CHAPTER XIXA SCARLET FEATHER
Dear Sis:I’m going to cease setting down the big stuff for a space, while I write to you. I’m just back with a whole skin from spending the night up a tree watching this man’s army pull off a great stunt in the way of a surprise for the enemy. I’ve sent off my stuff for my paper and am now resting up—but a letter is due you, and I’ve found a way to get it to you by special delivery. The messenger starts in half an hour by motorcycle for your sector, and vows he’ll put it in your hands as soon as he’s handed over his dispatches to the C. O. So I can let myself go a bit—if I scrawl fast.I’ve had great luck this last month in meeting up with at least three people whom you’ll like to hear about. First:—R. M. B.—by the merest chance, for an hour later I’d have missed him. I simply turned a corner in a little French town where I’d stopped with an officer who was taking me with him up to the Front, and ran square into a black-eyed chap with a cross on his collar who was so tanned and so husky I didn’t snap to for a full minute. He did, though—and had me gripped with a grip like a steel trap. “Cary Ray!” he shouted. I knew the voice—I couldn’t forget that voice in a hurry—and of course instantly then I knew the man. Jolly! Jane, you ought to see him.Well, he hadn’t a minute to spare for me, unless I’d go with him. “Sure thing,” I agreed. “I’ve got an hour to spare while Major Ferguson checks up with G. H. Q. here. What’s your little party?”“It’s a burial party,” said he, looking me in the eye, same as usual. “If you haven’t had that particular experience, it won’t hurt you, and on the way we can talk things over.”As it happened I’d passed up the funerals, thus far, being occupiedexclusively with the living and those on the other side I wanted to see dead. Anyhow, it was worth it to have an hour with this particular chaplain, whatever job he was at. So I went along. I haven’t time to describe it to you here, but you can bet it rated a special half column for my paper. It was a mighty simple little affair, no frills, just a group of sober doughboys, a flag, some wooden crosses, and a firing squad—andR. M. B. reading the service. But don’t you think “the Resurrection and the Life” didn’t get over to us!On the way to the field and back I heard a great piece of news. R. M. B.’s regiment had been sent back into rest billets, about a fortnight before, and a group of entertainers had come through the little town one evening and put on a show for them. It was some show, and the bright particular star was—oh, you never could guess if you hadn’t a clue, any more than I could. Well, it was Fanny Fitch! Yes, sir—over here with a bunch of vaudeville people, going around the leave areas and cheering up the boys before the next bout. You should have heard the chaplain describing the song and dance; I never should have thought it! Fanny can’t sing a whole lot—just enough to get by, I judge; but dance she can, and jolly she does, and the boys fall for it like rows of tenpins. The best of it, according to R. M. B., is that she’s happy as a summer cloud doing her bit. Why, she’s just plain got into the game, Sis, as I told her to do, and I don’t know what more you can ask of anybody. You’re nursing, and the chaplain’s preaching—and burying—and if he isn’t fighting before he gets through I’ll be surprised, knowing how pugilistic he can be. And I’m skirmishing on the edge of things with my fountain pen, and Fanny Fitch is making eyes at the boys and warming the cockles of their tired hearts—bless her heart! And why isn’t her job as good as any of ours, since it helps the morale as it’s bound to do? All I know is I’m going to tear things loose and get to see her as soon as I can make it, lest some nervy shave-tail lieutenant get a line on her while my back is turned.Time’s up. The third meet-up? You’d say it couldn’t happen, but it did. It was a week earlier than this that I stood on the side of the road and watched a couple of battalions march by on their way to the training trenches in a quiet sector. And behold there was a first lieutenant aswasa first lieutenant, and his nameback in the States was Tommy Lockhart! Talk about making a man of a man—you ought to see our Tom!Luck to you and love to you——Always your same oldCary.
Dear Sis:
I’m going to cease setting down the big stuff for a space, while I write to you. I’m just back with a whole skin from spending the night up a tree watching this man’s army pull off a great stunt in the way of a surprise for the enemy. I’ve sent off my stuff for my paper and am now resting up—but a letter is due you, and I’ve found a way to get it to you by special delivery. The messenger starts in half an hour by motorcycle for your sector, and vows he’ll put it in your hands as soon as he’s handed over his dispatches to the C. O. So I can let myself go a bit—if I scrawl fast.
