A CHANCE IN A THOUSAND
“=IT= looks like a regular workshop. Oh, Michelle, I’m so glad you
thought of it!” exclaimed Lucy, looking around the hall with admiring
eyes. Almost every convalescent soldier had a lump of clay or some
willow splits in his fingers, of which he was trying to fashion
something pretty or useful, generally without much success. A few of the
poilus and Germans were expert basket weavers, and one potter was among
them. The rest knew enough to get along with help. As for the Americans,
they caused more amusement than had been heard among the men in a long
time. Not one of them could weave the willow splits into a symmetrical
shape, and only one succeeded in making of the clay anything more than a
dumpy jug. This was a little red-headed westerner, who formed his lump
into a dozen animals in as many minutes, to the great interest of the
Frenchmen about him, ending the exhibition with a figure of a cowboy on
horseback, waving a lasso made of a willow sliver.
It was not the quality of the work that made the two girls proud and
delighted at the result of their hard labor. It was the atmosphere of
interested occupation and rivalry, so different from the listless
melancholy that takes possession of a roomful of idle men. The work was
trifling and almost useless, but it was far better than nothing, and
Lucy felt well repaid for her hot walks and the heavy loads carried in
her aching arms.
It was two days since her visit to the prison, and she had spent the
intervals from work in vain attempts to scheme out a means of getting
her precious paper to the Allied lines. One idea she communicated to
Michelle, rather expecting to be laughed at.
“Do you think we could tame one of the pigeons that fly around the
hospital roof, Michelle? It could take the message so easily.”
“But this is their home,” Michelle objected. “You must have a bird who
longs to return across the lines—who is a stranger here. There were many
like that guarded here last month by the French _état-major_. I do not
know where they are now.”
“What an easy way that would be, and what a safe one,” Lucy thought this
morning as she went back and forth among the convalescents, giving
encouragement since she could not give advice, and seeing that each man
had material to work with.
“Oh, how too bad we must give so much to the Boches!” whispered
Michelle, as Lucy picked up a handful of splits for Paul Schwartz to
finish his neat basket.
“But we have to,” said Lucy, resignedly. It was the sight of the German
soldiers working away at the materials furnished by the hard efforts of
the two little aides which had caused the German surgeon in charge to
give Lucy a brisk nod of approval in passing. She felt more angry than
gratified at this condescending reward for her trouble, but she knew his
good will was necessary if they were to continue helping the French and
Americans.
“I cannot stay long with you this afternoon,” said Michelle a few
minutes later, when all the patients were again supplied with
occupation. “Poor Maman does not get up to-day. She has a bad cold from
coming in the rain from the hospital.”
“I’m so sorry, Michelle. Could I do anything to help? I suppose the
French doctors can give you what she needs?”
“Yes. But one thing I would like to ask of you. I am not sure if you can
do it.” The French girl gave her friend an appealing look as she said,
with a more natural childishness than she had shown Lucy before, “I am
very lonely while Maman is ill. If you could come and pass the night
with me—I would be grateful.”
“To-night, Michelle? Of course I will! I know how I can manage it. I’ll
go home with Elizabeth—no one objects to that—and she can leave me at
your house. It will be late, though. She can’t leave here before ten.”
“Oh, how glad I shall be of your company!” Michelle exclaimed, her face
instantly brightening. Then her lip curved to a mocking smile as she
added, “What could we do without that _chère Boche_, Elizabeth?”
“Laugh at her all you like,” said Lucy, unruffled. “I know her better
than you.”
“I do not laugh at her,” Michelle protested. “But to be friend with her
seems strange. Never I thought to trust in one of that country again.”
“Oh, Michelle, that’s not quite fair,” Lucy began, but her arguments
died away on her lips. She had no right to lecture Michelle, who had
seen the worst and would be more than human if the name of German were
not hateful to her. “You’ll know before long that Elizabeth can be
trusted,” she contented herself with saying.
“Oh, yes, _sans doute_,” answered Michelle, unconvinced, but anxious to
make amends for her frankness. “You will come to-night then, Lucy? I
will wait for you.”
The eagerness in her eyes made Lucy respond quickly, “I certainly will.
