ONE CHANCE OUT OF FIFTY
Before Mr. Leslie went to bed that night he had heard all the Gordons
could tell him about Bob, and of the fear that lay heavy at their
hearts, even since the coming of Elizabeth's message. No one could
resist the power of Mr. Leslie's generous and overflowing sympathy.
He could not put into words his sorrow and deep concern at Bob's
misfortune, but his face, as responsive to his thoughts as Marian's
own, showed all he felt, and the Gordons spoke to him as they had
spoken to no one else.
All his happiness in Marian's improvement did not lift the shadow from
his mood that night, even while he talked hopefully, describing the
vast ship-building scheme which might bring the war to an earlier
end than now seemed possible. But here Major Gordon was too well up
in facts and figures to be deceived, and he could not be comforted by
false hopes.
"A year at the least, Henry. You know it as well as I. Our first draft
is not yet fit for service, and a strong army from this side is needed
to force a decision."
Mr. Leslie attempted no contradiction, but after a moment's pause, he
said, "Nevertheless, the control of the seas by our merchant fleet will
be a triumph. Think what it would mean to defeat the submarine blockade
of England."
"You place your hopes on the sea," declared Major Gordon. "Good
transportation is indispensable, and worth straining every nerve to
gain, but it cannot do everything. The war must be won on land; mile by
mile and man by man until the enemy is broken."
"I think you take the brave part of a soldier in preparing for the
worst," Mr. Leslie persisted. "I still look for some unforeseen event
which will fight for us, as Russia's unfortunate confusion fought for
Germany."
"Well, I haven't much imagination," remarked Major Gordon soberly.
"I'll be precious glad to see it, though, if it comes."
Marian was almost asleep by her father's chair, her heavy eyelids
drooping for the past ten minutes in spite of every effort, and Lucy,
though her ears were open to every word, was beginning to blink herself.
"You children must go to bed," said Mrs. Gordon, rousing herself from
her thoughts. "It always makes you sleepy to be out in the cold. Go
ahead, Lucy."
Marian demurred a little, but she rose in a moment and bade her father
an affectionate good-night. It was easy to see how glad these two were
to be together again, in spite of all Mr. Leslie's pre-occupation
at the Gordons' trouble. He looked with a smile of the keenest
satisfaction after Marian now, as the two girls went out of the room,
leaving their elders together.
Nobody was sleepier than Marian when she was really tired, and she
said no more than to murmur a vague content at her father's arrival
while she and Lucy got ready for bed. Lucy was not anxious to talk,
for her thoughts were busy with the conversation she had just heard
between her father and Mr. Leslie, but, ponder it as she would, it
did not contain much hope or encouragement for the near future.
She tried to find comfort in Mr. Leslie's words, but the momentary
cheerfulness she summoned died away before the hard truths of the war's
endless persistence and Bob's imprisonment. Tossed to and fro between
unanswerable questions, as she listened to the murmur of voices below,
at last she fell asleep.
Before the sun was fairly up next morning, and while she was only half
awake, Lucy heard footsteps at her bedside. She turned over and, to her
surprise, saw Marian, wrapped in a blue kimono, with her curly
bright hair loose about her smiling face.
"Are you wondering what on earth got me up at this hour?" she asked at
Lucy's look of astonishment. "I couldn't sleep any longer, thinking of
Father's being here. Won't you get up, Lucy, so we can take him for
a walk around the post before school? He always gets up early, and
Margaret will give us some breakfast."
"Very well," said Lucy, amused. She sat up and stretched her arms above
her head, not very rested after her long, uneasy thoughts of the night
before. "What a lovely day!" she exclaimed, turning toward the window,
through which the rising sun was streaming. "We'll take Cousin Henry
out on the sea-wall and inside the fort."
The girls dressed quickly, but Mr. Leslie, true to Marian's words, was
down-stairs almost as soon as they were.
"We're going to take you for a walk," said Lucy, smiling at his
cheerful morning greeting. "But we'll have something to eat first,
shan't we? Because Marian is such a walker now, there's no knowing when
we'll get back."