I’ve had great luck this last month in meeting up with at least three people whom you’ll like to hear about. First:—R. M. B.—by the merest chance, for an hour later I’d have missed him. I simply turned a corner in a little French town where I’d stopped with an officer who was taking me with him up to the Front, and ran square into a black-eyed chap with a cross on his collar who was so tanned and so husky I didn’t snap to for a full minute. He did, though—and had me gripped with a grip like a steel trap. “Cary Ray!” he shouted. I knew the voice—I couldn’t forget that voice in a hurry—and of course instantly then I knew the man. Jolly! Jane, you ought to see him.
Well, he hadn’t a minute to spare for me, unless I’d go with him. “Sure thing,” I agreed. “I’ve got an hour to spare while Major Ferguson checks up with G. H. Q. here. What’s your little party?”
“It’s a burial party,” said he, looking me in the eye, same as usual. “If you haven’t had that particular experience, it won’t hurt you, and on the way we can talk things over.”
As it happened I’d passed up the funerals, thus far, being occupiedexclusively with the living and those on the other side I wanted to see dead. Anyhow, it was worth it to have an hour with this particular chaplain, whatever job he was at. So I went along. I haven’t time to describe it to you here, but you can bet it rated a special half column for my paper. It was a mighty simple little affair, no frills, just a group of sober doughboys, a flag, some wooden crosses, and a firing squad—andR. M. B. reading the service. But don’t you think “the Resurrection and the Life” didn’t get over to us!
On the way to the field and back I heard a great piece of news. R. M. B.’s regiment had been sent back into rest billets, about a fortnight before, and a group of entertainers had come through the little town one evening and put on a show for them. It was some show, and the bright particular star was—oh, you never could guess if you hadn’t a clue, any more than I could. Well, it was Fanny Fitch! Yes, sir—over here with a bunch of vaudeville people, going around the leave areas and cheering up the boys before the next bout. You should have heard the chaplain describing the song and dance; I never should have thought it! Fanny can’t sing a whole lot—just enough to get by, I judge; but dance she can, and jolly she does, and the boys fall for it like rows of tenpins. The best of it, according to R. M. B., is that she’s happy as a summer cloud doing her bit. Why, she’s just plain got into the game, Sis, as I told her to do, and I don’t know what more you can ask of anybody. You’re nursing, and the chaplain’s preaching—and burying—and if he isn’t fighting before he gets through I’ll be surprised, knowing how pugilistic he can be. And I’m skirmishing on the edge of things with my fountain pen, and Fanny Fitch is making eyes at the boys and warming the cockles of their tired hearts—bless her heart! And why isn’t her job as good as any of ours, since it helps the morale as it’s bound to do? All I know is I’m going to tear things loose and get to see her as soon as I can make it, lest some nervy shave-tail lieutenant get a line on her while my back is turned.
Time’s up. The third meet-up? You’d say it couldn’t happen, but it did. It was a week earlier than this that I stood on the side of the road and watched a couple of battalions march by on their way to the training trenches in a quiet sector. And behold there was a first lieutenant aswasa first lieutenant, and his nameback in the States was Tommy Lockhart! Talk about making a man of a man—you ought to see our Tom!
Luck to you and love to you——
Always your same oldCary.
He finished it in a hurry, for the Colonel’s messenger could not be kept waiting. After that he did some manipulating and manœuvring, which in the end resulted, a few days later, in his getting the chance he wanted. What Cary could not bring about in one way he could in another, and more than one officer and man in authority, if he had owned up honestly, would have had to admit that a certain war-correspondent had a way of asking favours which it was somehow difficult to refuse. Cary’s face was his fortune, for it was the face of a modest but high-spirited non-combatant who was afraid of nothing so that he should fulfil his commission. Usually he was asking to be sent to the most active front, and pressing his case; so now when he wanted to make a dash to the rear, without explaining why, those who could further his request were glad to do so. It therefore presently came about that young Ray made his trip in an official car, in the company of several officers, with a number of hours to spare before the return in which to hunt up a certain group of entertainers, which he meant to locate or perish in the attempt. The more he thought about that “shave-tail lieutenant” and others of his ilk, the more eager he was to remind Fanny Fitch of his presence in this new world of hers.
