Bitter Waters

Following Vera’s suggestion, the next morning the five girls decided that they would spend the day in making the journey up the famous Mount Lowe, a few miles away. Afterwards they intended taking one of the long trail trips over the mountain, so that it would be impossible for them to return to their hotel until late afternoon.

For many reasons it seemed best that Mrs. Burton should be alone when she received the visit from Gerry. Surely Gerry would wish to have at least this first interview without interruption!

Believing it impossible that her guest could arrive before noon, Mrs. Burton spent the early hours of the morning in writing letters to her husband and sister, including several business notes as well. She would not confess it to herself; nevertheless she felt nervous over her first meeting with Gerry, for although only a few weeks had passed they had been crowded so tragically close with events in Gerry’s life and in her own. There had been the unexpected tragedy of Billy’s death, Billy who had been so unlike other boys in his life and in his final beautiful surrender of life.

Therefore when a knock came at her sitting-room door at some time between half-past ten and eleven, presuming one of the hotel servants was outside, Mrs. Burton said, “Come in,” without raising her eyes from the paper upon which she was writing.

Afterwards the door opened softly and the next instant some one had entered the room, but instead of attending to whatever duty had made the intrusion necessary, the figure stood hesitating just inside the threshold.

After a little while, becoming vaguely conscious of this fact, Mrs. Burton glanced up.

“Gerry, you poor child!” she exclaimed with such sudden, warm sympathy and with such an utter lack of criticism or reproach that any human being would have been moved to gratitude and remorse.

Gerry stumbled forward. Poor Gerry, who had changed so completely in the past few weeks that even her delicate prettiness seemed to have vanished forever! She was so white and worn looking, so thin and unhappy.

“Then you forgive me?” she began.

Mrs. Burton took both her hands.

“We are not going to talk about forgiveness. You had your own life to live, Gerry, and it was natural that you should do the thing you supposed to be for your happiness without thinking of your gratitude or obligation to me. If it had been for your happiness I should not have expected you to think of me, although it would have been kinder of you. But of course, dear, when girls do reckless things, the reason older persons are grieved and angry is because of the consequences they are sure to bring upon themselves. Being young you cannot understand this! Yet it seems to me that you are having to pay rather more than other people. Do sit down, dear; the other girls have gone away for the day so we shall be entirely alone.”

As if she were really too tired to stand, Gerry sank into the nearest chair.

“I am sorry; I have not been able to sleep since Felipe was arrested. I am told he keeps asking for me and I am not allowed to see him. He thinks he has done me a great injustice, but that is not true and besides I do not care.”

Gerry spoke with entire self-forgetfulness.

“Mrs. Burton, I don’t think you or perhaps anyone can understand, although I have tried to make Mr. Morris see. But Felipe and I have been perfectly miserable ever since we were married. Oh, it is not because we do not care for each other, because we do care very, very deeply! Only neither Felipe nor I seemed to realize the weakness and wrong of what we were doing until we were safely out of our own country and had time to face the truth. Then Felipe confessed to me he had been a coward. He seemed to think that no matter what happened in our future together, I must always think of him as a coward and compare him with other men who had done their duty. I don’t know why he did not think of all this before. But Felipe has written me that he is almost glad he has been arrested. Anything which may happen to him will be better than having to live as a fugitive until the war is over. Besides, even afterwards, he could never look another American fellow in the face, remembering his own weakness! Can you understand how anyone could change a point of view so quickly, Mrs. Burton?” Gerry inquired wistfully. “It is hard even for me, and yet I realize that Felipe and I simply woke up from our selfish dream of happiness to realizing we had been traitors and cowards.”

“I can understand almost any weakness and almost any strength in human beings, Gerry dear, after the years I have lived and the men and women I have known,” Mrs. Burton answered, forgetting for the moment Gerry’s youth. But the bitter waters of experience and regret having passed over Gerry, she was no longer young.

Suddenly Mrs. Burton got up and began walking up and down the room with the graceful impatience which was ever characteristic of her.

For a moment, watching her, Gerry felt her old charm so deeply that temporarily she forgot her own sorrow. The peculiar shining quality which Polly O’Neill had revealed as a girl in times of keen emotion she had never lost.

“I declare, Gerry, I cannot endure the thought that you and Felipe have so spoiled your lives at the age when you should have been happiest. If anything happens, if Felipe is kept in prison for a time, what do you intend to do?”

Gerry glanced down apparently at her hands which were lightly clasped together in her lap.

When she looked up at her companion she was smiling, even if somewhat tremulously.

“I am going to work, Mrs. Burton, although it may be difficult for you to believe after the effort I have made to escape even the thought of work. But I think at last I have found something which will interest me. Mr. Morris is very kind; of course he must dislike me under the circumstances and feel I influenced Felipe, nevertheless he has asked me to live with him at the ranch indefinitely. But I won’t do that, not after Felipe’s trial is over. I shall do some kind of war work and I don’t care now how menial or how humble it is. After a time perhaps I may learn to be useful. Felipe and I have talked things over and we want to do whatever is possible to atone for our mistake. If we only had it all to do over again! But then, of course, I realize what a foolish thing that is to say!”

“It may be foolish, Gerry, but it is universal.”

After this remark Mrs. Burton did not sit down, nor did she speak again for several moments. Instead she stood, frowning and looking peculiarly determined and intense.

“Gerry, if Felipe were released from prison, do you think he would be willing to go into the army and do whatever he could to make himself a good soldier? I don’t believe Felipe is a physical coward, he was merely a spiritual one. He is rash and impetuous and in a moment of actual fighting no one would be braver or perhaps more reckless. What he dreaded was the discipline, the thought of war, the having to relinquish the ease and beauty and pleasure of his daily life. Well, there must have been other boys like him, boys who fought with their own disinclination more gallantly than Felipe! Yet it would be foolish for the United States to lose a soldier for her army in order to gain a prisoner. Don’t you think Mr. Morris and you also, Gerry, can persuade Felipe’s judges to view the situation in this light? Let him accept whatever punishment they see fit to bestow, only they must not spoil his one chance of redeeming his mistake by fighting for his country.”

Mrs. Burton might have been pleading with a court instead of addressing the solitary figure of one unhappy girl. However, she was merely thinking aloud.

“Mr. Morris is to make that plea for Felipe, although he has very little hope,” Gerry answered. “Felipe would be willing to give even his life now to blot out the past.”

Mrs. Burton walked over and placed her hands on Gerry’s shoulders.

“My dear,” she said, “I am going to stay here in California with you for a time at least and see what I can do to help. I may not have much influence, but I shall do my best. The girls can go home alone; they do not require me to chaperon them. I have no doubt they will have more pleasure in traveling without me. Besides, it seems to me that no one at present has the same need for me that you have, Gerry!”

Slowly in these past few weeks Gerry’s soul had been coming to the light. The revelation of it now shone through her eyes, yet she made no effort to express her thanks in words.

“When the time arrives and Felipe is allowed to go to France to fight, perhaps I shall have learned to be useful. Do you think they will ever allow American girls to work behind the lines?”

Mrs. Burton shook her head.

“I don’t know. Yet the call of France rings in all our ears and all our hearts today, Gerry. We can only answer the call when our opportunity arises.”

The next volume in the Camp Fire series will deal with the work of the Camp Fire girls in France. They will establish Camp Fires among the young French girls. The old care-free days having passed away, they will also devote their energies to aiding the children of France and to doing “their bit” toward the restoration of that land of our affection, France, where, in the future as in the past, Beauty and Liberty must walk hand in hand. The title will be “The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor.”