Mr. Leslie expressed himself heartily as being willing to go anywhere
and see anything, and the breakfast which Margaret sent up did not long
delay them.
It was a clear, cold morning, and all three, once outdoors, started
off at a brisk walk, and crossed the parade toward the new land beyond
Brick Row, where already companies were forming for drill.
Mr. Leslie could not keep his eyes from Marian, even to look at all
the things she pointed out. The vigor of her movements and the lively
interest which she called on him to share were alike incredible to him.
The delicate, fretful little daughter he had left behind, with such
qualms for her safety, had become a lovely, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked
girl. She laughed at the delight in his face as she said:
"You're surprised, aren't you, Father, to see me so fat and strong? You
know, I'm surprised myself. It's all Lucy's fault--you must ask her all
the things she made me do."
Marian turned a bright, friendly glance on her cousin, who answered,
undisturbed, "I didn't treat her very badly, Cousin Henry. Does she
look as if I had?"
"Oh, Father," Marian interrupted, serious now, "she had the most awful
time with me! I know it, Lucy, so there's no use in your laughing. I
wouldn't go out or do anything she or Cousin Sally wanted. I sat and
moped until they almost gave me up as a bad job. But Lucy just decided
it would be doing her bit, I guess, to make me act like other people,
because she kept on, and the first thing I knew I began to like going
around with other girls myself."
Marian had never expressed herself like this before, and Lucy, pleased
in her heart at having her hard efforts appreciated, thought with
surprise, as she had already done more than once, that Marian was
keener than any one gave her credit for.
"Lucy, I suppose you don't wish me to thank you," began Mr. Leslie,
speaking so much more in earnest than Lucy had expected that she
exclaimed hastily:
"Oh, mercy, no, Cousin Henry! What on earth for? We must turn off
across the grass here, if you want to walk on the sea-wall. If we go
out there first the men will all be at drill when we get back, and then
we can go inside the fort."
Mr. Leslie watched Lucy's face as she spoke, with a sudden, sharp
contraction of his kind heart. The fresh color in her cheeks, which
he had once envied for Marian, had paled during the last few weeks.
The twinkling, hazel eyes, which he remembered so full of life and
merriment were serious and sad as she raised them to his, and in every
look and gesture he saw and understood the weight of anxiety that
pressed upon her. She was cheerful enough, and most people might have
seen little difference, but Mr. Leslie had observing eyes. "Poor
little girl," he thought pityingly. "Poor old Bob, too,--hard luck."
"Father, you aren't looking at anything," said Marian reproachfully.
"Here's the aviation field--see it? We get to the sea-wall right here.
It's not quite so cold to-day, do you think so, Lucy?"
"Not while we're in the sun. We come out here in all sorts of weather,
Cousin Henry, and sometimes Marian feels as though life on Governor's
Island were a sort of Arctic Expedition."
"Except that she got back from it in fairly good shape," said Mr.
Leslie, throwing back his head to laugh in a jolly way he had. "I can
believe it took a good bit of coaxing to get her out here at first."
"You bet it did," agreed Marian, shivering reminiscently. "It does
still, when the wind blows. We came out here once when Julia had to
hold her puppy for fear he'd be blown off, and I rebelled and said I
wouldn't stay."
"Yes, we didn't always have our own way with her," said Lucy. "She has
been bossing me herself a good deal lately, though," she added, with a
grateful remembrance of Marian's thoughtfulness during the past weeks,
as she looked out over the blue waters of the harbor.
It was quarter to nine by the time they had come in from the sea-wall
and crossed the island, past the companies at drill, to old Fort Jay,
where they entered the sally-port in the ramparts, while Mr. Leslie
inspected the barracks and quadrangle. Marian, who was decidedly more
punctual than Lucy, hurried their steps to get back to the Matthews' in
time for school.
"Are you going to New York, Father?" she asked. Mr. Leslie's plans
were as yet unsettled, and his stay at the post uncertain. Marian was
anxious to learn what he intended to do as soon as possible.