The hunt took so much time that it began to look as if Cary’s usual luck had deserted him, when he came rather suddenly upon his quarry. It was the edge of the evening, and the edge of a French town in which was quartered a division on its way to the Front. A big audience of menwas seated on the grass watching a performance taking place on an improvised platform, lighted with flaring torches. At the moment of Cary’s arrival a young violinist was playing softly a series of haunting Scottish airs, and a hush had fallen over the listeners which spoke of dangerous susceptibility at a time when men must not be permitted to grow soft with dreams. But before this state of mind had had a chance to make serious inroads, the fiddler changed his tune. He dashed without warning into a popular marching song, a lad with a concertina leaped upon the stage, and a girl in a scarlet skirt, a black velvet coat, and cap with a long, scarlet feather, ran out from a sheltering screen. In her arms she carried a great flaming bunch of poppies, and over them she laughed down at her audience. Standing on the step below the stage she began to sing.
It was just such a song as Cary Ray—and most of the boys before him—had heard a thousand times. The singer, as he had written Jane, had no real voice for singing, only a few clear tones which, the moment the notes of the song took her above or below the middle register, became forced and breathy; but somehow that didn’t much matter. She had a clear enunciation, she had youth and a delightfully saucy smile, and she had—well—what is it which makes all the difference between one such performer and another—that elusive quality which none can define, but which all can recognize? Spirit, dash, beauty—they were all there—and something else—something new—something irresistible. What was it? Trying to discover what it was, Cary gradually made his way forward, slipping from one position to another through the seated ranks without ever lifting his body high enough to attract attention. Nearer and nearer he came to thefront, and clearer and clearer grew his view of Fanny’s laughing face. He didn’t want her to recognize him so he kept his own face well in shadow, though he knew that in the torchlight her audience must be to her mostly a blur of watching eyes and smiling lips, and masses of olive-drab. He came to a halt at length well sheltered behind a young giant of a corporal, around whose shoulder he could peer in safety. And then he looked for all he was worth at the girl who was holding these boys in the grip of her attraction, and doing with it what she would.
And what was she doing with it? What could Fanny have been expected to do? It was undoubtedly her chance to capture more masculine admiration in the lump than had ever been her privilege before. There were a goodly number of officers in her audience, mostly lounging in the rear of the ranks upon the grass, but none the less for that foemen worthy of her steel. She had every opportunity to use her fascinations with one end, and only one, in view. In satisfying her own love of excitement, she could easily, under the guise of entertainment, do these boys in uniform more harm than good. To tell the honest truth it was with this fear in mind that Cary now watched her. Great as had been her attraction for him in the past, so great did he expect it to be for these others now—and it had not been possible in that past for him to fail to recognize the subtle nature of that attraction.
He studied her from the shelter of the broad shoulder in front of him with the eyes of a hawk. Let Fanny give these young Americans one look which was not what Cary Ray wanted it to be, and he would steal away again as quietly as he had come and never let her know. He wasn’t sure that “R. M. B.” would have recognized what he himself would, in the situation; and the fact that Blackhad spoken with such hearty praise of Fanny’s performance hadn’t wholly served to reassure him. She had known from the beginning that the chaplain was present in her audience—that would make a difference, of course. She didn’t know now who was here; Cary would see her exactly as she was. It was no chaplain who was watching her now, it was an accredited war-correspondent with every faculty of observation at the alert, his memory trained to keep each impression vivid as he had received it.
It was a long time that Fanny was upon the rough stage, for her audience couldn’t seem to have enough of her. Again and again they recalled her, having hardly let her pass from sight. It was difficult to analyze the absorbing interest of her “turn,” made up as it was, like patchwork, of all sorts of unexpected bits. Song and story, parade and dance—one never knew what was coming next, and when it did come it might be the very slightest of sketches. It was very evidently her personality which gave the whole thing its attraction; in less clever hands it might have fallen flat. Yet through it all seemed to run one thread, that of genuine desire to bring good cheer without resort to means unworthy.
Yes, that was what Cary had to concede, before he had looked and listened very long. Though she was using every art which he had known she possessed, and some he hadn’t known of, she was doing it in a way to which he could not take exception. Though he was becoming momently more jealous of all those watching eyes because he could see how delighted they were, he grew surer and surer that Fanny was definitely and restrainedly doing the whole thing as the boys’ sisters might have done it, if their sisters had been as accomplished as she. His heart warmed to her as it had never warmed before. After all,Cary said to himself, this war had done something splendid to Fanny Fitch as well as to everybody else. She wasn’t a vampire, she was a good sport, and she was playing up, playing the game, with the very best that was in her, just as R. M. B. had said. And Cary was glad; he was gladder than he had ever been about anything.
