There is little to be said here about Joan's experiences in France. The
story of those is better told in her own remarkable letters, which began
shortly to appear in certain magazines; and in the book that followed.
Stefan Nikolai had found her shelter with a friend of his, Lady
Arbuthnot, a clever old Englishwoman whose long horse-face and charming
voice and odd combinations of tweed skirt and evening blouses were known
and loved in every institution of mercy about Paris. Under Lady
Arbuthnot's guidance Joan found use for not only her Red Cross training
but for everything else she had, whether by gift or acquirement.
Singing, story-telling, "play-acting," letter-writing, even dancing, all
seemed as important a part of her equipment as the regulation sewing,
bandage-making, and cookery. She tried an inexperienced hand at washing
dishes and scrubbing floors. She also tried her hand at mending
shattered nerves and even broken hearts; and at none of these things was
she entirely unsuccessful. There was a certain power of concentration in
Joan that made failure unlikely in whatever she undertook.
It was a wonderful time to her. She never got nearer the trenches than
Paris; but there the trenches came to her, with all their horror, their
sordid hideousness, their sheer, soul-stirring grandeur. She saw
shattered men struggling back to life that they might offer it again,
with eagerness; she saw philanthropists living in comfort on money that
had been obtained to feed starving refugees; she saw girl-children, who
had been forced to bear German babies, loving those babies with a
passion of maternity piteously beyond their years. Priests labored side
by side with panders; women of the great world, such as Lady Arbuthnot,
shared bed and board and ceaseless effort with W. C. T. U. workers from
Kansas, with missionaries out of China, with ex-courtesans from the
Paris streets, with those most sheltered of all aristocrats, the women
of the upper French bourgeoisie.
It was humanity with all barriers down, all contacts clean and clear.
And Louisville, Kentucky, seemed as far away and negligible as the
planet Earth may seem to possible dwellers on the moon.
Sometimes she had word from there--not often, for Ellen Neal was no
letter-writer, and even Emily Carmichael's loyalty had been strained by
Joan's unexplained desertion of her husband in his trouble. Once her
cousin Miss Iphigenia Darcy wrote, and from her letter Joan gathered
some impression of the effect of her sudden departure from Louisville.
In my day girls were taught that their first duty was to the
_Home_, married or not. But I daresay this is a very
old-fashioned notion, and with all those poor, unfortunate
French needing help--Sister Euphie and Sister Virgie and I have
frequently discussed offering our services. It is strange to
have a war going on without any Darcys in it! (You haven't the
_name_, you see, although a _true Darcy_ in every other
particular.) However, it does not seem the place for
_unmarried_ ladies just now, with so many men lying about in
the hospitals not fully clothed, and those unfortunate Belgian
victims (you know what I mean)! As I tell everybody, "Advanced
young matrons like Joan are the ones really needed over there."
But you know how narrow people are, my dear! I sometimes think
our city is growing a little _provincial_.
Joan smiled and sighed over this communication; and then forgot it.
From Archie she had no word, except an occasional line or two with the
money-order that came regularly on the first of each month, and was as
regularly returned. The magazine connections Stefan Nikolai had made for
her provided what money she needed, and she had not yet sufficiently
forgiven Archie to be willing to accept anything from him.
At first she wrote to him, not so much from any sense of duty, as from
pity. She did not forget what had passed between them, she made no
attempt to ignore the fact that he had failed her utterly in every way.
But she no longer had time to brood upon her own affairs. In the vortex
of life where she now found herself, personal troubles seemed somehow to
disappear into the common whole. Constant association with others'
sorrow developed her quality of sympathy to an almost painful extent;
and though she knew that Ellen Neal was making Archie comfortable enough
in the old rooms on Poplar Street, his loneliness, his humble
acquiescence in disgrace, hurt like a bruise on her heart. So she wrote
to him, impersonally but kindly.
Since he so rarely replied, however, her letters gradually ceased.
Evidently Archie, like many others, found it difficult to forgive where
he had wronged. Joan shrugged--a little gesture she had learned from
Nikolai--and dismissed her husband as much as possible from her mind.
There was much else to occupy it: not only in the way of work but of
pleasure. Paris, even in her grief, did not forget the human necessity
for pleasure, nor did Stefan Nikolai. She saw rather less of him than
she had expected to, for he was frequently absent for weeks at a time on
unexplained journeys, about which Joan had learned to ask no questions.
But whether he was near her or not, she was always conscious of his
enveloping care, his devoted watchfulness. He gave her, too, many
friends besides Lady Arbuthnot.
