Book: The Tin Soldier

T >> Temple Bailey >> The Tin Soldier




"My dear child--"

"Oh you do, Daddy, always, against me--and I'm your daughter--"

She wept a tear or two into her muff, then raised her eyes to find him
regarding her quizzically. "Are you going to spoil my ride?"

"You are spoiling mine."

"We won't quarrel about it. And we'll stop at Small's. Shall it be
roses or violets, to-day, my dear?"

She chose violets, as more in accord with her pensive mood, lighting
the bunch, however, with one red rose. The question of Hilda was not
settled, but she yielded as many an older woman has yielded--to the
sweetness of tribute--to man's impulse to make things right not by
justice but by the bestowal of his bounty.

From the florist's, they went to Huyler's old shop on F Street, where
the same girl had served Jean with ice-cream sodas and hot chocolate
for fifteen years. Administrations might come and administrations go,
but these pleasant clerks had been cup-bearers to them all--Presidents'
daughters and diplomats' sons--the sturdy children of plain
Congressmen, the scions of noble families across the seas.

It was while Jean sat on a high stool beside her father, the sunshine
shining on her through the wide window, that Derry Drake, coming down
Twelfth, saw her!

Well, he wanted a lemonade. And the fact that she was there in a gray
squirrel coat and bunch of violets with her copper-colored hair shining
over her ears wasn't going to leave him thirsty!

He went in. He bowed to the Doctor and received a smile in return.
Jean's eyes were cold above her chocolate. Derry bought his check,
went to a little table on the raised platform at the back of the room,
drank his lemonade and hurried out.

"A nice fellow," said the Doctor, watching him through the window. "I
wonder why he didn't stop and speak to us?"

"I'm glad he didn't."

"My dear, why?"

"I've found out things--"

"What things?"

"That he's a--coward," with tense earnestness. "He won't fight."

"Who told you that?"

"Everybody's saying it."

"Everybody is dead wrong."

"What do you mean, Daddy?"

"What I have just said. Everybody is dead wrong."

"How do you know?"

"A doctor knows a great many things which he is not permitted to tell.
I am rather bound not to tell in this case."

"Oh, but you could tell me."

"Hardly--it was given in confidence."

"Did he? Oh, Daddy, did he tell you?"

"Yes."

"And he isn't a slacker?"

"No."

"I knew it--."

"You didn't. You thought he was a coward."

"Well, I ought to have known better. He looks brave, doesn't he?"

"I shouldn't call him exactly a heroic figure."

"Shouldn't you?"

She finished her chocolate in silence, and followed him in silence to
his car. They sped up F Street, gay with its morning crowd.

Then at last it came. "Isn't it a wonderful day, Daddy?"

He smiled down at her. "There you go."

"Well, it is wonderful." She fell again into silence, then again
bestowed upon him her raptures. "Wouldn't it be dreadful if we had
loveless days, Daddy, as well as meatless ones and wheatless?"

That night, after Jean had gone to bed, the Doctor, having dismissed
his last patient, came out of his inner office. Hilda, in her white
nurse's costume, was busy with the books. He stood beside her desk.
His eyes were dancing. "Jean told me about the steak."

"I knew she would--I suppose it was an awful thing to do. But I was
hungry, and I hate fish--" She smiled at him lazily, then laughed.

He laughed back. He felt that it would be unbearable for Hilda to go
hungry, to spoil her red and white with abstinence.

"My dear girl," he said, "what did you mean when you spoke of going
away?"

"Haven't you been thinking of going?"

The color came up in his cheeks. "Yes, but how did you know it?"

"Well, a woman knows. Why don't you make up your mind?"

"There's Jean to think of."

"Emily Bridges could take care of her. And you ought to go. Men are
seeing things over there that they'll never see again. And women are."

"If my country needs me--"

Hilda was cold. "I shouldn't go for that. As I told Jean, I am not
making any grand stand plays. I should go for all that I get out of
it, the experience, the adventure--."

He looked at her with some curiosity. Jean's words of the afternoon
recurred to him. "She's a ghoul--"

Yet there was something almost fascinating in her frankness. She tore
aside ruthlessly the curtain of self-deception, revealing her motives,
as if she challenged him to call them less worthy than his own.

"If I go, it will be because I want to become a better nurse. I like
it here, but your practice is necessarily limited. I should get a
wider view of things. So would you. There would be new worlds of
disease, men in all conditions of nervous shock."

"I know. But I'd hate to think I was going merely for selfish ends."

She shrugged. "Why not that as well as any other?"

He had a smouldering sense of irritation.

"When I am with Jean she makes me feel rather big and fine; when I am
with you--" He paused.

"I make you see yourself as you are, a man. She thinks you are more
than that."

All his laughter left ham. "It is something to be a hero to one's
daughter. Perhaps some day I shall be a little better for her thinking
so."

