A LETTER FROM LONDON
Marie had taken William and Happy over beyond the infantry quarters
to watch the afternoon drill. The sight of those hard-working young
recruits, treading so resolutely the snow-packed ground, seemed to
have a fascination for the Belgian girl. She would watch them for long
moments, with serious, earnest eyes, as though in the strength and
readiness of America's growing army she saw the distant promise of
freedom for her native land.
The drill was a good one, and the soldiers marched with the trained
precision of seasoned troops. They had done well in the weeks past.
Lucy saw a staff colonel, walking by, give a quick nod of approval in
their direction. The four girls who studied and played together had
come from the Officers' Club, after a hard game of bowls, to join the
little crowd which had gathered to watch the drill with the intentness
that came of knowing how sorely every trained man was needed now.
Marian was talking eagerly to Anne about the first-aid class. It was
Friday and the next morning's lesson would be the third in the course,
and already the girls felt that they began to know something about
nursing. Marian had lost all fear of Miss Thomas and her demands, and
at the last lesson had willingly been wrapped in bandages of every
sort, to demonstrate the neat work of her teacher's skilful fingers.
"It's lots more interesting making Red Cross dressings when you know
how they are used," she said to Anne. "The nursing is much the hardest
part for me. I still get awfully mixed sometimes."
"That's the part I like best," said Lucy, her eyes still following the
marching men, who were executing a difficult turn. "I like taking care
of sick people anyway."
"Too bad you aren't old enough to be a nurse," remarked Julia. She was
looking apprehensively at her puppy as William came toward them. "Then
maybe you'd have patients more graceful than I am." She laughed at the
recollection of some of Lucy's energetic treatments.
"I spilled the water down your neck only once," objected Lucy
indignantly; "you know we got along beautifully last time."
"I know it," admitted Julia. "I can't do it nearly so well as you,
myself. Oh, look at that little beast!"
Happy came careering up, as William and Marie started for home, and
began a friendly tussle with his brother, who had a quieter disposition
and had stayed obediently at Julia's side.
"Oh, behave, Happy!" cried Lucy, making an ineffectual grab in his
direction. "You certainly picked out the bad one to give us, Julia, or
else William brings him up badly. Two mittens and a glove of Father's
have gone this week."
"I'll take him, Lucy," said William, rushing to the rescue, in terror
as usual when the puppies were together, of getting them mixed up
beyond recognition, since they grew too fast to make the wearing of
collars possible. "This one's mine," he declared, seizing his puppy and
carrying him off, a squirming, indignant armful.
"Poor little Mac always gets the worst of it," said Julia laughing. "He
isn't the fighting kind. Let's let William get ahead a little before we
go, so as to keep the peace."
"You and Anne come to our house and we'll go over the first-aid lesson
for to-morrow now. It's much easier when we do it together," suggested
Lucy, as they walked back across the parade.
"All right, we will," said Julia. "Stop with me, Anne, while I get my
book, and then we'll come right over. I bet Marian is in a hurry to
get home out of the cold."
Marian laughed, but she willingly joined Lucy in running over to
General's Row, when they came within sight of the Gordons' house.
"Cousin James came home early to-day," she said, as they went up the
steps, for she had spied Major Gordon's tall figure walking quickly
from Headquarters as they crossed the parade.
"Did he?" asked Lucy, opening the door. "I hope he doesn't have to go
off somewhere to-night."
Then, as she entered the sitting-room, her heart gave a dreadful throb,
and she stood speechless on the threshold. Her mother was standing by
the window. Her face was ashy pale, and tears were running down her
cheeks, while she listened with motionless intensity to her husband's
words. Major Gordon, still wearing his overcoat, was speaking low and
earnestly. His face was turned from the door, but his head was bent and
one of his hands gripped hard on the chair behind him.
"Mother! Father! What is it? Is it Bob?" cried Lucy, all her courage
forgotten and a dreadful fear clutching at her heart that made her
voice break and her strength almost fail her. She seized her father's
arm and looked with terrified questioning into his face.