"Yes, I must go over some time this morning. I can't tell whether
another trip West this month is necessary until I have seen a fellow
from the shipping board, who has come up from Washington."
"Well, promise to come back for dinner," begged Marian, as they neared
the Gordons' house.
"Yes, I promise. But I probably shall be gone all day. Here's your
father, Lucy, wondering where we have flown to."
Major Gordon was standing on the steps, cap in hand, as they came up,
and he exclaimed in surprise at their early start, glancing at the
watch on his wrist. "I thought you'd taken the girls off to play hooky,
Henry. I was almost starting after you."
"We're not late," said Lucy, running up the steps. "I'll get our books,
Marian, and come right out. There's Julia crossing from her house now."
"Good-bye; don't stay long," Marian called back to her father when she
and Lucy started off.
Lucy liked school better lately than she ever had before, because
it occupied her mind and kept it from straying into what were often
unhappy directions. The hours the four girls spent with Miss Ellis
were very pleasant ones, and the mornings usually ended soon enough
for everybody. Lucy did object to the Latin days, for it took her a
whole hour of the afternoon before to prepare her lesson. To-day Miss
Ellis gave out a whole page of sentences, and Lucy said emphatically to
Julia, as the girls were walking home:
"You have simply got to come over after lunch and help me with that
Latin. I'll show you about the arm-bandaging for next week, if you
will."
Julia was willing to do almost anything for her friend these days, and
she answered, glad of the opportunity, "Of course I'll help you. We'll
do it together. I can come over early."
Languages were Julia's strong point. She could speak French almost as
well as Marian, and when the three girls got together that afternoon
the lesson did not take long. As Marian folded up her paper she said
thoughtfully:
"I suppose you've always gone to school and had to do your lessons.
It's funny. I thought you worked dreadfully hard when I began studying
here in September. I kept on only because I was ashamed not to be able
to do as much as the rest of you."
"Why, you've always had a governess, Marian, haven't you?" asked Lucy,
surprised.
"Oh, yes. But she didn't dare make me work hard. Once she did and I got
sick and scared her and Father almost to death. It was at Lucerne, two
years ago, and the whole rest of the year I just fooled along. If she
tried to begin real lessons I looked doubtful about it and she gave
right in."
"That was easy," said Julia, laughing. "I wish I'd been brought up that
way. But you seem to know a good deal, in spite of it."
"That's just from traveling and reading, or what Father has told me."
Marian called this back from her own room, where she had gone to take
off her school dress. "I never really worked at anything unless I
wanted to."
"You're not so awfully spoiled, considering," said Lucy, leaning back
in her chair and watching Marian lazily, as she came in, slipping over
her head the dress she had brought from her room.
"Have I seen that one? I don't think so," said Julia, turning to look
with critical interest at the plaid serge that Marian had changed to.
"Clothes may come and clothes may go, but yours go on forever," she
remarked, putting down her pen. "Come here, Marian, and I'll fasten it
for you."
"I suppose I'd better put on something decent, too, before Cousin Henry
gets back," said Lucy, looking with disfavor at her tan shoes, which
were decidedly in want of a polish. "You seem to dress by clockwork,
Marian. It's always a wrench for me to remember it."
Marian laughed, rising from the arm of Julia's chair to stand before
Lucy's glass to straighten her collar and arrange the ribbons on her
hair.
"Still, it's easier for you to look neat, having that sort of hair that
curls right around where it belongs," Lucy went on. "Mine goes in every
direction it shouldn't." She gave a vigorous tug to her hair-ribbon,
and pulled her soft, fair hair down about her shoulders.
"Well, I can't wait while you fix all that," said Julia, getting up and
collecting her book and papers. "I promised to help Mother at the Red
Cross."
"I'll go over with you," said Marian quickly; "I'm all dressed and I'd
like to."
"All right--fine," said Julia, as Marian went into her room for her
coat and hat.
