_The Casino_
The soldiers had brought in small branches of trees and whatever wild
flowers they could find in the countryside. The wild asters were
in bloom and a few cornflowers and some wild trillium, so that the
bouquets were of tricolor.
At the back of the stage in the Casino hung two great flags, one the
French, the other the United States. The flags were the property of the
American hospital, but Eugenia had loaned them to Barbara, under the
promise that they were to be treated with especial care.
The chief decoration, however, hung suspended above the front of the
stage. This was a great wreath made from leaves as nearly like the
laurel as could be found and tied with two great bows of ribbon, the
one showing the design of the French, the other the design of the
American flag.
This wreath and another smaller one, which was at present not on
display, represented many hours of work by the Red Cross nurses at
Eugenia’s hospital. But the wreaths had been Barbara’s idea. Indeed,
she had revealed herself as a fairly good general in the amount of work
and enthusiasm she had inspired other people into exhibiting toward
making her entertainment for the American soldiers an unusual success.
The paramount difficulty was that the Casino could hold only a limited
audience and that the entire camp of American soldiers would have liked
to have been present, as well as the adjoining French camp.
But at least Barbara understood some of the rules of the game, for she
had left the selection of the audience entirely to the discretion of
the officers at camp, only reserving the privilege of inviting Madame
Castaigne and the staff of nurses and physicians at her own American
hospital.
However, Madame Renane was Eugenia’s guest and, in a measure, the guest
of the American hospital staff, and as Barbara was one of their Red
Cross nurses, it was natural they should feel a kind of proprietary
interest in the occasion.
The patients at the hospital, who were sufficiently convalescent, were
also invited. Among them was Lieutenant Martin, who asked Nona Davis as
a special favor if she would go with him and sit next him during the
performance.
As a matter of fact, Nona would greatly have preferred accompanying
Madame Castaigne and Mildred Thornton. Madame Renane was to be with
them and remain with them until her part of the program, and Nona
would have enjoyed the opportunity of knowing the great French woman
more intimately. Nevertheless, she did not feel that she could refuse
Lieutenant Martin, as he was still her patient and had not been out of
doors except to walk for a few yards at a time.
So as to secure their places before the crowd of soldiers appeared,
he and Nona started a little earlier than the others. On their way to
the Casino, Nona became the more convinced that she might not have so
agreeable an evening. For, however much he might be trying to conceal
the fact, Lieutenant Martin was again not in a specially amiable humor,
although recently he had been showing more self-control. Neither was he
in sympathy with the prospect ahead of them.
“Seems utter nonsense to me, Miss Davis, this business of coddling
solders and keeping them amused as if they were children who needed
toys. Surely there is work enough to keep everybody occupied and we
should all be tired enough to wish to go to bed when work is over.”
Nona shook her head.
“Nonsense, Lieutenant. I hoped you intended to reform since your
illness and become a more popular officer. I had a talk with your
Colonel and, although he seems to like you pretty well, I am convinced
he believes your stern views are simply due to the fact that you are so
young and have had so little experience of life. The Colonel is a dear
himself; I nearly fell in love with him. Pretty soon you will be going
back to work, so please promise me to remember that you yourself have
not always been so averse to being amused, even to being coddled during
these past weeks.”
And Nona laughed with a faint suggestion of teasing.
She liked Lieutenant Martin, but he was too narrow and too
self-assured, requiring to be snubbed now and then, and Nona had the
subtle knowledge, which most girls and women do have, that he would
accept occasional discipline from her rather better than from anyone
else.
She saw him flush a little now at her speech.
It was still not dark and they were walking slowly.
“Oh, well, I have been ill and a man is unlike himself when he is ill,”
he answered, trying not to display temper. But Nona did make him angry,
perhaps oftener than she knew, although she was every once in a while
aware of it. But Nona’s coolness, her little air of aloofness after
doing her full and complete duty as a nurse, would have annoyed any
man, who chanced to believe he was falling in love with his nurse.
However, Lieutenant Martin meant to go slowly and circumspectly, being
determined in the end to have his way. He had not forgotten Nona’s
attitude toward him, nor her words, when he had once or twice ventured
too far in his revelations.
“Patients who are convalescing always think they are in love with their
nurses. Please spare me the illusion,” was a never-to-be-forgotten
reply.
“I will try to make the men in camp like me better if it is possible,
when I return,” he answered. “It is not agreeable, is it, to be
unpopular? But then you have never known that misfortune,” Lieutenant
Martin continued, with such humility and good humor that it was Nona
who felt reproached.
“You have read ‘Vanity Fair,’ of course, Miss Davis. Funny, I keep
thinking of certain portions of it tonight! That is because my mind is
ever upon this war! But do you remember when Amelia and George Osborne
and Dobbin and Becky and Sir Rawdon Crawley were all in Brussels and
there was a great ball given by a Duchess on the night of June 15,
1815, the night before the Battle of Waterloo? That night there were
many people more interested in the ball than the enemy at the front. I
always recall the command that came: ‘The enemy has passed the Sambre
and our left is already engaged. We are to march in three hours.’ I
keep hoping and waiting for a message of that kind, only I trust our
American soldiers will be in camp and ready to march on the night that
command reaches us.”
Nona shivered a little.
“Please don’t talk of war tonight. Of course I long for our American
soldiers to get into action, I mean great numbers of them, not just a
comparatively few soldiers, such as are here now. Nevertheless, I think
I dread the moment when that word shall come more than almost anything
in life. I shall worry over you, too, Lieutenant Martin; you see, one
is always especially interested in one’s patients.”
“Thank you,” Lieutenant Martin answered so sternly that Nona was a
little embarrassed and a little amused.
“No, I had forgotten that part of ‘Vanity Fair,’” she added quickly.
“I only remember the conclusion, which I learned by heart when I was
a small girl and took a more misanthropic view of life: ‘Ah! Vanitas,
Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his
desire, or, having it, is satisfied?’”
Unconsciously Nona sighed as one naturally would after expressing such
a sentiment.
But she was stirred out of her self-centered mood by Lieutenant
Martin’s suddenly stopping and directly facing her.
“That is nonsense; when Thackeray expressed a sentiment like that he
was simply tired and disappointed with his own work for the moment.
Life isn’t all vanity and it means a great deal to do one’s task once
it is started. Besides, finding love means happiness, and love and work
are the fulfilment of desire. As for being satisfied, no one wishes to
be satisfied who has any brains.”
Then, observing that Nona appeared even more than mildly surprised by
such a wholly unexpected outburst, Lieutenant Martin laughed.
“That does not sound like me, does it? You scarcely look for a
sentiment of that character from me. Well, I realize your friend
Mr. Dawson would have expressed the idea far better and it may be
impertinent for a soldier to differ with a great novelist’s philosophy
of life. However, I have said exactly what I feel. You see, as a
soldier I like a fighter, never a quitter in any cause.”
But by this time Nona and Lieutenant Martin had reached the Casino,
where Barbara and Mollie Drew, who were already there, found them seats.
Later, Nona was pleased by the places Barbara had chosen, for after
Eugenia and Madame Renane and Mildred arrived, she discovered that she
had a fairly distinct view of them.
Tonight Eugenia looked unusually tired and worn, in spite of her
determined effort at animation and the entertainment of her guest.
But then anything apart from the regular routine of her hospital work
appeared to arouse in Eugenia unhappy memories. This large gathering
of gay and comparatively untried soldiers could not but fill one with
the recollection of what the French soldiers had suffered in the past
three years. Surely the American boys would be spared an equal ordeal!
Madame Renane, Nona found oddly interesting.
She was plain, as many French women are, according to our American
standards. She must have been nearly middle-aged and was even a little
stout. Her brown hair, which was arranged simply, had some gray in it;
her face was pale, her expression quiet, except for her eyes. They
mirrored a hundred emotions, a hundred ideas.
She sat very quietly beside Eugenia during the first of Barbara’s
entertainment, applauding with as much enthusiasm and abandon as anyone
in the audience at the conclusion of each act, not all of which were of
a professional character.
The chorus of American soldiers, whom Lieutenant Kelley had trained,
led by Guy Ellis, sang almost every well-known American patriotic air,
the French and American soldiers cheering whole-heartedly, without
favoritism.
Then Mollie Drew, looking very pretty in a white dress, with her
red-brown hair piled high on her head and her cheeks flushed from
excitement to a deep rose, sang in a small voice her two most popular
Irish ballads, “Mother Machree” and “A Little Bit of Ireland.”
In the last rows of seats it was impossible to hear her; however, this
did not take away from the applause she received from every listener in
the room.
Mollie refused to sing an encore, but returning to bow her thanks to
the audience, a soldier presented her with a great bouquet of red
hothouse roses.
Not many roses were blooming these days in this neighborhood in France;
besides, Mollie’s roses bore the unmistakable suggestion of Paris. But
then, although Guy Ellis was only a private in the American army in
France, his father was a New York millionaire and intensely proud of
his son, and Mollie scarcely needed to find the card hidden inside.
A quartette of French soldiers from the nearest French camp, all of
them with well-trained voices, sang the Marseillaise as an introduction
to Madame Renane’s appearance.
She had disappeared from the audience before they began and after the
last verse, when her countrymen had gone, she came quietly out on the
improvised stage.
It may be that certain of the American soldiers were disappointed in
Madame Renane’s appearance, having expected someone younger and more
beautiful.
But this did not interfere with the united cheer with which they
greeted her, the entire audience rising to its feet and the soldiers
waving their hats.
Madame Renane had been accustomed to many greetings. But the surprise
and the ardor of this one seemed almost to unnerve her for a moment.
Then she removed a little American flag which had been pinned to her
dress and waved it enthusiastically in response to the cheers.
When the audience had resumed their seats and were quiet again, the
great French woman said simply, speaking of course in French, but as
slowly as she could, that the soldiers might understand:
“It is a great pleasure to me that you wish to hear me recite to you
tonight. I am a French mother who has lost her son in this war. All
honor to the American boys who have left their homes and come to a far
country to help us toward victory. Let France be your adopted country,
let every French woman be your adopted mother, until your own land and
your own mothers shall claim you again.”
What Madame Renane said was so simple that any other woman could have
used the same words. But behind her words was the personality of a
great woman and in her voice the music of a great actress.
Next she recited a gay little French poem, filled with the courage and
good humor of life in camp.
Then Madame Renane spoke again:
“It has been difficult to decide what to recite to you tonight. A
speech from one of my plays might not interest you if you were not
familiar with the story, since I cannot speak your language. But there
is one story which the whole world knows, the story of, perhaps, the
greatest soldier and patriot of France. I mean the story of Jeanne
d’Arc. There are those of us in France who have wished recently that
Jeanne would come to us again, or someone like her.”
Afterwards, Madame Renane recited in the words of a great French writer
the life of Jeanne, the Maid sent of God:
“And the Angel appeared unto her and the Maid understood.
“The humble Maid, knowing not how to ride a horse, unskilled in the
arts of war, is chosen to bring to our Lord his temporal vicar of
Christ. Henceforth Jeanne knew what great deeds she was to bring to
pass.”
Madame Renane told the entire story, from Jeanne’s first vision at
Domremy, her meeting with King Charles at Rheims and her instant
recognition of him, disguised in shabby clothes and hid from her among
his courtiers. She told of Jeanne’s victories, of her triumphs and of
her martyr’s death.
And as she spoke the great French actress seemed to be Jeanne herself.
The American soldiers forgot her middle age, her quiet half-mourning
costume, and saw that wonderful young peasant girl, first in her
peasant’s dress in the woods near her father’s home, listening to her
voice. She was only a dreaming girl then, with her short hair, her bare
feet and peasant’s smock and those great wide-open gray eyes.
Then Jeanne as a soldier in a suit of armor on her wonderful white
horse, riding always in front of her troops to the glory and salvation
of France. At the last she is again a frightened girl, torn from her
friends, betrayed and forsaken.
The room was perfectly still for a moment after Madame Renane had
finished. For she had created an impression too vivid to be lost
immediately. The American boys and their French companions were seeing
not the modern battlefield, which was ever before their thoughts, but
the older one the great actress had intended them to see.
However, Madame Renane stood waiting, perhaps expecting the applause
with which she was familiar. Then she recognized the silence as the
finer tribute. For she put out her hands in a beautiful gesture and
added:
“May I say one of Jeanne’s own prayers to you tonight, before my
farewell?
“‘Oh, Jesus Christ, who hast surrounded the heavens with light and
kindled the sun and the moon, command, if it be thy will, the martyrs,
not one only, but all, to clasp their hands and on bended knee to
remove the great sorrow from France, and by that holy and august merit
ordain that they may have a righteous peace.’”
Then Madame Renane with a little nod of appreciation and thanks quickly
left the stage.
She came back later to receive the smaller laurel wreath, which
Lieutenant Kelley presented her in the name of the American camp.
But, like the French woman she was, after holding it for a moment and
pressing her lips to the evergreen, she flung the wreath back into the
audience.
“Keep it, my Sammees,” she exclaimed, “for the laurels of France are
for you!”
However, when, after a few moments, Eugenia Castaigne joined the great
French woman, she found her deeply depressed.
“Ah!” she murmured, “you have asked me here to amuse your American boys
and what have I done? If I have done anything I have made them sad.
You do not wish a French tragedienne these days; what you want is your
Charlée Chaplin.”
And she spoke with such a funny combination of sorrow and chagrin, and
withal pronounced Charlie Chaplin’s name with such an amusing French
accent, that Eugenia, who had been sternly holding back her tears all
evening, broke into a laugh.
“We may have Charlie Chaplin many evenings, you but one, Madame Renane,
and you are mistaken if you do not know you have given us the highest
kind of pleasure, which is inspiration.”
When the greater number of the audience had departed, Nona and
Lieutenant Martin walked slowly out together. Lieutenant Martin was
tired and did not feel equal to talking to many of his comrades.
However, Madame Bonnèt and Berthe were waiting near the door to speak
to him, and as Berthe’s recitation had been one of the most successful
of the evening, Lieutenant Martin felt he must congratulate her.
They were talking only a moment or two, but Nona stood a little apart.
She was glancing carelessly about, when she saw standing only a few
feet behind Madame Bonnèt a little French girl, holding a French
soldier by the hand.
Another moment she continued staring and then touched Lieutenant Martin
on the arm, directing his attention to what had attracted hers.
Madame Bonnèt observed them both.
“Why are you both so interested?” she asked. “It cannot be possible
you know my little French girl? She wandered into our camp only two or
three days ago, bringing a French soldier with her, some poor fellow
who has been injured and has forgotten his own history. She says they
have been tramping from village to village, hoping to find his regiment
or someone who would recognize him. People have been kind to them
everywhere and have fed them along the way. It seems the French soldier
was stripped of his uniform, his number, everything that might identify
him. Only his little friend insists upon calling him Captain. They came
to the American camp by mistake, believing it a French one. Then some
of the soldiers brought them to me and I am caring for them before they
move on again.”
Nona went over to the little girl and held out her hand.
“Jeanne,” she began, “you will not recognize me, but I saw you one day
from a car window and we talked to each other. It is late tonight, but
I am coming to Madame Bonnèt’s tomorrow to talk to you again if I may.”
Jeanne made a little curtsey.
“I do remember and I shall be happy to see you,” she returned, with
unfailing French courtesy.