CHAPTER XV
THE DISCOVERY
A little more than an hour later Sally and Jean started forth upon their mysterious pilgrimage.
To have been spared the ordeal of this morning’s visit to the French château Sally would have given a great deal. On other occasions she had been nervous and fearful, but never to the extent to which the recent conversation with her sister had reduced her.
More than once within the hour of waiting before she and Jean could slip away, Sally concluded to abandon her plan and never go near the château again, regardless of results. Then she remembered that she had given her word and that upon this visit many things were to be explained and arranged. Having endured so much of struggle, strain and suspicion, one must not fail in the end. And in spite of Sally’s apparent indolence and softness, failure had no part in her mental make-up.
Yet in being compelled to spend an hour of watching before daring to make her escape there was a sense of humiliation, almost of degradation. Nevertheless, what else could she do except wait until Alice was again absorbed in her teaching and until there was no one about the farm house or in the yard who would pay any especial attention to her actions?
Sally’s final misfortune was in encountering Yvonne as she passed through the hall downstairs.
It may have been her imagination, due to her conversation with her sister. Sally felt almost convinced that Yvonne shrank away from her as she passed, almost as if she were drawing her skirts aside. In return Sally suffered a wave of indignation and the conviction that she would never be able to forgive Yvonne. She even had an impulse some day to avenge the other girl’s injustice.
She and Jean did not immediately move off in the direction of the château. She and old Jean took an entirely opposite direction, until in a field about half a mile away, altering their course, they walked rapidly toward the château. Sally never ceased to gaze behind them every few moments, fearing they might be followed.
Small wonder that with the unaccustomed walks and the burden of a serious responsibility Sally Ashton had altered in the past few weeks!
Indeed, her only solace had been the loyal faith and allegiance which the old French peasant, Jean, had given to her cause and to her.
From the first day, when in halting and broken French she had begged him to accompany her to the château to assist in the care of a wounded soldier, he had not asked a question or refused his services.
When it was impossible for him to escape Miss Patricia’s vigilance at the hour Sally asked, she always found that he had managed to make the trip sometime later, during the day or night, and accomplished what was necessary. What he may have thought of the situation, what questions he may have asked himself behind the inscrutability of his weather-beaten countenance with its misty, coal-black eyes, Sally never inquired. There were enough problems to meet without this. The important fact was that Jean never failed her and that he made an otherwise impossible task possible.
After discovering the serious illness of the wounded soldier in hiding, Sally Ashton had continued the amazing task of caring for him at the château.
She did not come to this decision immediately; indeed, it had grown so slowly that at times it did not appear as a decision at all. Nor did Sally attempt to justify herself. She felt compelled to take a courageous attitude with her sister, but she never had been convinced of her own patriotism or good sense. Even up to the present time she was not sure of the nationality of her patient, although it had been a relief that during his delirium he had spoken occasionally in French.
The truth is that as the days passed on and Sally’s responsibility increased her attitude toward the soldier changed. At first she had been annoyed, bored with the entire adventure and with the circumstances resulting from it. But as the young man’s illness became more alarming and Sally’s anxiety increased, a new characteristic awoke in her. Sally Ashton belonged to the type of girl who is essentially maternal. She would be one of the large group of women who love, marry and bring up a family and are nearly always adored by their husbands, but feel no passionate affection until the coming of their children.
So unconsciously the wounded soldier’s dependence upon her for food and attention, for life itself, aroused Sally’s motherly instinct, although she did not dream of the fact and would have been angry at the suggestion.
One convincing proof. In the beginning she had been both physically and mentally repelled by the soiled and blood-stained soldier and by his confused confession. She had not surrendered him to justice because she did not feel called upon to appear as the arbiter of any human being’s fate and because she had not the dramatic instinct of most girls. But Sally had presumed the soldier would be arrested later and was not particularly concerned with his future one way or the other.
Now her point of view had completely altered. At first her idea was merely that the soldier should recover with no other nursing save that which she and old Jean could bestow upon him. But now that he was recovering, she was equally determined he should be saved from whatever enemy he had feared before being delivered into her hands.
