The Red Cross Girls with Pershing to Victory

The dignity and importance of her own social position never seemed to enter Charlotta's mind, even after her family had devoted long hours to bringing the fact before her attention.

Reaching sixteen it had become her duty to play a small part in the little court of her cousin, the Grand Duchess. But although the court life was simple and far less formal than in countries of greater wealth and size than the little duchy of Luxemburg, nevertheless Charlotta found even the mild formalism irksome.

The real difficulty lay in the fact that the members of the Grand Duchess's court were Germans in thought, in ancestry and in their ideals.

Now the little Countess Charlotta faced a life when she must always remain surrounded with these same influences; influences that she hated and that had always repelled and antagonized her.

What matter if the Germans had failed in their war against freedom, if her own freedom was still denied her? Moreover, since the German failure her father appeared more than ever determined to force her marriage.

If the German nobility were in disgrace, if the men surrounding the Kaiser had fallen with their master from their high estate, at least the Count Scherin of Luxemburg was faithful to old principles. Luxemburg was a neutral state and there could be no interference with his personal ideas and designs.

Moreover, a few moments before the Countess Charlotta had received her father's ultimatum and had just concluded the reading of his note which demanded that she return home within the next thirty-six hours.

Well, she would be more sorry to say farewell to her friends than they would ever appreciate. Besides, she must go away from the Red Cross hospital without the inspiration and the aid she had hoped to receive from her contact with a group of American girls. How much she had hoped to learn from the example of their courage. Surely some of them must have broken away from family traditions in coming from their own homes into foreign lands to nurse the wounded! And she had dreamed she might learn to follow their example.

But how quiet the house seemed at present. It was strange to recall that her accident had brought her to this house where her mother had lived as a girl, a house which had been a part of her inheritance from her mother, although she had rarely been inside it.

If only one of the Red Cross girls would come and talk with her. There was so little time left when this would be possible and she so dreaded her own society. What would she do when she returned to the old narrowness of her past existence with the eternal disagreements?

Never except when she was outdoors could Charlotta endure being alone.

For the first time since her accident the little countess was almost completely dressed in a brown costume which Bianca had with great difficulty adjusted over her injured arm.

Walking to her door Charlotta opened it, glancing out into the wide hall.

If she had thought to mention it to Mrs. Clark, she would surely have gained permission to wander over this floor of her mother's former home. As a matter of fact, she had not been inside the place for a number of years, as the property she had inherited from her mother was in the hands of a business agent.

Stepping out into the wide hall Charlotta started toward the front window which overlooked the grounds. In a moment, however, she saw that the space before the window was occupied by a wheeled chair and that an American officer was seated there letting the sunlight stream over him.

Undismayed Charlotta walked forward.

"You have been ill and are better, I am glad," she said simply.

She had a curious lack of self-consciousness and a friendliness which was very charming.

The young officer attempted to rise.

"Why, yes, I am better, thank you. I have been stupidly ill from an attack of influenza just as my men were on the march toward Germany and I should have given anything in the world to have been able to go along with them. However, I must not grumble. I am right again so you need not be afraid of me. We have been kept pretty well isolated from you. But won't you have this chair?"

The girl shook her head.

"You are very kind and you can be quite certain I am not afraid of you. Sit down again, I know you will refuse to confess it, but you do look pretty weak still. And there is nothing the matter with me. Oh, I have a few bruises and a broken arm, but after all they are not serious. I wonder now what I was actually trying to do when I flung myself off my horse. Have you ever been desperate enough not to care what happened to you?"

"But you don't mean, Countess Charlotta – "

"How do you know my name?" the girl answered quickly, as if wishing to forget what she had just confessed. "Are you not Major James Hersey, one of the youngest majors in the United States overseas service? I think I have been hearing a good deal of you from Bianca Zoli and the other Red Cross girls."

Major Jimmie Hersey colored through his pallor, according to his annoying boyish habit.

"Well, Countess Charlotta, surely you have not counted on remaining a mystery – not to the American soldiers who have been ill here in your house, your guests in a fashion. We have seldom had so romantic an experience as having a countess as a patient along with the American doughboys and in the selfsame hospital. But I really can't sit here and talk to you while you stand. At least you will let me bring you a chair?"

With a good deal of satisfaction Charlotta nodded her head, her hair showing even duskier in contrast with the white bandage over her forehead.

Talking to American girls she had found extraordinarily entertaining, but to talk to a young American officer might be even more agreeable. It certainly would be a novelty, as this youthful major was the first American man with whom she had ever exchanged a word, save the two young American Red Cross physicians.

"I want to congratulate you on your victory," Charlotta added, when the chair had been secured and she had seated herself upon it in an entirely friendly and informal attitude. "Always my sympathies have been with the allies from the very first. You see my mother was French and I suppose I am like her. I believe French people have the love of freedom in their blood just as you Americans have."

"I say, I thought there was something unusual about you," Major Jimmie answered impetuously. "I really can't imagine your being even half German. But that is not very polite of me and anyhow your country is not German. I have been reading about Luxemburg. You were once a part of France and after the French revolution became one of the ten departments, known as the department of forests, the Forest Canton. Except for your Grand Ducal family you have never been German in sentiment."

The Countess Charlotta hummed the line of a popular version of the national anthem of Luxemburg at the present time.

"Prussians will we not become." Then as she could not help being confidential she added:

"But suppose, suppose you were going to be forced into a German marriage, what, what would you do? I hate it, hate it, and yet – "

"Well, nothing on earth would induce me to consider it," Major Jimmie answered, his brown eyes shining and his face a deeper crimson. "You must forgive me, but you know I can't see anything straight about Germany yet and the thought of a girl like you marrying one of the brutes, – but perhaps I ought not to say anything as we are strangers and I might be tempted into saying too much."

"You could not say too much," Charlotta returned encouragingly. "I wish you would give me your advice. If I had been a boy I would have run away and fought against Germany and been killed, or if I had not been killed perhaps my family would have cast me off. I am thinking of running away anyhow, only I don't know just where to go. Do you think I could get to America without being discovered? Perhaps I might dress as a soldier. You see I can speak English and French and German. I had to learn languages as a child even when I hated studying and now I'm glad. Then you know I can ride and shoot pretty well. I don't know why my father ever consented to have me taught, save that it amused him a little to have me show the tastes he would have liked in a son."

Major Hersey felt himself growing a little confused, as if he were losing his sense of proportion. He was not much given to reading, but he remembered two delightful romances, one "A Lady of Quality," the other "The Prisoner of Zenda." Here he was finding the two stories melting into one in the person of the girl beside him. Well the situation was surprising even a little thrilling!

Yet Major Jimmie knew what his own ideals required of him.

"I am sorry, I am afraid I don't dare offer you advice. Haven't you some woman who is your friend to whom you could appeal? There is Mrs. Clark; I have been knowing her some time when I was in camp not far from her Red Cross hospital near Château-Thierry. Why not talk to her? Still, if I were you I would not try running away, certainly not to the United States. It is pretty far and you could never make it. Excuse me, but you know it is amusing to hear you talk of dressing as a soldier. I am afraid you would not get away with the disguise five minutes. Wonder if you have half an idea what a soldier has to undergo before he can get aboard a transport for home."

The young American officer laughed and then his expression grew serious.

"Please don't say a thing like that again, even in jest and please don't even think it. I know a girl who has been brought up as you have been thinks she knows something about the world, when in reality she knows nothing, anyhow, nothing that is ugly or real. I say, here comes Mrs. Clark now, why not ask her to help you?"

At this moment Sonya Clark was advancing down the hall to escort her patient, Major James Hersey, back to his own room.

A little surprised on discovering the intimacy of the conversation, which was undoubtedly taking place between the young officer and the girl who had certainly not known each other half an hour before, Sonya stopped and looked toward them.

Then she smiled at the little picture they made together and came forward to join them.

CHAPTER X

The Talk with Sonya

"BUT, my dear child, surely you must see my position! The Red Cross unit of which I am a member has asked the hospitality of your country in order that we may care for a number of our ill soldiers until they are sufficiently recovered to be sent away. I am deeply sorry and troubled for you. But how can I show my appreciation of the courtesy – and I know our continued presence in Luxemburg has been an embarrassment – by a betrayal of confidence? It would be a betrayal if I were to aid you in getting away from your home and country without your father's knowledge. In a way it would not only be a personal discourtesy and deceit, there might even be international difficulties. You are related to the Grand Ducal family while I, well, very unimportant persons can make important difficulties these days! So I am afraid I must refuse what you ask. But surely if you speak plainly to your father and make him understand your feeling in the matter, he will not demand a sacrifice of your youth and happiness. Of course I don't know the laws or the customs of your country, but an enforced marriage these days appears as an impossibility."

"It is not a question of law or custom, Mrs. Clark; only in reigning families are marriages actually arranged," the Countess Charlotta answered. "Of course you know, however, that in Germany the consent of the parents to a marriage is almost essential, and my father is German born and was brought up in Germany, coming to Luxemburg when he was near middle age. But I am not trying to pretend to you that I am actually being forced into this marriage, since in the end in spite of my pretence of bravery it will be my own cowardice which will condemn me to it. I simply do not feel I can go on living at home with my father and aunt if I refuse my consent. All my life I have been a disappointment to them and the atmosphere of our existence has been one long disagreement with antagonism between us on every possible subject. You see I have a good deal of money in my own right and the man my father wishes me to marry is an old friend of his, who has lost his fortune through the war. My father is very bitter over the result of the war, even if he may be forced to pretend otherwise. I think he wishes to give my fortune to his friend as much as he wishes to see me a proper German wife. But don't worry about me, Mrs. Clark, I do see your point of view and am sorry to have troubled you."

It was past the usual hour of bed-time in the Red Cross hospital and Sonya had come in to talk to the young Luxemburg countess on her way to her own room.

She got up now and began walking up and down, feeling worried and uncertain. The young countess's situation, her beauty and charm, made a deep appeal and yet she was powerless to do what she asked and help her to escape from her uncongenial environment.

The girl's suggestion had been singularly childlike. She wished to be allowed to go away from Luxemburg with the Red Cross girls secretly and to remain in hiding with them.