Betty at Fort Blizzard Part 7

"If you could see my wife and talk with her," continued Lawrence, recovering himself a little. "I can't urge her to leave me, but I think in common justice to her somebody ought to put the thing before her."

"Certainly," replied Broussard.

He was turning things rapidly in his mind. It would never do, after the Colonel's warning, to go to Lawrence's quarters, and he said so.

"It would look as if I had called for a farewell visit to your wife, when I haven't time to pay any calls except to the C. O.," said Broussard, after a moment. "But I will see the Colonel in the morning and try to arrange, through him, an interview with your wife."

"But don't, for G.o.d's sake, tell who I am," cried Lawrence. "Don't tell it, for the sake of our mother's memory. It isn't necessary."

"No, it is not necessary," replied Broussard. He was full of brotherly pity for Lawrence, his respect and sympathy for Mrs. Lawrence suddenly changed into the love of a brother for a sister, and the little boy became dear to him in the twinkling of an eye.

A silence fell between the two men, which was broken by Broussard.

"Couldn't you get a discharge from the army?"

"No," answered Lawrence, "there are too many black marks against me--not enough to turn me out, but enough to keep me in. However, I've kept soberer and acted straighter since I've been an enlisted man than for a long time past; the non-coms. know how to handle men like me.

And I'm a good aviator, and they want to keep me."

"At all events," said Broussard, taking Lawrence's hand, "I'll look out for your wife and child. The boy shall have his chance--he shall have his chance, the jolly little chap!"

Then, standing up, the two men embraced as brothers do, and felt their mother's tender spirit hovering over them.

The next morning, while Colonel Fortescue was at breakfast, a note was handed to him by Broussard's soldier attendant. It read:

"Last night I had a visit from Lawrence. He has a great affection for his wife and child, and wanted me to talk with his wife about a family matter in which he feels he can not advise her. Can you kindly suggest some way by which I may have a private talk of a few minutes with Mrs.

Lawrence?"

Colonel Fortescue scribbled on the back of the note:

"Come to my office in my house at ten o'clock and I will have Mrs.

Lawrence here."

Broussard felt a little chagrined when he received this note. Suppose Anita should see him? She had already seen Mrs. Lawrence put her hand on his shoulder. There was, however, no gainsaying the C. O., and at ten o'clock Broussard rang the bell at the Commandant's house.

Sergeant McGillicuddy opened the door for him and showed him into the little office across the hall, saying:

"Them's the Colonel's orders, sir."

At the same moment Mrs. Lawrence, pale, beautiful and stately, walked in from the back entrance. As she and Broussard met in the sunny hall, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the morning light, Anita walked down the stairs and came face to face with Broussard and Mrs. Lawrence.

Broussard's dark skin turned dull red; Mrs. Lawrence, calmly unconscious, bowed to Anita, who, in her turn, bowed and pa.s.sed on; her head, usually with a graceful droop, was erect; she radiated silent displeasure. Then Broussard and Mrs. Lawrence entered the office and Broussard closed the door. He was full of discomfort and chagrin, but it did not make him forgetful of the pale woman before him.

Mrs. Lawrence sat down in a chair; it was plain that she was not strong. Broussard, taking her hand, said to her affectionately:

"Last night Lawrence told me all. Remember, after this, that you and he have a brother, and the boy will be to me as a son."

The slow tears gathered in Mrs. Lawrence's eyes and fell upon her thin cheeks.

"My husband told me when he came home last night. I can't express what I feel--but the boy shall remember you in his innocent prayer."

"It's the boy I want to speak about," said Broussard, "Lawrence tells me that you have a chance of going back to your own people and that you are breaking down under the hard work of a soldier's wife. You can never get used to it."

"Perhaps not," replied Mrs. Lawrence, calmly, "especially as I was brought up to have a French maid. But I don't intend to leave my husband. I love him too well. Don't ask me why I love him so. I couldn't explain it to you to save my life, but I will say that since the day we were married--I ran away to marry him--he has never spoken an unkind word to me. He had nothing to give me except his love, but he has given me that. Whatever his faults may be as a soldier, he has been a good husband to me."

