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Vienna
and the Fall of the
Habsburg
Empire
Total War and Everyday
Life in World War |

Maureen Healy

CAMBRIDGE
Studies in the Social and Cultural
History of Modern Warfare

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Lae
Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire

Maureen Healy examines the collapse of the Habsburg Empire from the
perspective of everyday life in the capital city. She argues that a striking
feature of “total war” on the home front was the spread of a war mentality
to the mundane sites of everyday life — streets, shops, schools, entertain-
ment venues and apartment buildings. While Habsburg armies waged
military campaigns on distant fronts, Viennese civilians (women, chil-
dren, and “left-at-home” men) waged a protracted, socially devastating
war against one another. Vienna’s multi-ethnic population lived together
in conditions of severe material shortage and faced near starvation by
1917. The city fell into civilian mutiny before the state collapsed in
1918. Based on meticulous archival research, including citizens’ letters
to state authorities, the study offers a new and penetrating look at
Habsburg citizenship by showing how ordinary women, men and chil-
dren conceived of “Austria” in the Empire’s final years.

MAUREEN HEALY is Assistant Professor in the Department of History,

Oregon State University. She was the winner of the Fraenkel Prize from
the Wiener Library and Institute of Contemporary History, London,
2000.
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 Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare

General Editor
Jay Winter Yale University

Advisory Editors
Omer Bartov Brown University
Carol Gluck Columbia University
David M. Kennedy Stanford University
Paul Kennedy Yale University
Antoine Prost Université de Paris-Sorbonne
Emmanuel Sivan Hebrew University of ferusalem
Robert Wohl University of California, Los Angeles

In recent years the field of modern history has been enriched by the exploration of
two parallel histories. These are the social and cultural history of armed conflict,
and the impact of military events on social and cultural history.

Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare presents the
fruits of this growing area of research, reflecting both the colonization of military
history by cultural historians and the reciprocal interest of military historians in
social and cultural history, to the benefit of both. The series offers the latest schol-
arship in European and non-European events from the 1850s to the present day.

For a list of titles in the series, please see end of book.

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Vienna and the Fall of the
Habsburg Empire
Total War and Everyday Life in World War I

Maureen Healy
Oregon State University

ae ‘4 CAMBRIDGE
5) UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, CB2 2RU, UK
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcon 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa
http://www.cambridge.org

© Maureen Healy 2004

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and

to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2004

Reprinted 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface Plantin 10/12 pt System IATBX 2e [TB]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data

Healy, Maureen.
Vienna and the fall of the Habsburg Empire : total war and everyday life in
World War I / Maureen Healy.
p. cm. ~— (Studies in the social and cultural history of modern warfare ;
Includes bibliographical references and index. 17)
ISBN 0-521-83124-5
1. World War, 1914-1918 — Austria— Vienna. 2. World War, 1914-1918
Social aspects — Austria— Vienna. 3. World War, 1914-1918 — Psycholog |
aspects. 4. War and society — Austria— Vienna. 5. Vienna (Austria) — Solfat
conditions — 20th century. 6. Vienna (Austria) — Politics and government
20th century. I. Title. II. Series.
D539.7.A9H43 2004
943.6'130442-dc22 2003063548

ISBN 0 521 83124 5 hardback

For my parents, Ingrid and Jack Lynch.
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 Contents

List of plates
List of maps, figures and tables
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations

Introduction

Politics and representation

Chapter 1 Food and the politics of sacrifice 31

Chapter 2. Entertainment, propaganda and the Vienna War
Exhibition of 1916-17 87
Chapter 3 Censorship, rumors and denunciation: the crisis of
truth on the home front 122

State and family

Chapter 4 Sisterhood and citizenship: “Austria’s women” in
wartime Vienna 163

Chapter 5 Mobilizing Austria’s children for total war 2 lel

Chapter 6 The “fatherless society”: home-front men and

imperial paternalism 258

Conclusion 300

Bibhography 314
Index 328
 Plates

Plate 1. “Front” and “home” — the ideal gender division. page 7

Plate 1.1. Mayor Weiskirchner as a man of the people. 60
Plate 1.2. Lining up at Vienna’s Yppenplatz and Karmeliten
markets, 1916. 74
Plate 1.3. Chaos at the market: shoppers and security
personnel. 78
Plate 2.1. Horn player with prosthetic arm. 89
Plate 2.2. Layout of the War Exhibition. 110
Plate 2.3. Civilians admire war booty at the Vienna War
Exhibition. 113
Plate 3.1. “White space” in a censored Viennese newspaper. 134
Plate 4.1. Uniforms for the Women’s Auxiliary Corps. 206
Plate 5.1. Certificate commemorating sacrifice by “Austria’s
children” in wartime. 212
Plate 5.2. The drama of the imperial orphans unfolds. 220
Plate 5.3. Exhibition of children’s artwork: “Experiences”
of war. 224
Plate Child hero Rosa Zenoch aiding soldiers in battle.
5.4. 231
Plate Picture postcard of child hero Rosa Zenoch.
5.5. 232
Plate “Tm a war boy!”
5.6. 248
Plate si.Malnourished boys at war’s end. 256
Plate Russian prisoners of war working as horse stall hands
6.1.
in Vienna. 279
Plate 6.2. “Family father” Karl Haider petitions the Emperor
with a newspaper article on his many sons
in service. 289
 Maps, figures and tables

