IV

Anna Blum sat in the warm kitchen with her Bible open on her knee. Josef had gone to bed; and when Josef went to bed it was her custom to sit down and read a psalm. She had taken off her wet skirt and hung it over a chair to dry. A second chair was almost hidden in the folds of her cloak, a strange relic of the early nineties. The material had once been a gay plaid, and the garment itself a so-called golf-cape. Now the colours were all gone away to a dull, uneven drab.

Divested of cloak and skirt, Anna appeared in an old red flannel petticoat, very neatly mended, and a cross-over shawl of faded brown wool, which had been her grandmother’s. She sat close up to the lamp with its tin reflector and read her psalm to the end.

Anton was late. He should have been back a long time since. The officers must have been mistaken in the distance. But if they took Anton too far along the road, perhaps he would get confused and not find his way back.

Anna jerked her head up and listened, then spoke aloud:

“Na, Anna—art a fool. Ja gewiss!”

She began to read the psalm over again; but half-way through she was listening.

“A hen with one chick, and a woman with one child—and if he is not my own son it is all the same. Mina lies there with her baby, and she thinks that I do not know what is in her heart, because I have never borne a child.” She drew the back of her hand quickly across her eyes and stared down at the printed page. The letters swam in a dazzle of tears, and Anna called herself a fool again.

She was afraid. It all came back to that—she was afraid. Nothing to be afraid of; but she was afraid. The room seemed to be filled with her fear.

She read once more to the end of the psalm, and closed the book. As she laid it on the table, she heard at last what she had been straining her ears for—the sound of a footstep. She had left the window unshuttered, and ran now to the door, throwing it wide open so that the light should stream out in welcome.

As she stood on the threshold looking out, the first doubt came to her. She could hear the footsteps coming nearer. But—Anton walked more heavily than that; often he dragged his feet. This was a lighter, quicker step, the step of a different man. She drew back, and as she did so, some one came round the bend of the path into the light from the open door.

It wasn’t Anton—she had known that it would not be Anton. It was one of the English officers who had taken Anton away. And that meant that something had happened.

Major Manning came up to the door, and found himself face to face with the woman he had come to find. She was silhouetted against the lighted room, and she spoke at once, breathlessly:

“Anton—mein Herr, what is it—why have you come—where is Anton?” Then, as Major Manning stepped across the threshold and the light showed his darkly frowning face, she said with a sickening catch in her voice, “Is he dead?”

“No, no—of course not.”

Manning was really shocked. He had not expected—no one could have expected—any particular intensity of feeling over a dumb, half-witted creature, or——He refused to follow out that train of thought.

“What is it, then?” said Anna, her hand on the door. There was a shade of defiance in her tone.

“It’s nothing—nothing to frighten you at all. A branch caught him on the head, and I took him on to my house to have the cut attended to.”

“Why did you not bring him home?”

“I took him to my own house. I thought he ought to be attended to. And—I want to talk to you.”

Anna’s hand tightened on the door.

“Is he badly hurt?”

“No, he’s only stunned—and a cut on the forehead. He’s at my house. You’ve nothing to be frightened about. But I want to speak to you.”

Anna collected herself. She shut the door. Her whole manner changed.

“Gnädiger Herr must forgive me. I was frightened.”

She went to the hearth, caught up her wet things, and pulled forward Josef’s chair. Manning looked at it, shook his head slightly, and sat down on the wooden chair from which she had taken her cloak, bestriding it and resting his arms on the back.

“Sit down, please.”

Anna came back to her seat by the lamp. Manning looked at her over the back of the chair, frowning deeply. Now that he was here, he didn’t know how to begin. The whole thing was unbelievable, absolutely. He saw Anna reach across the Bible at her elbow and pick up a half-knitted sock which lay on the table beyond it. He watched her settle the needles and begin to knit, all very quietly. No, he really did not know how to begin.

After a moment Anna lifted steady blue eyes to his.

“You wished to speak to me, mein Herr?”

“Yes,” said Manning. “I did—about your nephew. He is your nephew?”

Anna nodded.

“Yes, certainly—my nephew, Anton Blum.”

“And your name?”

“Anna Blum, widow, born Müller. Anton is the son of my husband’s elder brother, Ludwig Blum.”

“And he is dumb?” Manning shot the question at her.

“Ach ja. Since he was wounded he is dumb.”

“Only since he was wounded?”

“Yes, mein Herr.”

“How long ago?”

She let the knitting fall on her knees, and began to reckon on her fingers.

“It is eight—nine—nearly ten years—a long time.”

Manning got up, crossed the room, and stood by the table. The lamp was between him and Anna now. When she spoke she must face the light. He pushed the lamp back a little to get it out of his eyes, and asked suddenly:

“Does he know English?”

Anna’s eyes were on her knitting. He saw a line come in her forehead, just between the brows.

“English?” she asked, and then looked up with a puzzled expression. “He does not know very much at all. He understands what a child would understand. I speak to him as one speaks to a child.”

Manning leaned on the table, his little eyes intent on her face.

“But before he was wounded—did he know any English before he was wounded?”

“I don’t know,” said Anna. “I only saw him twice before the war came. He was a forester on a big estate, and one of the sons was certainly married to an Englishwoman or an American. Anton spoke of it; he said there was an English groom—I remember that. It is possible that he learnt some words—I cannot tell.”

She spoke in a quiet, considering manner above the gentle click of the needles. She did not look at Major Manning until she said “I cannot tell.” It was on the last word that she lifted her eyes in a gaze of pure perplexity.

“Why do you ask that, mein Herr?”

“Because,” said Manning, “when I went to pick him up, I thought that he spoke; and I thought that he spoke English.”

Anna’s face hardly changed, A faint shade of sadness crossed it. She bent her head and said:

“Ach so,” And then, “Once—twice before, when he has been ill, it has happened like that—he has spoken as a man speaks in his sleep; and afterwards he has been dumb again. The last time was four years ago.”

Manning stood up straight.

“I suppose you’ve got all his papers—his discharge—all that sort of thing?”

“Ja gewiss,” said Anna. “Would you like to see them, mein Herr?”

“Yes, I should.”

Anna rose at once.

“They are upstairs,” she said. And Manning waited whilst she went out of the door and up the narrow stair beyond.

Every sound was audible. He could hear her open a door and come into the room above the kitchen. He could hear the jingle of keys. He could hear her move a box and throw the lid back. In a minute she came down the stairs and into the kitchen. In a quiet, deliberate manner she laid out on the table under the lamp a metal disc and a couple of papers.

Manning picked up the disc first and saw Anton Blum’s name on it, his regimental number, and the name of a regiment. He kept it in his hand and took up the papers—a birth certificate setting forth that Anton Blum was the son of Ludwig Blum, Bauer, and Elsa his wife, geborene Platt, etc., the date being July the 1st, 1894; and Anton Blum’s discharge certificate, the reason for the said discharge being given as: “Dumbness and mental deficiency resulting from wounds.”

Manning folded the papers, laid them carefully on the table, and put the identity disc down on the top of them. He did not know what to say to this quiet, friendly woman. To attempt to explain was an impossibility. But, having come so far in the direction of making a fool of himself, he meant to see it out to the bitter end.

“Your brother—Josef Müller is your brother, I believe—can I see him?”

“Yes, he is my brother. He has gone to bed, but——” She hesitated a little—“if you like, I will call him.”

“No, I’ll go up.”

And go up he did, preceded by Anna and a lighted candle. At Josef’s door he took the candle from her, banged on the panel, and went in, to find Josef snoring. It was not very easy to wake him; Josef, once asleep, was accustomed to sleep for ten hours at the least. He woke reluctantly to the very astonishing presence of an English officer who wanted to ask him questions about Anton. Drowsiness would certainly have passed into rage but for the timely recollection of what good customers the English were. To quarrel with them was certainly to cut one’s own hand off. Josef loved his sleep; but he loved his pocket better still. He answered Manning’s questions very readily, and certainly left the impression of having nothing in the world to conceal. Anton was his sister Anna’s nephew, and an ill-conditioned, worthless lump into the bargain. Only Josef’s good heart induced him to give the fellow food and shelter. Work? Oh, yes, he worked. But from beginning to end he was certainly more trouble than he was worth.

Manning went down the stair with the conviction that he had made a fool of himself—a first-class, out-size sort of fool.