Hero's Bride

by Jane Peart

  The telegram announcing their imminent arrival sent Blythe into a flurry of activity. Avalon, Jeffs nearby island home, had been closed up for nearly three years and his unexpected announcement had given them little time to get it ready for occupancy again. Naturally, Kitty helped her mother in every way possible. This meant almost daily trips to Arbordale, overseeing the cleaning operations, stocking the kitchen and pantry, and hiring a staff.

  After their arrival, Jeff and Gareth stayed at Cameron Hall for a week while Blythe fussed over them, trying to persuade her son to let Gareth live with them, at least during the week. He could attend Brookside Prep and get reacquainted with his little sister, from whom he had been separated since their mother's death.

  Brother and sister were overjoyed to be together again. At last Jeff was persuaded to follow Blythe's suggestion, but not before a compromise was reached. Jeff insisted that both children come to him at Avalon on weekends.

  "I've got to get my family, my life together again, Mother," he said to Blythe, passing a hand wearily across his forehead. "Make a home for my children and start painting again."

  He didn't mention Bryanne, and Kitty, listening, almost asked about the child. Then she thought better of it. Jeff had enough to deal with at the moment. Besides, since the sinking of the Lusitania, it was far too dangerous to think o f crossing the Atlantic and bringing his other little daughter to Virginia. Bryanne would have to remain with Aunt Garnet at Birchfields, as safe a place as any in England these fearful days.

  Life in Mayfield went on as if there were no war raging in Europe. The fall hunt and the social events surrounding this season were held as usual, with dinner dances on weekends at the country club.

  In November, Kitty helped her mother, who was chairwoman of the Ladies Guild, plan the Thanksgiving tea to be given at Cameron Hall. The following Sunday at church came the announcement of a twice-weekly choir practice in preparation for the special Christmas services.

  For Kitty, these holiday events to which she used to look forward with anticipation seemed hollow. Without Kip, there was no meaning in much of anything. Mixed with this unseasonal melancholy, Kitty had to admit some resentment. If he had not gone into the Lafayette Escadrille, they would have been married and spending their first Christmas in the cozy little house in the woods.

  She had stopped going over there, unlocking the door and walking around inside. It made her too sad, too depressed, and since he had never taken much interest in fixing up the little house, Kip seemed even farther away. So she didn't go any more.

  A week before Christmas, Kitty was busy wrapping presents when Blythe stuck her head in the bedroom door. "You have a visitor."

  "Who is it?" she asked, but Blythe had disappeared, leaving Kitty mystified.

  Puzzled, since she wasn't expecting anyone, Kitty hurried downstairs. To her surprise, she found Thaxton Collingwood in the drawing room.

  "Thax!"

  "Hello, Kitty. Surprised to see me?"

  "Of course, but delighted, too! What are you doing here?"

  "I've come to spend the holidays with my cousins, the Langleys." He grinned. "Hope I'll have a chance to see you while I'm here. That is, unless you're all booked up," he said cautiously. "There's a rumor you're engaged."

  "Yes, that's right. To Kip Montrose. He's in France. He joined the Lafayette Escadrille, a branch o f the French Flying Corps."

  Thax looked relieved. "Well, then . . . if you don't think he'd mind, I'd like to take you to some of the parties . . . in particular, the Langleys' Christmas Eve shindig."

  "I'd love that, Thax," she replied, genuinely pleased. Kip wouldn't mind. In fact, he'd probably be the first to suggest she keep busy so that she wouldn't miss him so much.

  As it turned out, Thax Collingwood became her unexpected escort to all of the various Christmas parties given in Mayfield that season. Kitty appreciated his company, for it helped to keep her mind off how Kip might be spending his holidays.

  She went to the parties, the dances held as usual. Those who saw her with Thax seemed puzzled, then a little embarrassed to ask her about Kip. In this part of Virginia, where society was sheltered from news of what was going on in the rest of the world, Kitty supposed they preferred to remain ignorant, feeling ashamed of them, of herself. I f they did not have some direct connection, Belgium and France seemed too far away to be of much concern.

