The Tin Soldier Part 18

"Of course I am not afraid, Hilda. Nothing can happen until father comes back."

As Hilda went away, Jean had a delicious feeling of detachment. She would be alone in the house with her thoughts of Derry.

She got out of bed to say her prayers. With something of a thrill she prayed for Derry's father. She was not conscious as she made her pet.i.tions of any ulterior motive. Yet a placated Providence would, she felt sure, see that the General's sickness should not frustrate the plans which she had quite daringly made for his son.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SHADOWED ROOM

Derry had dined that night with his cousin, Margaret Morgan.

Margaret's husband was somewhere in France with Pers.h.i.+ng's divisions.

Margaret was to have news of him this evening, brought by a young English officer, Dawson Hewes, who had been wounded at Ypres, and who had come on a recruiting mission, among his countrymen in America.

The only other guest was to be Drusilla Gray.

Derry had gone over early to have the twilight hour with Margaret's children. There was Theodore, the boy, and Margaret-Mary, on the edge of three. They had their supper at five in the nursery, and after that there was always the story hour, with nurse safely downstairs for her dinner, their mother, lovely in a low-necked gown, and father coming in at the end. For several months their father had not come, and the best they could do was to kiss his picture in the frame with the eagle on it, to put flowers in front of it, and to say their little prayers for the safety of men in battle.

It was Cousin Derry who dropped in now at the evening hour. He was a famous story-teller, and they always welcomed him uproariously.

Margaret Morgan, perhaps better than any other, knew in those days what was in Derry's heart. She knew the things against which he had struggled, and she had rebelled hotly, "Why should he be sacrificed?"

she had asked her husband more than once during the three years which had preceded America's entrance into the war. "He wants to be over there driving an ambulance--doing his bit. Aunt Edith always idealized the General, and Derry is paying the price."

"Most women idealize the men they love, honey-girl." Winston Morgan was from the South, and he drew upon its store of picturesque endearments to express his joy and pride in his own Peggy. "And if they didn't where should we be?"

She had leaned her head against him. "I don't need to idealize you,"

she had said, comfortably, "but the General is different. Aunt Edith made Derry live his father's life, not his own, and it has moulded him into something less than he might have been if he had been allowed more initiative."

Winston had shaken his head. "Discipline is a mighty good thing in the Army, Peggy, and it's a mighty good thing in life. Derry Drake is as hard as steel, and as finely tempered. If he ever does break loose, he'll be all the more dynamic for having held himself back."

Margaret, conceding all that, was yet constrained to pour out upon Derry the wealth of her womanly sympathy. It was perhaps the knowledge of this as well as his devotion to her children which brought him often to her door.

Tonight she was sitting on a low-backed seat in front of the fire with a child on each side of her. She was in white, her dark hair in a simple s.h.i.+ning knot, a little pearl heart which had been Captain Morgan's parting gift, her only ornament.

"Go on with your story," he said, as he came in. "I just want to listen and do nothing."

She glanced up at him. He looked tired, unlike himself, depressed.

"Anything the matter?"

"Father isn't well. Dr. McKenzie has taken the case. Richards has gone to the front. Bronson will call me if there are any unfavorable developments."

Margaret-Mary, curled up like a kitten in the curve of Cousin Derry's arm, was exploring his vest pocket. She found two very small squares of Was.h.i.+ngton taffy wrapped in wax paper, one for herself and one for Teddy. It was Derry's war-time offering. No other candies were permitted by Margaret's patriotism. Her children ate mola.s.ses on their bread, maple sugar on their cereal. Her soldier was in France, and there were other soldiers, not one of whom should suffer because of the wanton waste of food by the people who stayed softly at home.

"You tell us a story, Uncle Derry," Teddy pleaded as he ate his taffy.

"I'd rather listen to your mother."

"They are tired of me," Margaret told him.

"We are not ti-yard," her small son enunciated carefully, "but you said you had to fix the f'owers."

"Well, I have. May I turn them over to you, Derry?"

"For a minute. But you must come back."

She came back presently, to find the lights out and only the glow of the fire to illumine faintly the three figures on the sofa. She stood unseen in the door and listened.

"And so the Tin Soldier stood on the shelf where the little boy had put him, and nothing happened in the old, old house. There was just an old, old man, and walls covered with old, old portraits, and knights in armor, and wooden trumpeters carved on the door who blew with all their might, 'Trutter-a-trutt, Trutter-a-trutt'--. But the old man and the portraits and the wooden trumpeters had no thought for the Tin Soldier who stood there on the shelf, alone and longing to go to the war. And at last the Tin Soldier cried out, 'I can't stand it. I want to go to the wars--I want to go to the wars!' But n.o.body listened or cared."

"Poor 'itte sing," Margaret-Mary crooned.

"If I had been there," Teddy proclaimed, "I'd have put him on the floor and told him to run and run and run!"

"But there was n.o.body to put him on the floor," said Derry, "so at last the Tin Soldier could stand it no longer. 'I will go to the wars, I will go to the wars,' he cried, and he threw himself down from the shelf."

The story stopped suddenly. "Go on, go on," urged the little voices in the dark.

"Perhaps you think that was the end of it, and that the Tin Soldier ran away to the wars, to help his country and save the world from ruin.

But Fate wasn't as kind to him as that. For when the little boy came again to the old house, he looked for the Tin Soldier. But he wasn't on the shelf. And he looked and looked and, the old man looked, and the wooden trumpeters blew out their cheeks, 'Trutter-a-trutt, trutter-a-trutt--where is the Tin Soldier?--trutter-a-trutt--.'

"But they did not find him, for the Tin Soldier had fallen through a crack in the floor, and there he lay as in an open grave."

Drusilla's voice was heard in the lower hall, and the deeper voice of Captain Hewes. Margaret sped down to meet them, leaving the story, reluctantly, in that moment of heart-breaking climax.

When later Derry followed her, she had a chance to say, "I hope you gave it a happy ending."

"Oh, did you hear? Yes. They found him in time to send him away to war. But Hans Andersen didn't end it that way. He knew life."

She stared at him in amazement. Was this the Derry whose supply of cheerfulness had seemed inexhaustible? Whose persistent optimism had been at times exasperating to his friends?

Throughout the evening she was aware of his depression. She was aware, too, of the mistake which she had made in bringing Derry and Captain Hewes together.

The Captain had red hair and a big nose. But he was a gentleman in the fine old English sense; he was a soldier with but one idea, that every physically able man should fight. Every sentence that he spoke was charged with this belief, and every sentence carried a sting for Derry.

More than once Peggy found it necessary to change the subject frantically. Drusilla supplemented her efforts.

But gradually the Captain's manner froze. With a sort of military sixth sense, he felt that he had been asked to break bread and eat salt with a slacker, and he resented it.

After dinner Drusilla sang for them. Sensitive always to atmosphere, she soothed the Captain with old and familiar songs, "Flow gently, sweet Afton," and "Believe me if all those endearing young charms."

Then straight from these to "I'm going to marry 'Arry on the Fifth of January."

"Oh, I say--Harry Lauder," was Captain Hewes' eager comment. "I heard him singing to the chaps in the trenches just before I sailed--a little stocky man in a red kilt. He'd laugh, and you'd want to cry."

Drusilla gave them "Wee Hoose among the Heather," with the touch of pathos which the little man in the red kilt had imparted to it as he had sung it in October in New York before an audience which had wept as it had welcomed him.