A SCARLET FEATHER
DEAR SIS:
I’m going to cease setting down the big stuff for a space, while I
write to you. I’m just back with a whole skin from spending the night
up a tree watching this man’s army pull off a great stunt in the way
of a surprise for the enemy. I’ve sent off my stuff for my paper and
am now resting up--but a letter is due you, and I’ve found a way to
get it to you by special delivery. The messenger starts in half an
hour by motorcycle for your sector, and vows he’ll put it in your
hands as soon as he’s handed over his dispatches to the C. O. So I
can let myself go a bit--if I scrawl fast.
I’ve had great luck this last month in meeting up with at least three
people whom you’ll like to hear about. First:--R. M. B.--by the
merest chance, for an hour later I’d have missed him. I simply turned
a corner in a little French town where I’d stopped with an officer
who was taking me with him up to the Front, and ran square into a
black-eyed chap with a cross on his collar who was so tanned and so
husky I didn’t snap to for a full minute. He did, though--and had me
gripped with a grip like a steel trap. “Cary Ray!” he shouted. I knew
the voice--I couldn’t forget that voice in a hurry--and of course
instantly then I knew the man. Jolly! Jane, you ought to see him.
Well, he hadn’t a minute to spare for me, unless I’d go with him.
“Sure thing,” I agreed. “I’ve got an hour to spare while Major
Ferguson checks up with G. H. Q. here. What’s your little party?”
“It’s a burial party,” said he, looking me in the eye, same as usual.
“If you haven’t had that particular experience, it won’t hurt you,
and on the way we can talk things over.”
As it happened I’d passed up the funerals, thus far, being occupied
exclusively with the living and those on the other side I wanted
to see dead. Anyhow, it was worth it to have an hour with this
particular chaplain, whatever job he was at. So I went along. I
haven’t time to describe it to you here, but you can bet it rated
a special half column for my paper. It was a mighty simple little
affair, no frills, just a group of sober doughboys, a flag, some
wooden crosses, and a firing squad--_and_ R. M. B. reading the
service. But don’t you think “the Resurrection and the Life” didn’t
get over to us!
On the way to the field and back I heard a great piece of news.
R. M. B.’s regiment had been sent back into rest billets, about a
fortnight before, and a group of entertainers had come through the
little town one evening and put on a show for them. It was some show,
and the bright particular star was--oh, you never could guess if
you hadn’t a clue, any more than I could. Well, it was Fanny Fitch!
Yes, sir--over here with a bunch of vaudeville people, going around
the leave areas and cheering up the boys before the next bout. You
should have heard the chaplain describing the song and dance; I never
should have thought it! Fanny can’t sing a whole lot--just enough
to get by, I judge; but dance she can, and jolly she does, and the
boys fall for it like rows of tenpins. The best of it, according to
R. M. B., is that she’s happy as a summer cloud doing her bit. Why,
she’s just plain got into the game, Sis, as I told her to do, and I
don’t know what more you can ask of anybody. You’re nursing, and the
chaplain’s preaching--and burying--and if he isn’t fighting before he
gets through I’ll be surprised, knowing how pugilistic he can be. And
I’m skirmishing on the edge of things with my fountain pen, and Fanny
Fitch is making eyes at the boys and warming the cockles of their
tired hearts--bless her heart! And why isn’t her job as good as any
of ours, since it helps the morale as it’s bound to do? All I know
is I’m going to tear things loose and get to see her as soon as I
can make it, lest some nervy shave-tail lieutenant get a line on her
while my back is turned.
Time’s up. The third meet-up? You’d say it couldn’t happen, but it
did. It was a week earlier than this that I stood on the side of
the road and watched a couple of battalions march by on their way
to the training trenches in a quiet sector. And behold there was a
first lieutenant as _was_ a first lieutenant, and his name back in
the States was Tommy Lockhart! Talk about making a man of a man--you
ought to see our Tom!
Luck to you and love to you----
Always your same old
CARY.
He finished it in a hurry, for the Colonel’s messenger could not be
kept waiting. After that he did some manipulating and manœuvring, which
in the end resulted, a few days later, in his getting the chance he
wanted. What Cary could not bring about in one way he could in another,
and more than one officer and man in authority, if he had owned up
honestly, would have had to admit that a certain war-correspondent
had a way of asking favours which it was somehow difficult to refuse.
Cary’s face was his fortune, for it was the face of a modest but
high-spirited non-combatant who was afraid of nothing so that he should
fulfil his commission. Usually he was asking to be sent to the most
active front, and pressing his case; so now when he wanted to make a
dash to the rear, without explaining why, those who could further his
request were glad to do so. It therefore presently came about that
young Ray made his trip in an official car, in the company of several
officers, with a number of hours to spare before the return in which
to hunt up a certain group of entertainers, which he meant to locate
or perish in the attempt. The more he thought about that “shave-tail
lieutenant” and others of his ilk, the more eager he was to remind
Fanny Fitch of his presence in this new world of hers.