I may be late, but that can’t be helped. I’m never sure when Elizabeth
can get off.”
“Then _au revoir_, and thank you,” smiled Michelle, stopping on her way
down the hall to carry a handful of wet clay to the American cowboy
artist. He in turn presented her with a clay buffalo, quite lifelike
with its lowered head and threatening horns. “Only mind you don’t break
off the horns,” he cautioned.
“I’d ’a’ given that little Mamzel a fair treat if I hadn’t been skeered
to try it,” he confided to Lucy, after Michelle’s departure. “I wanted
to make her a little Boche soldier—square head, pig eyes and all—with
one of our boys getting a good swipe at him with a bayonet. I’ll do it
yet.”
“Hush!” said Lucy, laughing, but glancing apprehensively around. “You
mustn’t talk about Boches so loud, Tyler.”
At the end of another hour she went off duty in the hall to help
Elizabeth bring in the nurses’ supper. At the first opportunity she
explained the promise made Michelle.
“You’ll take me with you, won’t you, Elizabeth?” she asked anxiously.
“Oh, yes, Miss Lucy, I think so. In the morning I stop to bring you back
after I get the basket full from the little farm. Only,” Elizabeth
added, looking earnestly into Lucy’s face, “promise me you don’t by
yourself to the old prison go.”
“I promise—if you’ll take me there soon again,” said Lucy, thinking
sadly that the little stock of provisions she had left Captain Beattie
must be already gone. “I hope you can leave early, Elizabeth,” she said,
returning to the evening’s plan. “If you can’t Miss Pearse will make
such a fuss.”
She was happy at the chance of doing Michelle a service, as well as at
the prospect of seeing her friend for longer than a hurried hour.
Elizabeth was more sympathetic this time, too, than when Lucy had
proposed the other expedition. Elizabeth did not encourage patriotism or
daring on Lucy’s part, and, if she had had her way, would have kept her
in safe seclusion.
She did her best to get through her long day’s work early, and it was
not yet ten o’clock when she left Lucy at the side door of Michelle’s
house. Lucy was instantly admitted, and her hostess gave her a warm
welcome.
“I thought perhaps you do not come, and I feel so sorry,” said Michelle,
smiling with pleasure as she took Lucy’s cape from her shoulders. “Maman
is asleep, and Clemence working in the kitchen, because she stayed with
Maman to-day while I was at the hospital. You know we give the breakfast
every morning to the German sentinel on this street.”
“You do!” cried Lucy, indignantly.
“Yes, we must. Come and sit here by the candle,” said Michelle, leading
the way into the little parlor, “and show me what gave you the English
_capitaine_. You said that I should see it.”
“Of course. I’m going to leave it here with you, anyway. It’s the first
chance I’ve had.”
Michelle glanced keenly toward the windows, across which calico curtains
were drawn, as Lucy raised the hem of her dress and, ripping a few
stitches, drew out a folded slip of paper. The two girls sat down at the
table on which the flickering candle burned, and Lucy spread the paper
out before them.
“I’ve hardly done more than peek at it myself,” she remarked. “You’ve
made me so cautious, Michelle, I don’t do anything without stopping to
think if it is safe.”
“I am glad of that,” said Michelle, soberly. “It is better you should be
too careful than to forget once that the Boches are always listening.
Oh, see; he has drawn it like a picture, that the danger may not be so
great for you.”
Lucy remembered the Englishman’s brief explanation as she bent over the
little sketch, and repeated it to Michelle. The drawing was cleverly but
roughly made with quick strokes of the pen, and, to her eye at least,
would have suggested nothing suspicious. Beneath it were scrawled the
words, “Changing the Guard.” The six groups of German soldiers, leaning
lazily on their guns as they awaited their orders to relieve the various
out-posts, might have been seen any day from Captain Beattie’s prison
window. As for the curving line of the road as he had drawn it, only an
observing eye would notice that the road behind the prison had really
far less width and fewer windings. The flower-beds sketched in beyond
completed the zigzag outline. Lucy saw it all now, with a rush of
comprehension. The carefully measured lines behind the lounging figures
of the guard were the bastions of the great fortified ridge at Argenton.
