The four Red Cross girls were walking about in one of the most
beautiful gardens in England. It was late afternoon and they were
already dressed for dinner.
The Countess of Sussex, to whom they had been introduced by her sister
in New York City, had invited them down from London for a few days
before leaving for their work among the soldiers. In another thirty-six
hours they were expecting to cross the Channel.
Of the four girls, Nona Davis seemed most to have altered in her
appearance since leaving the ship. Indeed, no one could have dreamed
that she could suddenly have become so pretty. But she had been
half-way ill all the time of their crossing and disturbed about a
number of things. Here in England for some strange reason she felt
unexpectedly at home. The formality of the life on the great country
estate, the coldness and dignity of many of the persons to whom they
had been presented, the obsequiousness of the servants, troubled her
not at all. And this in spite of the fact that the other three girls,
although disguising the emotion as well as they knew how, were in a
state of being painfully critical of England and the English. Possibly
for this very reason Nona had made the best impression, although the
letters of introduction which they had so far used had been originally
given to Mildred Thornton.
But in a way perhaps Nona was more like an English girl than the
others. She had lived the simplest kind of life in the beautiful old
southern city of Charleston, she and her father and one old colored
woman, almost lost in the big, shabby house that sheltered them. And
they had been tragically poor. Nevertheless, a generation before Nona’s
ancestors had been accustomed to an existence of much the same kind as
the English people about them, although a much more friendly one, with
negro servants taking the place of white and with a stronger bond of
affection than of caste.
This afternoon Nona felt almost as if she were in her own rose garden
in Charleston, grown a hundred times larger and more beautiful. She
walked a little ahead of the other three girls, almost unconscious of
their presence and dreaming of her own shut-in childhood and the home
she had sold in order to give her services to the wounded in this war.
Yet she looked as remote from the thought of war and its horrors as one
could possibly imagine. She had on a white muslin dress made with a
short waist and long full skirt; a piece of old lace belonging to her
father’s mother, an old-time Virginia belle, crossed over her slight
bosom, was fastened with a topaz and pearl pin. Her pale gold hair was
parted on one side and then coiled loosely on the crown of her head.
It did not curl in the wilful fashion that Barbara’s did, but seemed
to wave gently. Her pallor was less noticeable than usual and the
irises of her brown eyes were like the heart of the topaz. Then with
an instinct for color which every normal girl has, Nona had fastened a
golden rose, the _soleil d’or_, or sun of gold, at her waist. Because
it was cool she also wore a scarf floating from her shoulders.
“Nona looks like this garden,” Barbara remarked to her two companions,
when they had stopped for a moment to examine a curiously trimmed box
hedge, cut to resemble a peacock, “while I--I feel exactly like a
cactus plant rooted out of a nice bare desert and transplanted in the
midst of all this finery. I can feel the prickly thorns sticking out
all over me. And if you don’t mind and no one is listening I’d like
to let the American eagle screech for a few moments. I never felt so
American in my life as I have every minute since we landed. And as we
have come to nurse the British I must get it out of my system somehow.”
The two girls laughed, even Eugenia. Barbara had given such an amusing
description of herself and her own sensations. And she did not look
as if she belonged in her present environment, nevertheless, she was
wearing her best dress, made by quite a superior Lincoln, Nebraska,
dressmaker. It was of blue silk and white lace and yet somehow was not
correct, so that Barbara really did appear like the doll Dick Thornton
had once accused her of resembling.
Mildred Thornton had a suitable and beautiful costume of pearl-gray
chiffon and Eugenia only a plain brown silk, neither new nor becoming.
But, as she had explained to their hostess, she had not come to Europe
with any thought of society, but merely in order to assist with the Red
Cross nursing. Eugenia seemed to be very poor; indeed, though only one
of the three other girls had any fortune, Eugenia’s poverty was more
apparent than Nona’s. All her traveling outfit was of the poorest and
she was painfully economical. But, as the Countess had declared that
they were leading the simplest kind of life in the country, and because
of the war doing almost no entertaining, Eugenia had consented to leave
their lodgings in London for this short visit. She was particularly
interested, since the smaller houses on the estate had been given over
to the Belgian refugees, and Eugenia felt that this might be their
opportunity for learning something of the war before actually beholding
it.
The four girls were on their way now to visit several of the cottages
where the Belgian women and children were located. But when the three
girls had finished their few moments of conversation Nona Davis had
disappeared.
“She will probably follow us a little later,” Eugenia suggested; “we
simply must not wait any longer, or dinner may be announced before we
can get back to the castle.”
However, Nona did not follow them, although she soon became conscious
that the other girls had left her; indeed, saw them disappearing in the
distance.
The truth is that at the present time she had no desire to see or talk
with the Belgian refugees, nor did she wish any other company than her
own for the next half hour.
She had been so accustomed to being alone for a great part of her time
that the constant society of her new friends had tired her the least
bit. Oh, she liked them immensely. It was not that, only that some
natures require occasional solitude. And no one can be really lonely in
a garden.
Had there been wounded Belgian soldiers on the Countess’ estate Nona
felt that she would have made the effort to meet them, but up to the
present she had not seen an injured soldier, although soldiers of the
other kind she had seen in great numbers, marching through the gray
streets of London, splendid, khaki-clad fellows, handsome and serious.
Even for them there had been no beating of drums, no waving of flags.
Nona was thinking of this now while half of her attention was being
bestowed on the beauties surrounding her. England was not making a game
or a gala occasion of her part in this great war; for her it was a
somber tragedy with no possible result save victory or death.
During her divided thinking Nona had wandered into a portion of the
garden known as “The Maze.” It was formed of a great number of rose
trellises, the one overlapping the other until it was almost impossible
to tell where the one ended and the other began. Nona must have walked
inside for half an hour without the least desire to escape from her
perfumed bower. The scene about her seemed so incredibly different from
anything that she had the right to expect, she wished the impression to
sink deeply into her consciousness that she might remember it in the
more sorrowful days to come.
Then unexpectedly the garden came to an end and the girl stepped
out onto a green lawn, with a small stone house near by which she
recognized as the gardener’s cottage.
Between the garden and the house, however, prone on the ground and
asleep, lay a long figure.
Nona caught her breath, first from surprise and next from pity.
A heavy rug had been placed under the sleeper and a lighter one thrown
over him. Evidently he had been reading and afterwards had fallen
asleep, for magazines and papers were tumbled about and the cover
partly tossed off.
At least, Nona could see that the figure was that of a young man of
about twenty-two or three and that he must recently have been seriously
ill. It was odd that under his tan his skin could yet manage to show so
pallid and be so tightly drawn over his rather prominent cheek bones
and nose. By his side were a pair of tall crutches and one of his long
legs was heavily bandaged.
Nona was standing within a few feet of him, perfectly still, not daring
to move or speak for fear of waking him. Evidently the young man was
the gardener’s son who had come home on a leave of absence while
recovering from a wound.
But the next instant and without stirring, his eyes had opened and were
gazing lazily into Nona’s.
“It is the fairy story of the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ backwards,” he began,
without the least betrayal of amusement or surprise. “You see, our
positions really ought to be reversed. You should be sleeping here.
Then I should not in the least mind behaving as the Prince did when he
woke the lovely Princess. He kissed her, I believe.”
Nona was startled and a little frightened. But one could not be
frightened of a boy who must have been terribly injured and was now
trying to fight his way back to life with what gayety he could.
“Are you the gardener’s son?” she asked, a little after Eugenia’s
manner and really quite foreign to her own. She had never seen a young
man with such blue eyes as this one had, nor such queer brown hair that
seemed to have been burned to red in spots.
“I am a son of Adam,” he answered, still grave as ever, “and he was, I
have been told, the earth’s _first_ gardener. Now tell me: Are you a
Princess?”
The girl smiled a little more graciously. She had possessed very few
boy friends and certainly no one of them had ever talked to her in this
fashion. However, it was amusing and if it entertained the young fellow
there could be no harm in their talking. Nona Davis had the poise and
understanding that came of gentle birth.
So she shook her golden head gravely.
“I am not a Princess, I am sorry to spoil your fairy story. No, I am
just an American girl who has come over to try and be a little useful
with the Red Cross work. My friends and I met the Countess of Sussex
the other day and she was kind enough to ask us down to see her place
before we leave for the front.”
During her speech the young man had been attempting to get himself
off the ground by rising on his elbow. But even with this movement he
must have wrenched his wounded leg, for immediately after he dropped
back again, and although suppressing a groan, Nona could see that
perspiration had broken out on his thin temples and on his smooth
boyish lips.
The next instant she was down on her knees at his side. He had gotten
into an abominably awkward position so that his head hung over the
pillows instead of resting upon them.
How often Nona had assisted her old father in a like difficulty!
She may not have had the training of the other three American Red Cross
girls, but she had practical experience and the nursing instinct.
With skill and with gentleness and without a word she now slipped her
bare white arm under the stranger’s shoulders and gradually drew him
back into a comfortable position. Then she took her arm away again, but
continued to kneel on the corner of his rug waiting to see if there
were to be any signs of faintness.
There were none. Without appearing surprised or even thanking her, the
young Englishman continued his fantastic conversation.
“We have turned American girls into Princesses in Europe quite an
extraordinary number of times. I have wondered sometimes how they liked
it, since I have been told they are all queens in their own land.”
Then observing that his companion considered his remarks degenerating
into foolishness, he groped about until his hand touched the book he
desired.
“Forgive my nonsense,” he urged penitently. “You can put it down to
the fact that I have actually been reading Andersen’s Fairy Tales half
the afternoon. I have grown so terribly bored with everything for the
past six weeks while I have been trying to get this confounded leg well
enough to go back and join my regiment.”
He offered the little book to Nona, and almost instinctively, as the
wind scattered the pages, she glanced down upon the front leaf to
discover her companion’s name. There it was written in an unformed
handwriting. “Robert Hume, from Mother Susan.”
“Robert Hume,” Nona repeated the name to herself mentally without
lifting her eyes. It was a fine name, and yet it had a kind of middle
class English sound like George Eliot, or Charles Dickens. Nona
realized that what is known in English society as the middle class had
produced most of England’s greatness. Nevertheless it was surprising to
find the son of a gardener possessed of so much intelligence.
He even pretended not to have noticed that she had endeavored to
discover his name.
She put the book on the ground and got up on her feet again.
“I must go now,” she said gently, “but it is growing late. May I not
call some one to take you indoors?”
“Please,” he answered, “if you will go there to the small stone house
and tell Mother Susan I am awake, she will have some one look after me.
But I say it _has been ripping_ meeting you in this unexpected way when
I thought I was too used up even to want to look at a girl. Tomorrow
perhaps----”
“Tomorrow we are returning to London on the early morning train.” Nona
suffered a relapse into her former cold manner. She was a democrat, of
course, and came from a land which taught that all men were equal. But
she was a southern girl and the south had been living a good many years
on the thought of its old families after their wealth had been taken
away. Therefore, there were limits as to what degree of friendliness,
even of familiarity, one could endure from a gardener’s son.
Nevertheless, the young fellow was a soldier and, one felt
instinctively, a gallant one.
“Good-by; I hope you may soon be quite well again,” Nona added, and
then went across the grass to the gardener’s house.
The young man was not accustomed to the poetic fancies that had been
besetting him this last quarter of an hour; they must be due to
weakness. But somehow the strange girl looked to him like a pale ray of
afternoon sunshine as he watched her disappear. She did not come near
his resting place again.