It was distinctly hard lines for Lady Barbara, who came of
good fighting stock, and was one of the bravest women of her
generation, that her son should be so undisguisedly a
coward. Whatever good qualities Lester Slaggby may have
possessed, and he was in some respects charming, courage
could certainly never be imputed to him. As a child he had
suffered from childish timidity, as a boy from unboyish
funk, and as a youth he had exchanged unreasoning fears for
others which were more formidable from the fact of having a
carefully-thought-out basis. He was frankly afraid of
animals, nervous with firearms, and never crossed the
Channel without mentally comparing the numerical proportion
of life belts to passengers. On horseback he seemed to
require as many hands as a Hindu god, at least four for
clutching the reins, and two more for patting the horse
soothingly on the neck. Lady Barbara no longer pretended
not to see her son's prevailing weakness; with her usual
courage she faced the knowledge of it squarely, and,
mother-like, loved him none the less.
Continental travel, anywhere away from the great tourist
tracks, was a favoured hobby with Lady Barbara, and Lester
joined her as often as possible. Eastertide usually found
her at Knobaltheim, an upland township in one of those small
princedoms that make inconspicuous freckles on the map of
Central Europe.
A long-standing acquaintanceship with the reigning family
made her a personage of due importance in the eyes of her
old friend the Burgomaster, and she was anxiously consulted
by that worthy on the momentous occasion when the Prince
made known his intention of coming in person to open a
sanatorium outside the town. All the usual items in a
programme of welcome, some of them fatuous and commonplace,
others quaint and charming, had been arranged for, but the
Burgomaster hoped that the resourceful English lady might
have something new and tasteful to suggest in the way of
loyal greeting. The Prince was known to the outside world,
if at all, as an old-fashioned reactionary, combating modern
progress, as it were, with a wooden sword; to his own people
he was known as a kindly old gentleman with a certain
endearing stateliness which had nothing of standoffishness
about it. Knobaltheim was anxious to do its best. Lady
Barbara discussed the matter with Lester and one or two
acquaintances in her little hotel, but ideas were difficult
to come by.
“Might I suggest something to the gnaedige Frau?”
asked a sallow high-cheekboned lady to whom the Englishwoman
had spoken once or twice, and whom she had set down in her
mind as probably a Southern Slav.
“Might I suggest something for the Reception Fest?” she
went on, with a certain shy eagerness. “Our little child
here, our baby, we will dress him in little white coat, with
small wings, as an Easter angel, and he will carry a large
white Easter egg, and inside shall be a basket of plover
eggs, of which the Prince is so fond, and he shall give it
to his Highness as Easter offering. It is so pretty an
idea; we have seen it done once in Styria.”
Lady Barbara looked dubiously at the proposed Easter
angel, a fair, wooden-faced child of about four years old.
She had noticed it the day before in the hotel, and wondered
rather how such a tow-headed child could belong to such a
dark-visaged couple as the woman and her husband; probably,
she thought, an adopted baby, especially as the couple were
not young.
“Of course Gnaedige Frau will escort the little child
up to the Prince,” pursued the woman; “but he will be
quite good, and do as he is told.”
“We haf some pluffers' eggs shall come fresh from Wien,”
said the husband.
The small child and Lady Barbara seemed equally
unenthusiastic about the pretty idea; Lester was openly
discouraging, but when the Burgomaster heard of it he was
enchanted. The combination of sentiment and plovers' eggs
appealed strongly to his Teutonic mind.
On the eventful day the Easter angel, really quite
prettily and quaintly dressed, was a centre of kindly
interest to the gala crowd marshalled to receive his
Highness. The mother was unobtrusive and less fussy than
most parents would have been under the circumstances, merely
stipulating that she should place the Easter egg herself in
the arms that had been carefully schooled how to hold the
precious burden. Then Lady Barbara moved forward, the child
marching stolidly and with grim determination at her side.
It had been promised cakes and sweeties galore if it gave
the egg well and truly to the kind old gentleman who was
waiting to receive it. Lester had tried to convey to it
privately that horrible smackings would attend any failure
in its share of the proceedings, but it is doubtful if his
German caused more than an immediate distress. Lady Barbara
had thoughtfully provided herself with an emergency supply
of chocolate sweetmeats; children may sometimes be
timeservers, but they do not encourage long accounts. As
they approached nearer to the princely dais Lady Barbara
stood discreetly aside, and the stolid-faced infant walked
forward alone, with staggering but steadfast gait.
encouraged by a murmur of elderly approval. Lester,
standing in the front row of the onlookers, turned to scan
the crowd for the beaming faces of the happy parents. In a
side-road which led to the railway station he saw a cab;
entering the cab with every appearance of furtive haste were
the dark-visaged couple who had been so plausibly eager for
the “pretty idea.” The sharpened instinct of cowardice
lit up the situation to him in one swift flash. The blood
roared and surged to his head as though thousands of
floodgates had been opened in his veins and arteries, and
his brain was the common sluice in which all the torrents
met. He saw nothing but a blur around him. Then the blood
ebbed away in quick waves, till his very heart seemed
drained and empty, and he stood nervelessly, helplessly,
dumbly watching the child, bearing its accursed burden with
slow, relentless steps nearer and nearer to the group that
waited sheep-like to receive him. A fascinated curiosity
compelled Lester to turn his head towards the fugitives; the
cab had started at hot pace in the direction of the station.
The next moment Lester was running, running faster than
any of those present had ever seen a man run, and---he was
not running away. For that stray fraction of his life some
unwonted impulse beset him, some hint of the stock he came
from, and he ran unflinchingly towards danger. He stooped
and clutched at the Easter egg as one tries to scoop up the
ball in Rugby football. What he meant to do with it he had
not considered, the thing was to get it. But the child had
been promised cakes and sweetmeats if it safely gave the egg
into the hands of the kindly old gentleman; it uttered no
scream but it held to its charge with limpet grip. Lester
sank to his knees, tugging savagely at the tightly clasped
burden, and angry cries rose from the scandalized onlookers.
A questioning, threatening ring formed round him, then
shrank back in recoil as he shrieked out one hideous word.
Lady Barbara heard the word and saw the crowd race away like
scattered sheep, saw the Prince forcibly hustled away by his
attendants; also she saw her son lying prone in an agony of
overmastering terror, his spasm of daring shattered by the
child's unexpected resistance, still clutching frantically,
as though for safety, at that white-satin gew-gaw, unable to
crawl even from its deadly neighbourhood, able only to
scream and scream and scream. In her brain she was dimly
conscious of balancing, or striving to balance, the abject
shame which had him now in thrall against the one compelling
act of courage which had flung him grandly and madly on to
the point of danger. It was only for the fraction of a
minute that she stood watching the two entangled figures,
the infant with its woodenly obstinate face and body tense
with dogged resistance, and the boy limp and already nearly
dead with a terror that almost stifled his screams; and over
them the long gala streamers flapping gaily in the sunshine.
She never forgot the scene; but then, it was the last she
ever saw.
Lady Barbara carries her scarred face with its sightless
eyes as bravely as ever in the world, but at Eastertide her
friends are careful to keep from her ears any mention of the
children's Easter symbol.