The soldiers were the hidden batteries whose locations had been the
object of such deadly and ineffectual search.
“Oh, Michelle,” she sighed, filled with eager and helpless longing, “I’d
do anything—anything—to get this over to our lines.”
“And I, too,” exclaimed the French girl with flashing eyes. “But what
can we do? We can only wait.”
Lucy frowned in bitter rebellion as she folded the paper once more and
slipped it carefully into her pocket.
“I must return to Maman,” said Michelle, picking up the candle. “Perhaps
she is awake again.”
Lucy followed her friend up the narrow, dingy stairs, and, as she did
so, her exasperation began to give place to a pleasanter and more
helpful feeling. She looked forward to spending the night in the de la
Tours’ little house. Though they were in enemy hands this house still
kept some of the elements of home. Its neat, simple interior, and the
united affection of the three who made up the family—for Clemence was
one of them by virtue of hardships long shared in common—meant much to
Lucy after her days in the crowded hospital and nights in the
half-furnished house across the street.
Madame de la Tour was lying awake, but she declared that her sleep had
made her feel much better. “There is no need to remain up for me, _mes
enfants_,” she said decidedly. “But I am glad you came, _ma petite_,”
she added, taking Lucy affectionately by the hand. “My Michelle is very
happy to have your company.”
“I wanted to come. It’s lovely to be in a real house—in somebody’s home
again,” said Lucy warmly, her eyes filled with sympathy and pity as she
looked at the fragile little figure in the bed—an old French peasant
bed, with clumsy wooden side boards.
“Then try to have a good night’s sleep,” urged Madame de la Tour, fixing
her bright eyes on Lucy’s face. “Your checks are grown thinner than I
like to see them.”
Lucy was glad to go to bed in these surroundings and made no objection
when Michelle led the way with a candle to the little chamber next her
own. Old Clemence slept just now on a sofa by her mistress’s side.
Already, down below, they could hear her noisily bolting doors and doing
her best to secure the broken windows by fastening the shutters. The two
girls talked a while together, for their sleepiness was not quite proof
against the many things each wanted to hear about the other. But
presently Michelle stole out to see that her mother wanted nothing, and
coming back took up Lucy’s candle and wished her good-night.
“I must wake you very early in the morning, you know. How good it will
be to have you here for breakfast,” she said with friendly satisfaction
as she went away.
For the first time in many nights Lucy slept deep and dreamlessly as
though she were safe at home again. She could not believe the night was
over when, at the first peep of dawn, she woke to find Michelle standing
at her bedside, her pretty black hair tumbled about her shoulders and
her eyes still heavy with sleep.
“I am very sorry I must call you from the bed so early,” she apologized.
“But I must help Clemence to-day, before I go to the hospital. It is for
that we take the breakfast as soon as it grows light.”
“All right,” said Lucy, yawning and stretching herself awake before she
added, “I have to be ready early, anyway, for Elizabeth will stop for me
at seven o’clock. I’ll help you, too, Michelle. What do you have to do?”
“Not so much,” Michelle responded, sitting down for a moment at the foot
of Lucy’s bed to comb her hair free from its curling tangles. “I make a
little coffee for Maman, while Clemence is preparing breakfast for the
sentinel. He eats well, _ma foi_!”
“Oh, to think of having to feed him!” exclaimed Lucy, tossing about in
her indignation. “Sometimes when I first wake in the morning I can’t
believe we really are in the German lines. It seems too awful to be
true.”
“It is much better now than when the Boches make their first capture of
the town,” said Michelle, the brightness dying out of her face with the
words. “Then there were many more here—a regiment. They were proud with
victory and cared for no one’s prayers. They went into the houses,
stealing all they found. Maman and I for two days hid in the hospital.
When the officers made again a little order in the town we returned to
poor Clemence—for she would not leave the house, rather, she tell us,
she will stay and fight the Boches who enter. But for all her scolding
they take away the little food we have, and Maman and I must go and beg
for bread from the sergeant at the _Commissariat_. For wood, also, we
must beg, for the soldiers take all we have, and it was February—very
cold—with snow upon the ground.”
