Betty at Fort Blizzard Part 5

"How about a ride this afternoon, Anita? We can get back in time for you to dress for the dinner."

"Do go, Anita," urged Mrs. Fortescue plaintively, "it is such a relief to have your father out of the house when I am arranging for a dinner of twenty-four."

It was one of the great treats of Anita's simple life to ride with her father and the proposition brought a smile, at last, into her serious face.

"At four, then," said the Colonel, rising to return to the headquarters building, while Anita ran to get his cap, and Mrs. Fortescue fastened his military cape around him, and his gloves were brought by the After-Clap, who had been drilled in this duty. The Colonel was well coddled, and liked it.

Anita practised on her violin nearly the whole afternoon, and, not satisfied with that, sent a message to Neroda asking him to come at six o'clock, when she would have returned from her ride, and rehea.r.s.e with her once more the obligatos she was to play to Broussard's singing.

Anita's spirits rose as she rode by her father's side in the biting cold of the wintry afternoon. They both loved these rides together and the long talks they had then. The time was, when Colonel Fortescue felt that he knew every thought in Anita's mind, but not so any longer.

He began to speak of Broussard, to try and search Anita's mind on that subject, but Anita remained absolutely silent. The Colonel's heart sank; Anita was certainly growing up, and had secrets of her own.

It was quite dark when the Colonel and Anita cantered through the lower entrance, the short way to the C. O.'s house. One door alone was open in the long row of red brick barracks. The electric light in the pa.s.sageway fell full upon the figures of Broussard and Mrs. Lawrence as the woman impulsively put her hand on Broussard's shoulder; he gently removed it and walked quickly out of the door. Under the glare of a street lamp he came face to face with Colonel Fortescue.

An officer visiting the wife of a private soldier is not a thing to be excused by a strict Colonel, and Colonel Fortescue was very strict, and had Argus eyes in the bargain.

Broussard saluted the Colonel and bowed to Anita and pa.s.sed on. The Colonel returned the salute but Anita was too startled to acknowledge the bow. When they reached the Commandant's house and Colonel Fortescue swung Anita from her saddle she walked into the house slowly, her eyes fixed on the ground. At the door the After-Clap met her with a shout, but instead of a romp with his grown-up playmate, he received only an absent-minded kiss. Almost at the same moment Neroda walked into the hall.

"Here I am, Signorina," he said, "ready for the practice. Mr.

Broussard sings too well for you to do less than play divinely."

Anita, taking off her gloves and veil, went, unsmilingly, into the drawing-room, Neroda following her, and putting up the top of the grand piano.

It was Neroda's rule that Anita should tune her own violin. Usually she did it with beautiful accuracy, but on this evening it was utterly inharmonious. As she drew her bow across the strings Neroda jumped as if he were shot.

"Great G.o.d! Signorina," he shouted, "every string is swearing at the G-string! The spirit of music will not come to you to-night unless you tune your violin better."

Anita stopped and laid down her bow, and once more holding the violin to her ear, began tuning it. That time the tuning was so bad that she handed the violin to Neroda.

"You must tune it for me, Maestro," she said, with a wan smile. "The spirit of music seems far away to-night."

Neroda, in a minute, handed her back the instrument in perfect tune.

Anita, testing the strings, her bow wandered into the soft heart-moving music of Mascagni's Intermezzo. Neroda said nothing, but watched his favorite pupil. Usually she took up her violin with a calm confidence, like a young Amazon taking up her well-strung bow for battle, because the violin must be subdued; it must be made to obey; it must feel the master hand before it will speak. But to-night the master hand failed Anita, and she played fitfully and sadly and could do nothing as Neroda directed her.

"Shall we give up the rehearsal?" asked Neroda presently, seeing that Anita was not concentrated and that her bow arm showed strange weakness.

"No," replied Anita, with a new courage in her violet eyes, "Let us rehea.r.s.e for the whole hour."

If Neroda had been puzzled at Anita's inability he was now surprised at her strength. She stood up to her full height and the bow was firm in her grasp. Neroda was a hard master, but Anita succeeded in pleasing him. Even Kettle, who had an artistic rivalry with Neroda, pa.s.sing the drawing-room door, cried:

"Lord, Miss 'Nita, you kin play the fiddle mos' as well as I kin."

As Mrs. Fortescue was putting the last touches to her toilette before the long mirror in her own room, Colonel Fortescue came in, dressed to go down-stairs. The Colonel's mind had been working on the problems of Broussard's visit to Mrs. Lawrence, and the look he had noticed for some time past in Anita's eyes when Broussard was present, or even when his name was mentioned.

