A few days after Eugenia Peabody opened the door of one of the rooms
on the top floor used for the nurses. It was a small room which
fortunately the four American Red Cross girls were allowed to share
without any of the other nurses. Simple as possible, it contained four
cot beds, a single bureau, and a great old-fashioned wardrobe. Convents
in France were built long before the days of closets.
Eugenia, looking very exhausted, was like most tired persons, cross,
when she discovered Nona and Barbara lying on opposite beds peacefully
talking.
However, both girls got up instantly.
“Do try and rest a while, Eugenia,” Barbara urged. “You seem dreadfully
worn out. Isn’t there anything I can do to help you?”
Eugenia dropped down upon the nearest wooden chair shaking her
head. And in spite of her weariness the two other girls watched her
admiringly. One had to see Eugenia in her nurse’s costume to realize
what a handsome, almost noble looking girl she was. Her ordinary
clothes were so shabby and unbecoming and so old style. But the stiff
white cap outlined her broad forehead, her somber dark eyes. Even her
too serious and sometimes too severe expression seemed in a measure
fitted to the responsibility of her work.
“You are wanted downstairs in the convalescent ward, Nona,” she began.
“The Superintendent says she finds the things you are able to do very
useful, even though you are not trained for the more responsible
nursing. But before you go here is a letter that has come from London
for you. Who can you know in London, child, to be writing you here?”
Nona was moving toward the door, but she paused long enough to receive
her letter and then to stand staring in the stupid fashion people have
at the unfamiliar handwriting on the outside.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she answered Eugenia, but tearing apart
the envelope she suddenly flushed.
“The letter is from Lady Dorian, Eugenia. Remember we met her on the
steamer where she was accused of all kinds of dreadful things. She
has been imprisoned in London, but this letter must mean that she is
free. Anyhow, I’ll tell you what she writes when I come back. I am
on duty now and haven’t time to wait and read it.” This was entirely
true. Nevertheless Nona had other reasons for wishing to read her
letter alone. Lady Dorian had made a strange impression upon her for so
short an acquaintance. She had scarcely confessed it even to herself,
but she felt a girl’s peculiar hero worship for the older woman.
Moreover, she was passionately convinced of her innocence and yet did
not wish Barbara or Eugenia to know at once what must be told them
afterwards. For Lady Dorian could only have written either to say she
had been released or to ask aid. There had been no suggestion of their
exchanging letters in their brief acquaintance.
Once Nona was out of the room Barbara inquired:
“What has become of Mildred? Isn’t this her afternoon to rest? Nona and
I were expecting her in here.”
The older girl did not answer; she had gotten up and in spite of her
fatigue was walking about the small room. She stopped now and looked
out of the tiny casement window.
“Oh, Mildred,” she returned carelessly, “has gone to spend the
afternoon with that Mrs. Curtis. They are to take a walk somewhere, I
think. Mildred said she felt the need of fresh air. I believe Mildred
is missing her family more than she likes to confess and this Mrs.
Curtis is so kind, Mildred seems pleased to find her living so near us.”
On her small cot bed Barbara had managed to get herself into an
extraordinary position. She had on her kimono and sat hunched up with
her knees in the air and her arms about them while her curly head
bobbed up and down like a Chinese mandarin’s.
“Sorry,” she commented briefly. “I told you on the ship I was afraid
Mildred was becoming interested in Brooks Curtis. I don’t like Mrs.
Curtis locating so near the hospital. Don’t see any reason for it
except that she and her son do not want to lose sight of Mildred. And
it would not surprise me if her son turned up in this neighborhood
himself fairly often--oh, to see his mother, of course.”
Barbara spoke petulantly, particularly when she discovered that Eugenia
was paying scant attention to her remarks.
“Oh, do come on and lie down a while, Eugenia,” she concluded. “You
behave as if all the Allied forces would go to pieces if you stayed off
your job an hour, or at least as if all the soldiers in the hospital
would die at once.”
Still Eugenia made no reply. Although getting out of her working
uniform, she too slipped into a comfortable negligée and letting down
her heavy dark hair followed Barbara’s rather ungraciously offered
advice.
A few minutes later the younger girl stood at the side of her bed with
a cup of beef tea in her hands which she had just made over a tiny
alcohol lamp.
“Drink this, please, and forgive my bad temper, Eugenia,” she murmured.