Before parting on the previous afternoon Sally had agreed with her patient that they discuss his situation on her next visit to the château.
As the old man and girl crept cautiously inside the opening between the arch of walls, they could see their soldier lying asleep upon his mattress, but between clean sheets and covered with blankets which Sally had managed to secure from the supply at the farm.
The half-dismantled room was cold but fragrant with the odors of the woods and fields. Perhaps the fresh air which had at all times flooded the odd sick-room had been in a measure responsible for the ill man’s recovery, having taken the place of other comforts he had been obliged to forego.
He opened his eyes at the approach of his two friends and looked a little wistfully at Sally.
“You have come at last! I was afraid you would not be able to manage. How kind you have been!”
Sally made no reply except to offer him a glass of milk and to stand silently by until he had finished drinking it.
She looked very sweet. Today her walk and the excitement of her morning had tired her so that she was paler than usual; yet her lips were full and crimson and her brown hair had a charming fashion of curling in little brown rings on her forehead as if she were a tiny child.
The soldier no longer wore any look of mental confusion except that his expression was puzzled and questioning.
“You are much better. I am glad,” Sally said at last. “You see I do not know how often I can come to the château after today, unless you should become very ill again and then I would come in any case.”
Sally’s direct fashion of speaking had its value amid the complexities of human relations.
Old Jean had disappeared to bring fresh water and to accomplish other tasks so that Sally and the soldier were alone for a little time.
As a matter of fact, Jean’s had been the really difficult nursing. Night after night when the soldier’s condition had been most critical Jean had made no pretence of going to bed, but had hobbled over at bedtime to remain until dawn by the ill man’s side.
“Perhaps you will sit down for a little so that I can ask you a great many questions,” the soldier suggested. “Now that I am getting back my senses, you can scarcely imagine what a mystery my present situation is.”
Nodding agreement, Sally drew a beautiful French chair across the strange drawing-room and seated herself within a few feet of her patient’s bed. It was odd that she had never felt any fear of the old walls tumbling down upon her from the hour she had begun her nursing, although before that time she had believed nothing could force her to trust herself inside the ruins.
“I would like to ask you to begin at the beginning. In what condition and how long ago did you find me here? If I could only guess the time! But I am under the impression I have not been myself for several weeks until these last few days. Yet I have a vague recollection of finding my way to this old house and of seeing you standing one day framed in that open arch. After that I have no memory of anything else until I became conscious of your face and of old Jean’s bending over me and then of this extraordinary place. If I have been ill, why have I not been cared for in a hospital?
“I remember escaping from the Germans who had taken me prisoner and then wandering, wandering about in a country where there were no trees, no grass, no houses, nothing but the upturned earth and exploded shells. Afterwards I was not sure I had reached the French country. I know I used to hide in the day time and prowl around at night. I think I must have become ill soon after my escape, because I have an indistinct impression that I was trying to find my old home, the château where I lived before the outbreak of the war. I suppose that is one reason why I hid myself in here. But nothing I can remember explains you.”
Sally sighed.
“I do not understand what you are talking about, at least not exactly. I am not even convinced you do. But if you really are a French soldier and managed to escape from the Germans, I am glad. I know you will think me stupid, but still how could I have been expected to understand that you were a French soldier when you seemed so horribly afraid of being discovered? You were in your own country and among your own people! Personally there is very little for me to tell about myself.
“I am an American girl, I don’t suppose you consider me French, and I am living at a farm house not far away with some American friends. One day I was taking a walk and just from curiosity slipped over here to look more closely at the château. It frightened me when I discovered you were hiding in here. You can never guess how you startled me! At our first meeting you told me some mixed-up story and asked me to bring you some food. I thought you were an escaped prisoner and I did not want to have anything to do with you. But you insisted if you were caught you would be hung. The next day when I arrived with the food you were too ill to recognize me. There is nothing more to tell.”
“That is all,” the soldier repeated. “But that sounds more like the beginning, does it not? You were not even sure of my nationality and yet you have been coming here every day to care for me. Suppose I had been your enemy?”