Maps

Map 1. Habsburg war geography: the army staging area

and the hinterland. page 6
Map 2. City map of Vienna by disrict (Bezirk). 18

Figures

Figure 1.1. Declining milk imports in wartime. 47

Figure 1.2. Beef and pork imports to Vienna. 48
Figure 1.3. Livestock imports to Vienna. 48
Figure 1.4. Wartime imports from Hungary
(1000 Meterznt.). 51

Ta bles

Table 1.1. Deaths of Viennese women during World War I. 42

Table 1.2. Declining rations of essential products in wartime
Vienna. 45
Table 1.3. Wartime inflation (indexed). 46
Table 1.4. Prewar Austrian food imports from Hungary. 49
Table 5.1. Deaths of school-aged children in Vienna. 249

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 Acknowledgments

If texts are produced in context, then the context for this book is the his-
tory department at the University of Chicago, whose people (and purse)
shaped it from its inception. I wish to thank my advisers at Chicago, John
Boyer and Michael Geyer, who trained me to think of Central Europe in
broad terms. They gave me confidence to ask big questions, and taught
me to conduct careful research to find the answers. Sheila Fitzpatrick
read the dissertation from which this book grew and offered helpful com-
ments on chapter drafts along the way. Alf Liidtke taught a seminar on
the history of everyday life that first interested me, and many in my grad-
uate cohort, in this approach to the study of history. I was lucky to have
these teachers whom I admire so much as historians, and I hope there
are glimmers of them in the pages that follow. I am equally grateful for
all I learned from my fellow students. This book will argue that com-
munities are fleeting, and this is certainly true of academic communi-
ties. Although we are now scattered around the country, I would like to
thank collectively the members of the University of Chicago’s modern
European history workshop, from whom I learned the genuine pleasures
of collegial scholarship.
I received financial and research support from a number of institu-
tions. First and foremost, I would like to thank the Dolores Zohrab
Liebmann Fellowship for three years of generous research and writ-
ing support. The Austrian Fulbright Commission, the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation,
the Council for the Advanced Study of Peace and International Coop-
eration, a Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant from the American Historical
Association, and the University of Chicago also provided funding, for
which I am grateful. A fellowship at the Center for the Humanities at
Oregon State University afforded me the space and time to revise
the work. The staffs at various institutions in Vienna assisted me
in my research. I wish to thank the archivists and librarians at the
Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv, the Niederésterreichisches Landesarchiv,
the Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek and the Wiener Stadt- und

xiii
XIV Acknowledgments

Landesbibliothek. Special thanks to Frau Rosa Hock at the Archiv der

Bundespolizei-Direktion Wien.
In Vienna, a number of people offered their support and friendship to
me. I would especially like to thank Margarete Grandner at the University
of Vienna, who, over the course of several years, answered my inquiries,
read chapters, corrected my German, and shared her deep knowledge
of Vienna with me. Christa Hammerle, also at the University of Vienna,
inspired me with her own work on war and gender and offered valuable
suggestions on sources. Lothar Hébelt generously offered advice on how
to navigate the archives and put me in touch with archivists. Eve Dvorak
and Maureen Stewart made my long days at the archives amusing, and
my nights in Vienna most memorable.
During the gestation of this book, which has lasted longer than World
War I itself, many people read chapters or sections of my work, and offered
useful comments and criticisms. Carolyn Comiskey, Belinda Davis, Andy
Donson, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Jeremy King, Tom Kohut, Alf Liidtke, Eva
Perl, Dan Unowsky and Jay Winter read portions of the work along the
way and I would like to thank them heartily for the assistance they gave
me. My colleagues at Oregon State University have been most gener-
ous, and I thank especially Robert Nye, William Husband and Sarah
Henderson for their comments on sections of this book, and Paul
Farber for all manner of support over the last three years. Thanks to Mary
Vaughn for help with the index. At Cambridge University Press, I would
like to thank editors Elizabeth Howard and Helen Barton, series editor
Jay Winter, copy editor David Watson, and the mysterious “Reader A”
and “Reader B” for their excellent suggestions on the manuscript.
At last, my most personal thanks. The ideas and intellectual spirit of
Lisa Moses Leff are wound into this work in ways that cannot be cited in
the traditional footnote. She has taught me that friendship and history are
interrelated; each is enhanced by the other. I am also most grateful to Jill
Johnson for her childcare work during the time I was revising this book.
My deepest thanks go to Will Pritchard, who has read this work so many
times that he can recite entire passages verbatim, and can smell a recycled
sentence a mile away. Finally, I dedicate this book to my parents Ingrid
and Jack Lynch, who instilled in me a curiosity about distant places and
gave me the education that enables me to study them.
 Abbreviations

Allgemeines biirgerliches Gesetzbuch

Archiv der Bundespolizei-Direktion Wien
Archiv der Republik
American Historical Review
Armeeoberkommando
Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv
Gemeinsames Zentralnachweisbiiro
Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv
Journal of Modern History
Kriegsarchiv
Kriegsministerium
KUA Kriegsiberwachungsamt
MdI Ministerium des Innern
MfKuU Ministerium fiir Kultus und Unterricht
Min [u. St.A.] f. soz. Ministerium [und Staatsamt] fiir soziale
Verwaltung Verwaltung und Volksgesundheit
MK/KM Ministerialkommission im
Kriegsministerium
MKSM Militarkanzlei Seiner Majestat
No Nieder6sterreich
NOLA NiederGsterreichisches Landesarchiv
OStA Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv
Pol. Dir. Polizei-Direktion
Pras. Prasidialakten
RGBI. Reichsgesetzblatt
WSLA Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv
WSLB Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek
ZAS Zeitungsausschnitt-Sammlung