"A good husband!"

Broussard involuntarily repeated the words, marvelling and admiring the constancy, the self-delusion, the blind devotion of the woman before him.

"A loving husband, I should have said," said Mrs. Lawrence, a faint color coming into her face, "But my resolution is made. What you said about helping the boy only fixes it firmer, because it did seem as if his only chance would be thrown away."

The conversation had not lasted five minutes but Broussard saw that five decades of persuasion would not move Mrs. Lawrence. Besides, he had spoken to her from a profound sense of justice; in his heart, the tie of blood between him and Lawrence made him wish that the wife should continue to stand by the husband.

They both rose, feeling that the matter was settled inevitably.

Broussard took from his breast pocket a roll of notes.

"It is better for you than bank checks," he said; "when this is gone, write to me and there will be more. Lawrence feels, as I do, that for the sake of our mother's memory it would be better that his ident.i.ty should not be revealed."

A vivid blush flooded Mrs. Lawrence's face. Her woman's pride was cut to the quick and Broussard, seeing it, said quickly:

"It was his suggestion, not mine."

Then, taking Mrs. Lawrence's hand, Broussard gave her a brother's kiss, which she returned as a sister might, and they pa.s.sed out of the office. In the hall Broussard left cards for Colonel and Mrs.

Fortescue and Anita. Kettle, having heard that Broussard was leaving, came out of the dining-room, where he had been washing dishes, and wiping his hands on his long checked gingham ap.r.o.n, offered a friendly grasp to Broussard.

"I ain' goin' ter let Miss 'Nita furgit you, suh," Kettle whispered, "doan' you be skeered of Mr. Conway--he treat Miss 'Nita same like he did when she wear her hair down her back."

Broussard inwardly thought that perhaps Conway's plan was best. But he gave Kettle a confidential wink and a bank note.

"Some day I'll come back, Kettle, and then----"

Broussard did not finish the sentence in his own mind. Anita had seen just enough to prejudice a young, innocent girl against him.

Outside the door, a trooper was holding Gamechick by the bridle, delivering the horse to his new master.

"Good-bye, good horse," said Broussard, patting Gamechick's neck. "You did me the best turn any creature, man or beast, ever did me, and I promise never to forget my obligations to you."

Horses are sentimental creatures. Gamechick knew that Broussard's words were a farewell. He turned his large, intelligent eyes on Broussard, saying as plainly as a horse can speak:

"Good-bye, good master. Never will I, your faithful horse, forget you."

Broussard, walking rapidly off, in the bright January morning, turned around for one last glimpse at the house that held Anita. At that moment the great doors of the Commandant's house opened, and Anita, with a long crimson cloak around her and a hood over her head, ran down the broad stone steps to where Gamechick was standing like a bronze horse, the best-trained and best-mannered and best-bred cavalry charger at Fort Blizzard. Anita put her arm about his neck and rubbed her cheek against his satin coat, Gamechick receiving her caresses with dignity, as a cavalry charger should, and not with the tender bondings and nosings for lumps of sugar, like Pretty Maid. The last glimpse Broussard had of Anita was, as she stood, her arm about Gamechick's neck, her crimson mantle falling away from her graceful shoulder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The last glimpse Broussard had of Anita was, as she stood, her arm about Gamechick's neck.]

"How much simpler," thought Broussard, as he b.u.t.toned his heavy fur coat, for the ride to the station, "is love for a horse, for a child, for anything created, than love for a woman! No man gets out of that business without complications, and when the woman is half a child, an idealist, precocious, an angel with a devil lurking somewhere about her, it's the most complicated thing on this planet!"

Broussard carried these thoughts with him through the frozen Northwest, across the sapphire seas, and into the jungles of the tropics, to which he was destined.