CHAPTER X
The Two Sides of a Shield
BUT curiously enough it was not Philip Dawson whom Nona was to see soon again and see very frequently, but Lieutenant Martin.
However, she saw him not in a social fashion, but as a very ill patient at the American hospital.
His disaster, which was partly an accident and partly through intention, was never openly discussed. Indeed, the facts were kept from the knowledge of as many persons as possible, except those who were obliged to know and others to whom the circumstances had to be reported.
Naturally, no one in authority wished anything except fair news to be sent abroad from the American headquarters of the army in France, and there was enough of gallantry and skill and steadfastness to be reported. Like a great family, it was wiser, perhaps, to conceal one’s family’s short-comings.
Yet never is there a large number of human beings together without some difficulties! One evening Lieutenant Martin and Lieutenant Kelley were having a short walk after dark. Taps had been sounded some time before and the men were supposed to be in their quarters, except for those who had special permits such as the two young officers.
They were walking along a fairly open road only a few miles from their own village, but bordered with a number of old trees on either side. By chance, as he explained afterwards, Hugh Kelley had dropped behind for a few moments when he was surprised by the report of a pistol. Running on ahead he discovered that his former companion had apparently stumbled and fallen and that his own weapon had shot him in the left arm.
Yet Martin was unconscious and in lifting him the younger man found he had been struck in the back of the head. Not far away was a stone which must have been thrown at him from someone in hiding, and as the blow caused him to fall forward, his own pistol had exploded.
Lieutenant Kelley said later that he had looked for a moment, but could find no other human being in their neighborhood. Then he concluded that the thing of first importance was to secure aid for his friend and afterwards to play detective.
He had therefore brought Lieutenant Martin directly to the American hospital, which happened to be closer to them than the village. There, Madame Castaigne had herself received him and he had left his injured friend and officer in her charge.
The doctor at first reported that neither of the young officer’s wounds was particularly serious and that it was only a question of a few weeks before Martin’s recovery. But the young man was found to be overworked and overstrained, with his vitality lower than anyone could have imagined from his appearance. So the few weeks had already passed.
Late one afternoon Nona came quietly into Lieutenant Martin’s room, a private room, as the hospital was still uncrowded and he had been found to be an exceptionally nervous patient.
Nona had been off duty all day and as she had passed the other nurse, Agatha Burton, in the hall the moment before, she discovered him alone.
The young man was propped up on pillows, with the bandage still about his head and his arm in a sling. Yet somehow Nona did not feel that either of these misfortunes warranted the expression she observed on his face.
He had rather a thin face always and now the skin was drawn tightly over his fine, slightly arched nose and the prominent bones of his cheeks. His gray eyes, which looked darker since his illness, were sunken and his hair pushed carelessly back showed the best of him, a high, pure forehead, unlined and white as a girl’s. Yet he seemed wretched and miserable and Nona heard his sigh deepen into a groan as she came nearer his bed.
“I don’t see how you could have left me alone so long suffering like this. It’s been, oh, it’s been Hades!”
“You are not worse, are you?” Nona asked, “and you can’t have been alone long, because I saw Miss Burton just leaving your room and Madame Castaigne told me she had seen you a short time ago.” Lieutenant Martin made no answer, while Nona adjusted his pillow and then moved to open a blind so that he could see the yellow lights of the sun casting the last of the day’s glory over the nearby valley of France.
“I thought nurses were not supposed to argue with patients,” Lieutenant Martin murmured irritably and then in a little different tone, “But thank you for raising that shade without asking me if I wished it. The sunrise and the sunset are about all the beauty I ever see these days, except—the truth is that Miss Burton has asked me so many questions in the last few hours that if she had not gone just when she did there would have been another outburst. And did Madame Castaigne tell you that she scolded me as if I had been about six years old and without the least regard for my being a First Lieutenant, with a fair chance of a captaincy, until this blasted accident? She assured me that if I was not more considerate of the nurses—well, I suppose I was not to be allowed to have one, I was not quite certain what my punishment was to be. But that same Miss Burton seems to have shed tears over something she thinks I said to her. But I am sure I have never been inconsiderate, although I don’t like Miss Burton. She gives me the creeps; for one thing, she won’t fight back. I have never been disagreeable to you, Miss Davis.”
