the house. I could not tell whether she had deliberately done it, or
whether long usage to dominance in a household had made her speak as
she did unconsciously.
I made no reply, and, for a long time, we sat staring at the fire
until Dicky's entrance came as a welcome interruption.
I went sedately to the door to meet him, although I was so glad to
see him that a dance step would more appropriately have expressed my
feelings, and returned his warm kiss and greeting. He kept my hand in
his as he came down to the fire, not even releasing it when he kissed
his mother, who still maintained the rigid dignity with which she
surrounded herself when displeased.
"Well," Dicky said, manfully ignoring any hint of unpleasantness,
"this is what I call comfortable, coming home to a fire and a welcome
like this on a dreary day."
There was a note of forced jollity in his voice that made me look up
quickly into his eyes. As they looked into mine, I caught a glimpse of
something half-hidden, half-revealed, something fiercely sombre, which
frightened me.
"What had happened," I asked myself, with a little clutch at my heart,
"to make Dicky look at me in this way?" I had a longing to take him
away where we could be alone.
I was glad when my mother-in-law rose stiffly from her chair.
"If you are too much occupied, Margaret," she remarked, icily, "I will
go and tell Katie that Richard is here, and that she may serve dinner
immediately."
She swept out of the room majestically, and as the door closed after
her Dicky caught me in his arms and clasped me so closely that I was
frightened.
"Tell me you love me," he said tensely, "better than anybody in the
world or out of it." His eyes were glowing with some emotion I could
not understand. I felt my vague uneasiness of his first entrance
deepen into real foreboding of something unknown and terrible coming
to me.
"Why, of course, you know that, sweetheart," I replied. "There is no
one for me but just you! But what is the matter? Something must be the
matter."
"Where did you get that idea?" he evaded. "I just wanted to be sure,
that's all. Wait here for me--I'll dash up and get some of the dust
off in a jiffy before dinner."
I spent an anxious interval before, he came down, for, despite his
denials, I felt that something out of the ordinary must have happened
to cause his queer, passionate outburst.
When he returned to, the living room, it was with no trace of any
emotion, and throughout the dinner, while not so given to conversation
as usual, he showed no indication that he was at all disturbed.
But I was very glad when the dinner was over, and we returned to the
living-room fire. And when, after a few minutes, my mother-in-law
yawned sleepily and went to her room, I drew a deep breath of relief.
Dicky drew my chair close to his, and we sat for a long time looking
at the leaping flames, only occasionally speaking.
It was at the end of a long silence that Dicky turned toward me, with
eyes so troubled that all my fears leaped up anew. I sprang to my
feet.
"What is it, Dicky?" I entreated, wildly. "Oh! I know something
terrible is the matter!"
He rose from his chair, and clasped my hands tightly.
"I suppose I'd better tell you quickly, dear," he replied. "Your
cousin, Jack Bickett, is reported killed."
"Killed!" I repeated faintly. "Jack Bickett killed! Oh, no, no,
Dicky; no, no, no!"
I heard my own voice rise to a sort of shriek, felt Dicky release my
hands and seize my shoulders, and then everything went black before
me, and I knew nothing more.
When I came to myself, I was lying on the couch before the fire, with
my face and the front of my gown dripping with water, the strong smell
of hartshorn in the room, and Dicky with stern, white face, and Katie
in tears, hovering over me.
Dicky was trying to force a spoon between my teeth when I opened my
eyes. He promptly dropped it, and the brandy it contained trickled
down my neck. I raised my hand to wipe it away, and Dicky uttered a
low, "Thank God!"
"Oh, she no dead, she alive again!" Katie cried out, and threw herself
on her knees by my side, sobbing.
"Get up, Katie, and stop that howling!" Dicky spoke sternly. "Do you
want to get my mother down here? Go upstairs at once and prepare Mrs.
Graham's bed for her. I will carry her up directly. Are you all right
now, Madge?"
His tone was anxious, but there was a note of constraint in it, which
I understood even through the returning anguish at Dicky's terrible
news, which was possessing me with returning consciousness.
He believed that my feeling for my brother-cousin, Jack Bickett, was a
deeper one than that which I had always professed, a sisterly love for
the only near relative I had in the world. This was the reason for his
sudden, passionate embrace of me when he entered the house, his demand
that I tell him I loved him better than anybody in the world or out of
it.