"I am afraid, Betty," said the Colonel, "that Anita thinks too much and too often of Broussard. And in spite of that trick of horsemanship there are some things a trifle unsatisfactory about him."

"Really, Jack," answered Mrs. Fortescue, "you take Anita's moods far too seriously. The girl will have her little affairs as other girls have theirs. It's like measles and chicken-pox and other infantile diseases."

"Not for Anita," said Colonel Fortescue, "that child has in her tragic possibilities. Her heart is brittle, depend upon it."

"So are all hearts," replied Mrs. Fortescue, "but you are so ridiculously sentimental and lackadaisical about Anita!"

"She is my one ewe lamb," said the Colonel.

Then they went down-stairs together, and the next minute Anita appeared, wearing a gown of white and silver, with a delicious little train, which she managed as well as a seventeen-year-old could manage a train.

In a minute or two the guests began arriving. They were handsome, middle-aged officers and dignified matrons. Broussard was the only young man present, which was understood as a special compliment to him, and Anita was the only young girl in the company.

Broussard greeted the Colonel as coolly as if that unlucky meeting just outside of Lawrence's quarters had not occurred two hours before. And Broussard was a captivating, fellow--this the Colonel admitted to himself, with an inward groan, watching Broussard's graceful figure, his dashing manner, all these externals that dazzle women. The Colonel also saw the color that flooded Anita's face when she took Broussard's arm to lead her in to dinner. At the table, though, Broussard found Anita strangely unlike the Anita he had been steadily falling in love with since he first saw her, three months before, when Colonel Fortescue took command at Fort Blizzard. She was no longer the dreamy, mysterious child, who knew all the stories of the poets, whose affections were all pa.s.sions, but a self-possessed young lady, who read things in the newspapers about the European war and knew something about aviation records, although she hated aviation.

Broussard, with rage and chagrin in his heart, remembered that Anita had probably seen him standing in the pa.s.sage-way of Lawrence's quarters, with Mrs. Lawrence's shapely hand on his shoulder. He remained calm and smiling, nevertheless, and exerted to the utmost his power to please. But Anita remained calm and smiling, and maddeningly aloof. Broussard, inwardly cursing himself, made up his mind to have it out with the Colonel the next day about the Lawrence affair.

When dinner was over and the men had come in from the smoking-room, Mrs. Fortescue asked Broussard if he would sing; Neroda was already there to play his accompaniments and Anita, would play the violin obligato.

Broussard was not loth to show his accomplishments and he had a very good will to try the magic of his voice upon Anita, gracious, and obstinate and smiling.

The guests, in a circle in the drawing-room, watched and listened to the group at the piano--Neroda, short and swarthy, with a rancorous voice; Anita, in her blonde beauty, looking like another St. Cecilia, and Broussard, dark and handsome, like Faust, the tempter.

With deep intent Broussard selected the most pa.s.sionate of all his pa.s.sionate songs. It asked the old, old question, "I love thee; dost thou love me?" Neroda struck into the accompaniment and Broussard's voice, a tenor, with the strength and feeling of a baritone, took up the song, while the music of Anita's violin delicately threaded the harmonies, ever following and responding to Broussard's voice. All of Anita's coldness vanished at the first strain of the music; Broussard's voice penetrated her heart and inspired her hand. When the song was over and she laid her violin down on the piano she was once more the palpitating, shy enthusiast, the half-child, half-woman who had captivated Broussard at the first glance.

During the interludes between the songs it was plain they forgot all except each other. They turned over songs and read the t.i.tles to each other, Broussard sometimes singing, under his breath, the words. Then, when he sang them in full voice he infused all the verve, the pa.s.sion, the feeling he knew so well how to command, and played upon Anita's heart-strings with the hand of a master, as Anita played upon the strings of her violin. The men and women, listening and charmed, smiled at each other; evidently a love affair was on foot such as everybody had expected since the night of the music ride. Colonel Fortescue alone was grave, leaning back in his chair with sombre eyes fixed on Broussard. He saw in Broussard a wild young officer who needed a stern warning about a soldier's handsome wife; and, while watching him, Colonel Fortescue was phrasing the very words in which he meant to call Broussard to account the next day, for the Colonel was not a man to postpone a disagreeable duty. It would be a very disagreeable duty; the poignant memory of Anita lying on the tanbark and Broussard having the skill to save her, still haunted Colonel Fortescue's thoughts and came to him in troubled dreams. And Anita--undoubtedly Broussard had impressed her imagination, and she was a creature of such strong fibre that she must love and suffer more than most human beings the Colonel knew, well enough.

