Red Cross Girls in Belgium

<h2><span>CHAPTER XX</span> <span class="smaller"><i>Noel</i></span></h2> <p>It was Christmas morning in southern France. For several hours a light snow had been falling, but had not stayed upon the ground. Yet it clothed the branches of the trees with white lace and filled the air with jewels.</p> <p>Walking alone a slender girl with dark hair and eyes lifted her face to let the snow melt upon her cheeks. She looked fragile, as if she were just recovering from an illness, nor did her expression betray any special interest in Christmas.</p> <p>"These woods are as lovely as I remember them," she said aloud. "It is true, I never could find a place in Belgium I liked half so well."</p> <p>Then she stopped a moment and glanced around her.</p> <p>"I do hope Barbara and Dick won't discover I have run away. I feel as much<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</SPAN></span> a truant as if I were a small girl. But they surely won't be tramping through my woods at present, when they assured me they would spend several hours at the chateau. So I can't be found out till it is too late. I feel I must see Nicolete's little log house and Nona's 'Pool of Melisande.'"</p> <p>Ten minutes after Eugenia arrived at the desired place. The lake of clear water which she had once described as the "pool of truth" was today covered with a thin coating of ice at its edges. The center was as untroubled as it had always been. Above it tall evergreen trees leaned so close to one another that their summits almost touched.</p> <p>Eugenia breathed deeply of the fragrance of the snow and the pine. The day was an unusually cold one for this part of the country, but the winter was being everywhere severe. It was as if nature would make no easier the task of her children's destruction of each other.</p> <p>But Eugenia was not thinking of warlike things at this hour. She was merely<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</SPAN></span> feeling a physical pleasure in her own returning strength.</p> <p>Yet just as she was congratulating herself on having been able to walk so far without tiring, the girl experienced a sudden, overpowering sensation of fatigue.</p> <p>For several moments she stood upright fighting her weakness; she even turned and started back toward home. Then recognizing her own folly, Eugenia looked for a place to rest.</p> <p>But she did not look very far nor in but one direction. Yes, the log was there in the same place it had been six months before.</p> <p>With a half smile at herself Eugenia sat down. She was not deceived, for she understood perfectly why she had wished to come back to this neighborhood and why today she had wanted to walk alone into these woods.</p> <p>But there could be no wrong in what she was doing, since no one would ever guess her reason.</p> <p>Eugenia was sincerely pleased over Barbara's and Dick's happiness. But she<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</SPAN></span> would never confess herself so completely surprised as Barbara demanded that she be. She merely announced that if one of the girls felt compelled to marry (and she supposed they could not all hope to escape the temptation of their nursing experiences in Europe), at least she was grateful that Barbara had chosen to bestow her affection upon an American. Personally, she felt convinced that no foreign marriage could be a success.</p> <p>Yet here sat Eugenia in an extremely sentimental attitude with the light snow falling about her. More than this, she was in an equally sentimental state of mind. But then nothing of this kind matters when one chances to be entirely alone. Dreams are one's own possession.</p> <p>Then the girl heard a sound that entirely accorded with her train of thought.</p> <p>It was a slow velvet-like tread moving in her direction.</p> <p>In another moment Duke had approached and laid his great head in her lap. He did not move again; there was no foolish wagging of his tail. These expressions of <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</SPAN></span>emotion were meant for lesser beasts; Duke revealed his joy and his affection in a beautiful, almost a thrilling silence.</p> <p>Eugenia had not seen her old friend since her arrival at the farmhouse a few days before. For some reason he had not called there with Fran&ccedil;ois and she had not been outside the house until today. Their trip had been a long and tiring one and she was more exhausted than she had expected to be.</p> <p>But this was a far more satisfactory reunion and Eugenia was sincerely moved.</p> <p>She put her own thin cheek down on Duke's silver head and remained as still as he was. Truly <i>he</i> had not forgotten!</p> <p>Captain Castaigne found them like this when he appeared within the next few seconds.</p> <p>He made no pretence of a greeting. Instead he frowned upon his one-time friend as severely as she might have upon him had their positions been reversed.</p> <p>"It is not possible that you are in the woods in this snowstorm, Eugenie! Miss Meade told me that I should find you at<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</SPAN></span> the little farmhouse. Take my arm and we will return as quickly as possible."</p> <p>With entire meekness Eugenia did as she was told. She did not even remember to be amused at this young Frenchman's amazing fashion of ordering her about. But she was surprised into speechlessness at his unexpected appearance.</p> <p>"Only yesterday your mother assured us you were in northern France with your regiment," Eugenia murmured as she was being escorted along the path toward home. "She insisted that there was no possible prospect of your returning to this neighborhood in many months."</p> <p>Captain Castaigne smiled. "Is that American frankness, Eugenie? We French people prefer to leave certain things to the imagination. Of course, I understand that you would never have come to the farmhouse had you dreamed of my being nearby. However, I am here for the purpose of seeing you. My mother did not intend to deceive you; I had not told her of my intention. But we will not talk of these things until we arrive at home. You are too weary to speak."</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</SPAN></span></p> <p>This was so manifestly true that Eugenia made no attempt at argument.</p> <p>She was fatigued, and yet there was something else keeping her silent.</p> <p>How splendidly well Captain Castaigne looked! His face was less boyish than she remembered it. But then she had not understood him at the beginning of their acquaintance. It had been stupid of her too, because no soldier receives the Cross of the Legion of Honor who has not put aside boyish things.