Sylvia & Michael Part 20

"You was being a bad wicked girl," she panted. "You dare to say I was being German! I hate the Germans! I _am_ English. I _am_ English. You dare to say I was being German!"

Upon this an Austrian girl at another table began to revile Queenie from her point of view for abusing the Germans; before ten seconds had pa.s.sed the gardens were in an uproar.

A fat French Jewess stood on a table and shouted:

"_Oh, les sales boches! Oh, les sales boches!_"

Whereupon an Austrian girl pushed her from behind, and she crashed down into a party of Francophile young Rumanians who instantly began to throw everything within reach at a party of Germanophile young Rumanians.

Gla.s.ses were shivered; fairy lamps were pulled out of the trees and hurtled through the air like Roman candles; somebody s.n.a.t.c.hed a violin from the orchestra and broke it on the head of his a.s.sailant; somebody else climbed on the stage and made a speech in Rumanian, calling upon the country to intervene on behalf of the Entente, until two pro-Germans seized him and flung him down on top of the melancholy dotard who played the double-ba.s.s; the manager and the waiters rushed into the street to find the police; everybody argued with everybody else.

"_Tu dis que je suis boche, moi? M--e pour toi!_"

"La ferme! La ferme! Espionne! Type infecte!"

"_Moi, je suis roumaine. Si tu dis que je suis hongroise, je dis que t'es une salope. Tu m'entends?_"

"_Oh, la vache! Elle m'a piquee!_"

"_Elle a bien fait! Elle a bien fait!_"

Some French girls began to sing:

"_Les voyez-vous?

Les hussards! Les dragons! La gar-rrde!

Glorieux fous_...."

and a very shrill little soprano who was probably a German, but declared she was a Dane, sang:

"It's a larway to Tipperary, It's a larway to go, It's a larway to Tipperary, It's a la-a-way to go!

Gooba, Piccadilli, Farwa lar-sa sca-aa!

It's a lar-lar-way to Tipperary Ba-ma-ha's ra-tha."

After which somebody hit her on the nose with a vanilla ice: then the police came in and quieted the uproar by arresting several people on the outskirts of the riot.

The next evening, when Sylvia and Queenie presented themselves for the performance, the manager told them that they were dismissed: he could not afford to let the Pet.i.t Trianon gain a disorderly reputation. Sylvia was glad that the decision of taking a definite step had been settled over her head. As they were pa.s.sing out, they met Lottie looking very happy.

"I've been engaged for three hundred francs to play the piano in the orchestra. The accompanist broke his wrist last night in the row," she told them. "So they sent for me in a hurry."

"We've been sacked," Sylvia said.

"Oh, I am sorry!" the fat girl exclaimed, trying to curb her own pleasure. "What will you do?"

Sylvia shrugged her shoulders.

"Why don't you go to Galantza and Bralatz and Avereshti? You ought to be able to get engagements there in the summer-time--especially at Avereshti."

Sylvia nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, that's rather an idea. But, Lottie, don't tell Zozo where we've gone. Good-by! Good luck! I'm glad you've got an engagement."

"Yes, I shall leave that room now. It smells, rather, as the summer gets on."

The next morning Sylvia and Queenie left Bucharest for Galantza.

CHAPTER V

NEITHER in Galantza nor in Bralatz did Sylvia and Queenie perceive any indication of a fortune. They performed for a week at the Varietes High Life in Bralatz; but the audience and the salary were equally low, the weather was hot and misty, and the two hotels they tried were full of bugs. In Galantza they performed for two days at the Varietes Tiptop; but here both the audience and the salary were lower still, the weather was hotter and more misty, and there were as many bugs in the one hotel as in the two hotels at Bralatz put together. Sylvia thought she should like to visit the British vice-consul who had angered Maud so much by his indifference to her future. He was a pleasant young man, not recognizable from her description of him except by the fact that he certainly did smoke incessantly. He invited them both to dine and grumbled loudly at the fate which had planted him down in this G.o.d-forsaken corner of Rumania in war-time. He was disappointed to hear that they could not stay in Galantza, but agreed with them about the audience and the salary.

"I can't think who advised you to come here," he exclaimed. "Though I'm glad you did come; it has cheered me up a bit."

"It wasn't Maud," Sylvia said, with a smile.

"Maud?" he repeated. "Who is she?"

"An English girl who took a great fancy to you. She wanted you to pay her fare to Bucharest."

"Oh, my hat! a most fearful creature," he laughed. "A great, pink, blowsy woman with a voice like two trains shunting. I had a terrible time with her. Upon my word, I had actually to push her out of the Consulate. Oh, an altogether outrageous phenomenon! What became of her finally? In Bucharest, is she? Well, she's not a good advertis.e.m.e.nt of our country in these times. What part of England do you come from?" he added, turning to Queenie.

"London," Sylvia said, quickly. She always answered this kind of question before Queenie could blush and stammer something unintelligible. "But she's been on the Continent since she was a little girl, and can't speak any language except with the accent of the one she spoke last." Then she changed the subject by asking him where he advised them to go next.

"I should advise you to go back to England. These are no times for two girls to be roaming about Europe."

"You'd hardly describe me as a girl," Sylvia laughed. "Even I can no longer describe myself as one. Pa.s.sports have been fatal to some cherished secrets. No, we can't get back to England, chiefly because we haven't saved enough money for the fare, and secondly because the pa.s.sport-office in Bucharest didn't consider me a good enough voucher for Queenie's right to a British pa.s.sport."

"Wouldn't they recommend the consul to issue one?"

Sylvia shook her head.

"Too bad," said the vice-consul, in a cheerful voice. "But that's one of the minor horrors of war, this acc.u.mulation of a new set of officials begotten by the military upon the martial enthusiasm of non-combatants.

It's rather ridiculous, isn't it, to a.s.sume that all consuls are incapable of their own job?... But I suppose I've no business to be displaying professional jealousy at such a moment," he broke off.

"Would you have given her a pa.s.sport?" Sylvia asked.

The vice-consul looked at Queenie with a smile. "I could hardly have refused, eh?"

But Sylvia knew that, once inside his Consulate, he would probably be even more pedantic than Philip, and this affectation of gallantry over coffee rather annoyed her.

"But what _are_ you going to do?" he went on.

"Oh, I don't know," said Sylvia, curtly. "Leave things to arrange themselves, I suppose."

"Yes, that's a very good att.i.tude to take up when your desk is untidy, but, seriously, I shouldn't advise you to leave things to arrange themselves by touring round Rumania. These provincial towns are wretched holes."

"What's Avereshti like?"

"I don't know. I've never been there. It's not likely to be any better than Galantza or Bralatz, except for being a good deal nearer to Bucharest. Oh dear! everything's very gloomy. That Suvla business will keep out the Rumanians for some time. In fact, I don't think myself they'll ever come in now, unless they come in with the Germans. Why don't you take a week's holiday here?"