She saw that she had gone too far. "You mustn't take the things I say
too seriously."

The bell of the telephone at her elbow whirred. She put the receiver
to her ear. "It is General Drake's man; he thinks you'd better come
over before you go to bed."

"I was afraid I might have to go. He is in rather bad shape, Hilda."

She packed his bag for him competently, and telephoned for his car.
"I'll have a cup of coffee ready for you when you get back," she said,
as she stood in the door. "It is going to be a dreadful night."

The streets were icy and the sleet falling. "You'd better have your
overshoes," Hilda decided, and went for them.

As he put them on, she stood under the hall light, smiling. "Have you
forgiven me?" she asked as he straightened up.

"For telling me the truth? Of course. You take such good care of me,
Hilda."

Upstairs in her own room Jean was writing a letter. It was a very
pretty room, very fresh and frilly with white dimity and with much pink
and pale lavender. The night-light which shone through the rose
taffeta petticoats of a porcelain lady was supplemented at the moment
by a bed-side lamp which flung a ring of gold beyond Jean's blotter to
the edge of the lace spread. For Jean was writing in bed. All day her
mind had been revolving around this letter, but she had had no time to
write. She had spent the afternoon in the Toy Shop with Emily, and in
the evening there had been a Red Cross sale. She had gone to the sale
with Ralph Witherspoon and his mother. She had not been able to get
out of going. All the time she had talked to Ralph she had thought of
Derry. She had rather hoped that he might be there, but he wasn't.

The letter required much thought. She tore up, extravagantly, several
sheets of note-paper with tiny embossed thistles at the top. Doctor
McKenzie was intensely Scotch, and he was entitled to a crest, but he
was also intensely American, and would have none of it. He had
designed Jean's note-paper, and it was lovely. But it was also
expensive, and it was a shame to waste so much of it on Derry Drake.

The note when it was finished seemed very simple. Just one page in
Jean's firm, clear script:


"Dear Mr. Drake:--

"Could you spare me one little minute tomorrow? I shall be at home at
four. It is very important--to me at least. Perhaps when you hear
what I have to say, it will seem important to you. I hope it may.

"Very sincerely yours,

"JEAN MCKENZIE."


She read it over several times. It seemed very stiff and inadequate.
She sealed it and stamped it, then in a panic tore it open for a
re-reading. She was oppressed by doubts. Did nice girls ask men to
come and see them? Didn't they wait and weary [Transcriber's note:
worry?] like Mariana of the Moated Grange--? "He cometh not, she said?"

New times! New manners! She had branded a man as a coward. She had
condemned him unheard. She had slighted him, she had listened while
others slandered--why should she care what other women had done? Would
do? Her way was clear. She owed an apology to Derry Drake, and she
would make it.

So with a new envelope, a new stamp, the note was again sealed.

It had to be posted that night. She felt that under no circumstance
could she stand the suspense of another day.

She had heard her father go out. Hilda was coming up, the maids were
asleep. She waited until Hilda's door was shut, then she slipped out
of bed, tucked her toes into a pair of sandals, threw a furry motor
coat around her, and sped silently down the stairs. She shrank back as
she opened the front door. The sleet rattled on the steps, the
pavements were covered with white.

The mail-box was in front of the house. She made a rush for it,
dropped in the precious letter, and gained once more the haven of the
warm hall.

She was glad to get back to her room. As she settled down among her
pillows, she had a great sense of adventure, as if she had travelled
far in a few moments.

As a matter of fact, she had made her first real excursion into the
land of romance. She found her thoughts galloping.

At the foot of the bed her silver Persian, Polly Ann, lay curled on her
own gray blanket.

"Polly Ann," Jean said, "if he doesn't come, I shall hate myself for
writing that note."

Polly Ann surveyed her sleepily.

"But it would serve me right if he didn't, Polly Ann."

She turned off the light and tried to sleep. Downstairs the telephone
rang. It rang, too, in Hilda's room. Hilda's door opened and shut.
She came across the hall and tapped on Jean's door. "May I come in?"

"Yes."

"Your father has just telephoned," Hilda said from the threshold, "that
General Drake's nurse is not well, and will have to be taken off the
case. I shall have to go in her place. There is a great shortage at
the hospital. Will you be afraid to stay alone, or shall I wake up
Ellen and have her sleep on the couch in your dressing room?"

"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
petitions 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 Pershing'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 shining 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 Washington 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 molasses 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 nobody 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 nobody 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.

"Queer thing," Captain Hewes mused, "what the war has done to him, set
him preaching and all that."

"Oh, it isn't queer," Margaret was eager. "That is one of the things
the war is doing, bringing men back to--God--" A sob caught in her
throat.

Drusilla's hands strayed upon the keys, and into the Battle Hymn of the
Republic.

