The storm which burst in August, 1914, had the effect of blotting out
smaller storms into nothingness. It brought in its wake different things
to different natures: to some apprehension, sheer personal terror, to
others the quickening sense of high adventure, to others yet sick
disillusionment with a world that was still capable of such gigantic
folly.
To Joan, in the dead blankness that followed the departure of her
friend, the great war seemed strangely like a godsend. It was as if she
had cried in desperation to Providence. "What next?" and Providence had
answered, "This!"
Perhaps she was not the only woman to whom the sudden extraneous demand
for all that was in her came as a godsend.
She flung herself head, hand, and heart, into the organization of relief
work. As the Germans pursued their incredible way through Belgium, it
seemed to her that every frantic mother, every maimed child, every
desperate father, the very roofless houses and ruined orchards, cried
aloud upon her, Joan Blair, for help. She could not understand why
others did not seem to hear the cry, how those about her could pursue
the usual course of life unheeding--Joan was one of the first Americans
to declare war upon Germany.
But those about her heard better than she realized. Gradually as the
change came, it came. Hers was not the only blood in the old border
State to thrill to the call of drums. And as in the earlier days, while
the men got down their firearms to clean them, the women rolled up their
sleeves and settled down to work.
Under the impetus of Joan and others like her, Bridge quickly gave way
to bandage-making, the click of unaccustomed needles drowned the chatter
of clubrooms and tea-table, and the Jabberwocks in a body abandoned the
pursuit of culture for a course in hospital assistance. "So that we
shall be ready by the time our own boys need us," explained Joan.
"But, Mrs. Blair, you ought to curb those firebrand sentiments of
yours!" protested Judge Carmichael to her after one of her public
utterances. "It is enjoined upon us Americans to be strictly neutral."
"Neutral?" cried the daughter of Richard Darcy. "Neutral? Have you ever
seen a pit-terrier jump on a respectable little poodle-dog out in the
front yard protecting his household--and were you able to remain
_neutral_? I know my country better than that!"
In keeping up with Joan's new activities, the town quite forgot to look
at her askance.
Nikolai, too, was making of the war a personal matter. He wrote that he,
with other writers in New York, was financing a hospital unit with which
he intended to go to France in any capacity where he would be useful. He
had been in his youth, among other things, a student of medicine.
"Isn't it fine, Archie?" she cried, thrilling to this letter. "Oh, if we
could only do something ourselves! I'd like to send him a contribution
for his unit, anyway. May I?"
Archie hesitated. "How much, dear?"
Joan flushed. It was the first time he had failed to give her without
question whatever she asked of him.
"Sorry to have to ask," she said, rather stiffly. "But I've given the
last cent I had to the Red Cross. Could you spare me fifty dollars, say,
and take it out of my next allowance?"
Archie silently got out his check-book.
It troubled her to notice in him something almost like apathy toward the
war. The startling headlines, the growing report of horrors, even the
eleventh-hour miracle of that stand upon the Marne, moved him to no more
than a preoccupied attention. He appeared to concern himself far more
with the uncertain state of the stock-market, which he studied
assiduously. Joan could not accustom herself to the idea of an Archie
commercialized: interesting himself at such a crisis in the world's
history merely with money.
An explanation at last dawned upon her. "My dear," she accused him one
day, "I believe you've been speculating!"
"Who--me? Oh, every man speculates, sweetheart. Business itself is a
good deal of a speculation nowadays. Nothing to worry your precious head
about, though."
"Would you like me to economize, Archie, more than I usually do?" she
asked.
"Oh, no. You're never extravagant. A little more or less can't matter."
Preoccupied though he seemed, he was never too preoccupied to show her
the special consideration and gentleness she had noticed ever since
Nikolai left.
"As if he were trying to comfort me!" she thought uneasily. Her queer
outburst of nerves with Stefan was something she never allowed herself
to think of. She did not quite understand it; and Joan dreaded things
she could not understand.
Archie seemed to be developing nerves himself of late. When the doorbell
or telephone rang suddenly, he jumped as if he had been touched; and he
went to his office almost every evening, coming home late and very
tired.
"You're working too hard, old boy," protested Joan. "I'll be glad when
the treasurer of your company feels well enough to come back from
Saranac and take his old job again."
"He's back now. I expect to turn the books over to him in a few days."
"Good! I'm glad of it."
"Are you?" asked Archie, rather queerly.
"Of course!--though it means less salary, doesn't it? What do we care?
We had enough before. You know, dear, money simply means _nothing_ to
me, so long as the bills are paid."
"I know," he said soberly.
Perhaps if she had been less obsessed with the war, Joan might have been
better prepared for what was coming....
One day, on her way home from the Red Cross rooms, she bought herself an
early edition of an evening paper, and was looking over the headlines
when she came across the following:
SHORTAGE DISCOVERED
BOOKS OF MOORE AND COMPANY IN HANDS OF EXPERT
Farther down, aghast, incredulous, she read the name of her husband.
When she reached home, he was already there. Johnny Carmichael and Ellen
were with him, both talking at once. They stopped as Joan came bursting
in.
"Archie! This can't be _true_?"
He had risen to go to her. Now he sank back in his chair, nodding.
"I been tellin' him he's got to git out while the gittin's good,"
muttered Ellen Neal, her language consorting oddly with the tense fear
in her face. "Here's plenty of money"--she held out a battered
pocket-book. "He can hop on the L. & N. train as it passes Fourth
Street. They ain't a minute to waste! The main thing's to git him away
before they--take him!"
"She's right!" insisted Johnny Carmichael, stuttering with excitement.
"Once he's out of the way, my father'll get everything fixed. He's
closeted with Moore now. We've stopped that beastly article in the
paper--lots of people won't have seen the first edition. Father's taken
on the case--Mrs. Blair, you've got to make Archie _wake up_!"
But Joan could not speak.
Archie rose to his feet again. He seemed invested with a new, quiet
dignity. He put a hand on each of their shoulders.
"I'm not going to run, of course," he said. "Thank you just the same.
Now cut along, will you? I want to talk to my wife."