The moment she had finally left the stage, and the sleight-of-hand man who was the other member of the little company had secured the reluctant attention of the audience, loth to let Fanny go, Cary wormed his way to one side and out of the torchlight into the clear darkness now fully fallen. He went around behind the screen, and found a slim figure in scarlet and black sitting with violinist and concertinist upon a plank, placed across two boxes. An older woman with a plain face and fine eyes looked up at Cary and shook her head at him with a warning smile. Evidently she was in charge, and very much in charge, of this girl who was travelling about France with men performers among so many men in uniform. But before she could send him away Fanny herself had looked up from a letter she was reading by a flash-light the little concertinist was holding for her.
She sprang up with a smothered exclamation of joy and came to him. The older woman rose also and followed her. Fanny turned to her.
“It’s an old friend, Mr. Ray—Mrs. Burnett.” She made the introduction under her breath, for at the moment the audience on the other side of the screen was silent, watching a difficult trick. “He’s a war-correspondent, and I’m sure hasn’t long to stay. Please let me talk with him, just outside here.”
So, in a minute, when Cary had disarmed the duenna with his frank and friendly smile, he led Fanny a stone’s-throwaway, just out of the flare of the torches, and looked down into her face.
“Well,” he said, “here we are! And you’re playing the game, for all that’s in it. I’m pleased as Punch that you’ve come along. Tell me all about it, quick. I’ve got to be back in the car that brought me in half an hour, not to delay Colonel Brooks.”
“Then there isn’t time to tell you all about it,” Fanny answered, “and there’s nothing to tell, either, except what you see. I am very happy to be of use—as I think I am.”
“I should say you were. I’ve been watching you for a full half-hour, and I never saw a jollier stunt put over. In that red and black you beat anything in pink and white I ever saw—to speak figuratively. You see—I’ve only seen you in pink and white, before!”
Fanny laughed. “And I’ve never before seen you in olive-drab. You’re perfectly stunning, of course. How did you know I was here—or didn’t you know?”
“The chaplain of the ——th told me,” Cary explained, watching her.
“Oh, yes!” Fanny’s eyes met his straightforwardly. She was made up for the stage but he didn’t mind that, because he knew it had to be. “It was so strange to see him, in uniform. He’s looking every inch a soldier, isn’t he?—even though he’s not one.”
“I’m not so sure he isn’t. Yes, he’s great—and you’re greater! It’s all in the nature of things that he should come over and do his bit, but you could hardly have been expected to do yours.”
“Why not? Just because I’ve always been a frivolous thing, is that any reason why I shouldn’t sober down now and be useful?”
Cary smiled. “You don’t look exactly sobered down, you know,” he told her, glancing from the dashing scarlet feather in the little cap set at an angle on her blonde head, to the high-heeled scarlet slippers on her pretty feet.
“Oh, but I am. I’m giving myself more seriously to being a little fool than I ever did to trying to seem wise.”
“And in doing it, you’re wisest of all!” Cary exulted. “Fanny—I’ve something to tell you. I wouldn’t have been sure once, whether it was something that would give you pleasure to hear or not, but—yes—I’m fairly sure now. You knew—you must have known, what I used to be, though you didn’t see much of me till that was pretty well over. I want you to know that—it’s all over now. I’ve had every sort of test, as you may imagine, since I left Jane—and Mr. Black, and Doctor Burns—the people who stood by me when I was down—and I haven’t given in once. Perhaps I will give in, some day, but I don’t think it. You see—I can’t disappoint them. And—I’d like to think—you care too whether—I make good.”
A great burst of applause came from the ranks upon the grass, followed by a roar of laughter. Cary drew Fanny a step or two farther away, though they two were already in deep shadow, made the deeper by contrast with the circle of radiance cast by the torches.
“Of course, I care,” she answered, and he strained his eyes in the darkness in the effort to see her face. “Cary, I wantyouto know that—ever so many things look different to me, over here. I—perhaps you won’t believe it, but it’s true—absolutely true—that when I face an audience like that one out there I feel like—almost like—a mother to those boys. And I just want to—be good to them—and help them forget the hard things they’ve seen, for a little while.”
He could have laughed aloud, at the idea of ever hearing anything like this from the lips of Fanny Fitch. Yet, somehow, he could not doubt that there was truth in the astonishing words, and it made him very happy to hear them. There had been that in her performance, as he had observed, which gave strong colour to this point of view. Certainly, the experience of being close to the heart of the great struggle was doing strange things to everybody. Why should it not have worked this miracle with her?