By this time the soldier was sitting up and intently studying the face of the girl before him. He was wearing a faded dark blue shirt which Jean had generously bestowed upon him the day before, this being the first occasion for which he had made an effort to dress himself.
“Strange human beings, women! I wonder if we men will ever understand you? I have no doubt you would blow up the united armies of the Central Empires if it were possible without a qualm and yet you would make any sacrifice to save the life of one prisoner.”
“But I was never convinced about you,” Sally apologized. “Then after you became so seriously ill I never thought. But I am sure I beg your pardon. As you are a Frenchman of course you would have been infinitely better cared for in a hospital. If anything had happened to you it would have been my fault. But really I did not know what was done to prisoners who ran away from their captors and you suggested such an uncomfortable fate for yourself.
“Now you are better I don’t think I will come back to the château again. You see you made me promise not to tell anyone that you were hiding here, and my sister and friends think it strange because I have been spending so much time away from the farm recently. I don’t suppose I shall ever be able to make anyone understand. It is hard, isn’t it, to be blamed for things and then find they have been of no use? Jean will do whatever is necessary for you until you are entirely well. He can bring me news of you and he will take a message to anyone you care to see if you do not feel strong enough to be moved to a hospital immediately.”
Sally rose as if she meant to leave at once, then something in her companion’s expression made her sink down into her chair.
“No, you must not come to see me again,” he answered, “although I shall wish to see no one else. Perhaps it will not be long before I am able to call upon your friends if you will allow me. I am stronger than you realize; but you have not told me what you are doing in this neighborhood.”
Unexpectedly Sally had a remarkable sensation. It was as if suddenly her position and the soldier’s changed and as if he had begun to think of her welfare rather than to have her devote herself to his.
“Oh, we are doing reclamation work,” Sally returned; “that is, my sister and friends are. I have not accomplished anything that is important. I told you I was stupid.”
All at once Sally’s soldier broke into a peal of clear boyish laughter which was of more benefit to him than either of them appreciated.
“No, you have done nothing except save my life. It is not kind of you under the circumstances to announce you consider it unimportant. Some day when I am able to rejoin my regiment perhaps I may be able to prove your work worth while. Thanks to you, perhaps I shall again serve France as I have never served her before! The enemy has taken from me everything else, my mother, my sister, my little brother and my home. I made up my mind that they should not hold me a prisoner whatever might befall me. If I had to give up my life I meant to die in the open.”
Then more excited and exhausted than either he or Sally had appreciated, the soldier lay down again, closing his eyes.
It was a part of Sally’s recent training which made her continue sitting quietly beside him for the next few moments without speaking or moving.
In the interval she studied the soldier’s face.
For the first time he was appearing to her as a man. Up until now he had simply been a human being who must be cared for, allowed to suffer as little as possible and at last be restored to health.
In considering him at present Sally did not particularly admire his appearance. She thought his nose was rather too large and his lips too thin and in spite of Jean’s devotion, his services as a barber left a good deal to be desired.
“Your arm is nearly well, still I think I should like to bandage it once more before I go,” Sally suggested. “You do not realize it, of course, but I have learned a great deal about nursing since I began to look after you. I don’t like sick people, else I suppose I could become a Red Cross nurse after more training if I wished. But I don’t think I should like the work.”
As Sally talked she was accomplishing her task, certainly with a good deal more skill than she had shown several weeks before.
However, her patient was not conscious of the fact. At present he was not thinking of his wound but of his nurse.
There was something about her so deliciously frank and ingenuous. At least she seemed ingenuous to him, although it was difficult always to be sure concerning Sally.
When she had finished the young Frenchman took one of her hands and touched it lightly with his lips.
“Will you tell me your name, please, and where to find you before you say farewell? I am Lieutenant Robert Fleury of the French-cuirassiers.”
Ten minutes later Sally was walking back home alone to the farm house, having left Jean to continue to care for their patient.
