A Soldier's Trial: An Episode of the Canteen Crusade. Charles KingЧитать онлайн книгу.
Farrell not soon to be seen in God's country again.
Three months later, with little Jim at his side and the young step-mother dawdling along after them in her easy carriage, Captain Dwight was tramping through Switzerland. The surgeons had said in so many words he must not return to the Philippines for half a year, and neither before nor after his marriage had a word reached him from the Rays, who were his next-door neighbors and Margaret's most devoted friends until Jimmy was nearly two years old. Even thereafter, though stationed far apart, Marion Ray and Margaret Dwight had kept up their correspondence almost to the end. Dwight, indeed, had seen barely half a dozen of his former comrades, and that only by accident and in haste. There had come since his second marriage the usual number of cards in response to the wedding announcement sent to so many friends both in and out of the army. There had come a curiously unusual dearth of letters of congratulation. But every man was on the move, he persuaded himself. Everybody was either busy in the Philippines or voyaging to or from them. They, too, were moving from pillar to post, and letters must be miscarrying, so few, for instance, had come from Father-in-law Farrell, and those that did come made no mention of matters Farrell could hardly have ignored, and that Dwight had rather counted on.
Still, Dwight's health was mending every week. Inez had seen so much of foreign life in her younger days she could not be expected to care to go poking about, as he did with Jimmy, into all manner of odd nooks and corners. Father and son once more were hand in hand—hand in glove—for hours each day, and but for a shyness Jim would surely soon get over—a queer, silent shrinking from his beautiful young mother—but for this and one or two little worries due to the non-appearance of letters that ought to have come and doubtless would come, Dwight strove to persuade himself that he was again a happy and an enviable man.
Then came a day that left its impress on them all. There had been something very like demur on part of the Welland family when Dwight first announced his intention of taking Jimmy with them to see the Old World. What would Inez—they spoke her name with effort—think of such a plan? Was not a young bride justified in expecting the undivided attention of her husband? Would not any girl, placed as she was, prefer a honeymoon unclouded by the presence of the children of her predecessor? Inez had not warmed to her other kindred by marriage; could she be expected to welcome and, all at once, to warm to little Jim? Conscientiously and consistently they had tried to like Inez, and could not. She was beautiful; she was appealing; she was apparently all desire to please, but she was not convincing. The more they saw of her the less they liked, but Dwight's infatuation was complete. And still he would have his boy, and they spoke at last. He had answered by summoning her to the room—a strange proceeding—and bidding her speak for him, and she did. She said her heart had yearned for little Jim ever since the captain first began to tell of him, and when she realized later how utterly the father's heart was bound up in his boy, she had prayed for guidance that she might prove a second mother to the little fellow, and it was her earnest desire that the lad might come with them. How else was she to hope to win his trust, his affection? There was nothing left for them to say; but the dread and desolation that fell upon the household when, for the second time, they were compelled to part with Margaret's boy, no one but the Wellands was permitted to know.
Inez, who had been a model sailor on the Pacific, kept much to her stateroom on the gray Atlantic, though the voyage was unusually placid. Nor had she later made much effort in her quest for Jimmy's trust and affection. She could not climb mountains, pedal wheels or ride quadrupeds. She cared little for scenery—she had seen so much in her girlhood. She admitted feeling languid and inert. Perhaps mountain air was not congenial. She would be better when they got to sunny Italy. She wished there to see everything and to live in the open air—it was what the doctor said the captain must do—and then she was always exquisitely gowned and ready to meet them when in the late afternoon they came home, all aglow, with just time to get out of their tweeds and into dinner dress. Then Jimmy went early to bed, and she had the long beautiful evenings with her husband. But now they were in sunny Italy and, except to drive in beauteous toilets and dine in evening garb still more resplendent, Inez had no interest in her surroundings and but little in Jim. They were to sail for home, taking the Hohenzollern at Naples, after the Easter week in Rome. They had been driving much of the day and dining early on the balcony of their hotel, looking out upon the glorious view toward Sorrento and Capri, with grim Vesuvius, smoke-crowned, in the middle distance. Any moment, said their host, they should sight the graceful hull of their expected steamer cleaving the blue beyond the rocky scarp of Posilipo, when Jimmy, gazing steadily through the glass at the crowding fleet of shipping off the Dogana, spoke excitedly: "It is our flag, daddy, and the funnel has three stripes!"
"A transport," said his father, who had been bending over Inez. "She must have come in while we were driving." Yet, even as he spoke, anxiously, tenderly, he was studying her face.
"Then—that was one of our officers that spoke to you, mamma?" said Jim, turning quickly, eagerly toward her.
She had been unusually inert and silent since their return, had herself suggested dinner on the balcony. It would save the bother of dressing, and then repacking, since they might have to go on board any hour that evening. She had been gazing listlessly out over the beautiful bay, almost dazzling in the rays of the setting sun. Now she suddenly started, shivered, but almost as suddenly, quickly rallied.
"Spoke to me, Jimmy! Why, child, you've been dreaming!"
"Why, no, mamma! Don't you remember—while daddy was in at the bank?" and the boy's big violet eyes turned full upon her. The white hands gripped the arm of her reclining chair, but she laughed lightly, and the words came quick.
"Jimmy boy, you were sound asleep on the front seat. Don't you remember, Oswald, dear?"
Dwight, too, laughed merrily. "Surely! Why, little man, your peepers were shut and you were curled up like a pussy cat——"
"But I'd waked up, daddy. Mamma gave a little scream and I thought somebody'd hurt her, and there was this gentleman with his hat raised, just standing and staring at her till she bent over and said something quick——"
"Well, of all the traeumbilder I ever heard!" and Mrs. Dwight's pearly teeth gleamed through rosy lips as she laughed delightedly, merrily. "Why, Jimmy boy, I had to shake you awake when I saw papa coming. That's what I bent forward for. You called him for something, dear, or I shouldn't have disturbed him."
"Certainly, I wanted him to see those Italian cavalry officers coming by, and his eyes could hardly open in time. Just look at 'em now."
They were, indeed, worth looking at—big and violet, blue and round and full of wonderment, of incredulity—almost of shock and distress—gazing fixedly upon the lovely, laughing face of the girl in the deep reclining chair.
And then, soft stepping, apologetic, salver in hand, a waiter appeared at the long Venetian window. Dwight took the card, read, and fairly cried aloud:
"By all that's jolly, Inez, it's Sandy Ray!"
CHAPTER III
A NIGHT AT NAPLES
There was a joyous time at the Salone Margherita that evening. Homeward bound, the Burnside, from Manila to New York via Suez, had anchored that morning off the Dogana quay, and twoscore officers and ladies and a numerous contingent of discharged soldiers had come swarming ashore to see what they could of Naples before again proceeding on the morrow. The fact that most of the officers were invalided home, convalescing from wounds or severe illness, seemed but moderately to cloud their enjoyment. By six o'clock most of their number had heard that Dwight of the cavalry, with his bride, was at the Grand, whither several went at once before ordering dinner. First to arrive, alone, and looking pallid and ill, was a young soldier in civilian dress, who seemed nervously impatient at the