The hunt took so much time that it began to look as if Cary’s usual
luck had deserted him, when he came rather suddenly upon his quarry.
It was the edge of the evening, and the edge of a French town in which
was quartered a division on its way to the Front. A big audience of
men was seated on the grass watching a performance taking place on
an improvised platform, lighted with flaring torches. At the moment
of Cary’s arrival a young violinist was playing softly a series of
haunting Scottish airs, and a hush had fallen over the listeners which
spoke of dangerous susceptibility at a time when men must not be
permitted to grow soft with dreams. But before this state of mind had
had a chance to make serious inroads, the fiddler changed his tune.
He dashed without warning into a popular marching song, a lad with a
concertina leaped upon the stage, and a girl in a scarlet skirt, a
black velvet coat, and cap with a long, scarlet feather, ran out from
a sheltering screen. In her arms she carried a great flaming bunch of
poppies, and over them she laughed down at her audience. Standing on
the step below the stage she began to sing.
It was just such a song as Cary Ray--and most of the boys before
him--had heard a thousand times. The singer, as he had written Jane,
had no real voice for singing, only a few clear tones which, the moment
the notes of the song took her above or below the middle register,
became forced and breathy; but somehow that didn’t much matter. She had
a clear enunciation, she had youth and a delightfully saucy smile, and
she had--well--what is it which makes all the difference between one
such performer and another--that elusive quality which none can define,
but which all can recognize? Spirit, dash, beauty--they were all
there--and something else--something new--something irresistible. What
was it? Trying to discover what it was, Cary gradually made his way
forward, slipping from one position to another through the seated ranks
without ever lifting his body high enough to attract attention. Nearer
and nearer he came to the front, and clearer and clearer grew his view
of Fanny’s laughing face. He didn’t want her to recognize him so he
kept his own face well in shadow, though he knew that in the torchlight
her audience must be to her mostly a blur of watching eyes and smiling
lips, and masses of olive-drab. He came to a halt at length well
sheltered behind a young giant of a corporal, around whose shoulder
he could peer in safety. And then he looked for all he was worth at
the girl who was holding these boys in the grip of her attraction, and
doing with it what she would.
And what was she doing with it? What could Fanny have been expected to
do? It was undoubtedly her chance to capture more masculine admiration
in the lump than had ever been her privilege before. There were a
goodly number of officers in her audience, mostly lounging in the
rear of the ranks upon the grass, but none the less for that foemen
worthy of her steel. She had every opportunity to use her fascinations
with one end, and only one, in view. In satisfying her own love of
excitement, she could easily, under the guise of entertainment, do
these boys in uniform more harm than good. To tell the honest truth it
was with this fear in mind that Cary now watched her. Great as had been
her attraction for him in the past, so great did he expect it to be for
these others now--and it had not been possible in that past for him to
fail to recognize the subtle nature of that attraction.
He studied her from the shelter of the broad shoulder in front of him
with the eyes of a hawk. Let Fanny give these young Americans one look
which was not what Cary Ray wanted it to be, and he would steal away
again as quietly as he had come and never let her know. He wasn’t
sure that “R. M. B.” would have recognized what he himself would, in
the situation; and the fact that Black had spoken with such hearty
praise of Fanny’s performance hadn’t wholly served to reassure him.
She had known from the beginning that the chaplain was present in her
audience--that would make a difference, of course. She didn’t know now
who was here; Cary would see her exactly as she was. It was no chaplain
who was watching her now, it was an accredited war-correspondent with
every faculty of observation at the alert, his memory trained to keep
each impression vivid as he had received it.
It was a long time that Fanny was upon the rough stage, for her
audience couldn’t seem to have enough of her. Again and again they
recalled her, having hardly let her pass from sight. It was difficult
to analyze the absorbing interest of her “turn,” made up as it was,
like patchwork, of all sorts of unexpected bits. Song and story, parade
and dance--one never knew what was coming next, and when it did come
it might be the very slightest of sketches. It was very evidently her
personality which gave the whole thing its attraction; in less clever
hands it might have fallen flat. Yet through it all seemed to run one
thread, that of genuine desire to bring good cheer without resort to
means unworthy.