He had been jealous of Jack living, he would still be jealous of him
dead! But as the realization again swept over me that Jack, steadfast,
manly Jack, the only near relative I had, was no longer in the same
world with me, that never again would I see his kind eyes, hear his
deep, earnest voice, all thoughts of anything else but my loss fled
from me, and I gave a little moan.
I felt Dicky's arm which was around my shoulders shrink away
instinctively, then tighten again. He turned my face against his
shoulder, and, gathering me in his arms, lifted me from the couch.
"Oh, Dicky, I am sure I can walk," I protested faintly.
He stopped and looked at me fixedly.
"Don't you want my arms around you?" he asked, and there was that in
his voice which made me answer hastily:
"Of course I do, but I am afraid I am too heavy."
"Let me be the judge of that," he returned sternly, and forthwith
carried me up the stairs, down the hall, and laid me on the bed in my
own room.
"Now you must get that wet gown off," he said practically. "Katie
emptied nearly a gallon of water over you in her fright."
He smiled constrainedly, and I made a brave effort to return the
smile, but I could not accomplish it. Indeed, I was glad to be able to
keep back the tears, which I knew instinctively would hurt him.
He undressed me as tenderly as a woman could have done, and, wrapping
a warm bathrobe over my nightdress, for I was shivering as if from
a chill, tucked me in between the blankets of my bed. Then he drew a
chair to the bedside and sat down.
"Are you sure you are all right now?" he asked. "Your color is coming
back."
"Perfectly sure," I returned, "and I am so sorry to have made you so
much trouble."
"Don't say that," he returned, a trifle sharply. "It is so
meaningless. Try to sleep a little, can't you?"
"Not yet, Dicky," I returned. "I am feeling much better, however. Of
course, the shock was terrible at first, for, as you know, Jack was
the only brother I ever knew. But I am all right now and I want you to
tell me how you learned the news."
"Mrs. Stewart telephoned to me," he said. "It seems your cousin gave
her as the 'next of kin,' to be notified in case of his death, and
she received the notice this morning. There was nothing but the usual
official notification."
I caught my breath, stifling the moan that rose to my lips. Somewhere
in France lay buried the tenderest heart, the manliest man God ever
put into the world. And I had sent him to his death. Despite the
comforting assurance Jack had written me, just before his departure
for France, that his discovery of my marriage, with the consequent
blasting of the hope he had cherished for years, had not been the
cause of his sailing, I knew he would never have left me if I had not
been married.
I think Dicky must have read my thoughts in my face, for, after a
moment, he said gently, yet with a tenseness which told me he was
putting a rigid control over his voice:
"You must not blame yourself so harshly. Your cousin would probably
have gone to the war even if--circumstances had been different."
There was that in Dicky's voice and eyes which told me that he, too,
was suffering. I gathered my strength together, made a supreme effort
to put the sorrow and remorse I felt behind me until I could be alone.
I knew that I must strive at once to eradicate the false impression
my husband had gained as a result of my reception of the news of my
brother-cousin's death.
So I forced my lips to words which, while not utterly false, yet did
not at all reveal the truth of what I was feeling.
"I know that, Dicky," I returned, and I tried to hold my voice to a
conversational tone. "He went with his dearest friend, a Frenchman,
you know. I had nothing to do with his going. It isn't that which
makes me feel as I do. It is because his death brings back my mother's
so plainly. He was always so good to her, and she loved him so much."
Dicky bent his face so quickly to mine that I could not catch his
expression. He kissed me tenderly, and, kneeling down by the side of
the bed, gathered my head up against his shoulder.
"Cry it all out, if you want to, sweetheart," he said, and I fancied
the tension was gone from his voice. "It will do you good."
So, "cry it out" I did, against the blessed shelter of my husband's
shoulder. And the tears seemed to wash away all the shock of the
news I had, heard, all the bitter, morbid remorse I had felt, all
the secret wonder as to whether I might have loved and married my
brother-cousin if Dicky had not come into my life. There was left only
a sane, sisterly sorrow for a loved brother's death, and a tremendous
surge of love for my husband, and gratitude for his tenderness.
"Try to sleep if you can," he said.
I tried to obey his injunction, but I could not. I could see the hands
of my little bedroom clock, and after the longest quarter of an hour I
had ever known I turned restlessly on my pillow.
"It's no use, Dicky," I said, "I cannot go to sleep. I would rather
talk. Tell me, did Mrs. Stewart's voice sound as if she were much
upset? She is an old woman, you know, and she was very fond of Jack."
Dicky hesitated, and a curious, intent expression came into his eyes.
"Yes, I think she was pretty well broken up," he answered, "but the
thing about which she seemed most anxious was that you should not lose
any time in attending to the property your cousin left. I believe he
wrote you concerning his disposition of it before he sailed."
I looked up, startled. Dicky's words brought something to my mind
that I had completely forgotten. I was the heiress to all that Jack
possessed, not great wealth, it is true, but enough to insure me a
modest competence for the rest of my life.
"Do you object to my taking this money, Dicky?" I asked, and my voice
was tense with emotion.
"Object!" the words came from Dicky's mouth explosively, then he
jumped to his feet and paced up and down the room rapidly for a moment
or two, his jaw set, his eyes stern. When he stopped by the bed he had
evidently recovered his hold on himself, but his words came quickly,
jerkily, almost as if he were afraid to trust himself to speak.
"You are in no condition to discuss this tonight," he said, dropping
his hand on my hair, "we will speak of it again tomorrow, when you
have somewhat recovered. Now you must try to go to sleep. I shall have
to call a physician if you don't."
I lay awake for hours, debating the problem which had come to me. I
saw clearly that Dicky did not wish me to take this bequest of Jack's.
Indeed, I knew that he expected me to refuse it, and that he would be
bitterly disappointed if I did not do so.
My heart was hot with rebellion. It seemed like a profanation of
Jack's last wish, like hurling a gift into the face of the dead, to do
as Dicky wished.
And yet--Dicky was my husband. I had sworn to love and honor him. I
knew that he felt sincerely, however wrongly, that my acceptance of
Jack's gift would be a direct slap at him. I felt as if my heart were
being torn in two, with my desire to do justice both to the living
and the dead. It was not until nearly daylight that the solution of my
problem came to me. Then I fell asleep, exhausted, and did not awaken
until Dicky came into the room, dressed for the journey which he took
daily to the city.
"I wouldn't disturb you, sweetheart," he said, "only it's time for
me to go in to the studio, and I did not want to leave you without
knowing how you are."
"Oh, have I slept so late?" I returned, contritely, springing up in
bed.
Dicky put me back with a firm hand.
"Lie still," he commanded, gently. "Katie will bring you up some
breakfast shortly, and there is no need of your getting up for hours."
He bent down to kiss me good-by. There was a restraint in both
his voice and his caress that told me he was still thinking of the
conversation of the night before. I put my arms about his neck and
drew his face down to mine.
"Sweetheart," I whispered, "I want to tell you what I've decided about
Jack's property."
"Not now," Dicky interrupted hurriedly.
"Yes, now," I returned decidedly. "I am going to accept it"--I gripped
his hands firmly as I felt them drawing away from mine, "but I am not
going to use any of it for myself. I will see that it all goes to the
orphaned kiddies of the soldiers with whom Jack fought."
Dicky started, looked at me a bit wildly, then stooped, and, gathering
me to him convulsively, pressed a long, tender kiss upon my lips.
"My own girl!" he murmured. "I shall not forget that you have done
this for me!"
XXXVI
"AND YET--"
"What's the big idea?"
Dicky looked up from the breakfast table with a mildly astonished air
as I came hurriedly into the room dressed for the street, wearing my
hat, and carrying my coat over my arm.
"I'm going into town with you," I returned quietly.
"Shopping, I suppose." The words sounded idle enough, but I, who knew
Dicky so well, recognized the note of watchfulness in the query.
"I shall probably go into some of the shops before I return," I said
carelessly, "but the real reason of my going into the city is Mrs.
Stewart. I should have gone to see her yesterday."
Dicky frowned involuntarily, but his face cleared again in an instant.
It was the second day after he had brought me the terrible news that
Jack Bickett, my brother-cousin, was reported killed "somewhere in
France." I knew that Dicky, in his heart, did not wish me to go to see
Mrs. Stewart, but I also knew that he was ashamed to give voice to his
reluctance.
When Dicky spoke at last, it was with just the right shade of cordial
acquiescence in his voice.
"Of course you must go to see her," he said, "but are you sure you're
feeling fit enough? It will try your nerves, I imagine."
