A few days after Eugenia Peabody opened the door of one of the rooms on the top floor used for the nurses. It was a small room which fortunately the four American Red Cross girls were allowed to share without any of the other nurses. Simple as possible, it contained four cot beds, a single bureau, and a great old-fashioned wardrobe. Convents in France were built long before the days of closets. Eugenia, looking very exhausted, was like most tired persons, cross, when she discovered Nona and Barbara lying on opposite beds peacefully talking.
However, both girls got up instantly.
“Do try and rest a while, Eugenia,” Barbara urged. “You seem dreadfully worn out. Isn’t there anything I can do to help you?”
Eugenia dropped down upon the nearest[170] wooden chair shaking her head. And in spite of her weariness the two other girls watched her admiringly. One had to see Eugenia in her nurse’s costume to realize what a handsome, almost noble looking girl she was. Her ordinary clothes were so shabby and unbecoming and so old style. But the stiff white cap outlined her broad forehead, her somber dark eyes. Even her too serious and sometimes too severe expression seemed in a measure fitted to the responsibility of her work.
“You are wanted downstairs in the convalescent ward, Nona,” she began. “The Superintendent says she finds the things you are able to do very useful, even though you are not trained for the more responsible nursing. But before you go here is a letter that has come from London for you. Who can you know in London, child, to be writing you here?”
Nona was moving toward the door, but she paused long enough to receive her letter and then to stand staring in the stupid fashion people have at the unfamiliar handwriting on the outside.
[171]
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she answered Eugenia, but tearing apart the envelope she suddenly flushed.
“The letter is from Lady Dorian, Eugenia. Remember we met her on the steamer where she was accused of all kinds of dreadful things. She has been imprisoned in London, but this letter must mean that she is free. Anyhow, I’ll tell you what she writes when I come back. I am on duty now and haven’t time to wait and read it.” This was entirely true. Nevertheless Nona had other reasons for wishing to read her letter alone. Lady Dorian had made a strange impression upon her for so short an acquaintance. She had scarcely confessed it even to herself, but she felt a girl’s peculiar hero worship for the older woman. Moreover, she was passionately convinced of her innocence and yet did not wish Barbara or Eugenia to know at once what must be told them afterwards. For Lady Dorian could only have written either to say she had been released or to ask aid. There had been no suggestion of their exchanging letters in their brief acquaintance.
[172]
Once Nona was out of the room Barbara inquired:
“What has become of Mildred? Isn’t this her afternoon to rest? Nona and I were expecting her in here.”
The older girl did not answer; she had gotten up and in spite of her fatigue was walking about the small room. She stopped now and looked out of the tiny casement window.
“Oh, Mildred,” she returned carelessly, “has gone to spend the afternoon with that Mrs. Curtis. They are to take a walk somewhere, I think. Mildred said she felt the need of fresh air. I believe Mildred is missing her family more than she likes to confess and this Mrs. Curtis is so kind, Mildred seems pleased to find her living so near us.”
On her small cot bed Barbara had managed to get herself into an extraordinary position. She had on her kimono and sat hunched up with her knees in the air and her arms about them while her curly head bobbed up and down like a Chinese mandarin’s.
[173]
“Sorry,” she commented briefly. “I told you on the ship I was afraid Mildred was becoming interested in Brooks Curtis. I don’t like Mrs. Curtis locating so near the hospital. Don’t see any reason for it except that she and her son do not want to lose sight of Mildred. And it would not surprise me if her son turned up in this neighborhood himself fairly often—oh, to see his mother, of course.”
Barbara spoke petulantly, particularly when she discovered that Eugenia was paying scant attention to her remarks.
“Oh, do come on and lie down a while, Eugenia,” she concluded. “You behave as if all the Allied forces would go to pieces if you stayed off your job an hour, or at least as if all the soldiers in the hospital would die at once.”
Still Eugenia made no reply. Although getting out of her working uniform, she too slipped into a comfortable negligée and letting down her heavy dark hair followed Barbara’s rather ungraciously offered advice.
A few minutes later the younger girl[174] stood at the side of her bed with a cup of beef tea in her hands which she had just made over a tiny alcohol lamp.
“Drink this, please, and forgive my bad temper, Eugenia,” she murmured. &ld............