“I love all things British, saving and excepting their manners and their
mortar,” Nancy soliloquized.
Nancy’s temper was ruffled, that morning. As she had left the table,
Barth had followed her to the parlor where, apparently apropos of an
inoffensive Frenchman crossing the Place d’Armes, he had been drawn into
strictures concerning American and French peculiarities of speech and
manner. The talk had been impersonal; nevertheless, Nancy had been quick
to discern that its text lay in the growing friendship between herself
and St. Jacques. For a time, she had listened in silence to the
Britisher’s accusing monologue. Then her temper had given way
completely. Flapping the American flag full in his face, she had loosed
the American eagle and promptly routed Barth and driven him from the
field, with the British Lion trudging dejectedly at his heels.
“I want him to understand that he’s not to say _American_ to me, in any
such tone as that!” Nancy muttered vindictively, as she pinned on her
hat.
Then she went out to walk herself into a good temper.
The good temper was still conspicuous by its absence, when, regardless
of appearances, she dropped down in the grass by the hospital gate, and
fell to picking the scraps of mortar out of the meshes of her rough
cloth gown.
“I believe I am all kinds of an idiot,” she continued to herself
explosively. “First, Joe’s letter rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t see
how he could be so stupid as to imagine I’m homesick. Of course, I am
glad he is coming up here; but an extra man, in any relation, does have
a tendency to complicate things. And then Mr. Brock didn’t come to
breakfast. I know he was cross, last night, because I took Mr. Barth’s
part. And now Mr. Barth has made me lose my temper again. I believe he
does it, just for the sake of seeing me abase myself afterwards. Dear
me! Everybody is cross, and I am the crossest of the lot.”
Beside her on the grass, the shadow of the Union Jack above the hospital
moved idly to and fro. Behind her was the low, squat bulk of the third
Martello Tower whose crumbling mortar Nancy was even now removing from
her clothing. The fourth Martello Tower, hidden somewhere within the
dingy confines of Saint Sauveur, had eluded all her efforts to find it;
the other two had been too obviously converted to twentieth-century
purposes. This had looked more inviting, and Nancy had spent a chilly
hour in its depths. By turning her back upon the dripping icehouse in
its southern edge, and focussing her mind upon the mammoth central
column which supported its arching roof, she had been able to force
herself backward into the days when a Martello Tower was a thing for an
invading army to reckon with. In the magazine beneath, the drip from the
icehouse had spoiled the illusion; but the open platform above, albeit
now snugly roofed in, still offered its battlements and its trio of
dismounted cannon to her cynical gaze. Nancy left the dim interior,
bored, but sternly just. In some moods and with certain companions, even
the third Martello Tower might be interesting. Meantime, she was
conscious of a distinct wish that the relics of the crumbling past might
not have such marked affinity for her shoulder-blades.
“Miss Howard!”
She looked up. Cap in hand, St. Jacques was standing before her.
“I am glad I have found you,” he added directly. “I was wishing that
something good might happen.”
Nancy’s smile broadened to a laugh.
“Are you cross, too?” she queried, without troubling herself to rise.
“Very,” St. Jacques assented briefly.
“I am so glad. Let’s be cross together.”
“Here?”
“Why not?”
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t like the place. The associations are not pleasant.”
“I don’t see why. It looks a very comfortable place to be ill.”
“Yes; but who wants to think of being ill?”
“Nobody,” Nancy returned philosophically. “Still, now and then we must,
you know. Witness Mr. Barth.”
St. Jacques smiled.
“Yes. But even Mr. Barth had a good nurse.”
“Don’t be too sure of that. Even my level best is none too even,” Nancy
replied enigmatically, with scant consideration for the alien tongue of
her companion.
He ignored her words.
“If I should be ill, would you take care of me?” he asked suddenly.
Still laughing, the girl shook her head.
“Never. I like you altogether too well, M. St. Jacques, to risk your
life with my ministrations. Instead of that, though, I will come out
here to see you as often as you will grant me admission.”
“Not here. They would never grant me admission in the first place,” St.
Jacques responded dryly.
“Why, then?”
“Because I am Catholic.”
