Then, her glowing body enveloped in a fresh, cool sheet, she lay back and closed her eyes while Celia brushed the dull gold ma.s.ses of her hair.
"Honey-bee, they say that all the soldiers are in love with you, even my po" Confederate boys in Ward C. Don"t you dare corrupt their loyalty!"
"They are the dearest things-all of them," smiled Ailsa sleepily, soothed by the skilful brushing. "I have never had one cross word, one impatient look from Union or Confederate." She added: "They say in Washington that we women are not needed-that we are in the way-that the sick don"t want us... . Some very important personage from Washington came down to the General Hospital and announced that the Government was going to get rid of all women nurses. And such a dreadful row those poor sick soldiers made! Dr. West told us; he was there at the time. And it seems that the personage went back to Washington with a very different story to tell the powers that be. So I suppose they"ve concluded to let us alone."
"It doesn"t surprise me that a Yankee gove"nment has no use fo" women," observed Celia.
"Hush, dear. That kind of comment won"t do. Besides, some horrid stories were afloat about some of the nurses not being all they ought to be."
"That sounds ve"y Yankee, too!"
"Celia! And perhaps it was true that one or two among thousands might not have been everything they should have been," admitted Ailsa, loyal to her government in everything. "And perhaps one or two soldiers were insolent; but neither Letty Lynden nor I have ever heard one unseemly word from the hundreds and hundreds of soldiers we have attended, never have had the slightest hint of disrespect from them."
"They certainly do behave ve"y well," conceded Celia, brushing away vigorously. "They behave like our Virginians."
Ailsa laughed, then, smiling reflectively, glanced at her hand which still bore the traces of a healed scar. Celia noticed her examining the slender, uplifted hand, and said:
"You promised to tell me how you got that scar, Honey-bud."
"I will, now-because the man who caused it has gone North."
"A-man!"
"Yes, poor fellow. When the dressings were changed the agony crazed him and he sometimes bit me. I used to be so annoyed," she added mildly, "and I used to shake my forefinger at him and say, "Now it"s got to be done, Jones; will you promise not to bite me." And the poor fellow would promise with tears in his eyes-and then he"d forget-poor boy--"
"I"d have slapped him," said Celia, indignantly. "What a darling you are, Ailsa! ... Now bundle into bed," she added, "because you haven"t any too much time to sleep, and poor little Letty Lynden will be half dead when she comes off duty."
Letty really appeared to be half dead when she arrived, and bent wearily over the bed where Ailsa now lay in calm-breathing, rosy slumber.
"Oh, you sweet thing!" she murmured to herself, "you can sleep for two hours yet, but you don"t know it." And, dropping her garments from her, one by one, she bathed and did up her hair and crept in beside Ailsa very softly, careful not to arouse her.
But Ailsa, who slept lightly, awoke, turned on her pillow, pa.s.sed one arm around Letty"s dark curls.
"I"ll get up," she said drowsily. "Why didn"t Flannery call me?"
"You can sleep for an hour or two yet, darling," cooed Letty, nestling close to her. "Mrs. Craig has taken old Bill Symonds, and they"ll be on duty for two hours more."
"How generous of Celia-and of old Symonds, too. Everybody seems to be so good to me here."
"Everybody adores you, dear," whispered Letty, her lips against Ailsa"s flushed cheek. "Don"t you know it?"
Ailsa laughed; and the laugh completed her awakening past all hope of further slumber.
"You quaint little thing," she said, looking at Letty. "You certainly are the most engaging girl I ever knew."
Letty merely lay and looked her adoration, her soft cheek pillowed on Ailsa"s arm. Presently she said:
"Do you remember the first word you ever spoke to me?"
"Yes, I do."
"And-you asked me to come and see you."
"Who wouldn"t ask you-little rosebud?"
But Letty only sighed and closed her eyes; nor did she awaken when Ailsa cautiously withdrew her arm and slipped out of bed.
She still had an hour and more; she decided to dress and go out for a breath of fresh, sweet air to fortify her against the heavy atmosphere of the sick wards.
It was not yet perfectly dark; the thin edge of the new moon traced a pale curve in the western sky; frogs were trilling; a night-bird sang in a laurel thicket unceasingly.
The evening was still, but the quiet was only comparative because, always, all around her, the stirring and murmur of the vast army never entirely ended.
But the drums and bugles, answering one another from hill to hill, from valley to valley, had ceased; she saw the reddening embers of thousands of camp fires through the dusk; every hill was jewelled, every valley gemmed.
In the darkness she could hear the ground vibrate under the steady tread of a column of infantry pa.s.sing, but she could not see them-could distinguish no motion against the black background of the woods.
Standing there on the veranda, she listened to them marching by. From the duration of the sound she judged it to be only one regiment, probably a new one arriving from the North.
A little while afterward she heard on some neighbouring hillside the far outbreak of hammering, the distant rattle of waggons, the clash of stacked muskets. Then, in sudden little groups, scattered starlike over the darkness, camp fires twinkled into flame. The new regiment had pitched its tents.
It was a pretty sight; she walked out along the fence to see more clearly, stepping aside to avoid collision with a man in the dark, who was in a great hurry-a soldier, who halted to make his excuses, and, instead, took her into his arms with a breathless exclamation.
"Philip!" she faltered, trembling all over.
"Darling! I forgot I was not to touch you!" He crushed her hands swiftly to his lips and let them drop.
"My little Ailsa! My-little-Ailsa!" he repeated under his breath-and caught her to him again.
"Oh-darling-we mustn"t," she protested faintly. "Don"t you remember, Philip? Don"t you remember, dear, what we are to be to one another?"
He stood, face pressed against her burning cheeks; then his arm encircling her waist fell away.
"You"re right, dear," he said with a sigh so naively robust, so remarkably hearty, that she laughed outright-a very tremulous and uncertain laugh.
"What a tragically inclined boy! I never before heard a "thunderous sigh"; but I had read of them in poetry. Philip, tell me instantly how you came here!"
"Ran the guard," he admitted.
"No! Oh, dear, oh, dear!-and I told you not to. Philip! Philip! Do you want to get shot?"
"Now you know very well I don"t," he said, laughing. "I spend every minute trying not to... . And, Ailsa, what do you think? A little while ago when I was skulking along fences and lurking in ditches-all for your sake, ungrateful fair one!-tramp-tramp-tramp comes a column out of the darkness! "Lord help us," said I, "it"s the police guard, or some horrible misfortune, and I"ll never see my Ailsa any more!" Then I took a squint at "em, and I saw officers riding, with about a thousand yards of gold lace on their sleeves, and I saw their music trudging along with that set of silver chimes aloft between two scarlet yaks" tails; and I saw the ta.s.selled fezzes and the white gaiters and-"Aha!" said I-"the Zou-Zous! But which?"
"And, by golly, I made out the number painted white on their knapsacks; and, Ailsa, it was the 3d Zouaves, Colonel Craig!-just arrived! And there-on that hill-are their fires!"
"Oh, Phil!" she exclaimed in rapture, "how heavenly for Celia! I"m perfectly crazy to see Curt and Steve--"
"Please transfer a little of that sweet madness to me."
"Dear-I can"t, can I?"