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 he
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 lifebelts 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 Gnädige Frau?" asked a sallow
high-cheek-boned 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
towheaded 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 Gnädige 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 time-servers, but they do not encourage long
accounts. As they approached nearer to the princely daïs 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.
_________
-THE END-
[Author Hector Hugh munro] Saki's short story: The Easter Egg
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