Part 12

She could not talk about this to any one, for the mention of Tim's name still aroused a very bitter spirit in Mrs. McSorley, and Maggie feared that if she confided even in Miss Julia, Tim's plans might in some way come to Mrs. McSorley's ears. Although living now afar from her immediate authority, Maggie still stood in great awe of her aunt, and though the rather scanty praises bestowed on her showed a change in Mrs. McSorley's spirit, Maggie knew how unwise it would be to speak to her of Tim.

Of the staff, Brenda was the only one who had little to say about the war. She had not written to Arthur nor he to her since the Artists' Festival; but she heard of him indirectly through Ralph and Agnes. His regiment had gone to Tampa before the end of May, and if he was waiting for her to reply to that unanswered letter, he waited in vain. Brenda, when once she had made up her mind, was very determined. She showed, however, that she was not happy. Her face had lost its color, and she had less animation.

"It all comes from staying indoors so much. Really, you must come with us to Rockley," her parents insisted.

But Brenda would not change her mind. She was now taking the place of Anstiss, who had been called home on account of the illness of her mother.

"I did not know that you could be so industrious, Brenda. Have you any idea how many hundred of these comfort bags you have made this spring?"

"No," said Brenda, so shortly that Edith knew that she had made a mistake in asking the question.

XVIII

WHERE HONOR CALLS

In all his life Philip Blair had hardly learned a harder lesson than that teaching him that it was his duty to stay at home with his father at a time when so many of his friends and classmates were setting off for the war. "They also serve who only stand and wait," echoed constantly in his ear, though unluckily almost as imperative was another refrain, "He that lives and fights and runs away, may live to fight another day." It seemed to him not unlikely that those who did not know him very well might put him in the latter class,--of those who avoided a present danger for an unlikely and distant good.

He could not deny the fact that his father was evidently ill, and as evidently needed him. This in itself was reason enough for his staying in Boston. He had so thoroughly mastered the details of the business, that it would have been false modesty to deny that his departure would make no difference. Even had his father been in perfect health, Philip's departure would have thrown a certain amount of care upon him; but in his present rather weak condition the young man felt that he had no right to add to his burden. He envied Tom Hearst his commission as captain in a regiment of regular troops, and he felt that his years on the ranch had especially fitted him for a place with the Rough Riders. What an opportunity this war might offer a young man for real distinction! and yet the chance was that he could have no part in it. Poor Philip! If some of his critics could have read his heart, they would have had less to say about his staying at home. Certain complications in his father's business had led him to give up his plans for studying law. He was now a business man, pure and simple, and almost any one would admit that he was devoting himself to his father's interests.

In one of his downcast moods one evening he strolled over to the Mansion to take a message from Edith to Julia. His family had already gone down to Beverly, but Edith, with her usual conscientiousness, let hardly a week pass without sending some special message to Gretchen.

The evening was one of the close and sultry evenings of early spring, and as Philip drew near he was pleased to hear the voices of Brenda and Julia. The two were seated on a rattan settle that had been drawn out into the vestibule, and upon greeting them Philip discovered Pamela and Miss South near by. After delivering Edith's message the conversation drifted to the ever-engrossing subject.

"I hardly expected to find so many of you here," said Philip. "Surely some of you intend to go as nurses to help your suffering countrymen."

"Angelina," responded Miss South, "is the only one of us who is desperately in earnest about becoming a nurse."

"So far as I can remember she has all the qualities that a nurse ought not to have."

"Oh, you are rather severe; she is not quite so bad, yet I doubt that she would make a good nurse. But she really is interested, and I have known her to make many sacrifices this spring to help the soldiers."

"She thinks that the Red Cross costume would be very becoming, and that is the secret of her interest," said Brenda, with a slight tinge of bitterness.

"What do you hear from the seat of war?" asked Philip, turning to Brenda, as if to change the subject.

"Oh, I never hear anything. Agnes and Ralph have letters, but I have too much to do to bother about the war."

Brenda's tone belied her words, and Philip wisely attempted no rejoinder. A moment later she made an excuse for leaving the party in group.

"Ralph," explained Julia, "expects to go abroad in a few days; his uncle is very ill in Paris, and it is necessary that he should see him. I believe that Agnes is not sorry that he has decided to go. Otherwise, I am sure that he would soon be starting for Cuba."

"It's hard for any one to stay behind," said Philip; and then as Inez and Nellie came out from the house with a message for Miss South and Julia, the duty of entertaining Philip fell on Pamela. He never knew just how it happened, but soon he was opening his heart to her more freely than he had ever opened it to any one else; and when their little talk was over he felt that at least one person realized that in staying North at a time when men were needed in the South he was truly trying to do his best. Undoubtedly Julia understood this, and Miss South, and all sensible people who saw that Mr. Blair's health was now so precarious; but Pamela made it so clear to Philip that his duty to his father was really the higher duty, that he left the Mansion in a much more cheerful frame of mind than that in which he had approached it.