"Yes, little daughter, it is," said her father gently. His face was
white, too, and he looked tired and worn.
"Tell me, what is it?" Lucy whispered.
"We don't know. All they have heard at Washington is that he never
returned from his last scouting expedition. I telegraphed for any more
details they could give me, but the Adjutant General has sent back word
that he knows nothing more. We must hope for the best."
Lucy drew her hand away, and turning, threw her arms around her
mother's neck, vainly trying to check the sobs that choked her and the
tears that blinded her eyes. She could not speak a word of comfort, but
perhaps her mother felt, as she held her, what she would have said, if
words had not been quite beyond her.
Marian stole out to meet Julia and Anne before they reached the door.
Her eyes were wet, too, and her heart throbbed with a sympathy that
took her far from herself to a new depth of understanding.
At last Lucy raised her head, dashing the tears from her hot cheeks.
"Mr. Harding could find out something!" she cried, her voice trembling
with a bitter rebellion against this dreadful uncertainty. "He was so
near to Bob, surely he will send us word of whatever he knows!"
Major Gordon shook his head with a sad sternness. "Don't blame
him, little daughter. The same dispatches that brought this news
reported Dick wounded and missing, after a German raid on our first
line trenches."
Lucy could stand there no longer. She ran blindly out and up to her own
room, where she sank down on her little sofa and buried her face among
the pillows.
In the dark days which followed, Marian was Lucy's greatest comfort.
Lucy would not say all she feared or even all she hoped to her mother,
who had enough to bear without any bursts of unhappiness or groundless
hopefulness on Lucy's part. But Marian listened with quiet and helpful
sympathy in the hours when Lucy's patience and courage utterly gave
way, and sleep refused to come.
The whole garrison shared the Gordons' trouble, and in the friendly
spirit of comradeship which unites our army, all the people tried to
show their heartfelt sympathy. Mrs. Houston brought her Red Cross work
to Mrs. Gordon's, and the two women sat for long hours together, making
whole boxes of slings and dressings, for work was more bearable than
idleness. Major Gordon found it so, too, for he kept at his duties
until late at night, and seemed to find nothing else worth doing.
Lucy and Marian went as usual to school, though Lucy could not learn
her lessons and Miss Ellis did not reproach her. She was thankful,
though, to be among other girls for a while, and away from the misery
of her own thoughts. In the fortnight that had gone by since Bob was
reported missing Lucy seemed to have passed through a year of her life,
and, grown strangely quiet and purposeless, she followed Marian's
suggestions without a murmur. She took the change in her cousin with
no more than a vague surprise at her independence. She and her mother
only felt that Marian's cheerful presence was a comfort, and her
affectionate understanding of Lucy's grief promised to make of the two
girls firm and devoted friends for ever after.
One day at noon Lucy came into the house with Marian to find her mother
and father again together. Only this time her mother's face, lately so
pale and sad, was touched with a gleam of her old brightness. Almost a
smile hovered over her lips, and at sight of it Lucy sprang forward,
crying, "What is it, Mother? Oh, tell me quick!"
Major Gordon did not look altogether cheerful as he turned to her, but
his face was brave and hopeful.
"Don't expect too much," he said slowly, but Mrs. Gordon put a hand on
Lucy's shoulders with a smile that brought a flood of joy to her heart.
"He's alive and unhurt, Lucy," she said, her voice trembling. "Read
this."
A letter had lain on the table, and now Lucy snatched it from her
mother's hand. With her heart pounding in her throat she dropped down
on the floor, oblivious to all about her.
The writing was strange, and, stranger still, the letter was postmarked
London. With shaky fingers Lucy drew out two sheets of ruled paper,
covered with a neat, legible writing. She turned quickly to the
signature. It was:
JOHN ENRIGHT,
_Corporal Ninth Lancashires_,
By Nurse Everitt.