Yes, that was what Cary had to concede, before he had looked and
listened very long. Though she was using every art which he had known
she possessed, and some he hadn’t known of, she was doing it in a way
to which he could not take exception. Though he was becoming momently
more jealous of all those watching eyes because he could see how
delighted they were, he grew surer and surer that Fanny was definitely
and restrainedly doing the whole thing as the boys’ sisters might have
done it, if their sisters had been as accomplished as she. His heart
warmed to her as it had never warmed before. After all, Cary said to
himself, this war had done something splendid to Fanny Fitch as well as
to everybody else. She wasn’t a vampire, she was a good sport, and she
was playing up, playing the game, with the very best that was in her,
just as R. M. B. had said. And Cary was glad; he was gladder than he
had ever been about anything.
The moment she had finally left the stage, and the sleight-of-hand
man who was the other member of the little company had secured the
reluctant attention of the audience, loth to let Fanny go, Cary wormed
his way to one side and out of the torchlight into the clear darkness
now fully fallen. He went around behind the screen, and found a slim
figure in scarlet and black sitting with violinist and concertinist
upon a plank, placed across two boxes. An older woman with a plain
face and fine eyes looked up at Cary and shook her head at him with a
warning smile. Evidently she was in charge, and very much in charge, of
this girl who was travelling about France with men performers among so
many men in uniform. But before she could send him away Fanny herself
had looked up from a letter she was reading by a flash-light the little
concertinist was holding for her.
She sprang up with a smothered exclamation of joy and came to him. The
older woman rose also and followed her. Fanny turned to her.
“It’s an old friend, Mr. Ray--Mrs. Burnett.” She made the introduction
under her breath, for at the moment the audience on the other side
of the screen was silent, watching a difficult trick. “He’s a
war-correspondent, and I’m sure hasn’t long to stay. Please let me talk
with him, just outside here.”
So, in a minute, when Cary had disarmed the duenna with his frank and
friendly smile, he led Fanny a stone’s-throw away, just out of the
flare of the torches, and looked down into her face.
“Well,” he said, “here we are! And you’re playing the game, for all
that’s in it. I’m pleased as Punch that you’ve come along. Tell me all
about it, quick. I’ve got to be back in the car that brought me in half
an hour, not to delay Colonel Brooks.”
“Then there isn’t time to tell you all about it,” Fanny answered, “and
there’s nothing to tell, either, except what you see. I am very happy
to be of use--as I think I am.”
“I should say you were. I’ve been watching you for a full half-hour,
and I never saw a jollier stunt put over. In that red and black you
beat anything in pink and white I ever saw--to speak figuratively. You
see--I’ve only seen you in pink and white, before!”
Fanny laughed. “And I’ve never before seen you in olive-drab. You’re
perfectly stunning, of course. How did you know I was here--or didn’t
you know?”
“The chaplain of the ----th told me,” Cary explained, watching her.
“Oh, yes!” Fanny’s eyes met his straightforwardly. She was made up
for the stage but he didn’t mind that, because he knew it had to be.
“It was so strange to see him, in uniform. He’s looking every inch a
soldier, isn’t he?--even though he’s not one.”
“I’m not so sure he isn’t. Yes, he’s great--and you’re greater! It’s
all in the nature of things that he should come over and do his bit,
but you could hardly have been expected to do yours.”
“Why not? Just because I’ve always been a frivolous thing, is that any
reason why I shouldn’t sober down now and be useful?”
Cary smiled. “You don’t look exactly sobered down, you know,” he told
her, glancing from the dashing scarlet feather in the little cap set at
an angle on her blonde head, to the high-heeled scarlet slippers on her
pretty feet.
“Oh, but I am. I’m giving myself more seriously to being a little fool
than I ever did to trying to seem wise.”
“And in doing it, you’re wisest of all!” Cary exulted. “Fanny--I’ve
something to tell you. I wouldn’t have been sure once, whether it was
something that would give you pleasure to hear or not, but--yes--I’m
fairly sure now. You knew--you must have known, what I used to be,
though you didn’t see much of me till that was pretty well over. I
want you to know that--it’s all over now. I’ve had every sort of test,
as you may imagine, since I left Jane--and Mr. Black, and Doctor
Burns--the people who stood by me when I was down--and I haven’t given
in once. Perhaps I will give in, some day, but I don’t think it. You
see--I can’t disappoint them. And--I’d like to think--you care too
whether--I make good.”
A great burst of applause came from the ranks upon the grass, followed
by a roar of laughter. Cary drew Fanny a step or two farther away,
though they two were already in deep shadow, made the deeper by
contrast with the circle of radiance cast by the torches.
“Of course, I care,” she answered, and he strained his eyes in the
darkness in the effort to see her face. “Cary, I want _you_ to know
that--ever so many things look different to me, over here. I--perhaps
you won’t believe it, but it’s true--absolutely true--that when I face
an audience like that one out there I feel like--almost like--a mother
to those boys. And I just want to--be good to them--and help them
forget the hard things they’ve seen, for a little while.”