XV
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 Introduction

For hundreds of years, residents of Vienna’s inner city lived behind stone
fortifications meant to keep them safe in times of war. During numerous
battles against hostile invaders, the barrier around inner Vienna had re-
pelled enemies, most famously the Ottoman Turks. In later times, military
planners conceived of the fortifications as protection for the Habsburg
court, state institutions and upper society against the potentially insur-
gent lower-class rabble in the outlying areas. In both cases, according
to the logic of the walled city, the threat to Vienna was perceived as
external. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Viennese did away
with their walls: the land where they stood was developed as a grand,
circular boulevard, the Ringstrasse, and districts beyond the buffer were
incorporated into the city. By the early twentieth century, the city had
expanded so rapidly, both in population growth and territorial annexa-
tion, that remnants of the old city walls appeared quaint reminders of
antiquated modes of warfare.! But dreams of walling-off Vienna would
resurface during the war that finally brought down the Habsburgs and
ended Vienna’s reign as an imperial capital. In World War I, military lead-
ers again fantasized about a buffer zone, but this time one designed to
protect their troops outside the city from the civilian war within.? Censors
worried that news of the home-front reality would “infect” soldiers with
poor morale. Letters from the home front that mentioned food shortage
and hunger were confiscated, so as not to “endanger the discipline of
front troops and negatively affect their spirits.”? Despair and defeatism,
borne of scarcity and fueled by pre-existing ethnic tensions, had turned
Vienna into a collection of mini-fronts, staged daily by women, children

! With immigration and territorial expansion, the population of Vienna grew from approx-
imately 550,000 in 1850 to 2,100,000 in 1910.
2 For changing perceptions of cities and war in the European cultural imagination, see
Bernd Hiippauf, “Die Stadt als imaginierter Kriegsschauplatz,” in Zeitschrift fiir German-
isttk 5, no. 2 (1995): 317-35.
3 AdBDW Stimmungsberichte, January-April 1917 (misfiled). Letter from Marie
Krbuschek in Vienna, to brother Anton Wolf; and censor’s memo, 27 March 1918.
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 CHAPTER III.

CUT ADRIFT.

Burgo Brabazon had many pleasant recollections associated in his

mind with his uncle's house in Great Mornington Street. He had
nearly always spent his holidays there when a lad, and very jolly
times they had generally been. But, on the present occasion, when
once the front door was shut behind him, he found himself in an
unknown country. Everything was changed. The sober, substantial,
thoroughly English-looking furniture, which seemed to match so well
with the dingy Georgian mansion, had all been swept away and the
art upholsterer, with his latest fads, had had full scope given him to
work his own bizarre will.

Burgo was ushered into the back drawing-room--a pleasant, home-

like room it had been in the old days, where he and his uncle had
played many a game of backgammon; but now it was transmogrified
out of all recognition, and a chill came over the young fellow's spirits
as he looked around. It had been more like home to him than any
other place in the world, and now he knew it no longer.

Presently the door opened and a tall, dark, handsome woman,

whose age might be anything between thirty and forty, came slowly
forward.

"Mr. Brabazon, I presume."

"At your service, Lady Clinton," answered Burgo, as for a moment he
bent over the rather large, but beautifully shaped hand which was
extended for his acceptance.

"I have heard much of you, and am glad to see you. Pray be
seated." Her tones were clear and incisive, like those of a person in
the habit of giving orders and of having them obeyed.

When he had sat down, Burgo was enabled to observe her more at
his leisure.

Notwithstanding that the bloom and freshness of youth had left her
for ever, she was still a very handsome and presentable woman, and
had nothing of the typical adventuress in her appearance, as Burgo
was fain at once to concede.

Her complexion was dark--a clear, dark olive--without being in the

least degree sallow. (Burgo called to mind that Cusden had said
something about her being of semi-Italian parentage, and he could
well believe it) She had a plentiful mass of jet black silky hair, and
rather thick but finely-curved eyebrows. But the eyes themselves,
which in colour matched her hair, Burgo did not like. They seemed to
him cold, watchful, almost cruel. Her mouth was rather large and her
lips were ripe and full--a little too ripe and full some people deemed
them, while there were others who counted them as one of the most
attractive features of a more than ordinarily attractive physiognomy.
For so do opinions differ.

She looked best when she smiled and displayed her splendid teeth,
and she was quite aware of the fact.

There was a little pause after they had seated themselves, which
Burgo was the first to break.

"I trust that my uncle is quite well, Lady Clinton?" he said.

"I am sorry to say that dear Sir Everard is far from well. We had a
rough passage across, and it seems to have upset him considerably."

"When may I hope to have the pleasure of paying my respects to

him?"

"That is more than I can say, in the present state of his health."

"But surely----" began Burgo, and then he stopped. He had been

about to say, "But surely he will see me, even although he may not
be able to see any one else," when he suddenly remembered that
between himself and his uncle there now interposed a barrier which
all his wishes might perchance prove powerless to overpass.

"It will, I trust, Mr. Brabazon, be sufficient if I state that at the

present time my husband is not in a condition to see any one--any
one at all." She laid a marked emphasis on the words "my husband."

