_Another Volunteer_
Nevertheless, on that same evening, a little before midnight, seeing
Barbara Thornton and her husband, Richard Thornton, together, one could
not believe that the difference between them had been a serious one.
Barbara was sitting on the arm of her husband’s chair with her feet
crossed and slowly swinging them back and forth. She was so small that
this did not appear either unnatural or undignified. The brown hair,
which a few years ago had been the trial of her life because it was so
absurdly short and curling like a young boy’s, was now braided and tied
with rose-colored ribbons, and Barbara wore a light silk dressing gown
over her night dress.
Nevertheless her expression was no less serious, her eyes no further
from tears than they were a few hours before when she had talked with
Nona Davis.
“So you have decided, Dick, to do what you said, although you know it
is against my judgment, and you promised to love, honor and protect me
only a short time ago. It is a strange way to keep your word to leave
the baby and me so soon. But I don’t suppose _we_ count.”
If Barbara Thornton still looked almost as young as she had upon first
meeting Dick Thornton in the front hall of his father’s home a little
before dawn about three years before, Richard Thornton was very unlike
the gay young society man who had first known and rescued her at that
trying moment and whom she had afterwards married.
Richard Thornton was far more like his celebrated father than anyone at
that time would have dreamed him capable of becoming. His brown eyes
were steady, his lips firm, although tonight he appeared tired and
overstrained.
“That is not fair, Bab, and not like you,” he returned slowly. “In most
cases I suppose I should think a man had no right to do what I intend
doing without his wife’s consent. But I have been fighting this matter
out with my conscience for weeks, even for months, and I can see no
other way. Besides, I did not really believe you would oppose me, Bab,
when the hour actually came. It is so unlike you! Who was it who woke
me up and said, goodness only knows what dreadful things to me for not
doing my part in the war not three years ago? I can’t understand you!
Why, when Nona was here at dinner with us a short time ago, you spoke
as if you had changed your opinion, or if not that, at least you had
decided to forgive me. You _must_, you know, Bab, before I go and I do
not know how soon that may be.”
However, Barbara continued to frown for another moment and to swing her
feet more and more slowly back and forth. In her lap her hands were
clenched tight over the same small lace handkerchief.
“Of course I had to pretend to feel differently before Nona Davis,
Dick; you surely understood that,” she murmured finally. “Why, Nona was
so entirely on your side, so completely in sympathy with you, that
she would never have forgiven me if she had realized how I really felt
in this matter. You see, you and Nona always did sympathize with each
other and you were almost in love with her, Dick Thornton, instead
of with me. You need not deny it, for you know you were! There is no
use arguing about it now. So I suppose if you were Nona’s husband at
present, instead of mine, she would be buckling on your armor and
urging you to France, instead of being selfish and just loving you and
wanting to keep you here with me, in spite of your duty and country and
all the other things which may be more important.”
Bab’s funny mixed speech ended with a catch in her breath and by
dropping her face down upon her husband’s shoulder.
“But I won’t discuss the subject with you any more, Dick, because, of
course, I know you are right to do your duty even when I pretend to
disagree with you. After all, you could not act any differently. So I
suppose your mother and father and baby will have to get on without
_us_. I realized all along that you would never allow the fact that the
old trouble with your eyes would make you exempt from military service,
to keep you at home when you know there is so much work to be done in
beautiful wounded France that you are able to do. Your mother has been
braver over your volunteering for ambulance work again than I have this
time, dear. It is funny how being happy so often makes one selfish. I
realized the difference between Nona Davis and me just this afternoon,
and yet I was just as devoted to the Red Cross nursing as Nona, before
I married you.”
Richard Thornton had placed his arm about his wife’s shoulders and was
smiling at her with the expression Bab frequently invoke. One could
never be perfectly sure whether she were wholly or only half-way in
earnest, whether her big, wide-open eyes would be filled with laughter
or tears. For whatever one might be with Bab, angry, hurt or pleased
one could not be bored with her.
“I always knew what you expected of me in your heart, Bab, that is
why I went on with my plans when you seemed to be objecting,” Dick
answered. “Now it has been arranged that, because of my previous
experience, I am to do the first line ambulance work in France. I am
sorry I am not fit enough to be a real soldier, fighting in the first
line as I should like. But my eyes do not seem to have recovered from
that old accident as I hoped they would by this time. Of course I could
stay here at home and after a while, perhaps, be able to help train the
other men for actual service. I have been offered a commission in the
second officer’s reserve corps. However, I do not want to work at home,
but in France, and that as soon as possible.”
Dick Thornton paused a moment, and then asked, frowning: “What did you
mean by saying ‘us’ a little while ago, Bab? That mother and father and
baby would have to get along without us? Surely you did not mean that
you intend to go to France with me, did you, dear? You cannot mean to
leave the baby! Besides, much as I would love to have you near me, if
you were in a perfectly safe place, far enough away from the fighting,
still, the State Department has declared no passports will be issued
to soldiers’ wives, and I should come under the same head as a soldier
in that regard. The government does not wish to have to look after
their women as well as their soldiers in a foreign county. They already
have enough upon their hands. The department is very positive on this
matter.”
During her husband’s lengthy speech Barbara had listened quietly,
but she now made an odd little sound, which one would hardly like to
describe as a sniff at the authority of the United States Government,
nor yet at her husband.
“Oh you need not think I will interfere with you or your work, Dick,
nor yet that the United States Government will consider my presence in
France a burden. If I was useful to them once, when I knew much less
about the Red Cross nursing than I do at present, I believe I can be
useful to them again.”
Then Barbara paused, waiting for an exclamation of surprise, perhaps
for one of disapproval.
However, partly through mystification, partly because Richard Thornton
did not consider that his wife actually meant what she said, even if
she had suggested it he continued silent.
Then with the suddenness which surprised no one who knew her
intimately, Barbara Thornton’s manner all at once became very grave and
sweet.
“I wonder if you understood me, dear?” she asked, turning so that her
eyes now met her husband’s directly.
“If you did, I presume you think I spoke on the spur of the moment and
without being in earnest. I know I often do talk in that way. But I
have been thinking, oh, for a long time, even before you began to say
it was your duty to go back into the ambulance work in France and not
claim exemption because of your eyes, that I had no real right to give
up my Red Cross work and be married and take things easily, before this
terrible war was ended. You and I, who have lived and worked in France
since this war began know only too well how weary, how almost utterly
exhausted by their long strain, the French now are. Why, sometimes I
believe if our country had not entered the war just when she did--but
then I must not speak of failure. For after all, nothing can stop the
progress of evolution, no weariness, no mistakes, and evolution is what
this war for democracy means. Still, that does not give any one of us
the right to be a slacker, and that is the way I have been feeling
lately.”
After this speech Richard Thornton gazed at his wife, not only with
amazement, but with actual disfavor.
“Barbara,” he demanded, “isn’t being married and having a baby and
doing what you can to help with the Red Cross work here and giving all
the money we can possible afford sufficient to content you? I did not
suppose you would allow even the war to change you into one of the
sentimental women who neglect their own duties to take up with outside
ones because they are more interesting, more exciting, perhaps, than
their own responsibilities.”
Barbara was silent an instant. Then she answered slowly, as if she were
thinking quietly concerning her husband’s statement:
“Yes, Dick, but you also are married and also have a baby and also
are doing what you can to help with the Red Cross work and giving
all and more than you can afford to the war work! Yet you are not
content to let the other fellows do the fighting. Why, you have been
trying to enlist ever since the United States entered the war and have
been terribly discouraged because you were found to be not up to the
physical standard.”
Barbara now slipped down from the arm of her husband’s chair and took a
low one of her own. In her dressing gown, with her braids hanging over
her shoulders and her chin resting thoughtfully in her hand, she sat
apparently deep in thought.
“You know it is a funny thing to me, Dick, why in this world there are
in so many cases two rules of conduct, one for a woman and another
for a man. I know, of course, that war has always been considered a
man’s work, but it is not really, at least not this war. When democracy
comes, when it is _real_ democracy, and women have their share in it as
well as men, I expect it will mean even more to women. You know when
things are hard and unfair and there is much poverty and oppression
women have always suffered more. You believe that, don’t you, Dick? I
have heard you say so,” Barbara added, with an appealing note, as if
she wished to find her husband in sympathy with her on this general
subject, if not on the personal one.
“But, Dick, I know, of course, that most women should stay in their
own homes and look after their families,” she went on with unusual
humility. “I am not a real suffragette. Now when I speak or even think
about leaving baby I do feel like a criminal and as if I could not bear
it. And yet, oh, Dick, I can be more useful with the Red Cross nursing.
How much do I do for baby at present, when your mother insists on his
having a trained nurse and keeps him with her at the Long Island place
most of the time, because she says New York City is too hot for him
in the summer time? And I am so afraid something may happen to him. I
allow him to remain away from me because I feel you need me more here
in town and because, oh, because I want to be with you even more than
with baby, Dick. Do you think I am a very unnatural mother?”
Barbara asked this question so seriously that in spite of his
unhappiness and disapproval of her point of view, Dick Thornton laughed
aloud.
“You probably are, Bab, but I must say I am glad you still like me as
much as you do our son. It is not usual.”
“Then you will let me go to France to take up my Red Cross nursing
again, Dick dear, won’t you, so I may be near you if anything happens
to you as it did before? I can go to Mildred and Eugenia and so you
need not worry about me; perhaps I can cross with Nona. I did not tell
her my plan this afternoon because I wanted your consent first. Now
don’t you think you ought to permit me to use my conscience since you
have decided you must use yours, regardless of my wish? Perhaps my
country also needs me, Dick. I am not very important, but do you know
I have been thinking recently that what Christ said about, ‘leaving
father and mother and giving up everything to follow Him,’ is what most
of the countries of the world are also asking of us these days.”
Dick nodded quietly, deciding not to argue with Barbara any more for
the present.
Tonight she was in a mood in which few people ever saw her. However,
her husband had known her in just such moods before their marriage, in
the days when they were both doing Red Cross work in Europe, soon after
the outbreak of the war. So, although he could not accept his wife’s
suggestion, could not make up his mind that Barbara should again endure
the dangers and discomforts of the Red Cross nursing, now that she was
his wife and so much nearer and dearer to him, yet he realized that he
must discuss the matter with her fairly and squarely. Barbara would
not go unless he gave his consent, but she must not feel that he had
been arbitrary or selfish in his decision.
“Let us not talk about this any more tonight, Bab. Listen, the clock is
striking midnight and we are both tired. However, even if I do give my
consent, you know mother and father----”
Barbara laughed. “Oh, for once your mother approves of what I wish to
do, husband of mine,” she interrupted “First of all, I spoke to her
about baby and she is glad to have the chance to look after him without
any foolish interference from me. Then do you know I believe she has
another reason, Dick. I don’t suppose you can guess what it is! Yet she
seems to feel that she and father would both be a little happier about
you, if I were only near enough to take care of you, should anything
happen. You know I saved your life once, Richard Thornton, although
you apparently have forgotten all about it. Of all the ungrateful
people----”
However, Barbara did not finish her accusation, for at this instant
Dick picked her up and carried her from the room.