As Michelle spoke her quiet voice became filled with trembling
indignation. She let fall her hair upon her shoulders and pressed her
hands together, while her blue eyes shone with the bitter resentment
reawakened. She had told Lucy but a tenth part of the suffering and
humiliation of those days which, far from being safely past, might be
repeated at any moment. Lucy’s indignant sympathy was for an instant too
strong for words, and the next Michelle had regained her self-control.
Rising from the bed she exclaimed with a kind of scornful impatience at
herself:
“It is no good to think of those bad times! Enough that is bad we have
still with us.” She turned to smile faintly back at Lucy as she said
more cheerfully, “We must have a pleasant breakfast together, so you
will like to come and give me your company again.”
Lucy dressed very thoughtfully, her mind filled with the glimpse
Michelle had given her of that terrible past which had been even harder
to endure than the uncertain present. Now Lucy better understood the
look that had arrested her attention at first sight of Michelle’s face.
Lucy had thought that she herself was bearing much, and with passable
courage. But how much smaller her trials seemed when compared with
Michelle’s long years of suffering and anxiety, borne with no other
companion than her frail little mother.
When she finished dressing and ran down-stairs Michelle was already in
the dining-room, engaged in setting the table with a breakfast of hot
pea soup and two slices of coarse black bread. Lucy knew it was the best
the house afforded, and she felt reluctant to eat of the precious little
store. But evidently her company was worth far more to Michelle than a
few mouthfuls of food. The French girl had cheered up from her
melancholy, and greeting Lucy with a bright smile, made place for her at
the bare wooden table.
“Oh, Lucy,” she exclaimed, “if only you had come to see me four years
ago, what a nice breakfast I should have given you!” This was the first
reference Michelle had ever made to her beautiful old home which was now
a ruin. “But perhaps,” she added thoughtfully, “you never would have
come to France without this war.”
“But after the war I’ll come again, Michelle,” said Lucy eagerly. “I
don’t think a friendship begun like ours can ever be forgotten. France
and America will never seem so far apart as they did. We won’t think of
France any more as a foreign country.”
She looked across the table at her friend for response to her sincere
enthusiasm, for Michelle had fallen suddenly silent. Lucy followed her
eyes in astonishment, to where they were fixed on the little door which
led from the back of the room down to the cellar. As she looked closely
at it, trying to discover the cause of Michelle’s motionless attention,
she saw that it was not quite shut. Before she had time to think
further, she saw the door pushed open, and a German soldier entered the
room.
The spoon in Lucy’s hand dropped on the table. A bewildered fear took
possession of her. The soldier was a tall, stalwart blond, with dusty
and mud-stained uniform, as though fresh from active duty. As he stood
there against the door he had closed behind him he panted a little, and
his face, seen in the shadowy light, though young, looked haggard and
lined with weariness. This picture formed itself in an instant on her
mind. The next she heard a trembling cry from Michelle’s lips. The
soldier pushed off his little round cap and held out his arms.
“Michelle!” he said.
“Armand!” Michelle answered, in a voice that was half a sob. With one
bound she had crossed the floor and thrown her arms about the soldier’s
neck, while over his tired face broke a smile as sweet and radiant as
her own. “Oh, Armand, _cheri, why_ did you come? _Mon Dieu_, why did you
come!” was all she could say in the first moment of her joy and terror.
“I had to come, to learn that you were safe,” he said unsteadily.
Lucy’s heart had given one leap, and now it began racing furiously, as
her paralyzing fright changed to different emotions. Fear for Michelle’s
brother, in the deadly peril in which he had placed himself, and a
thrill of admiration at his daring exploit, were mingled with the wild
delight of knowing that Captain Beattie’s paper was safely in her pocket
ready to be confided to the Frenchman’s keeping.
While these thoughts chased each other through her mind, Michelle turned
from her brother, with blue eyes shining in her white, frightened face,
to say tremblingly in English, “Oh, Lucy, it is Armand! My friend,
_cher_ Armand, Mademoiselle Lucy Gordon, who knows all we hope and fear.
A brother she has, too, with the Americans.”