She was not to go back to the château again and she was to tell her friends exactly what had taken place in the past few weeks. She seemed to have promised this to her patient.
Yet Sally was not sure when she would tell her story. She had no desire to make a confession to Alice, and Aunt Patricia was not to be considered. If only she might arrange to wait until Mrs. Burton’s return from her journey into southern France.
CHAPTER XVI
AN UNEXPECTED SHELTER
It was after the hour for their midday dinner when Sally finally arrived at the farmhouse; however, she was able to reach her own room without any questions being asked concerning her delay.
Undressing slowly with the idea of lying down for a little while before facing her friends, Sally was interrupted for the second time that day by the unexpected appearance of her sister. On this occasion Alice’s expression made any further discussion not only unnecessary but impossible.
“Will you come with me, please, to Aunt Patricia’s room?” she began at once. “I have been talking to Aunt Patricia and she says it is only fair that we should hear your explanation before passing judgment. I have spoken to no one else, although I suppose it will be impossible to hide the facts from the other girls. In reality, I believe they already have guessed a great deal and have been trying to keep the truth from me.”
At the moment of her sister’s entrance Sally had been slipping into a little blue dressing gown which had been her mother’s final gift the day before their parting. The dressing gown did not have a utilitarian appearance, since it was made of a soft blue, light woolen material with little clusters of yellow roses scattered over the design and with blue ribbons and lace about the throat and sleeves.
In response to her sister’s speech Sally gathered about her the dressing gown, which she had not yet fastened, and immediately started to leave the room.
“I shall be very glad indeed to talk to Aunt Patricia, but not to you, Alice, nor do I ever intend to forgive you. I suppose you followed old Jean and me to the château and have drawn your own inference from what you observed. Do you know, Alice, I have often wondered why the puritanical conscience is always so suspicious of other people?” And in this last speech of Sally’s there was more of truth that she could fully appreciate.
But if in this final analysis she were speaking the truth, the first part of her remark had been a complete falsehood. At the present time there was nothing she desired so little as being forced into making her confession to Miss Patricia Lord, a severe spinster with no consideration for human folly. Would any one else on earth be more difficult or more unrelenting?
In the past hour or more, following her conversation at the château, Sally had been facing one of the hardest experiences of life.
Her weeks of self-sacrifice and devotion had been not only unnecessary, they had been absurd. If only she could have enjoyed the inward satisfaction of considering herself a heroine or a martyr! But she had risked her own reputation and the young French officer’s life to what end?
As the two girls entered Miss Patricia’s room, Sally, accompanied by her sister, whose existence on earth she refused to recognize, considered that Miss Patricia appeared as implacable as a stone image. Yet one could scarcely compare her to the Sphinx. That ancient stone figure with the head of a woman and the body of a lioness looks as if she had devoted the many centuries since her creation to solving the riddles of human life.
Miss Patricia would consider anything but plain speaking a sheer waste of energy and truth. There were no riddles in Miss Patricia’s mental category.
Nevertheless, Miss Patricia’s voice did not sound unkind when she suggested that Sally occupy the solitary chair in her bedroom, although undoubtedly this would leave the elderly woman standing as well as Alice. But then Sally did not realize how appealing her appearance was at this moment even to so harsh a critic of human nature.
Sally indolent, Sally dreaming her own small and rather selfish dreams, or a Sally self-assured and self-content were not unfamiliar figures to her world. But Sally confused and tired, hurt and bewildered, not by her own actions or any one’s else, but by a web of circumstance, was a new study.
“No, I would prefer not to sit down, Miss Patricia, and in any case I would not have you stand,” Sally answered, still with an innate sense of her own dignity and value which at no time in her life was she ever wholly to lose. “Alice seems to have told you some disagreeable story about me. So I think it just as well for me to tell you the exact truth. I hope I can make you understand. I suppose I should have confided in some one before, but until a few hours ago I did not feel that I had the privilege.”
Sally’s golden brown eyes with the heavy upcurling lashes, which gave to her face the expression of unusual softness, were now gazing upward into Miss Patricia’s. The latter’s eyes were gallant also and steadfast, nor did Sally find them so distrustful as she had anticipated.
