War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 24
XXIV
A FAVOR TO SHOOT HER
BEFORE Betsy could dress and get there Evelyn came to. She understood the whole thing at once.
"Evelyn," I says, "I didn't know it was you."
Well, with all that blood running out of her she laughs and hugs me!
"And I didn't know it was you! Thought it a picket. What a state of things! How did you make your voice roar so? My, but you frightened me. You could tell that by the way I fired. Did any stars fall?"
I couldn't believe it for a minute or two!
"Daddy, do it again," she begs, "please roar again! I suppose you were scared, too!"
She laughs and hugs me again.
"Evelyn, forgive me," I says, sorry enough for both of us, God knows.
"On one condition," says she, with all her wits, and putting a hand on the wound to stop its bleeding, "that you never tell on me. And help me."
Well, I was in such a state that I would have agreed to any other condition. But I says:
"On one condition—that you don't die."
"Agreed," she says. "I won't die. Oh, I'm so glad to live—now! It is really not much. In the lower left-hand corner of my jacket is a package of things for self-help in case of wounds—sewed in the lining. Cut it out."
As I took up the bloody jacket she laughed again and said:
"That's what I was making, and unmaking, like Penelope, daddy, dear. Not a trousseau, is it? And it is all beautifully done. Feather-stitching, felling, quilting! Look at it. And see what you've done to it—ruined it at the very first wearing. I said you were never to see it. And I meant it. But—you never can tell. Oh, my God, I thank thee! Now—now you understand, daddy!"
But it was sobs for a minute then.
I got the bandages and the medicines, and with a little help from me she bound up the wound as good as any doctor could.
"Stand outside the door," she commands me briskly, "and if Betsy should come, tell her I had nightmare and called out, but am asleep again."
I did so, and, when Betsy came, which was soon, I told her that. She was glad to be able to go back to bed again.
"Come in," whispers Evelyn, through the door.
When I enters again, Evelyn is in her nightie, like a regular girl. The uniform is gone. You'll hardly believe it, but she laughs and pulls me down on the bed beside her.
"Don't look so sorry, daddy," she laughs, "you have done me a big favor."
"Gosh-a-mighty!" says I, "that's the first time I ever heard it called a favor to shoot you!"
"You didn't shoot me much. I had to go—just simply had to—to save us. I was in such a position—that I had to. You and Jon enlisting forced me. Anyhow, they wouldn't have waited much longer for the making of the uniform. What immortal fools we be! Once I tried to make myself believe that I wanted to; but the first thought I had after your bullet struck—and before I fainted—was that now I had a good excuse for not— How I am running on! Never mind. The blood has stopped. You won't even have to get me a doctor. If I should need one I will let you know promptly. Don't worry. So much for that. I can take care of it. Your bullet went through. And at a not very thick place. If no blood poisoning sets in I will be all right. I know you use nice clean bullets. If it does turn bad off for a doctor you go—you, not Jon or Dave—and you must keep my secret as sworn, aforesaid. But about my hair—that's the difficulty. It will be best for you to say that it was coming out so fast that you advised the cutting. That you cut it, in fact. It's not a very good job. I will stay in my room for some time—I will have to—and by the time they see me again they will not be surprised by its loss. Is it all right? Are we pals in this?"
She was so gay and happy that this was still another Evelyn! Full of fun after just escaping being killed! What do you think of that!
"Yes," I says, "pals in this and everything to the death."
"Not death," she shivers. "I don't have to die now—since I'm killed."
She pulls me down and hugs and kisses me.
"Oh, daddy," she says, happy as can be, "you certainly did me a great favor in shooting me! They'll be satisfied with that. Who'd ever thought of anything so easy? They'll know who Mallory is now. God knows where I would have been by this time—because I must—must. Now I am here"—and she whispers, soft as praying,—"where Dave—is!"
Then some more hugs and kisses and she pushes me away.
"Good night, dearest of daddies, you've done me the favor of my life. Honest! I wonder if I could have carried it through? When I heard that whistle I wanted to run home instead of to the Potomac. My head knew the way South, but my legs knew only the way back to you-all. Dave's black was waiting for me. I was to go into the cavalry,—Stuart's. I had already enlisted—as Mallory."
Then it seemed as if the horror of it suddenly came over her. She sobbed, shrieked, raved for a minute.
"Oh, daddy, you don't know what you have saved me from. Why, daddy, if you had had to kill me—if I were lying here now dying—I would thank you! Yes, that would be better than anything I had planned! Yes! Daddy, daddy, God bless that bullet of yours! And, yes, yes, as I said before, good night, dearest of daddies, good night! Thank you—thank you so much for shooting me. There seemed no way out. Then you come with your gun—and, lo! it is all fixed as quickly as that shot of yours came after me. Yes, yes, good night—good night—"
Then I has an idea—got from Jon.
"Now listen. There's a way—a way to happiness for us all—a very nice way. It's all fixed. Jon has been sure that you were making your wedding things in your room and that you and Dave were going to spring a wedding on us. The way out of the whole matter is to do it, carry that whole idea out. As Dave's wife they've got to let you alone. Of course, he'll beat you sometimes like that night, ha, ha!"
Such a light as came into her face at that I never saw before.
"Daddy, oh, my darling daddy! Do you think it can be done? Will Dave marry me?—with so many things to be explained?"
"Sight unseen!" says I, glad that she took it so well. "I'll see to that. I'll speak to Parr Kellermann as soon as you are well enough to get ready."
"I'll begin to-night," laughs Evelyn. "Make him marry me!"
"Not quite so fast as that," says I, serious now. "Before I make Dave marry you, you got to promise that you'll behave. You remember how savage he was when he said he'd beat you. Well, if you don't behave he'll do it. He'll break you just like he does horses!"
"Yes, yes!" she laughs, and hugs me, "I know!"
"Well, I hate to see Dave treat you like a horse."
"Don't the horses like him afterward?"
"You bet they do."
"So shall I, daddy, darling."
"What, you mean that you ain't afraid to be broke like a horse by Dave?"
She shook her head.
"By goshens, I believe you're crazy to have him do it!"
She nods.
"Well," I says, "I expect the soldier was right that I am a little slow at the head. I'll never understand that."
"Not till you're a woman," says Evelyn.
"Good night, daddy, dear. And thank you for not saying it the other time. No. Wait. I have an idea."
"Hurry—before it gets away!" laughs I.
"They're both so innocent and trusting, not such villains as you and I, that, maybe, Jon and Dave would believe that that is the cause of my illness—getting ready for my wedding. I—I was so crazy for it! You know that's an awful strain on a girl."
"I've never been a girl," says I. "But how are you going to make Dave believe in the craziness for the wedding? He's asked you seventy-five times to fix a day and you wouldn't."
"I couldn't, daddy, daddy, dear. Don't you see that this was hanging over me? Oh, it has been like the sword of Damocles ever since Dave came. For, it was then too late already. What I had to do to-day was inevitable then. Wasn't it awful?"
"Rather awful," says I, "but don't say dam'. It's not nice for ladies"—though, of course, I knew who Damocles was—I looked it up. "The way to fix it is to fix old Jon first, and then get him after Dave. Dave'll believe anything Jonthy tells him—if it's that the end of the world is coming to-morrow at seven minutes apast eight. And Jon'll believe in anything that comes from you, if it turns white black. But don't forget that Dave's the fellow you're going to marry, not Jon, and if he don't know anything about it—"
She laughs in the old-fashioned happy way.
"Oh, my dear, old, blind daddy! Why, what do you think has been going on right under your big old nose all the time?"
"Well, what?" says I.
"Daddy, Dave asked me to marry him the first day and also the second and third day after he came home!"
"Gosh-a-mighty!" says I. "Now, you don't say, you don't really say so! That quick! Not a minute wasted! And what did you say?"
She laughs again, like she'd burst open.
"What did I say! Do you really have to be told that?"
"Yes," I says, "I want to know. I'm thick in my skull."
Then she turns solemn.
"Why, daddy, I said what every other woman on earth would have said, if he had asked them!"
"He didn't ask the others, I expect," says I, "anyhow, not quite all of them. And I don't know what they said. But what did you say?—that's the conundrum that bothers me."
She pulls my ear down and whispers in it:
"Yes! And then, so that he couldn't misunderstand—it would have been frightful for him to misunderstand, like his dear old daddy, wouldn't it?"
"I expect so," nods I.
"Well, then, so that he might not misunderstand, I said it many times over, and every time I said it I—"
Gosh! She kisses me about fifty times!
"Now, is it all perfectly plain?" she asks.
"Well," I says, "I expect that means that you're engaged?"
"Oh, daddy! What did you do when that happened? Maybe you are a little thick—" She hammers my head.
"Me? I had to have it plain as a big red barn. You can't fire things into me like out of a gun. I got to have time to think what it is first. Up and down, right and left, backward and forward, inside and out. I asked mother, right out if she'd marry me. No kissing. And she said just as right out that she would. Then she puts her hands down at her sides, and I pushes my whiskers out of the way and kisses her. Anyhow, I think I did. That was the intention—though I'm not sure where I struck. You see, I had read all about proposing in The Lover's Companion, and so far as I could recollect when it happened, that is the way it said, and that is the way it happened—so far as I could recollect."
"If Dave and I had only known that you had The Lover's Companion! I suppose we did it very badly. On the first day he just suggests it. On the second day he demands it. On the third he suddenly lifts me from my horse, and nearly breaks me in two. 'You're going to be married,' says he, 'before you know it, girl!'"
"'You don't say so!' says I. 'And who is the unhappy bridegroom?'"
"'I am,'" says Dave. 'Now say when?'"
"And, did you?" asks I.
"Not yet," laughs Evelyn, "but I can easy say that I had fixed the time by myself to surprise him. Yes, tell them that I got sick making my wedding things!"
"All right," I says, and starts to go.
But she pulls me back again.
"Do you think they'll stop to wonder why a bride cuts off her hair?"
"Dave won't. He'll never know it if you don't show it to him."
"Then, let's not say anything about it till after the wedding."
"All right. Anyhow, you can wear a net, filled with hair out of the sofa."
"And, daddy, I think, in a very little while, you might speak to Parr Kellermann."
"All in good time. I got to get it through Dave that you are going to marry him, by fair means or foul, and behave yourself first."
"And last, too, daddy," she laughs.
I was trying hard to go.
"And, daddy, dear daddy, do you think you could get Jon and Dave to stay in the house for a while? As long as I am sick?"
"Why?" says I.
"Never mind that—if your skull's so thick! Just get them to do it. If nothing else will do, say that I asked it. If they will, they may come here every day and be with me! Then I'll be sure."
"My," says I, "do you think anything else is needed? That's enough."
"Daddy, dear," whispers Evelyn, "put Dave's horse back in the stable. He's in Harg's woods."