Amazed, Lucy found the beginning and read:
ST. ANTHONY'S HOSPITAL,
LONDON
_December 5th._
MRS. JAMES GORDON,
_Dear Madam_: No doubt you are wondering what I can have to say to
you, as we are strangers to each other, so perhaps the best way for me
to begin is by explaining just how I came to write.
I may say that I am a Corporal in the Ninth Lancashire regiment of
foot, and, up to my being wounded and sent home from France last
week, I have fought at a point where our lines touch with the
French and Americans. I would tell you the exact spot, but this is not
allowed. There was an advance made here a short time ago, in which we
reënforced them, resulting in the capture of a French village which
the Germans had fortified with no end of care. It appears that some
aviator managed to send back news of their new line by carrier pigeon,
and this information helped us considerably. Anyway, we occupied the
place, and, to make it short, I was stopped with a bullet in my leg
just before the Germans fell back.
In the house where some women of the village helped the doctors care
for the wounded, I was nursed by a woman who spoke English almost as
well as anybody. She was German, she said, but in spite of that she
was a good sort, and she sat all night with me when I was pretty near
wild with a broken knee.
Next day but one I was recommended to be sent home, but before I left
the village she asked me to do something for her as soon as I got back
to England. Of course I was glad to pay for some of her kindness, if I
could. She asked me to write to America, to Mrs. James Gordon, whose
name and address she gave me on a paper, and tell her that her son was
alive and not wounded, but a prisoner in Germany.
Being willing to do a good turn for a friend, and ally, as well as
to pay the German woman for her care of me, I am writing at first
opportunity. That is as much as I can remember that she said, for I
was feeling too badly to think much, except to wonder at her, a
German, asking me this. So hoping you will excuse the liberty, and
with best wishes, I remain,
Yours truly,
JOHN ENRIGHT,
_Corporal Ninth Lancashires_,
By Nurse Everitt.
Lucy did not read the last sentences of the kindly Englishman's
letter. Warm tears were pouring down her cheeks, tears of relief
and thankfulness, that, however hard the burden left to bear, they
knew that Bob's life was spared. She repeated Elizabeth's name with
wondering gratitude, for Elizabeth it must have been who had given the
soldier such a charge. For a moment joy was the only feeling in her
heart, and the thought of German imprisonment did not bring the fear
and dread that came afterward.
There was only quiet rejoicing in the Gordon household, for Bob's fate
seemed yet darkly uncertain, but hope there was plentiful room for, and
with it came returning strength and courage to face the inevitable.
Mrs. Gordon could not wait to write her gratitude to the British
soldier, who even in the midst of his own suffering had not failed to
do a kindness. To Elizabeth she could only speak her thanks unheard,
for the faithful affection which had given back at last far more than
she owed her mistress for years of happy companionship. The extent of
her debt to Elizabeth, Mrs. Gordon did not know, but for as much as she
did, it was hard indeed not to be able to make an acknowledgment.
That afternoon when William was sitting on his mother's lap, listening
with wide-eyed astonishment to her story of his brother, Mrs. Gordon
turned a little anxiously at sight of Marian, who had come to her side
to bring back the wonderful letter over which she had in turn been
poring.
"Marian," she said, "I don't think we've taken very good care of you
lately. I am afraid you must feel we haven't thought much about you."
She searched her little cousin's face with self-reproachful eyes, but
found it, to her relief, well and rosy.
Marian laughed, and sitting down on the arm of Mrs. Gordon's chair,
gave her an affectionate kiss. "You needn't worry about me, Cousin
Sally. I don't need half the looking after I used to. Anyway, Father
will be along some day soon."
