
He confronted these questions ill at ease inwardly. Outwardly, as he had assured his wife, he carried "a stiff tail." The politeness of the Belgians oppressed him. If he came into the ward and addressed a man lying in bed, the poor fellow would struggle to sit up and salute him. One cheery-faced boy, with eight wounds, passed the time laughing and crying; then he would fall asleep, smiling in his sleep like a child.
But recruiting had been damped down by Authority, because housing and equipment were so short. Sir Geoffrey was not encouraged to stump the county—as he offered to do—and deliver his lecture. His old school-fellow at the War Office gave him a hint:
"We want the men, but not too many at once."
In the village, women not engrossed with Red Cross work sewed feverishly upon shirts and pyjamas, and knitted comforters. The Squire examined some of the pyjamas, and exclaimed:
"Thank God! I don't have to wear them."
Shooting and hunting and football went on much as usual, to the amazement of our French Allies. Some of our cavalry regiments in France wanted to import a pack of hounds. The French Mandarins forbade it.