The young man bent his head gravely. "I am sorry to hear you say
that, madam--very sorry indeed. I trust, however, that you will not
fail to convey my love and dutiful respects to my uncle, who has,
indeed, been both father and uncle to me for the last eighteen
years." In Burgo's voice there was an unwonted tremor.

"I will not fail to give your message to Sir Everard," said Lady
Clinton, with a half-smile which just showed the pearly line of her
teeth.

Burgo, watching her, said to himself, "This woman is my enemy."

He was at a loss to know whether he was now expected to rise and

take his leave. Had he been summoned to Great Mornington Street
simply to be told that his uncle was ill and declined to receive him?

But Lady Clinton did not leave him long in doubt.

"Pardon me, Mr. Brabazon," she went on after a momentary pause,
"but did you really come here to-day with the expectation that your
uncle would receive you with the same degree of cordiality and
affection which he has accorded you on so many previous
occasions?"

"I certainly did, and I fail to see in what way such an expectation
was unreasonable."

"Excuse me again; but for the moment you seem to have forgotten
the sacrifice--for I can call it by no other term--which, only a few
weeks ago, Sir Everard was called upon to make for you."

"I presume your ladyship refers to the payment of my debts?"

Her ladyship gravely inclined her head.

"My uncle was not called upon by me to make any such sacrifice, as
you term it. I was asked to supply a list of my debts, and I did so."

"May I ask whether you were in a position to have paid them

yourself?"

For the life of him, Burgo could not help colouring up to the very
roots of his hair. "That I certainly was not," he replied unhesitatingly.

"Then it was perhaps as well that your uncle should pay them for
you, were it only to save the family credit."

"Confound this woman! I begin to hate her as much as she hates

me," muttered poor Burgo under his breath.

"This is not the first occasion, I believe, on which Sir Everard has
had to relieve you from the burden of your extravagances."

Burgo writhed helplessly on his chair.

"Twice previously my uncle has had the melancholy satisfaction of
discharging my liabilities."

"Just so. And yet you come here to-day, and tell me coolly that you
expected to be received on precisely the same terms as if nothing
had happened!"

"Oh, madam!" cried the young man, a fine flame of indignation

burning in his eyes; "I have known my uncle all my life, and I judge
him by a different--a very different--standard from that which you
seem to judge him by. That he would have grumbled, that he would
have scolded me a little, as most fathers and uncles have a way of
doing under such circumstances, I was quite prepared to expect; but
that he would refuse to see me I would never have believed--never!"
His voice broke a little as he finished, and he turned away his head
for a moment, ashamed to think that he should have been so
moved.

Lady Clinton sat regarding him with her coldly-critical half-smile.

She was one of those people who seem to derive a sort of semi-
sensuous enjoyment from witnessing the mental tortures and
anguished heart-throbs of their more susceptible fellow mortals.
Such people have keen powers for analysing in others a certain class
of emotions of the existence of which in themselves they have no
cognisance.

Lady Clinton gave Burgo a few moments to recover himself, and

then she said in her clear, incisive tones: "May I ask, Mr. Brabazon,
what your plans for the future are?"

"My plans for the future!" he echoed, looking at her with unmitigated
astonishment. "Upon my word, madam, I am not aware that I have
any."

"That is rather sad, is it not? And rather singular, too, if I may

venture to say so--considering your age."
"I fail to understand why your ladyship should see anything either
sad or singular in such a state of things. I have always left my
fortunes, both present and to come, in the hands of my uncle--as it
has been his invariable wish that I should do."

"Such being the case, may I assume that any wishes or desires your
uncle may choose to give expression to will be regarded as
obligatory by you?"

Burgo paused before answering. Then he said: "If my uncle himself

had put such a question to me three months ago, I should have
answered 'Yes' unhesitatingly; but, seeing that it is your ladyship
who puts the question to me to-day, I am somewhat at a loss what
to reply."

Burgo's barb pricked her. Her eyes dilated a little; two red-hot spots
flamed out for a moment on her cheeks and then vanished.

"If I have taken upon myself, Mr. Brabazon, to question you with
regard to your plans for the future, I have done so at your uncle's
special request. He presumes that, at your age, your future career
cannot be altogether a matter of indifference to you, and he is
desirous of knowing what views and wishes you may have formed
with regard to it."

"It seems somewhat strange, madam, that my uncle should all at

once profess to be so anxious about my future. On more than one
occasion, some four or five years ago, I acquainted him with my
wishes in the matter, but he chose quietly to set them aside as of no
moment, and since that time I have never troubled myself in the
affair?"

"Even granting that such may have been the case at the period you
speak of," said her ladyship, "you can readily understand, Mr.
Brabazon, that certain circumstances which have happened since
then may have modified Sir Everard's views in many matters, and in
the particular one under consideration among the rest."
"Oh yes, I can quite understand that," answered Burgo, not without
a spice of bitterness.

"While fully aware that, in all probability, such would be the case,
you have not, to quote your own words, troubled yourself further in
the affair?"

"I have not--as I said before. When I left college, as I did not fail to
impress upon my uncle at the time, I was desirous of entering the
army, but it is too late to think of that now. Then it was that my
uncle took the responsibility of my future into his own hands, and in
his hands it still remains."

Lady Clinton did not at once reply, but sat gazing through the
window like one deep in thought.

Presently Burgo spoke again.