  She kept up a good front, chatted, smiled, danced. No one would have guessed that beneath the smile, the bright conversation, she was harboring a pervasive feeling of sadness.

  The poignant lyrics of a popular song summed up her feelings:

  Smile awhile, I'll bid you sad adieu.

  When the clouds roll by, I'll come to you.

  Until then, I'll pray each night for you . . .

  Till we meet again.

  Dancing to the music, Kitty kept a smile fastened on her face, but her heart felt as if it were splintering into millions o f pieces.

  Christmas at Cameron Hall was festive as always. Since Blythe had first come here to live as Rod's wife, she had tried to carry out all the cherished traditions her beloved mother-in-law, Kate Cameron, had observed in her lifetime.

  Preparations were started early. Decorations were lavish. Red bayberry candles were set in the sills o f all the windows and kept burning throughout the twelve days of the season. Elaborate ribboned wreaths were hung on the double front doors. A blue and white Meissen bowl on the hall table held an arrangement of holly, magnolia leaves, pine cones, and fruit. A six-foot cedar tree filled the house with its spicy scent but was left untrimmed until Christmas Eve.

  It helped to have Thax's cheerful presence in on all the family festivities. A few days after Christmas, he volunteered to drive Kitty into Williamsburg, where she had promised to take Lynette and Gareth for a special treat and to spend some of their Christmas gift money.

  They took in the annual Christmas puppet show and had lunch at the inn. She was surprised to see that Thax was particularly good with the children. He had a wry sense of humor that kept them laughing uproariously.

  On the way back to Mayfield, the children sitting in the back seat grew drowsy. And before they were fifteen minutes out o f Williamsburg, Lynette—tired, happy, and with tummy full—was sound asleep.

  In the front seat, Thax was talkative, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb her. "I admire Kip for what he's doing. In fact, I've thought of doing something like that myself. But my father's keen on my getting my law degree and coming into practice with him. I hate to let him down, only son and all that." He sighed heavily. "He keeps saying we should stay out of Europe's quarrels, that they'll never be settled anyhow."

  When they arrived at Cameron Hall, Lynette had to be carried upstairs to bed.

  Blythe insisted Thax stay for supper. "Gareth is staying overnight, and Jeff might join us, too," Blythe added hopefully. She went on to inform the cook o f the extra guest for dinner, and Kitty and Thax went into the library, where a fire had just been lit.

  Rod, who was sitting in his leather wing chair, stood to greet them, putting down his evening newspaper at their entrance. Inevitably, conversation turned to the recent screaming headlines.

  "Those Huns—" He shook his head in disgust. "What they're doing is monstrous."

  As horror stories of German atrocities had mounted, Rod's attitude had changed over the last year and a half. His outrage at the inhumanity shown helpless women and children had become a seething anger. He was now impatient that America should go to the aid of the embattled French and English and was now as indignant about President Wilson's policy o f nonintervention as he had once been supportive.

  "It's a bad situation," Thax agreed. "Do you think we'll get into it, sir?"

  "With our President?" Rod put the question scornfullly.

  "But if America does come in . . . what then?"

  "I think we'd get it over with. The British and French don't seem to know what they're doing."

  Just then
a boyish voice piped up. "My father says it's a sin to kill."

  The adults turned in surprise to see Gareth warming his hands at the fireplace. They had not noticed when the little boy followed them into the library.

  "It's the Germans that are doing most of the killing," growled Rod, reddening a little at his grandson's statement. "There's such a thing as defending yourself."

  Just then Blythe entered the room and, with a quick sense of the mounting tension, spoke softly to her husband. "Please, darling, no war talk tonight. Shall we go into the dining room now, have supper, and perhaps afterward Kitty will play for us and we'll have some Christmas songs."

  Thax left right after New Year's, and Kitty found she missed him. He had filled a void in her life, and now everything seemed bleak and empty again.