Mrs. Gordon looked thoughtfully at Marian, as she had not looked at
her in the past two weeks, feeling a touch of pleasure in the midst of
her heavy anxiety. Marian's dress had been carefully let out across
the shoulders, but even now it was none too big for her. The look of
discontent and indecision had left her face. Her once pale cheeks had a
warm color, and her smiling lips had lost their babyish suggestion
of a pout. She had tied back her hair well out of the way before
school, and her manner, though diffident still and far from boisterous,
had caught more than a little of Lucy's alertness and energy. Her
prettiness had changed its pathetic wistfulness for a wide-awake
look far more attractive, and Mrs. Gordon saw plainly now that the
friendship between Marian and Lucy, at which she had sometimes wondered
a little, was very likely to endure.
Lucy was up-stairs talking to Marie, who was putting William's room in
order. Both Margaret and Marie, in spite of their never having seen
Bob, had shown a warm-hearted sympathy with the Gordons' trouble. But
Marie had a far greater understanding of it, having known what the war
meant by actual experience, and Lucy had found her one day standing
in front of Bob's picture in the sitting-room, with a sad look in
her serious, dark eyes. Marie had helped wonderfully during those
hard days. She had kept William happy and occupied when nobody else
had spirits enough to play with him, and had done a hundred little
things without being told, which took away the burden of them from her
mistress' shoulders. Lucy had lost no time in telling her of the good
news in the soldier's letter, confident that she would sincerely share
in their rejoicing.
It seemed to Lucy, though, that the thought of a German prison kept
the Belgian girl from feeling much enthusiasm in her relief at Bob's
safety. Perhaps her own misgivings made her fearful, but she questioned
Marie anxiously.
"He's safe there, Marie, don't you think so? It's dreadfully hard--but
I do hope we'll be able to send him things."
"Oh, yes, he is safe, Miss Lucy," Marie assured her hastily. She was
a truthful girl, but Lucy's pleading face would not let her speak
otherwise just now.
"He's away from the battle-field. It seems as if the greatest danger
had been left behind. If we could only find out where he is! I'm sure
he can write us before long."
"I think so, yes," said Marie hopefully, her troubled conscience
reminding her as she spoke of friends and neighbors from her home whose
fate in Germany no one had ever learned.
"Lots of prisoners come back, even during the war--wounded ones I
mean," Lucy went on. "I suppose being a prisoner of war isn't really
the worst thing that can happen to you." Somehow, Marie's hopeful words
did not cheer her as they were intended to.
"Yes, many have come back," Marie responded briefly. Her invention
failed her here, for once she had seen a train filled with French and
Belgian prisoners returned after a year's captivity, as it passed the
Swiss frontier. The sight of those haggard and weary faces had never
left her memory. At last she offered Lucy the only solution that seemed
possible to her.
"Miss Lucy, if only America get ready quick and go to help fight. That
is how we will have the war over. Nobody will have a free country while
Germany is strong."
"I know it," Lucy sighed, feeling for the moment weighed down by a
burden beyond her strength. The night of the Twenty-Eighth's departure
came suddenly back to her. "Poor Mr. Harding," she thought, struck with
sharp remorse at the little time she had found to lament her friend's
misfortune. "But he may be safe as well as Bob--oh, how I wish we knew."
Marie finished her work and turned to Lucy, with a sudden smile
lighting up her quiet face. "You must hope all is right with your
brother. It is no use to fear. Good news may come."
"I wish it would hurry, then," Lucy murmured, getting up from her seat
on William's bed. "I'm thankful for what we've heard, but if only we
weren't so far away. The Belgians haven't an ocean between them and
Germany. It is only as if their brothers were taken prisoners into
Connecticut--supposing they lived in New York."
"Yes, but the Germans they have there on top of them," said Marie
quickly. "They would be very glad to have that ocean."
As never before Lucy realized how much of the war's meaning Marie knew.
She felt that the quiet Belgian girl could tell her more of Bob's
captors than could many about her, but somehow she was not eager to
ask questions. She knew that Marie would have told her all that was
pleasant to hear without asking.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Marian, who came to the door with her
tam-o'-shanter on, and her coat half buttoned.
"Aren't you coming out a little while, Lucy? Let's go over to the
Houstons'. I need my exercise," she added, with a mischievous curve to
her lips, as she recalled Lucy's often repeated words of persuasion
during the past months.