"It is just as she says," he thought, as he walked homeward. "If my country were attacked, or if our flag were in danger, then it would be the duty of every man to rush to the front. But now--why, when it comes to fighting on land, we'll just have another walkover like the battle of Manila Bay."

He stepped briskly down the hill toward his home.

"What a bright girl Miss Northcote is, and how thankful she must be that her teaching is almost over for the year. Though she never admits it, she must find teaching very tiresome."

Pamela was glad, indeed, that her school tasks were over in season to give her a week or two for special study, as she was anxious to do her very best in the work that she had chosen at Radcliffe this year. The two courses would count toward her post-graduate degree. Strangely enough, a few days before the examination she had a chance to put her own theories of duty into practice.

A telegram from Vermont told her that her aunt had been thrown from a carriage and seriously injured, and that in her moments of delirium she was constantly calling for her. It took Pamela but a few moments to decide, and packing a small trunk she was ready for the evening train North.

"My examinations can wait until next year," she replied to Julia's expostulations; "and even if they could not, this is really the only thing for me to do."

Though for many years her relatives had been far from sympathetic, Pamela recalled the days of her childhood, when they offered her a home, and when in a clumsy way they had tried to make her happy. Knowing how her uncle had depended on his wife, she could not bear to think of his helplessness, and to help him became at once her nearest duty.

Thus it happened that when Philip a few days later came again to the Mansion for counsel, he found Pamela gone. Julia, too, happened to be out, and Brenda, with whom he talked, was so downcast that he was obliged to put himself in the most cheerful frame of mind to assure her that there was not the least danger of actual fighting.

"Why, before you know it, they'll all come marching home, and there'll be processions and speeches and all the things that conquering heroes expect--"

"They won't be conquering heroes if they haven't done any fighting."

"Don't interrupt; and you can throw a wreath at Arthur's feet."

"I wasn't thinking of Arthur."

"Excuse me, but I think that you were; and then, well--and then they will live happy ever after."

"Philip Blair, you are too absurd. Conquering heroes and wreaths, indeed!"

But Philip's nonsense had made Brenda smile, and for the time she was decidedly more cheerful.

When Mr. and Mrs. Barlow went down to Rockley, Brenda had simply refused to go. When they told her that she would suffer in town from the heat, she replied that she did not care, she hoped, indeed, that she would suffer, and concluded by saying emphatically that she was tired of being a mere idler.

"But since you are so unused to hard work, and to the city in hot weather, you must not overdo now. I do wish, Brenda," and Mrs. Barlow's tone was unusually serious, "that you could do things in moderation. If you had taken a little more interest in the work at the Mansion last winter, perhaps you would not feel it necessary to go to extremes now."

"It isn't extremes now, only I have more time to give to Julia, and I don't feel like going to Rockley; and why should any one care, especially as you have Agnes and Lettice with you."

Mrs. Barlow for the time said no more. She managed, however, to persuade Brenda to spend a day or two each week at Rockley, usually Saturday and Sunday; and every Wednesday a large box of flowers was sent up to the school with a card marked, "With love, from little Lettice."

Concetta was now more than ever devoted to Brenda, and the latter found her conversation more entertaining than that of any of the others,--possibly because she heard more of it. Often during the hour before bedtime she sat on the old rattan settle in the vestibule, while the tongue of the little Italian girl rattled on over a great variety of topics. Maggie, passing in or out sometimes after watering the plants in the little garden, often felt like sitting down beside Brenda, but she was never asked to join the two, and, unasked, she would not venture. Then to console herself she would put her hand on the crumpled letter at the bottom of her pocket. There was one person who cared for her, and Tim, knowing that his letters would not be intercepted by Mrs. McSorley, wrote to her often. His description of his life with the troops seemed to her most wonderful, and oh! how she longed to show to the others that picture that he had had taken of himself in uniform and broad campaign hat.

Angelina's interest in the war turned chiefly on her belief that she was destined to be a nurse. A large red cross cut from flannel she had sewed to her sleeve, and she told the younger girls that as soon as her mother should give her permission she was going to Cuba. "As soon, at least, as there's been a perfectly dreadful battle; of course I don't want to go until I can be of real use."

As a matter of fact Angelina had little prospect of entering upon this career of nurse, though she cherished the hope that her mother and Miss Julia might some time give their consent.

From Tampa in June Arthur wrote home much about the condition of the volunteers who had gone to the war without suitable equipment, and the fingers of the young girls at the Mansion flew more swiftly, that they might the more surely increase their quota of comfort bags.

"Just think of Toby's having to work like a laborer," said Nora, two of whose brothers had already found their way to the army in the front at the South. "He says that if it were not for the hammock that he sleeps in at night he never could stand the heat; but oh, dear! I do hope that there won't be any real fighting. Where do you suppose that the Spaniards are now?"

"Off this coast, probably," said Edith; "they say there's a big pile of coal at Salem, and that the Spanish ships will be sure to try to get it. I wish we were going to Europe this summer, for I'm afraid that I should not enjoy seeing a battle."

"Well, I'd sooner see one than feel one, as might be the case if there should be fighting off this coast; but I am sure that this will not be the case, and we must feel that our part in the war is simply to keep up our own courage, and that of our friends and relations, especially of those who have gone to the war marching toward Cuba."

This was the sensible view to take, and Nora was only one of many girls whose chief work those long spring days consisted in cutting out garments, in hemming and sewing, in knitting bandages, and in following the directions of those older women who had organized themselves to care for the needs of the soldiers in the field.

Some of them, I am afraid (but we will whisper this), were a little impatient that nothing happened; that is, that there had been no fighting. But they were those who had no relatives and no friends in the army.

Brenda waited eagerly for each letter from Arthur, for he wrote frequently from Tampa to Agnes. Ralph had already reached Paris, and the house at Rockley seemed strangely quiet; for Lettice was a demure little girl, playing very quietly in her corner of the garden or the drawing-room.

Two letters of Arthur's had lain unanswered, and now Brenda was unwilling to make up for her neglect. "Arthur should write to me," she said to herself, although she really knew that she could hardly expect such a concession from even a young man far less proud than Arthur Weston. Yet Brenda for a time tried to nurse a grievance, rather vainly, it must be admitted, essaying to persuade herself that Arthur was in the wrong.

In the mean time, at the Mansion, she was really very helpful. She was especially zealous in taking the girls to some of the factories that Julia and Miss South thought it well for the girls to visit in little groups. Thus the process of biscuit-making, and spice-making, and half a dozen other processes had been made clear to them in the course of the spring, and Brenda said that in accompanying Miss South and the girls on these expeditions she gained much more than she ever had from the occasional historic pilgrimages that she had sometimes made with her cousins.

The girls of the Mansion made one or two historic pilgrimages, too. In Brenda there was not a deep poetic vein, and something akin to this is needed to make one thoroughly appreciate historic surroundings. In the bustling factories she found something with which her spirit was more in sympathy.

The questions asked by the girls with her diverted her; the explanations given by their guides in these places took her out of herself.

During the summer the girls were to be invited to New Hampshire; for Julia had been able to arrange with a farmer living not far from the home of Eliza, her former maid, to have half a dozen of the girls board with him for two months, while two were to be under the care of Eliza. Julia or Miss South was to be at the farmer's during all the stay of these girls, but on the whole the summer was to be considered a time of recreation rather than work, and what the girls should learn in the country was to be gained rather by observation than by direct teaching.

As the choice had been given them, three or four had preferred to return to their own families for the summer rather than to go to the country, and thus the number to be looked after was not too large for the successful carrying out of Julia's vacation plans. Her first intention had been to take a house and equip it for summer work, carried on upon the same plan as that of the Mansion in the winter, but her uncle and aunt and others had pointed out so clearly the disadvantages of this scheme that she had quickly given it up. The girls were likely to return to their duties in the autumn much fresher, and much readier to set to work, than if they had had the same kind of household tasks that fell to them in winter.

Mr. and Mrs. Barlow wished that Julia had planned to close the Mansion on the first of June instead of July, for they saw that Brenda had no intention of coming down to Rockley permanently until July.

"Surely you are not so very much needed at this season. Julia and Miss South could undoubtedly get some one else to take your place," her mother remonstrated; and Brenda merely replied:

"Oh, I am needed; I like to feel that I am needed, and besides it is my own choice; I am staying in town because I want to."

It was evidently useless to argue, and Mrs. Barlow made no further effort to persuade her to change her mind. Naturally, however, she was somewhat concerned to notice that Brenda was growing paler and thinner. She felt that no good could come from Brenda's staying so late in town.

XIX

THEY STAND AND WAIT

"Why so pensive?"

"Pensive! Am I? I did not mean to be; it is certainly not exactly polite when I have company." Julia smiled at Lois as she spoke, for Lois was making one of her infrequent visits to the Mansion, and the two girls had been reviewing many of the events of their college years.

"Yes, you were pensive; you looked as if something weighed on your mind. That particular expression has vanished now," concluded Lois; "but since I caught that very unusual look, please tell me what it means. Is it the war?"

"Oh, no, not wholly."

"Then partly; do you wish to go as a nurse?"

