The Tin Soldier Part 63

"I am in a shack--a _baraque_,--they call it," Drusilla told him, "with three other women. We have fixed up one room a little better than the others, and whenever the men come through the town some of them drift in and are warmed by our fire, and I sing to them; they call me 'The Singing Woman.'"

She did not tell him how she had mothered the lads. She was not much older than some of them, but they had instinctively recognized the maternal quality of her interest in them. With all her beauty they had turned to her for that which was in a sense spiritual.

Hating the war, Drusilla yet loved the work she had to do. There was, of course, the horror of it, but there was, too, the stimulus of living in a world of realities. She wondered if she were the same girl who had burned her red candles and had served her little suppers, safe and sound and far away from the stress of fighting.

She wondered, too, if women over there were still thinking of their gowns, and men of their gold. Were they planning to go North in the summer and South in the winter? Were they still care-free and comfortable?

People over here were not comfortable, but how little they cared, and how splendid they were. She had seen since she came such incredibly heroic things--men as tender as women, women as brave as men--she had seen human nature at its biggest and best.

"I have never been religious," she told the Captain, earnestly; "our family is the kind which finds sufficient outlet in a cool intellectual conclusion that all's right with the world, and it doesn't make much difference what comes hereafter. You know the att.i.tude? 'If there is future life, we shall be glad to explore, and if there isn't, we shall be content to sleep!'

"But since I have been over here, I have carried a little prayer-book, and I've read things to the men, and when I have come to that part 'Gladly to die--that we may rise again,' I have known that it is true, Captain--"

He laid his hand over hers. "May I have your prayer-book in exchange for mine?" He was very serious. With all his heart he loved her, and never more than at this moment when she had thrown aside all reserves and had let him see her soul.

She drew the little book from her pocket. It was bound in red leather, with a thin black cross on the cover. His own was in khaki.

"I want something else," he said, as he held the book in his hand.

"What?"

"This." He touched a lock of hair which lay against her cheek. "A bit of it--of you--"

A band of _poilus_--marching through the street, saw him cut it off.

But they did not laugh. They had great respect for a thing like that--and it happened every day--when men went away from their women.

They separated with a promise of perhaps a reunion in Paris, if he could get leave and if she could be spared. Then she drove away through the mud in her little car, and he went back to his men.

Thus they were swept apart by that tide of war which threatened to submerge the world.

Drusilla, arriving late at her _baraque_, made tea, and sat by an infinitesimal stove.

She found herself alone, for the other women were away on various errands. She uncovered all the glory of her lovely hair, and in her little mirror surveyed pensively the ragged lock over her left ear.

A man like that, oh, a man like that. What more could a woman ask--than love like that?

Yet even in the midst of her thought of him, came the feeling that she was not predestined for happiness. She must go on riding over rough roads on her errands of mercy. Nothing must interfere with that, not love or matters of personal preference--nothing.

She was very tired. But there was no time for rest. A half dozen kilted Highlanders hailed her through the open door and asked for a song. She gave them "Wee Hoose Amang the Heather--" standing on the step. It was still raining, and they took with them a picture of a girl with glorious uncovered hair, and that cut tell-tale lock against her cheek.

Drusilla watching them go, wondered if she would ever see them again, with their pert caps, the bare knees of them--the strong swing of their bodies.

She stretched her arms above her head. "Oh, oh, I'm tired--"

She went in and poured another cup of tea. She left the door open.

Indeed it always stood open that the room might s.h.i.+ne its welcome.

s.n.a.t.c.hing forty winks, she waked to find a woman standing over her--a tall woman in a blue cloak and bonnet, who held in her hand a dripping umbrella.

She felt that she still dreamed. "It can't be Hilda Merritt?"

"Yes, it is." Hilda set the umbrella in the wood box. "I knew you were here."

"Who told you?"

"Dr. McKenzie."

"Oh, you are with him, then?"

"He won't have me. That's why I came to you."

"To me?"

"Yes. I want you to tell him not to--turn me away."

Drusilla showed her bewilderment. "But, surely nothing that I could say would have more weight with him than your own arguments."

"You are his kind. He'd listen. Things that you say count with him."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Well, I've offended him. And he won't forgive me. Not even for the sake of the work. And I'm a good nurse, Miss Gray. But he's as hard as nails. And--and he sent me away."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Drusilla said gently. Hilda was a dark figure of tragedy, as she sat there statuesquely in her blue cloak.

"You could make him see how foolish it is to refuse to have a good worker; men may die whom I could save. He thinks that--those things don't mean anything to me, that I am arguing from a personal standpoint. He wouldn't think that of you."

"I'll do what I can, of course," Drusilla said slowly. She was not sure that she wanted to get into it, but she was sorry for Hilda.

"Won't you have a cup of tea," she said impulsively, "and take off your cloak? I am afraid I haven't seemed a bit hospitable. I was so surprised."

Hilda gave a little laugh. "I'm not used to such courtesies--so I didn't miss it. But I should like the tea, and something to eat with it. I left Dr. McKenzie's hospital early this morning, and I haven't eaten since--I didn't want anything to eat--"

She watched Drusilla curiously as she set forth the food. "It must seem strange to you to live in a room like this."

"I like it."

"But you have always had such an easy life, Miss Gray."

Drusilla smiled. "It may have looked easy to you. But I give you my word that keeping up with the social game is harder than this."

"You say that," Hilda told her crisply, "not because it's true, but because it sounds true. Do you mean to tell me that you like to be muddy and dirty and live in a place like this?"

"Yes, I like it." Something flamed in the back Of Drusilla's eyes. "I like it because it means something, and the other didn't."

"Well, I don't like it," Hilda stated. "But nursing is all I am fit for. I came over with a lot of other nurses, and they tell me at the hospital I am the best of the lot--and in war times you can't afford to miss the experience. But then I am used to a hard life, and you are not."

"Neither are the men in the trenches used to it. That's the standard I apply to myself--for every hard thing I am doing, it is ten times harder for them. I wish all the people at home could see how wonderful they are."