Captain de la Tour stretched a friendly hand to Lucy, with a courteous
bow which seemed strange to her from a man in German uniform. He spoke
English without Michelle’s difficulty.
“Gordon? Is your brother Lieutenant Gordon, the aviator? Then,
Mademoiselle, we are not strangers. I have brought him news of how
things are in Château-Plessis. For once since the capture I crossed the
lines, but could not manage to reach this house.”
“We have something to give you—something that will help the Allies,”
stammered Lucy, almost choking over the words in her realization of
success at last in sight.
“Truly? But first of all I must see Maman. She is up-stairs, Michelle?
Ill, you say? In bed?” He ran to the stairs, while Michelle, half mad
with anxiety, called Clemence from the kitchen and in a few hasty words
bade her watch the street and the entrance to the garden.
“I’ll watch from the other side,” Lucy offered, but Michelle objected:
“You can see better from above. All should be well, and if not, we have
no way to forbid that they come in. He will stay only a few minutes. The
guard is not changed before two hours more, so not till then will the
sentinel come for breakfast. If only it did not grow light so soon!”
Up-stairs, Armand was kneeling by his mother’s bed, questioning her
about her welfare with feverish eagerness.
“I had no peace not knowing that you were safe,” he said in answer to
his mother’s reproaches, made in an agony of fear. “How could you think
I would not come?”
Lucy stood by the front window breathing fast, her face flushed and
burning in the cool morning air. Outside, the sentry was lazily pacing.
He passed the house perhaps once in fifteen minutes, but this time he
had turned toward it with a curious glance that set Lucy in a frenzy of
uncertainty. He had not the look of suspecting that an enemy spy was in
the neighborhood, but the house seemed to interest him. Perhaps, Lucy
thought, with a rush of hope as he passed on, he was only longing for
the hour of relief and the sausages and potatoes awaiting him.
She turned back to the room, where Armand was telling of his entrance
into the town, interrupted by a hundred questions from his mother and
Michelle. There were such endless things to be asked and answered on
both sides, and Lucy herself would have given much for a few words with
him. She was listening to his rapid talk, following the French with an
effort, when a loud knock sounding on the front door echoed through the
house.
Captain de la Tour sprang to his feet, his body alert and his blue eyes
flashing. Michelle, seizing his hand, with ashy cheeks and quivering
lips, entreated him, “Hide, Armand! Come quickly—in my room!”
The young Frenchman gave a quick shake of the head. “If they suspect me
all concealment is useless. You forget I am well disguised. Do as I say
and nothing more. Go down, Michelle, and do not deny a German soldier is
here.”
He listened intently as Michelle silently obeyed him. His mother, white
and motionless, waited likewise for signs of what was taking place
below. Clemence had admitted some one, and now they heard her voice
protesting, and a man’s voice, short and surly, in reply. Then Michelle
interposed, calm and conciliating. Steps crossed the floor of the hall
toward the stairway. There was no time for any plan, Lucy thought
wildly. But in the moment that Clemence preceded the intruder up the
stairs, Captain de la Tour had drawn from his gray tunic a note-book and
pencil, and, standing by his mother’s bedside, began jotting down notes
with a steady hand. Clemence, red-faced and terrified, ran into the
room, her hands wound frenziedly about her apron. After her came the
German sentry, a frown on his heavy face and curiosity lighting up his
eyes. At sight of the occupants of the room he made the suggestion of a
bow, but he offered no apology for his intrusion as, fingering his gun,
he stared at Armand’s tall, commanding figure.
[Illustration: “WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS HERE?”]
“Hello, mate,” said Armand in German, looking quietly up from his
note-book, as Michelle followed the soldier into the room.
Lucy could not restrain a gasp of amazement at the scene before her. She
knew Michelle’s wonderful self-control, and did not so much marvel at
her hastily assumed look of angry annoyance, unmixed with the least sign
of her mortal anxiety. But to see delicate little Madame de la Tour
lying back on her pillows with an expression of cold exasperation, her
eyes, glancing from Armand to the sentry, saying plainly that one German
soldier had been quite enough without another forcing himself upon her,
was such a wonderful change from her helpless terror of a moment past
that Lucy could hardly believe her eyes. Even the German sentry looked
uncomfortable before the little French lady’s calm and silent dignity.