"I'm glad you really think so," said Lucy, smiling. "Because you're
getting to be more than I can manage. You're not the sweet little
delicate thing you were."
As she went into her own room for her hat and coat, Lucy could not
help echoing her own words with a faint glow of satisfaction. She had
never admitted to her mother, though Mrs. Gordon's keen eyes guessed
it, how very hard she had often found it to stick to her resolution in
Marian's behalf. All during the autumn she had steadfastly cut short
the things she and Julia liked best to do in favor of the things Marian
could be persuaded to take part in. She had spent all her playtime with
her cousin, helping her to feel at home with other girls and to learn
independence, with no other reward for her patience than the knowledge
that the work she had wanted was here for the asking, and as hard and
discouraging as she could wish. The satisfaction of seeing Marian daily
grow stronger, gayer and more companionable had not come until lately,
but it was no less a very real one, and Lucy longed now to tell her
mother how glad she felt to have accepted the unwelcome task. In the
past weeks Marian had begun generously to return her cousin's kindness
and Lucy would never look back at those dark days without a warm
remembrance of Marian's never-failing sympathy.
"I'm ready," she called, after a moment. Marian answered from
down-stairs, and Lucy following her, the two girls went outdoors and
crossed the snow to the Houstons'.
Julia's mother had already heard the story of the letter, but both she
and Julia wanted to hear it again. Nothing else was talked of while
Lucy and Marian stayed, and as little else was in Lucy's mind, she was
very willing to talk about it with these old friends.
"Don't you wish you could thank that dear old Elizabeth?" cried Julia
with shining eyes. "Marian, do you remember saying that she and Karl
were dangerous to have around? Here they've done the Gordons the best
turn in the world."
"Bob said he thought they'd get back to Germany somehow," said Lucy
thoughtfully. "Elizabeth must have been right near the battle-front to
see that English soldier."
"Perhaps Karl has gone into the army," suggested Marian.
"Oh, he's too old to fight," Lucy objected. "He's past fifty. What I
like best to think of," she went on, brightening a little, "is that
Captain Benton, whom Bob liked so much, was with him when they started.
He was taken prisoner, too, most likely, so Bob won't be alone."
At last the visitors rose to go, for outside a bugler was sounding
supper-call, and it was already dark.
"I never saw that dress before, Marian," said Julia, looking at the
pretty red challis as she held Marian's heavy coat for her. "Has your
father sent you any more new ones?" she asked teasingly.
"No," said Marian, biting her lip, though her eyes twinkled. "He
promised to bring me something when he comes, though--I wish he'd
hurry."
"You're a spoiled child," said Julia, pulling Marian's curls out from
under her coat collar. "You ought to stay here with me and Lucy and get
used to things--like the boy in 'Captains Courageous.'"
"Learn to be untidy and leave doors open and forget to wash the ink off
your hands, like me," said Lucy, laughing.
"I could teach you to rush at things, and then wish you hadn't. That's
what I'm best at," said Julia, entering into the joke.
"All the same, I wish you were going to stay until next summer, and
perhaps you can," said Lucy, tugging at her overshoes.
"I'll come back, you know, Lucy, any time you ask me," declared Marian,
grown serious.
"Oh, I'll ask you now--for three hundred and sixty-five days in the
year," said Lucy promptly. "Come on, Marian, I'm roasting in these
things."
Back at their own house, Lucy heard voices from her father's study and
stopped for a second, puzzled. But Marian, behind her, at the first
sound of that voice was in doubt no longer. With a wild rush she flung
the door wide open and ran into the room.
"Father! I knew it!" she cried, in a burst of overwhelming delight,
and as Mr. Leslie sprang from his chair she flung her arms about his
neck.
"Why, Marian, it's really you--safe and sound," he said, joyfully
hugging her, and he pulled the tam from her tumbled hair and looked
long into her smiling happy face.