“Fanny—” he felt for her hand, and took it in both his, while he stooped lower to speak into her face,—“do you know that you and I are a lot alike? It’s supposed to be that people who are alike should steer clear of each other, but I’m not so sure. You and I are always keyed-up to a pitch of adventure—we like it, it’s the breath of life to us. I can understand it in you—you can, in me. Why shouldn’t we go after it—together? Why couldn’t we make a wonderful thing of our lives, doing things together? Why, if I could have made an airman, for instance—as I’d have liked mightily to do if I hadn’t been a newspaper man and had my job cut out for me—I can imagine your being ready to go up with me and take every chance with me—you could be just that sort of a good fellow. And even on the every-day, plain ground—why, dear—if you cared——”
Fanny was silent for a minute, and he could see that she was looking away from him, toward the boys on the grass, and the stage, and the torches.
“I want to go on doing this, while the war lasts,” she said, “as long as I can hold out.”
“Of course you do. And I want to go on with my job. We’re both taking chances. I don’t suppose a shot will get you—but—one might get me.”
“It might get me, too. I’m going next to some of the hospitals, and they are shelled sometimes, aren’t they?”
“Sure thing. And the funny thing is, I shouldn’t want you not to go, any more than you’d want to keep me in safe places. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes!” She whispered it.
“Then,” he argued triumphantly, “doesn’t that prove that we’re fit mates? And if we just knew that we belonged to each other, wouldn’t that—oh, don’t mind my saying it that way—wouldn’t that put a lot morepunchinto our work?”
“It might.”
He well remembered that delicious little laugh of hers; it had never delighted him more than it did now.
“Not that yours needs any more punch,” he went on, rather deliriously, in his joy. It certainly did give zest to a man’s wooing to know that a few paces away were several hundred rivals in admiration of his choice. Not one of those fellows but would have given his eyes to be standing back here in the shadow with the girl of the scarlet feather! “Punch! I should say so. How you did put it over! And all the while I wanted to jump up and yell—‘Keep your distance—she’smine!’”
“Oh—but you weren’t as sure as that!” Fanny tried to withdraw her hand.
But Cary held it fast. “No, I wasn’t sure, not by a darned sight. I’m not sure yet—except of one thing. And that’s if you send me away to-nightnotsure I’ll go to pieces with unhappiness and my work’ll run a fair chance of going to pieces too. Heaven knows when I’ll see you again, with the scrap getting hotter all the time. I don’t mean to play on the pathetic, but—well—you know as well as I do that this is war-time—and I’m greenwith jealousy of every doughboy who’ll see you from now on——”
He hardly knew what he was saying now. The violinist had begun to play again. The boys on the grass had fallen silent. The torches flared and fell and flared again in the light breeze which had suddenly sprung up. In a minute more he must go; he must run no risk of making the car-load of officers wait for him.
Fanny lifted her face and spoke to him in a whisper. “Cary, will you promiseme—that you’ll never—go back to the old—ways?”
“Oh, I’dliketo promise you!” he whispered back eagerly. “I want to. That will make it surer than sure—if I can promiseyou. I do promise you—on my honour—and before—God.”
They stood a moment in silence again, then Cary flung his arms around her and felt hers come about his neck.
“I want to promise you something, too,” her voice breathed in his ear. “I’ll never, never face an audience like this without—remembering that you might be in it. And I’ll play—as you would like me to. Didn’t I—to-night—without knowing?”
“Oh, my dear!” How could she have known, and given him what he wanted most? “Yes, you did—bless you! And I’ll trust you, as you’ll trust me. Oh, I didn’t know how much I loved you, till you said that. Fanny—we were meant for each other—I know we were!”
Every man has said it, and Cary was as sure as they. Perhaps he was right—as right as they. Anyhow, as he went away, he was gloriously happy in the thought that though those hundreds on the grass might thrill with pleasure as the girl with the scarlet feather came out to sing them her farewell song, not one of them all could knowas he did, that behind the enchanting gayety beat a real heart, one that belonged only to a certain war-correspondent, already many miles away! Surely, if she could trust him, he could trust her, and mutual trust, as all the world knows, is the essential basis for every human relation worth having. On this basis, then, was this new relation established; and the augury for the future was one on which to count with hope—even with confidence.