“Very well, my dear, go on with your story. I thought Alice was too much excited,” Miss Patricia returned, seating herself in her upright chair, as Sally seemed to prefer her to be seated.
Then with her little dressing gown wrapped about her as if it had been a Roman toga, Sally told the history of the past weeks, her unexpected discovery of the wounded soldier amid the ruins of the old French château, her belief that he was a runaway prisoner and notwithstanding this, her effort, with Jean’s assistance, to restore him to health.
Sally’s explanation was less confused than her conversation with the French soldier a short time before. However, since that hour many things had become clearer in her own mind. She did not break down until her story was completed and only then when she turned toward her sister.
“I don’t know, Alice, what you and the other Camp Fire girls have been thinking of me, and I don’t believe I care to guess. I know you have not been generous. But since I don’t wish to discuss the subject with any one save Aunt Patricia, and with Tante of course when she returns, I wish you would offer the other girls any interpretation of my behavior you care to give.”
At this Sally’s voice broke in spite of her efforts at self-control. When Alice made a step toward her with her arms outstretched to ask forgiveness, Sally stepped back only to find herself enfolded by Miss Patricia and to hear Miss Patricia declare:
“I think it would be wiser, Alice, for you to leave Sally and me alone for a little time; she is tired and unstrung. If you and the other girls have been unfair, you will have an opportunity to apologize later. Then Sally herself will feel more inclined to be reasonable.”
Afterwards, when Alice had reluctantly disappeared, unexpectedly Sally found herself seated as if she were a child in Aunt Patricia’s lap and listening to a very wise and tender conversation, one she was never to forget, from a woman of deep and broad experience.
When she grew less disturbed Aunt Patricia made no effort not to scold Sally for her unwisdom and her lack of reliance upon older judgment than her own. But the great fact was that Aunt Patricia was never unfair, that she had no sentimental suspicions and made no accusations with which Sally could not fairly agree.
In their half hour together Sally Ashton learned to appreciate for the rest of her life Aunt Patricia’s value, learned to understand why Mrs. Burton cared for her so devotedly and considered her a tower of strength in adversity. In this uncertain world in which we live there are fair weather and foul weather friends. Miss Patricia belonged to the number who not only fail to strike other people when they are down, but who spend all their energy and strength in the effort to lift them up again.
Later on the other Camp Fire girls were also to form a new estimate of Miss Patricia’s character, but simply by force of circumstance Sally was the first one of them to be admitted inside the stern citadel with which the elderly spinster surrounded her great heart.
“In the morning, Sally, when you have rested, and if I were you, child, I would spend this afternoon in bed, why I intend to walk over with you to your château and make the acquaintance of your soldier. If he is a gentleman my dear, or even if he is a real man, I mean to bring him here to the farm house to remain as our guest until he has completely recovered. Now, don’t argue with me, Sally. Mrs. Burton will tell you that I am a hopeless old woman with whom to have an argument. I simply never do any one’s way except my own. I do not wish to discuss this side of the situation with you to any extent, but don’t you see, my dear, that it is better for you that we have your soldier here? No one shall think your friends have not understood and approved of your care of this young Frenchman.”
Sally murmured her acquiescence and her gratitude. Yet suddenly she felt that she wished never again to see the young officer who for the past few weeks had been her constant thought and care.
He had recovered sufficiently no longer to need her services and although he was not wilfully responsible, nevertheless he had given her a great deal of care and trouble.
“Of course you must do what you think best, Aunt Patricia,” Sally added a moment later, as she was preparing to start to her own room. “But don’t you think we had best wait until Tante’s return?”
Aunt Patricia shook her head.
“What Polly Burton may think or desire in the matter will not have the slightest influence with me. She cheerfully surrendered you girls into my charge in order to make this trip, of which she knew I thoroughly disapproved. However, in spite of the fact that I am very angry with her, I do not wish any one else to feel uneasy, although I shall not have a happy moment until she returns.”