Nona laughed. “How are the mighty fallen!” she thought a trifle wickedly to herself. But aloud she answered. “Oh, not especially; besides, I don’t pay any attention to what men say when they are ill. They are scarcely responsible. Besides, your illness must have been particularly hard on you, shut up all these weeks with women and girls when all your interest and thought are with our soldiers. Even though we did not know each other very well when we were younger, I remember you had the reputation of being immensely scornful of girls.”
Lieutenant Martin colored unexpectedly.
“I call that hitting below the belt and when a man is down, Miss Davis, and I thought you were a good sport.”
Nona held up both her slender hands bare of any rings.
“Hands up, I apologize.” Then she came and leaned over the bed.
“But you are better, or at least you do not seem to be suffering from anything except personal grievances. Is there anything I can do for you before dinner?”
“Sit down and talk to me, if you will.”
Without discussion Nona drew up a low chair and sat down.
In spite of the fact that he had been generally acknowledged as an extremely disagreeable and ungrateful patient, Nona had really come to like Lieutenant Jack Martin rather unusually well. Of course this was partly due to the fact that however slight their acquaintance in the past, at least this and the knowledge of common friends was a bond between them. Besides, Lieutenant Martin’s bad tempers were merely those of an undisciplined boy, and this was amusing in view of the fact that he was so stern a disciplinarian both with himself and with the men in camp. But Nona had not taken three years of experience in nursing to find out how different a man may be in illness and in health.
The young man’s expression had changed again in the last moment, however.
“I suppose I am a pretty bad sort,” he said quietly, “or at least I give people that impression, which amounts to the same thing. This accident, for instance, would never have happened if I had not a genius for making enemies. But I can’t guess what fellow hates me sufficiently to wish to get rid of me at least temporarily; and I don’t want to find out. I wish I could persuade our Colonel and Kelley and some of the other men just to let the whole business drop. I would rather have gone out altogether than have a scandal in our unit.”
Nona shook her head almost subconsciously. Lieutenant Martin was too fine a soldier, there was too much work for him to do for this to happen.
When he turned his head away and said nothing more for a few moments, Nona leaned over and laid her hand lightly on the young officer’s. They were strong rather beautiful with breadth and yet with long, sensitive fingers.
“I would not think of this any more if I were you, not until you are entirely well. I agree with you, perhaps it may be just as wise not to make too much effort to find out the coward, unless he may be dangerous to you or to someone else at another time. Sooner or later he must reveal himself, and——”
“And I don’t count a great deal, do I? Well, I can’t say I enjoy your agreeing with me in this,” Jack Martin answered, frowning and drawing away slightly from Nona’s kindly gesture.
This time Nona did flush and, for the first time, betrayed temper.
“You know I did not mean that and you do make an effort to be disagreeable,” she returned.
This time her patient laughed.
“Perhaps I did this time, but somehow you are just a little too cool, Miss Davis; I would say too good, if I did not fear it would make you angry with me. And I don’t want you to be angry. I want you to do me a favor instead. I am better now and I won’t be so much trouble, so won’t you ask Madame Castaigne if you can take charge of me altogether both the day and night work? You could rest in between times and I promise you that from that moment I shall change from a lion into a lamb.”
“I am afraid Madame Castaigne——”
“Oh, please don’t give that excuse. I grow tired of hearing Madame Castaigne’s name. Of course I understand you can’t accept such a task. Please forget I asked you. The truth is, Nona—Miss Davis—I wish you could make up your mind to bear with me for longer than just this time of nursing. I know I only look like half a man with the other half in bandages, and I may be a boor and a bully, but you see I have never had a single woman’s affection in my life——”
Nona was by this time standing up looking very grave and angry.
The yellow light through the window flooded her white nurse’s dress to the color of her hair.
She was like a slender yellow lily, as cold and as remote, which Jack Martin remembered growing in certain aristocratic gardens he had seen in the South.
“I am your nurse, Lieutenant Martin, if you wish me to continue to care for you, please never say anything of that character again, else you make my work impossible.”
Then to Nona’s intense relief she heard someone at the door with her patient’s dinner.
This was not her first experience of this kind. Men who are convalescing are apt to make love to their nurses from a combination of sentimentality and gratitude. But for some reason Nona felt especially annoyed and surprised.
Yet she did not observe Lieutenant Jack Martin’s jaw set, nor his gray eyes flash as he said softly to himself,
“But I shall not always be your patient, my lady.”