Governesses -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
When his mind reverts to the months in France and Flanders he grows
dumb. He grows dumb and his spirit moves away from me. It moves away
from me and from everything that is of this world. It is among scenes
past speech, past understanding, past imagining. He is Lazarus back in
the world, but with secrets in his keeping which no one may learn but
those who have learned them where he did.
When he came to Paignton he was far removed from us; but little by
little he reapproached. I helped to restore him; and then, when the baby
was born, the return to earth was quickened.
To have my baby I went over to Torquay, where I had six quiet contented
weeks in a room overlooking the peacock-blue waters of Tor Bay, with the
kindly roof that sheltered my husband in the distance. When I had
recovered I went to a cottage at Paignton, where, when he left the
hospital, he joined me. As the healing of the leg has been so slow, we
have been in the lovely Devon country ever since, till, a few weeks ago,
the British Government allowed us to cross on the ship that brought the
British Commissioners to Washington.
* * * * *
I have just been in to look at him. He is sound asleep, lying on his
left side, the coverlet sagging slightly at the shoulder where the right
arm is gone. He is getting accustomed to using his left hand, but not
rapidly. Meantime he is my other baby; and, in a way, I love to have it
so. I can be more to him. In proportion as he needs me the bond is
closer.
He is a grave man now. The smile that used to flash like a sword between
us is never there any more. When he smiles it is with a long, slow smile
that comes from far away--perhaps from life as it was before the war. It
is a sweet smile, a brave one, one infinitely touching; and it pierces
me to the heart.
He didn't have to forfeit his American citizenship in becoming one of
the glorious Princess Pats. They were glad to have him on any terms. He
is an American and I am one. I thought I became one without feeling any
difference. It seemed to me I had been born one, just as I had been born
a subject of the dear old queen. But on the night of our landing in
Halifax, a military band came and played the "Star-spangled Banner"
before my uncle's door, and I burst into the first tears I had shed
since my marriage.
Through everything else I had been upheld; but at the strains of that
anthem, and all it implied, I broke down helplessly. When we went to the
door and my husband stood to listen to the cheering of my friends, in
his khaki with the empty sleeve, and the fine, stirring, noble air was
played again, his eyes, as well as mine, were wet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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