The war was needed to bring its sad
fame to "Wipers!" But Brian and I interrupted our walking tour with that
cart, because we knew that the interminable causeway would take us deep
into the inner quaintness of Flanders. We adored it all: and at every
stopping-place on the twenty-mile road, I had the secret joy of
whispering; "Perhaps it is _here_ that He will suddenly appear, and meet
us!"
There was one farmhouse on the way, where I longed to have him come. I
wanted him so much that I almost _created_ him! I was listening every
moment, and through every sound, for his car. It never came. But because
I so wished the place to be a background for our meeting I can see the
two large living-rooms of the old house, with the black-beamed ceilings,
the Flemish stoves, the tall, carved sideboards and chests with armorial
bearings, the deep window-seats that were flower-stands and work-tables
combined, and the shelves of ancient pottery and gleaming, antique
brass. There was a comfortable fragrance of new-baked bread, mingling
with the spicy scent of grass-pinks, in that house: and the hostess who
gave us luncheon--a young married woman--had a mild, sweet face,
strongly resembling that of St. Genevieve of Brabant, as pictured in a
coloured lithograph on the wall.
St. Genevieve's story is surely the most romantic, the most pathetic of
any saint who ever deigned to tread on earth!--and her life and death
might serve as an allegory of Belgium's martyrdom, poor Belgium, the
little country whose patron she is.
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