Lucy went to the stairs with them and called good-bye over the
banisters; then she returned to change her shoes and dress and put up
her hair. None of this took her long, and in fifteen minutes she was
ready and stood undecided by her closet door, wondering whether or not
to go out and join the others. She heard the door open down-stairs
and footsteps below, and had made up her mind to go down and find her
mother, if she had come home, when some one knocked sharply at her door.
"Come in," she said, thinking it was Marie, but to her surprise Mr.
Leslie's voice said, as he opened the door, "Hello, Lucy! May I come
and see you?"
"Of course, Cousin Henry! When did you get back?" said Lucy, going to
meet him with a smile of welcome. "Is every one out? I was just coming
down."
"Your mother is at home. She has some visitors down-stairs. But I want
to talk to you a few minutes, if you've no objections."
"Not a bit," said Lucy, rather mystified, as she drew forward a chair
for Mr. Leslie and sank down herself on her little sofa.
Mr. Leslie's checks were still ruddy from the cold air, and he rubbed
his hands together a second before he began, with a quick glance at
Lucy's wondering face:
"When I tried to tell you the other day how grateful I felt for what
you have done for Marian you changed the subject as soon as possible.
I didn't blame you," he added with a sudden smile. "It isn't much fun
being thanked. You'd rather I'd feel it and keep it to myself."
"Oh--honestly, I didn't do much," stammered Lucy, blushing and acutely
uncomfortable. She liked to be appreciated as much as any one, but this
was going rather far.
"You did just this," Mr. Leslie persisted. "You brought back Marian's
health--the one thing in the world I wanted that I hadn't it in my
power to get." The keen, blue eyes were shining as he looked intently
into Lucy's shy and troubled face. "Whatever you say, Lucy, you have
done me a service that I can never forget as long as I live, and
gratitude would be an empty boast if I didn't want to do you a favor
in return. I know there is only one thing in the world you want just
now." Lucy looked at him, startled beyond all embarrassment, as he went
on, "I can't tell whether that thing is within my power to give you--I
won't know for many long days--but I am going to do my best. I have
good friends in Switzerland, at our Embassy at Berne. I am going to
cross this week and see what they can do toward having Bob exchanged."
Lucy sprang from the sofa to kneel by Mr. Leslie's chair and look into
his face. "Oh, Cousin Henry--do you m-mean it?" she faltered, her
throat painfully choking and her sight dimmed by the tears that filled
and overflowed her eyes.
"It isn't likely I'd say it if I didn't," responded Mr. Leslie's big
reassuring voice, as he patted his little cousin's shoulder with a
tender hand. "I don't say I shall succeed, Lucy--but I'm going to try."
"But what will you do, Cousin Henry? What _can_ you do, if the Germans
don't want to let him go?" cried Lucy, the sudden radiance of her
hope dying down at thought of the real obstacles in the way of Bob's
release. She dashed the tears from her eyes to look eagerly into Mr.
Leslie's face for signs of confidence in his undertaking.
His face, though, was more determined than confident as he answered,
"It isn't exactly a favor we shall ask of Germany. Exchanges are of
mutual benefit, for in Bob's place a German prisoner, whom some one
over there is anxious to see released, will be restored to his friends.
This is done all the time, as you know, but it is subject, of course,
to certain conditions." The principal one of the conditions he had in
mind was that the prisoner to be exchanged must be badly wounded, but
he did not mention this just then. Mr. Leslie was not so foolishly
optimistic as to be blind to the difficulties in his way, but he
considered a reasonable hope as ground enough on which to proceed.
"The way these exchanges are managed," he went on, "is through the
mediation of our minister in Switzerland with the diplomat who has
charge of our affairs in Berlin. In this way Ambassador Gerard, who
had charge of British affairs in Germany from the outbreak of the war,
obtained the release of many British prisoners, or, when this was
impossible, at least managed to better their condition. The Spanish
Ambassador, who looks after the United States now in Germany, is my
very old friend, whose house we rented in Cadiz, the winter Marian's
mother died. I know he will do his best for me--though what that best
amounts to only time can tell. But it's enough to cheer up a little
on--isn't it, Lucy?"
