CHAPTER VIIILoneliness
ONE afternoon Nona went to Barbara’s bedroom, adjoining her own, and knocked.
She had recently decided that she did not intend to allow Barbara to separate herself from her old friendships, if it were possible to prevent it. For, if Barbara were doing something of which she could not altogether approve, then all the more reason why she should hold to her affection in order to influence her should trouble come.
So, as Mildred Thornton was at present in charge of the hospital, Eugenia having gone away on one of the fruitless trips she made now and then in order to seek news of her husband, Nona asked that she and Barbara be given their two hours for recreation at the same time. Then she had managed an engagement with Barbara for a late afternoon walk.
Of course Nona appreciated how difficult it often is to revive an old affection which time and circumstances have altered. Certainly Barbara must have changed since her marriage, grown more spoiled and self-centered. One could scarcely imagine the old Barbara behaving as this new one was doing. Nevertheless, Nona did not intend the separation between the four original Red Cross girls to continue indefinitely.
Since the evening of her own and Barbara’s arrival at the hospital and their reunion with Eugenia and Mildred, there had been nothing like the intimacy they had known in the Countess Castaigne’s tiny house with the blue front door in southern France. Yet here there should be a deeper emotion between them, now that the Stars and Stripes were to float with the Tricolor over the scarred fields of France.
Barbara did not answer and Nona, turning the handle of the door, walked in.
To her surprise she found that Barbara was not waiting, but that Agatha Burton was in the room glancing over something which she had written upon a pad. It wasrather an amusement to her companions that Agatha, who did not appear particularly clever, had confessed that she intended writing a book upon the war at its close and was keeping notes with this idea in mind.
She flushed now, apparently with annoyance at Nona’s intrusion.
“I am awfully sorry. I thought Mrs. Thornton was waiting for me. I did not realize anyone else was here,” Nona apologized.
Agatha’s manner immediately changed. She had a fashion, which few of the girls working with her liked, of now and then behaving in a kind of apologetic way, as if she were accused of something and trying to defend herself, when no one had considered her.
“Oh, it does not matter; I was expecting you. Mrs. Thornton asked me to wait here for a few moments to give you this note. She cannot keep her engagement.” Then Agatha slipped hurriedly out of the room.
Barbara had written only a few lines to explain that she had unexpectedly made anappointment to see one of the superior officers at the American camp. She was to find out if he approved of an entertainment on a good deal larger scale than they had yet undertaken for the amusement of the soldiers.
Nona bit her lips for an instant with disappointment and annoyance. Then she laughed. Barbara was a good deal of a diplomatist, and doubtless the entertainment would take place. Yet it was rather a surprise to find Barbara devoting the greater part of her energies to something so unlike serious Red Cross nursing. Well, that would come later! However, Nona remembered Barbara never had cared for the nursing to the extent she and Eugenia and Mildred had. This was one of the many reasons why she had disapproved of Barbara’s returning to France to undertake Red Cross work a second time. However, they were all in France to do whatever was required, and if Barbara’s talent and inclination took this particular outlet, she had no right to criticise, so long as Eugenia did not.
However, Nona had no idea of giving upher walk. She had been in the hospital all day and was tired.
She took the road from the hospital toward the village, where the largest number of the American soldiers were encamped. Yet she did not intend going into the village but merely to keep on the outskirts.
It was late afternoon and the work in camp was, in all probability, over, so that the men would be resting. Yet she wished to be sufficiently near to see the little once sleepy old French town, with its former prosperous neighboring fields, and to dream of the great change which had taken place. For at present it seemed the most strenuous village in the world.
However, Nona had not gone far from the hospital when she heard footsteps following her own. Then a cold nose was thrust into her hand. She allowed her hand to remain affectionately on Duke’s great head. He was always lonely and wretched when Eugenia was away, and seemed to know when she left the hospital by the same intuition which had informed him of Captain Castaigne’s disappearance. For thelarger part of the time Duke could not be near his mistress in the hospital yet was content if he felt her not far away.
Nona wondered for a moment if Duke would get into any mischief by going with her. But then he was usually discretion itself and already hundreds of the American soldiers knew and loved him.
Besides, Nona was a little lonely herself and Duke’s society would be a consolation. Only this morning she had receive a letter from Sonya Valesky, telling her that she and Bianca were away at a quiet seaside resort in New Jersey in order to escape the heat. Sonya also mentioned that Carlo Navara had been spending a few days with them.
The friend who had been paying for Carlo’s musical education before his departure to join the army in Italy and his subsequent injury had arranged for Carlo to see the most eminent throat specialist in New York. The specialist had advised an operation. He gave Carlo no certain hope that the operation would give him back his beautiful voice, but there was one chancein a hundred. The operation was a dangerous one, would he go through with it? So Carlo had come to ask Sonya’s advice. She had done so much for him in the past and they were such friends, he would not do what she did not think wise. Sonya added at the last that she had told Carlo to take the one chance, yet Nona could guess from her letter that she was worried over her decision.
And the letter had made Nona a little homesick. Since she had no family of her own, although Sonya was only her friend, she had come to feel closer to her than to anyone else. Besides, she was not reconciled to Sonya’s not coming with her to France, but preferring to remain in the United States to chaperon Bianca for the present at least.