Far better than Dicky could guess I knew what the day's ordeal would
be. Mrs. Stewart had been very fond of my brother-cousin. With my
mother, she had hoped that he and I would some day care for each
other. With her queer partisan ideas of loyalty, when Dicky had been
so cruelly unjust to me about Jack, she had wished me to divorce Dicky
and marry Jack, even though Jack himself had never whispered such a
solution of my life's problem. That she believed me to be responsible
for his going to the war I knew. I dreaded inexpressibly the idea of
facing her.
But when, after a rather silent trip to the city with Dicky, I stood
again in Mrs. Stewart's little upstairs sitting-room, I found only a
very sorrowful old woman, not a reproachful one.
"I thought you'd come today," she said, and her voice was tired,
dispirited. I felt a sudden compunction seize me that my visits to her
had been so few since Jack's going.
"I couldn't have kept away," I said, and then my old friend dropped my
hand, which she had been holding, and, sinking into a chair, put her
wrinkled old hands up to her face. I saw the slow tears trickling
through her fingers, and I knelt by her side and drew her head against
my shoulder, comforting her as she once had comforted me.
Mrs. Stewart was never one to give way to emotion, and it was but a
few moments before she drew herself erect, wiped her eyes, and said
quietly:
"I'll show you the cablegram."
She went to her desk, and drew out the message, clipped, abbreviated
in the puzzling fashion of cablegrams:
"Regret inform you, Bickett killed, action French front. Details
later."
(Signed) "CAILLARD."
"Caillard? Caillard?" Where had I heard that name? Then I suddenly
remembered. Paul Caillard was the friend with whom Jack had gone
across the ocean to the Great War. I examined the paper carefully.
"I thought Dicky said you received the usual official notification," I
remarked.
"That's what I told him," she replied. "That's it."
"But this isn't an official message," I persisted.
"Why isn't it?"
I explained the difference haltingly, and spoke of the wonderful
system of identification in the French army, with every man tagged
with a metal identification check.
"You will probably receive the official notification in a few days," I
commented.
A queer, startled expression flashed into her face. She opened her
mouth, as if to speak, and then, looking at me sharply, closed
it again. Reaching out her hand for the cablegram, she folded it
mechanically, as if thinking of something far away, then going to her
desk, put it away, and stood as if thinking deeply for two or three
minutes, which seemed an hour to me.
At last I saw her body straighten. She gave a little shake of her
shoulders, as if rousing herself, and, turning from the desk, came
toward me. I saw that she held in her hand a bundle of letters.
"I understand that you and Jack made some fool agreement that he was
not to write to you, and that you were not even to read his letters
to me. I'm not expressing my opinion about it, but now that he's gone,
I'm going to turn these letters over to you. I'm not blind, you know.
Most of them were all really written to you, even if I did receive
them. Poor lad! It seems such a pity he should be struck down just as
a little happiness seemed coming his way."
She put the letters in my hands, and, turning swiftly, went out of
the room. I knew her well enough to realize that she would not return
until I had read the messages from Jack. But what in the world did she
mean by her last words?
I drew a big, easy chair to the fireside, and began to read the
missives. Some were short, some were long, but all were filled with
a quiet courage and cheerfulness that I knew had illuminated not only
Jack's letters to his old friend, but his life and the lives of others
wherever he had been. Every one of them had some reference to me--an
inquiry after my health, an injunction to Mrs. Stewart to be sure to
keep track of my happiness, a little kodak print or other souvenir
marked "For Margaret if I do not come back."
I felt guilty, remorseful, that I had seen so little of Mrs. Stewart
since his departure. My own affairs, especially my long, terrible
summer's experience with Grace Draper, had shut everything else from
my mind.
One letter in particular made my eyes brim with sudden tears. The
first of it had been cheery, with entertaining little accounts of the
few poor bits of humor which the soldiers in the trenches extracted
from their terrible every day round. Along toward the end a sudden
impulse seemed to have swept the writer's pen into a more sombre
channel.
"I have been thinking much, dear old friend," he wrote, "of the
futility of human desires. Life in the trenches is rather conducive to
that form of mediation, as you may imagine. You know, none better,
how I loved Margaret, how I wanted to make her my wife--I often wonder
whether if I had not delayed so long, 'fearing my fate too much,'
I might not have won her. But thoughts, like that are worse than
useless.