"Oh, yes, it is, Cousin Henry!" cried Lucy, with light in her eyes
and a new life in her voice as she stood up by Mr. Leslie's side. "Do
Father and Mother know?"
"Your father does. He's coming in now," said Mr. Leslie, looking from
the window. "I'll go down and speak to him and to your mother, if those
people have gone."
"I'm coming, too," exclaimed Lucy, wiping her eyes and tucking back her
hair, after a hasty glance in the mirror. "I know all about it, so I
may hear what you say to them, mayn't I?"
"I don't see why not," said Mr. Leslie cheerfully, as he led the
way down-stairs to the study, where Major and Mrs. Gordon were looking
over the afternoon mail.
The talk which followed was a long one, and Lucy's joy was tempered
by a few troubled and remorseful moments. Mrs. Gordon, overcome with
gratitude as Lucy had been, still found thought for Marian, and
hesitated to permit the journey Mr. Leslie meant to undertake in their
behalf. Major Gordon, too, looking anxious and care-worn, made an
attempt to dissuade him.
"It's one chance out of fifty that you'll succeed, Henry," he said
soberly, "and the risk to yourself amounts to something. It's more than
we can reasonably ask of you."
"You didn't ask it," responded Mr. Leslie, calmly. "I told Lucy I
intended doing something for her, to repay what she has done for my
little girl, and I mean to stick to it. I saw about my passports
to-day."
Lucy was sitting on the floor by her mother's side, and at this she
felt the unruly tears rising again to her eyes, as she leaned against
her mother's knee while Mrs. Gordon's arm stole about her shoulders.
"More than that," Mr. Leslie continued, "I'm doing it for my own
satisfaction. Having friends whose help will give me a reasonable
chance of success I can't rest content without an effort to get
Bob out. Maybe I'll only be able to find out where he is and open
communication with him. That will at least be something. I've known and
loved the boy for twenty years. He certainly deserves this much from
me."
Lucy's eyes met his, as he spoke these earnest words, with instant
and heartfelt understanding. She knew what Mr. Leslie meant when he
said he could not rest without doing his utmost to win Bob's freedom.
That longing, helpless on her part, to do something--even the least
thing--in Bob's behalf, had been with her many days, and she keenly
understood Mr. Leslie's restless discontent, and guessed at his eager
desire to get nearer by three thousand miles to Bob's prison, and
strike a blow at the battle-front itself toward his release.
Before any one had time to say more, Marian came in, returning from the
Red Cross. Mr. Leslie rose and went to meet her.
"I want to talk to you, Marian--just for a minute," he said. "Let's go
up to your room."
Up-stairs he unfolded his plan, making it sound as hopeful and
promising as he could, nor dwelling on any possible danger to himself,
but if he had looked for a scene at the news of his departure he was
agreeably disappointed. Marian did cry, "Oh, Father, you're not going
over--now!" and tears of disappointment shone in her eyes, but she
sat down and listened quietly to what he said, and did not refuse to
understand.
She was not by any means indifferent to Bob's misfortune, and her
sympathetic nature made her share of the Gordons' trouble a very real
one. Bob's jolly, friendly presence had won her instant liking, in the
few days she had known him, and the thought of what her father's going
might achieve for him made the parting far easier to bear. As for the
dangers of the voyage, once Mr. Leslie had pooh-poohed the idea and
promised that his absence should be a short one, Marian ceased to fear.
She had the most unbounded confidence in her father's word, and she had
often seen him go great distances in safety, and had accompanied him
half-way around the world herself.
This was not the only talk that occurred in the three days which
followed. Many were the plans discussed, suggestions offered and
apprehensions felt by the different members of the family. But Mr.
Leslie had nothing but cheerful words, now that his course was
definitely settled, and his happiness in Marian's recovery was
heightened by the hope and comfort he saw he had brought to Lucy's
heart. He stuck to his original plan and sailed from "an American port"
on Christmas Eve.