But when Sonya had last been in France she had just returned from a Russian prison after having been sentenced to Siberia and then reprieved. So it was small wonder that her memory of those days was not pleasant. Sonya now seemed to love the United States and, in spite of the turmoil inRussia in her effort for freedom, to be content to remain away from her own country.
But while she was thinking, Nona had turned from the road into a side path which skirted the edge of the village. She was not afraid at being alone. For one thing, Duke was with her; for another, the soldiers had so far been universally courteous. One of General Pershing’s first requests to the American soldiers arriving in France was that they show entire respect to French women. They would surely not show less to American girls.
Running through the village which had been given over by France for the training grounds of the American soldiers, was a little river, which in this country would be thought of only as a stream. Here it curved and wound round to the left. Nona could see the lights and shadows on the water through the trees which separated her from it.
She believed the woods empty, then she thought for an instant that she saw the flutter of a woman’s dress going swiftly past in the opposite direction. There wassomething oddly familiar about the figure, and yet, disappearing so swiftly, Nona not only did not recognize who it was, but was scarcely convinced she had seen anyone.
At some little distance farther on, however, she did discover an American soldier half sitting and half lying down under one of the trees. He was smoking, yet Nona recognized what his attitude of discouragement revealed. She had been doing war work too long not to know! Moreover, in these past few weeks she had been a witness to deeper if more self-contained homesickness than she had ever seen. But then no other soldiers have been forced to fight so far from their own people.
Nona wondered for an instant if there were anything she could do to help, just to talk to another human being is often a consolation.
But while she was hesitating the young man glanced in her direction. Then, jumping up, Lieutenant Kelley came toward her and Nona wondered for the shadow of a second how long he had been alone.
“Sorry to have you catch me loafing,Miss Davis! I confess I am in a bad humor and trying to fight it off. An officer hasn’t any right to be homesick or have the blues; one must leave that privilege to a private, as he is still a human being. My, but it is good to see you standing there in that white gown with that great dog! It makes a fellow feel as if he were back in Kentucky, meeting unexpectedly some girl he likes in a country lane. The country about here isn’t so unlike Kentucky.”
Lieutenant Kelley was now near Nona, leaning over a little fence which divided the woods from the path.
Nona smiled. Lieutenant Kelley was just a charming, well-bred boy; it was small wonder Barbara liked and enjoyed him. Only Nona wondered a little if Barbara were making the young man more contented or less so.
“Do you think you ought to walk about like this alone?” he inquired. “You see, most of our soldiers are well behaved, but there are a whole lot of us and you cannot expect us all to be alike. LieutenantMartin and I were out together a few hours ago trying to round up a few who have fallen from grace. I’m not much on discipline, I’m too easy; but Martin is a great fellow for discipline. I must say, though, he is equally hard on himself; but then he thinks and dreams of nothing but this war, does not seem to have another wish, not even an affection outside of it. Do you mind my confiding in you? He has just been raking me over the coals for what he says is my too great familiarity with the men. But you see, I thought we were fighting to make the world safe for democracy and I’ve an idea the men will do as much for me as for him. Martin is not popular; I worry over the fact sometimes since he really is a fine fellow once you know him. But at present he is worked up over the idea that there may even be spies here among our own men, has had some such suggestion made to him from those higher up. So he keeps on the lookout and if the soldiers find out he is watching them they won’t like it.
“To me the idea of a traitor in our owncamp is incredible, but this whole German spy business always has been. I don’t know whether I ought to speak of this even to you.”
Nona shook her head. “No, I suppose not, although it is the thing we all think about, even if we do not speak of it. To have the Germans find where our camp is, or how many men we have over here, or when the great moment of real work comes, these things must never happen! Yet I agree with you I simply cannot believe there is anyone who would, or who could betray us for that matter. But I won’t walk far and I am not alone.” Nona still held her hand on Duke’s silver-gray head, the dog quiet as the Proverbial sentinel.
“Wish I could go along with you,” Lieutenant Kelley answered. “But I must be back in camp as I’ve important work to do before taps.”
Then, vaulting over the fence, he went on toward camp.
After their conversation Nona naturally thought nothing more of his having had a companion with him before she came on thescene. There was nothing in what he had said to indicate it and nothing in his appearance or manner to suggest deception. Besides, why should he have wished to deceive her?
She did think, however, of what he had said and of how universal this fear he had expressed had become. The whole world seemed obsessed by it. In almost every one of her Red Cross experiences, since the present war began, Nona had come in contact either with the actual business of spying, or with the suspicion of it. Here in France, guarded as they all were, they must be safe. Nona was sorry that the idea had again been presented to her. She hoped never to be brought into touch with anything or person connected with the business of spying again. For one thing, their recent Italian experience with Nannina was too fresh in her mind. No news had, so far, been heard of what had become of the Italian woman.
Naturally, Nona walked on farther than she realized, thinking of these things.
Then somewhat sharply she suddenlycame upon some barbed wire entanglements, making further progress impossible.
Evidently this portion of the French countryside had been used by the American soldiers for learning to construct these entrenchments. Nona knew that this was one of the tasks they had been working upon as a part of their intensive military training in these past few weeks in France. For modern wire entanglements of the same character had never been used before in any war.
Leaning over, intensely interested, Nona began studying the intricate twisting and weaving in and out of the heavy wires.
The next instant, however, she jumped up both surprised and frightened, for not many feet away a man was keeling on the ground making a more careful study of the entanglements than her own had been and he was not in the uniform of a soldier.