“Oh, how paltry!” Nancy burst out in hot indignation.
“It is true, however.”
With a sweep of her arm, Nancy pointed to the Union Jack whose scarlet
folds stained the sky line.
“Then the sooner they pull that down, the better,” she said scornfully.
“I thought that the British flag stood for religious freedom.”
“But you are not Catholic,” St. Jacques said slowly.
“What difference does that make? I am not a Seven-Day Baptist, either.
Neither fact makes me ignore the rights of my friends who are.”
St. Jacques still stood looking down at her. His face was unusually
grave, that morning; and it seemed to Nancy that his swarthy cheeks were
flushed more than it was their wont to be.
“You have friends who are Catholics?” he asked.
“One, I hope,” she answered quietly. Then she rose to her feet. “What
are you doing out here at this hour?” she added.
“Walking, to tire myself,” he answered. “Will you come?”
For her only answer, she dropped into step at his side, and they turned
down the steep slope leading into Saint Sauveur, crossed Saint Roch and
the Dorchester Bridge and came out on the open road to Beauport.
Never a garrulous companion, St. Jacques was more silent than ever, that
morning, and Nancy let him have his way. Moreover, at times she was
conscious of something restful in the long pauses which came in her talk
with St. Jacques. When he chose, the young Frenchman spoke easily and
well. Apparently, however, he saw no need of talking, unless he had
something to say. In their broken talk and their long silences, Nancy
had gained a better understanding of St. Jacques, a more perfect
sympathy with his point of view and his mood than she had gained of
Brock in all their hours of chattering intercourse.
For a long mile, they walked on without speaking. Shoulder to shoulder,
they had gone tramping along the narrow plank walk with the sure rhythm
of perfectly adapted step.
“How well we walk together!” Nancy said, suddenly breaking the silence.
“Yes,” St. Jacques assented briefly. “I have always noticed it.”
Some men would have used her random words as the theme for a sentimental
speech. To St. Jacques, they were too obvious; emotion should not be
wasted upon anything so matter of fact. Long since, Nancy had become
accustomed to that phase of his mind. It gave a certain restfulness to
their intercourse to know that St. Jacques would never read unintended
meanings into her simplest utterances. At first, she had supposed him
too stolid, too earnestly intent upon his own ends to waste sentiment
upon herself. Lately, she had begun to doubt; and she confessed to
herself that the doubt was sweet.
“You said you were cross, to-day?” St. Jacques broke the silence, this
time.
“Yes, detestably.”
“For any especial reason?”
“How uncomplimentary of you to suggest that I am ever cross without
reason!” Nancy rebuked him.
“What is the reason?” he asked coolly.
“There are several of them, all tangled up together.”
“And, as usual, Barth is one of them,” St. Jacques supplemented.
“Perhaps; and Mr. Brock is another,” Nancy replied unexpectedly.
“Brock? What has he done?”
“Nothing. I did it. At least, I tried to lecture him for playing tricks
on Mr. Barth, and—”
“One is always at liberty to play tricks with a monkey,” St. Jacques
interpolated quietly.
“Mr. Barth isn’t a monkey,” Nancy retorted.
“No? Then what is he?”
“The best little Englishman that ever lived,” she answered promptly.
The lower lip of St. Jacques rolled out into his odd little smile.
“Then the game surely ought to be in the hands of the French,” he
responded.
“You’re not fair to Mr. Barth,” Nancy said, as she stooped to pull off a
spray of scarlet maple leaves from a bush at her feet.
“Perhaps not. Neither are you.”
“Yes, I am. He hasn’t a more loyal friend in America, M. St. Jacques.”
“I know that. It is not always fair to be too loyal.”
“Why not?”
“Because it makes one wonder whether the game is worth the candle,” the
Frenchman replied imperturbably. “One doesn’t fly to defend the
strongest spot on the city wall.”
Nancy looked up into his dark face.
“No; and, in the same way, I’ve not fought a battle in your behalf since
we met.”
“No?”
“At least—” she added hurriedly, as she recalled stray sentences of her
talk with Barth, that morning. “But in a way you have told the truth. I
have fought Mr. Barth’s battles with you all, until I sometimes feel as
if I were wholly responsible for the man.”