Once Sacha, always left on guard over Joan during these absences of
Nikolai's, betrayed the fact that his master had gone into Russia. Joan
taxed him with it when he returned.
"Russia is not safe for you, Stefan!--you told me so yourself."
"Surely you would not have me at such a time seek only places of
safety?" he smiled.
"Why can't you stick to the hospital work you came over for, instead of
gallivanting about all over the place?" she demanded, with a petulance
that concealed anxiety.
"One goes where one is useful," he replied quietly. "There are many who
know more about medicine than I, but few who know more about
Russia--except in Germany, perhaps! My countrymen are very susceptible
to the spoken word."
It was his only explanation of his frequent disappearances; but Joan,
understanding that wars must be won not only on the battlefield, uttered
no more protests, and made the most of her friend when she had him.
For the first time in her life, she came near to the innermost meaning
of the word happiness. It was not the placid content of her
"pasture-time," nor the feverish, half-guilty ecstasy which had come to
her for a brief hour through the unworthy medium of Eduard Desmond. It
wrapped her round warmly like the consciousness of some beloved
presence--which indeed it was, though Joan for once did not quite dare
to analyze the sensation. She only knew that here, among strangers
speaking a strange tongue, she was for the first time in her experience
utterly at home. And she was curiously at the top of her powers. In that
atmosphere, nothing seemed impossible of accomplishment. There was a
sense of personal possession and being possessed--"By Paris," she told
herself; but in her heart another name echoed.
Unaware, the great experience, the thing for which she had blindly
groped, had come upon her; not with a sudden leap to which her nature
leaped in response, but with a slow, quiet, irresistibly gathering
force, like a great stream that bore her upon its breast, without
volition, without struggle, toward some bourne of which she had no
knowledge. And no fear.
Joan might have said with Browning:
"Let us be unashamed of soul ...
Is it in our control
To love or not to love?"
It is always the body that suggests shame; and the body had ever been a
negligible part of Joan's make-up. She felt as independent of it now as
if she were already spirit, floating about in space--always with this
certainty of meeting there another spirit, however, and mingling with
it.
This spiritual mingling was a matter she never discussed with
Nikolai--the only thing in the universe, perhaps, which they did not
discuss. Theirs was an understanding too close for words, and beyond
words.... But sometimes, when Joan remembered that she had once feared
love, believing it one of those things that are better done without, she
smiled to herself; an inner, brooding smile that gave the final touch of
the chisel to her features, and made her much sought by painters.
Paris seemed more than usual that year the rendezvous for people who had
won distinction in the arts and sciences, and who came to render their
patron city in her hour of need what assistance was in their power.
Among these people Nikolai was made welcome with an eagerness, and even
a deference, which delighted Joan, and a little surprised her; for his
simplicity made it easy to forget that he belonged among famous folk as
a matter of right.
On his account, perhaps a little on her own as well, Joan also was
welcomed by them. She was not at all abashed by the company of
greatness, having inherited from Richard Darcy the naive conviction that
the best was good enough for her; and moreover she found among them the
keen power of enjoyment that invariably accompanies high mental
development. She had long since suspected, and now proved, that only
thinking people know how to play.
It was a great relief to her, just then, to be with strangers who
accepted her entirely at face-value, with neither curiosity nor demand.
An unquestioning, simple freedom prevailed in these upper reaches which
Joan fancied might be dangerous enough (unless it had the effect of
putting people, as it were, on honor). Nobody enquired whether she had a
husband, for instance, or where he was. It seemed quite sufficient that
she was the young friend of Stefan Nikolai; "_Spiritosa e simpatica_,"
as a certain great Italian tragedienne pronounced her. Their relations
were taken as a matter of course. The two were always included together
in whatever plans were afoot, and Joan noticed other such companionships
among them which passed equally unquestioned. She was nominally under
the care of Lady Arbuthnot; but that widely experienced noblewoman
displayed a carelessness of chaperonage that would have caused hair to
rise on the head of, say, Mrs. Carmichael.
Joan was at perfect liberty to spend with her friend every hour that
either could spare from the day's duties, and did so. "Why not?"
appeared to be the attitude of a company which concerns itself more with
matters of the spirit than of the flesh....
In Louisville speculation was once more rife and lurid, sharing interest
only with the war headlines and with Joan Blair's latest letter to the
magazines.
"We appear to have been nourishing Genius in our bosom unawares!"
remarked the Jabberwocks to each other; not altogether pleased, as is
the immemorial way of friendship.
"I don't know why you were unaware," commented Emily Carmichael,
quietly. "She has always shown every earmark of genius, even to
neglecting the best husband that ever lived!"
The Jabberwocks exchanged surprised and meaningful glances.