The Tin Soldier Part 56

The next morning they talked it over.

"What am I to do? He needs me more than ever--"

"There must be some way out, Derry."

But what way? The Tin Soldier had jumped from the shelf, but he had fallen through a crack! And the war was going on without him--!

CHAPTER XXII

JEAN PLAYS PROXY

Christmas morning found the General conscious. He was restless until Jean was brought to him. He had a feeling that she had saved him from Hilda. He wanted her where he could see her. "Don't leave me," he begged.

She slipped away to eat her Christmas dinner with Derry and Emily and Margaret. It was an early dinner on account of the children. They ate in the big dining room, and after dinner there was a tree, with Ulrich Stolle playing Father Christmas. It had come about quite naturally that he should be asked. It had been unthinkable that Derry could enter into the spirit of it, so Emily had ventured to suggest Ulrich.

"He will make an ideal Santa Claus."

But it developed that he was not to be Santa Claus at all. He was to be Father Christmas, with a wreath of mistletoe instead of a red cap.

Teddy was intensely curious about the change. "But why isn't he Santa Claus?" he asked.

"Well, Santa Claus was--made in Germany."

"Oh!"

"But now he has joined the Allies and changed his name."

"Oh!"

"And he wears mistletoe, because mistletoe is the Christmas bush, and red caps don't really mean anything, do they?"

"No, but Mother--"

"Yes?"

"If Santa Claus has joined the Allies what will the little German children do?"

_What indeed_?

Jean had trimmed a little tree for the General, and the children carried it up to him carefully and sang a carol--having first arranged on his table, under the lamp, the purple camels, to create an atmosphere.

"'We three kings of Orient are, Bearing gifts we traverse far Field and fountain, moor and mountain, Following yonder star--'"

"Yonner 'tar," piped Margaret-Mary.

"Yon-der-er ste-yar," trailed Teddy's falsetto.

"'Oh, star of wonder, star of might, Star with royal beauty bright, Westward leading, still proceeding, Guide us to the perfect light--'"

Twenty-four hours ago Hilda's book had lain where the purple camels now played their little part in the great Christmas drama. In the soul of the stricken old man on the bed entered something of the peace of the holy season.

"Oh, 'tar of wonner--"

"Ste-yar of wonder-er--" chimed the little voices.

When the song was finished, Margaret-Mary made a little curtsey and Teddy made a manly bow, and then they took their purple camels and left the tree on the table with its one small candle burning.

The General laid his left hand over Jean's--his right was useless--and said to Derry: "Your mother's jewels are my Christmas gift to her. No matter what happens, I want her to have them."

The evening waned, and the General still held Jean's hand. Every bone in her body ached. Never before had she grown weary in the service of others. She told herself as she sat there that she had always been a sort of sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice sort of person. It was only fair that she should have her share of hardness.

The nurse begged her in a whisper to leave the General. "He won't know." But when Jean moved, that poor left hand tightened on hers and she shook her head.

Then Derry came and sat with his arm about her.

"My darling, you must rest."

She laid her head against her husband's shoulder, as he sat beside her.

After a while she slept, and the nurse unlocked the clinging old fingers, and Derry carried his little wife to bed.

And so Christmas pa.s.sed, and the other days, wonderful days in spite of the shadow which hung over the big house. For youth and love laugh at forebodings and they pushed as far back into their minds as possible, the thought of the thing which had to be faced.

But at last Derry faced it. "It is my self-respect, Jean."

They were sitting in her room with m.u.f.fin, wistful and devoted, on the rug at Jean's feet. The old dog, having been banished at first by Bronson, had viewed his master's wife with distrust. Gradually she had won him over, so that now, when she was not in the room, he hunted up a shoe or a glove, and sat with it until she came back.

"It is my self-respect, Jean-Joan."

She admitted that. "But--?"

"I can't stay out of the fighting and call myself a man. It has come to that with me."

She knew that it had come to that. She had thought a great deal about it. She lay awake at night thinking about it. She thought of it as she sat by the General's bed, day after day, holding his hand.

The doctor's report had been cautious, but it had amounted to this--the General might live to a green old age, some men rallied remarkably after such a shock. He rather thought the General might rally, but then again he might not, and anyhow he would be tied for months, perhaps for years, to his chair.

The old man was giving to his daughter-in-law an affection compounded of that which he had given to his wife and to his son. It was as if in coming up the stairs in her white gown on her wedding day, Jean had brought a bit of Edith back to him. For deep in his heart he knew that without her, Derry would not have come.

So he clung pathetically to that little hand, which seemed the only anchor in his sea of loneliness. Pathetically his old eyes begged her to stay. "You won't leave me, Jean?" And she would promise, and sit day after day and late into the night, holding his hand.

And as she sat with him, there grew up gradually within her a conviction which strengthened as the days went by. She could tell the very moment when she had first thought of it. She had left the General with Bronson while she went to dress for dinner. Derry was waiting for her, and usually she would have flown to him, glad of the moment when they might be together. But something halted her at the head of the stairs. It was as if a hand had been put in front of her, barring the way.

The painted lady was looking at her with smiling eyes, but back of the eyes she seemed to discern a wistful appeal--"I want you to stay. No matter what happens I beg that you will stay."

But Jean didn't want to stay. All the youth in her rebelled against the thing that she saw ahead of her. She yearned to be free--to live and love as she pleased, not a prisoner in that shadowed room.