“Then why not let him fight his own battles?”
A torn red leaf fluttered from Nancy’s fingers.
“Because he won’t. It’s not that he is a coward; it’s not that he is
conceited or too sure of himself. It is only that he is like a great,
overgrown child who never stops to think of the impression he is making.
Sometimes it is refreshing; sometimes it makes one long to box him up
and send him back to be tethered out on a chain attached to Westminster
Abbey. Even that wouldn’t do, though, for the Poets’ Corner has made
room for an American or two. Mr. Barth is queer and innocent and, just
now and then, superlatively stupid. And yet, M. St. Jacques, I don’t
believe he ever had an ignoble idea from the day of his birth up to
to-day. He is absolutely generous and high-minded, and one can forgive a
good deal for the sake of that.”
Flushed with her eager championship, she paused and smiled up into her
companion’s eves. His answering smile drove the gravity from his face.
“Yes,” he assented; “and, from your very persistence, you imply that
there is a good deal to forgive.”
“Something, perhaps,” she assented in her turn; “but it is largely
negative. Meanwhile, he isn’t fair game for you and Mr. Brock.”
“Why not?”
“Because he believes everything you tell him; because it never once
enters his mind that you would find it worth your while to torment him.
If he lets you alone, he expects you to do the same by him.”
St. Jacques made no answer. With his dark eyes fixed on the broad river
at his right hand, he marched steadily along by Nancy’s side until the
quaint little roadside cross of temperance was far behind them. Then he
said abruptly,—
“Miss Howard, I wish I knew just how well you like that fellow.”
Nancy’s thoughts, like her steps, had lain parallel to his. She
responded now without hesitation,—
“I wish I knew, myself; but I don’t.”
For an instant, St. Jacques removed his eyes from the river. He smiled,
as he moved them back again.
Nancy’s next words showed that her mind had taken a backward leap.
“You said you were walking to tire yourself?” she said interrogatively.
“Yes. Am I also tiring you?” St. Jacques answered, with instant
courtesy.
“No. I always dislike the turning around to go home by the same road.”
“Then we can walk on to Beauport church, and take the tram back,” he
suggested.
“As you like,” she agreed. “But why tire yourself?”
The thin, firm lips shut into a resolute line. Then St. Jacques replied
briefly,—
“I have been lying awake too much for my pleasure.”
“Thinking of your sins?” Nancy asked gayly.
“Yes, and of some other things.”
“Pleasant things, I hope.”
The Frenchman’s brows contracted.
“I have had dreams that were pleasanter.”
Nancy stole a sidelong glance at him, saw the expression in his eyes,
and, turning, looked him full in the face.
“M. St. Jacques,” she said quietly; “something is wrong.”
He smiled, as he shook his head; but his eyes did not light.
“There is no use of denying it. I have been a nurse, you know,” she
persisted laughingly; “and I have learned to watch for symptoms. Men
don’t frown like that and beetle their brows, without some cause or
other. Does something worry you; or aren’t you feeling well?”
Without breaking his even pace, St. Jacques turned and looked steadily
into her earnest, sympathetic face. This time, his dark eyes lighted in
response to the friendly look in her own.
“Perhaps it may be a little of both,” he answered quietly. “Even then,
there is no reason one should be a worry to one’s friends.”
The pause which followed was a short one. Then St. Jacques roused
himself and laughed.
“Really, Miss Howard,” he added, as he brushed his thick hair backward
from the scarlet gash in his forehead; “it is only that I started with
headache, this morning. I was too dull for work; but either Nurse Howard
or the Good Sainte Anne has made me forget it.”
And Nancy smiled back at him in token of perfect understanding. She had
not heard his last inaudible words,—
“Or perhaps it may be the work of good Saint Joseph.”
In fact, Nancy Howard as yet had gained no inkling of the especial
attributes of Saint Joseph, nor did she suspect the part that the good
old saint was beginning to play in the coming events of her life. To
Nancy’s mind, May was always May. So long as it lasted, there was no
reason for looking forward into the coming month of June. The future
tense was created solely for those whose present was not absolutely
good.