He shuffled his feet awkwardly as he answered, with a nod at Armand:
“Hello! You a stranger? What’s your business here?”
“Because I’m a stranger to you doesn’t mean I’m one to the whole town,”
returned Armand, with a twitch at the corner of his mouth, as though
hiding a smile at his own wit. Then, in a more friendly tone, he added,
“However, I’ve no objection to telling you my business. I’m detailed
from the third regiment up the line to help here in the supply depot.
They’re making a new list of the population. The food’s not holding
out.”
“I know that well enough,” grumbled the sentry, his inquisitive look
changing to one of gloomy dissatisfaction. “Much good you can do about
it.”
“Now suppose you tell me what you are doing here?” suggested Armand,
with a return of his faintly mocking tone.
The sentry leaned on his gun a little sheepishly as he answered, “I’m
supposed to keep an eye on who goes in and out along this street.” He
did not care to confess the real motive for his precipitate entrance.
Seeing a fellow soldier enter the garden path and disappear in the
shrubbery, he had been seized with a greedy suspicion that the newcomer
had designs on his breakfast. A chance shortening of his usual beat had
given him this glimpse of Armand, and he had shortened it once more to
enter the house after Lucy had watched him pass.
To change the subject he inquired amicably, “The third, did you say you
belonged to? That’s in the trenches now, isn’t it? How did you get off?”
“Two days only,” said Armand, without enthusiasm. “I’m on sick leave.
Light work, they call this.” He closed his note-book and slipped it back
inside his tunic.
“Well, are you ready to go?” asked the sentry, restored to good humor.
“I’d like some company as far as the end of my beat. I suppose you’re
not going nearer the meadows than this? There’s no one living there.”
“No, I’m starting back now,” said Armand. He turned toward the bed where
Madame de la Tour lay, and giving a slight, stiff bow murmured,
“Good-morning, ladies.”
The sentry, moved by force of example, made a faint bow likewise, and
followed his companion to the stairs. Motionless and silent, Armand’s
mother and sister watched him go. They heard him engaged in friendly
conversation with the German in the hall below, where Armand paused to
get his cap from the dining-room. The next minute the door slammed
behind the sentry’s heavy hand and their footsteps sounded on the stone
flags outside.
Lucy and Michelle with one accord rushed to the window. Armand and the
sentry were walking slowly down the street. With another few steps a
projecting wall hid them from sight. Michelle was shaking from head to
foot, and the hand that touched Lucy’s was icy cold. But she overcame
herself enough to return with Clemence to her mother’s side and give
poor Madame de la Tour the comfort of her presence at that moment. Lucy
had not their awful anguish of fear to endure. It was not her brother
who walked the streets of Château-Plessis in imminent danger of
recognition and certain death. But she was almost as wretched as they in
the bitterness of her disappointment. She felt an unreasoning confidence
that Captain de la Tour would manage to reach the Allied lines in
safety. His nerve and coolness were powerful weapons among the
dull-witted German soldiery. But he would return without the slip of
paper which she had dared so much to obtain, and which might have
brought safety and freedom to them all.
“Twice I’ve failed,” she thought, as with choking throat and eyes
blurred with tears she sank miserably down on the little window-seat.
“Oh, it seems as though any one could have done better than I!”
Before the occupants of the room had collected their stunned and
bewildered thoughts, a second knock sounded on the front door, this time
a gentler one.
“That’s Elizabeth,” exclaimed Lucy, starting to her feet, and winking
the tears from her eyes. At the same moment an idea occurred to her at
sight of Michelle’s white face, and Madame de la Tour’s pitiful struggle
for hope and courage. “Michelle, I’ll ask Elizabeth to find out about
your brother. To learn where he goes and if he gets safely away. She can
go among the soldiers and ask them any questions without being
suspected.”
“No, no! I beg you!” cried Michelle, suddenly restored to speech and
movement. “Never could I trust her with Armand’s secret!” Her blue eyes
had lighted up with that never-forgotten dread and terror of every
German.