"Instead, there has come to me a clearer understanding of Margaret, a
better insight into the golden heart of her. If she had never met
the other man, or some one like him, I believe I could have made her
happy, kept her contented. But I realize fully that having met him
there could never be any other man for her but him. Her love for him
is like a flame, transforming her. I could never have called forth
such passion from her. I see clearly now how foolish it was in me to
have hoped it. There was nothing in the humdrum, commonplace brotherly
affection which she thought I gave her to arouse the romance which I
know slumbers under that calm, cold exterior of hers.
"Sometimes I query, too, whether my love for Margaret had that
flame-like quality which characterizes her love for her husband.
Margaret has always been so much a part of my life that my love for
her began I could not tell when, and grew and strengthened with the
years. There never has been any other woman but Margaret in my life.
Even if I should ever come out of this living hell, which I doubt, I
do not believe there ever will be another.
"And yet--"
"I have just been summoned for duty. Good-by, dear friend, until the
next time. Lovingly yours, Jack Bickett."
I laid the letter aside with a queer little startled feeling at my
heart.
Those two little words, "and yet," at the end of Jack's letter gave me
much food for thought. Was it possible that before his death Jack had
realized that his love for me was not the consuming passion he had
thought it, but partook more of the fraternal affection that I had had
for him?
I hoped for Jack's sake that this was so.
"And yet--"
I ran through the rest of the letters rapidly. One, the third from the
last, arrested my attention sharply.
"Such a pleasant thing happened to me today," Jack wrote, "one of the
unexpected gleams of sunlight that are so much brighter because of the
general gloom against which they are reflected.
"I was given a week's furlough last Saturday and went up to Paris with
my friend, Paul Caillard. He had a friend in a hospital on the way
there, headed by Dr. Braithwaite, the celebrated surgeon of Detroit."
I caught my breath. As well as if I had already read the words, I knew
what was coming.
"At an unexpected turn in the corridor I almost knocked over a
little nurse who was hurrying toward the office. She looked up at
me startled, out of the prettiest brown eyes I ever saw, and then
stopped, staring at me as if I had been a ghost. I stared back,
frankly, for her face was familiar to me, although for the moment I
could not tell where I had seen her before.
"Then, half-shyly, she spoke, and her voice matched her eyes.
"'You are Mr. Bickett, are you not, Mrs. Graham's cousin?'
"For a moment I did not realize that 'Mrs. Graham' was Margaret. But
that gave me no clue to the identity of the girl. Then all at once it
came to me.
"'I know you now,' I said. 'You are Mark Earle's little sister,
Katherine.'"
So they had met at last, Jack Bickett, my brother-cousin, and
Katherine Sonnot, the little nurse who had taken care of my
mother-in-law, and whom I had learned to love as a dear friend.
Was I glad or sorry, I wondered, as I picked up Jack's letter again
that I had crushed any feeling I might have had in the matter, and
had spoken the word to Dr. Braithwaite that resulted in Katharine's
joining the eminent surgeon's staff of nurses? It seemed a pity to
have these two meet only to be torn apart so soon by death.
"I cannot begin to tell you how delighted I was when we recognized
each other. You can imagine over here that to one American the meeting
with another American, especially if both have the same friends, is
an event. Luckily, Miss Sonnot was just about to have an afternoon off
when we met, and if she had an engagement--which she denied--she was
kind enough to break it for me. I need not tell you that I spent the
most delightful afternoon I have had since coming over here.
"You can be sure that I at once exerted all the influence I had
through my friend, Caillard, and his friend in the hospital to secure
as much free time for Miss Sonnot as possible for the time I was to be
on furlough. It is like getting home after being away so long to talk
to this brave, sensible, beautiful young girl--for she deserves all of
the adjectives."
In the two letters which were the last ones numbered by Mrs. Stewart,
Jack spoke again and again of the little nurse. Almost the last line
of his last letter, written after he returned to the front, spoke of
her.
"Little Miss Sonnot and I correspond," he wrote, "and you can have
no idea how much good her letters do me. They are like fresh, sweet
breezes glowing through the miasma of life in the trenches."
I folded the letters, put them back into their envelopes, and arranged
them as Mrs. Stewart had given them to me. When she came back into the
room she found me still holding them and staring into the fire.
"Did you read them all?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied.