"_Life's Little Ironies_"
ONE afternoon the Countess Charlotta was alone in her room walking up
and down in a restless fashion for a girl who had been so recently
injured. Her forehead was still bandaged and her arm in a plaster cast,
but otherwise she was apparently well. Nevertheless, she showed the
results of the strain of her accident and perhaps of her personal
problem.
She looked older than one would have supposed from her half-joking and
half-serious conversations with Bianca Zoli and the other Red Cross
girls.
In spite of her natural gayety and the warmth and color of her nature,
which she had inherited from her French ancestry, the girl faced a
difficult future.
All her life it seemed to her she had been in opposition to her
surroundings, throwing herself powerlessly against ideas and conditions
she could not alter. Everything that belonged to the old German order of
existence she had always hated. From the time of her babyhood her father
had appeared to her as a narrow tyrant insisting that she should spend
her days in a routine which pleased him, without consulting either her
wishes or her talents. As a matter of fact, the small countess had a
will of her own and resented dictation.
Never would the little Charlotta even in her earliest youth do what
might naturally have been expected of her! From the first her
wilfulness, her entire lack of interest in ladylike pursuits had been a
source of trouble and anxiety to her governesses.
One characteristic of the small Charlotta was that she never seemed able
to remain still long enough to learn the things which were required of
her. Her one desire was to be outdoors riding on horseback over the
fields, or playing with the children in the village, or in the small
cottages on her father's estate.
The dignity and importance of her own social position never seemed to
enter Charlotta's mind, even after her family had devoted long hours to
bringing the fact before her attention.
Reaching sixteen it had become her duty to play a small part in the
little court of her cousin, the Grand Duchess. But although the court
life was simple and far less formal than in countries of greater wealth
and size than the little duchy of Luxemburg, nevertheless Charlotta
found even the mild formalism irksome.
The real difficulty lay in the fact that the members of the Grand
Duchess's court were Germans in thought, in ancestry and in their
ideals.
Now the little Countess Charlotta faced a life when she must always
remain surrounded with these same influences; influences that she hated
and that had always repelled and antagonized her.
What matter if the Germans had failed in their war against freedom, if
her own freedom was still denied her? Moreover, since the German failure
her father appeared more than ever determined to force her marriage.
If the German nobility were in disgrace, if the men surrounding the
Kaiser had fallen with their master from their high estate, at least the
Count Scherin of Luxemburg was faithful to old principles. Luxemburg was
a neutral state and there could be no interference with his personal
ideas and designs.
Moreover, a few moments before the Countess Charlotta had received her
father's ultimatum and had just concluded the reading of his note which
demanded that she return home within the next thirty-six hours.
Well, she would be more sorry to say farewell to her friends than they
would ever appreciate. Besides, she must go away from the Red Cross
hospital without the inspiration and the aid she had hoped to receive
from her contact with a group of American girls. How much she had hoped
to learn from the example of their courage. Surely some of them must
have broken away from family traditions in coming from their own homes
into foreign lands to nurse the wounded! And she had dreamed she might
learn to follow their example.
But how quiet the house seemed at present. It was strange to recall that
her accident had brought her to this house where her mother had lived as
a girl, a house which had been a part of her inheritance from her
mother, although she had rarely been inside it.
If only one of the Red Cross girls would come and talk with her. There
was so little time left when this would be possible and she so dreaded
her own society. What would she do when she returned to the old
narrowness of her past existence with the eternal disagreements?
Never except when she was outdoors could Charlotta endure being alone.
For the first time since her accident the little countess was almost
completely dressed in a brown costume which Bianca had with great
difficulty adjusted over her injured arm.
Walking to her door Charlotta opened it, glancing out into the wide
hall.
If she had thought to mention it to Mrs. Clark, she would surely have
gained permission to wander over this floor of her mother's former
home. As a matter of fact, she had not been inside the place for a
number of years, as the property she had inherited from her mother was
in the hands of a business agent.
Stepping out into the wide hall Charlotta started toward the front
window which overlooked the grounds. In a moment, however, she saw that
the space before the window was occupied by a wheeled chair and that an
American officer was seated there letting the sunlight stream over him.
Undismayed Charlotta walked forward.
"You have been ill and are better, I am glad," she said simply.
She had a curious lack of self-consciousness and a friendliness which
was very charming.
The young officer attempted to rise.
"Why, yes, I am better, thank you. I have been stupidly ill from an
attack of influenza just as my men were on the march toward Germany and
I should have given anything in the world to have been able to go along
with them. However, I must not grumble. I am right again so you need
not be afraid of me. We have been kept pretty well isolated from you.
But won't you have this chair?"
The girl shook her head.
"You are very kind and you can be quite certain I am not afraid of you.
Sit down again, I know you will refuse to confess it, but you do look
pretty weak still. And there is nothing the matter with me. Oh, I have a
few bruises and a broken arm, but after all they are not serious. I
wonder now what I was actually trying to do when I flung myself off my
horse. Have you ever been desperate enough not to care what happened to
you?"
"But you don't mean, Countess Charlotta--"
"How do you know my name?" the girl answered quickly, as if wishing to
forget what she had just confessed. "Are you not Major James Hersey, one
of the youngest majors in the United States overseas service? I think I
have been hearing a good deal of you from Bianca Zoli and the other Red
Cross girls."
Major Jimmie Hersey colored through his pallor, according to his
annoying boyish habit.
"Well, Countess Charlotta, surely _you_ have not counted on remaining a
mystery--not to the American soldiers who have been ill here in your
house, your guests in a fashion. We have seldom had so romantic an
experience as having a countess as a patient along with the American
doughboys and in the selfsame hospital. But I really can't sit here and
talk to you while you stand. At least you will let me bring you a
chair?"
With a good deal of satisfaction Charlotta nodded her head, her hair
showing even duskier in contrast with the white bandage over her
forehead.
Talking to American girls she had found extraordinarily entertaining,
but to talk to a young American officer might be even more agreeable. It
certainly would be a novelty, as this youthful major was the first
American man with whom she had ever exchanged a word, save the two young
American Red Cross physicians.
"I want to congratulate you on your victory," Charlotta added, when the
chair had been secured and she had seated herself upon it in an entirely
friendly and informal attitude. "Always my sympathies have been with the
allies from the very first. You see my mother was French and I suppose I
am like her. I believe French people have the love of freedom in their
blood just as you Americans have."
"I say, I thought there was something unusual about you," Major Jimmie
answered impetuously. "I really can't imagine your being even half
German. But that is not very polite of me and anyhow your country is not
German. I have been reading about Luxemburg. You were once a part of
France and after the French revolution became one of the ten
departments, known as the department of forests, the Forest Canton.
Except for your Grand Ducal family you have never been German in
sentiment."
The Countess Charlotta hummed the line of a popular version of the
national anthem of Luxemburg at the present time.
"Prussians will we not become." Then as she could not help being
confidential she added:
"But suppose, suppose you were going to be forced into a German
marriage, what, what would you do? I hate it, hate it, and yet--"
"Well, nothing on earth would induce me to consider it," Major Jimmie
answered, his brown eyes shining and his face a deeper crimson. "You
must forgive me, but you know I can't see anything straight about
Germany yet and the thought of a girl like you marrying one of the
brutes,--but perhaps I ought not to say anything as we are strangers and
I might be tempted into saying too much."
"You could not say too much," Charlotta returned encouragingly. "I wish
you would give me your advice. If I had been a boy I would have run away
and fought against Germany and been killed, or if I had not been killed
perhaps my family would have cast me off. I am thinking of running away
anyhow, only I don't know just where to go. Do you think I could get to
America without being discovered? Perhaps I might dress as a soldier.
You see I can speak English and French and German. I had to learn
languages as a child even when I hated studying and now I'm glad. Then
you know I can ride and shoot pretty well. I don't know why my father
ever consented to have me taught, save that it amused him a little to
have me show the tastes he would have liked in a son."
Major Hersey felt himself growing a little confused, as if he were
losing his sense of proportion. He was not much given to reading, but he
remembered two delightful romances, one "A Lady of Quality," the other
"The Prisoner of Zenda." Here he was finding the two stories melting
into one in the person of the girl beside him. Well the situation was
surprising even a little thrilling!
Yet Major Jimmie knew what his own ideals required of him.
"I am sorry, I am afraid I don't dare offer you advice. Haven't you some
woman who is your friend to whom you could appeal? There is Mrs. Clark;
I have been knowing her some time when I was in camp not far from her
Red Cross hospital near Chateau-Thierry. Why not talk to her? Still, if
I were you I would not try running away, certainly not to the United
States. It is pretty far and you could never make it. Excuse me, but you
know it is amusing to hear you talk of dressing as a soldier. I am
afraid you would not get away with the disguise five minutes. Wonder if
you have half an idea what a soldier has to undergo before he can get
aboard a transport for home."
The young American officer laughed and then his expression grew serious.
"Please don't say a thing like that again, even in jest and please don't
even think it. I know a girl who has been brought up as you have been
thinks she knows something about the world, when in reality she knows
nothing, anyhow, nothing that is ugly or real. I say, here comes Mrs.
Clark now, why not ask her to help you?"
At this moment Sonya Clark was advancing down the hall to escort her
patient, Major James Hersey, back to his own room.
A little surprised on discovering the intimacy of the conversation,
which was undoubtedly taking place between the young officer and the
girl who had certainly not known each other half an hour before, Sonya
stopped and looked toward them.
Then she smiled at the little picture they made together and came
forward to join them.