“I presume if I confessed the truth even to myself, I am jealous of
your success at the hospital. But honestly I don’t think I am being
given a fair chance here. Ever since we arrived I have been shoved into
the background and never called on for any really important work. Oh, I
know I failed that one time, but that is no reason why I shouldn’t be
all right the next.”
While the older girl finished the bouillon Barbara sat down on the side
of the bed. Then the moment the cup had been set down, to her surprise
Eugenia took hold of her hand almost affectionately.
“You are going to be given a chance, Barbara, at least one that will
take a whole lot of courage. It is what I came upstairs to tell you and
Nona, and what I have been feeling so worried about. For really I don’t
know whether you ought to agree. You are both so young and pretty.”
Eugenia hesitated and Barbara took hold of both her shoulders, giving
her a tiny shake.
“What do you mean? I hate suspense worse than anything.”
“Oh, simply that four girls have to be appointed for service in the two
new motor ambulances that are to bring the wounded soldiers from the
battle front to the hospital. The Superintendent has decided to ask you
and Nona to take charge of one and Lady Mathers and Daisy Redmond the
other. Of course, you can refuse if you like, Barbara, for the work
may be dangerous. It isn’t that you will have to do very much for the
soldiers except to see that they are properly bandaged and keep life in
them till you can get them here. Of course there is a surgeon in each
ambulance to tell you what to do. The danger is that you will have to
go much nearer the fighting line and that you may see even more painful
things than you have been seeing in the hospital. Really, child, I
don’t advise you to attempt it.”
For with the first realization of what Eugenia meant Barbara had
turned deathly pale and was now fighting a sensation of faintness.
“It isn’t that I am in the least afraid, Eugenia,” she faltered, as
soon as she could trust her voice. Even then it was fairly shaky. “I
don’t mind running the risk or the work or any of those things. You
know what it is, Eugenia; there is no use trying to hide it. I simply
haven’t the nerve I thought I had. It is seeing the wounded soldiers,
so many of them. I lie awake at night and dream the most dreadful
dreams. I keep thinking I--but I had better not speak of it. I’ve
simply got to say I can’t undertake the work. I hate it too on account
of Nona; she is sure to try this ambulance work, for only the other day
she told me that she longed to get closer to the scene of action. But
what must I say, Eugenia, when I refuse? I’m afraid I can’t make any
one understand that I’m not exactly a coward; I am used to sickness,
but somehow this all seems so different.”
Again Eugenia pressed the small hand she held in her large, capable
one.
“Tell the truth, my dear, and then go back home to the United States.
From the moment I saw you I didn’t believe this Red Cross work would be
suitable for you. I told you you were too young, and I thought you were
too quick-tempered and emotional, though I did not speak of this. There
is plenty of nursing you might be able to do at home--children, or old
people.”
Eugenia was growing sleepy; she had such a little while to rest that
she was forgetting to be tactful.
“Whether you wish to go back home or not, Barbara, I’m afraid you must
if you won’t undertake this ambulance work. The Superintendent says
she likes you very much and all that, but really does not feel it wise
for you to stay on at the hospital. There is so much nursing required
and so little room that the girls who cannot give the best kind of
service are really in the way. I am sorry to hurt your feelings, but
it is better for me to tell you this than any one else,” Eugenia
concluded, again made sympathetic by the hurt in the younger girl’s
face. Barbara looked so broken and humiliated, so intensely ashamed
of her own failure. Nevertheless, Eugenia could not help seeing that
even at this minute Barbara suggested a little girl who has been caught
in wrongdoing at school. She simply did not seem able to appear like a
grown-up person into whose hands life and death could be intrusted.
For ten minutes afterwards Barbara made no reply. But she got up and
put on her nurse’s uniform again, hiding her short brown curls beneath
her stiff white cap and covering her blue frock with her white apron
bearing its cross of red.
Then for a moment when Eugenia seemed to be asleep Barbara dropped on
her knees before the open window, gazing out in the direction where
she knew the zone of danger and terror lay. Swiftly the girl uttered a
prayer for strength and courage. The next moment she crossed over to
Eugenia.
“I am going to undertake the ambulance service. I may flunk that too,
but at least I can try, and as the book says, ‘angels can do no more.’
And I’m distinctly not an angel.”