"Your ladyship will pardon me, but, from what you have already said,
I can only presume that when you asked me to come here to-day, it
was because you were in a position to impart to me some
information, or to put before me some definite proposition on my
uncle's part with respect to my future. If such be the case, I shall be
glad to listen to whatever message you may be charged with, with
as little further preface as may be."

It was an audacious speech, and her ladyship felt it to be such;

indeed, to her it seemed nothing less than a piece of consummate
impertinence. She stared at him for a moment in icy surprise, but he
met her gaze unflinchingly. Evidently there was more in this young
man than she had given him credit for.

"When you were requested to call here to-day, Mr. Brabazon, it was
not in order to obtain your assent to some proposition which I had
been commissioned to lay before you (that would have been too
ridiculous), but to inform you of the decision which your uncle has
come to in respect of matters between yourself and him."
"That is the point, madam, about which I am anxious to be
enlightened."

"Very well. Here is Sir Everard's decision in a nutshell. The allowance

which his lawyer has been in the habit of paying you quarterly will
cease from to-day, and in lieu thereof, and further, as a quittance in
full of any imaginary claim which you may have assumed yourself to
have on your uncle's pecuniary resources, he requests your
acceptance of this cheque for one thousand guineas."

As her ladyship ceased speaking, she opened her porte-monnaie,

which she had held clasped in one hand all this time, and extracted
therefrom a narrow folded slip of paper, and rising, laid it on the
table close by where Burgo was sitting. Then she resumed her seat.

It is not too much to say that Burgo was literally stunned. He

repeated her ladyship's words automatically to himself before he
could feel sure that he had heard aright. For a moment or two he
saw everything through a haze, as one sees things in a half-dream,
and when the film had cleared away it was to leave him conscious
that Lady Clinton's eyes were fixed on him with a cynical and, as he
fancied, somewhat contemptuous smile. The sight acted on him like
an ice-cold douche, and brought him at once to himself.

"So," he said, speaking not without an effort, "the statement I have

just heard from your ladyship's lips embodied my uncle's ultimatum,
so far as I am concerned?"

"It is Sir Everard's ultimatum--the word is your own, Mr. Brabazon."

"And it is you, madam, whom I have to thank for it."

Lady Clinton set her lips tight, but did not reply.

Burgo rose, and taking up the cheque opened it, and let his eyes
rest for a moment or two on the familiar signature.
"This is my answer to the offer of which you are the bearer," he said,
looking her straight in the face; and with that he deliberately tore
the cheque in four, and dropped the pieces on the table. "Never will
I touch another shilling of my uncle's money as long as I live."

He turned and took up his hat. "I need not detain you further, Lady
Clinton," he said. "But I cannot go without complimenting you on the
thoroughly businesslike way in which you have carried out the task
you set yourself to do. Madam, I have the honour to wish you a very
good day."

He swept her a low bow, and as he did so his eyes crossed fire with
hers. There was no flinching on either side. They both felt that
henceforth it was a duel à outrance between them. But already Lady
Clinton had drawn "first blood."

She rose as the door closed behind Burgo, and drew a deep breath.
"So far the day is mine," she said, "but I shall be greatly surprised if
I have seen the last of Mr. Burgo Brabazon. If I ever read mischief in
anybody's eyes, I read it in his. I would give something to know
what step he meditates first. In any case, it will be nothing
dastardly, nothing underhand. Any one not a gentleman would have
taken that cheque and have remained my enemy just the same. I
am glad I have seen him; under other circumstances I feel that I
could both like and admire him--and yet I must brush him from my
path. He is the one great obstacle I have to contend against, and he
must be sacrificed. If only he would have contented himself with the
thousand guineas, and have given no further trouble! And now to
give Sir Everard my own version of the interview," she added, as she
took up the portions of the cheque and tore them into still smaller
fragments.
 CHAPTER IV.

"OLD GARDEN."

When the door of No. 22 Great Mornington Street clashed behind Mr.
Brabazon, instead of at once proceeding about his business,
whatever that might be, he paused on the topmost step and stared
first up the street and then down it, like a man whose faculties for
the time being had gone wool-gathering. But it was not so much
that as it was the strange, sudden sense of homelessness which had
come over him, for No. 22 might be said to be the only home he had
known since he was quite a child, although during the last few
years, since his uncle had taken to living so much abroad, he had
crossed its threshold but seldom.

As he stood there he found it hard to realise that, in all likelihood,

the old familiar door had closed behind him for the last time, and
that the tie between himself and his uncle, which had been one of
strong if undemonstrative affection, was severed for ever. And he
owed it all to the woman he had just left! He ground his teeth
together and went through a brief, but forcible form of commination,
which it was, perhaps, just as well that Lady Clinton was not there to
hear.

But he could not stand on the step all day. A passing hansom
inspired him with a sudden resolution. He would go and see "old
Garden," and give him an account of the interview between himself
and her ladyship.

He was fortunate enough to find the lawyer at home.

The old man listened to him with kindly patience, and did not
interrupt his recital by a word. When Burgo had finished, he said: "It
would seem from what you tell me that you and her ladyship have
not only begun by being at daggers-drawn, but are likely to remain
so."

"Whose fault is that? Not mine assuredly. But how is it possible for
me to regard her otherwise than as my enemy? Think how she must
have worked upon my uncle's mind before she succeeded in
obtaining his consent to an act of such gross injustice! Knowing the
dear old boy as I do, it is inconceivable to me how he was ever
persuaded to agree to such a thing. Putting aside his affection for
me, I never knew a man with a stronger sense of justice; besides
which, he had always a will of his own, and knew how to assert it."