Lucy opened her lips to say frankly that her doubts were absurd, and
that now, if ever, was a time when Elizabeth could be of service and
could relieve the agony of Madame de la Tour’s mind. But unwilling to
argue the subject before Michelle’s mother, she drew her friend toward
the stairway instead, saying, “Come down with me while I let Elizabeth
in. I want to speak to you.”
Michelle agreed, but as they descended the stairs she forestalled Lucy
by repeating earnestly, “You must not tell the German woman of my
brother! Enough enemies he has already.” Her voice broke as she ended,
the deadly fear at her heart overwhelming her once more.
Lucy had reached the lower floor and stood staring into the dining-room,
uncertain what to say or do. For Elizabeth, receiving no answer to her
knocks, had become anxious for Lucy and had entered the house, left
unlocked since Armand’s departure. She stood there within a few feet of
them, and the day was bright enough for Lucy to see by her face that she
had heard Michelle’s words.
Michelle gave a gasp herself, but Elizabeth did not wait for either one
to speak.
“You need not fear me, Mademoiselle,” she said quietly, and Lucy thought
she had never seen in that little figure so much proud dignity. “I am
not among the enemies of your brudder, since for France I suppose he
fights. When I tell Miss Lucy I am pro-ally, it is that I am changed in
heart and soul—not only in my tongue. Better you trust me and that we
together work, for else it is little good that I can do.”
For a moment Michelle was silent, for the struggle in her mind was too
intense for words. But at the end of that short pause she spoke, and the
hatred and suspicion had left her voice. Grief and anxiety alone
remained as she said falteringly, “I will trust you, Elizabeth. You must
forgive me that I could not before. I think I do so truly now.”
“Only time will show you that I am true,” replied Elizabeth, still with
a little hurt accent in her voice, as though she felt Michelle’s
conversation was not yet complete. “It is not for love of France that I
have turned against my country. It is for love of Germany.”
“Michelle,” said Lucy, breaking in, fearful the new alliance would not
withstand an argument, and wildly anxious to make use of Elizabeth’s
help, “I’m going now, and—I’ll do all I can. You trust me, too.” She put
her arms around Michelle’s neck, with all the warmth of her sympathy and
understanding, and looked into her face. In her eyes she read unwilling
consent, and no further objection came from her lips. “I’m going to tell
her,” Lucy whispered, absolving herself from her promise. “I’ll come
again as soon as I possibly can.”
The next moment she and Elizabeth were outside in the street, walking
silently back in the direction of the hospital. Lucy gave a keen glance
about her, and seeing only ruined desolation on both sides, quickly
began telling Elizabeth the story of Armand’s coming, and of the
miserable ill-luck that had prevented the delivery of Captain Beattie’s
message. “Elizabeth, what Michelle didn’t want to tell you was that her
brother is making his way out of the town now. Can’t you discover for us
whether he gets safely out? They are in such awful uncertainty.”
“I will try, Miss Lucy,” Elizabeth promised. “Tell me how he looks, and
to what regiment he pretends that he belongs.”
Lucy gave all the details she was able, and, as she spoke, the
realization of her failure came over her again in a bitter flood of
disappointment. “Oh, Elizabeth,” she groaned, feeling a desperate need
of her old nurse’s comforting affection, “to think I should have such a
chance and miss it! A chance we can never hope will come again.”
Elizabeth could not see Lucy unhappy and remain unmoved. Her dark eyes
tenderly softened as she said, with a vain attempt at the consolation
beyond her power to give, “Ach, dear Miss Lucy, be not so sad! Long ago
when I was a child, there comes to our house a so kind old man, the
friend of my father. When any of us children wished long for something
he would say: ‘Remember the proverb: Many times your cake may to coal
turn, but the last time come fair from the oven.’”
“I don’t want to hear your old German proverbs!” were the words that
rose angrily to Lucy’s tongue. But she kept them back. Instead, after a
little silence, she said very thoughtfully, a resolution, as yet vague
and uncertain, waking to life behind her words, “I think the best
proverb is one that an American made up: If you want a thing done, do it
yourself.”
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