BOOK ONE _ ON THE SHELF - CHAPTER VIII. THE SHADOWED ROOM

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BOOK ONE _ ON THE SHELF - 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.

He kept seeing Jean with her head up, declining to dance with him; on the high stool at the confectioner's, her eyes cold above her chocolate; the English Captain and his contemptuous stare; Alma, basely excusing him; Drusilla, in her red and blue and white--singing--!

He waked in the morning with a sore throat. Young Martin came in to light the fire and draw the water for his bath. Later Bronson brought his breakfast and the mail.

"You'd better stay in bed, Mr. Derry."

"I think I shall. How is Dad?"

"The nurse says he is holding his own."

"I am glad of that."

Bronson, feeding warm milk and toast to Muffin, ventured an opinion, "I am not sure that I like the nurse, sir."

"Why not?"

"She's not exactly a lady, and she's not exactly a nurse."

"I see." Derry, having glanced over a letter or two, had picked up an envelope with embossed thistles on the flap. "But she is rather pretty, Bronson."

"Pretty is as pretty does," sententiously.

Silence. Bronson looked across at the young man propped up among the pillows. He was rereading the letter with the thistles on the flap. The strained look had gone out of his eyes, and his lips were smiling.

"I think I'll get up."

"Changed your mind, sir?"

"Yes." He threw back the covers. "I've a thousand things to do."

But there was just one thing which he was going to do which stood out beyond all others. Neither life nor death nor flood nor fire should keep him from presenting himself at four o'clock at Jean McKenzie's door, in response to the precious note which in a moment had changed the world for him. _

Read next: BOOK ONE _ ON THE SHELF: CHAPTER IX. ROSE-COLOR!

Read previous: BOOK ONE _ ON THE SHELF: CHAPTER VII. HILDA

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