The lawyer shook his head with a smile and a pursing out of his lips.
"My experience has taught me that it is often the most unlikely men,
to all seeming, who succumb the soonest and the most completely
to feminine influence. It is your smooth, slippery, softly good-
natured sort of men--men with no angles or corners to speak of--
whom the ladies find it most difficult to grasp and hold. Now you Mr.
Burgo (if you will allow me to say so), with all your fine
assertiveness (which, mind you, I like to see in one of your years),
and that dash of Hotspur in your composition, are just the kind of
man whom a certain kind of woman could twist round her little
finger with the utmost ease, and that without allowing you to
suspect that you were anything but very much your own master."

Burgo laughed, as if to cover the dusky flush that mounted to his

cheeks. Would it be anything but happiness, he asked himself, to be,
as old Garden put it, twisted round the little finger of Clara Leslie,
even although he should be fully cognisant of the mode in which he
was being practised upon? But, for that matter, was Clara at all the
kind of girl to try to twist any man round her finger? From what he
had seen of her, he felt sure she was not.

Mr. Garden coughed, and put on his gravest professional air. "To
return to the interview between Lady Clinton and yourself," he said.
"This seems likely to prove a very awkward business for you."
"Awkward is not the word. It simply means ruination."

"And yet you refused the cheque for a thousand guineas!"

"Under the circumstances would you have had me take it? I feel sure
that had I done so you would have thought considerably worse of
me than you do; which," he added, as if to himself, "it is quite
needless that you should." It was an assertion the lawyer made no
attempt to refute.

"Of course you have not yet had time to decide upon anything as
regards your future," he observed.

"There's one point as to which I'm quite clear--that I must earn my

living by hook or by crook."

"And a very good thing for you that you should be compelled to do
so, if I may be permitted to say so. You have led an idle life far too
long, Mr. Brabazon."

"There I am at one with you. But whose is the fault? Not mine. As
you are aware, several years ago I pestered my uncle to send me to
Sandhurst; but he would not hear of it, nor of anything else which,
in time, might have helped to make me independent of his purse-
strings. As far as I see at present, there's only one thing left me to
do, and that is to enlist as a full private in one of Her Majesty's
regiments of dragoons."

"I hope you will do nothing so rash and ill-advised. A private soldier,
indeed! Tut-tut!"

"Why not? I don't see that I'm fit for anything else. And sure I am
that I would enlist to-morrow if I could make certain of being sent to
India, or somewhere where there was a chance of a brush with the
black fellows."
"I am glad to think there's no such chance open to you, for, as far as
I am aware, we have not even a little war on hand just now. It is
just possible--hem!--that I might be able to do something for you--of
course in a very humble way--in the City, or elsewhere."

Burgo smiled a little bitterly. "Thank you all the same, Mr. Garden,
but when you say that, you don't know what a rank duffer I am--you
don't really. I should not be a bit of use in an office of any kind. I'm
not built that way. I declare I would rather carry a sandwich-board
about the streets, or break stones for a bob a day, than be perched
on a stool, with a pen in my fist and a big ledger in front of me, for
six hours out of the twenty-four, even if by so doing I could rake in
five hundred a year, which is utterly absurd, even as a supposition."

"In any case, my serious advice to you is to do nothing in a hurry,

nothing rashly. Who knows but that your uncle, when he has had
more time to think over the affair, may come to the conclusion that
he has dealt too hardly by you; and remembering that you are his
sister's son, and that he has always taught the world to look upon
you as his heir, will award you that measure of justice, and restore
to you that measure of affection, of which, I trust, you have only
been temporarily deprived?"

Burgo shook his head. "That his affection for me is just as strong as
it ever was, I firmly believe. But so long as he remains in the power
of that woman--so long as she retains her influence over him--so
long shall I continue to be (for aught he will know to the contrary)
the outcast and pauper I know myself to be at this moment."

Mr. Garden rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully with his
forefinger.

"You remember what I said to you the other day," he presently

remarked, "about the necessity which now exists for a fresh will?"

Burgo nodded.
"Of course, as Sir Everard's legal adviser, I am not justified in
mentioning the fact, but in this instance I will take upon myself the
responsibility of doing so. The fact to which I refer is this--that, up
to the present time, I have been favoured with no instructions from
your uncle for the drawing up of another will."

"That seems somewhat singular, does it not?"

"I was inclined to think so before to-day."

"And now?"

"Now I am inclined to look at the affair from an altogether different

point of view. After what you have told me about Lady Clinton, I am
disposed to think that she is sufficiently--I don't like to say artful,
especially where a lady is concerned----"

"There need be no hesitation on your part in applying the term to

her ladyship," interpolated Burgo with a short laugh.

"Well, then, we will say sufficiently wide-awake to persuade her

husband into engaging a fresh lawyer to draw up the all-important
document."

"But why on earth should she be at the trouble of doing that?"

"Knowing, as she probably does, that I have been Sir Everard's

confidential adviser ever since he succeeded to the property, that his
previous wills--he has made some half-dozen in all at different times-
-have been drawn up by me, and also, perhaps, being aware that
you and I have been brought into frequent contact, she may have
deemed it advisable for various reasons that the new will should be
entrusted to a stranger, more especially should her husband have
been induced, as seems by no means unlikely, to constitute her his
sole legatee, to the exclusion of every one else who might be
supposed to have some claim to be remembered by him."
"By Jove! I shouldn't wonder if you are right."