  Later in the week, she received a much-battered Christmas package from Kip—a lovely silk scarf he had bought for her in Paris and a hand-painted card on which he had scribbled a message. He wrote only that he had a Christmas leave of three days and would be spending it with friends in a village near the airfield. The note was disappointingly brief, and Kip seemed very far away.

  Seeing 1917 in had not been like the last New Year's festivities for Kitty. Dread for what the future held now replaced her hope and happiness. Kip's prediction about the war's being over quickly had failed to materialize, as headlines told of German advances, French retreats, British defeats. Now his letters were few and far between, never more than a few lines scribbled in haste.

  Kitty decided to wait until things settled down to broach the subject o f nurses' training with her parents. But again she was delayed, this time by a telegram from Cara, saying that she was coming for a visit.

  chapter

  9

  ON A GRAY, windswept January afternoon, Kitty drove Kip's runabout to the Mayfield station to pick up her sister. She was eager to see Cara. These days there was never enough time to catch up, and there was so much to share.

  Cara stepped off the train, wearing a beige boucle wool suit, a bright scarf tied in a triangle over her shoulders, a brimmed felt hat cocked at a jaunty angle. She looked smart and elegant, though Kitty recognized the outfit as one she had worn while they were in college. Cara had always had panache, the ability to give anything she wore a flair. By comparison, Kitty, in her casual tweed skirt and sweater, felt almost dowdy. Certainly, her sister looked like anything but a parson's wife!

  Rushing to embrace each other, their happy greeting collided with questions, answers.

  "I can't believe you're really here!"

  "How was Christmas?"

  They were interrupted by the redcap bringing Cara's large suitcase and a big canvas bag, filled with gaily wrapped packages. Each grabbed one and, talking a mile a minute, walked down the wooden platform to the space where Kitty had parked the roadster.

  Seeing it, Cara raised an eyebrow. "Kip's?"

  "Yes, I'm its caretaker until he gets back." Kitty tried to keep her voice light as she lifted the trunk lid to shove Cara's things inside.

  "Thought as much. It looks just like something he'd go for—" Cara said with a knowing glance as she got into the passenger seat.

  Her sister's tone as much as her remark somehow put Kitty on the defensive. She started to respond to the unspoken criticism in Cara's comment but thought better of it. Anyway, she didn't want to start out her twin's visit with a quarrel, so she decided to ignore it.

  Still, Kitty hadn't forgotten that Kip had once been in love with Cara, that since childhood they had been very close. As their old nurse, Lily, used to say, "Them two is lak peas in a pod," or as Jonathan, Kip's father, laughingly tagged them: "Janus—two sides of the same coin." Kitty felt a small stab of jealousy at the memory, but she quickly rebuked it. It was idiotic! What Kip and Cara had felt for each other was over and done with years ago. Cara was married to Owen, and Kip was in love with—

  "How is Kip, anyhow?" Cara's question interrupted these thoughts as they started down the country road toward Cameron Hall.

  "He's completed his fighter training and is flying regular patrols now, from what I can tell," Kitty replied, hoping she sounded cheerful and confident. She had to fight the daily fear of knowing Kip was in all sorts of unimaginable dangers.

  "Isn't it just like him to do something as reckless as volunteer to fight in a war that isn't even America's?" demanded Cara. "Of course, I wasn't surprised to hear it.Neither was Owen. He says Kip was born out of his time. He should have been a knight in the Crusades or at King Arthur'sRound Table, going out to look for dragons to slay!"

  Kitty swallowed over the lump in her throat and changed the subject. "How long can you stay?"

  "It depends—" Cara seemed hesitant. They were turning into the driveway of Cameron Hall now and up ahead they could see the house. "I'll tell you all about it later."

  The evening was spent with their parents. Cara regaled them with an account o f the Christmas program in which she had directed the Sunday school children. Kitty, Blythe, and Rod were all reduced to helpless laughter as Cara recounted some of the hilarious mishaps—the way the beard of one of the three kings, played by a ten-year-old boy, came unglued and hung rakishly by a single strand; how the papier-mache wings of the angels flapped precariously when they climbed up on high benches to appear over the stable scene; how the shepherds stumbled onstage, tripping over their robes and dropping their staffs with a great clatter while the choir was singing "Silent Night."