"I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps,
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His day is marching on--"


It was an old tune, but the words were new to Captain Hewes--as the
girl chanted them, in that repressed voice that yet tore the heart out
of him.

"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat,
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant my feet,
Our God is marching on--"


The Captain sat on the edge of his chair. His face was illumined.

"By Jove," he ejaculated, "that's topping!"

Drusilla stood up with her back to the piano, and sang without music.

"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea--
With the glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me,
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on--"


She wore a gown of sheer dull blue, there was a red rose in her
hair--her white arms, her white neck, the blue and red, youth and fire,
strength and purity.

When she finished the room was very still. The big Englishman had no
words for such a moment. The music had swept him up to unexpected
heights of emotion. While Drusilla sang he had glimpsed for the first
time the meaning of democracy, he had seen, indeed, in a great and
lofty sense, for the first time--America.

Among the shadows a young man shrank in his seat. His vision was not
of Democracy, but of a freezing night--of a ragged old voice rising
from the blackness of a steep ravine--

"Oh, be swift, my soul--to answer--Him--
Be jubilant my feet--"


Why had Drusilla chosen that of all songs? Oh, why had she sung at all?

A maid came in to say that Mr. Drake was wanted at the telephone. The
message was from Dr. McKenzie. The General was much worse. It might
be well for Derry to come home.

So Derry, with a great sense of relief, got away from the frigid
Captain, and from the flaming Drusilla, and from Peggy with her flushed
air of apology, and went out into the stormy night. He had preferred
to walk, although his shoes were thin. "It isn't far," he had said
when Margaret expostulated, "and I'll send my car for Drusilla and
Captain Hewes."

The sleet drove against his face. His feet were wet before he reached
the first corner, the wind buffeted him. But he felt none of it. He
was conscious only of his depression and of his great dread of again
entering the big house where a sick man lay in a lacquered bed and
where a painted lady smiled on the stairs. Where there was nothing
alive, nothing young, nothing with lips to welcome him, or with hands
to hold out to him.

He found when at last he arrived that the Doctor had sent for Hilda
Merritt.

She came presently, in her long blue cloak and small blue bonnet.
Hilda made no mistakes in the matter of clothes. She realized the
glamour which her nurse's uniform cast over her. In evening dress she
was slightly commonplace. In ordinary street garb not an eye would
have been turned upon her, but the nun's blue and white of her uniform
added the required spiritual effect to her rather full-blown beauty.

As she passed the painted lady at the head of the stairway she gave her
a slight glance. Then on and up she went to her appointed task.

"It is pneumonia," Dr. McKenzie told Derry; "that's why I wanted Miss
Merritt. She is very experienced, and in these days of war it is hard
to get good nurses."

Derry found his voice shaking. "Is there any danger?"

"Naturally, at his age. But I think we are going to pull him through."

Derry went into the shadowed room. His father was breathing heavily.
Something clutched at the boy's heart--the fear of the Thing which
lurked in the darkness--a chill and sinister figure with a skeleton
hand.

He could not have his father die. He would feel as if his thoughts had
killed him--a murderer in intention if not in deed. Not thus must the
Obstacle be removed. He raised haggard eyes to the Doctor's face.
"You--you mustn't think that I store things up against him. He's all I
have."

The Doctor's keen glance appraised him. "Don't get morbid over it; he
has everything in his favor--and Miss Merritt is famous in such cases."

Hilda took his praise with downcast eyes. Her manner with the Doctor
when others were present was professionally deferential. It was only
when they were alone that the nurse was submerged in the woman.

With her bonnet off and a white cap in its place, she moved about the
room. "I shall be very comfortable," she said, when Derry inquired if
anything could be done for her.

"We haven't any women about the place but Cook," he explained. "She
has been in our family forever--"

"I'll put a day nurse on tomorrow," the Doctor said, "but I want Hilda
with him at night; she can call me up if there's any change, and I'll
come right over."

When the Doctor had gone, Derry, seeking his room, found Muffin
waiting. Bronson bustled in to see that his young master got out of
his wet clothes and into a hot bath. "All the time the Doctor was
talking to you, I was worrying about your shoes. Your feet are soaked,
sir. Whatever made you walk in the rain?"

"I couldn't ride--I couldn't."

The old man on his knees removing the wet shoes looked up. "Restless,
sir?"

"Yes. There are times, Bronson, when I want my mother."

He could say it in this room to Bronson and Muffin--to the gray old dog
and the gray old man who adored him.

Bronson put him to bed, settled Muffin among his blankets in a basket
by the hot water pipes, opened the windows wide, said "God bless you,"
and went away.

"Sweet dreams, Muffin," said Derry from the big bed.

The old dog whuffed discreetly.

It was their nightly ceremony.

The sleet came down in golden streaks against the glow of the street
lights. Derry lay watching it, and it was a long time before he slept.
Not since his mother's death had he been so weighed down with heaviness.

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