War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 28
XXVIII
WHERE OUR CLUB MET
WELL, that's what I told the boys—that she got sick working on her wedding things, and her hair fell out so's I had to cut it off for her to save it.
"What's that?" says Dave, nearly breaking me in two.
"She's going to be married," says I. "If it's not to either or both of you boys you'd better be looking after your property."
Jon, you remember his idea about it, he understood, and smiled and nodded, like he knew all about it from the first. But Dave was puzzled a bit.
"I expect I better go and congratulate myself," he says. "It may be one of the things daddy thinks funny. And yet it may be a wedding in our own family. Come, Jonthy, and chaperon me."
And he drags Jon after him straight to the door.
There, he knocks softly a bit, then he says:
"Evelyn, if you are not asleep and hear me, be ready, in two minutes, by the watch. Jonthy and I are coming in to see what daddy is lying about."
I had followed, sure that there'd be trouble, but what do you think! She laughed, happy as happy, and says:
"Why waste two whole minutes!"
Dave gave a yell, and in he went. In fact the yell carried him as far as the bed, where he hugs her and the first thing you know she's fainted like a rag in his arms.
I never saw Dave really scared before—scared so he shivered, and chattered his teeth.
But she brought herself to, in a minute, and put Dave's arms away a bit.
"It hurts a little—there," she smiles, white as a sheet.
"What's the matter?" begs Dave. "You look like a ghost—and faint dead away the moment I touch you. Daddy! What is it?"
He turns on me like he was going to hit me. But Jonthy stops him and holds his hands a minute.
While they were all turned from her, before any one notices her hair, Evelyn reaches under the pillow and gets the most beautiful nightcap you ever saw—all pink ribbons and lace, and jams it on her head. She winks at me, and I knew that that settled the difficulty about the hair.
"Now, gentlemen," says Evelyn, "if you'll handle me a bit more carefully, I'm ready to entertain you."
"Is it so—the wedding?" asks Dave, making like he would lift her out of bed.
Evelyn nods and says:
"Yes. Do you like it?"
"Better than heaven!" says Dave, barely holding himself back.
"Take care of my sore spot!" says Evelyn. "I can answer that question of yours now—'When?'"
"Hurry!" says Dave.
"In a few days. Just as soon as I—can stand on my feet. I won't be married in bed."
"Thank you," says Dave, solemn.
"You look scared," laughs Evelyn.
"Yes," says Dave then, "I'm scared—scared half to death! Look at Evelyn, Jon! How pale! Is she dying?"
"I have been looking," says Jon, more scared than Dave. "Don't you think the best thing—the one thing—we can ask Evelyn is to tell us, honestly, whether or not she is seriously ill, and whether she is sure she will get well?"
"Yes," says Dave. "For God's sake, Evelyn, tell us that—and we'll be satisfied."
"Did you ever see me happier?" asks Evelyn.
"No!" says Jon and Dave at once.
"Are people happy who think they are sick enough to die—and go away from daddy and Jon and Dave—or even be sick enough to be kept away from them a little while?"
"No!" says both my boys again.
"Then come here, both of you, all three of you! I want to tell you something."
We all sat as close to her on the bed as we could, and she sort of got her arms around all of us.
"Don't you know that a girl's wedding day—a girl who marries the one man in the world she can marry—is the maddest, darlingest, craziest day in all her life? Oh, it's a wonder they don't all go mad—die—before it arrives—as—as—I have done! She is a miser—gloating, not over sordid coins, but gossamer clothing! She is a pirate—begging, buying, stealing the most beautiful gems in the world to adorn herself—for him! She is a priestess, a nun, a devotee, praying, praying always for his and her and their happiness! She is already a wife—knowing, understanding, what it is to be bone of another's bone, flesh of another's flesh! Oh, my dears, all a girl's life leads to and from that day. When we are old everything happens such and such a time after our wedding. When we are young every date is subordinate to 'When I am married.' Don't you wish you were all girls, working on your wedding gear, even though you sicken and die for it? Don't you wish you were ready to melt into some man's arms and be lost—lost forever? Have no name but his! Be nothing apart from him! Live only in his life, die when he dies!"
For a while no one spoke. Then Jon says, soft as praying:
"Yes. I wish I were a woman. There is nothing on the earth so beautiful!"
Now, what do you think of that! A man wishing he was a woman!
"Jonathan," I says, "don't be foolish. There must be men and women. Be glad to be what you are."
And, it was about the first time I ever knew Dave to be speechless. He didn't say a word. Just put his lips down on Evelyn's, slow and soft, and let them stay there a long time. After all, I suppose he wasn't as speechless as I thought. I expect he said more than either Jon or me.
And so the three of us sat on her bed and had the happiest night that I remember.
And so it was every night. None of us ever knew each other right till then. Evelyn's bed was our little club. At last we ate our meals there, told the news there, and, in fact, spent nearly all of our time there.
And then one day, when no one was thinking of it, who walks in to the breakfast table, one morning, when we thought it too early to wake her, but Evelyn. And of all her loveliness, she never looked so lovely as then! She was excited by the exercise, for it was far too soon for that sort of thing, and the roses in her cheeks fairly flamed against their thinness and paleness, and her head was covered with short curls! She was in the prettiest of her dresses, one of rose-color, with a long train, and loose, and it was no wonder that Dave flew at her and that she had to remind him, laughing, that it still hurt a little where he was in the habit of putting his arms.
Dave put her in her seat as carefully as if she were china, and says:
"And now, once more, when? To-day? You said as soon as you could stand on your feet—don't bother about clothes—they are bad for you!"
"Yes," smiles Evelyn, "to-day, if you wish—"
She looks around at Jon and me—
"—To-day if it suits us all—"
Jon turns pale. After all, I suppose, to stand up suddenly and see them married phased him a bit.
Then Dave, the happy, laughing, singing, dancing Dave, says:
"Daddy, you have Preacher Kellermann here by eleven o clock, and wear your stovepipe; and Jonathan, you comb your hair and wash your face and be the best man—as you are, anyhow—and Betsy'll give the bride away, and some pies—though, as she's given herself away already, I don't see why Betsy should work. But we'll have it all according to law. Anyhow, the rest don't matter if old Kellermann gets here. And everybody be joyous and don't touch Evelyn's sore spot!"
We all laughed and were happy. And Dave surrounded Evelyn like a cloud.
At about this moment a strange man pushes open the door, without even knocking, and, making signs with his hands, says:
"Who's sick here? Wounded? What man of you's dying?"
"No one!" yells Dave, laughing, and happy. "Who the devil are you? Don't you know there's a wedding going on, not a funeral? Behave."
He doesn't answer, but looks us over like he was counting us, sees the happiness, makes signs which no one understands, but which looks like the Knight's chart, then turns away. We were going to follow him, when a soft sound made us all turn. Evelyn was just crumpling to the floor in a faint.
"Of course!" cries Dave. "It's our fault—to let her come down as weak as this! And then have this fool come in and frighten her!" He would have killed the man if he hadn't got out quick.
We carries her back to bed.
"Daddy," she says, when we were alone, "they are still after Mallory. They think he is well again—or never has been sick, or has lied or deserted. Once a spy, always a spy—or you are shot. And there's no tapestry to weave and unweave now! I thought it was all over! But it must be done again, I expect. You must help me, daddy, dear. I'm too sick to do it alone this time."
"The wedding will stop all that," I said.
"Ah, the wedding," she sighed. "Dave must know now. And, when he knows, do you think—there will be a wedding?"
"Why not?" says I.
"Why not? Would you marry me, daddy, if you were Dave, remembering what you know and he doesn't?"
Well, that kind of gets me. I really hadn't thought about it that way.
"We said the other day that we would do it," Evelyn goes on, "when we were all happy and thoughtless. But—we all know that Dave must—understand."
I said nothing. I couldn't. And I suppose that hurt Evelyn's feelings a little.
"Tell him very gently and sweetly," she says then, "that it can not be yet. Say that I am too ill."
And, after a while:
"Perhaps you had better tell him—all. It will have to be done—some time. I mustn't let him marry me under false pretenses."
But I couldn't make up my mind to cause all that unhappiness—just yet. I waited, hoping that something would happen to make it unnecessary. And Evelyn slowly got her courage back—but not like the night she was shot. She never got that back.