  "That must have been quite a performance," Rod declared, wiping his eyes when the hilarity had at last subsided.

  "It was! In fact, one of the elderly ladies of the congregation came up to me afterward and told me it was the best Christmas pageant they'd ever had—" Cara rolled her eyes heavenward—"which only makes one imagine what the others were like!"

  Later, when Kitty had Cara all to herself in the upstairs bedroom they had shared for so many years, she asked, "Are you really happy, Cara? Is being married to Owen what you thought it would be?"

  "Oh, yes . . . more . . . better! Owen is so wonderful, Kitty. I can't tell you! He is goodness itself, such spiritual strength, such sweetness of character, such generosity. I don't deserve him, of course. But I've stopped worrying about that. I just thank God for him, and feel so blessed."

  "It's just such a different life from the one we all imagined for you."

  "I know. But I don't even worry about not living up to what's expected of me anymore. I found something in a marvelous book I've been reading in my morning devotions, and I've been trying to apply it: 'Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.' It's so simple, really. All you can do is try to do your best . . . just for that day."

  They got into their kimonos and sat on their twin beds, facing each other.

  "I have something to tell you, Kitty. I haven't said anything to Mama or Daddy yet—" Cara began.

  Kitty, brushing her hair, halted. "What is it?"

  "Owen's submitted his resignation to our church."

  "What happened?" Kitty gasped, putting down her hairbrush.

  "Nothing. I mean, no problems with the church board or elders or anything like that. It was his own decision—" Cara paused.

  Kitty was stunned. "Why?"

  "He thinks it's only a matter of time before this country is in the war. He's read about all the atrocities in Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine. He thinks America, as a Christian nation, cannot stand by and continue to be neutral in the face of all that's happening over there. He admires President Wilson but is convinced that honor will compel him to change his mind about our neutrality."

  Kitty could only stare at her sister. It was so unlike the Cara of old to be talking so seriously.

  "Owen doesn't want to go as a soldier. He's against the killing of course," Cara continued, "but he feels that when we d o go in, there will be young men from ail over the United States called up . . . some of them mere boys from farms, small towns, tiny communities, suddenly thrust into a whole new life. They'll need
guidance, someone to offer them some spiritual comfort, strength. So . . . he's applied to become an army chaplain."

  "When will he go? How soon?"

  "He expects to hear very soon . . . probably in a matter of weeks."

  "Then what will you do? Will you come home?"

  Cara shook her head. "No, if Owen is sent overseas, I want to go, too. So-o-o—" She paused, her head to one side, weighing the effect of her next words on Kitty—"I've volunteered to go as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross."

  This announcement stunned Kitty. What could Cara be thinking?

  Then she remembered that just a few years ago, their father had overcome his antipathy to automobiles and bought Scott a small motorcar so he could commute between Mayfield and Charlottesville, where he was a law student at the University. The twins had pestered him to teach them to drive. He was reluctant to do so because the roads around Mayfield were not yet converted to automobiles, and the going was rough over the ruts worn deep by carriage wheels. At last, however, he had given in.

  "Don't ride the brake!" and "Engage the clutch before you shift gears!" were his commands that they practically heard in their sleep!

  Kitty recalled her tendency to dissolve into giggles when this operation wasn't performed smoothly enough and the car leaped forward, bumping and bolting like a rodeo bull while the scraping gears screeched in protest. Cara, intent on proving her brother wrong for once, liked the feeling of power when she took the steering wheel and the sense of being in control when she was in the driver's seat.

  Scott was surprised when both of them learned quickly. Finally, through their brother's less-than-patient instruction and her own dogged determination, Cara, especially, had become an excellent driver.

  "Is there a good chance o f your being sent overseas?" Kitty asked her now.

  "A very good chance. In fact, probably before Owen goes. Ambulance drivers are in great demand, but they have to be trained in Scotland."

  Kitty couldn't hide her conflicting emotions at this news. "Oh, Cara, I don't know what to say!"