After several weeks of the ambulance work, Barbara found herself growing more accustomed to it. Not that she had recovered from her horror and dread. But she had at least learned to control her nerves and to become more useful. She was able to make up her mind, as Dick had told her, that everybody felt much as she did, but simply showed greater stoicism.
Fortunately for Barbara, her first two weeks of work came after a lull in the fighting at Neuve Chapelle. There were but few desperately wounded soldiers to be brought to the hospital. Most of the men were either ill from natural causes or from some disease contracted in the trenches. Only now and then an occasional shot from across the line found the way to its victim.
[227]
Then frequently during this period Barbara and Dick enjoyed opportunities for short conversations. Several times Dick had received leaves of absence to come and see his sister and her friends.
He was immediately a great favorite with the hospital staff. He and Nona Davis seemed to understand each other particularly well. There was some bond of likeness between them. Both of them moved slowly, had an air of languor and easy grace, and yet when the necessity arose were capable of the swiftest and most definite action.
Several times the idea came to Barbara: would Dick and Nona some day learn to care seriously for each other? She used to feel lonely and cold at this thought, yet all the while recognizing that this might prove a beautiful relationship.
Nona seemed so brave. The other girl could not but marvel.
Whatever work she had to do she went through it and so far as one could see showed no qualms or misgivings. In the dreary ride from the field Nona used always to take[228] charge of the patient who suffered most. And though sometimes her delicate face was like alabaster she never faltered either in her care or cheerfulness.
Dr. Milton, a young Englishman who had charge of one of the new ambulances, was open in his praise of Nona’s assistance. He could scarcely believe she had so little previous nursing experience. But then Daisy Redmond insisted that the young surgeon was half in love with the southern girl and so his opinion was prejudiced.
Moreover, Mildred Thornton also seemed greatly cheered by her brother’s appearance, although this was natural enough. At first she had been frightened for his safety, but as the days passed and no fresh fighting took place her fears abated.
By nature Mildred Thornton was extremely reticent. Never being congenial with her mother, she had never made a confidant of her. Then, while Dick always told her his secrets, she had but few of her own and not specially liking to talk, kept these to herself. So perhaps by accident and perhaps because of her nature she[229] said little to her brother about her new acquaintances, Mrs. Curtis and Brooks Curtis. In a vague way Dick knew of them both, understood that Mildred now and then went to call on the mother and liked her. But he did not know that Mildred ever saw the young man or that she received frequent letters from him. Nor that these letters were brought to her in a mysterious fashion by Anton, the half-witted French boy, by an especial arrangement.
In the rear of the garden there chanced to be a loose stone in the old convent wall. The letters were thrust under this stone. So whenever Mildred was alone and had the chance she could collect her own mail.
There seemed nothing so specially remarkable to Mildred in this arrangement. The letters usually only contained a short note written to her. The rest of the enclosure were presumably the letters which Brooks Curtis was sending to his newspaper in the United States through Mildred’s aid. For she used to address them to the street and number he had given her and mail them at the same time she mailed her own home letters.
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Probably Mildred did not talk more of her friendship with the young newspaper man because she did not wish to betray what she was doing for him. There could be no harm in it and yet there was a possibility that the hospital authorities might object, everything was being so strictly and so carefully managed.
Only two or three times since their walk together had Mildred seen the young man himself. But s............