CHAPTER XIII
A Closer Bond
NEXT day as soon as she had the opportunity Nona walked over to Madame Bonnèt’s.
She had made an effort to see Barbara and try to awaken her interest in their little French acquaintance, but again Barbara had disappeared. But then she naturally had a good many things to attend to in connection with winding up the business connected with the entertainment of the night before.
And Nona did not object to going to Madame Bonnèt’s alone. This was one of the things she had been fond of doing ever since her meeting with the splendid French woman. However, one could not expect the privilege often, for no one was so busy as Madame Bonnèt, nor had a greater number of calls upon her time. Scarcely a soldier in the division located within her village, but came to Madame Bonnèt for advice or sympathy whenever anything went wrong.
Nona was never to forget the morning of this day when so many strange things were to occur.
It was a day caught between summer and early fall, with the beauty and fragrance of both. Moreover, in the French country there is ever a curious appeal that only a few lands have. It is a sense of intimacy, a sense of nearness to nature, as if she were really the great mother, viewing birth and life and death with a wonderful patience, knowing that within her lie always the seeds and the garden for the new generations to come.
Besides, Nona had brought Duke with her. He seemed to like to walk with her more than with anyone beside his mistress. But recently Duke had been growing noticeably older and wore a look of noble depression, which one observes now and then in the aging of a fine dog.
Nona went past Madame Bonnèt’s former home which she had given up to the American officers, only glancing up at the tower where she and the other nurses had seen their first American drill upon French soil.
Of course, Madame Bonnèt had probably taken Jeanne and her soldier into her own tiny home with herself and Berthe, finding a place for them somehow.
But perhaps the little girl and her companion would be outside in the garden. As Nona went down the path between the vegetables she had the impression that there were figures near the dove cote, a little hidden from observation.
Within a few yards of them she stopped and to her own annoyance uttered a slight exclamation.
Barbara Thornton and Lieutenant Kelley were deep in some kind of intimate conversation.
Nona saw that Barbara flushed with anger on recognizing her; there was in her manner almost a suggestion that she believed Nona had purposely come to spy upon her.
But Lieutenant Kelley came forward immediately.
Nona thought he looked tired and a good deal older since his arrival in France. But then she knew how hard the younger American officers were working with the idea of being able to assist in the training of the new troops when they arrived.
“Is there anyone you wish, or anything I can do for you?” he asked with his usual courtesy.
Nona shook her head.
“I am sorry to have interrupted you. I was merely looking for Madame Bonnèt. A little French girl is here with her whom I wish to see.”
“You mean Jeanne?” Lieutenant Kelley answered “Isn’t it strange, her coming here to our camp. I saw the little girl with the French solder only yesterday and recalled our having seen her at the railroad station that day on our way to camp. But you are not interrupting us, or at least Mrs. Thornton and I were having a conversation which could bear being interrupted.”
Barbara had come forward by this time looking ashamed of her lack of self-control, although her face was still a little flushed.
“Don’t be absurd, Nona!” she exclaimed. “I was talking to Lieutenant Kelley on business. But what is this about a little French girl?”
Nona explained and Barbara linked her arm in hers, almost equally surprised and interested.
“Queer that we should all have remembered the child and her soldier so well. But no, it is not queer; one could scarcely have forgotten such a companionship. May I come with you?”
So Nona and Barbara started toward Madame Bonnèt’s tiny house, leaving Lieutenant Kelley talking to Duke and trying to make friends with him. The great dog was friendly enough, but not disposed toward intimacies.
Just outside the door the two girls stopped. Someone was about to open it, perhaps having heard their approach.
The next moment Jeanne stepped out, leading her friend as she always did. But at the sight of Barbara and Nona she left him standing a moment alone and came forward, giving her hand to Nona, but fixing her eyes upon Barbara Thornton.
“It was you who told me to do my best to help my Captain find his friends. I did not forget. When we could manage we slipped away from our convalescent hospital without saying good-bye, as we would have been forbidden to leave. Since then we have traveled many miles, yet nothing has come of it.” She gave a tiny shrug of her childish shoulders, half as an expression of philosophy, half as an acknowledgment of defeat.
“But isn’t the Captain himself better?” Nona inquired, although convinced beforehand of the truth.
The French soldier, whom, as an act of courtesy both to him and to his guardian, everyone spoke of as “Captain,” remained in the same spot Jeanne had placed him, his head hanging down and with a great bandage tied over the upper part of his face. As a matter of fact, he was thinner and more shrunken and vaguer than before he and Jeanne had started upon their pilgrimage. But then they had walked so far, reached so many strange places and so many questions had been asked of him, impossible for him to answer! More than ever was the French soldier dependent on the touch of Jeanne’s little hand.
And she, for the moment, had deserted him!
Then, for a brief time, Nona and Barbara and Lieutenant Kelley were overcome with surprise and consternation. It chanced that Jeanne did not notice at once or she might never have allowed the thing to take place.
Lieutenant Kelley had remained where he was in the lower part of the garden, allowing Barbara and Nona to have their meeting with Jeanne undisturbed. As a precaution he had placed his hand on Duke’s collar, thinking perhaps the dog might frighten the little girl, or more likely, since it was difficult to associate timidity with Jeanne, that he might startle her companion.
Suddenly, when he was not anticipating any action on Duke’s part, the dog had looked at him with an expression which was imploring and at the same time savage. Afterwards, he had broken away and with a few leaps had crossed the small space of the garden, making directly for the injured soldier.
The situation seemed incredible, Duke had never deliberately attacked any human being before. Now to attack a defenseless man!
Hugh Kelley ran a few steps, drawing his pistol. He would not hurt the dog seriously, if it were possible to avoid, but Jeanne’s friend must be protected.
However, the great dog had not thrown the soldier down, as they had all expected As he reached him he stopped short, looked at him closely and then with indescribable gentleness and affection began licking his hand, pressing his great silver-gray body as close as possible to the emaciated figure without disturbing him.
And the French soldier did not seem frightened. Gropingly, it is true, nevertheless he reached down and laid his hand on Duke’s head.
An instant before Jeanne had witnessed the meeting, but seeing that the dog did not intend to hurt her friend, she had remained still.
Now she turned to Nona and Barbara her eyes filled with tears.
“My Captain has found someone who knows him,” she remarked quietly. Then she went over and took the French soldier’s disengaged hand.
“Jeanne,” he whispered.
“Are we mad, Nona? I think perhaps I am,” Barbara murmured, her face suddenly having grown white and her voice shaking.
Nona shook her head.
“Barbara, if what we think is true, would it not be better never to have found out. Besides, you did not recognize him, nor did I? Can Duke have been wiser?”
Barbara was crying. “Of course, Duke has senses we do not possess. Besides, we were only his friends and Duke loved him. I thought there was something familiar in the figure. No, I did not, there was never any human being so changed. Poor Eugenia! I can’t bear it.”
Lieutenant Kelley was now standing nearby, looking extremely unhappy over Barbara’s distress and extremely puzzled.
“We think perhaps Jeanne’s friend is someone we know,” Nona tried to explain, “only we cannot really believe it and there seems no way of finding out without great difficulty and sorrow.”
“Whoever he may be, Duke knows his master,” Hugh Kelley answered in a tone of entire conviction. “I believe in all the cases of this kind of which one has ever heard, there has never been a mistake.”
“Jeanne, why does your Captain always wear that bandage over his face? Is it that he is blind, or has he some wound, there? Please don’t think I ask from curiosity, but unless one can see him——”
Jeanne whispered something and the French soldier immediately bent his head. Slowly Jeanne unwound the bandage.
“He can see a little, my Captain,” Jeanne answered proudly, “only the surgeons have thought it best that he rest his eyes for a time, until his sight comes wholly back.”
“Please look: and decide, Nona dear, I don’t dare,” Barbara whispered. However, she did look of course and both she and Nona recognized in Jeanne’s soldier Eugenia’s husband, Captain Henri Castaigne.
And yet he was so changed it was not strange that they had not recognized him in their chance meeting before today.
The Captain Castaigne whom they remembered, the friend who had said farewell to them at the little house with the blue front door, which was a part of his own estate, had been young and gallant. He had borne himself with a fine soldierly erectness, had been full of gayety and good humor and charm, one’s ideal of a French soldier and lover, for he and Eugenia had been married only lately.
Now he was Jeanne’s friend, but the pathos of him was beyond expression. Not in death, but in life one measures the tragedies of war.
However, the eyes, the shape of the head, even the figure itself, left no chance for doubting in either Nona’s or Barbara’s consciousness, much as they would have preferred to doubt.
“You know Madame Castaigne, Lieutenant Kelley,” Nona said, as soon as she could speak. “Her husband, Captain Castaigne, has been reported as among the missing for a good many months. We believe Jeanne’s friend is Captain Castaigne; it may even be that Jeanne’s name made some slight impression upon his memory, for Gene is the name by which Captain Castaigne always called his wife. But we don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t feel we ought to tell Eugenia; at least, I know I never can,” Barbara interrupted.
“But we must, Barbara, we have no right to hide such a discovery,” Nona argued. “Still, I do not think I can be the one to go to Eugenia first. Oh, I did not dream I was such a coward!”
But at this moment another figure came walking toward them, with a great bowl in her arms and an expression of ever triumphant courage on her smooth, fine face. It was Madame Bonnèt on the way to feed her carrier pigeons.
“We must ask Madame Bonnèt what to do. She will be able to tell us,” Nona exclaimed and went forward with her story.