At last, the singing was over and the listeners came out of a waking dream and complimented Anita and Broussard, and the pleasant chatter of a drawing-room once more began. Presently there were leave-takings.

Broussard gave Anita's hand a sharp pressure, but she looked at him calmly, all her coldness resumed. Out in the winter night Broussard cursed himself for falling in love with a child, who was an embodied caprice and did not know her own mind--one hour thrilling him with her gladness and her low voice and her violin, and the next, looking at him as if he were a stock or a stone. But she was so precociously charming! And that unlucky meeting with her and with the Colonel in front of Lawrence's door, with Mrs. Lawrence putting her hand on his shoulder. Broussard meant to go to the Colonel the very next day and explain the whole business. The resolve enabled Broussard to sleep in peace that night.

It was noon the next day before Broussard had a chance to ask for an interview with Colonel Fortescue. Meanwhile, the Colonel had been finding out things. He looked up the records of Broussard and Lawrence and found that they were both natives of the same little town in Louisiana. That might account for their intimacy, although Lawrence was fifteen years Broussard's senior.

Just as the Colonel's orderly was crossing the hall of the headquarters building he came face to face with Broussard, headed straight for Colonel Fortescue's office. The orderly had a message from the Colonel for Mr. Broussard; the Colonel desired to see Mr. Broussard for a few minutes.

Broussard, like the Colonel, was not the man to shirk an unpleasant five minutes, so he made straight for the Colonel's private office. In spite of his courageous advance, Broussard felt very much as Sergeant McGillicuddy described himself when in the abhorred buggy which Mrs.

McGillicuddy had given him as a Christmas gift, "Hollow inside." There is something appalling to a subaltern in the kind of an interview which Broussard felt was ahead of him. He knew in advance the very tone in which Colonel Fortescue and all other Colonels prepare a wigging for a junior. "It is my painful duty." The extreme politeness with which this was accompanied was not rea.s.suring. Then the Colonel, taking the advice of old Horace, plunged into the middle of things.

"I was very much surprised," said Colonel Fortescue, fixing his clear gaze on Broussard, "when, yesterday evening, after dark, I saw you standing in the pa.s.sage-way to the home of an enlisted man, and evidently upon familiar terms with the man's wife."

"I was on my way to you, sir, just now, to explain that occurrence when I received your order," replied Broussard promptly.

"I shall be glad to have it satisfactorily explained," said the C. O.

Colonel Fortescue had the eye of command, that secure power in his glance which is possessed by all the masters of men; the look that can wring the truth out of a man's mouth even if that man be a liar, and can see through the eyes of a man into his soul. This look of command suddenly flashed into Colonel Fortescue's face, and gazing into the clear eyes of Broussard saw honor and truth and candor there as Broussard spoke.

"The man, Lawrence, as you may know, sir, is a gentleman in origin and socially above most of the good fellows in the ranks."

"And these men sometimes make trouble," interrupted the Colonel.

"He came from the same place that I do and tells me he knew my mother--G.o.d bless her--and that she was very kind to him in his boyhood. That was before I was born. He knows a surprising deal about my parents, both of whom died when I was a boy. Sometimes I have doubted whether all he told me was true, but invariably it tallies with my own childish recollections and what I have been told of my mother.

Lawrence has a pa.s.sionate attachment to my mother's memory. He knows her birthday, and the day of her death, and more even than I do about her. The first word I had with him was on the anniversary of my mother's death. He came to my quarters and asked to see me, told me of my mother's goodness to him, and burst into tears before he got through. Of course, that melted me--my mother was one of G.o.d's angels on this earth. He is always in money troubles, and I helped him. That brought me into contact with his wife--a woman of his own cla.s.s, who has stood by Lawrence, and is worthy, I think, to be cla.s.sified with my mother. If you could see the way that woman works for Lawrence and their child--there's a little boy five years old,--and how she struggles to keep him straight and sober. I had just done her a little favor at the post trader's place, and went to her to explain it privately. She was very grateful; you saw her put her hand on my shoulder. The truth is, Mrs. Lawrence does not yet fully understand her position as a private soldier's wife. What I have told you, sir, is all, upon my honor."

"I believe you," said Colonel Fortescue, after a moment, and holding out his hand, which Broussard grasped with a feeling of vast relief.