"Oh, no; that is a kind of personal service for which I have never thought myself especially well adapted. I leave that to experts like you and Clarissa, for I suppose that now Clarissa is on her way to Cuba, ready to do the bidding of the Red Cross. Why, Lois, with your bent in that direction I do not wonder that you are pleased at the prospect of going where you can really do some good."

"I am not altogether sure that I can go. My mother is opposed to my going, and to-day when I went to see Miss Ambrose I found her seriously ill. I came to town to do an errand for her, but I could not resist running up here for a few minutes; I wished to know what you had heard from Clarissa."

"It was only the briefest note, but she seems perfectly delighted with the prospect before her of going. She is so strong that I am sure that no harm will come to her, and she will be a perfect host in camp or hospital."

"And the cap and apron will become her. Can you not see her with her cap tilted over her dark curls? I haven't the slightest doubt that she will pin a bow of scarlet ribbon somewhere on her gown, even though the regulations prescribe sombre costume."

"Indeed, I can see her at this very minute, a real ray of sunshine; but, Lois, I hope that Miss Ambrose is not very ill."

"I cannot tell. It is a nervous break down. All that she reads and hears about the war carries her back to the days of the Civil War. She lost several dear relatives and friends then, and the present excitement has caused what I should call a kind of reflex action. Unless this Spanish War proves longer than we expect, a few weeks rest will bring her around. I am glad that my examinations are just over, for I must spend my time with her."

"Naturally," responded Julia; "and after all, this will be as good a cause as nursing sick soldiers, though I understand your disappointment."

As the two friends talked, Julia's face lost the pensive expression that Lois had remarked when she first came in. The expression had no deeper reason than her feeling of dissatisfaction with her winter's work, a regret that what she had undertaken must hamper her now, when greater things were claiming the attention of so many other of her friends. Yet before Lois went home she had begun to see that she need not be dissatisfied with her own limitations.

"'They also serve who only stand and wait,'" Lois had quoted apropos to herself, just as Philip had quoted it some weeks before, and Julia found this line of Milton's even more applicable to her own case than Philip had to his. For there was a prospect that Lois, if the war continued, might find it possible to offer herself as a nurse, while Julia was sure that the duties that she had assumed would prevent her doing this, even as Philip knew that he could not leave his father. Julia regretted, too, that she had not as much money to offer as she would have had but for her year's work at the Mansion.

Miss Ambrose, to whom Lois had referred, was not a relative, nor even an old friend. She had made the acquaintance of this elderly woman by chance toward the close of her Radcliffe course, and had found her way to Miss Ambrose's heart without special effort on her own part. An accident had enabled her to do Miss Ambrose a real kindness. The older woman had been greatly pleased to learn that Lois was studying at Radcliffe. Her own tastes in her younger days had inclined her to a college education, but, alas! at that time there was small opportunity for a woman to go to college. In interesting herself in Lois' college work she had seemed to live over again her own youth, and she was never weary of hearing the details of college life. Later, when Lois was on the point of leaving Radcliffe, because she had not the money to stay there longer, Miss Ambrose insisted on her accepting from her the sum necessary to enable her to remain. In view of the older woman's kindness, and also because a genuine friendship existed between the two, it was natural that Lois should wish to stay with Miss Ambrose while she was ill. Indeed, she was glad to do this, even though she had to curb her desire to be a nurse during the war.

When Lois left, Julia put herself through a little cross-examination; for a month or two she had not been wholly satisfied with her year's work. Had she used her time and her money in the best way? Was there not some other work that she might have carried on to greater advantage? Was it altogether wise to have given up so entirely her own personal interests? Ah! Clarissa was right; she was not justified in putting entirely aside her music--especially her work in composition. What, indeed, had she to show for the year? So her thoughts ran. Ten girls better trained in useful things than would have been the case without the Mansion teaching; but this year must be followed up by another year of teaching, and then in the end could she be sure that they would retain what they had learned? Concetta and Haleema had improved superficially, but she was by no means confident that they were really neater or really more truthful than in the beginning. Maggie--and here she smiled--broke fewer dishes, but her reticence was far from commendable. Frankness was a virtue that she herself constantly preached, yet she had been able to instil very little of this quality into Maggie's breast. In spite of all her precepts, too, Inez was still as willing as at the beginning of the year to put on her stockings with the feet unmended, and--"Difficulties are things that show what men are." Like a ray of sunlight this thought from Epictetus flashed across Julia's mind. After all, how few real difficulties she had had to meet during the year; and had not the successes been more than the failures?

Mary Murphy had been the only one of the girls to insist on leaving the school, although she had occasionally heard the others expressing their dissatisfaction, especially when some of them had undergone some of the discipline that they had to undergo. One of the first lessons to learn had been that of the general deceitfulness of girls, and of these girls in particular, who did not hesitate to make many little criticisms as unjustifiable as they were foolish.