</p> <p>Because it was Christmas day, Noel as the French term it, the living room at the farmhouse was gay with evergreens. But better than this, a real fire burned in the fireplace.</p> <p>Eugenia let her companion take off her long nursing cloak and she herself removed her cap.</p> <p>Then she stood revealed a different Eugenia, because of Barbara's taste and determination.</p> <p>Instead of her uniform or her usual shabby, ill-made dress, she wore an exquisite pale gray crepe de chine, which<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</SPAN></span> made a beauty of her slenderness. About her throat there were folds of white and in her belt a dull, rose-velvet rose. This costume had been purchased in Paris as the girls passed through and Eugenia wore it today in honor of Christmas.</p> <p>Without a doubt Eugenia looked pale and ill, but her hair was twisted about her head like a dull brown coronet and the shadows about her eyes revealed their new depth and sweetness.</p> <p>When she sat down again, drawing near the fire with a little shiver, Captain Castaigne came and knelt beside her.</p> <p>No American could have done this without awkwardness and self-consciousness. Yet there was no hint of either in the young French officer's attitude. Seeing him, Eugenia forgot her past narrowness and the critical misunderstanding of a nature that cannot appreciate temperaments and circumstances unlike their own. She was reminded of the picture of a young French knight, the St. Louis of France, whom she had seen among the frescoes of the Pantheon in Paris.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</SPAN></span></p> <p>Very gravely Captain Castaigne raised Eugenia's hand to his lips.</p> <p>"I care for you more than I did when I told you of my love and you would not believe. I shall go on caring. How long must I serve before you return my affection?"</p> <p>Eugenia shook her head fretfully like a child.</p> <p>"But it isn't a question of my caring. I told you that there were a thousand other things that stood between us, Henri."</p> <p>Then she drew her hand away and laid it lightly upon the young man's head.</p> <p>"This house has many memories for me. Perhaps when I am an old woman you will let me come back here and live a part of each year. May I buy the house from your mother? Ask her as a favor to me?"</p> <p>Eugenia was trying her best to return to her old half maternal treatment of the young officer. This had been the attitude which she had used in the months of his illness in the little "Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door."</p> <p>But this time their positions were reversed.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</SPAN></span></p> <p>"We will talk of that another time," he returned. "Now you must be fair with me. I will not accept such an answer as you gave me before. I must be told the truth."</p> <p>Captain Castaigne had gotten up and stood looking down upon Eugenia.</p> <p>"I return to my regiment tomorrow. You must tell me today."</p> <p>In reply the girl let her hands fall gently into her lap and gazed directly into the handsome, clear-cut face above her own.</p> <p>"Why should I try to deceive you? It would be only sheer pretence. You are the only man I have ever cared for or ever shall. But I'll never marry you under any possible circumstances. I am too old and too unattractive and too&mdash;oh, a hundred other things."</p> <p>But Captain Castaigne was smiling in entire serenity.</p> <p>"We will marry at the little 'Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door' during my next leave of absence."</p> <p>But Barbara and Dick were at this moment entering the blue front door.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</SPAN></span></p> <p>Half an hour later, when they had finished Christmas dinner, Dick Thornton drew a magazine from his pocket, which had on its cover the sign of the Red Cross.</p> <p>"Here is a poem some one in America has written called 'She of the Red Cross.' Will you listen while I read it to you? To me the poem, of course, means Barbara and to Captain Castaigne, Eugenia."</p> <div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <div>"She fulfills the dramatic destiny of woman,</div> <div>Because she stands valiant, in the presence of pestilence,</div> <div>And faces woe unafraid,</div> <div>And binds up the wounds made by the wars of men.</div> <div>She fights to defeat pain,</div> <div>And to conquer torture,</div> <div>And to cheat death of his untimely prey.</div> <div>And her combat is for neither glory nor gain, but, with charity and mercy and compassion as her weapons, she storms incessantly the ramparts of grief.</div> <div>There thrills through her life never the sharp, sudden thunder of the charge, never the swift and ardent rush of the short, decisive conflict&mdash;the tumult of applauding nations does not reach her ears&mdash;and the courage that holds her heart high comes from the voice of her invincible soul.</div> <div>She fulfills the dramatic destiny of woman because, <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</SPAN></span>reared to await the homage of man and to receive his service, she becomes when the war trumps sound, the servitor of the world.</div> <div>And because whenever men have gone into battle, women have borne the real burden of the fray,</div> <div>And because since the beginning of time, man when he is hurt or maimed turns to her and finds, in her tenderness, the consolation and comfort which she alone can give.</div> <div>Thus she of the Red Cross stands today, as woman has stood always, the most courageous and the most merciful figure in all history.</div> <div>She is the Valor of the World."</div> </div></div> </div> <p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p> <p>The fourth volume in the American Red Cross Girls series will be called "The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army."</p> <p>In this volume the four girls will return to the scene of actual fighting. They will be with the Russian army in their retreat. Moreover, certain characters introduced in the first book will reappear in the fourth, so increasing the excitement and interest of the plot. A new romance differing from the others plays an unexpected part in the life of one of the girls. The story may safely promise to have more important developments than any of the past volumes.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />