Read Georgina's Service Stars Page 10


  CHAPTER IX

  SEVEN MONTHS LATER

  ONE might think, seeing that I am keeping two diaries now, that I amleading a double life. But such is not the case. When it was decidedthat I was to go to Washington this year, to the same school that Barbyattended when she was my age, she suggested that I keep a journal, asshe did while here. She called hers "Chronicles of Harrington Hall." SoI am calling mine "The Second Book of Chronicles." Next vacation we areto read them together.

  Naturally I want to make mine as interesting as possible, so I've spentconsiderable time describing life here at school as I see it, and makingcharacter sketches of the different girls, teachers, etc. It would havebeen more satisfactory if I could have put all that in my Memoirs, thusmaking one continuous story, but it's too great a task to write it allout twice. So I have put a footnote in my Memoirs for the benefit ofwhoever my biographer may be, saying, "For what happened at HarringtonHall, see my Book of Chronicles."

  All during the first term I did not make a single entry in this oldblank book, now open before me. It lay out of sight and out of mind inthe back of my desk. But this morning I came across it while looking forsomething, and tonight I have just finished reading it from start tofinish. I realize I have left quite a gap in the story by failing torecord several things which happened after Esther went home.

  As I sit and re-read these last pages, how far away I seem now from thatunhappy August afternoon when I came home from the Gilfreds', feelingthat I could never take anyone on trust again. It was days before I gotover the misery of that experience, and I really believe it was onaccount of the way I went moping around the house that Barby decided tosend me away to school. Father had been urging it for some time, but shewanted to keep me at home with her one more year.

  It wasn't the excitement of getting ready to go away and trying on allmy new clothes that restored me to my former cheerfulness, althoughBarby thinks so. It was just two little words that Richard said the lastday he was with us, before going back to school. I wouldn't havebelieved that a mere exclamation could have brought about such anamazing change in my feelings, and I still wonder how it did. Next yearI'm going to study psychology just to find out about such queerhappenings in our brains.

  We were out in the boat, he and Captain Kidd and I, taking a farewellrow. He hadn't mentioned Esther's name since the day she left, butJudith told me he never went back to the house after he found out thedouble game she had been playing. Remembering how infatuated he'd been Iknew he must have felt almost as broken up as Babe says John Wynne was.I kept hoping he'd bring up the subject. I thought it would make iteasier for him if he would confide in one who had known the sameadoration and disappointment. Besides I brooded over it all the time. Itwas all I thought about.

  So on the way back I sat in pensive silence, trailing my hand languidlyover the side of the boat through the water. Richard talked now andthen, but of trivial things that could not possibly interest onecommuning with a secret sorrow, so I said nothing in reply. When we werealmost at the pier he rested on the oars and let the boat drift, whilewe sat and listened to the waves tumbling up against the breakwater.

  As we paused thus in the gathering dusk, a verse came to me that seemeda fitting expression of the sad twilight time as well as both my moodand his. For his face looked sad as he sat there gazing out to sea, sadand almost stern. So I repeated it softly and so feelingly that thetears sprang to my eyes, and there was a little catch in my voice at thelast line:

  "Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O sea, But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me."

  I had expected some sort of sympathetic response, at least an eloquentsilence, for he knew I meant Esther, and it was like a dash of coldwater to hear him exclaim in an exasperated sort of way, "_Oh rats!_"

  Captain Kidd took the exclamation to himself, and barked till he nearlyfell out of the boat. And Richard laughed and rolled him over on theseat and asked him what he meant by making such a fuss about nothing.That was no way for a good sport to do. Then he began pulling for thelanding with all his might.

  Considering that I had just bared to him one of the most sacred emotionsof my heart, his answer seemed as unfeeling as it was rude andinappropriate, something I could never forgive nor forget. He couldn'thelp seeing that I was hurt and indignant, for I ran up the beach aheadof him and only answered in monosyllables when he called after me,pretending nothing had happened.

  But later when I was upstairs brushing my hair, I heard him down in thedining-room, teasing Tippy and telling her what he wanted for hisfarewell supper, in that jolly, audacious way of his that makes a jokeof everything. I knew perfectly well that he felt blue about going backto school and that he was all broken up over the affair with Esther, buthe was too good a sport to show it.

  And _that's_ what he meant by saying "Oh rats," in such an exasperatedway! He had expected me to measure up to his idea of a good sport and Ihadn't done it! My brooding over "a day that is dead" till it spoiledour enjoyment of the present one, seemed silly and sentimental to him.As he told the dog, "that was no way to do." From away back in ourpirate-playing days the thought that Richard expected a thing of me,always spurred me on to do it, from walking the ridgepole to swingingdown the well rope. He expected me to be as game and cheerful a chum ashe is, and here I had spoiled our last boat-ride together by relapsinginto that moody silence.

  It was as if those two words held a mirror before my eyes, in which Isaw myself as I looked to him. "But I'll show him I _can_ be game," Ideclared between my teeth, and as soon as I had tied the ribbon on myhair I ran downstairs, determined to make that last evening the jolliestone we had ever had.

  I am so thankful that we did have such a gay time, for now that thingscan never be the same again, he will have it to look back on andremember happily. He went away next morning, but I did not leave untilnearly two weeks later. It was the day before I started to Washingtonthat I heard the news which changed things.

  I was down in the post-office, sending a money order, when Mr. Bart, thefamous portrait painter, came in. Some other artist-looking man followedhim in, and I heard him say as he caught up with him:

  "Bart, have you heard the news about Moreland? He's reported killed inaction. No particulars yet, but, it goes without saying that when hewent, he went bravely."

  Mr. Bart started as if he had been hit, and said something I didn'tquite catch about dear old Dick, the most lovable man he ever knew. Allthe time the clerk was filling my money-order blank they stood there atthe same window, talking about him and the winters they had spenttogether in Paris, their studios all in the same building, and howthey'd never want to go back there now with so many of the old crowdgone. They said all sorts of nice things about Mr. Moreland. But nottill one of them asked, "Where's the boy now?" did I realize theawfulness of what I had just heard. It was _Richard's_ father they weretalking about, _and he was dead_.

  But I couldn't really believe that it was true until I got home andfound Barby at the telephone. Mr. Milford had just called her up to tellher about it. And she was saying yes, she thought he ought to go toRichard at once by all means. He would feel so utterly desolate andalone in the world, for his father had been everything to him. Now thathis Aunt Letty was dead he had no relatives left except Mr. Milford.She'd go herself if she thought she could be any comfort to the dearboy.

  Mr. Milford said he'd catch the _Dorothy Bradford_ within an hour, andhe'd convey her messages. And that's the last I heard for ever so long.I wanted to write to Richard, but I just couldn't. There wasn't any wayof telling him how sorry I was. But that night I scribbled a postscriptat the end of Barby's letter to him, and signed it, "Your lovingsister, Georgina." I wanted him to feel that he still had somebody whothought of him as their really own, and as belonging to the family.

  I had been here at school over two weeks before any news came about him.Then Barby wrote that Mr. Milford was back, and had told her that theyhad a trying interview.
Richard was more determined than ever to getinto the war. He kept saying, "I've _got_ to go, Cousin James. There's adouble reason now, don't you see, with _Dad_ to be avenged? I'm notasking you to advance any of my money. All I want is your consent as myguardian. They won't let me in without that."

  Richard can't get the money his Aunt Letty left him till he istwenty-one. It's in trust. But he'll have a lot then, and there ought tobe considerable when his father's affairs are settled. But because Mr.Moreland had said that Richard was too young to go now and must keep onin school, Mr. Milford feels it is his duty to be firm and carry out hiscousin's wishes. But he told Barby he came away feeling that with theboy in that frantic frame of mind, school would do him no more good thanit would a young lion. A caged and wounded one at that.

  The next news of him was that he had disappeared from the school andhis Cousin James couldn't find a trace of him. About that time theexpressman left a big flat box for Barby with a note inside that said,"Take care of this for me, please. If I shouldn't come back I'd like foryou and Georgina to have it. Dad thought it was the best thing he everdid."

  In the box was the portrait that Mr. Moreland painted of Richard thefirst summer he came to Provincetown, called, "The thoughts of Youth arelong, long thoughts." It has been given first place in every artexhibition in which it has been hung, and, besides being a wonderfulpiece of painting, is the darlingest portrait of Richard as he was atthe age of ten that one could imagine.

  It was not until after Thanksgiving that I heard directly from himmyself. Then I had a note from him, written up in Canada. He said, "Iknow you won't give me away, Georgina, even to Barby. She might feel itwas her duty to tell Cousin James where I am. I couldn't enlist, even uphere without his consent, but I've found a way that I can do my bit andmake every lick count. I'm at the front, _by proxy_, and _more_. So I amsatisfied. I haven't much time to write but that's no reason I wouldn'tappreciate all the home news available. If you have any on hand justpass it along to yours truly who will be duly grateful."

  I was wild to know what he was doing, and exactly what he meant by beingat the front "by proxy and more." But, although I wrote regularly afterthat and underscored the question each time, he never paid any attentionto that part of my letters. I could see he was purposely ignoring it. Iwould have ignored his questions, just to get even, if they hadn'tshowed so plainly how hungry he was for news of us all. Remembering thathe is all alone in the world now, since he and his Cousin James are atouts, and that I am the only one of his home folks who knows hiswhereabouts, I make my letters as entertaining as possible.

  Sometimes Babe Nolan, who is at this school, rooming just across thehall, hands over her brother Jim's letters. The spelling is awful andhis grammar a disgrace, but he certainly has a nose for news. He tellsabout everybody in town from the Selectmen to the Portuguese fishermen.Babe never wants the letters back, so I send them on to Richard, alsothe Provincetown _Advocate_, which Tippy mails me every week as soon asshe is done reading it.

  Hardly had I written the above when my roommate, Lillian Locke, came in.Being a Congressman's daughter, she is allowed to spend a lot of herspare time with her family, who are living at a hotel. She had been outall afternoon with them, consequently had not received her pile ofletters which came in the last mail. The elevator boy gave them to heras she came up. One of mine had been put in with hers by mistake. Thatis why I didn't get it earlier. I was surprised to see that it was fromBarby, because I had one from her only this morning. Late as it is I'llhave to sit up and add a few more lines to this record, for it's allabout Richard and fits right in here.

  Mr. Milford finally got track of him in some way and followed him toCanada. He has just returned. He found Richard working in what had oncebeen an automobile factory. It is now turning out aeroplanes for theCanadian government.

  One of the first persons Richard met when he reached the town was aworkman in this factory who was eager to go to the front, but couldn'tfor two reasons. He was badly needed in the factory, and he had a familydependent on his wages, two little children and a half-blind mother. Hiswife is dead. When Richard found he couldn't enlist, big and strong ashe is, without swearing falsely as to his age, he went to the man andoffered to take his place both in the factory and as a breadwinner forhis family.

  It was the foreman who told Mr. Milford about it. He said there was noresisting a boy like him. He was in such dead earnest and such a likablesort of a lad. He walked into everybody's good graces from the start.They took him on trial and he went to work as if every blow was aimed ata Hun. When the man saw that he actually meant business and wanted itput down in black and white that he would look after the family leftbehind, the matter was arranged in short order.

  And now Richard feels that not only is there a man on the firing linewho wouldn't be there but for him, but every day as he fashions somepart of the aircraft, he is doing a man's work in helping to win thewar. The foreman said, "He's the kind that won't be satisfied till heknows everything about airships there is to know," and Mr. Milford saidhe didn't feel that he was justified in opposing him any longer. A joblike the one he had undertaken would do him more good than all thecolleges in the country.

  Down at the bottom of the letter Barby said, "I have written all this toMiss Crewes, that she may have another Sir Gareth to add to her list ofknightly souls who do their deed and ask no guerdon."