"At present we are only dealing with suppositions. It is quite possible

that I may have a letter by the next post asking me to wait upon Sir
Everard to-morrow morning."

"By the way," said Burgo, "may I ask whether you know anything
about my dear aunt's antecedents?"

"I know nothing whatever about them, except that she is said to
have been the widow of a certain Colonel Innes."

"Then I am in the position of being able to tell you a little more than
that about her." Whereupon he proceeded to recount to Mr. Garden
the information which had been retailed to him by Captain Cusden at
the club. "Of course it's as plain as a pikestaff that the woman is
nothing more than an adventuress," he finished up by saying.

The old lawyer protruded his under lip. "Is not that rather a
sweeping assertion to make on no better authority than the gossip
of a club acquaintance?"

"Does not what I have told you to-day with regard to myself go far
to prove it? Do you suppose the dear old boy would have
coldshouldered me as he has done had it not been for her? No, you
know better than that. She's thirty years younger than he, and a
remarkably handsome woman (there's no denying that); for what
else, then, can she have married him save for his money and his
position?"

"What then? Don't we hear of such unions every day? I presume

your uncle knew what he was about when he married the handsome
widow, and we have no right to suppose that he is otherwise than
perfectly satisfied with his share of the bargain. All of which, Mr.
Brabazon," added the old man, with a kindly inflection of the voice,
"makes your case no whit the less hard."
There was a little space of silence. Burgo, with a pencil he had
picked up, was idly sketching the profiles of his uncle and Lady
Clinton on the blotting-pad in front of him.

"I wonder," said Mr. Garden musingly, as he proceeded to polish his

spectacles with the silk handkerchief he kept by him for that
purpose, "I wonder whether Lady Clinton is aware of the large sum
of money which will accrue to her husband--should he live till then--
some time in October next?"

Burgo paused in his sketching. "To what particular sum of money do

you refer, Mr. Garden?"

"To the fifteen thousand pounds conditionally bequeathed Sir

Everard by his cousin, the late Mrs. Macdona."

"What were the conditions, Mr. Garden? I have more than once
heard some vague talk about such a legacy, although it was a
subject my uncle always seemed to fight shy of; but nobody ever
told me the real ins and outs of the affair."

"As there's nothing about the affair to make a secret of, there can be
no harm in my telling you what I know of it," replied the lawyer.
"Mrs. Macdona was Sir Everard's cousin on his mother's side. When
no longer in the bloom of youth she married a man a great deal
older than herself, who was a sleeping partner in one of our big
London breweries. At his death she succeeded to the greater portion
of his wealth, amounting to nearly a quarter of a million. She
outlived her husband a score years, but never married again. She
had no family, and by her will, among numerous other legacies with
which we are not concerned, she bequeathed to each of her five
cousins, your uncle Everard being one of them, the sum of fifteen
thousand pounds, which, however, was in no case to be paid till he
or she should have reached the age at which the testatrix quitted
this world for a better one, which happened to be within a day or
two of her sixty-fourth birthday. Should any of the legatees die
before attaining that age, the fifteen thousand pounds which would
otherwise have come to him or her was to be divided among certain
specified charities.

"So eccentric was the will deemed that it was seriously debated by
some of the legatees whether an attempt should not be made to
have it set aside by a court of law. But Mrs. Macdona was known to
have been such a clear-headed, shrewd, businesslike woman, that
wiser counsels prevailed, and the will was left undisputed. To make a
long story short, of the five cousins who were legatees, two died
before reaching the age of sixty-four; one, your aunt, Mrs. Fleming,
of whom you can have no recollection, seeing that she married and
went with her husband to America nearly a quarter of a century ago,
had the pleasure, two years since, of succeeding to her legacy; while
the remaining two cousins, of whom your uncle Everard is the elder,
and your uncle Denis the younger, have not yet arrived at the
required age. But, as I have already remarked, next October will
bring Sir Everard's sixty-fourth birthday, and with it his long-deferred
legacy of fifteen thousand pounds."

"It will be fifteen thousand pities if he should live to succeed to it

merely that it may ultimately help to enrich that she-cormorant his
wife! Not but what her nest will be pretty well feathered without
that, should she outlive my uncle."

"Yes; although not especially wealthy for a man of his rank and
social position, Sir Everard is a long way from being a pauper. As I
happen to know, he has always made a point of living well within his
income, although what he will do, or be persuaded into doing, now
that he is married, it might be dangerous to prophesy. His only
extravagance, if such a term may be applied to it, has been that he
could rarely or never resist a 'bargain' in the way of curios, coins, or
bric-à-brac; which, however, he looks upon as a judicious investment
of capital, his contention being that after his death his collection will
sell for far more than it originally cost him--which may, or may not,
prove to be the case. At any rate, whatever money he has put away
(whether it be hundreds or thousands, is no concern of ours) is
invested in sound English stock which pays a fair rate of dividend.
Yes, if Lady Clinton should outlive her husband and succeed to all he
has to leave, the world will deem her a very fortunate woman."

Mr. Brabazon rose and took possession of his hat. He felt that the
interview, without having been productive of any positive benefit to
him, or having served in any way to modify the facts of his position,
had yet done him good. It was something to have secured the
sympathy and goodwill of the kind-hearted old man; and that,
however undemonstrative his manner might be, or however guarded
his utterances, he had secured them he felt fully assured. The cloud
had lifted in some measure, and his heart felt lighter, he knew not
why, than it had felt an hour before.

The lawyer also rose. There were two or three people in the outer
office waiting to see him.

"Don't forget my advice," he said. "Do nothing rashly, or in a hurry.

Remember that the chapter of accidents may nearly always be
counted on as a big asset, especially when one is still as young as
you are. I have your present address by me, but should you change
your venue, let me know. Also, don't forget to advise me should
there be any change in the present relations between your uncle and
yourself. But, for that matter, I don't know why you shouldn't come
and look me up as often as you feel inclined. One can say in five
minutes more than one can convey in half a dozen sheets of
foolscap, and you know without my telling you that I shall always be
glad to see you. And now one last word"--here he laid a kindly hand
for a moment on the young man's shoulder. "I don't suppose you are
very flush of cash--it would be rather an uncommon state of affairs
with you if you were, wouldn't it? Well, seeing that one source of
supplies has run dry, it behoves you to look out for another. Let me
be that other, Mr. Brabazon; let me be your banker till brighter
fortunes dawn upon you. I have a tidy little balance lying idle at the
bank, and if----"
Burgo caught him suddenly by the hand and gripped it hard, very
hard. "My dear Mr. Garden--my dear old friend," he said, and then
he had to pause for a moment before he could go on, "not a word
more of this just now. I have still a few pounds by me, and by the
time they are gone I hope to have settled on something definite as
regards my future. But should it ever be my fortune, or misfortune,
to be stone-broke (which is by no means an unlikely thing to
happen), and to find myself without a shilling to pay for my night's
lodging, then I promise you that you shall be the first of whom I will
ask that help which I can no longer do without."

CHAPTER V.

A HUMBLE FRIEND.

Two days later Burgo Brabazon knocked at the door of No. 22 Great
Mornington Street. Although Lady Clinton had distinctly told him his
uncle was too ill to see anybody, that only made it all the more
imperative that he should call and ascertain for himself whether the
dear old boy was better or worse.

To the servant who responded to his summons--moderated for fear

of annoying the sick man--he said, while handing him his card, "Take
this to Lady Clinton with my compliments, and tell her that I have
called to inquire about my uncle's health."

It was a curious and by no means a pleasant sensation to Burgo to

find himself left standing on the mat in the entrance-hall of the
house which, nearly ever since he could remember, he had regarded
in the light of home, and to realise that he was now looked upon as
nothing more than an alien and an outcast.

The man was not gone more than a couple of minutes. "Lady Clinton
begs to inform Mr. Brabazon," he said, "that Sir Everard is neither
better nor worse than usual."

Could anything be more vague and unsatisfactory? But that it was so

of set purpose he felt fully assured. Then, before he knew what had
happened, he found his card back in his fingers. Although the man
did not say so, her ladyship had evidently refused to receive it. It
was plain that she was bent on insulting him as often as he should
afford her an opportunity of doing so. He had to set his teeth hard in
order to keep back the imprecation that rose to his lips as he tore
the card in a dozen pieces and flung the fragments from him.

Three days later he called again. This time he sent in no card, but
contented himself with a verbal message. The answer brought him
was in precisely the same terms as before: "Sir Everard is neither
better nor worse than usual." This time he was more sad than angry
when he turned away from Great Mornington Street.

He felt that it would be hard, very hard, to be compelled to break

entirely with his uncle. Not once, but fifty times, he said to himself:
"This is not his doing, but hers. He would never treat me so of his
own accord. I durst wager twenty to one he has never been told
that I called; and even were I to write to him, the chances are that
my letter would not reach him. Still, it's worth the attempt, for I
want him to know that, although he has thought well to cast me
adrift, my affection for him is robust enough to survive all the shocks
of chance and change. He may, if he so choose, sever the chain
which binds him to me, but he cannot, against my will, sever the
one which binds me to him!"

A few days later Burgo wrote to Sir Everard as under:

"My dear Uncle,--You will, I hope, need no assurance on my part
that I was extremely grieved to hear from Lady Clinton that since
your return from abroad your health has been in such an
unsatisfactory state.

"Since my interview with her ladyship I have called twice in Great

Mornington Street, but only to be told that there was no
improvement in your condition.

"I had hoped on one or the other occasion of my calling to have

been permitted to see you, if only for a few minutes, and that I,
your sister's son, to whom for the last eighteen years you have filled
a father's part, should be debarred from doing so seems indeed hard
to credit.

"That I have done anything to forfeit a continuance of your affection

and esteem I am wholly unaware, and in conclusion I can but assure
you that the dearest hope I have is that the bond which has so long
existed between us should remain intact and wholly unaffected by
any extraneous circumstances whatever.

"Ever your affectionate Nephew,

"Burgo Brabazon."
Epistolary composition was not much in Burgo's line, and the missive
to his uncle was written and altered and rewritten at least a dozen
times before the final fair copy was made and despatched, and even
then he was far from satisfied with it.

But after all it proved to be so much labour in vain. By the first post
next morning his letter came back to him enclosed in an envelope
addressed in a feminine hand, but without an added word of any
kind inside. It had been opened, and that might be taken as proof
positive that it had been read--but by whom? Had it ever reached his
uncle? In view of her husband's invalid condition might not Lady
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