He could have laughed aloud, at the idea of ever hearing anything like
this from the lips of Fanny Fitch. Yet, somehow, he could not doubt
that there was truth in the astonishing words, and it made him very
happy to hear them. There had been that in her performance, as he had
observed, which gave strong colour to this point of view. Certainly,
the experience of being close to the heart of the great struggle was
doing strange things to everybody. Why should it not have worked this
miracle with her?
“Fanny--” he felt for her hand, and took it in both his, while he
stooped lower to speak into her face,--“do you know that you and I
are a lot alike? It’s supposed to be that people who are alike should
steer clear of each other, but I’m not so sure. You and I are always
keyed-up to a pitch of adventure--we like it, it’s the breath of life
to us. I can understand it in you--you can, in me. Why shouldn’t we
go after it--together? Why couldn’t we make a wonderful thing of our
lives, doing things together? Why, if I could have made an airman, for
instance--as I’d have liked mightily to do if I hadn’t been a newspaper
man and had my job cut out for me--I can imagine your being ready to
go up with me and take every chance with me--you could be just that
sort of a good fellow. And even on the every-day, plain ground--why,
dear--if you cared----”
Fanny was silent for a minute, and he could see that she was looking
away from him, toward the boys on the grass, and the stage, and the
torches.
“I want to go on doing this, while the war lasts,” she said, “as long
as I can hold out.”
“Of course you do. And I want to go on with my job. We’re both taking
chances. I don’t suppose a shot will get you--but--one might get me.”
“It might get me, too. I’m going next to some of the hospitals, and
they are shelled sometimes, aren’t they?”
“Sure thing. And the funny thing is, I shouldn’t want you not to go,
any more than you’d want to keep me in safe places. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes!” She whispered it.
“Then,” he argued triumphantly, “doesn’t that prove that we’re fit
mates? And if we just knew that we belonged to each other, wouldn’t
that--oh, don’t mind my saying it that way--wouldn’t that put a lot
more _punch_ into our work?”
“It might.”
He well remembered that delicious little laugh of hers; it had never
delighted him more than it did now.
“Not that yours needs any more punch,” he went on, rather deliriously,
in his joy. It certainly did give zest to a man’s wooing to know that a
few paces away were several hundred rivals in admiration of his choice.
Not one of those fellows but would have given his eyes to be standing
back here in the shadow with the girl of the scarlet feather! “Punch! I
should say so. How you did put it over! And all the while I wanted to
jump up and yell--‘Keep your distance--she’s _mine_!’”
“Oh--but you weren’t as sure as that!” Fanny tried to withdraw her hand.
But Cary held it fast. “No, I wasn’t sure, not by a darned sight. I’m
not sure yet--except of one thing. And that’s if you send me away
to-night _not_ sure I’ll go to pieces with unhappiness and my work’ll
run a fair chance of going to pieces too. Heaven knows when I’ll see
you again, with the scrap getting hotter all the time. I don’t mean to
play on the pathetic, but--well--you know as well as I do that this is
war-time--and I’m green with jealousy of every doughboy who’ll see you
from now on----”
He hardly knew what he was saying now. The violinist had begun to play
again. The boys on the grass had fallen silent. The torches flared and
fell and flared again in the light breeze which had suddenly sprung up.
In a minute more he must go; he must run no risk of making the car-load
of officers wait for him.
Fanny lifted her face and spoke to him in a whisper. “Cary, will you
promise _me_--that you’ll never--go back to the old--ways?”
“Oh, I’d _like_ to promise you!” he whispered back eagerly. “I want to.
That will make it surer than sure--if I can promise _you_. I do promise
you--on my honour--and before--God.”
They stood a moment in silence again, then Cary flung his arms around
her and felt hers come about his neck.
“I want to promise you something, too,” her voice breathed in his ear.
“I’ll never, never face an audience like this without--remembering that
you might be in it. And I’ll play--as you would like me to. Didn’t
I--to-night--without knowing?”
“Oh, my dear!” How could she have known, and given him what he wanted
most? “Yes, you did--bless you! And I’ll trust you, as you’ll trust me.
Oh, I didn’t know how much I loved you, till you said that. Fanny--we
were meant for each other--I know we were!”
Every man has said it, and Cary was as sure as they. Perhaps he was
right--as right as they. Anyhow, as he went away, he was gloriously
happy in the thought that though those hundreds on the grass might
thrill with pleasure as the girl with the scarlet feather came out to
sing them her farewell song, not one of them all could know as he did,
that behind the enchanting gayety beat a real heart, one that belonged
only to a certain war-correspondent, already many miles away! Surely,
if she could trust him, he could trust her, and mutual trust, as all
the world knows, is the essential basis for every human relation worth
having. On this basis, then, was this new relation established; and the
augury for the future was one on which to count with hope--even with
confidence.